Said to have been a member of the Methodist Church at Wentworth, Stephens also served for a time as an agent for the American Bible and Tract Society though he was barely literate.

[2] In his history of North Carolina, Professor William Powell presents a picture of Stephens as a vindictive man, who killed the chickens almost purely out of spite or greed.

All accounts have Wentworth merchant and postmaster Thomas Anderson Ratliffe, the owner of the chickens, complaining to the sheriff, and Stephens spent a night in jail.

Records do not indicate that Stephens ever spent further time in jail regarding this matter, but the dismissive nickname by which his enemies would refer to him the rest of his life and even to this day was established then and there at Wentworth.

[1] Due to his unpopularity in Wentworth, Stephens moved to the adjacent Caswell County seat of Yanceyville in 1866, continuing to work as a tobacco trader, and also beginning to serve as an agent for the Freedmen's Bureau.

These activities made many enemies for him amongst the conservative white Democrats of the state, who were fighting to prevent freedmen from gaining political rights, and especially so in Caswell County.

With the support of most African Americans, Stephens was elected to the North Carolina Senate in 1868, defeating Democrat Bedford Brown, who had been a U.S.

During this time, Stephens became nearly completely ostracized socially by and from the white community of Caswell County, even to the extent that he was supposedly expelled from the Yanceyville Methodist Church.

Knowing Stephens' reputation for being quite well armed, his Klan assassins had assembled between eight and twelve men who lay in wait in a darkened room on the Caswell County Courthouse's first floor.

[5] There is no question that Stephens had the broad support of the Black community of the time[2] and that he was murdered in the basement of a courthouse by the Klan for his political views and for assisting freed slaves.

[6] The murder of Stephens prompted North Carolina's governor to William Woods Holden to impose martial law so as to stamp out the Klan.

Lea proclaimed that the assassination had been the work of the Caswell County Ku Klux Klan chapter and that he had prepared the ground for white supremacy rule in North Carolina in the early 20th century.