Notes on the
Stones of Tennessee
by Neil Allen Bristow
Before he left Albemarle County, young Thomas Stone married on New Year's Day 1802 Charlotte Dalton, daughter of William Dalton and Rachel Harris.1 At the time of his father's will, 21 July 1812, he was living in neighboring Orange County.2 As Thomas Stone, Jr. he appears in Albemarle County records as late as 4 April 1812.3 When Thomas moved to Middle Tennessee from Virginia is not clear, but judging by the birthplaces given by his children in later censuses, the trip took place after 1815.4 The History of Sumner County places him among the property owners near the ferry across the Cumberland, but does not give a date.5 He does appear on the tax lists for 1819 and 1820 charged with 300 acres on Belotes Bend. (Earlier references in Sumner tax lists seem to be to another person of the same name.) His name also is in the census at that location from 1820 in close proximity to William Caviness and several Bruces.6
Thomas and Charlotte were accompanied to their new home by neighbors and kinfolk from Albemarle, including Daltons and Harrises, though who was the pioneer and in what order the families migrated down the Great Warrior Path and over the Cumberland Trace has yet to be discovered.7
Charlotte died before 1830 and Thomas married for a second time on 25 Jul 1830 to Matilda H. Walker (b 1803?), a fellow Virginian. They had four children in the eleven years before his death. He left an unsettled estate, and Matilda remarried three years later.8 Although his will was filed for probate promptly, and the sale of his personal property took place as he stipulated, the settlement dragged on and his widow had to bring suit a few years later.9 The children of his first marriage and their descendants mostly have been traced, but those from his second marriage disappear after 1850, along with their stepfather, James Wilson.10
A few years before the younger Thomas Stone died in 1841, his sons Granville and Robert and daughter Sidney moved down to Fayette County in southwestern Tennessee not far from Memphis, and several of his older children were living in Poinsett County, Arkansas.11
Granville P. Stone (1804-1851) married 17 Jun 1826 in Sumner County Tabitha Ena Caviness (1810-1870), daughter of William Caviness and Mary Bruce.12 He served on a jury in Fayette County in 1833 and as Postmaster at Sandy Springs, June 1836 to March 1838.13
Their eldest daughter, Mary C. Stone (1827?-aft 1880), married in Fayette County, 20 Dec 1842, Washington L. Rowe, a young Virginian who was an overseer for Benjamin H. Porter. Washington died unexpectedly around 1856, leaving Mary with three young children.14
Not long after her first husband's death, she married (exact date and place unknown) Alfred W. Campbell (who was the widower of her first cousin, Sarah Frances Giles), and moved from Fayette County to the Cuba neighborhood of Shelby County, where she raised her three Rowe children together with the two Campbell boys.15 Her new husband became guardian ad litum for the Rowe children and was not reluctant to charge Washington Rowe's estate for their upkeep, tuition, and medical care.16 Alfred died in 1863 and the Campbell family is missing from Tennessee in 1870, but a Mrs M C Campbell was counted among the members of the Cuba Cumberland Presbyterian Church in 1874, along with a William Campbell, who may have been her son. By 1880, however, she was living in Fayette County with her youngest daughter, Virginia Rowe Farley.17
Marshall Stone (b 1829?) left little record.
Echoing events in a previous generation, there were multiple marriages into a neighboring family:
Lucinda Frances Stone (1831-1921) married 7 Jul 1847 Sterling Farley (1825-1897), son of John B. and Eliza Vaughn Farley from North Carolina.18
The following year Minerva Ena Stone (1834?-1852?) married 4 Oct 1848 Sterling's brother, William Farley (1826-1889), but she died within a few years, leaving a daughter, Sarah. William then married 15 Dec 1854 Minerva's sister, the widowed Juliana Franklin Stone (1836-1929), whose first husband, William A. Baw, had died not long after their marriage on 13 Jan 1852.19 William and Juliana remained in Fayette County.20 After his death she applied for a Confederate Pension from the State of Tennessee.21
Robert Clark Stone (1840-1914) married twice. His first wife is known only as a Miss Thomas. In 1873 he married Maryetta Virginia Morris (1855-1922).22
William Thomas Stone married about 1868 Mollie E. Vaughn.
Granville and Tabitha's youngest child, Jacob Hare Stone (1842-1900) married 23 Feb 1875 Martha Gaines Booker (1856-1945), daughter of Peter Stratton and Elizabeth (Morris) Booker from Virginia.23
Thomas H. Stone (b 1806) may have joined his siblings in Arkansas, but soon disappeared from records.
Frances Hood Stone (b 1809?) had a brief marriage (17 Apr 1824) to Middleton Head of Sumner County, but he died soon after.24 She then married 23 Dec 1828 William Thrower and they lived for a while in Kentucky before moving to Poinsett County, Arkansas. Descendants lived in northeastern Arkansas and southeastern Missouri.25
Sidney Stone (1811-1867) married William Hodge Giles (1802?-1869) and moved to Fayette County, Tennessee, before settling in nearby Shelby County, north of Memphis. They had eleven children.26
Samuel Dalton Stone (1813?-1881?) married around 1841 the widowed Matilda Hall. They also settled in Poinsett County.27 A sketch of his youngest son, Samuel G. Stone (b 1859), provides some information on the family.28
Moranda A. Stone (1815-1884) married 2 Oct 1830 John Wesley Shaver (1809-1883). They moved to Arkansas not long after their marriage, settling in 1844 on the Piney Fork River in what became Sharp County. John became a merchant in Evening Shade, an occupation followed by some of his children.29
Robert Harris Stone (1819-1859) married 28 Sep 1843 Emily Shaver (1828-1870) and soon after joined his siblings in Poinsett County.30 His eldest son, Thomas Ashley Stone (1846-1939) left a sketch.31
James M. Stone (1820?-1881) married some time after his father's death Mahalia Edwards. He is hard to find for the next few decades, and is last seen in 1880 living with his sister Moranda and brother-in-law John Wesley Shaver (a first cousin of Emily and William Shaver), in Sharp County, Arkansas. He was identified as a stone cutter. Items in the Sharp County Recorder identified his residence as Nashville and noted his passing 11 Apr 1881 at the age of 62.32
Matilda C. Stone (1822?-1869) married about 1842 William Ashley Shaver (1819?-1875) who was Emily Shaver's brother. They lived on the Poinsett-Cross County line.33 Her son Alonzo C. Shaver, left a sketch.34
The widowed Matilda and her younger second husband, James M. Wilson (b 1809?), remained in Sumner through 1850, where they were counted with the four youngest Stone children, Rdward L. (b 1834?), Benjamin (b 1836?), Sarah W. (b 1838?), and Lucinda (b 1840?).35 Sarah W. married 29 Mar 1854 William H. Dickenson in Sumner, and Lucinda A. Stone wed A. M. Haralston 2 Feb 1867.36 Nothing more is known of their mother and siblings.
More details on these individuals and some of their descendants can be found in a database of the Stones and their kin on WorldConnect.
Notes:
1 John Vogt, Albemarle County Marriages, 1780-1850 (Athens, GA: Iberian Publishing, 1991), 301.
2 "I will to my son Thos Stone one hundred seventy acres where he now lives in Orange County." [Albemarle Wills 5: 278.] This fact calls into question the usual assumption that his elder children were born in Albemarle County.
3 Witnessing a land transfer from his parents to his brother Henry. [Albemarle Deeds 18: 36.]
4 Moranda C. was born in Virginia, 20 Feb 1815, and the next child, Robert Harris, was born 15 Jul 1819 in Tennessee. The four-year gap suggests there may have been another child who died young.
5 Walter T. Durham, Old Sumner: A History of Sumner County, Tennessee, from 1805 to 1861 (Nashville: Parthenon Press, 1972), 29.
6 The 1820 entries for Thomas Stone are ambiguous. On page 145 were William Caviness (2 1 0 0 0 1 / 2 1 0 1 0), two Robert Bruces (0 0 1 0 0 0 / 0 1 0 1 1) and (0 3 1 2 1 0 / 0 0 2 0 1), the first of a younger generation. In 1830 Thomas Stone was listed at the bottom of page 174 (with data of 0 0 2 1 0 0 0 1 / 0 1 0 1 1), followed on page 175 by his son Granville P. (1 0 0 0 2 / 1 0 0 0 1) and Granville's father-in-law, William Caviness (0 1 2 0 0 0 0 1 / 0 0 0 2). By 1840 the data on page 360 show his advancing age (1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 / 1 0 0 0 1 1) and his second family. His older children and in-laws had scattered.
7 A number of Daltons show up in early censuses, along with a greater number of Harrises. Charlotte's father, William Dalton, is said to have died in neighboring Smith County in 1819. Somewhat later Granville Stone was named in the will of his aunt Sarah (Dalton) Hubbert, 13 Aug 1835 [Sumner Wills 2: 198]. Sarah was the widow of William Hubbert who had died almost ten years before, his estate probated in Feb 1826 [Sumner Loose Estates #107]. Sally and William Hubbert had been married in 1813. [Deane Porch, Sumner County, Tennessee, Marriage Records, 1787-1838 (Franklin, TN: Louise G. Lynch, 1979), 117]. William's first wife, Esther Cochran, was the great aunt of Granville's wife, Tabitha Caviness, so the connections were manifold.
8 To James M Wilson, 8 May 1844. Era W. Stinson and Elizabeth Sue Spurlock, Sumner County, Tennessee, Marriages, 1839-1875 (Franklin, TN: Louise G. Lynch, 1979), 140.
9 An abstract of Thomas' will appears in Shirley Wilson, Sumner County Will Abstracts (Hendersonville, TN: author, 1987), 100. The document was dated 9 Sep 1840, with a codicil of 15 Jul 1841. (See a transcript.) The sale on 14 Aug 1841 netted $629.70, most of the items being purchased by the widow and son James. Also buying were Thomas A Bruce and Moses Walker. [Sumner Estates 1215.] Two suits emerged by 1845, one filed for his son, Edward L Stone (E L Stone v Parker, Loose suits 974); and another by his widow (James M & Matilda Wilson v. F L McDaniel et al., Loose suits #10458). Also McDaniel & Dodd v Thomas Stone, Decd, #12550). The last suit names Thomas' adult children and some of their places of residence. The records are confusing and incomplete. See Shirley Wilson, Sumner County, Tennessee, Index to the Loose Records: 1786 to 1930 (Hendersonville, TN: Richley Enterprises, 1988), 278.
10 There is a possibility they may have moved up the hill from the Cumberland into Kentucky.
11 The suit of McDaniel & Dodd v Thomas Stone Decd, 17 Feb 1845 (cited above) lists sons Thomas H, Samuel D, and Robert H, and daughter Marinda A E, wife of John W Shaver, as residents of Poinsett County, Arkansas., and Granville of Fayette. Frances and William Thrower's residence is blank, but they were also in Poinsett.
12 1850 Census, Fayette County, Tennessee, 331, 8 Nov 1850. 11th CD. Family 1352.
13 Sources for the family of Granville P. Stone include William S. Farley, "The Stone Family" and Nellie Stone Bowling, "Granville P. Stone" as well as Margaret Louise Stone Irwin, "Stone" History of Fayette County, 210-211, and also items on the Farleys on page 69, as well as notes by Mrs Bowling and Mrs Irwin in the Stone file at the Tennessee Genealogical Society, Memphis.
14 His antecedents, other than his birth state, are not known. Although the enumerator recorded his name in 1850 as "Wm. L. Rowe," all other sources give his name as Washington, and the latter name recurs among his descendants. Porter, a native of North Carolina, served as administrator of the estate.
15 Sarah was the daughter of Mary's aunt Sidney Stone and William Hodge Giles (see below). 1860 Census Shelby County, Tennessee, 278. "Mary C Campbell 31 keeping house TN." 4th CD, Cuba PO, family 1828.
16 The probate and guardianship records for Washington L Rowe are found in Shelby County, probably because his widow and children had moved there. The surviving documents are found in 1860 Probate Case #941. The administrator, Ben Porter, probably traveled the twenty miles or so from Fayette for court appearances once or twice a year to settle accounts. The papers mention Thomas, Virginia and Eugenia, but not Lou (Lucy Ann), so there may be a little confusion about names, complicated by Lou's marriage 3 March 1860 to Matthew Carr. In 1858 A H Claridge was paid $16.55 (-3.125 credit, net $13.425) for tuition. The same year A W Campbell charged the estate $102 board & clothing, plus $0.76 int. On 7 Feb 1859 he was paid $211.64 for 1857 and 1858. Campbell charged $73.33 Board and clothing for the year 1859. For 1860 he charged $43.33 Board and clothing. Both amounts were paid 7 Aug 61.
On 3 Apr 1860 A W Campbell appeared to renew his guardian's bond. F T Leftwich and George W Durham, were his sureties for a bond of $6,000. The next month, 28 May 1860, the estate was hit with a bill for $7.70 for recovering "Girl Lenticky Runaway" indicating that the Rowes owned at least one slave.
17 1880 Census Fayette County, Tennessee, 364C. "Mary Campbell, 49 serving TN VA TN." 9th CD, ED 25, family 358. Her age slipped a few years and her relationship was overlooked. Perhaps the information came from a neighbor.
18 1860 Census, Fayette County, Tennessee, 482. 10th Civil District. Family 1047. 1870 Census, Fayette County, Tennessee, 370. Colliersville PO, Family 95. 1900 Census, Fayette County, Tennessee, 232A. ED 19, 11th Civil District. Family 267. William S. Farley, "The Farley family" and Emily Murphey Akin, "Sterling Farley" History of Fayette County, 69.
19 In 1850 the 24-year-old William, born in Virginia, was working as an overseer for Alfred Green. 1850 Census, Fayette County, 349. 135h Civil District. Family 1590.
20 1860 Census Fayette County, Tennessee, 481, 27 Aug 1860. 11th Civil District, Family 1021. (Recorded second time on 482 as family 1047.) 1870 Census Fayette County, Tennessee, 395, 23 Aug 1870. 11th Civil District, Family 149.
21 Confederate Pension Application #W3308: Farley, William. Farley, Julia F.
(http://www.wdbj.net/~wdbj/fayette/pensions/confedpension.htm)
22 1850 Census, Fayette County, Tennessee, 331, 8 Nov 1850. 11th Civil District. Family 1352. 1860 Census Fayette County, Tennessee, 481, 27 Aug 1860. 11th Civil District, Family 1026. (In household of E A Swift.) 1870 Census Fayette County, Tennessee, 395, 23 Aug 1870. 11th Civil District, Family 149. (In household of William Farley with brother Jake.) 1880 Census, Fayette County, Tennessee, 392A. ED 26. 11th Civil District. Family 445. 1900 Census, Fayette County, Tennessee, 174B. ED 15, 9th 11th Civil District. Family 133.
23 1850 Census, Fayette County, Tennessee, 331, 8 Nov 1850. 11th Civil District. Family 1352. 1870 Census Fayette County, Tennessee, 395, 23 Aug 1870. 11th Civil District, Family 149. (In household of William Farley with brother Robert.)
24 Middleton, son of Henry and Elizabeth Sandford Head, is buried in the Head family cemetery, 2.2 miles north of Castalian Springs. Margaret C. Snider and Joan H. Yorgason, Sumner County, Tennessee, Cemetery Records (Owensboro, KY: McDowell Publications, 1981), 11. "Middleton / Head / son of / Henry Head / 18 Aug 1802 / 16 Sep 1825."
25 1850 Census, Poinsett County, Arkansas, 208, 22 Oct 1850. Mitchell Twp, family 126; 1860 Census, Poinsett County, Arkansas, 587, 25 Jul 1860. Harrisburg PO. Family 386.
26 My thanks to Mary Stuart, who has compiled much well-researched information on the Giles family.
27 1860 Census, Poinsett County, Arkansas, 582. Cold Water PO, family 352; 1870 Census, Poinsett County, Arkansas, 251. Harrisburg PO, Family 94; 1880 Census, Poinsett County, Arkansas, 503C. Bolivar and Greenfield Twp.
28 "Samuel G. Stone" Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northeast Arkansas (Chicago: Goodspeed, 1889), 612-613. Read a transcription. (Samuel was Maltilda's fourth husband.)
29 1850 Census, Lawrence County, Arkansas, 194, 9 Oct 1850. Piney Fork Twp. Family 59; 1860 Census, Lawrence County, Arkansas, 206, 30 Jul 1860. Piney Fork Twp, Family 690; 1880 Census, Sharp County, Arkansas, 136A. Evening Shade.
30 1850 Census, Poinsett County, Arkansas, 215. Bolivar Twp, Family 235. Emily and the children are found in 1860 Census, Poinsett County, Arkansas, 591. Bolivar Twp, Family 414.
31 "T. A. Stone" Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northeast Arkansas, 611-612. Read a transcription. Additional information from Gary Cooper by e-mail, 2000, includes a photo of T A Stone as old man in Confederate uniform.
32 1880 Census, Sharp County, Arkansas, 136A. Evening Shade. Desmond Walls Allen, Index to the Sharp County Record, Evening Shade, Arkansas 1877-1883 (Conway, Arkansas: Compiler, 1986), 172.
33 1850 Census, Poinsett County, Arkansas, 208. Mitchell Twp, Family 136; 1860 Census, Poinsett County, Arkansas, 565. Mitchell Twp, Family 247. Matilda's death is noted in the 1870 Census, Crawford County, Arkansas, Mortality Schedule: "M. C. Shaver, Sep 1869, white female, 44, married, POB TN, COD fever."
34 "A. C. Shaver" Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northeast Arkansas, 606-607. Read a transcription.
35 1850 Census, Sumner County, Tennessee, 149. 3rd Civil District. Family 309. There were no Wilson children.
36 Both Sarah and Lucinda being popular names of the time, it is not proven that either of these two women was a daughter of Thomas and Matilda.
