Maurice Stone

http://stonehistory1800.webs.com/1816mauricestonemary.htm

Maurice Stone and Mary St John

Maurice Stone was born sometime around 1817, 1818 in Lynche's River, N.S.. He married Mary St John around 1846 -  He died on April 17, 1887 at 69years. Maurice lived on the 1834 grant to his oldest brother Jonas Stone, that Old George swapped with Jonas' widow Peggy, so she could stay by the bridge. Maurice's property was just to the east of his brother John Henry Stone (my great great grandfather). His son Big Jim Maurice, as he was known, built in his father's field, next door to my great grandfather's field (Jimmy John Stone). Maurice was known to be very social, as his name is on many wedding registers as a witness to his various brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews. He was a fine fiddler, the story goes, and several in his family became fiddlers, including his grandson John Allan Stone, son of Big Jim. Sadly, John Allan died in a railway construction accident near Sherbrooke Quebec in September of 1906. All of Maurice & Mary's children emigrated to the US, with Big Jim and his wife Lizzie Corbett being the last ones to go - as they followed their children to Medway Massachusetts in 1920. The property was sold to Maurice's nephew Jonas P Stone's son Herbie Lee in 1920...Today it is owned by Arthur Sampson, formerly of River Bourgeois... 

M 1 Mary Ann Stone - b Aug 1847

She married George Nickerson - and she died in Gloucester Mass, July 7, 1902. Mary Ann emigrated to Gloucester in the 1860s, and met up with Liverpool, Nova Scotia born fisherman and mariner George E Nickerson. They married in June of 1873 in Boston and moved back to Nova Scotia through the late 1870s and 1880s. George owned his own schooner "The James and Ella" By 1892, they decided to move back to the US for the final time. Mary had just given birth to her last child Ella. Where they lived along the Corbett's Cove Road is a little brook that runs from Johnny Malcolm McDonald's Lake to the shore at the Bras D'or Lakes. That brook is still called Nickerson's Brook...George drowned shortly after moving back to Gloucester, on December 5, 1892...

1 George E Nickerson - b 1875 in St Peter's CB

Married Ida Barnes on May 4, 1906 in Gloucester Mass...

2 William Nickerson - b 1878

Wife - Ethel B Nickerson

Fred Nickerson

3 Maurice James Nickerson - b Sept 4, 1879 in St Peter's CB

Died August 30, 1914

4 Ethel May Nickerson - b Dec 1883

Married Titus Kreider, 30yrs on Nov. 01, 1914 Boston MA

John Kreider b 1919

At the time of the 1930 US Census - they are living in Kings New York, with just the one child born in 1919...

5 Dora Maria Nickerson b 1886 - d June 1, 1895 in Boston Mass...

6 Carrie Blanche Nickerson - b Nov 1886 d Jan 30, 1904 in Gloucester

7 Francis "Fannie" Nickerson - b Sept 1888

Married Thomas Farrington July 14, 1906

1 Thomas Russell Farrington b Jan 31, 1907

2 William L Farrington b 1916

At the time of the 1930 US Census, Francis is 38 and married to a Warren C Carter, and son William L Farrington is living with them an is 14 years old...

8 Julia Florence Nickerson - b 1889

Married Fred Pike on April 19, 1914 in North Adams Mass...

At the time of the 1930 US Census, Julia and Fred are still together with no children...

9 Christina Ella Nickerson - b May 1892

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M 2 James George Stone - born May 15, 1849 d June 23, 1938

Married Elizabeth Corbett b 1876, d July 31, 1945

Known as Big Jim Maurice - son of Maurice - around Lynche's River, as he grew to nearly 7 feet tall they say, James was a farmer and fisherman and cooper like many of the Stones at Lynche's River. He spent a good deal of his winters fishing out of Gloucester MA. Most of his family, including his sisters and younger brother George all moved to the Gloucester area and died there. About 1920, he and his wife Lizzie and youngest daughter Lizzie moved down to Medway MA for good. At the time his oldest daughter Mary Anne, Annie Bell, Alice, Teresa, Maurice, Olive and Beatrice were living there.

1 Mary Anne Stone - b Sept 28, 1879, d Feb 2, 1982

Married William "Billy" Doyle on Sept 30, 1900, in Gloucester Mass...

1 Priscilla Maud Doyle b May 5, 1902

2 John Raymond Doyle b Aug 24, 1905

At the time of the 1930 US Census their niece Mary Elizabeth Hillsdale age 10 is living with them...

Billy Doyle was a sea captain and owned his own refrigerated vessel, fishing on the Grand Banks. While he was off to sea, Mary Anne operated a boarding house on Shailer St. in Brookline (Boston) just around the corner from the Kennedy family home. Her sister Olive lived with her for many years as she was unable to support both of her children after her first husband left her. As a girl my mother and her friends would sit outside the Kennedy home just waiting for a glimpse of JFK if he came out and they would go down to the Charles River to watch him crewing...

2 Anna Bell Stone - b September 1880, d Aug 22, 1946

In 1900, Annie is staying with her cousin Mary Jane McDonald & husband James Morash in Gloucester Mass, along with Mary Jane's sister Lizzie McDonald. She is working in an 'oil coat' factory... Anna Bell is buried with her parents and the Doyle family...

3 John Allan Stone - b Sept 21, 1883, d Sept 19, 1906

He died in an accident working on the construction of the railway at Sherbrooke Quebec in September of 1906

4 Catherine Alice Stone - b Jan 23, 1884, d in the 1960s in San Francisco CA

Married Richard Brownlee about 1941.

Clyde Brownlee married Eula ??? in the 1950s

Paul Brownlee

John Brownlee

The song playing in the background is based on text Alice wrote many years ago about her recollections as a young girl around Lynche's River. I used the words passed on to my uncle from her sister Olive's granddaughter Janice Varney...Many thanks... Alice's story follows...

"Alice Catherine Stone "Brownlee" saw the 1st light of day on a bleak January 23, 1884 - the fourth child - the third girl of Elizabeth Corbett Stone and James Maurice Stone, in a very nice, warm and snug farm house that her Father had built for his bride in 1878, in St Peter's. Her mother was helped by an old Indian mid-wife named Nancy. In a few weeks she was baptized in the little church her parents were married in, they were a strong Catholic Family.

James Stone was a fisherman like all men in St. Peter's and went out on the Grand Banks, as they were called, all winter and ran the farm and made barrel staves in the summer time. Elizabeth (her mother) grew vegetables and put them up in the cooler cellar for the long winter. They also raised pigs and salted them and fish, and put them in barrels for the winter for their family. Mary Ann, the 1st, Anna Bell, the 2nd, and John Allan, the 3rd, and now little Alice Elizabeth. Their cup runneth over. They were poor in money as were most of the farm families in the area of Lynche's River, St. Peter's, Nova Scotia, but they had all the food and milk they needed.

James Stone traded his barrel staves and some food and lumber from his land for staples, like flour, coffee, tea, and sugar and also clothes although Grandmother Corbett was a tailor and often carded her own wool from her sheep and made shoes from the pig skin that they dried and stretched. In those days most all needs were made at home. When James was at sea and would sail into Boston Harbour to sell fish., he would pick up things like a new stove, a toy or a doll and whatever could not be purchased in their little home town store. It was rare treat when the kids got a new pair of "store" shoes or a new tea pot for Mother.

After Alice came Tresa, then Maurice James, then Ina Beatrice, Olive and the last was Elizabeth born February, 1899. They had a large family to care for so to help out Elizabeth took over the job of Post Mistress for Lynche's River and had it in the living room of their home. As there was no postman to deliver, the people came to the Stone home to pick up their mail and sit and gossip and have a cup of tea to ward off the chill while plodding home through the snow. This took a lot of time as Mary Anna and Anna Bell took care of the younger children and small household jobs.

On Sunday morning James and Elizabeth bundled up the 9 children into a horse-drawn carriage and went to the little St.Peter's Church...and would stop to see the grandparents to visit or have Sunday dinner. On the way home Father would turn the mare homeward and they (the children) were warm and happy and would fall asleep listening to the clip clop of the mare's hoves on the crusty snow, and in summer time to the sweet smell of new mown hay and honeysuckle. James grew many fields of hay during the summer to feed his mare and milk cows during the long cold winters. The winters were cold and long with heavy snow that kept them inside for days at a time".

5 Teresa Stone - b 1886, believed to have died in the 1960s

Teresa is listed by several different names and even sexes in Canadian Census records. In 1891 she is down a Terrace, male; in 1901 as Tresa. Her marriage record is listed as Tresa, as is her 1930 US Census record. In 1920 she is Theresa Harmon...

Married Joseph C Harmon on Jan 13, 1913 in Los Angeles CA

Virginia M Harmon b 1914

Mildred E Harmon b 1915

Anna G Harmon b 1921

James L Harmon b 1925

6 Maurice Joseph Stone - b May 28, 1889, d Jan 20, 1951 (Waltham MA) Married Sadie McIsaac

At the time of the 1930 US Census, Maurice J (single) is listed as 40 and living in Massachusetts with his two sisters Lizzie age 28 (single) and Olive Stone (Hillsdale) age 30. The parents Big Jim Stone and Elizabeth Corbett are living with them, at ages 80 and 78 respectively... Maurice married Sadie McIsaac and worked for almost 30 years for the Taft - Pierce Manufacturing Company on Waltham MA. He died in 1951 at age 58. Maurice made a final trip to Cape Breton in the late 1930s it is said. He was a fine fiddler as was his older brother Johnny, who died in 1906. Sister Olive used to tell her grandchildren how Maurice played at all the social happenings around Lynche's River, be it weddings, wakes or ceilidhs, and the girls would stepdance to the playing...His grandfather Old Maurice was one of the finest Stone fiddlers in the area...

7 Iona Beatrice Stone - b Sept 7, 1894 Married Romulus Luther Johnson on May 11, 1917 in Los Angeles CA

Beatrice disappears after 1917. She meets Johnson - a real estate agent - in Boston, and they moved to California. She is never heard from again. Later on news comes that Johnson has been involved in a scheme of marrying women and killing them then collecting the insurance. A woman's skull was found during an excavation in San Francisco, and the family believed it to be their sister. It is said that Lizzie Corbett Stone collapsed in her living room after seeing the picture of what was believed to be her daughter's skull in the newspaper. It made national headlines at the time...

• 8 Olive Lenore Stone - b Oct 12, 1896 d May 29, 1984 (California) Married James Hillsdale about 1920 ( believed to have been from Nova Scotia) but in 1930, she is living with her brother Morris J Stone and her sister Lizzie and parents James & Elizabeth Corbett Stone after Hillsdale up and left her and the children behind. When she was in her 50s, Olive met and married an English merchant mariner from Burnley Lancastershire by the name of Ernest Johnston. He was working at the time at Harvard University as a groundsman. Olive was also working there then. They moved to California eventually. Olive gave up her children after her first husband left. Her sister Mary Anne Doyle raised daughter Mary Elizabeth "Minnie" Hillsdale and son Fred was sent off to a vocational school for boys. She couldn't provide a living for them and she carried the shame of it with her for years. Olive lived with her son Fred after the death of Ernest in 1971...

1 Mary Elizabeth "Minnie" Hillsdale b March 17, 1920, d May 29, 1984 Married Clifford Allen De Les Dernier Aug 30, 1942 i Janice De Les Dernier b Sept 5, 1948 Married Tom Varney on May 18, 1986 1 Ian Joseph Varney b Oct 1, 1990

ii Bruce William De Les Dernier b Dec 18, 1951 Married Eileen Soden Aug 10, 1985 1 Robin Rhys De Les Derniers b 1999

2 Frederick Hillsdale d Nov 1989 Married Elsie??? i James Maurice Hillsdale d Aug 1, 1990 at age 50 Married Linda Fiero ii Anne Elizabeth Hillsdale Danny Sherry iii Mary Catherine Hillsdale son Michael Hillsdale

9 Elizabeth "Lizzie" Stone - b Feb 11, 1898 Lizzie is living with her parents and brother Maurice in 1930 in Medway MA. After that it is not known what happened to her.

• Olive Lenora Stone is pictured with the hat on the right of the page in the school pic from 1914 at Lynche's River School. She was a friend of the teacher, not a student at the time as she would have been 18 years old...

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M 3 Elizabeth (Lizzie J) Genevieve Stone - born Aug 1, 1851

Lizzie J first married a William H Strople from Guysborough NS in Gloucester, from which she had at least four children, only one survived that was William Albert, who married an Emma Gott is 1901. William H was a captain on his own schooner - The Alice May Strople, from which he drowned in a dory on the Grand Banks in 1886, along with his wife's younger brother George Stone, of St Peters, Cape Breton, who volunteered to help the skipper with a tangled trawl at the time. Lizzie was pregnant at the time and lost the child.

Several years later she married William's younger brother Charles Strople at Gloucester Mass on Jan 7, 1893. They had a daughter Hattie Maria. Lizzie died in Oct 25, 1908 - 54 yrs of stomach cancer. Charles died at sea as well on August 12, 1916 on a ship The Oriole, in a collision with a Norwegian Ocean Liner off Seal Island...

1 Morris Edward Strople b May 8, 1876, d Jan 18, 1890

2 William Albert Strople - b Sept 29, 1879

Married Emma Davis Gott

1 William Sumner Strople b May 28, 1902

2 Evelyn G Strople b 1903, d 1992

3 Milton Russel Strople b April 3, 1905, d 1930

4 Lester R Strople b Aug 18, 1907, d 1989

5 William Harold Strople b June 12, 1909

3 Alice Mae Strople - b Nov 8, 1882 d May 4, 1890

4 Carrie Maud Strople b Jan 18, 1885 d March 18, 1887

with Charles S Strople...

5 Hattie Maria Strople - b June June 15, 1893

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M 4  Catherine F Stone - born Dec 1857, d Sept 7, 1909 

Kate eventually married the son of next door neighbours Don & Anne Coffey McNeil from Lynche's River, as did her brother George Stone who married Annie McNeil around the same time. There was a child born to them in 1885 that died in infancy.

Married John McNeil - Sept 21, 1885

John was the son of Daniel McNeil and Anne Coffey. John McNeil died on April 23, 1901 in Gloucester Mass - age 34

Alice Elizabeth McNeil - b Nov 21, 1893 died Jan 6, 1894

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M 5 George J Stone - born 1858 d Oct 1886

Married Annie McNeil (Lynche's River CB) in Gloucester Mass in 1885

Daughter of Daniel McNeil and Annie Coffey

Magline M Stone - b May 10, 1886, d Aug 30, 1886

George was lost at sea aboard the schooner the Alice M Strople out of Gloucester, owned and skippered by his sister Elizabeth J's husband William H Strople (Guysborough NS) in October of 1886. They were in a dory that capsized while they tried to free up a trawl line...
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M 6 Laurence Stone - born 1865

He married Isabella 'Belle' McDonald on Nov 22, 1892

George Maurice Stone b. Dec. 25, 1893

Mary Hilda Stone b. Nov. 21, 1894

According to the 1901 Canadian census records, Belle and the two children are living in Sydney, and she is remarried to an Abraham Fraser. There is no sign of them in Nova Scotia at the 1911 list...

GEDCOM Source

@R-897242574@ Ancestry Family Trees Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members.

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Ancestry Family Tree http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=71153027&pid...