John Stone inherited his father’s homestead on the Ohio River at Belpre across the Ohio River from Parkersburg, (West) Virginia. Before the Mexican War he was appointed as a Colonel in the Ohio Militia. John Stone’s farm is located across the Ohio River from the confluence with the Little Kanawha River and from Washington's Bottom where there were several moderate sized farms that owned enslaved African Americans.

The Little Kanawha River was a well used Underground Railroad trail through (West) Virginia. Very early in John Stone’s life he witnessed the capture of a slave from Wood County, Virginia who had crossed the Ohio River onto his father’s. The slave’s owner was in close pursuit and hell bent on capturing his errant slave. This incident was very likely the catalyst that ignited John Stone hatred for slavery and slave owners ! At that time he made a vow to help every fugitive slave he encountered, continue their journey on the Underground Railroad toward freedom in Canada.

Before 1820, John Stone joined the growing group of citizens who lived along the Ohio River in their practice of helping fugitive slaves evade capture. This activity spread rapidly along the Ohio River and the Upper Mississippi River. This practice became known as the Underground Railroad. John Stone was vocal about his anti-slavery sentiments, but he kept details about his Underground Railroad activities confined within his close circle of associates. Slave owners in Wood County, Virginia knew about John Stone and hated him too, but they were never able to prove a case against him.

Based on John Stone’s outspoken distain for slavery, at one point the Virginia Militia thought he intended to lead an invasion force of Abolitionists into Virginia to free the slaves. The Virginia Militia positioned a canon on the Virginia shore of the Ohio River and aimed it toward John Stone’s house on the Ohio shore. Partly for the sake of annoyance John Stone constructed a fake cannon from a length of wooden pipe and an upside down butter churn! The ruse was over when the wind blew the makce-shift cannon apart. In 1845, this nearly caused the Civil War to get started!

John Stone lived to see the end of slavery in the United States. In January 1884, Colonel John Stone died peacefully on his farm where he was born and lived out his life.