May 24, 2004
A Discovery at Boone Hall Plantation
In 1935, Thomas Archibald Stone and his wife Ellen Ewing Noyes Stone purchased a much loved and beautiful southern plantation named Boone Hall. Lots of information is available on Boone Hall as it is now open to the public, thanks to the generosity of its current owners. (Boone Hall web site)
Last week I visited Boone Hall for the first time. The Live Oaks planted hundreds of years ago that line the still unpaved driveway evoke feelings of a simpler time. The place is just peacefully beautiful.
The Discovery
To my delight, while looking at the exhibits in a small out-building now called the "Thomas A. Stone House", I was able to make a little discovery of my own. A framed two page letter is on exhibit, with this description inscribed in the frame: “Written in 1937. This Letter is From a Guest of the Stones to Her Family Discussing Boone Hall”. The letter beautifully describes the experience one had as a guest, invited for what appears to be about one month!
Well the discovery (to me at least!) is that it appears the letter was written by Flora M. Campbell Stone, who was of course, Thomas A. Stone’s mother!
The letter, I think, is written to her other four children as she mentions “Bessie in Puerto Rico” (a reference to Elizabeth Stone Howell, her only daughter); “I would love to hear little Peter talking Spanish” (referencing Elizabeth’s son /her grandson, Peter Stone Howell); “we have not heard from Toronto” (perhaps a reference to her eldest son John Douglas Stone and his family, and/or to her siblings living in Toronto); “And you in San Francisco” (a reference to her son Robert Spencer Stone, M.D., L.L.D who was at the time an instructor at the University of California radiology department); “Uncle Doug” (probably a reference to her brother Douglas Argyle Campbell Sr.); “Archie” (a reference to her youngest child, the soon-to-be Dr. Archibald Campbell who was finishing up medical school at McGill in Montreal), and "Katy" (who according to J. Spencer Howell who remembers her well, was a young Czechoslovakian girl who worked as a maid in her own home on Victoria Ave. in Chatham, ON). She also mentions “We expect to stay here one more week” and “We may take a long motor trip to Arizona”, perhaps indicating that she was visiting Boone Hall with her husband Spencer Stone who was an avid traveler and alive at the time the letter was written (he died in 1939).
The letter can be viewed here (large imgae files) - Page 1, Page 2
Special thanks to J. Spencer Howell for helping with the facts!
Posted by jhowell at May 24, 2004 10:24 AM