STEWART, James (1822-1902) was born at Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, Scotland on 6 October 1822 and arrived in Kingston, Ont. in 1843. He immediately found work as a construction tradesman and builder for the new City Hall (1843-44), designed by George W.R. Browne and intended to serve as a Parliament House for the seat of Government, then located at Kingston. When the Parliament was moved to Montreal in late 1843, the town suffered a financial depression, but Stewart chose to remain there for the next fifteen years and worked as an architect, builder and contractor (T. Flynn, Directory for the City of Kingston, 1857-58, 163). He was among the first architects in Kingston to introduce polychromatic brickwork to residential design in the city, best seen in the distinctive Italianate design of his own house at 185 William Street, with it’s boldly expressed quoining and recessed central bay. This design must have attracted the attention of the Montreal firm of Hopkins, Lawford & Nelson, who hired Stewart as supervising architect for the construction of their federal Customs House, King Street, Kingston, 1856-58 (City of Kingston, Buildings of Architectural and Historic Significance, i, 1971, 24-7, illus.).
In 1859 Stewart moved to Ottawa to take a position as building commissioner on the new Parliament Building (by Fuller Messer & Jones), assisting the Hon. Alexander MacKenzie to supervise the estimates and costing for the project. He later won the contract to build the Careleton County Gaol, 1860-61, designed by Edward Horsey & Son (Ottawa Citizen, 22 Sept. 1860, 3). Stewart left Canada in 1865 and moved to St.Louis, Missouri where he and his sons formed the firm of James Stewart & Co., a successful company of contractors and engineers overseeing the construction of harbours, railroads and depots, bridges, grain elevators, mercantile warehouses and other works. A fully illustrated book on the work of their firm, entitled ‘Some Stewart Structures”, was published privately in 1909 and contains a list of over 400 buildings erected by the company in the United States, Canada, England, Australia and elsewhere.
Stewart died at Pittsburgh, Penn. on 5 July 1902 (obit. New York Times, 6 July 1902, 7; New York Daily Tribune, 6 July 1902, 3; biog. and port. W. Hyde, Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis, Vol. iv, 1899, pp. 2138-2140; biog. Who Was Who in America 1897-1942, 1185; biog. Margaret Angus, “Architects and Builders of Early Kingston” in Historic Kingston, No. 11, March 1963, 28; biog. in Jennifer McKendry, Architects Working in the Kingston Region 1820-1920, 2019, 105-06, illus.). After his death in 1902, the work of the firm was continued by his son Alexander Stewart (1857-1939).
(works in Kingston)
WILLIAM STREET, pair of houses, later occupied by Ellen Hickey, c. 1851 (City of Kingston, Buildings of Architectural and Historic Significance, 1980, v, 292-3, illus.)
CATARAQUI CEMETERY, gate lodge and residence for the Cemetery superintendent, 1853 (J. McKendry, Woodwork in Historic Buildings of the Kingston Region, 2018, 68-69, illus. & descrip.)
WILLIAM STREET, residence for James Stewart, architect, 1855 (City of Kingston, Buildings of Architectural and Historic Significance, 1980, v, 290-91, illus.; Kingston Whig-Standard, 25 Feb. 1980, 3, illus. & descrip.; J. McKendry, Bricks in 19th Century Architecture of the Kingston Area, 2017, 34, illus. & descrip.)