Thomas Treadwell Stone
| Thomas Treadwell Stone | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 9, 1801 Waterford, Maine, United States |
| Died | November 1895 Bolton, Massachusetts, United States |
| Occupation | Theologian |
Thomas Treadwell Stone (February 9, 1801 – November, 1895) was an American Unitarian pastor, abolitionist, and Transcendentalist.
Thomas Treadwell Stone was born on February 9, 1801 in Waterford, Maine to Solomon Stone and Hepzibah Treadwell Stone. His maternal grandfather, Thomas Treadwell, served with the Minutemen and was at the battle of Bunker Hill with Colonel William Prescott's regiment. At that time Waterford was an area of new and sparsely populated farmland, and Solomon Stone made his living as a farmer. Thomas attended Bridgton Academy and graduated from Bowdoin College in 1820.
Thomas married Laura Elizabeth Poor in January 1825 in Andover, Maine . Laura's brother Henry Varnum Poor was a financial analyst and founder of H.V. and H.W. Poor Co., which later evolved into the financial research and analysis bellwether, Standard & Poor's. Thomas and Laura's marriage produced 7 sons (Thomas, Walter, Henry, Lincoln, Alfred, George, and William) and five daughters (two Lauras, Mary, Martha, and Elizabeth). After studying theology and performing missionary work in Oxford County, Maine, he was ordained in at the Orthodox Congregational Church in Andover, a traditional Congregational church. In this most northwesterly town then organized in Maine, he served under a Dr. Tappan from 1824 to 1830. From 1830 to 1832 he headed Bridgton Academy in Maine. Among his students was John Albion Andrew, the radical abolitionist, who would become Governor of Massachusetts during the Civil War years.
From 1832 to 1846 Stone and his family resided in East Machias, Maine,where he was pastor of the Union Church. As seen by his writing and lectures during this time, Stone became an early convert to abolitionism. As early as the 1830s Thomas Stone was exhorting his congregation that slavery was a national problem. "It was the duty of all Christians", according to Stone, "to do our utmost in resisting [slavery], through the Spirit of Christ." East Machias was home to many intellectuals at that time, and his church members included many who later took on theological leadership positions in New England educational institutions. Among them were Samuel Harris (President of Bowdoin College and Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School), Roswell Dwight Hitchcock (President, Union Theological Seminary), Ezra Abbott (Harvard Divinity School), George Harris (Andover Theological School), and Arlo Bates (professor at MIT). Stone lectured for the Massachusetts England Anti-slavery Society, and was a delegate to the 1839 annual meeting of that group. His sermon The Martyr of Freedom, a discourse delivered at East Machias, in 1837, condemned the killing of Elijah Lovejoy, Stone's friend and an anti-slavery publisher in Illinois. Lovejoy was a Presbyterian minister editing anti-slavery newspapers in Missouri until his presses were destroyed by mobs. Lovejoy was killed during an attempt to burn his office in Alton, Illinois. In his sermon Stone urged his listeners to "proclaim the truth of slavery, not only to peers, but to the slaveholder." Slavery, he stated, not only destroys those who witness truth but the nation and slaveholder as well.
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