Stone, Daniel

Born: 1800-03-13 Vermont

Died: 1860-11-25 New Jersey

Flourished: Sangamon County, Illinois

Daniel Stone was a lawyer, state legislator, and circuit court judge. Stone matriculated to Middlebury College, graduating in 1818. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio to read law. In December 1824, he married Augusta M. Farnsworth, with whom he had five children. Stone earned admission to the Ohio bar in 1825. That same year, he served as aide-de-camp to Governor Jeremiah Morrow. Stone practiced law in Cincinnati for a few years, during which time he was also a member of the Ohio General Assembly. In 1832, Stone and his family moved to Springfield, Illinois, where he earned admission to the bar. Stone also became involved in the location of the state capitol, presided over a public meeting of Springfield citizens in January 1834 regarding moving the state capitol from Vandalia, to Springfield. In 1836, Sangamon County voters elected Stone, a Whig, to the Illinois House of Representatives. Along with Abraham Lincoln, Stone was part of the "Long Nine". While in the Illinois General Assembly, Stone received appointment as judge of the Jo Daviess Circuit Court and resigned from the Illinois House of Representatives in 1837. After this appointment, Stone moved his family to Galena, Illinois. In 1838, Stone made a decision in the case of Spragins v. Houghton regarding the vote of an unnaturalized Irish immigrant that caused the dominant party in the Illinois General Assembly, the Democrats, to reorganize the courts. In 1841, the Illinois General Assembly made the Supreme Court judges the acting circuit court judges, which caused Stone to step down as a circuit court judge. In 1843, Stone moved back to Cincinnati. In 1850, he was residing in Cincinnati's Second Ward and practicing law. In the 1850s, Stone and his family moved to Westfield, New Jersey, where he was residing upon his death.

Sangamo Journal (Springfield, IL), 11 January 1834, 3:1; Edgar J. Wiley, comp., Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Middlebury College (Middlebury, VT: Middlebury College, 1917), 49; John Carroll Power and S. A. Power, History of the Early Settlers of Sangamon County, Illinois (Springfield, IL: Edwin A. Wilson, 1876), 690; Past and Present of the City of Springfield and Sangamon County, Illinois (Chicago: S.J. Clarke, 1904), 10; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac, 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 206; History of Sangamon County (Chicago: Inter-State, 1881), 91-92, 281; An Act Reorganizing the Judiciary of the State of Illinois; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Ward 2, Cincinnati, Hamilton County, OH, 300.