Elizabeth Robbins Stone
Elizabeth Robbins Stone (née Hickok; September 21, 1801 - December 4, 1895) was an American pioneer woman who was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 1988.
Born in Connecticut and raised in New York, Elizabeth Hickok was married and widowed twice and had 8 children from her first marriage to Dr. Ezekiel Robbins.
Most of her adulthood was spent as a pioneer, building homes and businesses with her husbands in Missouri, Illinois, Minnesota and Colorado.
[1] In the early 19th century education for girls was not generally considered important, the rationale was that as women they would be primarily responsible for household duties and raising children which would not require them to be literate.
Of Ezekiel, Pitt Morse, the first Universalist minister in the Watertown area, noted:Some time during the winter past, Ezekiel W. Robbins, a young man of unblemished moral character, was excluded from the Congregational Church in Adams, merely for believing in the fulfillment in the divine mission of Christ.
[6] Elizabeth and Ezekiel had 2 children by 1828, one of whom was Washington I. Robbins, when they moved by wagon to the booming town of St. Louis, Missouri.
[9][10] Their children included Washington, Lucy, Theodoria, Ellen, Walter, Dewitt, James and another child whose name is unknown.
[4][11][12] In 1850, living at home with Elizabeth and Ezekiel, were daughter Ellen and three sons: Walter, Dewitt and James, ranging from 18 to 11 years of age.
[1][3] In 1857, Elizabeth Hickok Robbins moved to the Minnesota prairie and married widower Lewis Stone[1][3] who immigrated from New Brunswick, Canada to Maine and then St. Anthony, Minnesota by 1850 with his previous wife, also named Elizabeth (born 1797 in Maine), and their children Jacob, Leonard, Joshua, Ezekiel, Rhodence, Lewis and Wallace.
[14][21] Traveling by covered wagon, the Stones made their way across Nebraska and down the South Platte River to Denver in 1862 where they purchased 12 lots.
The post was built to guard the overland mail route and to protect settlers from unfriendly Native American tribes.
Described as a "merry" woman and gracious hostess, the men at Camp Collins nicknamed her "Auntie" Stone.
"[24] Beginning in June 1866, Keays opened the settlement's first school in her aunt's home with 14 students[22] soon after she arrived from Illinois.
The first was creation of a three-story grist mill, the town's tallest building, to meet the needs of the new wheat farms in the region.
[29] It was first flour mill built in Larimer County, second in the state of Colorado, and powered by the water of the Cache la Poudre River.
[23] It was built at the Old Fort site on the south side of the river with a 1+1⁄2 mile long millrace to supply water power.
[31] Seven years after the "Great Fire of Denver of 1863" that demolished many of Denver's downtown buildings,[32] Stone realized that Fort Collins buildings were all wooden frame structures and built a brick kiln and founded a brick making business so that more formidable, permanent structures could be built.
In 1879, she held a "good" dinner for men who met their promise not to enter a saloon for two months, and in 1881, helped form the Temperance Union and was elected treasurer.
[27] In 1885, when Stone was about 84 years of age, the Fort Collins Courier reporter described her: "She walks erect, reads a great deal, and talks sensibly.
