In 1853 he moved with his family to Grand Rapids, Michigan and continued in the lumber business, soon expanding into manufacturing wood products.

The Panic of 1857 nearly drove him out of business, but he persevered through the difficulties and within about four years he had satisfied all financial obligations and had put his enterprises on a sound basis.

He built a large factory on Canal and Newberry streets and employed more than a 200 persons and using about 10,000,000 feet of timber annually.

Stone and their young son, were lost in the wreck of the steamer Brother Jonathan off the coast of California in July 1865.

Clara Comstock Russell (http://www.historygrandrapids.org/photoessay/4480/clara-comstock-russell-woman-a) was chairman of the Republican Women's State Executive Committee, and vice-president of the Michigan Equal Suffrage Association.

He also ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in a special election in 1873.