Montgomery-Talladega-Lowndes County AlArchives Biographies.....Stone, George Washington October 24, 1811 - March 11, 1894 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/al/alfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Carolyn Golowka http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00012.html#0002972 February 17, 2005, 12:16 pm Author: From "Alabama: Her History, Resources, War Record, and Public Men From 1540 to 1872: by Willis Brewer, published in 1872. George W. Stone is a leading member of the Montgomery bar. He was born in Bedford county, Virginia, October 24, 1811, and his mother was a niece of the Hon. Jabez Leftwich of Madison. His parents removed to Lincoln county, Tennessee, in 1818, and there his father was a planter in comfortable circumstances. Beginning his education in an "old field school," he ended it in a village academy. He then read law at Fayetteville, Tennessee, and was licensed in 1834. He at once came to this State, passed a few months in Coosa county, then removed to Syllacauga, Talladega county, where he practiced. Locating in the town of Talladega in 1840, he practiced in association with Hon. W. P. Chilton. On the death of Judge Eli Shortridge, August 1843, Gov. Fitzpatrick appointed Mr. Stone to the vacancy thus created on the circuit court bench, and at the meeting of the legislature he was elected for six years over Messrs. G. D. Shortridge of Shelby, S. W. Harris of Coosa, and others. He filled the responsible position till January 1849, when he resigned, and removed to Lowndes. There, at Hayneville, he was the law partner in succession of Messrs. Nathan Cook, T. J. Judge, and S. Perry NeSmith. In January 1856 he was chosen to a seat on the supreme court bench, defeating Messrs. R. C. Brickell of Madison, David Clopton of Macon, and others, and the same year came to reside in Montgomery. In this very honorable position he continued till 1865, obtaining a re-election in 1861. Since that time he has given his undivided attention to the demands of a large practice, associated in a firm with Hon. David Clopton and the late Gen. Clanton. Judge Stone is of medium highth, with well marked features, and a somewhat austere demeanor. He was learned and laborious on the bench, exhibiting both fitness and capacity for the trust. He is scrupulously honest and moral, with strong convictions, and manly courage. Few men are capable of such protracted mental labor as he bestows on the minutiae of his profession, and fewer still contribute more by their upright example to the well-being of society. He has been thrice married, first to Miss Gillespie of Tennessee, then to Miss Moore of Lowndes, and in 1866 to Mrs. Wright, a daughter of Hon. Paschal Harrison of Monroe. Capt. J. M. Mickle of the Eighteenth Alabama, who fell at Chickamauga, married his daughter. Additional Comments: George Washington Stone returned to the Supreme Court of Alabama in March 1874, having been appointed by Governor George S. Houston to fill a vacancy. In 1880 he was elected by popular vote to a full six-year term. Then in 1884 Governor Emmett O'Neal appointed him to succeed Robert Coman Brickell as chief justice, and he was elected to a six-year term in 1886. He continued in that office until his death on March 11, 1894. During his twenty-eight years on the Supreme Court, Stone wrote a total of 2,449 opinions. He also compiled the 1866 Penal Code of Alabama. With his first wife, Mary Gillespie, he had daughter Martha S. Stone, wife of John M. Mickle. They had children Mary E., Cornelia, John J., and George S. Mickle. After John's death on May 29, 1864, Martha married William C. Griffin on February 26, 1867 in Lowndes County, Alabama. They had children G. S. & Augusts Griffin. George W. Stone married second Emily Moor (no ending e) September 4, 1849 in Lowndes County. Emily was born January 10, 1828. They had George W, John G. and William J. Stone. Montgomery County, Alabama obituaries in March 1868 indicate that John G., age 4 and George W., age 8, died. However, the 1870 US Census lists George W. as age 8 and William J. as age 5, leaving a question as to the fate of which George W. died in 1868. In 1866 Judge Stone took his third wife, Mary E. Harrison Lathrop Wright. Mary was the daughter of Pascal & Elizabeth Phillips Harrison and had previously married James B. Lathrop on May 1, 1838 followed by Nathan H. Wright on June 22, 1853. These marriages took place in Lowndes County, Alabama. Mary had only one child with her husband James. Their daughter was Mary E. Lathrop. She had no children with Nathan Wright or George W. Stone. 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