| Edward Stone | |
| Birth Place: | Virginia |
| Death Place: | Ohio River |
| Occupation: | Slave trader |
Edward Stone (September 17, 1826), also known as Ned Stone, was an American slave trader. He participated in the interregional slave trade between Maryland, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Stone had a slave jail under his house, which was built in the 1810s near Paris, Kentucky. Stone was killed on the Ohio River in 1826 by slaves he was transporting south for sale.
Edward Stone was originally from the Virginia Piedmont region and migrated to Bourbon County with three older brothers in the early 1800s.[1] He began trading in slaves sometime before 1816. Stone was one of the handful of Kentucky slave traders who openly advertised early in the 19th century.
The Grange in Bourbon County, Kentucky was originally constructed to be his home.[2] The early history of the house, located on the Lexington–Maysville Pike, was described in the 1973 application for the National Register of Historic Places:[3]
According to Kentucky historian J. Winston Coleman, the Grange was a "fine example of Georgian architecture," and the basement dungeon consisted of "five or six strongly barred cells" for holding enslaved people prior to transport. Stone also originally owned and likely built the neighboring Thomas Champ house, also known as Sulphur Spring. According to a history of the Maysville Road, "This house strongly resembles Rose Hill House [in Lexington] and The Grange in style."
In 1818, "Edw. Stone" of Flat Run, Bourbon County placed an ad in the local paper warning locals against "hunting, fowling, pulling down any of my plantation or woods pasture fencing, riding through, or in any manner, trespassing upon my plantation, as I am determined to prosecute, all who do it without liberty. Owners of Negroes had better give them ration, as they often ride after night."[4] He was probably selling in Natchez that year with Jacob Jacoby, another Kentuckian, and Henry Turney.[5] [6]
The records of Concordia Parish, Louisiana show that Stone was selling there in 1820. In 1821 Stone and Thomas Phillips were partners in the slave trade.[7] This business partnership with Thomas Phillips was concluded in 1823.[8] One of their commercial enterprises was moving brown sugar from New Orleans to Kentucky.[9] Stone was said to be one of the co-owners, with his partner at the time, Benjamin Keiningham, of the Paris, Kentucky slave coffle of summer 1822.[10] [11] In 1823, Stone listed for lease or sale the Indian Queen Hotel in Paris, Kentucky, preferring either "Land or Negroes" as the form of payment.[12] The Indian Queen was more of a tavern than a hotel and was located at the corner of Main and Second in what was already a busy commercial center. In 1825 Kentucky slave trader John W. Anderson testified in a court case in Natchez, Mississippi, involving Stone and a male slave, who had gotten into a fight with each other.
In August 1826, Stone advertised for the recapture of a runaway slave. According to the African Americans of the Kentucky Borderlands database, Stone "placed a reward ad for the return of 22-yr-old Rowsley Peyton. Stone claimed that Peyton and his brother (unnamed) escaped on the night of August 22, stopping to steal horses and goods on their way. Rowley's brother was captured. Rowsley was born in Stafford County, Virginia where he was held by Mr. Kendall; he was literate."[13]
Stone, his nephew Howard Stone, and three other whites were killed on the Ohio River in 1826 by the people he was trafficking south.[14] The news report about his murder, now known as the 1826 Ohio River slave revolt, read as follows:[15]
Stone was buried in the Baptist Cemetery at Stephensport, Kentucky. His marker reads "In memory of Edward Stone, who departed this life Sept. the 17th, 1826, in the 44th year of his age." According to a cemetery reading done in 1927, "A stone lying beside this one has cut ornately upon it $9-25!" Stone's personal servant, a mixed race man named Lewis "with unswerving devotion and in the face of great odds, fought for his master to the last, 'and narrowly, and with great injury escaped his fate.' He was left beside Stone for dead, but recovered and returned to Paris with some of his master's personal effects. For his valor he was liberated, given a small tract of land with a cabin, where he passed the remainder of his days in sight of his master's old home."
The executor of Edward Stone's estate was his brother Kinzea Stone, who listed property for sale in December 1826. The first listing advertised "407 Acres, with an elegant brick Dwelling house. with six rooms & a passage, a porch on one side and portico on the other, a brick kitchen and smoke house and Negro house, all of brick, and finished off in the best manner, a brick stable thirty by sixty feet, all of the buildings new, with a never failing spring and stock water, a plenty, all times in the year Flat-run runs through the land. This land lies 4 miles from Paris with the Limestone road running through the land, about 150 acres cleared, the balance well timbered all under a good fence and well set in grass."[16] The second listing advertised two farms for rent, as well as the sale of 50 barrels of corn, 19 shoats, one hiefer, and "3 negroes," as well as other miscellaneous items that had been "left at the former sale."[17] The brick building for housing slaves was slightly innovative according to a late 20th-century architectural historian: "Some planters even saw the double-pen cabin as the quintessential slave house and created new types of slave buildings by manipulating the double-pen form. At The Grange outside of Millersburg, Kentucky, for example, Edward Stone built a triple-pen house to serve as the quarter for his domestic slaves; it is a double-pen cabin plus an additional room."
After Stone's murder, John W. Anderson "took over the northern region's major slavetrading operations." Stone had had operations in Harrison County as well as in Bourbon County, while Anderson was based in Mason County "with its tobacco-based economy [which had] established the earliest recorded domestic slave-trading market in Kentucky at Washington, which is located on a hill above Maysville."