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John Stevens Shop and Stevens Houses

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Mid-18th century. 29, 30, 34, and 36 Thames St.

Numbers 36, 34, and 30 are modest colonial houses which are of interest because all belonged at some time (one of them, number 30, for two centuries) to the famous stone-carving Stevens family. (Another Stevens house, the early-eighteenth-century house of John Stevens, is at 9 Elm Street.) The John Stevens Shop, across the street at number 29, has been in continuous operation since 1705 (the current building dates from the late eighteenth century). The Stevenses were first masons and stone carvers, but eventually specialists in stone lettering whose work included many major architectural commissions. John Howard Benson took over from generations of Stevenses. The second and third generations of Bensons continue the craft.

Writing Credits

Author: 
William H. Jordy et al.
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Data

What's Nearby

Job Bennett House
Nathaniel Coddington–Thomas Walker House (King's Arms Tavern)
Gov. William Coddington House
Spooner House
Caleb Claggett House

Citation

William H. Jordy et al., "John Stevens Shop and Stevens Houses", [Newport, Rhode Island], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/RI-01-NE37.

Print Source

Buildings of Rhode Island, William H. Jordy, with Ronald J. Onorato and William McKenzie Woodward. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004, 528-528.

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