Francis H. Cone was born on September 5, 1797, and died at his home in Greensboro on May 18, 1859. He never seems to have aspired much to political prominence. In 1841 he was elected Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia, and four years later he was elected to the position again. In 1856 he was elected a state senator of Georgia. As a judge and legislator he probably had no superiors, but his intellectual greatness and learning as a jurist shone most fully during his long professional life at the bar. He is also remembered for stabbing Alexander Stephens, the future Vice President of the Confederacy, in a confrontation in Atlanta. Stephens never fully recovered use of his right hand, and Cone was fined $800. In the years before his death, Cone reconciled with Stephens, and the two resumed their cordial relationship of earlier years.