page_title: Elizabeth Hickok Robbins Stone
section_title: Lewis Stone
hierarchical_section_title: Elizabeth Hickok Robbins Stone / Marriages and children / Lewis Stone
caption_attribution_description: Public domain 1949 United States postage stamp commemorating the Minnesota Territorial Centennial
context_page_description: Elizabeth Hickok Robbins Stone 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. Both of her husbands participated in developing statehoods: Ezekiel Robbins in Illinois and Lewis Stone in Minnesota.
  At about 62 years of age Elizabeth Robbins Stone and her second husband, Lewis Stone, took their wagon from Minnesota to Denver, Colorado where they operated a hotel for a few years. They then went north to Camp Collins, Colorado and built a house to provide the army officers' mess.
  After her second husband, Lewis Stone, died, Elizabeth Stone ran the first hotel in the Fort Collins area, serving Overland Trail travelers. Stone financed and initiated businesses to support the growth in and around the Fort Collins, Colorado area. With her partner, Henry Clay Peterson, she had the first mill in Larimer County, Colorado and the second mill in Colorado.
context_section_description: In 1857 Elizabeth Hickok Robbins moved to the Minnesota prairie and married widower Lewis Stone 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.
  Living with Elizabeth Robbins Stone and Lewis Stone in 1857 were Lewis' sons Ezekiel (22) and Wallace (15).   In 1853 Lewis Stone and his brother George helped found the settlement of Langola, also called "Platte River", where they owned and operated the Stone Hotel and dining room.   In 1856 Stone was a representative for Benton County in the Minnesota territorial legislature.  He was sometimes called "Judge" Lewis Stone, having served as a judge of elections in Stearns County, Minnesota in the 1858 statehood election.
  According to letters written by James Fergus to his wife back in Minnesota, Lewis Stone traveled to Colorado in the spring of 1860 and panned for gold in "Gregory Diggings" [now Central City, Colorado].   Elizabeth Stone remained at their home on the Platte river in Langola, Minnesota, sharing responsibility for running the Stone Hotel with Lewis' brother George and sister-in-law Mahalia Stone.  Living with Elizabeth were step-son Ezekiel Stone and his children.   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.  On the property was a restaurant and/or a "hotel" on land that is now part of Denver's Union Station.
  Leaving the Denver property in the hands of Lewis Stone's son, the Stones moved in September, 1864 to an army post, Camp Collins, north of Denver to manage the officer's mess.  The post was built to guard the overland mail route and to protect settlers from unfriendly Native American tribes.  The post consisted of tents and a few cabins along the Cache la Poudre River.  In 1890 the Rocky Mountain News described the camp as "nothing more than a parade ground and flagpole with three log huts on one side for officer's quarters, and on the east and west... log barracks for the men."  The Stones were given permission to build a two-story house to serve as the mess quarters and their home; Within one month they were ready to use the building as a mess hall and take in officers as boarders. For the first year, Stone was the only woman in town.  Described as a "merry" woman and gracious hostess, the men at Camp Collins nicknamed her "Auntie" Stone.  Her husband, Lewis Stone, died in January, 1866 and was buried in the post's cemetery.
caption: Minnesota Territory Centennial U.S. postage stamp
exif: {}