John Stevens was born in
Oxfordshire, England. He immigrated to the
American Colonies in 1698 and lived in
Boston for several years before moving to Newport, where he set up shop at 30 Thames Street in 1705. The shop moved across the street to 29
Thames Street in the mid-eighteenth century. John Stevens, his sons John II and William, and his grandson John III produced arguably some of colonial America's most beautiful gravestones, many of which still sit in the nearby
Common Burying Ground. The Stevens family ran the Shop for more than 220 years. In 1927, it was purchased by
John Howard Benson. A Newport native, Benson studied at the
Newport Art Association, the
National Academy of Design, and the
Art Students League of New York. He became an internationally renowned stone carver, designer, and calligrapher. He taught at the
Rhode Island School of Design and, along with his business partner, Graham Carey, published the instructional book
The Elements of Lettering in 1940. He designed and carved inscriptions for Yale University, Harvard University, and Brown University and designed the inscriptions on the
Iwo Jima Memorial in
Arlington National Cemetery. In 1955, he was awarded the Craftsmanship medal by the
American Institute of Architects. He died in 1956, passing the business to his son
John Everett Benson. The younger Benson began working for his father at 15. He received a
BFA in sculpture at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1961. In 1964, he was commissioned to design and carve the inscriptions for the
John F. Kennedy Memorial in
Arlington National Cemetery. He carved gravestones for
Tennessee Williams,
Lillian Hellman and
George Balanchine; designed and carved inscriptions for the
Prudential Center in Boston, the
Boston Public Library, the
National Gallery of Art, the
Dallas Museum of Art, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Center and the Armand Hammer Museum of Art in Los Angeles; and carved the date stones of the
Vietnam Memorial in
Washington, D.C. He designed site-specific fonts and incised inscriptions on the
Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama; the
Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C.; and the Federal Courthouse in Boston. During his 40 years at the John Stevens Shop, Benson was awarded the Craftsmanship medal by the American Institute of Architects, the National Pell Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Arts. In 1985 he was awarded an honorary doctoral degree by the Rhode Island School of Design. In 2000, he received the Presidential Design Award for Excellence in the Arts for his work on the FDR Memorial. In 1993, he turned over the business to his son
Nicholas Benson, who continues to produce hand-carved inscriptions in stone. In 2007, Nicholas Benson was awarded the
National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship and in 2010 he was awarded a
MacArthur Fellowship from the
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. ==Notable Inscriptions==