Leonard Stephens Letter, 24 Feb 1840

Beech Woods, Kenton County, Ky., 24th Feb. 1840

Dear Brother William,

I wrote to you about ten days ago & started that letter by the Mail which I presume is now pretty well on its way to your part of the country. In that letter I gave you an account of the situation of your business here up to that time & stated I would write to you again by Hueston Perry which I now do. As he is now at Cincinnati on his way to Missouri & I am to see him on tomorrow at Town. I informed you in my other letter of the collection of the Rice money in Bour'n & of my having paid Hueston Perry five hundred dollars of the amount & that I would send you the ballance by Hueston in a check if I could procure one & if not the money which I shall do. Banknote issued by an Ohio bank in 1839 If practicable when I go down on tomorrow I will get a check & send you & if a check cannot be had I will send you the money. The amount received of Rice is twelve hundred & twenty one dollars & 10 cents & I have also received of Fountain Riddell one hundred & eighty four dollars which added to the first sum makes 1405 dollars. Five hundred paid to Hueston Perry leaves 905 dollars. The debt due to McDowel is between ninety & a hundred dollars, I suppose as we shall have to pay him a years interest on the amount as it has been about that length of time since the difficulty was settled & Fountain Riddell directed me to pay McDowel, but you afterwards directed me not to pay him untill other money could be collected so there as he has been kept out of the money for about a year or perhaps upwards since there was no obstacle in the way of paying him except the want of funds to pay with. I suppose it will be but right to pay him interest for that time.

I had sent you up to the 14th of August the time I last sent you money eleven dollars & 67 cents more than I had collected of your money. This amount added to the amount due McDowel will I suppose make something upwards of a hundred dollars so I shall send you by Hueston eight hundred dollars & retain the ballance stated above for the McDowel debt & the debt of 11.67 cts due me. Thirteen hundred dollars paid & sent by Hueston Perry leaves a ballance in my hands of one hundred & five which will be covered by the McDowel & my debts as stated above. When I pay McDowel however I will send you an account of the amount. I have received not part of the debt due you from Corlis & Respess in money. I stated in my letter of ten days back the kind of suspence I had been kept in about the money ever since Christmas & that matter remains precisely as it did at that time, with the following exceptions. I sent on last week by a man that was going directly through the neighborhood in Bourbon that Doct. Corlis lives in, who has as Respess says the management of this business to know whether the money had been collected for the land that was sold & if collected whether it is to be applied to the payment of your debt. That man will return sometime during the present week, & if the money is collected or ready to be paid I will immediately go to Bourbon & if possible get the money, so that something certain will be ascertained about it within the course of a week or at most I suppose ten days.

I have taken the responsibility of making an arrangement with Hueston Perry to pay you in Mo. the amount of Respess's note which was due 1st of January 1839 which is now eight hundred & fifty nine dollars & 65 cents & I enclose you in this letter his & Lunsford's note for the amount. I made some mention in the letter I last wrote you that I would probably make this arrangement. I have been induced to do it from a letter which Hueston shewed me he had received of Lunsford stating that he had made an arrangement with you for the five hundred of your dollars of your money here. I was unwilling to spare any part of the 800 dollars I had for you because I believed you would perhaps want that amount at least & I was fearful I should not be able to collect any more shortly. Respess has not paid any part of the debt in money, but has given to Hueston notes for the amount payable in the Bank in Covington in six months which Hueston agreed to take because he could make them answer his purposes in purchasing goods in Cincinnati & I was of opinion it would be a better arrangement for you than to leave the debt here & have to sue for that & the ballance of what they owe. Respess directs me to say to you that in regard to the other note of his due last Jan. that if the Bank should commence discounting again shortly that he will immediately borrow the amount & pay it to me for you an arrangement which I very much hope he will be able to effect. As regards the notes due from Corlis which the Bourbon money is expected to pay, as I have stated before I shall be able in a short time to ascertain certainly about it & if the money so not paid or such assurances given as I believe I can certainly depend upon I will institute suits for the amount agreeable to your instructions. So soon as I return from Bourbon I will write you again.

When Father deceased he left five pieces of gold which have been parceled out among the heirs except Brother Richard. There being one for each. I have given to Hueston Perry one for you which he will of course hand over. If fortunate enough to collect any more of your money shortly I will if practicable to procure checks send you the amount in checks & if they cant be had will send you whatever amount I may be able to collect by old uncle Anthony S. Garrett.

Our family thank God enjoys moderate health at this time & cincerely hope this may find you all enjoying a like blessing. The friends in this country are generally well as so far as I know. We have had a considerable change in things here of late. The Legislature has divided our county & all on the lower side of Licking River now forms a separate county which is named Kenton after old Simon Kenton who is said to have been the second white man that ever came into the State, Boone being the first, so that the counties bearing their names now lie side by side. The law provides that the seat of Justice shall be located as near the center of the county as an eligible site will admit of & appoints commissioners from other counties to make the location . The same law also provides that the seat of Justice of Campbell shall be removed from Newport to the centre of that county & the same commissioners are to locate that seat of Justice . The people of Newport & Covington are wrathy enough. This arrangement has made me the sherriff in the new county & I have this day received a commission as such. About a year ago I was promoted to the rank of a Majr Gen. in the place of Genl. Taylor who resigned & about six weeks ago I was elected a Director in the Branch of the Northern Bank of Ky. in Covington. I shall expect you my dear Brother to write to me so soon as you receive this letter as I am extremely anxious to hear from you. Tell Sister Betey that I feel bad at not writing her by Hueston & I intended to have done so on yesterday but company came in & staid untill this morning & I had to go to Newport today to court & have had company to night untill bed time & am now writing at 11 o'clock at night & have to start to Covington & Cincinnati in the morning to arrange things with Hueston Perry who expects to leave Cincinnati the next day but that I will write to her shortly.

Be pleased to accept our love & affection for yourself & Sister Betey first & then impart the same to all your children, also to Cousin Tho's Nelson & his family, also to Albert & his family & Jackson. No more but remain your affectionate brother till death.

Leonard Stephens

No. 14

[Addressed] Mr. William Stephens
Middle Grove
Monroe County
Missouri

per Capt. R. H. Perry

Notes:

According to family tradition, Richard Stephens, the seventh child of Benjamin and Dorothy Stephens, was a footloose bachelor who sought his fortune in South America. A niece, Minnie Stephens, recalled a childhood visit from her exotic relative. His father may have thought him something of a black sheep. Return.

The coins are not mentioned in the will. Campbell Wills B: 47-49. Return.

Anthony Ship Garnett (1771?-1854), one of many Virginians who had settled for a time in northern Kentucky before moving on to central Missouri. Some of his children remained in northern Kentucky. Return.

The new Kenton County included the half of Campbell County west of the Licking River, bordering Boone County. Simon Kenton (1755-1836) had come to the Ohio River in 1771, before joining Daniel Boone's settlement on the Kentucky a few years later.

The much better known frontiersman, Daniel Boone (1734-1820), abandoned the state he did so much to create, harrassed by lawsuits and other marks of civilization, and moved to the banks of the Missouri River, when that territory was still under Spanish dominion. He died there, a year before Missouri was admitted to the Union, but decades later, Kentuckians managed to persuade the Boone family and Missouri officials to allow his body to be reinterred in Kentucky. His grave overlooks the Kentucky River from a bluff in Frankfort. Return.

The commissioners settled on Independence, a crossroads a couple of miles east of Leonard's home at Beech Woods, the other side of Bank Lick Creek. The citizens from Covington soon managed to have a second court house established in that city, with the result that Kenton County now has the distinction of having two county seats. Return.

The new seat of Campbell was in Alexandria. Return.

By tradition which had the force of law, the senior magistrate (justice of the peace) became sheriff. Leonard appointed deputies to perform the duties of the office, which included carrying out the orders of the court and serving as chief elections official. See Robert M. Ireland, County Courts in Antebellum Kentucky, 80 ff. Return.

The nomination of "Leonard Stephens to be Major General of the 13th Division, in place of James Taylor, resigned," was made 9 February 1839 by Governor James Clark, who died in office a few months later, 27 August. Governor James Clark Executive Journal, 1838-1839, 259, Kentucky State Archives. Leonard had previously served as a Brigadier General, commanding the 22nd Brigade, one of the 13th Division's components, as shown by a letter dated 8 Feb 1837 from Leonard to Governor Clark recommending individuals for appointment as field officers within the brigade, which included Boone and Campbell Counties. Governor James Clark Militia Papers, Kentucky State Archives.

James Taylor (1769-1848), one of the founders of Newport, had fought in the War of 1812. A sketch appears in Armstrong's Biographical Encyclopedia of Kentucky, 309. Return.

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This page updated 10 October 2002.