He was educated in the Cleveland public schools, afterwards attending Oberlin College. He spent many years as a traveling man, and for over twenty years has resided in Chicago, where he is engaged in the oil and paint business (Severance, B. Frank. Genealogy and biography of the descendants of Walter Stewart of Scotland and of John Stewart who came to America in 1718 and settled in Londonderry, N.H. Greenfield, Mass. : T. Morey & Son, 1905, pg. 164).