The Ten Tribes of David Stiles
Judge La Fayette Stiles Pence was born near Bloomfield, Nelson County, Ky. And died at the home of his niece, Mrs. Mary Wright Stoner, Bardstown, Ky.; earned LL.B., University of Louisville, Louisville, Ky.; lawyer, Lebanon, Ky.; Police Judge, Lebanon, Ky. 1902-1913; served as Judge of Marion County during illness of Judge William M. Spalding; author and research; never married.Judge Pence, whose mother died when he was only two years of age, was reared, as a son, by Minerva Ford Stiles Beall, his aunt, and her husband, George Washington Beall. His early education was in East Lynn Academy at Buffalo, Kentucky, and later in the College of Law at the University of Louisville, where he received his degree in 1889. In addition to his practice of law, Judge Pence did much research. He was deeply interest in American history and was a student of Lincoln. For several years, he corresponded with prominent historians in all p0arts of the country and became somewhat of an authority on the life of the Great Emancipator. He was the author of a series of articles which was published in The Enterprise, a Lebanon newspaper, entitled “Life Sketches of the Rev. Jesse Head,” the story of the minister who performed the marriage ceremony which joined Nancy Hanks and Thomas Lincoln.
After supplying a quantity of data concerning the parentage and early life of Abraham Lincoln to Senator Albert J. Beveridge, to be used in his work, Abraham Lincoln, Judge Pence received in acknowledgement the senator’s personal check and later a copy of the two volume biography of Lincoln. He later gave these books, with the uncashed check pasted in one of them, to Lewis Ogden Stiles, author of The Family of David Stiles.
Much of the law practice of Judge Pence was devoted to titles and deeds and through his research, many old and valuable documents were discovered. It was through his encouragement along with that of Margaret Beall Wilson La Rue and Mina Beall Wilson La Rue that the Kentucky family was called together, in 1936, for its first reunion which became an annual event. While still a young man, he wrote his stiles genealogy, The History of the Stiles Family in Kentucky and Missouri, which was published in 1896. At that time, the family had not expanded so greatly, and his work is not a long one. Nevertheless, it is highly important because he perpetuated the record. Had he not done so, information on that period would have been difficult to retrieve.
Judge Pence was a modest and amiable man and an interesting conversationalist. He was intelligent, diligent in his work, wise in counselling, and ever honest and dependable. He was at all times a gentleman.
We now honor the memory of La Fayette Stiles Pence, who though he had no immediate family of his own, loved all the larger family and left to members of this family a priceless gift of his love, a record of our early Kentucky heritage.”
Sources
Pence, LaFayette Stiles,. A history of the Kentucky and Missouri Stiles: with a sketch of New Jersey and other kindred. Lebanon, Ky.: W.T. Hawkins, book and job printer, 1896.
A History of the David Stiles Family: A Genealogy 1575-1980; Lois Ogden Stiles Sparks, 1980.
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