Joseph Stevenot

Josephus Stevenot
Lt. Miguél Aguinaldo and Maj. Josephus Stevenot on the road to Cavite, 1917

Josephus Emile Hamilton Stevenot (23 December 1888 – 8 June 1943) was an American entrepreneur and U.S. Army officer in the Philippines with many accomplishments, but today mostly remembered in the Boy Scouts of the Philippines as its founder.

Josephus Emile Hamilton "Joe" Stevenot was born in Melones, California to Emile Knoepffler Stevenot (1846–1906) and Sarah Elisabeth Hamilton Stephens Stevenot (1855–1928). Emile Knoepffler Stevenot was born in Alsace-Lorraine, trained as a mining engineer, and migrated to the USA to join his father Jean Dieudonne Gabriel Knoepffler Stevenot (1813–1885), a California miner.

Joe had eight siblings. Joe and his three brothers, Gabriel, Archibald, and Casimir, were involved in various enterprises, and set up their Stevenot Corporation which had mining interests in California and the Philippines. Casimir also founded the California Philippine Corporation for import and export. Joe based himself in the Philippines to attend to their business concerns in the islands.

Josephus Stevenot served as Director of the Philippine Trust Company, President and General Manager of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company, Director of the Bank of the Philippine Islands, Director of Philippine Milling Company, Director of Philippine Realty Corporation, and Director of Fidelity & Surety Company.

At the same time, Stevenot was involved in military matters as a major in the active reserves.[1] An Army pilot, he was appointed to the command of the aviation unit of the Philippine National Guard (which had been planned to be involved in World War I but never saw action). Stevenot recruited his flying instructor Alfred John Croft (1887–1970), and together they established the Curtiss School of Aviation (called the Curtiss Flying School, after the original Curtiss Flying School) in Camp Claudio, Parañaque, Rizal, where they trained the first 25 Filipino pilots.[2] They subsequently organised an air show by their students, held on 21 June 1921.