Correspondence of Martha D. Stone and her extended family.

Martha ("Mattie") Dandridge Welch Stone (1844-1943), a long time resident of Los Angeles, was born in Talladega County, Ala. Her father was J. Mallory (John Mallory) Welch (d. 1847), a Talladega county lawyer and son of Rev. Oliver Welch (1791-1874), the founder of the Alpine Baptist Church. Mattie's mother, Frances Ann Gibson Welch (1818-1901) hailed from an old Virginia family. She was daughter of Jonathan Catlett Gibson (1793-1849), a Culpeper County, Va. lawyer and legislator, and his first wife Martha Dandridge Ball (1799-1822), daughter of Col. Burgess Ball and Frances Ann Washington, George Washington's niece. In 1849, Mattie's widowed mother married James Creth Burt (1809-1896), an affluent tanner of Mardisville, Talladega County, Ala. In 1860, Burt legally adopted Mattie. On June 1873, she married Isaac Jordan Stone (1846-1891), son of a Talladega County farmer. The Stones soon moved to North Carolina where Jordan Stone worked as a newspaper publisher; he was the proprietor and editor of The Raleigh Standard and The Asheville Citizen. Their children - Frances Jordan (1874-1943), Jordan Mallory (1883-1918), and William Welch (1886-1978) were born in North Carolina. In 1888, Stone sold his interest in The Asheville Citizen, and the family moved to Los Angeles. Stone became an importer and dealer in lime and cement. Mattie's mother came to live with them; she died in 1901 at her daughter's Los Angeles home. Jordan Mallory Stone came to Pasadena in April 1917 to take the position of assistant cashier of the Security National Bank. In July 1917, he married Evelyn H. Williams, but two months later succumbed to pneumonia. Frances Jordan (Fannie) Stone worked as a stenographer; she died in 1943. William Welch Stone, a bank executive, married Rebecca McMillan (1891-1981); the Stones lived in San Diego. In 1908, Martha D. Stone was involved in an attempt to receive reimbursement for the estate of George Washington lost by conflicting grants of the United States government. The effort was spearheaded by Robert E. Lee, Jr., the administrator of the Washington estates, and Grenlee Davidson Letcher (1867-1954) of Lexington, Va., the legal counsel. In 1909, the respective bills were introduced in the House (No. 5489) and Senate (No. 1238).

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