Winthrop E. Stone

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Winthrop Ellsworth Stone (1862-July 17, 1921) was the president of Purdue University in the U.S. state of Indiana from 1900-1921.

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

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

He studied chemistry and biology at Boston University and the University of Göttingen. He received his Ph.D. from Göttingen in 1888, and was appointed chair of the chemistry department of Purdue University in 1889. After serving as Purdue's first vice president, he became president of the university 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". On October 31, 1903, a series of specials operated by the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis Railroad - the "Big Four Railroad", were chartered to take over 1,000 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's children were David Frederick Stone (1890-1987) and Richard Stone. His wife Victoria left him in 1907, travelling overseas to study philosophy.

Dr. Stone and his 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.