Franklin District Medical Society
Dr. Alpheus Fletcher Stone3 was born in Rutland, Worcester Co., Mass., May 7, 1778. In his younger days he taught school in Connecticut, and probably had a good common education for those days.
About 1798 or 1799 he came to Greenfield, where he entered the office of his elder brother, Dr. John Stone, who subsequently removed to Springfield, Mass., where he died.4 He continued his medical studies for about two years, and commenced practice at Greenfield on Christmas-day, 1801. Here be continued in active business for fifty years, and became one of the most noted and successful practitioners in this region. He was famous as an obstetrician, and probably had a larger practice in that line than almost any other physician in the Connecticut Valley. He had a great reputation in the treatment of women and children, and was a man of most urbane and gentlemanly deportment, and was very popular among all classes. He was exceedingly systematic, and always punctual to appointments. During the last twenty-five years of, his life his consulting practice was very extensive.
He became a fellow of the Massachusetts Medical Association in 1814, and was one of its counselors for twenty-five years. He took an active part in the formation of the Franklin District Medical Society, founded in 1851, was one of its counselors, and served for some time as librarian. In 1813 he was elected an honorary member of the American Esculapian Society of New York. In 1825 he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Medicine from Williams College; in 1849 was appointed by the Massachusetts Medical Association a delegate to the American Medical Association; and in January, 1851, was elected first president of the Franklin District Medical Society. Dr. Stone died Sept. 5, 1851, aged seventy-three years and four months.
He was three times married. His first wife was a daughter of Beriah Willard, Esq., of Greenfield; his second was Harriett Russell, of Rutland, Mass.; and his third, Mrs. Fanny Cushing Arms, widow of George Arms, Esq., of Deerfield, whom he married about 1820.
His son, Charles Stone, was a graduate of West Point, and served during the Mexican war with distinction, rising to the rank of captain in the regular army. Subsequently he visited Europe to perfect his military studies. At the opening of the great Rebellion in 1861 he took an active and prominent part, and received the commission of brigadier-general of volunteers. He commanded at the disastrous battle of Ball's Bluff, which reverse to the Union arms was more the result of errors on the part of the War Department than of any fault in the commander. He soon after retired from the service, and subsequently visited Europe and Egypt, where he entered the army of the khedive, and has, by his thorough military knowledge and soldierly qualities, won the high distinction of virtual commander-in-chief of the Egyptian army. [Note: the last link has a very interesting transcription of the diary of Fanny Stone: An American Girl In Cairo — C.P. Stone's daughter]
3 Compiled from a biographical sketch by Stephen W. Williams, M.D., written in 1851, and published in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal.
4 For notice of Dr. John Stone, see Medical Chapter of Hampden County history. [Ed note: not yet online]
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