JOHN BERNARD STANTON was born in Camden, New Jersey on August 17, 1895 to Annie and Thomas J. Stanton. His father was born in New jersey, his mother had come from Ireland in 1884. John Stanton was the fourth of seven children, coming after Thomas, Mary, and William, with Anna, Catherine, and Alice coming afterwards. 

The 1894-1895 Camden City Directory states that the Stantons were living at 744 Carman Street, and that Thomas Stanton worked as a hatter. By 1896 they had 

moved to 3 South 7th Street. They were still there in 1897, Thomas Stanton then working as a laborer. The 1898 City Directory shows the family at 1025 Carpenter Street, where they remained through at least 1906. Thomas Stanton worked as an electrician in 1898, as a laborer in 1899, and as a steamfitter for the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1900. The 1906 City Directory indicated that Thomas Stanton had by then gone back to work as a hatter. 

The 1910 Census shows the Stanton family living at 1126 Cooper Street. Thomas Stanton worked as a laborer in a chemical factory to support his family. John Stanton had already gone to work, as a pressman in a pen factory. His father died prior to the compilation of the 1914 Camden City Directory. John Stanton then lived with his widowed mother and a number of his siblings at 1129 Federal Street. When he registered for the draft, on June 17, 1917 John Stanton was living at 920 Federal Street and working as a laborer at the Victor talking Machine Company factory. After serving in America's armed forces during World War I, he returned to Camden. When the Census was enumerated in January of 1920 he was living with his sister Mary and her husband William B. Adams at 122 North 23rd Street in East Camden. William Adams worked at the Philadelphia Navy Yard as a plumber, John Stanton at a local shipyard as a pipefitter. Also living at that address was younger sister Alice Stanton and the Adams children, William, Catherine, and Anna.

John B. Stanton was appointed to the Camden Police Department on June 16, 1923. He worked as a motorcycle policeman until injured in a traffic accident, after which time he served as a desk sergeant in one of the District houses, most likely the Third District house on Federal Street between Westfield Avenue and North 27th Street in East Camden. John Stanton married Anna May Deery, who worked at the Camden Free Public Library, on September 30, 1925. The Stanton's first child, daughter Eleanor, was born in 1926. When the Census was taken in 1930, the Stantons were living at 2923 Mickle Street in East Camden. Another daughter, Mary Stanton, came in 1932. Sadly, Anna May Stanton died in childbirth on July 12, 1935 and the baby, Anna Mary Stanton died four months later of pneumonia and meningitis, on November 29, 1935. John Stanton never remarried after his wife passed. He raised his daughters in East Camden, and remained in the home on Mickle Street that he shared with his wife and daughters until his passing on January 3, 1963. 

In the mid-1940s John B. Stanton served as recording secretary of the Camden Police Beneficial Association. Other officers were Vincent Conley, Archie Reiss, Edward Carroll and Edward T. Suski Sr..

John Stanton's nephew, Robert Stanton, is the author of several books about life in Camden, trolley cars, and related subjects.