A Life

Most of what is written here comes from Stone’s own account, given to the Federal Writers’ Project in the late 1930s, and from a history compiled by the Hamilton County Artists’ Association.

Barney Stone was born into slavery on May 17, 1847, in Spencer County, Kentucky, on a plantation owned by Lemuel Stone. His mother bore ten children, all enslaved; his father, Buck Grant, was enslaved on a neighboring farm and was permitted to visit only on weekends. As a boy, Stone watched his sister sold and taken away. Later he watched his mother and infant brother sold to a trader as well — he would not see his mother again for twenty-seven years.

Around 1863, as Union troops neared the plantation, Stone ran and hid, was found, and joined the Union Army rather than be shot for fleeing. He served roughly a year and eight months. By his own account he fought at Fort Wagner and Milliken’s Bend; other research on his service ties him to the 108th United States Colored Troops. White soldiers in his unit taught him to read and write — skills he did not have going in and would spend the rest of his life putting to use.

After the war he returned to Kentucky searching for the family that had been sold away, taught school to Black children for four years, and studied nights at a lawyer’s home. In 1868, at about twenty-one, he began preaching. Over the next seven decades he helped build seven churches across Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana, married Kate, and raised a family together — by his own count, eight children.

Because of growing hostility toward Black residents in Kentucky, Stone moved his family to Noblesville in the 1890s, settling on Pleasant Street. He pastored the First Baptist Church at Fifth and Cherry, served as a Hamilton County circuit court bailiff, chaplain of the local Grand Army of the Republic post, and a member of the Knights of Pythias, the I.O.O.F., and the Masonic Lodge. For years he led the Memorial Day prayers at Riverside Cemetery — by neighborhood memory, prayers that ran long.

In 1938, at ninety-one, he traveled to Gettysburg for the 75th anniversary of the battle and heard President Franklin Roosevelt speak — the only Civil War veteran from Hamilton County to make the trip. “When I stood on the same ground where Lincoln stood, where he delivered his great speech, I think it was the happiest moment of my life.”

Stone died in November 1942 at ninety-five — the last Civil War veteran in Hamilton County, and by some accounts the last surviving Black Civil War veteran in the country. The Noblesville Ledger called his three-hour funeral service “perhaps the most remarkable ceremony ever… for a soldier or preacher ever witnessed in Noblesville.”

My Life’s Story

Around 1938, interviewer Robert C. Irvin recorded Stone’s account for the Federal Writers’ Project’s Slave Narrative Collection — published in 1941 as part of Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States, Vol. V: Indiana. It is a public federal record, and Stone’s words carry it.

← scroll through the original pages →

“While I was born in slavery, I never intended to die in slavery.”Told to the Indianapolis Recorder

“My Mammy was mother to ten children, all slaves… His master permitted him to visit my mother each week-end on our plantation.”On his parents, Federal Writers’ Project interview

“After those experiences of sixteen long years in hell, as a slave, I was very bitter against the white man, until after I ran away and joined the Union army.”On his escape, Federal Writers’ Project interview

“I have accomplished much good in this life and have raised a family of eight children. I love and am loyal to my country… I am in good health and still able to work, and I am thankful to my God and my country.”Closing his account, Federal Writers’ Project interview, at about age ninety-one

First Baptist Church

Founded in 1853 as the first Black Baptist congregation in Noblesville, the church building at 195 South 5th Street was completed in 1875 for between $640 and $653 — on what were then Amo and Brock Streets, on the eastern edge of Riverside Cemetery. Stone was one of six pastors named on its historical marker.

Still Standing on Fifth Street

The building Stone once preached in is still there. So is his name.

Kept, and Corrected, by Hand

A typewritten HCAA history of the church, annotated by Bryan Glover of the Noblesville Diversity Coalition — the small corrections in red are their own act of care toward getting the story right.

Sources

• Federal Writers’ Project, Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States, Vol. V: Indiana — Barney Stone, interviewed by Robert C. Irvin, District #2, Noblesville, Ind. (Washington: Library of Congress, 1941)
• Hamilton County Artists’ Association, History of the First Baptist Church (archival document, annotated)
• City of Noblesville, Reverend Barney Stone interpretive marker, Reimagine Pleasant Street project (installed January 7, 2025)
• First Baptist Church historical marker, 195 S. 5th Street
• Hamilton East Public Library, “Two Degrees of Separation From Slavery”
• City of Noblesville, Riverside Cemetery Self-Guided Tour
• The Reporter, Current in Noblesville, and WISH-TV coverage of the January 2025 signage unveiling

Compiled for Stop Bath Studio, Noblesville, Indiana.