Noblesville People: Rex Stout, D.C. Stephenson, Steve Wariner, and More

Noblesville, Indiana can lay claim to a number of famous Noblesville people. One of these is Rex Stout, author of the ultra-famous Nero Wolfe detective novels. Stout was born in Noblesville in1886 of Quaker parents, who later moved the family of eleven to Kansas.

Another Noblesville notable is Steve Wariner, whose country music singing career eventually brought him 18 top ten hit numbers in a row, eight of which went straight to number one in Billboard magazine. This Noblesville music star went on to attain great recognition as a composer and instrumentalist in the 1990s.

One of the most interesting people to have ever made a home in Noblesville was really only famous locally. His name was Barney Stone, an ex-slave who was born in 1847 and died in 1942, the last black Civil War veteran in the county. But Stone was well known not for his longevity, but as a preacher of almost 70 years running, a staunch family man and a pillar of the community who was instrumental in the creation of seven churches. One of those was the First Colored Missionary Baptist Church, now the historic home of the Hamilton County Art Center, a haven for Noblesville arts.

The town has also been the home of less desirable Noblesville people. In 1942, for example, William Dudley Pelley was convicted of high treason and sedition, and sent to prison for 15 years, though he was released after eight. He spent the rest of his life in Noblesville as a publisher of politically oriented Noblesville media, including books, magazines and treatises; Pelley is buried in the town’s Crownland Cemetery.

Before his rise to anti-Christlike stardom in murder and mayhem, Charles Manson once spent a short stint in the Noblesville pokey for car theft. And, while unsubstantiated, a legend of Noblesville history holds that the Midwest’s star bank robber-murderer John Dillinger once passed some time in the Noblesville lockup.

From 1910 through the 1930’s, the infamous Ku Klux Klan was quite active in Noblesville, leaving a permanent stain on its history. To the city’s credit, evidence of its KKK roots that surfaced recently was not submerged, but rather donated to the local Hamilton County Historical Society.

The most prominent member of the KKK, Grand Dragon D. C. Stephenson, spent time in the same jail where Charles Manson was later locked up for his brief stay. Stephenson’s trial and subsequent conviction became so high-profile, and his crime was so noxious, that some 140,000 members of the Klan changed their minds, dropped their membership, and melted into a less objectionable society. D.C. Stephenson still remains one of the most controversial and odious Noblesville people.