Samuel E. Stokes, born 1824, was a dedicated merchant and Civil War veteran from Clarke County, Alabama. Despite losing his wealth during the war, Stokes persevered, starting a business in Daphne, Alabama, with his remaining possessions and displaying admirable resilience and entrepreneurship.
Henry J. Hunt was a respected planter and lumberman from Tensaw, Baldwin county, Alabama. Born in Georgia in 1827, Hunt relocated to Alabama, where he served in the Alabama cavalry during the Civil War. Following the war, he established a successful lumber business and farming operation. Recognized as an active community member, Hunt was part of the Tensaw lodge and the Missionary Baptist church.
This 1893 article details the life of Francis Earle, an Alabama farmer and slave owner who inherited his father’s plantation and stock farm in 1836. Despite suffering significant losses during the Civil War, he rebuilt his wealth and continued to contribute to his community. Earle married Mary McDonald and they had two children, Frank and Mary.
Josiah H. Marbury, the head of the Marbury Lumber company at Bozeman, Alabama, was born in Shelbyville, Tennessee, in 1841. His parents, L. W. and Mary (Kidd) Marbury, were also natives of Tennessee, where they passed their entire existence, the former expiring in 1863 and the latter about 1875. L. W. Marbury was a Primitive Baptist minister and merchant, was a soldier in the Mexican war, and at one time was a member of the Tennessee legislature. He was a self-made man, possessed of great industry and renowned for his uprightness in all the walks of life. His father was