| Herbert L. Stone | |
| Birth Date: | January 18, 1871 |
| Birth Place: | Charleston, South Carolina, United States |
| Death Date: | September 27, 1955 |
| Death Place: | New York, New York, United States |
| Occupation: | Magazine Editor, Publisher |
Herbert Lawrence Stone (January 18, 1871 – September 27, 1955) was an American magazine editor and publisher, and a renowned sailor. He was the editor of Yachting from 1908 until 1952.
Herbert Lawrence Stone was born in 1871 in Charleston, South Carolina to William and Mary (Taylor) Stone. His father William was a successful New York attorney, after serving for a short time as the Attorney General for South Carolina. Herbert's paternal grandfather Thomas Treadwell Stone was a prominent New England minister and Transcendentalist. Herbert spent much of his childhood in New York, but spent many summers in Plymouth, Massachusetts learning to sail in Cape Cod bays. After being diagnosed with a lung condition that was expected to significantly shorten his life, Stone went to sea at the age of 17. He made several voyages on the schooner Hattie Weston under the command of Captain Josiah Morton. Stone subsequently went to work as assistant paymaster for the NY Central Railroad. In 1898 Herbert married Redelia Gilchrist in Iowa City, IA, and had two sons, William and James.
On January 1, 1907, publisher Oswald Garrison Villard released the first issue of Yachting. A year later Villard appointed his "schoolmate and lifelong friend", 37-year-old Herbert Stone, as the magazine's second editor.[1] Stone continued as the editor through a series of ownership changes, except for a brief two-year period during World War I when he went to war and left William Atkin in charge of Yachting.[2]
In 1920 Herbert Stone, Albert Britt and William A. Miles purchased the magazine from Mr. Villard, and sold it to John Clarke Kennedy a few years later. In 1938 Stone assembled the Yachting Publishing Company, and took on the role of president, publisher, and editor. In the years that followed Herbert wrote many articles for the magazine, both under a variety of pen names as well as his own. Stone also wrote and edited a number of books, including his own ABC of Boat Sailing and America's Cup Races.[3] Stone served as the editor and guiding spirit of the magazine until his retirement in 1952. He remained as publisher and president of the corporation until his death in 1955.
Stone joined the U.S. Navy when World War I started, and was the commanding officer of Submarine Chaser No. 1, sailing out of Hampton Roads and off the Virginia Capes. Later as a lieutenant and navigating officer of the he served on trans-Atlantic troop transport duty. When the war ended Stone and a few friends bought some cargo schooners and formed Mercator Navigation Company, operating in coastal and foreign trade. But that business soon closed as steam was replacing sail on the seas, and the operation of those schooners became economically impracticable.
In 1909 Herbert was one of the organizers of a sailing race around Long Island, NY, and won the Brooklyn Challenge Cup in Waialua the following year. In 1922 Stone helped to organize and became one of the 33 charter members of the Cruising Club of America, and served as its second commodore in 1923.[4] His influence helped steer that club to a preeminent position in the national and even world yachting picture. Although primarily a sailor, Stone won a race around Long Island in 1916 in the power cruiser "Cero".
In the early 1920s Stone and a few others decided to revive Bermuda racing. By "diligent and enthusiastic promotion" they convinced 22 yacht owners to take part in the Bermuda Race, an event that started in New London, Connecticut and finished in Bermuda. The race then took on national interest, and had grown to 84 entries in 1954. Stone sailed in the early Bermuda Races, but stopped racing in that event in the 1930s.
Herbert L. Stone died on September 27, 1955, and his ashes were scattered in Long Island Sound. The Royal Bermuda Yacht Club flew its flag at half staff on the day of his funeral, the first time in the 111-year history of that club it was done for a non-member. A few months before his death friends of Stone provided a perpetual trophy in his name to go to the first yacht to finish the Bermuda Race Cruiser Division each year it is held. "The Skipper" did not live to make the first presentation of the Herbert L. Stone Memorial Trophy.
Stone was inducted into the National Sailing Hall of Fame on November 9, 2019.[5]