Reverend James Samuel Stone

I have since the 1960s had an interest in my family history, particularly the social history surrounding the various ancestors. I had established that one of my great grandfather's cousins, James Samuel Stone, who lived from 1852 to 1928, had emigrated to the USA as a young man, had studied theology and eventually became the rector of St. James's Cathedral in Chicago. From researches in the Bodleian Library, long before home computors and the internet, I established that he had written a number of books. Unfortunately the inconvenience of having to work for a living interrupted and caused long breaks in my family history researches and I had not pursued further details of James Samuel Stone although it remained as an intention so to do. At the time of one of these long breaks in my researches in the 1970s I was a partner in a surveying practise based in offices at 14 St Giles, Oxford. This was a very old property belonging to St John's College and had formerly been the town house of the Duke of Marlborough. We decided to carry out some alterations and improvements to the property which involved breaking into a roof void which, probably in the early part of the 20th century, had been sealed up during earlier building alterations. When this roof void was opened up there was an array of the usual builders rubbish but amongst this was a pamplet which I have retained and was entitled ' Notes on Books Being an Analysis of the Works Published by Messrs Longmans Green & Co - March 1913'. Out of interest I opened the pages and the first thing I saw to my amazement was a review of 'The Glory After the Passion by the Rev. James S Stone'. This spurred me on to further research, contact with the archivist at the Cathedral in Chicago and the uncovering of a great deal about the Rev. Stone. Regarding the fact I worked in 14 St Giles was itself something of a coincidence because 10 to 12 years earlier as a student I worked in the vacations for a furniture removal company and one of the removals I worked on was at 14 St Giles possibly at the time it changed from residential use to offices.