Elizabeth Hickok Robbins Stone (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 8 children from her first marriage to Dr. 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 Robbins Stone 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 her second husband, Lewis Stone, died, Elizabeth Stone 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 had the first mill in Larimer County, Colorado, and the second mill in Colorado. 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
Dr. Ezekiel W. Robbins
Elizabeth Hickok married her first husband, Dr. Ezekiel W. Robbins, on February 22, 1824, in Watertown, New York. Ezekiel was born to Robert Robbins and Lucy Wright on August 20, 1802, in Verona, New York. 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. Of Ezekiel, Pitt Morse, the first Universalist minister in the Watertown area, noted:
In June, 1824, Robbins received a letter of fellowship to the Universalist church.
Elizabeth and Ezekiel had 2 children by 1828, one of whom was Washington I. Robbins, when they moved by wagon to the booming town of St. Louis, Missouri. St. Louis, a departure point for the western frontier, was known as the "Gateway to the West". Dr. Robbins established a medical practice and Elizabeth cared for the family, which grew to include 8 children. Robert and Lucy Robbins, Ezekiel's parents, also moved to St. Louis; Robert died there in 1831 and Lucy in 1858.
Between 1838 and 1840, the Robbins family moved to Chester, Illinois, where Dr. Robbins established several public schools. Dr. Robbins represented Randolph county, Illinois from 1844 to 1846 at the Fourteenth General Assemblies and from 1847 to 1848 at the Illinois constitution convention in Springfield, Illinois.
Their children included Washington, Lucy, Theodoria, Ellen, Walter, Dewitt, James and another child whose name is unknown. In 1850, living at home with Elizabeth and Ezekiel, were daughter Ellen and three sons: Walter, Dewitt and James, ranging from 18 to 11 years of age.
Ezekiel Robbins died on July 25, 1852, of cholera during the epidemic raging in the midwestern United States from 1849 to 1855. At this time, there were no standard practices for prevention of infectious disease, such as specialized medical training, prevention, sanitation engineering or isolation of ill patients. In its early history, Illinois had a high incidence of infectious diseases.
Elizabeth Robbins, who still had three sons to raise, moved back to New York for a period of time.
Lewis Stone
In 1857 Elizabeth Hickok Robbins moved to the Minnesota prairie and married widower Lewis Stone who immigrated from New Brunswick, Canada to Maine and then St. Anthony, Minnesota by 1850 with his previous wife, also named Elizabeth (born 1797 in Maine), and their children Jacob, Leonard, Joshua, Ezekiel, Rhodence, Lewis and Wallace.