Heritage and More: Jones Family

Showing posts with label Jones Family. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Jones Children, Rock Springs School, Harrison, Boone County, Arkansas, About 1894

Dating the ages of the Rock Springs School class photo.
If Dad’s (Charles) age is correct here, then the picture was most likely taken in 1894, maybe 1893.

Three Jones brothers are standing together in the back row. Beginning with Charles,(2nd from left), age 11 or 12, next to him is older brother Samuel, age 15 or 16, and then Albert, about age 10 or 11..

Sister Esther was three years older than Sam making her about 19 at the time of the picture. If she is there I sense that she might be fourth from the right in the back row due only to the shape of her face which is mindful of her older sister Mary Lou reflected in a later family photo. If I have the photo dated but one year earlier, 1893, then Esther would have been 18 and probably still in school.

The two girls cropped from near the center of the picture are most likely Martha Elizabeth, about age 8, on the left with sister Pearl, about age 6, next to her. This is only an educated guess since the two have dresses of the same patterned material meaning they are most likely from the same family and the age difference of the two is about right in the photo. I see a strong resemblance to Pearl and somewhat less in the face of Martha.

Grady, Eula and Ruth would have been younger than six and most likely not in school at all. However the front row has some rather young children present so it is possible that some of the younger family members were present. I can't recognize any strong facial features within the younger children however. Ruth was born the year of this picture, 1894, Grady would have been about 4 years old and Eula about 2 years. It is possible that Grady may be present but I am doubtful at this point. If I were to hazard a guess, if any, Grady might be fifth from the left in the front row but I really have no confidence in that at all.

Monday, December 3, 2012

Judge Alfred Hines Jones of Charleston

Alfred Hines Jones, about 1920

It seems that our grandfather, Alfred Hines Jones was a judge of some sort in his new home in Washington State after relocating with all his children to Charleston, Kitsap County Washington in 1912. These days of course Charleston is an incorporated part of Bremerton but in the early 1900’s Charleston on the west side of the present day Bremerton was a distinct and separate municipal entity.

His obituary in the Bremerton paper on the day of his death March 3, 1922 states he served three years as a police judge in Charleston sometime between his arrival in the Bremerton area up until his death. Just what years he was in that position is yet to be determined.

Our grandfather had finally left Arkansas behind in 1912 after liquidating his Arkansas holdings and moved on to Washington State in order to be with his children in his later years. Those children still living with him in Harrison were his daughters Eula and Ruth, sons Albert and Bill and granddaughter May Rutledge and assumedly this group made the trip to Washington together. Already in Washington State were his sons Samuel and Charles. Samuel can be found in Charleston in the 1910 census but Charles is yet to be located. My memory is that Dad often said he arrived in Bremerton in 1909 which leads me to believe he was still there one year later. Since he was in bridge construction for many years he very well could have been anywhere in the Northwest on a construction site and was simply overlooked in that census year. Two years later Charles married Pearl Baker in Almira, Washington where her family resided suggesting to me that he truly was in the state in 1910.

Bremerton Searchlight 1922

Bremerton Sun, 1947

The following is taken from an e-mail to Charles F. Jones Jr. some time back where I explained what was found in the Kitsap County City directories:

“I just finished looking at Microfilm copies of all Bremerton and Kitsap County city directories covering the years 1909-1934. I was just curious to see which Jones family members were living where and when.

A.H. Jones first appears in 1913 and his last entry is 1921 which was just a year before his death. It's interesting to note that over the years much of his family lived with him off and on, even Dad and his first wife Pearl appear to be living with him in 1916. The house address isn't given, it's just described as Naval Ave, corner of 4th or near 4th.

The directories listed city officials for Charleston and I never did see A.H. Jones listed as a judge. I assumed that maybe he was a Justice of the Peace which were also listed. Maybe he was something other than a JP. The directories of course aren't all that accurate I am sure……………….”

So at this point I would like to bring to the record another facet of this story and it goes back to Arkansas in the period just preceding the families final departure from Boone County. It is the record of the appointment of Alfred Hines Jones as a Justice of the Peace in Boone County, Jackson Township, Arkansas, in 1898, the location of the Arkansas origins of the Jones family. This is the very area that A.H. Jones settled in shortly after the death of his father Samuel Jones in Gordon County Georgia in 1870.

The Arkansas document above was provided to me by one Nancy Hicks, of the Atlanta, Georgia area, a valid descendent in our overall Jones line, during an internet e-mail exchange of several weeks in early 2011. She really is very knowledgeable of the early family origins and is the collaborator with one Kristin Ingram Johnson recently at one time residing in the State of Oregon. Kristin posted her knowledge of the family origins to the internet in the early 2000’s and fortunately I was able to download her data and I have used it as my baseline for the Jones family. Kristin no longer shares that data online and I am grateful to her for all efforts in the past and I attribute her in a large part of many of the earliest mentions of Jones ancestors in my expanded database. Much of what Kristin published was furnished by Nancy Hicks some ten years ago when as Nancy Hicks confirmed they collaborated on the overall data.

I was eventually able to come across Nancy Hicks in 2011 simply thru Google searches. Kristin had mentioned the help of Nancy within some of her source details and as internet search capabilities improved over the years it was eventually quite easy to make contact with Nancy.

My question at this point is just how accurate is the statement regarding A.H. Jones stating that he had been an early police judge? I do wonder however after searching though early Charleston City Directories, was the statement found in his obituary an exaggeration of his early Arkansas position or did he truly preside as a municipal judge of some sort in Charleston and perhaps he acquired that position based on his Arkansas experiences?

Interesting to speculate but until a thorough search of Kitsap County records can be achieved we may never really know the accuracy of the fact.

The obituary itself has errors in it that makes me wonder just how knowledgeable was the person providing the facts of the man’s life. The newspaper article states he was born in Calhoun County, Georgia but it is well assumed he was born in Gilmer County. The two counties are some distance apart and Calhoun County has no mention in any other early family records. The obituary also mentions he came to Arkansas with Mrs. Jones when in fact he never married previous to his migration to Arkansas. His first marriage was to Elizabeth Johnson in 1872 in Boone County a year or two after his arrival there.

Perhaps someday someone will answer the question by completing a search of all the early Kitsap County records and determine the accuracy of the statement in his obituary.

I can only conclude that I have no doubt that our grandfather was a Charleston Police Judge but at this point I have found no real documentation to either prove or disprove the statement. I do believe he very likely did serve in such a position. However I just want to suggest the possibility that if he did serve as a judge that perhaps his Justice Of The Peace experience in Arkansas may have been a factor in his being appointed to the position in Charleston. Another possibility is that someone writing the obituary took license to extrapolate the facts to the point that described his history in Charleston as an exaggeration of the facts. Time will tell once the actual County Records are accessed.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Descendants of Samuel Moulder & Nancy Luster

For some ten years now since diving into family history I have been searching for a photo of our grandmother Martha Elizabeth Moulder. Sadly after rummaging through all the family photos left behind by Mom and Dad no photo of her ever emerged from that vast collection.

As time went by and various family histories and details began to become more and more available on the internet I thought surely some photo would appear from out of nowhere in some family tree or history. However that has not happened either.

When searching for data on this family the spelling of the Moulder surname takes on at least two different spellings. Some early family members adapted the spelling as Molder and there may be even more variations. I always defer to the earliest found version as Moulder.

Martha Elizabeth Moulder was but one of fifteen children of Samuel and Nancy Moulder and all having been born in Tennessee before the family migrated west to Arkansas. That happened sometime between 1860 and 1870 as revealed in census data. Martha would have been between the age of ten and twenty. One might surmise that the Civil War may have played a part in the motivation behind the family migration for it was a period of many people moving out of the old South to find better opportunities elsewhere. Maybe the period of reconstruction that began immediately after the war forced the Moulder family to move but that is only conjecture for many families lost all they had and had but little choice to move on to other areas less influenced by the War.

I often thought that with fifteen children in the family and probably many cousins, uncles and aunts perhaps also with large descending families that surely a photo of our grandmother would absolutely surface in these modern times. But alas nothing has emerged as of now. However pictures of some of her siblings have been submitted to internet sources and I have been able to find and copy some of them. It seems that this will have to do for now and at least we might begin to imagine what Martha Elizabeth Moulder Jones may have looked like. I am generating an image of my own over time and every one reading this will surely begin to form their own version of her appearance.

So wonder on and hopefully over time a real image of her will come to light and we can all cease to wonder. But for now, this is as good as it gets. Maybe some distant cousin, of which there is a multitude of currently, will come across this in some internet search and reward us all with a photo of our grandmother. I can only hope.

The following descriptions are what is known of all the fifteen family members and it really isn’t much but the photos are included here. Please excuse the poor quality of some for they may have been cropped and enlarged from a larger family group photo which were of poor quality to begin with.

Descendants of Samuel Moulder and Nancy Luster
(No pictures have been found of either of these parents)
Samuel Moulder
Born: 16 October 1801, Carthage, Warren County, Tennessee
Died: 8 October 1888, Denver, Carroll, Arkansas
Buried: Green Forest Cemetery, Denver, Carroll County, Arkansas

Nancy Luster
Born: 1811, Kentucky
Died: 1899, Denver, Carroll County, Arkansas
Buried: Green Forest Cemetery, Denver, Carroll County, Arkansas
Records state burial of both the parents in Green Forest Cemetery but the graves have been lost.

Children in order of birth:
Mary Jane Moulder (Dial)
Born: 8 May 1833, Tennessee,
Died: 28 March 1911, Clayton, Payne County, Oklahoma

Elizabeth Moulder (Smith)
Born: 1835, Tennessee
Died: 20 December 1920, Barren, Kentucky
Buried: Payne Cemetery, Thompkinsville,
Monroe County, Kentucky

William Madison Moulder
(No photo found)
Born: 1836, McMinnville, Warren County, Tennessee
Died: 24 November 1927, Tennessee
Buried: Grave not located

Jeremiah Moulder
(No photo found)
Born: 1838, Warren County, Tennessee
Died: 21 May 1881
Buried: Grave not located

Alexander Moulder
Born: 1 July 1839, McMinnville, Warren County, Tennessee
Died: 1900, Bell, Texas
Buried: Grave not located

Jonathan Tipton Moulder
(No photo found)
Born: About 1841, Warren County., Tennessee
Died: 14 July 1889, Stone County, Missouri
Buried: Grave not located

Sarah Moulder (Martin)
Born: 20 December 1842, Warren County, Tennessee
Died: 9 March 1922, Sherman, Grayson County, Texas
Buried: Grave not located

Samuel Houston Moulder
Born: 27 January 1844, McMinnville, Warren County, Tennessee
Died: 27 October 1906, Denver, Carroll County, Arkansas
Buried: Denver Cemetery, Carroll County, Arkansas
Grave photo not posted online. Records state
he was buried in this cemetery but grave appears to
be a lost grave.

Pleasant Andrew Moulder
(No photo found)
Born: 7 November 1845, McMinnville, Warren County, Tennessee
Died: 3 March 1895, Denver, Carroll County, Arkansas
Buried: Grave not located

Margaret A. Moulder (Owens)
Born: May 1847, McMinnville, Warren County, Tennessee
Died: 12 May 1924, Crittenden, Cherokee County, Oklahoma
Buried: Grave not located

Amanda Melvina Moulder (Roark)
Born: 28 July 1811 December 1848, McMinnville, Warren County, Tennessee
Died: 12 May 1924, Quay County, New Mexico
Buried: Tucumcari, New Mexico
Grave photo not posted online. Grave may be lost

Martha Elizabeth Moulder
Born: 28 July 1850, McMinnville, Warren County, Tennessee
Died: 7 August 1894, Harrison, Boone County, Arkansas
Buried: Denning Cemetery, Boone County, Arkansas

Ferdinand Moulder
Born: 13 February 1852, McMinnville, Warren County, Tennessee
Died: 6 March 1930
Buried: Derden Cemetery, Hill County, Texas
May be a lost grave

Henry Moulder (Molder)
Born: 22 March 1854, McMinnville, Warren County, Tennessee
Died: 14 April 1909, Fort Worth, Tarrant County, Texas
Buried: Oakwood Cemetery, Ft. Worth, Tarrant County, Texas

Rollin Moulder
(No photo found)
Born: 4 May 1857, McMinnville, Warren County, Tennessee
Died: 8 August 1939, Wichita Falls, Wichita County, Texas
Buried: Old Electra Cemetery, Electra, Wichita County, Texas
No grave photo posted online. May be a lost grave

.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Georgia Connections

One might think that I tend to dwell on the "seedy or unseemly" side of our family history, but it is not intentional I can assure you and I certainly look at what I present here as far from seedy, it is just how people had to survive during difficult times. What is detailed here and an affair of another Willis Jones relative in Texas do tend to paint an unfair picture of what our ancestral family has experienced over time but I just find the stories interesting and worthy of sharing. I tend to look at any story coming out of the past regarding all branches of the family as just contributing to the overall story fabric of the family regardless of any remote attachment one might feel. Life is what it is and we certainly have no control of what has happened in the past. Some might find this meaningless but some time in the future others might feel very much otherwise. The goal from my perspective is to find and record as much as I possibly can, and the attached story is something that needs to be saved and explained.

The real objective of this posting is to attempt to relate that the Jones family still has roots remaining in Georgia and that not all happened, began and ended with our family line originating in Arkansas with nothing else known of even earlier beginnings. Over time we very well may be able to someday make direct connections with other remote lines in North Carolina. Surely they are there, but to find the actual proof will take time.

The individual Jones distant relative mentioned in the attached newspaper article from the Atlanta Constitution newspaper of February of 1921 happens to be a second cousin to Charles F. Jones Sr., and through that connection certainly a shirt tail relative to all his descendants. The man is Wills A. Jones from the line of Jones's that remained in North Georgia after the Civil War, in the Northeast part of the State near the South Carolina border where first substantial documentation of our ancestors migrations can be found. Much of that portion of the State was carved out of the former lands of the Cherokee Indians after their unjust removal from their ancestral territory to Oklahoma in the first half of the nineteenth century. Our Jones family members of the time witnessed and some even participated to some degree in that tragic story now labeled as the "Trail of Tears" that occurred at the insistence of President Andrew Jackson and his administration.

Just what the level of contact between relatives residing in Georgia, Texas and Arkansas was at the time is not really known but some contact was obviously maintained. One or two family photos taken of our Arkansas Jones family that survived within the belongings of our line were also found in the belongings of some of the Georgia Jones’s and were shared with me proving that they did correspond and were exchanging family photos during the latter part of the 1800’s.

The following photo was found in the old family suitcase filled with pictures from both sides of the family. The photo is of Alfred Hines Jones and his brother Samuel Tate Jones, both living in the Harrison, Arkansas area when the photo was taken probably in the 1870 –1880 time period. This very same photo was forwarded to me by one Nancy Hicks of Atlanta and was passed on down thru her family or other North Georgia Jones descendants.

Adding to our obvious connections to other North Georgia Jones family descendants the following photo of the Alfred Hines Jones family of Harrison, Arkansas was also passed on down thru some vague but obviously family members and also shared with me by Nancy Hicks. This photo did not survive within our cache of photos. Based on the youngest child Ruth having been born in 1894 the year is probably 1895 – 1896. The oldest daughter Mary Lou in the back row was probably the surrogate mother to the young children since her step-mother, Martha Elizabeth Moulder, second wife of A.H. Jones had died shortly after the birth of Ruth in 1894. The other stepdaughter, Esther Almira Jones had married and left Harrison in early 1895. She died quite young in Renton, Washington in 1901, apparently the very first member of the family to step foot in Puget Sound country.

The given name Willis in the Jones line extends into lines of three Jones brothers that migrated into Georgia in the early 1800’s from the Northwestern part of South Carolina in present day Anderson County, very near the Georgia border. There was a total of five brothers known of and only the three, Samuel, William and John Calvin Jones have left any trace of their existence that can be followed up to current times. The migrations of the times seemed to be of rather short distances as men and families would establish in new areas and raise their families. Our particular ancestor, one of the three brothers, Samuel Jones, moved farther west in Georgia two more times in his life to the far western side of the State. One brother, William and his descendants remained in place, in what is now Lumpkin County, Georgia and brother John Calvin is a difficult migration story to follow but for the most part after some confusing movements prior to and during the Civil War (he was of Northern sympathies) he and his descendants ended up in Gordon County, Georgia to the Northwest of Atlanta. Gordon County is where our Great Grandfather Samuel died in 1870 where he had settled after the Civil War following the loss of his land further North in Georgia near the Chattanooga Battlefield.

But the Willis Jones focused on in the attached newspaper article is from the area of original family settling, the Northeast part of the state where it seems there are still distant relatives well established there even today. At this point I cannot be certain if the Jones surname has survived to current generations however, but through marriages the area is probably well represented with various descendants. As the article suggests the area was a popular area for the making of moonshine liquor over the years and to some degree it may be so even today. But this Willis Jones died protecting his source of income which many families in the area did as well in order to support their families when the times demanded such activity.

I made a brief internet contact two years ago with a descendant in the Atlanta area that had studied and researched the Jones line quite extensively and she is the one that discovered the connection of the current descendants back to the original three brothers. She diligently followed up on many sources in Georgia and South Carolina and eventually was able to tie her ancestor John Calvin’s line in Gordon County to William and his descendants in Lumpkin County. This connection then easily led to the connection to our Samuel Jones and what can now be found online primarily at Ancestry.com presents some fairly well documented family lines that we most certainly are connected to. This researcher hinted at the involvement in the moonshine business of some Jones descendants over time and just recently another descendant found and posted the attached article to Ancestry.com and what is attached here is copied from that posting. This tends to definitely prove out what the lady had hinted at in some of our correspondence.

But the story is probably not the only such story to come out of that part of Georgia but it is definitely part of the fabric of what I try to pursue.

Friday, June 10, 2011

Susannah Swingle, 3rd Great-Grandmother

If you are ever in the vicinity of Knoxville, Tennessee

and you are in the mood for visiting the graves of any of your ancestors, well just wander a bit north of there to the vicinity of Maynardville, in Union County and then commence a few miles further north of that hamlet to the vicinity of Pinhook which is just a tiny bit to the west of Lickskillet. You then are very close to an old cemetery, seemingly on private land today, by the name of Butcher Cemetery. I suppose it got that name from someone by the name of or the occupation of Butcher. Not a pressing issue to sort that out at the moment. Just be assured that if you are on Butcher Hollow Road and just a tad bit south of Pinhook well then you are really close to the graves of two of your distant ancestors, that of one John Mohlar, commonly spelled Moulder today by all the descendants, and his wife, Susannah Swingle. Somehow and someplace along the line the spelling of the surname was adapted in lieu of a much more difficult spelling of Schwaengeler as revealed by her family heritage somehow ferreted out by someone of very good genealogical sources. How the spelling change came about is probably rather obvious for a Swiss born young lady finding herself in a land of “Bloody English” or Irish.

The internet is a fascinating place these days. A brief description for John Moulder’s wife, Susannah, that has trickled down from various family genealogical sources, reveals something of her beginnings and also the place of burial for her and her husband. A little scrambling around on the internet reveals a picture of their grave as well as a somewhat obscure satellite view of the very cemetery where they were laid to rest between 1810 and 1833 . Another very important web source for family history research also provides pictures of their graves as they are today.

Vicinity of Butcher Cemetery,

Union County, North Tennessee

Current Memorial Markers

John (Moulder) Mohlar 1733-1810

and his wife

Susannah Swingle 1733-1833

It Wasn’t Always Easy Coming to America- A Tale Worth Noting-

Five generations back in our family tree one finds a Susannah Swingle, of Swiss birth, to be our 3rd Great-Grandmother. Sometimes it is difficult to relate to such a distant relationship but suffice it to say we all carry some sort of a genetic path that can be scientifically traced directly back to her and or her husband. Susannah’s life spanned approximately 100 years, stated in a family history as 1733-1833. Those years may be approximate but they do establish the background period of her lifespan.

The woman has a history that the current generations would have difficulty comprehending but I do find a portion of it interesting and worth posting here in order to highlight how difficult times were for our ancestors so many generations ago.

The power of the internet and the growing hobby of current generations capturing their past from a massive amount of genealogical information accumulating in thousands of web-sites available to anyone interested has brought forth information pertaining to our ancestral line worth noting and reflecting on. Specifically any small snippet of information regarding ancestors I freely copy and examine as best as possible to determine authenticity. It isn’t an official authentication by any means but a system of patience and searching for others also claiming the same information. Over time it is possible to obtain a level of confidence in data based on just how persistent the information is. If it passes a test of time after being placed on the internet and is not disputed or corrected by others, over time the authenticity begins to take hold. Such is the case for the following small fact copied from a volume of history of the Moulder family published within the past 50 years or so and seemingly validated by a very large amount of family historians following the Moulder family. In short we are part of a countless list of Moulder descendants all sharing the same basic data and a very large number of them are presently active on the web.

What follows is a description of some minor history of this ancestor, Susannah Swingle, that has passed the test of time and I consider it valid enough to want to post it for others to contemplate. I find it rather interesting.

Copied from Ancestry.com, 10 June 2011:

MOULDER'S RECORD OF THE MOULDER FAMILY OF AMERICA,

written and published by George Chester Moulder; Lebanon, Missouri; 1933. FHLC Microfiche #6017757.

Introduction
"...preparation of this book would not have been possible without the...cooperation of George B. Moulder of Nashville, Tenn, and the many other descendants of the Moulder family.

"We start this work with the birth of John Moulder 1733, he came to America about 1740 or 1750, with his brothers Lewis and Valentine, first settling near Philadelphia, Pa. His wife was Susannah (Susa) Swingle.

She and her sister when children were decoyed into a ship and brought across the Ocean, and she was sold to John Moulder for her passage. She could shoulder a two bushel bag of wheat and she had no trouble in catching and overpowering her husband John, when he came home intoxicated and un-ruly.

John emigrated from Pennsylvania with his brother Valentine and settled in Rowan County, North Carolina, before the Revolutionary War. Here raised a family of eight children all whom married there. John sold his farm in Rowan County, North Carolina to Vincent Gardner in 1795, and moved with his son Felta to Granger (now Union) County, Tenn., he died May 17 1810. His grave is located on what is now the Jesse Butcher farm three miles North of Maynardsville, Union County, Tenn., gravestone and markers well preserved. His wife Susannah died in 1833. She is buried by her husband John. Their descendants are listed through the following pages. (Geo. C. Moulder)"

Another description of the fate of the Swingle sisters from a Moulder family descendant:

From: "Nina Robertson" <ninaer@yahoo.com> 4-15-2002

It is said that Susannah "Susa" (wife of John) and her sister, when they were children in the "Old Country" were decoyed into a ship, locked up,brought to Philadelphia and sold "for their passage" to Lewis and John Moulder. The girls were properly raised on Henry (father of John and Lewis) Moulder's farm. Later, Lewis and John would legally marry them.

This was posted on Moulder GenForum 4/21/00 by Tonie Bedell, a descendant of John Moulder.

In times past it seems than not only were men kidnapped and forced into the crews of sailing ships, but it also appears that the practice at times involved children, kidnapped and sold as indentured servants. Those were tragic times for many families I am sure.

The area where Susannah and her husband finally settled in Tennessee appears to be in the area of the TVA dam building activities of the 1930’s when viewed in satellite photos of today. Here is another set of ancestors graves calling to me to someday search out to photograph and pay respects to. Perhaps I will eventually. At least it goes on the list of possible projects.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

A Letter From the Past- Dad’s Recall of Family History

As far as I Know, Only One Letter From Dad Has Survived and We Have Bernie To Thank For That-

Charles F. Jones Sr.

Taken About the Time of His Marriage to

Mary Agnes McGinnis, in 1923

Nancy has inherited many family pictures that her Mother so neatly organized during her final years. Among some of these photos were some Jones and McGinnis family pictures as well. During my last visit to Oklahoma I scanned all these older family photos and I am attempting to organize them with names and dates when the occasional motivation occurs.

Bernie also saved a letter written by Dad in 1961, probably because Bernie may have been asking him about family history. He sat down and did his best but he was also 79 years old at the time which might account for some of the discrepancies appearing in his account. His Father had passed on some 39 years earlier so he was far removed from reliable sources. That is but one possibility, but he very well may have never known some of the details he attempted to explain. Most likely he was just going on vague recall of many family conversations during his lifetime.

I would never have been able to discover any of the family history had not the internet provided such rich resources for one to find family data. Had the opportunity not opened up in this day and age I would have been even more confused or lacking in facts than Dad was in 1961 when he attempted to at least record some things he knew of.

But in order to record what he did write I am posting a transcription of the pages where he did write out his known facts. I will annotate his words with what has been found since.

From pages 4 through 7 of the letter. The italics are his words:

My Father was born in Georgia near Atlanta. My grand Father was born in Wales. I don’t know when he came to the states that or how old he was. He had a large Plantation near Macon, Geo and quite a few slaves.

First off, if common sources claiming many of our distant ancestors are correct, Dad’s Grandfather, Samuel Jones, was born in 1796, in Pendleton, South Carolina, in the Northwest corner of the state. This was very near the North Georgia area where he and one of his brothers and many of the Tate family eventually settled.
I think Dad had his Grandfathers confused in this first portion. It certainly is true that the name is of Welsh origin, at least common knowledge would assume so. But from what can be found in current sources the actual ancestors that originally left Wales cannot be identified.

The oldest known birth date in the Jones line is for Dad’s 3rd Great-Grandfather, Edward Jones, born about 1701 in Gloucester County Virginia. All of the Jones line with known dates were born in North America.

Before 1701 we only have names without birth dates or places. That does not really mean that Dad was incorrect. Other data may very well surface some day that might prove his recall to be correct. After all, just how valid is anything that is available. I only give a credence value to the data that I have personally accessed and that isn’t all that much. But when one compares what is found to other sources it begins to become rather obvious just what data can be trusted.

Regarding the large plantation and slaves his Grandfather owned near Macon, well his memory is somewhat distorted here. True, his Grandfather was a plantation owner, the exact size of is unknown, and he did have slaves, a total of six in the 1860, shortly before the outbreak of the war. The location of the property was in Catoosa County, Georgia, in the very northwest corner of the State, just 10 miles south of the center of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Macon is some 175 miles to the southeast, between Atlanta and Savannah, from the Snow Hill location of his holdings as indicated in the pre-war census.

Father had three Brothers and four sisters. He was the youngest of them all.

Family Tree sources available on the internet reveals that his father actually had nine siblings, four sisters and five brothers. Not all internet sources agree with this total at the moment.

His bros names was Sam, John and Bill. His sisters I only remember one of their names Rebecca. Her husbands name was Simmons. They lived in Dallas, Tex when the civil war broke out.

Samuel Jones, Harrison, Arkansas

A.H. Jones and Brother, Samuel Jones

Taken in Harrison, probably sometime in the late 1870’s

Samuel, John and Bill are verifiable now after really studying Dad’s letter. John was born in 1819, but some family trees also show a George being born in the family that same year. This is rather doubtful at the moment. At least Dad did verify John making it easier to eliminate one of the two 1819 births. Twins ? Perhaps, but that remains to be seen. Another brother, or uncle of Dad’s, Thomas Jefferson Jones, shows up as born in 1832. Nothing else is known of him but further research may yet find him in later years.

The available online records for Samuel Jones to date reveal that two sons were named Willis, obviously in honor of Willis M. Jones, Dad’s Great Grandfather. One son named Willis was born in 1822 and the other a William Willis Jones was born in 1837. Some data suggests that the latter died during the Civil War. No records of him past the time of the Civil War have been found.

Any record of the first born Willis reflects his name only as Willis in two U.S. census records, both in Texas, in 1860 and 1870. This Willis based on age as revealed in the census would have been the son born in 1822. No middle name for this individual has surfaced to now. Just who the Bill that Dad refers to is not clear but perhaps Dad’s memory had faded and he had confused the two sons named Willis. Some records of the descendants of the Willis in Texas are beginning to surface on the internet.

Dad’s four aunts were Martha, Margaret, Elizabeth and Rebecca. Rebecca is somewhat verified by other internet data including later census entries as Rebecca Simmons living with her husband Amos Simmons in Parker, Texas in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area.
Dad did not mention his Aunt Elizabeth by name only that one sister went to Arkansas with others. This aunt of Dad’s lost her husband to disease in a Confederate Army camp early in the war. She and her two young children came to live with her Father, Samuel Jones, at that time and lived with him through the war and up until he died. His son Alfred Hines, my grandfather, also came to live with his sister and Father in Gordon County, Georgia after the war ended. Elizabeth has descendants tracking her family on the internet today. Kristin Ingram Johnson, someplace in Oregon, is from this line. Her data was the first discovered some ten years ago and it has been invaluable and I use her as my most reliable source.

Nothing regarding his Aunts Martha and Margaret has surfaced so far. Perhaps Dad’s recall of how many Aunts and Uncles he had is actually correct.

This particular census page finds Dad’s Father living with his brother Willis in Smith County, in East Texas, in June of 1860, some eleven months prior to his enlisting in Confederate Army in Georgia. Smith County is in the vicinity of Tyler, Texas to the East of Dallas. Dad states his father was going to college when the war started which is somewhat verified by the notation of student in his entry.
However he implies in his letter that his Father was living with his sister at the war’s beginning which really cannot be verified. More likely he was still with his brother some 100 miles to the south east of his sister’s home in Parker, Texas.

Dad was out there with them going to collage when war came. He went back and joined the army. He was not quite 18 years old when he went in.

Not to be too detailed here, but actually his Father had just turned 18 years old some 23 days before he enlisted on May 15, 1861. That is if the dates of his birth and enlistment are correct. The enlistment date very well may be inaccurate or purposely changed to disguise his possible actual enlistment as sometime before his 18th birthday. We will never know for certain and it is a mute point after all.

He stayed in until the war ended. His Father lost every thing the had. He had lots of gold that was taken away from. Of course the slaves were freed. Dads Mother died some time before the war began. Dad was in many Battles through Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia. When Sherman came through and the siege of Atlanta his army destroyed every thing in sight. The Battle at Atlanta lasted four or five months. The north won the Battle and went through to Savannah. The war didn’t last long after that.

I don’t know how long Grand Father lived after the war ended. Dad and uncle Sam his bro and one sister left Georgia and came to Ark. There were several families came together and settled near each other. We have many relations in the south. Dad had one sister that married a man by the name of Tate. They had a large family. He was a state Senator. Very well to do. My Mothers folks were named Moulder. They moved to Ark from Tenn. They were of German descent. They settled not far from where Father did. Dad was married twice. His first wife died when your uncle Sam was a Baby. Two sisters older than Sam Mary & Ester were their names.

It would take to long to tell the history of both families. That is Father and mothers and our family. I started this letter last Sunday and today is Wed…………………………..

Love to all,

Dad’s Grandfather Samuel lived until 1870 when he died in Gordon, County Georgia. Living with him until his death was Dad’s father Alfred H. and his Aunt Elizabeth Jones Steele. It seems that when Samuel died it provided the motivation for the remaining family to move on to Arkansas. Samuel is found in the 1870 census with very little property. It isn’t clear to me at this point if he had landholdings or if he was renting in 1870.

Elizabeth had apparently inherited property in the area of Conway, Arkansas through her husband Jefferson Steele where she settled with her children and farmed successfully until her death. She never re-married.