Stone was born in
Leonardtown, Maryland, and graduated from
St. John's College of
Annapolis, Maryland in 1839. He studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1841, beginning practice in
Port Tobacco, Maryland. He was appointed by the legislature in 1852 as one of the commissioners to revise the rules of pleading and practice in the State courts. Stone was the grandson of
Michael J. Stone, the younger brother of
Thomas Stone, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. During the Abraham Lincoln assassination trial in May & June 1865, Frederick Stone and
Thomas Ewing Jr. appeared as defense counsels for
Samuel Mudd and
David Herold. Their defense is generally credited with helping Mudd avoid the death penalty. Stone was a member of the
Maryland House of Delegates in 1864 and 1865, and was elected as a
Democrat to the Fortieth and Forty-first Congresses (serving March 4, 1867 – March 3, 1871). He was a member of the Constitutional convention of 1867 for
Charles County and unsuccessfully sought reelection in 1870. He later aligned himself with the Republican Party sometime after 1880 and defeated appointed incumbent
Daniel Randall Magruder to win a seat as an associate judge of the
Maryland Court of Appeals, serving from 1881 to 1890. He died at
Idaho, his country home near
La Plata, Maryland in 1899, and is interred in Mount Rest Cemetery of La Plata. == Personal life ==