Hugh Exton Stone was born January 12, 1871, in Coatesville Pennsylvania. He graduated high school, prepared for Swarthmore, but did not enter. He was a bank cashier in Coatesville from 1887-1918, and then moved to Haverford, PA in 1918. Stone prepared sketches depicting many species for his cousin Witmer Stone's Plants of Southern New Jersey . His main interest, however, was in the flora of Chester County, Pennsylvania. In 1929 Bartonia published his article "A Centennial View of the Chester County Flora", which compared what was known then with what William Darlington knew a century ago. Later, in 1949, he published a comprehensive series of drawings to illustrate his own book, A Flora of Chester County, which drew from his earlier article. While writing this book, Stone was working as a research associate at the Academy of Natural Sciences.