Jay Stone

Who was Jay Stone?

Jay Stone was the 'Chief of the Correspondence Division' in the United States War Department in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In a period without 'Assistant Secretaries', this was the second highest-ranking civil service position in this cabinet-level department, under the Chief Clerk. Stone retired in 1928 as the department's longest-serving civilian employee.

Born in Bangor, Maine, Stone enlisted in the cavalry at 18 and went west. In 1877, he was chosen as "phonographic reporter and Indian interpreter" to Gen. Alfred H. Terry's Commission sent to negotiate with Sioux chief Sitting Bull, who had fled to Canada after winning the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Stone had learned the new skill of stenography, and, according to a newspaper report, was the first stenographer ever employed by the War Department. He continued for some time to work at Terry's headquarters, but by 1881 was listed as the 'private secretary' to Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln in the administration of James Garfield. Stone was on Garfield's funeral train after his assassination that same year.