William Stone (attorney)

William Stone
Born	September 4, 1842 East Machias, Maine, United States
Died	May 22, 1897 New York, New York, United States

William Stone (September 4, 1842 – May 22, 1897) was a nineteenth-century Union Army officer, passionate Unionist, dedicated Freedmen’s Bureau agent, self-educated attorney, and Attorney General of South Carolina during a turbulent era.

William Stone was born on September 4, 1842 in East Machias, Maine. He was the son of Laura Poor Stone, an early anti slavery activist, and Thomas Treadwell Stone, a prominent Unitarian pastor, fiery abolitionist, and Transcendentalist. William’s great grandfather, Thomas Treadwell, fought as a minuteman at Bunker Hill. Laura Poor Stone’s brother, Henry Varnum Poor, was one of the founders of the financial rating firm, Standard and Poor’s.

William spent his early boyhood in Salem, Massachusetts, and later in Bolton, Massachusetts, to which his family relocated after his father’s militant anti-slavery sermons led his resentful Salem parishioners to reject him.

The Stone family finances were largely exhausted by Harvard University educations for William’s two older brothers. William, however, took full advantage of the limited educational resources available in a small New England town. During this period he adopted strong anti-slavery views of his own. He became a consummate diarist beginning with a boyhood diary in 1858, continuing with a detailed wartime diary 1861 through 1865, and concluding with a comprehensive journal of his key role in reconstruction of the post-war South 1866-1868.

His interest in the greater world in which he lived is typified by a letter to his father in late 1860 in which he predicted Lincoln’s election as president. His 18-year-old crystal ball proved murky, however, when in the same letter he predicted with all the assurance of youthful bravado that the “fire eaters of South Carolina” would never follow through on their threat to secede if Lincoln were elected.

...
Wikipedia