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 farming and merchandising. There are no better people in the neighborhood than Joe Smith and his family.

Simpson Reed Stephen, son of Rev. J. C. Stephenson and Agnes, married. Two children were born; his wife died. He went to Ennis, Texas, remarried, and died at Ennis, leaving no children of his last marriage. Eugene Stephenson, of Ennis, Ellis County, Texas, and Mrs. T. A. Smith, of Shreveport, Louisiana, are his only children.

Thomas Hercanus, the fifth son of Rev. John Campbell Stephenson and his wife, Agnes Simpson, was born on a farm near Mount Hope, Lawrence County, Alabama, February 18, 1833. Thomas, like his brothers and sisters, had good parental discipline and moral training. He was reared to work on a farm. He was educated in the common schools of the country. Thomas was a young man of fine physique. He was industrious and had a good business education, and his integrity was undoubted; hence he had no trouble in finding good paying employment as manager of a large plantation and the negroes. The war found him raising cotton with negro slaves. He left the cotton field and went into the Confederate army. He served in the Fourth Alabama Cavalry till the surrender. His war record was good. Before the war he married Miss