THOMAS AND ELIZABETH STEPHENS JOSIAH QUINCY STEPHENS AND CATHERINE SAWYERS STEPHENS JOSEPH HENRY STEPHENS (brother of Frank Stephens) Parents and Grandparents of Frank Monroe Stephens (m. Helen Carolyn Settles) Great-Grand Parents of Mary Margaret Stephens (m. Cyrus S. Eaton, Jr.) Great-Great-Grand Parents of Cyrus, John, Cathy, & Elizabeth Eaton 2 Times Great Grand Parents of Colin Eaton Murphy & Devon Eaton Murphy
GRANDPARENTS OF FRANK MONROE STEPHENS Frank’s grandparents on his father’s side were Thomas Stephens and Elizabeth. Thomas Stephens was born in Lyorid, South Wales on July 18, 1803. Thomas converted to being a Baptist at sixteen and was ordained in Wales. His parents are listed as having lived in Wales.
Elizabeth was born in Oneida County New York on June 3, 1812 or April 19, 1812. Her parents were also from Wales. Thomas lived in New York where he married Elizabeth.
CHILDREN Thomas Stephens and Elizabeth had four or five children, including their eldest William (born in Arkansas in 1835-). Thomas and his wife traveled to Ohio and lived there until 1852 when he set out for Oregon. The family traveled in covered wagons, certainly a grueling journey. His second son, Josiah Quincy was born on March 31, 1840 near Freemont, Ohio. His eldest daughter Nancy was born in Missouri in 1843. Charles was born in 1855 Territory, and possible they another daughter who died young. Traveling across country, creating homes in different states, and making a living as a preacher must have been challenging for all of the family.
CAREER AS PREACHER Thomas Stephens “stopped near Corvallis, preached for a bit at the Shiloh and Corvallis Churches, then went to the Umpqua Valley, where he settled in Roseburg. “Roseburg’s first school was built on Aaron Rose’s property. The first Baptist church was established in a private home in Roseburg in 1853, with Reverend Thomas Stephens servings as the first pastor.”[1] “He organized a church at Cow Creek and preached for the Deer Creek Church in 1853 and through the Umpqua Valley, until the infirmities of age compelled him to desist. He was an earnest, devoted man. His Welch peculiarities made him somewhat singular, but he was well liked and had the respect and confidence of all who knew him.”[2] By reputation he was a feisty man and difficult to get along, according to descendant Sue Morley.
In the 1860 US Federal Census, William Stephens was listed as twenty-five and having been born in Arkansas, Josiah was listed as twenty and having been born in Ohio, Nancy as seventeen and as having been born in Missouri, and Charles as twenty-five. Their father Thomas was listed as fifty-five. In the 1870 census, when Thomas was 72 and his wife Elizabeth was 67, he was listed as unemployed. This census lists both the parents of Thomas and Elizabeth as having been born in Wales. In the 1880 Census, Thomas Stephens age 72 was listed as living on 146 Ospol Street in Deer Creek, Douglas, Oregon and that he had been unemployed for twelve months. Thomas Stephens died in Roseburg, Oregon in July, 1888,”[3] at age 85. Elizabeth died on April 10, 1895 at age 83.
PARENTS OF FRANK MONROE STEPHENS Frank’s parents were Josiah Quincey Stephens (March 31, 1840- February 14, 1928) and Catherine Sawyers (August 27, 1848-February 12, 1924).
Catherine Sawyers, born in New Orleans, Louisiana, met Josiah Stephens, “a very handsome man” in Roseburg, Oregon, where his father Reverend Tom Stephens was the Baptist minister of the Deer Creek Baptist Church in the Umpqua Valley, ten miles east of Roseburg, founded on July 24, 1853. Josiah Quincey’s son, Frank Stephens, confirmed that his father was born near Fremont, Ohio, in a letter Frank wrote in 1925 when he was traveling for business in Ohio. Franks talks about imagining Josiah fishing and swimming there as a lad.
Josiah and Catherine were married in Andrew and Fannie Sawyer’s home on August 9, 1864 in Scottsburg, Oregon. That house was washed away in a 100-year flood, but another house was built to replace it. The Great Flood of 1862 was the largest flood in the recorded history of Oregon, Nevada, and California, occurring from December 1861 to January 1862. It was preceded by weeks of continuous rains and snows in the very high elevations that began in Oregon in November 1861 and continued into January 1862. This was followed by a record amount of rain from January 9–12, and contributed to a flood that extended from the Columbia River southward in western Oregon, and through California to San Diego, and extended as far inland as Idaho in the Washington Territory, Nevada and Utah in the Utah Territory, and Arizona in the western New Mexico Territory. The event was capped by a warm intense storm that melted the high snow load. The resulting snow-melt flooded valleys, inundated or swept away towns, mills, dams, flumes, houses, fences, and domestic animals, and ruined fields. It has been described as the worst disaster ever to strike California.[1][4]
CHILDREN OF JOSIAH QUINCY & CATHERINE (SAWYERS) STEPHENS Catherine Sawyers Stephens and Josiah Quincy Stephens had six children: Joseph Henry Stephens born on February 17, 1866, Augusta Linnetta Stephens born in 1867, Agnes (b. 1868), Catherine Amelia Stephens born in 1869 dying eleven years later in 1880, Katie (Tattie ), born in 1879, Edgar William Stephens born in 1871, Thomas Andrew Stephens born in 1875 and dying in 1943, and Frank M Stephens born in 1886 and dying in 1946.
In the 1860 Census the family lived in Roseburg, Oregon: Thomas, a farmer, was 55, Elizabeth was 48, William was 25, Josiah was 20, Nancy was 17, and Charles was only 4. Their real-estate was valued at $640. In 1865, Josiah’s occupation was listed as Livery Staple. His tax was $10 In 1867, in the Pacific Coast Directory, Josiah was listed as livery stable proprietor in Roseburg, Oregon. He would have been twenty-seven. In the 1880 Census, Josiah (41) listed as stock raiser, Kate (32), Tattie (11), Katie (10), Edgar (8), Thomas (5) were listed as living on 116 Oak Street in Roseburg, Oregon. I wonder if Josiah and Joe drove the herd to Arizona ahead of the rest of the family. Between 1880 and 1890, some of the Stephens family migrated to Prescott, Arizona. The family had an arduous trip. Josiah and son Joe, age 14, “drove 160 head of fine horses and mules from Oregon to Prescott.” Oregon became the thirty-third state on February 14, 1859. They arrived six years after Prescott was founded as the territorial capital of Arizona. “Prescott was the dominant political center of the territory and was protected and influenced by the presence of nearby Fort Whipple.”[5] It is possible that these soldiers purchased some of the horses the Stephens had brought. This era was the time of the Wild West. They found a ready market to purchase the stock, and they put money from the sales into cattle ranches.
In a newspaper article that interviewed Josiah’s son Joe Stephens when he was 81 and living in the Arizona Pioneers’ Home”, he recalled that when the family arrived, “there were no fences nor forest land and the grass so high it would drag the stirrups.” He explained that cattlemen acquired water rights, developed the land, and built corrals, barns, and homes.
On June 3rd, 1890 their residence was listed as Prescott. On April 13, 1892 at age fifty-two and at age fifty-four, he registered to vote in Yavapai Country, Arizona on May 1st, 1894. . When Josiah was sixty-six, he registered to vote in Yavapai County, Arizona on July 20, 1906. Did he have residences in both Arizona and California for a period of time?
By 1901, 1903, 1904, 1917, 1918 in the US City Directories, Josiah is listed as living on 749a S. Flower Street, and his occupation is listed as mining. Granddaughter Sue Morley claimed that the Stephens had part ownership in a gold mine.
In the 1920 Census, Josiah Stephens is renting 749 South Flower Street with his wife Catherine in Los Angeles, California. He is seventy-nine years old. At the time daughter Augusta L O Malley and Ida J Estabrooks, a lodger, are living with them. None of them are listed as having employment. Augusta died in 1922. Josiah Quincy Stephens died on February 14, 1924. Catherine is listed as dying February 11, 1928, four years after her husband in Los Angeles, California.
SON OF JOSIAH AND CATHERINE REMAINED IN ARIZONA: JOE H. STEPHENS “Among the ranches which Josiah and (and his son) Joe operated over numerous years were “the Williamson valley property once known as the Head and Lincoln outfit, the 5-Bar and the Diamond and a Half, spread north of Thompson Valley which Joe Stephens sold in 1917 to Charles Mullen and Guy Schultz and the Long Meadow ranch. The first ranch property of the elder Stephens was the 7-Up at Camp Wood, later owned by Ray Hill.”
In 1916, Harold Bell Wright wrote When a Man’s a Man. Wright recovered from tuberculosis on his friend George Carter’s ranch, and he dedicated his best-selling book to “to Mr. J. H. Stephens and his family, who so cordially welcomes me at rodeo time” as well as other cowboys residing in Williamson Valley. Two movies of the same name were filmed in Williamson Valley in 1923, one directed by George O’Brien They made Cross-Triangle Ranch his base as he traveled across the valley and did his research. You can watch it on YouTube to get a good sense of the landscape of where Joe Stephens lived.
The Prescott Journal Miner on June 26, 1918 in “Land and Stock Merger of Big Cattlemen,” described “one of the most important livestock deals made in this country in recent years” between J. H. Stephens and J. W. Stewart, combining their lands and stocks, covering an area of twenty-five miles and including thousands of head of cattle. On August 6, 1918 the “large barn on Joe Stephens’ home place, the Valindo Rancho in Williamson valley was stuck by lightning…and burned to the ground, the fire destroying a large lot of farm implements, harness, saddles and a large part of the new hay crop, entailing a loss of about $25,000. There was $5000 insurance on the building and contents. The barn, completed the previous year was one of the largest and finest in the state.”[6] The Stephens ranch “was one of the largest and best stocked places of the kind during the time the family lived there.”
“When Joe sold out to Mullens and Schultz in 1917, he was running 6,000 head of cattle.” The family also owned a “butcher shop and a slaughter house on Granite creek.” Joe said that he found the work in the butcher shop unpleasant and the money “nothing to brag about.” Just before he turned 18, he “started dealing faro bank.” This game was very popular in the 1800s but was later replaced by poker.[7] A game of faro was often called a "faro bank". It was played with an entire deck of playing cards. One person was designated the "banker" and an indeterminate number of players, known as "punters", could be admitted. Chips (called "checks") were purchased by the punter from the banker (or house) from which the game originated. Bet values and limits were set by the house. Usual check values were 50 cents to $10 each.
The faro table was typically oval,[10] covered with green baize, and had a cutout for the banker. A board was placed on top of the table with one suit of cards (traditionally spades) pasted to it in numerical order, representing a standardized betting "layout". Each player laid his stake on one of the 13 cards on the layout. Players could place multiple bets and could bet on multiple cards simultaneously by placing their bet between cards or on specific card edges.[8] Joe’s skill at Faro earned him enough money to purchase his “first 300 head of cattle which were strictly his own. He paid $15 a head for the cattle and the next spring sold them for $29 a head making a neat profit. Bill Dickerson came over with a grub wagon and three cowboys to pick up the cattle purchased by Tom Eman, president of the Kansas City, Livestock and Commission Co. Joe turned over the next herd he bought to his father (Josiah) to be raised on his Camp Wood ranch. “There were occasional violent deaths and shootings in rough and ready Prescott in the early days. Stephens recalls he saw three men shot up, following a quarrel over a faro game.” “Stephens has clear recollections of such stirring frontier day episodes as the Graham-Tewksbury feud, in which so many men lost their lives in a battle to the death.” Joe knew quite a few cowboys and gamblers, “who were not a bad sort but had run afoul of the law… Men were quick on the trigger in those days.” Joe visited them in prison, liked their company, and was at ease with them.
Joe lived in Arizona for sixty-seven years. At age 82, “Joseph Henry Stephens died on August 15, 1948 at the Pioneers Home where he had lived for almost four years in Phoenix Arizona. The building was “perched on a granite hill overlooking Goose Flat near Prescott, Arizona…It was a three-story, red brick building …State-supported, it was founded as memorial and haven for the men and women who lived through the blood-and-thunder days of early Arizona. Here live – or have lived –such characters of the old West as Dynamite Joe, Whispering Joe Stephens, Sourdough George Wright, Foot-and-a-half Jones and Stoneboat Annie…Arizona’s pioneers are a crusty, cantankerous lot…Each guest, rich or poor, gets $7.50 a month spending money…Guests are not confined to the grounds, and those able may hobble down to Prescott’s famed Whisky Row, which is just ‘a whoop and a holler,” or about three quarters of a mile, from the home. They spend most of their allowance in saloons along the row.” Pioneers Home provides a home for these salty characters. “The verandah, equipped with a long line of rocking chairs, is known as Tobacco Row because the favorite pastime is spewing tobacco juice and quids over the railing.”[9] In an interview conducted in his 80s, Joe commented that the Arizona Pioneers’ Home staff “treat me fine here – I couldn’t ask for a better place to stay in my reclining years.”[10] Joe Stephens was survived by his son, Harry E Stephens of Prescott and a daughter Etta M Koontz. He had four grandchildren: Phyllis Tyree of Coolidge, Barbara, Joe and Buddy Stephens of Prescott, also two great grandchildren. Etta Stephens married Thomas Koontz on January 1, 1915. Rev. S. G. Emerson performed the ceremony at the Congregational Parsonage. Thomas was a foreman at Joe Stephens’ ranch.
[1] “1859 Douglas Country,” Oregon 1859: A Snapshot in Time by Janice Marschner