BIOGRAPHY: Marlin Bingham STEPHENS, Cambria County, PA 

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From Wiley, Samuel T., ed. Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Cambria 
County, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Union Publishing Co., 1896, p. 414-5
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MARLIN BINGHAM STEPHENS was born near the village of Dilltown, Indiana county, 
Pennsylvania, May 10, 1860. His great-grandfather, Benjamin Stephens, was a 
native of England, and emigrated to the United States before the Revolutionary 
War. He located in Maryland, where his son, Samuel Stephens, was born and 
reared. After attaining to his majority he removed to Brush Valley township, 
near the sight of Mechanicsburg, Indiana county, Pennsylvania, being one of the 
earliest settlers of that county. One of his sons was William S. Stephens, who 
was born in 1808 near Mechanicsburg, and who is the father of the subject of 
this sketch.
    The mother of Marlin B. Stephens is Sarah A. Stephens (nee Skiles). She is 
the great-granddaughter of James Skiles, who emigrated from the north of Ireland 
to Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, in 1780, and in 1800, in company with 
Ephraim Wallace, also a native of Ireland, he removed to the Conemaugh, in 
Indiana county. There his son, John Skiles, married a daughter of Ephraim 
Wallace, to which union was born a son, Ephraim Skiles, who married a Miss 
Rogers, a daughter of Robert Rogers, who came from Ireland to this country at an 
early date and settled on the Conemaugh. Ephraim Skiles, shortly after his 
marriage, settled on a farm near Blacklick furnace in East Wheatland township, 
where he lived and raised a large family of children. One of his daughters 
married William S. Stephens, the father of the subject of this record.
    Marlin B. Stephens spent his youthful days on his father's farm. When of 
proper age he attended normal institutes in Indiana and Cambria counties, and 
soon commenced teaching. He taught for three years, and then entered the Mount 
Pleasant Classical and Scientific Institute, located at Mount Pleasant, 
Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, where he prepared himself for the study of 
law. After completing that course he entered the law department of the 
University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, graduating from there in 1886 with the 
degree of LL. B. On passing a satisfactory examination in open court, for the 
twenty-second judicial district of the State of Michigan, he was duly admitted 
to practice in the circuit and supreme courts of that State.
    He then returned to his native State and on April 12, 1887, was admitted to 
the practice of his chosen profession in Wyoming county. Later, on May 16, 1887, 
he was admitted to the Luzerne county bar, and opened an office in Ashley. In 
1888, March 12, on motion of W. Horace Rose, Mr. Stephens was admitted to the 
Cambria county bar.
    He is another of the numerous class who have used the profession of teaching 
as a steppingstone to a higher and broader education. Judging by the success of 
the average man thus fortified by experience and labor, it is very evident that 
Mr. Stephens will forge his way to profitable usefulness as a lawyer. He is by 
nature eminently endowed with the requisite qualifications for the successful 
practice of law, and being inclined to develop them will undoubtedly succeed.
    Politically he is a republican, and on the first Monday of May, 1896, 
assumed the duties of City Solicitor for the city of Johnstown, having been 
elected to that office by the council of the city. He has been solicitor of the 
borough of Morrellville since its incorporation. He is an active and energetic 
member of the State Central Committee, and takes an untiring interest in all 
matters pertaining to the party and its success.