J. B. Stone orchardist near Fullerton and a worthy citizen of the Golden State, began life in Pennsylvania, July 21, 1831, the ninth in a family of eleven children of his parents, Silas and Susanna (Ward) Stone, who were from Vermont, and moved from Michigan to Van Buren County, Iowa, in 1837. November 13, 1851, Mr. J. B. Stone started by a steamer for California, but came part of the way by sail vessel, landing in San Francisco March 8, 1852. After mining one year he began farming in Alamada and Contra Costa counties.
After a time he came to Los Angeles County, and in 1868 bought land in what is now Orange County, being one of the first purchasers from the Los Angeles and San Bernardino Land Company. He took 200 acres of wild land on which there was not a tree or shrub, from the old Spanish adobe, Coyote, to Anaheim. He immediately went to work, built a house and began improvements, and, although for several years he had to encounter “hard times,” he now has fine walnut and orange groves where once the wild mustard waved in the breezes, and he now feels richly paid for all his patient labor and toil. He is a quiet, peaceable citizen, a good neighbor, non-partisan, but a Republican in his political sympathies.
Mr. Stone was married, March 6, 1855, in Sacramento, to Annie Smith, who was born in Alleghany County, Pennsylvania, the daughter of William and Annie (Blackburn) Smith, natives of England. The children in Mr. Stone’s family are Charles E., Emma A. (now Mrs. George Gray), Thomas R., Beatrice (wife of W. A. Barnes), Elnora and Roderick.