Bio:  L. W. Stephens, Red River Parish
Source: Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northwest Louisiana
The Southern Publishing Company, Chicago & Nashville, 1890
Submitted for the LA GenWeb Archives by: Gwen Moran-Hernandez, Feb 2000.

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L. W. Stephens, merchant of Coushatta, La.  Among the many enterprises
necessary to complete the commercial resources of a town or city, none is more
importance to the community than that of the general merchant.  Prominent in
this calling is Mr. Stephens, whose establishment is well fitted up, his stock
of goods being large and well selected.  He was born in Arcadia, La., March
19, 1848, the second to six children, three now living, born to John F. and
Elizabeth (Wardlaw) Stephens, who were born in South Carolina and Alabama, in
1813 and 1820, and died in Covington, Ky., and Coushatta, La., in 1883 and
1882, respectively.  The father was a talented lawyer, and for a number of
years was a member of the Coushatta bar, having come to the State of Louisiana
in 1848.  L. W. Stephens attended the schools of Shasta until he attained his
sixteenth year, after which he spent two years in Mount Lebanon University. 
In January, 1865, he joined the Twenty-seventh Louisiana Infantry, Confederate
States army, serving until the close of the war, after which he returned home. 
In 1866 he entered a dry goods store as a clerk, continuing in the capacity
one year, after which he was a student for the same length of time in a select
school, under the management of J. Q. Prescott, at Sparta, La.  In 1868 he
came to Coushatta, and the following year began conduction a mercantile
establishment at Lake Village, carrying on the business until 1883, when he
once more returned to Coushatta, and the same year opened the doors of his
present establishment to the public.  His is a stirring and honorable business
man, and as he is pleasant, agreeable and accommodating in his manners, his
present large trade is fully merited.  He is a stanch Democrat, and in July,
1889, was elected president of the police jury, a position he still holds.  He
is a member of Silent Brotherhood Lodge No. 146, of the A. F. & A. M., of
Coushatta, and he and his wife, whom he married in 1869 and whose maiden name
was Sarah M. Sweatborn, are members of the Missionary Baptist Church.  She was
born in South Carolina March 23, 1847, and has borne Mr. Stephens the
following children: Lawrence P., Benjamin S., John F., Harry T., Thomas P. and
Lizzie.

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