Elizabeth Hickok Robbins Stone

Elizabeth Robbins Stone ( Hickok; September 21, 1801 – December 4, 1895) was an American pioneer woman who was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 1988.

Born in Connecticut and raised in New York, Elizabeth Hickok was married and widowed twice and had eight children from her first marriage to Ezekiel Robbins. Most of her adulthood was spent as a pioneer, building homes and businesses with her husbands in Missouri, Illinois, Minnesota, and Colorado. Both of her husbands participated in developing statehoods: Ezekiel Robbins in Illinois and Lewis Stone in Minnesota.

At about 62 years of age, Elizabeth and her second husband, Lewis Stone, took their wagon from Minnesota to Denver, Colorado, where they operated a hotel for a few years. They then went north to Camp Collins, Colorado, and built a house to provide the army officers' mess. After Lewis Stone died, Elizabeth ran the first hotel in the Fort Collins area, serving Overland Trail travelers. Stone financed and initiated businesses to support the growth in and around the Fort Collins, Colorado, area. With her partner, Henry Clay Peterson, she established the first mill in Larimer County, Colorado, and the second mill in the state. The settlement's first school was started in her home by her niece, Elizabeth Keays. After the Great Fire of Denver in 1863, she financed the building of the first brick kiln in the region. She owned and operated several hotels.

Early life Elizabeth Hickok was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on September 21, 1801, to David and Adah Hickok. The Hickok family moved to Watertown, New York, in 1805. In the early 19th century, education for girls was not generally considered important; the rationale was that as women they would be primarily responsible for household duties and raising children, which would not require them to be literate. Unlike many girls at that time, Hickok learned to read and write.

Marriages and children Ezekiel W. Robbins Elizabeth Hickok married her first husband, Ezekiel W. Robbins, on February 22, 1824, in Watertown. During the early 1820s, the Universalist Society was established in Watertown. Some parishioners of local churches wished to be dismissed from their church to enable them to join the Universalist church. In June 1824, Robbins received a letter of fellowship to the Universalist church. Of Ezekiel, Pitt Morse, the first Universalist minister in the Watertown area, noted:

Elizabeth and Ezekiel had two children by 1828, when they moved by wagon to the booming town of St. Louis, Missouri. Robert and Lucy Robbins, Ezekiel's parents, also moved to St. Louis; Robert died there in 1831 and Lucy in 1858. and from 1847 to 1848 at the Illinois constitution convention in Springfield.

Ezekiel Robbins died on July 25, 1852, of cholera Elizabeth Robbins, who still had three sons to raise, moved back to New York for a period of time.

Living with Elizabeth Robbins Stone and Lewis Stone in 1857 were Lewis' sons Ezekiel (22) and Wallace (15). In 1853 Lewis Stone and his brother George helped found the settlement of Langola, where they owned and operated the Stone Hotel and dining room.

In 1856, Stone was a representative for Benton County in the Minnesota Territorial Legislature. He was sometimes called "Judge" Lewis Stone, having served as a judge of elections in Stearns County, in the 1858 statehood election.

According to letters written by James Fergus to his wife back in Minnesota, Lewis Stone traveled to Colorado in the spring of 1860 and panned for gold in Central City. Elizabeth remained at their home in Langola, sharing responsibility for running the Stone Hotel with Lewis' brother George and sister-in-law Mahalia Stone. Living with Elizabeth were step-son Ezekiel Stone and his children. Traveling by covered wagon, the Stones made their way across Nebraska and down the South Platte River to Denver in 1862 where they purchased 12 lots. On the property was a restaurant and/or a "hotel" on land that is now part of Denver's Union Station. She also created and ran several businesses.

Hotels The army decommissioned Camp Collins in March 1867, so the house built as an officer's mess was turned into the first hotel in Fort Collins by Stone, which housed and fed Overland Trail travelers. She also sold pies, bread, milk and butter to the soldiers. Later, it was sold to Mr. and Mrs. James F. Vandewark, who covered it in siding, painted it white and made it their home.

From bricks made at her brickmaking business, Stone built Cottage House and ran a hotel out of it "Linden Mill" began production of flour in 1869 and its third floor was used for Masonic Lodge meetings beginning in 1870. At the end of 1873 both Peterson and Stone had sold their interests in the mill.

After their marriage, the Strattons lived at Stone's house and took in boarders for the railroad. Stone lived at the newly built mill and took in boarders there, who installed the mill machinery. The same year she obtained a land patent for 160 acres, becoming the first woman landowner and taxpayer in Larimer County. Stone realized that Fort Collins buildings were all wooden frame structures and built a brick kiln and founded a brickmaking business so that more formidable, permanent structures could be built. She and her partners operated the region's first brick kiln at the site of the Old Fort in 1870. She contributed to every church in town and towards the creation of the Colorado Agriculture College. She was a founding member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. In 1879, she held a "good" dinner for men who met their promise not to enter a saloon for two months, and in 1881, helped form the Temperance Union and was elected treasurer.

Later years On her 81st birthday, four generations of her family attend a party held in her honor where she danced until 5 a.m. and then went home to make breakfast for everyone; She danced until she was 86 years of age.

In 1894, the Fort Collins Express identified six living children: Mr. W.I. Robins, Mr. Dewitt C. Robbins, Mr. James M. Robbins, Mrs. Lucy Fallis, Mrs. Theodoria Van Brunt and Mrs. Ellen Ray.

Stone died on December 4, 1895, aged 94. Her funeral was officiated by ministers of Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopalian and Baptist churches.

The only remaining building associated with Camp Collins is Stone's cabin, now located at the Heritage Center at the Fort Collins Museum in downtown Fort Collins. She was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 1988. In 1991, Auntie Stone Street in southwest Fort Collins was named in her honor, "the founding mother" of Fort Collins.