David Stone (politician)

Stone was born in Bertie County in the Province of North Carolina, the son of Elizabeth Hobson and her husband, planter and politician Zedekiah Stone Jr. (1740-1796). His paternal ancestors had immigrated to the Massachusetts colony by 1618, and his father Zedekiah had moved to North Carolina, where he served in the state legislature and supported patriots during the American Revolutionary War. Young Stone had a sister, Elizabeth, who reached adulthood and married twice (surviving her first husband Dr. Archer Wolford and marrying Jaspar Charlton). Meanwhile, David Stone attended Windsor Academy and later the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), where he graduated with honors. Returning to North Carolina, Stone studied law in Halifax.

Receiving his law license in 1789, Stone had a private legal practice in several counties. He also operated plantations using enslaved labor. After marrying, Stone began constructing a large manor house which he called "Hope Plantation" on land given him by his father, Zedekiah Stone. In the 1800 federal census, Stone owned 59 people in Bertie County. A decade later, in the last census in Stone's lifetime, he enslaved 98 people.^[2]

Consistent with his interest in internal improvements discussed below, Stone became president of the Neuse River Navigation Company in May 1818, months before his death.^[3]

In 1789, Stone was a member of the convention in Fayetteville which ratified the United States Constitution. He proceeded to represent Bertie County in the North Carolina House of Commons until 1795, when he was named to the North Carolina Superior Court.

In 1798, Stone stepped down from the court to serve in the United States House of Representatives for one term; during the contested 1800 presidential election, he cast his vote for Thomas Jefferson when the election was sent to the House for a final decision.

Re-elected in a bid for a second term in the House, Stone resigned when he was elected to the United States Senate by the North Carolina General Assembly in late 1800. He sat as a justice of the Bertie County Court in the early 1800s, including the 1802 scare over a slave rebellion in Bertie County. He resigned his seat in the Senate in 1807 to return to the state Superior Court, but was there for only a year before being elected Governor of North Carolina by the legislature in November 1808.

As Governor, Stone was an ardent supporter of agricultural and industrial development, as well as of the expansion to the education system to both sexes and all social classes. Stone was re-elected in 1809 but was defeated for a third one-year term in 1810 by Benjamin Smith.^[4] Following his defeat, Stone served in the North Carolina House of Commons for a year before being named to the U.S. Senate once again in 1813.

Stone's second term in the U.S. Senate lasted only a year; he was censured by the NC General Assembly for failing to support the administration during the War of 1812. Stone resigned his Senate seat in December 1814, retiring to his Wake County plantation.