Born at Hopkinton, New Hampshire, Stanley graduated from Dartmouth College in 1849 and was admitted to the bar in 1862, forming a partnership with his old preceptor, George W. Morris of Manchester, in whose office he was a law student.
In 1865, Stanley was chosen as president of the City National Bank and held that position for fourteen years.
In 1881 he was elected a trustee of Dartmouth College, to succeed Judge Ira Allen Eastman.
In 1874, on the reorganization of the judiciary system of the state, Stanley was made one of the judges of the new Circuit Court, and two years later, when the opposing political party abolished that court and restored the former system, he was retained on the Superior Court bench as a senior associate justice.
This biography of a state judge in New Hampshire is a stub.