William Stone, 3rd Proprietary Governor of Province of Maryland (c. 1603 – c. 1660) was an early English settler in Maryland. He was governor of the colony of Maryland from 1649 to 1655. Early life William Stone was born in Northamptonshire, England. Business dealings in Virginia Colony On September 15, 1619, William Stone set sail for the Virginia Colony, on the ship, Margaret of Bristol and was one of the new colonists, being sent to Berkeley Hundred, to work under Captain John Woodlief's supervision. Stone was supposed to serve the Society of Berkeley Hundred's investors for six years in exchange for 30 acres of land. Sometime, prior to February 9, 1629, he received a tobacco bill from Richard Wheeler. By June 4, 1635, William had patented 1,800 acres in Accomack. Family, marriage, and colonial government official Local court records revealed, that he was the brother of Andrew Stone and Captain John Stone, who had been trading, on the Eastern Shore, since 1626. By 1634, William Stone had become a commissioner of the county court. Sometime, prior to February 1636, he married Verlinda Graves, the daughter of Captain Thomas Graves. William went on to become sheriff and vestryman. In 1645 he was residing on the Eastern Shore, in what had become Northampton County. By 1648, he had become the third proprietary governor of Maryland. First Puritan settlement in Virginia Stone came to America, in 1619, with a group of Puritans, who settled on the Eastern shore, of Chesapeake Bay, in the colony of Virginia. The first Puritan settlement, in Virginia, thrived, but eventually came into conflict with the established Episcopal Church. In 1648, William Stone reached an agreement, with Cecilius Calvert, the 2nd Lord Baltimore to resettle the Virginia Puritan colonists, in the central region of the Province of Maryland. Governor of Province of Maryland On August 8, 1648, Lord Baltimore named Stone the Governor of his colony. He was the first Protestant Governor. The Assembly sought a confirmation of their religious liberty and in 1649 Governor Stone signed the Religious Toleration Act, which permitted liberty to all Christian denominations. In 1649, William Stone and Puritan exiles, from Virginia, founded the town of Providence, now Annapolis, Maryland, on the north shore, of the Severn River and across from, the future site of, the Maryland state capital of Annapolis. In 1654, after the Third English Civil War (1649–51), the victorious, Parliamentary forces