Alexander Morrison Stewart was born on January 22, 1814 in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania. He was a lifelong Presbyterian Minister and graduated from Franklin College in New Athens, Ohio in 1834. Prior to the Civil War, Stewart preached in Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, New Orleans, St. Louis and Chicago. In 1855, he accepted a call to the Second Reformed Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where he was pastor at the outbreak of the Civil War. At this time he, along with a considerable proportion of his own congregation promptly volunteered to defend their country and he proposed in a letter to Brigadier General J. S. Negley, dated April, 1861 “to accompany volunteers to the field, to comfort the sick and wounded, and to console the dying, and if necessary handle a rifle or sword.” Stewart was with the Thirteenth Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers in York, Pennsylvania as Chaplain and remained with his regiment, later re-organized as the 102nd, until near the close of the war.
Following the war, Stewart published his war diaries in a book “Camp, March & Battlefield.” After the war, Stewart accepted the pastorate of the united congregations of East Whiteland and Reesville, Chester County, Pennsylvania, where he remained until 1868. In 1869, he moved west, having accepted a call to the Gilroy Presbyterian Church, Santa Clara Valley, California, where he remained until 1874. In June, 1874 he accepted the call of the First Presbyterian Church in Chico, California and remained its pastor until his death on Feb. 24, 1875.

With his first wife, Nancy Elmira Hadley, he had two children: George Hadley Stewart (my great, great grandfather) and Mary E. Stewart. Both were born in Chicago. Nancy Elmira Stewart died in 1860 and Rev. Stewart married Josephine A. Malcolm on February 25, 1864. Both his by then grown children, George and Mary followed him out west to California in late 1860s.

Here is an excerpt from a short biography on Rev. Stewart:

“In person, Dr. Stewart was tall and of distinguished presence, and his character one of mildness and tenderness, associated with great firmness and strength. He never entered into disputations, and won his hearers as much by his charm of manner as by the exercise of his superior abilities.”