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STONE was born in Groton, Massachusetts, June 29, 1843. His parents were Warren
Fay and Mary (Williams) Stone. He prepared for college at Lawrence Academy, in his
native town, and entered our Class in September, 1860. In college, he was a member of the
Equitable fraternity and of the 'Logian Literary Society. He had the appointment of an
English oration on Junior exhibition, July, 1862. He was entitled to a second-class honor
appointment on the Commencement program, but owing to absence his name does not
appear on the program. By recommendation of the faculty, in 1864, when a chapter of the
Phi Beta Kappa fraternity was organized at Williams, Stone was made a member by reason
of his title to the above rank.
After leaving college, Stone removed to Warren, Warren County, Pennsylvania, and
was principal of the Warren Union School for two years, 1863-64, and superintendent of the
schools of Warren County and principal of Erie Academy for one year, 1865. In connection
with this school work, he also studied law with Hon. L. D. Wetmore and Hon. J. R. Clark,
of Warren. He was admitted to the bar in September, 1866, and began the practice of law
in January of the following year, and has been in the practice of his profession ever since.
He has also indulged in farming for many years and has been following lumber, oil, and
other business in order to obtain the means wherewith to meet the expenses of his farming
ventures.
During the larger portion of the time since we left college, our classmate has lived
in Warren, where he took up his abode in August, 1863, except a few months of 1865 in
Erie, Pennsylvania, and portions of 1865 and 1866, raising cotton in Mississippi, where,
doubtless, was the sink hole that swallowed some of the profits of his lumber and coal
mining schemes. From 1891 to 1899, Stone owned and maintained a winter residence in
Washington, District of Columbia, during the time he was representative of his congressional
district.
Stone has been in public life during most of the years since graduation. Beside the
positions which he held in connection with the schools of Warren County as principal and
superintendent, for nine years he was a director on the school board of his home county,
and for three of those years president of the board; also a member of the borough council
three years. He has been a member of the state government of Pennsylvania for twelve
years; as member of the Legislature, in the House, 1870-71, in the Senate, 1877-78;
lieutenant governor, 1879-83; secretary of the commonwealth, 1887-90.
In 1890, our classmate was elected to Congress as a representative of his district. In
the beginning of the fifty-second Congress, when the fight for free silver was at its fiercest
tide, Stone was appointed on the committee of coinage, weights and measures, and
remained on that committee eight years. He succeeded Bland, of Missouri, as chairman and
served as such four years. This position necessarily resulted in Stone's giving thorough study
and attention to the subjects within the jurisdiction of that committee. These topics, and
especially the silver question, were subjects of vital and sometimes intense interest. On my
desk are reports of his committee, drawn up by himself when he was its chairman, and
speeches made on the floor of the House in advocacy of the strong positions taken by the
committee. The silver question is an old issue, and, it is to be hoped, a dead issue. That
we stand - so far as the basis of our national monetary system of currency, its unit of
measurement, is concerned - on a solid foundation, where all the great powers of the world
stand, is due in no small degree to the work and devotion of our classmate, Charles Warren
Stone, and he well deserves recognition on the part of our Alma Mater by receiving the
highest honor she can confer.
Still farther does Stone deserve honor of his Class and his college for his stand in
behalf of honest, honorable, and unshackled political life in his adopted State. In 1898, a
strong effort was made by the better portion of the dominant party in the State to break
away from the corrupt forces that were strongly intrenched in the councils of the party.
Stone was asked, and he consented, to be the candidate for the nomination for governor in
the interests of this movement. He went into the convention with one hundred and
sixty-five votes, one hundred and eighty-three being necessary for a choice. He would have
carried the body easily but for the fact that, a few hours before the balloting, both United
States senators, which really meant one, and the machinery of the party organization
appeared in opposition and won the day. Defeat by this element was more honorable than
surrender to it would have been. Nor could it have been otherwise. Stone had to be true
to his New England principles, born and bred in him, to his Alma Mater and her master
mind of our college days, who taught men to stand on their own feet, to think for
themselves, to be true to their honest convictions and their worthiest ideals.
After Stone left Congress, he was much shattered in health from overwork, and for
the sake of an entire change of climate and environment, he spent much of his time for the
next two years, 1899-1901, on the Pacific coast, largely in the State of Washington and in
the timber forests of that region, with much benefit physically.
Stone has held official positions in the following corporations: president of the West
Coast Lumber Company and the Cumberland Coal Company; director of the Warren
Savings Bank, Union Lumber Company, Washington Improvement Company, Enterprise
Lumber Company, Moore Lumber Company, etc. He has held various offices in civil, social,
charitable, and other organizations; is president of the Warren County Historical Society;
trustee of the Pennsylvania State College, of the Sugar Grove Seminary, etc.
He is a member of the following clubs and societies: Union League, Philadelphia;
Manufacturers' Club, Philadelphia; the American Academy of Sociology and Political
Science; and the National Geographic Society. He is a member of the Sons of the
Revolution.
On the 30th of January, 1868, in Erie, Pennsylvania, Stone married Miss Elizabeth
Moorhead, daughter of Thomas and Rebecca (Barnett) Moorhead, of Erie. They have had
six children, all living:
Grace Mary, born January 10, 1869; married April 6, 1892, to W. H. Allen, Esq., of
Warren; has two children: Bertram Stone Allen and Audrey Allen.
Annie Isabel, born March 25, 1870; married to Joseph H. DeFrees, October 29, 1902.
Ralph Warren, born July 16, 1872; graduated at Haverford College, 1892, and from
the Georgetown University Law School, City of Washington, with degree of Master of Laws.
He is now practicing law in the same office with his father in Warren. April 10, 1900,
married May Ruland, and they have one child, Warren Moorhead Stone, born July 3, 1901.
Elizabeth Moorhead, born October 30, 1874; married to Horace Allen Crary, of
Warren, January 8, 1902.
John Lyon, born December 25, 1879; graduated at Haverford College, 1902.
Clara Rebecca, born May 4, 1882.
Source:
Class of Sixty-Three Williams College Fortieth Year Report, by
the Class Historian, Thomas Todd Printer, Boston, 1903
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