General Notes

 Stone Genealogy ~ An Overview  PHILIP1 ATTE STONE was born in Great Bromley, Essex 1265. He was the earliest known member of the Stone family, and was likely the progenitor of this ancestral line. In Gregory Stone Genealogy: Ancestry and Descendants of Dea. Gregory Stone of Cambridge, Mass., 1320-1917, J. Gardner Bartlett notes the earliest record of a Stone/atte Stone in County Essex, as follows:  Writ to the Sheriff of Essex, dated at Westminster, 26 Oct. 30 Edward I [1302]. Inquisition before the sheriff of Essex and William de Hanyngfeild, held at Colchester on Saturday after the Feast of St. Lucy, 31 Edward I [December 15, 1302]. Philip atte Stone, late servant of Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, and others… forcibly entered the park of the said earl at Great Bentleye and hunted therein against his will; also Thomas de Molendine of Dedham fished in the preserve of the said earl, within said park. (Miscellaneous Chancery Inquisitions, File 61 [23].)  Nothing more is known of Philip atte Stone, not even the outcome of his trial. He may have been the father of Walter atte Stone. If so, Philip was Al Streit’s 21st-great-grandfather. WALTER2 ATTE STONE (Philip1) was born in Little Bentley, Essex 1285, and was the earliest member of the Stone family from whom Bartlett felt comfortable in claiming descent for the forebears of Gregory Stone: “Possibly [Walter] may have been a son of Philip atte Stone, accused of poaching in Great Bentley in 1302….” WILLIAM5 ATTE STONE (------4, ------3, Walter2, Philip1), born in Ardleigh, Essex about 1365, probably was a grandson of Walter atte Stone, but Bartlett cautioned that proof had not been found. He wrote that he found a gap in the ancestral line of about two generations “which remain buried in oblivion.” Records indicate that for the next two and one-half centuries the Stone family members were yeoman farmers and landowners in the area of County Essex near the village of Great Bromley.  The Stone family embraced the religious reform movement known as Puritanism, the movement which in the late 16th and 17th centuries sought to “purify” the Church of England from remnants of Roman Catholicism that the Puritans claimed had been retained after the religious settlement reached early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. GREGORY12 STONE (David11, Simon10, David9, Simon8, John7 atte Stone, Walter6, William5, ------4, ------3, Walter2, Philip1), born in Great Bromley in 1592, crossed the Atlantic and arrived in Watertown, Massachusetts, where he is listed in 1636. He later acquired over 400 acres, particularly in Cambridge Farms (now the cities of Lexington and Lincoln). He became a deacon of the Cambridge [Congregational] Church at some point, first being mentioned as a deacon in 1643, and held this office until his death in 1672. Among Gregory’s descendants are Galen Stone (co-founder of brokerage firm Hayden Stone) and suffragette Lucy Stone. His oldest son, Elder John Stone, married Anne Rogers, great-granddaughter of Rev. John Rogers, the first Protestant martyr to be burned at the stake by the Roman Catholic Queen Mary I. Harlan Stone, former Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, was a descendant of Gregory’s brother, Deacon Simon Stone.April 29, 1904, a stained glass window, in memory of Gregory and Simon Stone, was unveiled and dedicated in the church of Great Bromley, Essex. While the main panels are dedicated to several saints, smaller panels contain the seals of the State of Massachusetts and the County of Essex on either side of a seventeenth-century sailing ship. A metal plate below the window is inscribed:   To the Glory of God and to the Memory of Simon and Gregory Stone, Brothers, who were born in this Parish, baptized in this Church, and emigrated to Massachusetts in New England in 1635, this Window is erected by American Descendants.  Most of the information in our files was taken from the aforementioned work by J. Gardner Bartlett. A photocopy version of this book is still in print and is available from the New England Historic Genealogical Society, 101 Newbury Street, Boston, MA 02116. Copies are also available for loan to members of this organization.