"A Volume of Memoirs and Genealogy of Representative Citizens of the City of
Seattle and County of King, Washington." New York and Chicago: Lewis Publishing
Co., 1903.  p. 167.
 
CORLISS P. STONE

     Forty years have passed since Corliss P. Stone became a resident of Seattle
and in this period he has contributed in large measure to the extension and
improvement of the city through his real-estate operations, while his business
activity along other lines has promoted commercial prosperity. He arrived here
in February, 1862, and through the intervening period has steadily advanced
until he now occupies a leading position among the men of prominence here.
     Mr. Stone was born in Franklin county, Vermont, on the 20th of March, 1838,
and is of English lineage, although for many generations representatives of the
family have been residents of America, the great-great-great-grandfather having
been one of the early colonial settlers of Connecticut, while Benjamin Stone,
the grandfather of our subject, served in the Colonial army during the war of
the Revolution. He was identified with the Congregational church in religious
faith and lived to the advanced age of eighty-six years. He married a Miss
Corliss, a member of the family that became famous as the manufacturers of the
Corliss steam engines. James Corliss Stone, the father of our subject, was born
in Connecticut and married Miss Charlotte Lathrope, a native of Chelsea,
Vermont, and she, too, was of English heritage and a representative of an old
Vermont family.  She attained the age of sixty-six years, while Mr. Stone
reached the venerable age of eighty-four years.  For a number of years he held
the office of justice of the peace, and his decisions were rendered without
partiality or bias.  Both Mr. and Mrs. Stone were active and devout members of
the Congregational church and  their labors contributed to its upbuilding.
Their family consisted of three sons and three daughters.
     Corliss P. Stone was educated in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, attending the
public schools and the academy there, and entered upon his business career as a
clerk in a dry-goods store.  Later he engaged in business on his own account for
three years before coming to the Pacific coast.  He made the voyage around the
Horn in the Archer, a clipper ship, which in a gale lost a mast and was in
imminent peril, but she stopped for repairs and afterward continued the voyage
in safety, casting anchor in the harbor of San Francisco after one hundred and
ten days.  Mr. Stone had followed Horace Greeley's advice to young men and had
come to the west, hoping to find good business opportunities in this section of
the country. He possessed a strong body, willing hands and a clear head, but
little else to serve him as capital. His first work in Washington was at Port
Madison, where he was employed as a salesman in a store for five years. In 1867
he established a store of his own in Seattle and conducted a successful business
until 1884, when he sold out and became interested in city real estate.  Many
other enterprises have also claimed his attention and he is widely known as a
man of resourceful business ability, who not only has the talent for planning
successful enterprises but also the ability to put them into good working order.
He became one of the organizers of the Union Electric Company, furnishing light
and power for the city, and is now the president of the Cascade Laundry Company,
which is doing a large business in the city. He also continues his operations in
Seattle real estate and has platted several additions to the city, the first
being in 1884.  This was the Lake Union addition, including one hundred and
sixty acres of land, on which great improvements have been made. His next was
the Edgewater addition of thirty acres, which is also all built up at the
present time. He then platted Stone's extension to the same addition, which has
also been improved, many fine buildings having been erected there. He is now
handling the C. P. Stone home addition, of twenty acres, adjoining Lake Union.
It will thus be seen that he has been a prominent factor in the improvement and
upbuilding of the city and has done his full share toward the promotion of many
movements which have contributed to the public welfare aside from his individual
interests.
     In 1864 Mr. Stone was married to Clara Boyd, and unto them were born two
children, but only one is now living, Corliss L., who is now in the office of
his father, and is a young man of excellent business ability. In 1874 Mr. Stone
was again married, his second union being with Almira L. Crossman, a native of
Montreal, Canada. In politics he has been a lifelong Republican and had the
honor of being elected mayor of the city in 1872. He exercised his official
prerogatives for the improvement and substantial progress of Seattle and has
labored earnestly for the advancement of this part of the state.  Regarded as a
citizen and in his social relations, he belongs to that public-spirited, useful
and helpful class of men whose ambitions and desires are centered and directed
in those channels through which flow the greatest and most permanent good to the
greatest number.


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Submitted to the Washington Biographies Project in February 2008 by Diana
Smith.  Submitter has no additional information about the person(s) or family
mentioned above.