Alfred E. Stone


Alfred E. Stone was an American Architect. He was a founding partner of the Providence, Rhode Island, firm of Stone, Carpenter & Willson. Mr. Stone was best known for designing many prominent Rhode Island buildings, including the Providence Public Library, Union Station, buildings at Brown University and the University of Rhode Island, and many private homes.

Early years and family

Alfred E. Stone was born on July 29, 1834, in East Machias, Maine, to Rev. Thomas Treadwell Stone and Laura Poor Stone. He attended the Washington Academy in East Machias until the family moved to Salem, Massachusetts. While attending high school in Salem, he studied drawing and surveying. He graduated from high school in 1850. In 1852 he began his architectural training in the office of Towle & Foster. A few years later he moved to the office of Shepard S. Woodcock. In 1855 he moved again, to Washburn & Brown. He left the following year and began working for Arthur Gilman. While there, he designed the Hotel Pelham in Boston. While also there, he competed to design the 1858 City Hall in Portland, Maine, but did not even rank. In 1859 Stone moved to Providence and entered the office of Alpheus C. Morse, where he studied architecture until the outbreak of the Civil War. Stone married Ellen Maria Putnam in Salem in 1864.

Career and later life

In 1864 Stone founded his own architectural firm in Providence, and then partnered with W. H. Emmerton in 1866. Emmerton was killed in a railroad accident in 1871. In 1873, Stone promoted longtime employee Charles E. Carpenter to partner, forming the firm of Stone & Carpenter. In 1882, the firm took on a recent Beaux-Arts graduate, Edmund R. Willson. Impressed with his work, Stone and Carpenter promoted him to junior partner in 1883. He was promoted to full partner a few years later, and the firm became Stone, Carpenter & Willson. Walter G. Sheldon became a partner in 1901.
Willson died in 1906. By 1907, the firm had been reorganized as Stone, Carpenter & Sheldon. The firm retained this name even after Stone's death in 1908. The firm soon lost its prestige, and was left to residential and alteration work. It disappeared soon after Carpenter's death in 1923.
Stone had a keen interest in land use issues in the Providence area. In the late nineteenth century he played a key role in guiding the expansion of Swan Point Cemetery, continuing the precepts of the original design. He served as the cemetery Director and the last 12 years as President, from 1876 until his death. It was Stone who convinced his fellow cemetery directors to construct Blackstone Boulevard, as an easy means of getting to the cemetery.
Alfred E. Stone died at the home of his niece on September 4, 1908, in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and was buried in Swan Point Cemetery in Providence.
A city street is named in Stone's honor. Stone Road runs from the northern end of Blackstone Boulevard on Providence's East Side to Riverside Cemetery in Pawtucket.

Architectural work

All of Stone's work was built in Providence, Rhode Island, except where noted.

While in private practice, 1864–1873

American Institute of Architects, 1870–1908