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Henry P. Stewart was born in Hartford, Connecticut,
September 25, 1858. He received his education at the public
schools and the Christian Brothers' College. He came to Kansas
City at the age of nineteen, and his first commercial venture was in
the coal and wood business on the levee. He remained in it for
five years, but at the end of that time engaged exclusively in the
sand business, in which he had become interested some years
before. A pioneer in the industry, he brought new ideas into
vogue, so that pontoon bridges gave way to the more modern plan of
bucket dredges, invented by the late Robert Gilham, and the bucket
dredges to steam dredges and centrifugal pumps.
In 1897 he formed a partnership with Frank
Peck under the name of Stewart-Peck Sand Company, and they now own
their own cars, switch properties, steamboats, and dredges, and yards.
Mr. Stewart has always been a Democrat and
active politically. He was elected to the Council from the
Seventh Ward in 1888, and in 1890 resigned to make the race for
Marshall. He was elected, and his record was such as to secure
his re-election in 1892.
Since 1892 he has devoted himself to his
business, and it was only at the solicitation of friends that he
accepted the office of Police Commissioner in August, 1902.
He married Miss Minnie Duke in 1880 and is
the father of five children, three boys and two girls.
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