David was born on December 23, 1817 in Oxford, Connecticut, United States, the youngest of five children of a physician, Noah Stone, and his wife, Rosalind (Marvin) Stone. He was a descendant of John Stone who emigrated from England in 1639 and settled in what later became Guilford, Connecticut.
He attended the village schools until he was fourteen, when he began earning his own living. After working hours he studied Latin and Greek by himself.
At seventeen Stone became a school teacher. In 1842 he found a place as clerk in a drygoods house in Philadelphia and was employed there until the firm failed, seven years later. Meanwhile he had been writing correspondence for the Dry Goods Reporter of New York, and this led to his being offered the editorship of the magazine early in 1849. Though he was successful as an editor he could not agree with the owner of the paper and resigned later in the year. He then obtained a reporter's job on the New York Journal of Commerce, which, during the forty-four years that followed, became a veritable reflection of his own personality.
During his earlier years with the Journal he was engaged in many other activities. For a time he edited the Ladies' Wreath, a popular magazine. At various times he contributed a weekly financial review to the New York Observer and conducted a similar department in Hunt's Merchants' Magazine. A Sunday-school novel from his pen entitled Frank Forrest was published in 1850 and ran through many editions.
He also wrote many articles and stories for other publications. After the death of David Hale, editor of the Journal of Commerce, much of his work fell upon Stone's shoulders. At the beginning of the Civil War, Gerard Hallock, the principal owner of the paper, dictated a conciliatory policy towards the seceding states which became so offensive to the government that the Journal was forbidden the use of the mails and Hallock was forced to retire from its ownership.
Stone and William Cowper Prime proposed taking it over, and learned that under their management it would be permitted to continue. In 1864 the Journal, together with other New York newspapers, was made the victim of a serious hoax, when a bogus "proclamation of the President" was delivered to it and published. The editors of the World and the Journal of Commerce were ordered arrested and the papers suppressed; but it was quickly discovered that they had been the victims and not the perpetrators of the trick, and the papers were resumed.
In 1866 Stone became editor-in-chief of the Journal, and in 1884 he bought out Prime's interest in the paper.
He remarked in 1889 that he had not had a whole day's absence from his office in twenty-nine years. During his latter years he had no editorial assistant and wrote with his own hand about three hundred editorial articles a month, covering a wide range of subjects.
He retired from the Journal of Commerce in 1893 and died two years later in Brooklyn.
David Marvin Stone was elected president of the New York Associated Press, the pioneer news-gathering agency of America. He held the latter position for almost twenty-five years, retiring only when the association was merged with the United Press. As head of the Journal of Commerce, Stone became one of the best known editors in New York.
He was endowed by nature with a big, powerful body and perfect eyesight (he never wore spectacles).
He ahd a wife, the former Delia Charlotte Hall of Wallingford, Connecticut. They married on September 7, 1841, she died on October 19, 1887. There were no children.
