WILLIAM JONES                            GRAVESTONE PHOTO                      

From History of Montgomery County, Kansas, By Its Own People, Published by L. Wallace Duncan, Iola, Kansas, 1903, Pg. 706-707:

 Buried in Mount Hope Cemetery, Independence, Montgomery County, Kansas

 

Jones, William Bio

 

            Among the many “prairie schooners” which rolled into the county in the fall of 1870, was one manned by Pierson Deweese, Mosier Fleener, and William Jones, the latter the esteemed subject of this review.  Mr. Jones proceeded to Sycamore township, where he filed on eighty acres in section 14, township 32, range 15, the deed to which he holds today, together with an additional 120-acre tract adjoining.  Over on the creek near him were camped some three hundred Indians, but Mr. Jones soon found that this was a matter of little concern, as they proved very friendly.  The old log cabin which he then erected has long since made way for a more pretentious home, and the virgin prairie has been transformed by patient and painstaking effort into a productive and well-regulated farm.

            William Jones is a Kentuckian by birth, that event having occurred in Butler county, April 6, 1830.  Here he was reared to farm life and remained until the date of his coming to Kansas.

            As the mutterings of civil strife became more and more distinct, Mr. Jones watched each succeeding event with an absorbing interest and was ready to defend the honor of the flag when the call was made in the fall of 1861.  In December, he enrolled as a member of Company C, 11th Ky. Ind., under Col. P. B. Hawkins, and which became a part of Generals Crittenden and Burnsides’ Divisions.  The bloody battle of Stone River initiated him into the “delights” of mortal combat, and later at Knoxville he had a month’s taste of siege life.  At Burne’s Station and Cumberland Gap his regiment had a brush with the enemy, after which the rest of his service was mainly in long and weary marches over the States of Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia.

            Noting somewhat briefly the essential parts in Mr. Jones’ family history, the biographer records that he is a son of William and Rebecca (Jones) Jones, both natives of the Blue Grass State, but of no blood relation.  Their children were:  Josiah, Joab, William, Rebecca, and Luvica.  The paternal grandparents of our subject were James L. and Nancy Jones, who came into Kentucky from Virginia, where James was personally acquainted with Gen. Washington and served under him as a Captain in the War for Independence.  The children of James were: Peggie, Philip, Thomas, R. G. L., Moses, Polly, Nancy, Nellie, Rebecca and William.

            The immediate family of William Jones consist of four children:  Charles M., Mena, Clara, and Edward, the mother having died in April, 1890.  Mr. Jones first entered wedlock in 1853, being joined to Mary Deweese, daughter of William Deweese.  She became the mother of two children, Elvira and Columbia, all of whom are now deceased.  His second marriage occurred Nov. 26, 1873, the maiden name of the mother of his children being Louisa (Ellenger) Brost.

   Contributed by Mrs. Maryann Johnson a Civil war researcher and a volunteer in the Kansas Room of the Independence Public Library, Independence, Kansas.