Tag Archives: Sardine Stone

Family Politics: Sardine Stone and James Madison

The Hon. Sardine Stone 1768-1834

Ohio Pioneers

The Ohio Company

The Ohio Company land office – oldest building in Ohio

When I wrote about odd names in my family tree, one of the most unusual was “Sardine.”  Despite this decidedly odd name, the distinguished gentleman Sardine Stone earned the title of “The Honorable” by virtue of having been elected to several terms in the Ohio legislature. His foray into politics gives us a view of political parties under stress from war, an economic slowdown and the victory of a populist candidate. Is this sounding familiar?

I earlier told the exciting story of how Sardine joined his father in the Ohio territory.  In 1803 Ohio became a state. In preparation,  a territorial census was conducted of men over 21. It listed pioneers Sardine Stone, his father, and his brothers.They were part of the Ohio Company led by General Rufus Putnam, who founded Marietta.  The new state started with communities along the Ohio River, and slowly grew northward.

James Madison and Another War with Britain

James Madison

Portrait of President James Madison by John Vanderlyn (1775–1852) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Thomas Jefferson’s hand-picked successor was not a shoo-in the first time he ran for President in 1808.  It comes as something of a shock to read the history of the era and realize that Thomas Jefferson was widely despised by the time he left office.  Jefferson had initiated an embargo of trade that was ruining the country’s economy and endangered the election of his successor. However, as we know, James Madison, a Democratic Republican, did succeed in becoming the fourth president of the United States.

Mother taught me some nonsense to help remember the early presidents.

Will A Jolly Man Make A Jolly Visitor?

Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Adams, Jackson, Van Buren.

The next three are easy to chant: Tyler-Polk-Taylor.

I believe there is another sentence to follow, but I can’t remember it. Do you have a memory device for presidents?

Sardine Runs for Office

Ohio had  been a state for only eight years when Sardine Stone first ran for office in 1811, the third year of Madison’s term. In 1811, the patina of civilization in Ohio was shallow–most of the state was covered with forests rather than cultivated fields or towns, and the threat of Indian attack was still very real. Bears roamed north of the Ohio River until the 1830s. Sardine Stone campaigned  to represent the southern counties of Adams and Washington, along the Ohio River, in the state assembly. He represented President Madison’s Democratic Republican ticket.

Chillicothe, Ohio

Chillicothe, Ohio, First Capitol

Sardine and his running mate, the other Democratic Republican were elected to a one-year term in Ohio’s lower house of the legislature. Off they went to Zanesville, which their party had finagled to become the state capital for electoral advantage.

Soon it was election time again, and Sardine Stone ran for re-election in 1812, a presidential election year. James Madison, the standard bearer for the Democratic Republican ticket had widely fluctuating popularity depending on how relationships with Britain were faring. By the time the session started, the capital was back in Chillicothe.

The War Party

The fight against the British for Independence was vivid in the memory of many adults, and the population split as to whether the new country should engage in another war with the British.  By the time of the 1812 Presidential election a second war with the British had begun and the United States was not doing well. Naturally the president took much of the blame.

President James Madison defended the necessity of war, and presumably Sardine Stone agreed.

Democratic Republican delegates who nominated Sardine for another term in the Assembly in September 1813 passed a resolution that said

“at the present crisis when our country is beset by savages of the forest and by the civilized savages of Great Britain, it becomes the impervious duty of every good citizen to exert himself.”

However, in Ohio’s State Assembly, Sardine was dealing with more local issues. In the Ohio Assembly, focus was mainly on transportation. In the early days the task consisted of improving river transportation and bridges and later turned to railroads.

The opposition party, the Federalists, were not only opposed to the war, but also, as a party strong in the Northwest Territory, they were tired of electing Virginians as President.

Neither of these parties would survive long. People’s concerns were much different, and as focus on various issues shifted, the political parties came together, then fell apart or shifted their point of view.

Madison won the presidential electors of Ohio and his re-election bid.  The small number of electoral votes Ohio had tells the Ohio House of Representatives.

Sardine Steps Up to State Senate and Another Virginian Takes the White House

Sardine Stone was re-elected as a Representative in 1813, and after two years out of office, he was elected again in 1816, when his party’s candidate James Monroe won the Presidency.

President James Monroe

James Monroe by John Vanderlyn ,1816

After 1816, Sardine turned to the Ohio Senate and was elected first in 1817 to the office he served for three terms.

Ohio Builds a New Capitol And Monroe Re-elected

Columbus Statehouse

Columbus Statehouse

Ohio was fast becoming a “real” state, as opposed to a raw territory.  After sticking close to the Ohio River, with state officials housed at Chillicothe and briefly at Zanesville, the capitol city of Columbus was founded in 1816.  By 1820, Sardine was traveling from his home in southern Ohio to central Columbus for sessions of the state Assembly on horseback. The first stagecoach service from southern to central Ohio was established later that year.

The 1820 presidential election was particularly interesting, since the Federalist Party had disappeared, driven out of favor by their opposition to the war that American ultimately won. Without an opposition party, the Democratic Republican candidate for re-election, James Monroe, sailed to victory, even getting the support of former Federalist, and former president John Adams.

Since 2016 is a Presidential election year when both major parties have faced challenges from outsider candidates, it is sobering to look at the 1812-1824 period in our nation’s history and see how the two major political parties both disappeared and new parties emerged after a populist candidate split the traditional party.

During this turmoil of politics, Sardine Stone continued to serve in the Ohio Senate until 1823.

The Democratic Republican party stood for state’s rights, weaker federal government, and strict adherence to the Constitution. After the withering away of the Federalist party, Andrew Jackson was elected as a populist candidate who forced the new look of the Democratic Republicans who split into the Democrats and the Whigs.

Although the Democratic party emerged from the 1828 election of Andrew Jackson, the last of the Democratic Republican candidates, it  evolved into a totally different set of beliefs than its predecessor.

It took nearly forty years before the party system settled into the pattern than we have today of the Republican party and the Democratic party.  When slavery became the paramount issue dividing the public, a new party, the Republican party, split off from the Democratic party and the Whigs disappeared.

Have the two parties today outlived their usefulness in today’s world of fast-changing values? Will we see another disruption of the sort that Sardine Stone lived through?

The Stone Family Leadership

The Stone family members stepped up in leadership positions from the time they arrived on the frontier.  Perhaps it is the pioneer spirit which reinforced the importance of cooperation, but every one of Isaiah Stone’s sons became active in some community good.

 

Pioneer Association of Washington County

Meeting of the Pioneer Association in Marietta in 1870. Augustus Stone would be here. Photo from Washington County Public Library

Benjamin Franklin Stone

Benjamin Franklin Stone

For instance,Augustus Stone, storekeeper served as Commissioner of Police in 1821 and worked on committees to help the Cherokee Indians and preserve the history of Washington County among other civic activities. (I’m sorry I don’t know which stately gentleman is Augustus in that photo above.)

In addition to writing a journal about their journey to Ohio, Benjamin Franklin Stone was a school teacher, judge, county surveyor (1832-1841) and coroner (1857).

 

The Stone Family is certainly a branch that I am proud to have in my family tree.

How I am Related  (1st cousin 5 x removed)

  • Vera Marie Kaser (Badertscher) is the daughter of
  • Harriette Anderson (Kaser), who is the daughter of
  • Vera Stout (Anderson), who is the daughter of
  • Harriette Morgan (Stout), who is the daughter of
  • Mary Bassett (Morgan), who is the daughter of
  • Elizabeth Stone (Howe), who is the daughter of
  • Elizabeth Howe (Hubbard), who is the daughter of
  • Elizabeth Hubbard (Barrett), who is the mother of
  • Lydia Barrett (Stone), who is the mother of
  • Sardine Stone.

Surviving on the Frontier: Israel Stone

Israel Stone 1749-1808

Although I would not usually relate the story of as distant a relative as a remote cousin, but Israel Stone and his two wives are just too interesting to ignore. According to Ancestry.com he is my 7th cousin 3x removed.  But he is also my 1st cousin 8x removed, if that’s better.]

Israel was born on April 15, 1749 in Rutland, Massachusetts. His parents were cousins. Deacon John Stone was the son of Nathaniel Stone  (whose parents I haven’t worked out yet) and Elizabeth Stone (Stone) who  was the daughter of Capt. Samuel Stone and sister to Nathan Stone, my 5th great grandfather.

  [ADDED May 2016] The lines go like this:

Israel Stone → Deacon John Stone (1702) →Nathaniel Stone (1660)→ John Stone (1618) →Gregory Stone (1592) and his 1st wife. (Note: My line is descended from Gregory Stone’s 2nd wife)

Israel Stone→Elizabeth Stone Stone (1713)→Capt. Samuel Stone (1684)→Samuel Stone, Jr. (1656)→Samuel Stone (1630)→Gregory Stone (1592) and his 2nd wife.

Modern view of Buckley Island in the Ohio River near Marietta, Ohio.

  Modern view of Buckley Island in the Ohio River near Marietta, Ohio. The settlers were forced to try to pasture animals on islands to keep them safe from Indians. But then wolves got them.

Israel and Lydia Barrett

The couple married in 1767 in Rutland, MA and had ten children in Massachusetts. They are an interesting bunch, especially Sardine Stone, who became an Ohio Senator. One of the younger brothers, Benjamin Franklin Stone (1782-1873) became a teacher. In his eighties (finishing at 91) he wrote an autobiography, which gives wonderful details of life in early Ohio territory.

Israel was a militiaman, and when he had been married only 8 years, The record shows:

  • On April 19, 1775, Israel marched to the alarm at Lexington and fought at Cambridge (probably was at Bunker Hill), a duty that lasted 12 days. He served under Cpt. Thomas Eustis.
  • Later, still a private, he served in the company of Cpt. David Bent, Col. Nathan Sparhawk’s Regiment and marched from Rutland to Bennington,8-20-1777, serving for eleven days. In these two companies, he was with his cousin Jeduthan Stone, the Minuteman I wrote about earlier.
  • In 1777, now a Corporal, he served for three months with Capt. Samuel Hubbard’s company, Col. Job Cushing’s Regiment. He entered September 5, 1777 and was discharged 29 November 1777.

Israel’s son, Benjamin Franklin Stone, who was ten when they moved to Ohio, remembered from the Massachusetts days when his father would drive a wagon to Boston (presumably with farm produce.) They lived on the “old Stone farm” until 1786 when he sold that farm and moved to another one. After the Revolution, currency became so devalued that he was having a hard time getting by. This spurred his move to Ohio with the Ohio Company.

Israel was one of the men of Rutland who followed General Rufus Putnam to Marietta, Ohio. In 1789, according to Benjamin Franklin Stone (whom I will call B. F.), Israel set off for Ohio with another man to survey the prospects. His son Jasper (1774-1830) followed a year later. Two daughters stayed with their mother in Rutland, but all the other children were scattered to live with other families in Massachusetts.

In September 1790 a group of 26 people, including Lydia and most of her children — Sardine, Matilda, daughter Lydia, son Israel, Augustus, Christopher Columbus, Polly Buckley and Benjamin Franklin — set out in a train of 3 ox carts with General Putnam’s family. I cannot believe that Lydia was happy to have to make this journey with her huge family.

B.F. says that his brother Israel kept a detailed journal of the trip, but it was unfortunately lost.

Mother Lydia took a cow and Putnams had three cattle.  They traveled through Massachusetts into New York and across Pennsylvania. When they reached the Ohio River, they took a barge to Marietta. The journey took a total of 8 weeks. When they arrived, they were met by their father Israel, whom they had not seen for a year and a half, brother Jasper and sister Betsy who had traveled ahead with another family.

A tragedy of sorts befell them along the way when 100 pairs of socks were lost.  Knowing they would not have sheep for a while, hard-working Lydia and her daughter had knitted the socks to supply the company for a year or two. They were left with only two pair of socks each.

LATE BREAKING: A contributor to the Ohio History & Genealogy Board on Facebook, brought to my attention a site focused on Marietta History.  A search for the Stone name brings up an article called “First Settlement of Rainbow” in the September 7, 1876 issue of the Marietta Register with additional information about Israel’s family.

Bigger tragedies lay ahead with a five-year war against hostile Indians, the death of the young son Israel by drowning in the Ohio River and the death of the mother Lydia.

Picketed Point, reminder of the Indian Wars along the Ohio River 1791-1796 Photo by Photo by Richie Diesterheft, Flickr.

Picketed Point, reminder of the Indian Wars along the Ohio River 1791-1796 Photo by Photo by Richie Diesterheft, Flickr.

The Indian raids made going into the fields or woods dangerous. There was a massacre of several of their group in 1790, and they were disheartened by the defeat of General St. Clair in November 1791 in a battle with 1000 Ohio Miami, Shawnees and Lenape with Potawatamis from Michigan. The Indian forces were known as the American Indian Confederacy. Only 48 of about 1000 American troops escaped death.

I will return to talk about the Ohio Indian wars later, but the underlying problem was that the treaty ending the American Revolution with Britain treated the American Indians as part of the defeated, and although they were not part of the treaty talks, their lands were given to the American government. Understandably, they disagreed.

But life went on among the settlers and on February 27, 1792, little Harriet Hubbard Stone was born, Israel and Lydia’s eleventh child. Lydia died when her baby was only eight months old.  B.F. says that his mother had told him “her constitution was much impaired by excessive hard work even before she was married.”

In March of 1794 Israel was granted a patent of 100 acres of land out of the 1000 that the government had given to Putnam and his company. After living in blockhouses within a fort at Marietta, Israel Stone and a few others moved in 1795 upriver to build another garrison which was known as Farmer’s Castle in the settlement of Rainbow.

Israel and Mary Broadbent Corner

Meanwhile, in England, Mary Broadbent, who was born in Cheshire England in 1764, had married William Corner in 1783.  In 1795 William and Mary Corner and their children — William, George, Sarah and Mary — sailed to America and joined a group that started the Westward trek.  However, unlucky William died of a fever in the mountains of Pennsylvania  and was buried there.

Mary, who must have been an intrepid soul, buried William in Pennsylvania and continued west with the children.  Wherever she had intended to go, she stopped in Marietta. Although the Ohio Company was offering free land to settlers, as a woman whose oldest child was still under twelve, she did not qualify.  But she met Israel Stone and they married in August 1796.

So Israel Stone added three step-children to his family, and he and Mary had one more.

Israel, who is sometimes referred to as Capt. Stone, died July 3, 1808 and is buried in Rainbow. How poetic to pass away in Rainbow! And how peaceful it sounds compared to the life of Israel Stone with his wives Lydia and Mary.

Mary lived with her son George after Israel died at Corner’s Mills, later Cornerville.

 How they are related to me

  •  Vera Marie (Badertscher) is the daughter of
  • Harriette Anderson (Kaser), the daughter of
  • Vera Stout (Anderson), the daughter of
  • Hattie Morgan (Stout), the daughter of
  • Mary Bassett (Morgan), the daughter of
  • Elizabeth Stone (Basset), the daughter of
  • Elizabeth Howe (Stone), the wife of
  • Jeduthan Stone, the son of
  • Nathan Stone, the brother of
  • Elizabeth Stone (Stone), the mother of
  • Israel Stone

Additionally, Lydia Barrett is the step-sister of Jeduthan Stone’s wife Elizabeth Howe (Stone).

Research Notes

  • Israel Howe’s Revolutionary War service record is from a compilation found on ancestry.com sourced from the Massachusetts State Archives and Revolutionary War Rolls.
  • Most information about the family comes from Benjamin Franklin Stone’s autobiography. An excerpt appears in “From Rutland to Marietta: Leaves from the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin Stone”, New England Magazine, New Series Vol 16 (1897) p. 210 ff. Both the entire book (1873) and magazine available for search at Google Books. [NOTE: It does not seem to be available for search at Google books any longer. Check WorldCat.org for a library near you.]
  • Information on St. Clair’s defeat in WIkipedia.
  • History of Marietta and Washington County, Ohio and Representative Citizens, Edited and compiled by Martin R. Andrews, M.A., Biographical Publishing Co. (1902) Available free on line