Cornelius Stone (1832 - 1918)

Born 7 Feb 1832 in Canaan Township, Madison, Ohio, United States

Ancestors

Husband of Sarah Catherine (Carnes) Stone — married 20 Apr 1854 in Appanoose County, Iowa, United States

Died 17 Oct 1918 at age 86 in Portland, Multnomah, Oregon, United States

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Biography

Cornelius was born on 7 Feb 1832 on a farm in Canaan Township in Madison County, Ohio. He was the second of seven children born to Algernon Stone and Eve Slyh.

Background

Cornelius' father Algernon had arrived in rural Ohio in the 1810s with his parents and siblings from Vermont. The Stones were an old New England family that arrived in Connecticut Colony in the 1630s or 1640s. His mother Eve's family descended from German immigrants and came to Ohio from rural Maryland.

Move to Iowa and marriage

Sometime in the late 1840s, Cornelius moved with his parents and siblings 500 miles west to Appanoose County, Iowa. There, in 1850, he lived on a farm with his parents, siblings, grandfather Samuel Stone and uncle Lampson Stone.

In 1854, he married Sarah Carnes in Appanoose County ^[1], and they went on to have at least four children:

• Oliver Warren (1856-1929)
• Emeline Isabella (1857-1936)
• Orastus C (1864-1944)
• Florence F (1868-1943)

Move to Kansas

Beginning in the late 1850s, Cornelius, his wife and children began a 10-year odyssey, spanning the years of the American Civil War, that saw them make their way from Appanoose County to Labette County, Kansas, 275 miles southwest. During this time, they lived in at least six different places:

• Late 1850s, Appanoose County.
• In 1859, they were living 190 miles southwest in Paola Township, Lykens (now Miami) County, Kansas Territory. Cornelius' parents and siblings remained in Appanoose County.
• In 1860, they were living on a farm in Miami Township of Lykens County.
• In 1864, his son Orastus was born 25 miles to the west in Peoria Township in Franklin County, Kansas, which neighbored Miami County to the west.
• In 1868, his daughter Florence was born in Missouri, possibly in Cass County^[2], which neighbored Miami County to the east.
• By 1870, they had settled on a farm in sparsely-populated Osage Township in Labette County, 100 miles southwest of Cass County.

During this time, Cornelius' mother died in 1864, and his father, together with his brothers Henry and Jacob, moved to Oregon.^[3]

The Bloody Benders

In Oct 1870, a farm not far from the Stones in Osage Township was acquired by the notorious Bender family.^[4] The Benders -- John Sr, his wife Elvira, son John Jr and daughter (or daughter-in-law) Kate -- built a two-room cabin along the Great Osage Trail. The cabin had a general store in the front room where travellers could stop for a meal or spend the night. From May 1871 to Dec 1872, they murdered at least a dozen (and possibly more than 20) of these travellers and buried their bodies on their 160-acre farm.

At first the disappearances did not attract much attention, as many of the travellers were alone and came from far away places. However, in the winter of 1872, a man and his infant daughter from Independence, Kansas (about 15 miles from the Bender farm) went missing, and when a neighbor, Dr William Henry York, went searching for them in early March 1873, he too went missing. His brother Lt. Col. Alexander York gathered 50 men who visited every homestead along the trail leading northeast out of Independence, stopping at the Bender farm on 28 March, then again on 3 April when he became convinced that the Benders were involved. A few weeks later, after a meeting of Osage Township men (attended by John Bender Sr and his son) agreed that all farms should be searched, the Bender family disappeared. A few days later, a search of their abandoned farm revealed first the body of Dr York, then the bodies of up to 20 other victims.

At the time, detectives determined the Benders likely fled their farm after attention was beginning to focus on them by taking a wagon and team of horses 12 miles north to Thayer. From there, they continued north by train. However, they were never located, and rumors also circulated that they had been killed by vigilantes.

Move to Oregon

Cornelius and his wife remained in Labette County until the mid 1880s, when Cornelius gave up farming for mining. They moved first to Colorado, then in spring of 1890 to Oregon where Cornelius' brothers Henry and Jacob lived. They were joined by three of their four children, Oliver, Orastus and Florence (although Florence remained in Colorado until after 1900).^[5]

Confession to killing of Benders

In Aug 1901, Cornelius issued a statement confessing to having led a vigilante group of 12 men who confronted the Bender family on their farm in 1873. He said that, having found gold-rimmed glasses that belonged to Dr York and other evidence of their guilt, the band took the four family members to a grove of trees about three-quarters of a mile from their home, where they were hung. Their bodies were buried in a sandy creek-bed nearby. Although he did not identify any of the other members of the party in his statement, in a separate conversation, he said that he and John Sperry were leaders of the party.^[4] Sperry's farm was in southern Neosho County, about 3 miles northeast of the Bender farm.^[6][7]

The confession was widely reported at the time, but there was no consensus on its veracity. Henry S Rowe, who was the mayor of Portland in 1901 and a member of the party that discovered the bodies of the Benders' victims in 1873, said he considered Cornelius' story to be "plausible and worthy of credence, although he [had] heretofore inclined to the belief that the murderers were never captured."^[4]

Others were more skeptical. A certain "Judge Grover" of Topeka, Kansas, who lived in Labette County at the time of the murders, said he "never knew a man by the name of Cornelius Stone" (although it is clear that Cornelius and John Sperry lived quite close to the Bender farm at the relavent time). He said he believed Cornelius' story "to be untrue, as were also other stories of the same kind that have been so rife over the past few weeks".^[8]

Cornelius offered to go back to Labette County to disclose the graves of the Benders^[9], although it does not appear he ever did so. Cornelius' story was corroborated by AY Smith, a resident of Linn County, Oregon, who went to Oregon around the same time as Cornelius. Smith worked at a detective agency in Kansas at the time of the murders and was reported to be "probably another member of the party [that killed the Benders], but does not admit it".^[10]

Thereafter, the story faded from the news.

Final years

Cornelius lived his final years in Oregon, where his wife Sarah died in 1917. He died the following year on 17 Oct 1918 in Portland, Oregon.^[11]

Sources

1. ↑ Marriage of Cornelius Stone & Sarah Carnes (FamilySearch) (requires free registration).
2. ↑ At this time, it was likely that Cornelius' brother Philip was living in Cass County, as was William F Hagan. Hagan was a farm hand on Cornelius' farm in Labette County in 1870 and married Philip's daughter Lucy Stone back in Cass County in 1872. Florence's death certificate says she was born in St Louis, but this seems unlikely.
3. ↑ Henry M Stone is Victim of Accident on Lebanon Highway, Corvallis Gazette-Times, Corvallis OR, 1 May 1926, p. 1.(Ancestry.com) (requires subscription)
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1 4.2} Helped Hang the Benders, The Missoulian, Missoula MT, 29 Aug 1901, p. 2. (Ancestry.com) (requires subscription). Cornelius said that his farm was near Cherryvale (about 6 and a half miles southwest of the Bender farm), where "he often saw the Benders".
5. ↑ Oakville News, Albany Daily Democrat, Albany OR, 30 Sep 1890, p. 4. Cornelius was described as an "old miner" who was prospecting in the Calipooia mines near Oakville, east of Corvallis.
6. ↑ J.H. Sperry Died Thursday Morning, The Thayer News, Thayer KS, 23 Mar 1917, p. 1.
7. ↑ Mrs Will Southwick Succumbs to Flu, The Parsons Daily Sun, Parsons KS, 3 Mar 1922, p. 1.
8. ↑ Killer Confesses, The Topeka Daily Herald, Topeka KS, 23 Aug 1901, p. 1.
9. ↑ Says He Helped Kill the Benders, The Evening Mail, Stockton CA, 23 Aug 1901. p. 8. (Newspapers.com) (requires subscription).
10. ↑ The Bender Killing, The Butler Weekly Times and the Bates County Record, Butler MO, 5 Sep 1901, p. 1.
11. ↑ Cornelius Stone obituary, The Oregon Daily Journal, Portland OR, 19 Oct 1918, p. 7. He lived at 123 N. 18th Avenue, Portland OR and died of a "concussion of brain".

See also

• Cornelius Stone (FamilySearch) (contains links to other sources).