His maternal grandfather, Thomas Treadwell, served with the Minutemen and was at the battle of Bunker Hill with Colonel William Prescott's regiment.
[1] At that time Waterford was an area of new and sparsely populated farmland, and Solomon Stone made his living as a farmer.
[3] Among his students was John Albion Andrew, the radical abolitionist, who would become Governor of Massachusetts during the Civil War years.
"[4] East Machias was home to many intellectuals at that time, and his church members included many who later took on theological leadership positions in New England educational institutions.
[5] Stone lectured for the Massachusetts England Anti-slavery Society, and was a delegate to the 1839 annual meeting of that group.
His sermon The Martyr of Freedom, a discourse delivered at East Machias, in 1837, condemned the killing of Elijah Lovejoy, Stone's friend and an anti-slavery publisher in Illinois.
[7] During this time he was able to build his anti-slavery fervor, as evidenced by frequent visits by the elite of the movement, including Amos Bronson Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Greenleaf Whittier, William Lloyd Garrison, and Wendell Phillips.
Discontent among Stone's parishioners at First Church in Salem rose as he became more involved with the fugitive slave issue.
During this speech he acknowledged the sadness and pains suffered by the anti-slavery community by being rejected, denounced and ridiculed by friends, family and church, and thanked them for standing firm for the cause.
In 1859 Thomas and his wife Laura moved to Brooklyn, Connecticut and became pastor of the Unitarian Universalist Church there in 1860.
William had obvious abolitionist fervor as well, as he was appointed to the Freedmen's Bureau in March 1866, "probably because of his whole-hearted commitment to black rights".
The funeral was held in First Church, Salem, and he and his wife are buried in Harmony Grove Cemetery in that city.