Dan Stephens, the Richest Man in the County

This photo of Dan Stephens was taken about 1940, when he was about 70 years old
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 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 feet. According to his hometown newspaper, the Chickasha [Oklahoma] Daily Express, he started out buying land in February 1912. By 1916 he was described as “known throughout the state for his thoroughbred stock and progressive methods of farming.” In April 1917 he was one of the directors of the Oil State Petroleum Co. which advertised its initial public offering (IPO) of stock in newspapers all over Oklahoma. A year later, he was named as a director of the Marwell Oil & Gas Company in its stock offering. A year and a half after that, he was listed among the “men behind Cosmos Petroleum Company.” These companies, except possibly Cosmos, are all still in business today. Cosmos’ half-page IPO ad read, in part, “Remember, no one ever became rich by the sweat of his brow, or from making calloused hands. 4 Per Cent means safety – speculative investments leads to riches... Buy at par – sell on the advancing market, and you cant [sic] lose. Our hazards are no greater than the insect pests, storms and hot winds the farmer has to contend with.”

 

Sadly, online newspaper coverage ends here, so we may never discover what went wrong, but these news items have drastically changed my image of my husband’s ancestor. I’m hopeful that one day I will discover the rest of the story.

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