A Last Chapter of the Greatest Generation: The Life and Family of Colonel Frederic A. Stone, M.D.

Tree

CHAPTER 1

American to the Core: 

A Family with Deep Roots

The migration of people from the British Isles in the seventeenth century is an early chapter in American history. The Simon Stone family took part in this migration for religious reasons and arrived in the New World fourteen-and-a-half years after the Mayflower landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in December 1620. Simon, wife Joan, and five children ranging in age from five months to sixteen years old, sailed from England on the Increase, in April 1635, with 117 passengers, arriving safely in Boston eleven weeks later.

Simon and his family settled in Watertown, which is next to Boston. He became a freeman a year later on May 25, 1636, which meant he was a full citizen with voting privileges. He was a selectman for seven years. He served as a deacon of the congregational church, becoming known as Deacon Simon Stone. His first wife died, and he married a second time. He is buried in the Old Burial Grounds at the corner of Mt. Auburn and Arlington Streets.

A hundred and fifty years after Simon arrived in Boston, his Revolutionary War soldier descendant, Ephraim, along with wife Sarah (Ames) Stone moved from Groton, Massachusetts, to Bridport, Vermont. There on the shores of Lake Champlain, in June 1787, they established their home and farm.

Ephraim’s son, Isaac Stone, was a shoemaker who had a shop and a small tannery on the lakeshore where he processed leather. He and his family departed Bridport in November 1826, on their way to the wild west of their day, the Western Reserve of northern Ohio, where they expected to settle in Lennox. Isaac’s canvas-covered lumber wagon was drawn by two horses and loaded with wife Lydia, six children, including an eight-month-old baby boy, supplies, and Isaac’s shoe-making tools and leather. It took twelve days to make the trip to Mexico, New York. Lydia’s health and the weather conditions gave them reason to stay in Mexico where her sister Sarah Hurlbut Powers, Aunt Powers, resided with her husband Richard Powers. The six Stone children were Olivia, Samuel, Sidney, Benjamin, Sarah, and Joseph. Come Spring 1827, the Stones decided to settle in Mexico and forget the idea of going further west. Their seventh child, Ruth, was born April 10. Five more children were born in Mexico: Lydia, Julia, Henry, George, and Jane. George Washington Stone was my dad’s great-grandfather.

Most of the following material is found in Edith M. Simpson’s, Mexico: Mother of Towns (1949). The Stones lived in a succession of houses as their family grew and as they established themselves in the community. Their first house was a rental from Arba and Alba Owens. It was a story and a half high and built with rough planks, without clapboards, lathe, or plaster, but it was battened on the outside. Isaac’s shoe shop was a rented room on the second floor of a building next door to the house. They bought a house when they decided to remain in Mexico. It stood on the west corner of what is now the intersection of Washington and Main Streets. It was also a one-and-a-half high story, battened plank house. For several years, a second floor room served as Isaac’s shoe shop. That must have made for an interesting household life. Isaac clapboarded, lathed, and plastered it.

In 1828, they bought a twenty-two acre farm on the east side of North Street. The house was built with logs and had a stick chimney. An addition was built to serve as sleeping quarters for the expanding family. The farm was sold in 1829, and another house was bought between Killam and Hamilton Roads. Eight acres were cleared of trees and burned. The house was equipped with a brick chimney and oven, the modern conveniences of the day. They also found trundle beds useful for their twelve children as a way for saving space.

Isaac and Lydia were founding members of the Presbyterian Church that was organized on February 24, 1830. A letter of dismissal from their church in Vermont was dated April 4, 1829, and received in Mexico. Isaac was appointed Sunday School superintendent and held Sunday School in the afternoons and evenings in their North Mexico neighborhood and other school districts. Academy students assisted him in this. He probably needed this assistance for spiritually nurturing his growing family. Isaac also participated as a witness in a church trial.

In 1880, the church facility was renovated. Three of the Stones are memorialized in the sanctuary’s stained glass windows: Joseph Royal Stone (Sunday School Superintendent), Lydia H. Stone (given by her grandchildren), and Sarah E. Stone, wife of Benjamin. The chapel was altered in 1944, in memory of Isaac’s pioneering Sunday School work. The work was made possible by contributions from his descendants. His great-grandson, the Reverend Doctor Warren Sage Stone, spoke at the dedication ceremony on September 10. His address was titled, From Generation to Generation. He described Isaac, saying although Isaac was a good parent and a hard worker, he was not a man of exceptional talents or financial resources. Warren was told by Isaac’s son Benjamin that their home was comfortable for the time and place and that the family always had to practice rigid economy.

Benjamin and his older brother Samuel bought Peter Chandler’s hardware business in 1843. Benjamin continued to operate it with various partners until his death in 1905. Samuel and Benjamin were prominent citizens. Samuel served two terms as county treasurer. Benjamin served on the building committee for the Mexico Academy in 1855, when the brick building was erected. He was also the president of the Board of Trustees for the Academy. Their younger brother George, Dad’s great-grandfather, was the Academy’s treasurer when Benjamin was president of the board.

Four of Isaac and Lydia’s daughters married. Olivia Bethia Stone married Darius Foster. Sarah Ames married Marshall Pierce of Richland, New York, on May 15, 1847. I could not locate any record of Ruth Henrietta or Lydia Maria marrying. Julia Philomela married Amos Hale Baldwin on June 12, 1852. She died after a brief illness in Volney, New York, on November 9, 1861. Amos then married Julia’s younger sister, Jane Ophelia.

Joseph Royal was the baby boy who was rocked in the lumber wagon on the trek from Vermont to Mexico, New York. He married Lucy Maria Cowles on August 31, 1851. He chose to go west to Chicago, bought a plot of land, and when he sold it, made a handsome profit. Today, that land is the site of the Palmer House.

Continuing their travels, they settled in East Troy, Wisconsin, where Joseph operated a general store and sometimes employed a young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln to collect on unpaid accounts. Lincoln was practicing general law at the time, taking on civil and criminal cases. Many of Lincoln’s cases dealt with debt collection outside of Illinois. The record indicates Lincoln visited East Troy in the 1850s. It was reported that a close acquaintance and friendship was engendered between the lawyer and his client of those early days.

Joseph returned to Mexico, New York, in 1865, with his wife and three surviving children to join his older brother Samuel in business. On the return trip, they stopped in Chicago to pay their final respects to Lincoln, who was lying in state in Chicago. Public viewing began on May 1 at 5:00 p.m. and concluded on May 2 at 8:00 p.m. The funeral train departed at 9:30 p.m. for Springfield.

The Stones arrived safely in Mexico, but Joseph died on May 20, 1868.

George Washington Stone

Isaac and Lydia’s decision to stay put was a factor in my dad being born in Mexico, New York, almost one hundred years later. Dad was born to Albert Becker Stone and Rowena Kingsbury Stone. Albert was the oldest of two sons born to Frederick Ransom Stone and Lillie Becker Stone. Frederick was the oldest child of George Washington Stone and Sophie Ransom Slack Stone. George was Isaac and Lydia’s eleventh child, born July 9, 1836, in Mexico, New York. Sophie had been married previously to Rev. Comfort I. Slack.

Comfort Slack was born around 1836. Comfort attended Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, and graduated from Auburn Seminary in Auburn, New York, in 1863. Following graduation, he became the pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Newton, Iowa, but he died February 24, 1865. Comfort was a grandson of Israel Slack, who settled in Mexico, New York, in 1805, arriving in the town twenty-one years before Isaac Stone arrived in 1826. The Stones and Slacks were Presbyterians and would have known each other. The Slacks lived in what was called Pratham. The Pratham pastor remembered Comfort, He was to me a loved, confidential friend.

George Washington Stone most likely was a childhood friend of Comfort’s since they were born about the same time. News of Comfort’s death must have traveled back to the Slacks and Stones. George probably viewed Sophia as a marriage prospect for them to take an interest in each other. They were married in Muir, Michigan, on August 31, 1866, by Rev. George Ransom, Sophie’s brother. Five children were born to them: Frederick Ransom (1867), Lydia Caroline (1869), Ernest Augustus (1870), George Ervin (1873), and Harry Lowell (1875). Lydia died in 1873, shortly after turning four years old. The lone surviving photo of her shows her in a white flowing dress wearing a long white veil.

George and Sophie’s son George Edwin volunteered for missionary service after graduating from Hamilton College (1895) and Auburn Theological Seminary (1898). He joined the Arabian Mission in 1898, which was co-founded by Samuel Zwemer, James Cantine, and Philip T. Phelps. He lived with the Zwemers in Bahrain and worked on learning Arabic. In February 1899, he was transferred to Oman to assume oversight of the Rescued Slave Boys School in Muscat. In June, he felt exhausted from the work and the extreme heat. He departed Muscat with his language teacher headed for Birka to find relief, writing he had begun to feel better, but an attack of heat apoplexy led to his death a few hours later on June 26. The language teacher transported his body back to Muscat where he was buried in the same cemetery as Bishop Thomas French.

Dr. Zwemer wrote a fine eulogy, which is included in The History of the Arabian Mission:

We mourn the loss of dear Stone not only, but we miss him. Given to the Mission in answer to prayer, he proved from the first day until his death his divine call to the work by a spirit of self-denial and utter disregard of his own plans and wishes where God’s work was at stake. He was the man of our hopes during the months we lived together in the same cramped quarters at Bahrain. He had no romantic ideas of mission work, but took hold of grim realities with a grip that meant business. He set himself to battle, like a flint, against the strength of Islam and the intricacies of Arabic; though in both cases patient toil is generally first rewarded by hope deferred. Sturdy, manly, honest to the core, with common sense and uncommon judgment, he was willing to plod. Although it was his lot to come to Bahrain where there were no Europeans and where native life is perhaps more primitive than at any of our other stations, he fell in love with the new environment and laughed heartily at the idea that it was a sacrifice to live in Bahrain.

I’m sure George and Sophie were heartbroken by the passing of a second child and that they would never be able to say goodbye to George by witnessing his remains before burial. However, his service and death for the cause of Christ must have been a bright light for them in their sorrow.

1910 George W. Stone family

George, the father, was a businessman all his working days, starting out in dry goods and ending in insurance. An ad in the Mexico, New York, Independent on October 16, 1907, invited people to Get our rates before insuring. He represented the Mutual Fire Insurance Companies, which were thoroughly reliable and save money to the policy holders. Losses Are Paid Promptly. Our motto is Equitable adjustments and prompt payments. He was an active member of the Presbyterian Church and served his community in many ways.

Frederick Ransom Stone

My great-grandfather, Frederick Ransom Stone, George and Sophie’s oldest child, was born July 3, 1867. His name is spelled in various records with or without the k. Simpson’s, Mexico: Mother of Towns reports that he attended Miss Hattie Baker’s small, select school held in the front parlor of the Bakers’ Church Street house in Mexico. She would wear a little shawl over her shoulders and sit in a Boston rocker. Frederick’s younger brother Harry also attended her school. Frederick played the clarinet according to family photos. Frederick graduated from the Mexico Academy.

Frederick married Lillie Becker on October 31, 1889, at her parents’ house. According to their son Elmore, Lillie was the older daughter of the family across the street. The Mexico Independent reported that the wedding was a most enjoyable occasion…. The bride and groom are both well-known and very highly esteemed for their sterling worth. Their son Albert was born on September 6, 1893, and baptized June 10, 1894. They moved to Dolgeville, New York, in 1894, where Frederick started a dry goods store: F.R. Stone & Co.

Why Dolgeville? Frederick may have felt that Mexico had enough dry goods businesses with his father, George, and uncles, Benjamin and Samuel, operating such businesses, and he very likely had heard about the economic boom in Dolgeville. How did he learn of Dolgeville? I don’t know, but news about prosperity travels.

Dolgeville hadn’t always been Dolgeville. Brockett’s Bridge was located on the East Canada Creek east of Utica and north of the Mohawk River. Most of the following material can be found in Michael Cooney’s brief biography of Alfred Dolge, by the same name. Its residents voted to rename their town in 1887, in honor of Alfred Dolge, who was instrumental in putting the town on the map. Dolge (1848-1922) was a German who immigrated to New York City and made his living importing piano parts. He went on to become a piano maker, entrepreneur, social thinker, innovator, and philanthropist. He was attracted to the Brockett’s Bridge area because of the availability of spruce wood for pianos and its strong water supply. By 1895, when the Stones moved to Dolgeville, the town had been renamed and boasted many supporting businesses, electricity, an Edison dynamo (1879), school (1887), Turnhalle theater (1894), and railroad (1892). Dolge instituted pension and profit-sharing plans that were ahead of their times. The pension plan was a precursor to our Social Security. The profit-sharing plan was built on the premise that the workers should be recipients of the financial rewards of their labors. Dolge built his felt business and eventually sold it to the Daniel Green brothers who made Comfy footwear. We have photographs of the Green factory from the early twentieth century. Adirondack baseball bats were manufactured in town too.

Frederick apparently sought to cash in on this prosperity when his family moved there. However, Dolge’s dream came to a screeching halt, literally in one week in April 1898. Due to various circumstances, Dolge lost everything, relocated to Southern California, and started all over again. Frederick remained in Dolgeville, weathering the economic effects of Dolge’s departure. Frederick’s son Elmore was born in 1897, not in Dolgeville, but in Mexico. Lillie had returned to Mexico to be with her mother when he was born.

Frederick’s store was renamed Stones Folks with an expanded inventory, I believe when his brother Ernest became a partner in 1895. We possess many marketing postcards that they received from vendors. Frederick served as the clerk of the church session. He was a delegate to two national assemblies for the Presbyterian Church, in Des Moines, Iowa (1906), and Atlantic City, New Jersey (1916). We also possess a few postcards that he mailed home. One postcard was a welcome from the Westminster Men’s League of the First Presbyterian Church in Clinton, Iowa. The 1916 postcard of The Breakers Hotel in Atlantic City is a picture of what it would look like when construction was completed. It was still called the Rudolf when the postcard was sent to Elmore in Dolgeville. On the postcard, Frederick marked the entrance