A native of Pennsylvania, Professor Stanton was born at Waymart, Wayne county. He is descended from Thomas Stanton, who landed in Virginia in January, 1635, from the merchantman Bonaventura, and who in the following year removed to Boston, Massachusetts, and thence, in 1639, to Hartford, Connecticut. This ancestor was prominent in the Pequot and other Indian wars and in the early life of the colony. The line of descent is traced down from Thomas Stanton through John, John and David to Colonel Asa Stanton, who was a native of Connecticut and an active participant in the Revolutionary war. He served both in the army and infant navy of the colonies and, being captured, was confined for a considerable time on the prison ship Jersey. His son, Asa Stanton, born in Paupack, Pennsylvania, July 27, 1793, was the father of Fitz Henry Stanton, who was born at Waymart, Pennsylvania, May 7, 1823. Fitz Henry Stanton became successively a lumberman, railroad official and farther, the farm on which he died, in 1906, having come into the possession of his grandfather in 1793. He was married on the 30th of June, 1844, to Mary Rounds, a daughter of Arba and Sarah Rounds.
Professor Stanton, of Ames, son of Fitz Henry and Mary (Rounds) met the usual experiences of youth passed on a Pennsylvania farm in the '60s. His home training helped to establish habits of industry and a recognition of the value and worth of time and money. He enjoyed farm life in its various phases but desired to get out into the great, busy world and gain a broader knowledge of life than could be obtained within the circumscribed limits of the home farm. His inclination was toward mechanical and business pursuits yet into other channels his energies were directed and Iowa gained thereby one of her foremost educators. He was a pupil in the public schools of Waymart and in the normal school of that place prior to entering the Delaware Literary Institute of Franklin, Delaware county, New York. This is a preparatory school, then under the charge of Professor George W. Jones, afterward professor of mathematics at the Iowa State College at Ames and later professor of mathematics at Cornell University, at Ithaca, New York. On the completion of his preparatory work in the Delaware Literary Institute he sought the opportunity of pursuing a college course where he could meet his expenses by working at the institution. Not finding any such opportunity in the east, he wrote to Professor Jones, of Ames, Iowa, having previously worked for him while attending school in Franklin. In reply he was told to come on at once and, making his way westward, he entered the sophomore class of the Iowa State College, living in the home of Professor Jones during the remainder of his student life, doing work about the house and also clerical work in the office of the college cashier. Such was his recognized ability and scholarship that on the day of his graduation, in November, 1872, he was elected instructor in mathematics in the college and throughout the intervening years to the present time has been continuously a teacher there, his labors constituting one of the strong and forceful elements in the