JUDGE STEPHEN D. READ
                Lake Charles, Calcasieu Par., LA
                                  

**
**********************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm
************************************************
 

Source: Southwest Louisiana Historical and Biographical by William Henry Perrin
published in 1891; page 185.
Typed by Margaret Rentrop Moore

JUDGE STEPHEN D. READ, Lake Charles.-Stephen D. Read, Judge of the Fourteenth
Judicial District of Louisiana, is a native of Avoyelles parish, born January
17, 1835- He is the son of Stephen and Mary (Simmons)Read, natives of South
Carolina and Georgia, respectively. Stephen Read, Sr., removed with his parents
to Mississippi when a boy, and later to Louisiana, locating in Avoyelles parish.
He was in the cavalry service in the war of, 1812, and participated in the
battle of New Orleans. He died in St. Landry parish in 1845, at the age of fifty
four years. He had accumulated considerable property before his death, having
been a large and successful planter.
The subject's mother died in 1839 or 1840 Judge Read is the seventh of a family
of eight children. He received his education in Centenary College, where be
pursued a course to within one year of graduation. In 1857 be removed to
Hempstead, Texas, where he pursued a course of law study, and in 1858 was
admitted to the bar in Washington, Texas, shortly after graduating from the
law department of Baylor University. He practised in Hempstead until the
breaking out of the war, when he enlisted in the Twenty-fourth Texas Infantry.
He was afterward transferred to the Thirtyfourth Texas Cavalry, in the
Trans-Mississippi department, and participated in the battles of Mansfield,
Pleasant Hill, Yellow Bayou and Galveston Bay, besides numerous minor
skirmishes. After the war Judge Read practised his profession in Montgomery,
Texas, until 1873, when he removed to Cameron parish, Louisiana, on account of
health. In January, 1887, he located in Lake Charles. In December, 1879, he was
elected District judge, and has since that time served in that capacity.
Judge Read married in Montgomery, Texas, February, 1861 Miss Sarah J. Mitchell,
daughter of Jas. H. Mitchell, a prominent planter of Montgomery county, Texas.
Judge Read and wife became the parents of eight children, four sons and four
daughters, six of whom are living. The judge is a member and senior deacon of
the First Baptist church of this place.