George Stephen, 1st Baron Mount Stephen bare-footed stable boy, he became the richest man in Canada and closely associated with George V, whose wife, Queen Mary, was a lifelong friend and confidante of the second Lady Mount Stephen. In 1829, Stephen was born at Dufftown, Banffshire, in a cottage built by his grandfather. He was the son of William Stephen (b. 1801), a carpenter, and Elspet, daughter of John Smith, a crofter at Knockando, Moray. His mother was a first cousin of the philanthropic Grant brothers of Manchester, immortalised as the "Cheeryble Brothers" in Charles Dickens' book, Nicholas Nickleby. Stephen began life as a boy running
Dickens in America these would be the meetings he had with American literary figures of the day. He met Longfellow in Cambridge, Washington Irving in New York and Edgar Allan Poe in Philadelphia. Part Six - Washington DC and Richmond Dickens traveled south by steamboat to Washington. Miriam travels along the Potomac in a pleasure boat. The two things that Dickens detested the most about America were slavery and tobacco spitting, which he saw more and more of, as he traveled further south. Dickens praised his first view of Washington and the capitol. (The capitol today is a much expanded building with a