The History of the South Side Sportsmen's Club
Historical figures of Connetquot Park and the South Side Sportsmen's Club.
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John Cox Stevens
John Cox Stevens (September 24, 1785 - June 13, 1857) is best known for founding and serving as the first Commodore of the New York Yacht Club as well as being a member of the America syndicate which won the first America's Cup trophy in 1851.
His father, Col. John Stevens was a revolutionary war veteran, pioneer in steamboats, and purchaser of what is now Hoboken. His mother was Rachel Cox from New Brunswick, New Jersey. John was the eldest of four children. His brother Robert L. Stevens was a businessman and inventor. Another brother Edwin Augustus Stevens founded Stevens Institute of Technology, and was later a Commodore at the New York Yacht Club.
Stevens graduated from Columbia University in 1803. He married Maria C. Livingston on December 27, 1809. In 1911 he ran the world's first steam ferry company, running between Hoboken, New Jersey and New York City on the Hudson River. He followed this by also founding a railway company.
The sporting son in the family, he built a series of yachts, Diver (1802) followed by Trouble (1814) and the catamaran Double Trouble (1820). He also built three schooners, Wave (1832), Onkahie (1839) and finally Gimcrack. It was on board Gimcrack in 1844, that the New York Yacht Club was formed and Stevens was unanimously elected its first Commodore.
Stevens once served as president of The Jockey Club and setup the 1823 Great North-South Match. The race stoked sectional tensions when the Northern horse, "American Eclipse," defeated the southern mare, "Lady Lightfoot". The northern victory encouraged a northern enthusiasm for horse racing but embarrassed southerners with their pretensions of superiority in breeding, training and racing horses. In addition to his love of horses and yachting, John was also devoted to walking, jogging, hunting and introduced the sport of Cricket to the United States. He was also a founding member of New York's oldest gentlemen's society, the Union Club.
Stevens was inducted into the America's Cup Hall of Fame in 1994.
An excerpt from "Fishing In American Waters" (1875)
by Genio C. Scott
"Who can forget the angling of old at Oba. Snedicor's? The late Daniel Webster used to be there on the opening day of the trouting season, and so did many of our truly great men. It was there that John Stephens was advised to said his yacht in the regatta in England, which resulted in his winning the race. But the Snedicor Preserve is now in different hands. A close club of wealthy and intellectual sportsmen own it, and they have rendered it worthy of its name, the 'Southside Club.'"