Person:Thomas Stone (32)

Information on Thomas Stone

From "Kentucky: A History of the State", by Perrin, Battle & Kniffin, 6th ed.,1887, Spencer Co.:

THE STONE FAMILY.

Thomas Stone was born in Spencer County, August 13, 1806, and died September 10, 1873. He was through life a merchant trader and farmer, and amassed a handsome fortune, owning about 800 acres of land, servants and money. He was a gentleman in the truest sense, public spirited, honorable, generous and courteous. He was one of the nine children of William Stone and Rebecca Erskine, who immigrated from Loudoun County, Va., to Nelson County, Ky., the latter part of 1700. The Stones came from England the latter part of 1600, settling in northern Virginia and southern Maryland. They were noted for strong practical sense, energy, pride of character, and love of justice. They espoused the cause of the colonies, one of them, Thomas Stone, being one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. They were Episcopalians in religion. The Erskines were also from England, and settled first in Maryland. They were people of wealth, and were devout Catholics. Thomas Stone, the subject of our sketch, married, February 25, 1835, Sallie A. May, who was born in Spencer County, Ky., November 28, 1814. Her father, Humphrey May, was born in 1782 in Pittsylvania County, Va., and was of Welsh extraction. He came to Kentucky at the age of seven years, and was the fourth of eleven children born to Gabriel and Susanna (Stokes) May. Sylvanus Stokes and Sallie Allen (a sister to Col. Ethan Allen, the hero of Ticonderoga) were the parents of Susanna Stokes May. She and her husband and seven children came to Kentucky in 1788. They were Episcopalians. The Mays were people of fine sense, sobriety and great amiability of temper. Humphrey May's wives were Elizabeth and Margaret Connelly, the daughters of John Connelly and Frances Brent, who immigrated from Fluvana [sic] County, Va., to Nelson County, Ky., in 1805. The Connellys were of Irish extraction, and were people of great wit and humor, and fine literary tastes. The mother of John Connelly was a Miss Edwards. John Connelly's son, Dr. Henry Connelly, was twice governor of New Mexico. Besides the above mentioned John Connelly had six other children, all of high respectability. The Brents were a fine old Scotch family, much given to high living and sporting. Thomas and Sallie (May) Stone had eight children: William H., a farmer and trader, who married Maggie Green, of Spencer County; Mary (deceased); Eli D. (deceased); Sallie E., who married Searles Mars Lewis, of Broomfield [sic], a skillful physician, and who served with distinction as a regimental surgeon in the Confederate Army; Annie R., who married her cousin, Davis Stone, a large farmer in Nelson County; Martha E., who married Rowland Cox, a fine civil engineeer and a farmer from Daviess County; James B., a farmer and trader in Spencer County, and Thomas, a practitioner and professor in a medical college in New York City.