That same year he married Bessie, a schoolteacher and sister of George Thomas Arnold, a lumberman and business associate there (and later at Mackinac Island).

[1] He was appointed ambassador to the Netherlands on July 12, 1875, took the oath of office but never proceeded to the post.

In 1882, Stockbridge purchased the site of the famous Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island and arranged financing for its construction from the three major transportation companies that rendered service to the island at the time: the Michigan Central Railroad, the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad, and the Detroit and Cleveland Navigation Company.

Although the accident itself was not fatal, his associates attributed his death to the mental stress he endured from it.

[2] He and his wife are interred in Mountain Home Cemetery in Kalamazoo, Michigan.