My Genealogy Hound

H. P. STEPHENS, county school superintendent of Kenton County, and an attorney of Independence, was born December 20, 1844, in Kenton County. His father, Joseph Stephens, was born in Fairfax County, Va., in 1790. He was a farmer, and was brought to Bourbon County, Ky., by his father in 1795. He was married in 1815 to Miss Mary, a daughter of John and Mary (Clinton) Wilson, the former a native of England, the latter of Virginia. John Wilson served in Col. William Washington’s regiment in the seven years of the American Revolution. To this marriage were born eleven children: John W., Minerva (Spillman), Mason T., J. H., Statira (Mills), Caroline (Culbertson), Alfred, B. F., Harriet (Jones), Thomas B. and H. P. Joseph Stephens was a man in moderate circumstances, serving in the war of 1812, and dying in February, 1861, a member of the Baptist Church. He had removed from Bourbon to Kenton County in 1800, where he died. William Stephens, grandfather of H. P. Stephens, was a native Virginian, emigrating from Virginia to Bourbon County, Ky., in 1795. He had married Miss Elizabeth Gardener in Virginia, and they were the parents of eleven children, ten of whom were sons. He served throughout the Revolution as a private, and died in Kenton County. The Stephens family is of English origin, with probably a slight tinge of German. H. P. Stephens attended the schools of Kenton County and a select school of Covington. He began the study of law in 1864, under Judge Shaw, and was admitted to the bar, after having attended the law school at Albany, N. Y., in 1867. He taught during eight years in the schools of Kenton County, but entered regularly in 1875 into law, and has continued since. He was a deputy clerk in the county clerk’s office about eight months before arriving at his majority. In 1886 he was elected superintendent of the county schools of Kenton County, and is a Republican in politics.