Edward Stone (slave trader)

Edward Stone (c. 1782 – September 17, 1826), also known as Ned Stone, was an American slave trader. He participated in the interregional slave trade between Maryland, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Stone had a slave jail under his house, the Grange, which was built in the 1810s near Paris, Kentucky. Stone was killed on the Ohio River in 1826 by slaves he was transporting south for sale.

Edward Stone was originally from the Virginia Piedmont region and migrated to Bourbon County with three older brothers in the early 1800s. He began trading in slaves sometime before 1816. Stone was one of the handful of Kentucky slave traders who openly advertised early in the 19th century.

The Grange in Bourbon County, Kentucky was originally constructed to be his home. The early history of the house, located on the Lexington–Maysville Pike, was described in the 1973 application for the National Register of Historic Places:

Edward Stone began to build this splendid house in 1800. With his wife and eleven children he settled on his father's Revolutionary War land grant. At first they lived in a cabin while he built a kiln. After he built the kitchen and stables, they lived above the kitchen while building the rest of the house. After the foundation and cellar walls were formed they were allowed to settle for a couple of years to insure a firm foundation. After it was completed in 1816, Stone named it "Oakland". Underneath the entrance hall is a 24' x 12' masonry-walled room. The only ventilation is from an iron-barred window under the back porch in a two-foot thick wall. The doorway is 4' x 4' , raised 2 feet off the ground, and the door was solid iron. This room was the dungeon used in Stone's work as a slave trader...Following is an advertisement that Stone placed in the newspaper: "Cash For Negroes" - I wish to purchase twenty negroes, boys and girls from 10 to 25 years of age. A liberal price will be given for those answering the description on early application to the subscriber, Edward Stone. Living on the Limestone Road, 4 miles from Paris leading to Millersburg. (Western Citizen, July 24, 1816.)

According to Kentucky historian J. Winston Coleman, the Grange was a "fine example of Georgian architecture," and the basement dungeon consisted of "five or six strongly barred cells" for holding enslaved people prior to transport. According to a news article published in 1919, "Ingress to the dungeon is thru slanting doors to a cellar-like compartment, crossing which one comes to an opening in the wall, about three feet wide, four and a half feet high, and two feet from the floor. Within is Egyptian darkness, save for the faintest ray of light which filters thru a small barred aperture leading somewhere under the other part of the building. So black is the darkness that even with a lantern some time elapses after entering before the opposite walls can he discerned."

Stone also originally owned and likely built the neighboring Thomas Champ house, also known as Sulphur Spring. According to a history of the Maysville Road, "This house strongly resembles Rose Hill House [in Lexington] and The Grange in style."

In 1818, "Edw. Stone" of Flat Run, Bourbon County placed an ad in the local paper warning locals against "hunting, fowling, pulling down any of my plantation or woods pasture fencing, riding through, or in any manner, trespassing upon my plantation, as I am determined to prosecute, all who do it without liberty. Owners of Negroes had better give them ration, as they often ride after night." He was probably selling in Natchez that year with Jacob Jacoby, another Kentuckian, and Henry Turney.

The records of Concordia Parish, Louisiana show that Stone was selling there in 1820. In 1821 Stone and Thomas Phillips were partners in the slave trade. This business partnership with Thomas Phillips was concluded in 1823. One of their commercial enterprises was moving brown sugar from New Orleans to Kentucky. Stone was said to be one of the co-owners, with his partner at the time, Benjamin Keiningham, of the Paris, Kentucky slave coffle of summer 1822. In 1823, Stone listed for lease or sale the Indian Queen Hotel in Paris, Kentucky, preferring either "Land or Negroes" as the form of payment. The Indian Queen was more of a tavern than a hotel and was located at the corner of Main and Second in what was already a busy commercial center. In 1825 Kentucky slave trader John W. Anderson testified in a court case in Natchez, Mississippi, involving fight between Stone and a male slave.