CAPT. CHARLES STEDMAN, DePue, was born in Suffolk, England, February 24, 1825, He is the son of Barnard and Charlotte Stedman. The mother was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, but the father was of English birth. When our subject was eight years of age his parents moved to Nova Scotia, and it was there he was reared till he was about fifteen years old. His father died in 1882, at the advanced age of eighty-seven years and six months. The mother died a month later at the age of seventy-five. At the age of fifteen our subject became a sailor and followed that business till 1849, when he came to the United States and has since been engaged in the ice business, first at  Peru, Ill., where he was in the employ of Capt. J. L. McCormick, of Peru, who was one of the first to ship ice to the Southern markets. In 1854 he retired from the business, and Capt. Stedman was then with Capt. Bowers till 1858 and would go to Memphis, Vicksburg and Natchez with ice. In 1858 he went into the employ of Hughes, Loomis & Co., of St. Louis. Capt. Stedmand was then sent out with the boats as soon as trade opened in the spring and his business extended from Peru, Ill., to New Orleans. By trade he is a ship-builder, and so as soon as the shipping season was over he had charge of the yards at St. Louis, and did repairing and building of boats for the company. In 1876 he began in his present business for William J. Lemp, of the Western Brewery, St. Louis, Mo. The business has grown so that now instead of having the two or three barges with which they commenced, they have fourteen barges, steamboat, etc., and a storing capacity for 50,000 tons of ice, with three steam elevators, and everything complete for the extensive business they carry on. They expend annually  at DePue about $27,000 for labor, repairs, etc. Everything is complete for repairing or building of boats. Part of the time they employ 300 men during the winter season. The fourteen barges average 1,000 tons each, and each trip to St. Louis Capt. Stedman takes three barges and averages about one trip a week.  Capt. Stedmand is the manager of the entire business here and has through his management made a grand success of it. In 1853 he was married  in Peru, Ill., to Miss Catherine Landers, who was born in Canada West. She is the mother of the following children: Harriet, wife of Warren Sweely, who is mate on the Joseph Flemming, the ice boat; Charles Edwin, the book-keeper of the ice business at DePue; John, in business at DePue for himself; Annie, a teacher in the schools here; Burton, clerk on the boat, and Lottie.