CLYDE STONE

The following bio was taken from page 397 of the book entitled “Rusk County History” compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

Transcribed by Claudia Schuster

 Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Rusk County TX Coordinator

     My name is Clyde Stone.  I was born July 28, 1905, about two miles east of Henderson, on the Pine Hill road in a community we called Good Hope.  I’ve heard my parents say that our nearest neighbor at the time of my birth was Uncle Jack Moore, who wasn’t really kin to us at all.  He was a Civil War veteran, and after the war he and his young bride built their home in the Murvaul bottom and practically worked day and night clearing land, plowing, and getting their crop put in.  When harvest time came, Uncle Jack had to haul his produce to Shreveport, Louisiana.  He told my dad that he dreaded to ask his wife what she wanted him to bring back.  However, one time when he did ask her, she said, “Well, Jack, we’ve got plenty of vegetables canned and plenty of meat cured to last us another year and I’ve patched our clothes until they are thick enough to wear another year, so I don’t guess you need to bring anything.”  So, Uncle Jack sold his crop and came back and bought about all the land that joined them.  They raised about ten or twelve kids, and every time one of them married he gave him or her a farm.  He was the father of Mollie, who married Jack Porter, and Lula, who married Monroe Jimmerson.  The other names I don’t remember, but my mother and dad thought so much of Uncle Jack that they named me Clyde Moore Stone.

 All of the schooling I got, except for one year at Oakland, was in the Henderson School System.  I sent to the Henderson Library a 1914 picture of our third grade class with all the kids’ names.  I think it is still on display there.  It was taken at the old three-story, wooden school building just a few blocks north of downtown Henderson. 

One incident which happened that year I’ll never forget.  In our grade there was a boy named Howard Alexander (who was the son of Jule Alexander).  We always called him Pete.  From as far back as I can remember Pete and I always fought.  On this particular day it was no different.  On our way home from school we had our fight.  Pete’s older brother, Jack, was with us.  Although Pete was a year older than me, he was smaller than me. 

Everytime I’d get on top of Pete and be getting the best of him, Jack would pull me off and let Pete on top.  That day Pete scratched my face until it looked like an old setting hen had been up there scratching.  Finally I got part of Pete’s hand in my mouth and bit out a piece about the size of a quarter.  The blood just flew, Pete began crying, and that ended the fight.  When I got home, my father wanted to know what was the matter with my face. (Now Miss Clifford Oberthier was our teacher that year.)  When I told my father what was the matter with my face, he said, “Now, Son, if Miss Clifford asks you what’s the matter with your face, don’t you lie to her.  If she whips you, you just stand up and take it like a man.”  What he said to me that day has stayed with me until this present. day.  I’ve done things that I was ashamed of, but I’ve never done anything that I was unwilling to admit. 

My great-great-grandfather, Roland Stone was born in Londonderry, Ireland, August 1, 1764, according to his application for his pension from the Revolutionary War.  He came with his parents and family to America before 1770.  On board the ship he had smallpox that put out one of his eyes.  They stayed several years in Pennsylvania before moving to South Carolina. 

When the Revolutionary War broke out, Roland’s father and older brother joined the forces to fight the British.  According to one story, the father had some gold so his family would be provided for while the fighting was going on.  Also the British somehow learned of the gold and came to his home trying to locate it.  It just so happened that the older son was home on furlough and they questioned him about it.  When he denied having any knowledge of the gold, they began to beat him.  His mother pled with them on bended knees to spare his life, but they killed him anyway.  Then they found Roland and tried to get him to tell them where it was.  Evidently Roland did not know either, so they beat him and left him for dead; but he didn’t die.  Then when he became sixteen, near the end of the war, he also joined the army. 

A few years after the war was over, Roland married Elizabeth Miller, who was a sister to Stephen Decatur Miller, who later became Governor of South Carolina.  Then after two terms as Governor, he was elected U.S. Senator from the same state.  He fought hard for the things he believed in and died when he was still a young man.  He is famous for the saying: “It is better to wear out than to rust out.” 

About 1805, Roland, his father and their families moved to Williamson County, Tennessee near Nashville, when Nashville was such a small place they couldn’t even buy nails there to build their home.  About twenty years later they moved to Calloway County, Kentucky.  It is said that Roland and his wife Elizabeth raised ten children, but so far we don’t have all the names.  We do know that his son, Robert, who was my great-grandfather, and his sister, Mary Polly, married Nancy Wright and William Wright, who were brother and sister, in a double wedding in Calloway County, Kentucky, August, 1830.  In 1838 they moved to East Texas and settled in Nacogdoches County.  They were among the first settlers in that part of the country.  Robert settled on 640 acres along Caney Creek ten miles northeast of Nacogdoches.  The Robert Stone Survey in Nacogdoches County still bears his name.  One story which so far we have been unable to confirm is that he was killed by the Indians in 1844.  We do know, however, that he died in 1844. 

We spent three days in 1980 in the Nacogdoches County Courthouse searching the records, trying to find out exactly what happened concerning the Robert Stone Estate.  We found that his widow, Nancy Stone, sold 640 acres but later bought back 139 acres.  We were unable to find out whether  it was a part of the original 640 acres.  We did find that some time later she sold the 139 acres. She evidently couldn’t write because she signed with a mark and the mark was witnessed by two people.  Evidently something was wrong with the transaction all along, but we were unable to determine whether someone had taken advantage of her because she could not read or write.  We found that in January, 1890, her son, William J., who was my grandfather, and her son, Robert, whom we called Uncle Bob and who was the father of Julian Stone and her two daughters, Elizabeth Stone Montgomery and Mary J. Stone Sanders, signed an instrument giving a Mr. Jones and a Mr. Crouch power of attorney to try to see if they could get anything out of the Robert Stone Estate.  They were to pay all expenses and receive half of what they got.  We could never find any record that these men or anyone else took any action, but we know that by 1928 or 1929 somebody had to have done something because the Stone heirs were paid off.  I know because I was one of them and I have several cousins still alive who remember having received a check. 

Robert and Nancy Stone had five children: Elizabeth Katherine Stone, who married a Montgomery; George W. Stone, who, according to the 1850 census was 16 years old, and in the 1860 census was 26 and a farmer; Mary Jane Stone, who married Candy Sanders; William J. Stone, my grandfather; and Samuel A. Stone, who was a soldier in the Civil War and died in Little Rock, Arkansas in January, 1863.  Robert Lewis, great Uncle Bob, father of Betty, Mary, Nancy, S.M., Julian.  Then there were three who served in the Civil War.  They are: R.L. Stone of Redwine Company, Company E., Tenth Texas Regiment; S.A. Stone of R.H. Graham’s Company, Company I, Nineteenth Texas Regiment, died at Little Rock, Arkansas, Jan 21, 1863; William J. Stone of Redwine Company, Company E., Tenth Texas Cavalry Regiment.

 William J. Stone and his first wife, Annie R. Craig, had five children: Rueben, who married Clara Woods; Nancy Isabel, who married John Beard: Robert, who married Mary Crow; Otey, (we don’t know if he died before he was ever married) and Samuel B. who married Lena Mae Phillips.  William J. and his second wife, Laura Lentz, had two daughters: Willie, who married R.R. Hubbard and Beatrice, who married John Hubbard.

 My father, Sam B. Stone, and his wife, Lena Mae Philips, had ten children: Clyde M., Horace O., William James, Josie Belle, Pauline, Freddie Mae, Mamie Ruth, Vera, Mildred, and Annie B.

 I, Clyde Stone, and my wife, Lou Rettie Farrell, have three sons: Clyde, Jr., Keith, and Jerry.  We have eight grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

 In September 1980, my wife and I and our son, Keith and his wife, went back to Calloway County, Kentucky to visit a number of the Stone relatives who still live there.  They took us out to Asbury Cemetery, about ten miles northwest of Murray, where many of our ancestors are buried.  It is a beautiful spot almost completely shadowed by row after row of cedar trees, some of which must be well over a hundred years old.  The thing that impressed us most was the inscription on our great-great-grandmother’s tombstone: “ Why should we weep for her; was she not ready? Oil in her lamp with her bridal robe on; waiting in Faith with a Hope firm and steady; the Good Shepherd calls and the Plaudits well done.”

 There’s much, much more; but I understand this book is for all Rusk County and not for the Stones alone, so I’ll close this history with this request: If anyone who reads this history knows for sure whether Robert Stone was killed by the Indians in 1844 and also whether anyone knows anymore about the settling of his estate that I mentioned in this history, I’d like to hear from him.  My address is: Clyde Stone, Route 2, Sayre, Oklahoma 75662

 Submitted by Clyde Stone