Dan Stephens, the Richest Man in the County
This photo of Dan Stephens was taken about 1940, when he was about 70 years old . My husband’s grandmother’s father was Daniel Harven Stephens. For years, I’ve heard his cousins say, “Dan Stephens was the richest man in the county. Then one of his sons-in-law sold him some worthless stock and he lost everything he had. But when he got rich he treated people just as well as when he was poor.” I also heard the story of when my husband’s grandmother (his daughter Jewell) came to babysit them during summer vacation, she’d take them all to a farm to pick crops. Genealogical research revealed Dan’s father was an illiterate farmer who moved from state to state in the South, never owning any land. So, I had built up a picture in my mind that Dan Stephens was a poor, ignorant farmer that was a patsy for some city slicker. Thanks to the availability of online newspapers, I have found out that my impression of Dan was all wrong. In fact, he was an eager entrepreneur who jumped in with both