For our fall pilgrimage, we will visit The John Stevens Shop with owner and creative director Nick Benson. Founded in 1705, The John Stevens Shop is one of the oldest continuously run businesses in the United States. The shop is internationally recognized for the design and creation of architectural and memorial stone inscriptions.

Third-generation stone carver and letterer Nick Benson has run the John Stevens Shop since 1993. He is the 2024 recipient of an honorary Doctorate from the Rhode Island School of Design and a 2007 National Heritage Fellowship. In 2010 he was named a MacArthur Fellow. His designs can be found on the National Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, the National World War II Memorial, and Harvard, Yale, and Brown University Buildings, among many others.