William Leete Stone, Sr.

William Leete Stone
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William Leete Stone (20 April 1792 New Paltz, New York (or 1793 Esopus, New York) – 15 August 1844 Saratoga Springs, New York), known as Colonel Stone, was an influential journalist, publisher, author, and public official in New York City. His name also appears as "Leet".

His father, William, was a soldier of the Revolution and afterward a Presbyterian clergyman, who was a descendant of Gov. William Leete. His mother was Tamsin Graves. The son moved to Sodus, New York, in 1808, where he assisted his father in the care of a farm. The country was at that time a wilderness, and the adventures of young Stone during his early pioneer life formed material that he afterward wrought into border tales.

At the age of seventeen, he became a printer in the office of the Cooperstown Federalist, and in 1813 he was editor of the Herkimer American, with Thurlow Weed as his journeyman. Subsequently he edited the Northern Whig at Hudson, New York, and in 1817 the Albany Daily Advertiser. In 1818 he succeeded Theodore Dwight in the editorship of the Hartford Mirror. While at Hartford, Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright (afterward bishop), Samuel G. Goodrich (Peter Parley), Isaac Toucey, and himself alternated in editing a literary magazine called The Knights of the Round Table. At Hudson, he also edited The Lounger, a literary periodical which was noted for its pleasantry and wit.

In 1821 he succeeded Zachariah Lewis as editor of the New York Commercial Advertiser, becoming at the same time one of its proprietors, which place he held for the rest of his life. As such, he was a defendant in a famous suit brought by the novelist James Fenimore Cooper for criticisms that had appeared in the Commercial Advertiser on that novelist's Home as Found and the History of the Navy.

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