Richard Stephens (pioneer)
Richard Stephens was an American Revolutionary War soldier, politician, slave-plantation owner and Breckinridge County, Kentucky, pioneer. He is the namesake of Stephensport, Kentucky, a river town and port along the Ohio River.Stephens was born in the Colony of Virginia.
In Virginia, in September 1780, Stephens married Elizabeth Jennings, four years his junior and a native of Fairfax County, Virginia. Elizabeth and Richard produced nine children: Ann, Eleanor, Robert, Richard, Elizabeth, Sarah, Daniel, Mary Ann, and Jemima.Career
Stephens served as a private in the Continental Army for three years during the American Revolution.
In February 1784, for payment for his service as an American Revolutionary soldier on the Virginia line, twenty-nine-year-old Stephens accepted a 100,000-acre land grant on the Ohio River in Kentucky. Over time, Stephens added more land to his estate. By 1799, with over 100,000 acres, including a large plantation eight miles south of Hawesville, and a 2,000-acre tract of land that Stephensport was sitting on, and at least a dozen slaves, Stephens was the wealthiest landowner in Breckinridge County.
Stephensport, plotted in 1803, was named in his honor.
Stephens served in the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1819, and in the Kentucky Senate from 1823 to 1827.Death
He died in Breckinridge County.
