By MICHAEL F. DWYER
The subtitle of this installment could well be “leaving no stone unturned.” Last week, over wine and cheese with a friend, I asked, “Are you sure your husband is really a Stone?” As you may expect, context is everything here. Having been acquainted with several Stone families, I suspected some of them may have undergone a surname change from an ancestor from Québec whose name was Laroche or Lapierre. Alongside these changed names, some Stones, like that of my friend’s husband, had been Stones back to colonial times. Before proceeding further, let me say that the LaRocks or LaRocques never became Stones. Though it sounds like “rock,” Larocque comes from one of several places with that name in France.
At the time of the 1950 census, 160 individuals in Rutland and Addison Counties bore the Stone surname. Of these, the oldest was widower Cyrus W. Stone, age 85, living as a boarder in Brandon. Investigating further, Cyrus Wilber Stone turns out to be Bernie and Steve Carr’s great-grandfather. Bernie’s excellent directions to his gravestone in St. Mary’s Cemetery in Brandon, “Go left from the statue of the Blessed Mother,” easily located the stone without having me to trudge through too much December snow. Another example of the Calvary cross, this perpetual care monument, originally erected in the 1920s, has the names of C.W. Stone, his wife Jennie, and son William, a World War I veteran accidentally shot by his brother Stanley while at deer camp in Leicester. You can see my snowy footprints in front of the grave of Cyrus and Jennie’s daughter, Verna (Stone) Carr, wife of Marcus A. Carr, Sr.
Cyrus Stone’s obituary from the Rutland Herald claims he passed the century mark, leaving 10 grandchildren, 61 great-grandchildren, and four great-great-grandchildren. Digging deeper, Cyrus was “only” 98, born on 19 October 1868 in East Middlebury and baptized on 12 August 1869 at St. Mary’s Church in Middlebury, the son of Nelson Stone and Martha Surprenant. They were married in Middlebury on 6 May 1862 as Nelson Stone and Martha Superman [!] by Justice of the Peace Almon Tupper. For their children to have been baptized as Catholics, this marriage would be eventually blessed by a priest.
Cyrus’s father Nelson Stone was baptized on 13 January 1841 as Narcisse Laroche in Henryville, Québec, about 16 miles north of the Vermont border, eldest son of Narcisse Laroche and Adelaide Menard. Their next seven children were born there, ending with Philomène in 1855. Shortly thereafter, they moved to Cornwall, Vermont, where Nelson Jr. and Martha had several more children. In the late 1870s, they touched down in Rutland, Massachusetts, where they were counted in the 1880 census. Their household included Nelson’s niece, Ida, orphaned daughter of his brother Peter Stone. Labeled as “deaf, dumb, and idiotic” in census categories, Ida lost her hearing through scarlet fever. Far from being mentally deficient, she later married twice.
Back in Salisbury, Vermont, by the time of Martha’s death in 1888, Nelson’s life gets complicated. Within the next year, he assumed a marital relationship with Emma King, 30 years his junior. She had married in Brandon, Fred Smith on 15 September 1888 but was evidently soon estranged from her husband. Nelson continued to father children with Emma. The “Cornwall Conversation” column of Montpelier’s Argus-Patriot noted Nelson Stone “rejoicing over the arrival of a son his 11th child.” Returning to Holden, Massachusetts, Nelson and Emma had three more children including daughter Lillian born on 8 July 1897. Lillian married twice and lived until 4 December 1989, 148 years after the birth of her father!
Returning once more to Cornwall, Vermont, Nelson and Emma moved in with his son Cyrus and family as indicated in the 1900 census. Nelson died on 7 December 1900 of kidney failure; his funeral held from the Methodist Church in East Middlebury. A posthumous son, Robert Roy Stone, was born on 7 March 1901. Following Nelson’s death, Emma resumed her marriage with Fred Smith and had five more children with him. She died at the age of 91.
Resuming our focus on Cyrus Stone, one more aspect of the story needs to be told. As alluded to earlier, he married Mary Jane “Jennie” Stone in Cornwall on Christmas Eve, 1891. Her father was Nelson Stone, also born as Narcisse Laroche. Remarkably, he too died in Cornwall in 1900! Some online family trees have understandably mixed up the two families, and that left me wondering if there was any close kinship between Cyrus and his wife. No—two different lineages. Cyrus’s ancestor was Jean Baptiste Laroche from Chef-Boutonne, Deux Sevres, France, who married Marie Suzanne Turpin in Montréal in 1723. Jennie’s Laroche ancestor was Amable Breillard dit Laroche who married Marie Lafond in Batiscan. Québec, in 1683. Amable also came from the same geographical area as Jean Baptiste Laroche.
Looking ahead to 2025. I plan to wrap up “Lost Names” when we reach our fiftieth episode. While I have a list of names yet to be explored, if you readers suspect you have a changed name from the original Québec last name, please contact me through The Reporter. My new research adventure thereafter will be called “Coming to America,” the stories of immigrants who made Vermont their home. I look forward to cooperating with families who have been waiting for their history to reach a wider audience. With appreciation for the feedback I have received, I convey my best wishes to you for the holiday season and the new year.
