Author: William O. Stone
In 2002 the Anne Phillips Chapter of the DAR honored my 5th generation grandfather with a patriotic grave-marking service in Burkeville just west of the City of Montgomery, AL. I was asked at that time to be the keynote speaker for the patriotic event and it was at the 2002 ceremony in which I was first introduced to members of the Sons of the American Revolution who formally asked me to join this most prestigious organization.
This is a very short synopsis of my patriotic ancestor and lineage grandfather.

Warren Stone, the 2"d son of John Stone and Mary Warren was born on the 5000 acre Estate of Poynton Manor located in Lake Charles Maryland. The estate was originally given to William Stone by King George of England when Lord Baltimore appointed him the 3rd Proprietary Governor of Maryland.
Warren was raised and educated into country life and at the earliest age taught the essentials of operating a family farm. This would serve him well in later life after the American Revolution and his relocation to Alabama.

The family retained a modest means of wealth even though the family estate was very large and divided among the larger assemblies of the various families. John and Mary Stone's marriage produced 4 children, 3 sons, Barton Mathew, Warren, Barton Warren and a daughter Elizabeth all of who survived into adulthood.
In fact Barton Warren, the youngest of the 3 sons of John and Mary was the grandfather of a very famous river boat pilot of Hannibal, Missouri whose name was Captain William Bowen.

Most all of you know Captain William Bowen of Hannibal, Missouri but by another literary name of Americana as the infamous Tom Sawyer, in the book entitled The Adventures of Tom Sawyer written by William's lifelong and childhood friend, Samuel Clements.
In 1778 John Stone died in the early fighting of the American Revolution. It was thought his demise was due to contracted disease while serving his country. After John's death Mary Warren Stone thought it best to move her family to the Piedmont near the northern border of North Carolina to seek a safer environment in which to raise her family during harsh and revolutionary times.

However, in late Feb of 1781 her farm was overrun and vandalized by British Soldiers who
stole food and valuables and began a systematic burning of homes and farms in and around
her community. We know from the writings of the youngest son in later life the family

muskets, cows and mules were taken by her sons and hidden to prevent the British from stealing them.
It was in early March of that year Mary Stone instructed her two oldest sons, Barton Mathew, age 17 and Warren, age 14-1/2 to take the 2 family muskets and go and join Nathaniel Greene's forces to fight against the British Army.

The brothers did join Greene's forces as citizen soldiers and were on the left flank of the 2" line of Americans defending their position on the clear and cold morning of March 15, 1781 at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse. They both fought bravely and they both survived the battle and the American Revolution.
The Battle of Guilford Courthouse was the pivotal battle in the Southern Campaign of the war which set the stage for the regions liberation from enemy occupation and impelled Lord Cornwallis to take the ill-fated road for the British Army that led to his final defeat at Yorktown, Virginia seven months later.
The Stone brothers moved southward after the war into Georgia and eventually into the Alabama Territory. They both obtained wealth with large farms in Georgia. Warren married Martha Bedell and began raising a large family.

The marriage eventually produced 10 children all of whom came in wagons as part of the infamous "Georgia Crowd" of the Broad River Settlement. This is the group of early settlers led by William Wyatt Bibb which settled the Alabama Territory in 1817 and created the State of Alabama on December 14, 1819.
The Stone family is noted to be 1 of the first 100 families to settle Montgomery and Lowndes Counties in Alabama.