Winthrop E. Stone

Winthrop Ellsworth Stone (June 12, 1862 - July 17, 1921) was a professor of chemistry and served as the president of Purdue University from 1900-1921.

Born in Chesterfield, New Hampshire, to Frederick L. and Ann (Butler) Stone, he was the older brother of Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone.

He moved to Amherst in 1874, and attended Amherst High School and Massachusetts Agricultural College (now the University of Massachusetts Amherst), where he received his bachelor's degree in 1882.

He studied chemistry and biology at Boston University, while also serving as assistant chemist to the Massachusetts State Agricultural Experiment Station from 1884-1886. He then studied at the University of Göttingen, receiving his Ph.D. there in 1888. From 1888 to 1889, he was chemist to the Tennessee Agricultural Experiment Station. In 1889 he joined Purdue University as a Professor of Chemistry. After serving as Purdue's first vice president from 1892-1900, he became president of the university upon the death of James Smart in 1900. During Stone's tenure, Purdue's schools of agriculture and engineering grew rapidly.

President Stone was present at one of Purdue's worst tragedies, the "Purdue Wreck" (see List of pre-1950 rail accidents). On October 31, 1903, two special trains operated by the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway - the "Big Four Railroad", were chartered to take over 1,500 people from Lafayette Indiana to Indianapolis Indiana for the annual Indiana University / Purdue University football game. The entire Purdue football team had the place of honor by riding in the first coach of the lead special. President Stone was seated in one of the last coach cars of the same train. As the lead special rounded a curve near 18th Street in Indianapolis, it collided with a coal train which had been allowed to back onto the main line due to a lapse in communication. The wooden coach where the football team was seated was crushed between a coal tender and the second coach, which carried Purdue's marching band. Many of the other cars derailed. In all, 17 people were killed, including 14 players from the football team. President Stone and the other passengers tended those who were injured or dying.

Dr. Stone married his first wife Victoria Heitmueller of Göttingen in 1889 and they had two children, David Frederick Stone (1890-1987) and Richard Stone. Victoria abandoned the family in 1907, travelling overseas to study philosophy. [cite news | title=India Cult Causes Divorce | publisher=The New York Times | date=1911-06-20]

Dr. Stone and his second wife Margaret (married in 1912) enjoyed mountaineering and climbed extensively in the Canadian Rockies and Selkirks. On July 17, 1921, Stone fell to his death from the summit of Mt. Eon, Alberta, shortly after completing the peak's first ascent. [cite news | title=Dr. W. E. Stone Dies in Mountain Slide | publisher=The New York Times | date=1921-07-27 | url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=990CE5D71731EF33A25754C2A9619C946095D6CF | accessdate=2008-08-09]

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