PART SIX
CHAPTER NINE
ISAAC JONES and MARY
JANE BOOTH
27 September 2016
 |
| Isaac Jones |
The 1830 Census of Ohio showed that Isaac’s
father Jehu Jones and much of his Addy, Fuller, and Maple relatives were all
living in neighboring Guernsey and Coshocton Counties. Jehu Jones was living in
Knox Township in Guernsey where he was probably living on Isaac’s grandfather
Enoch Jones’ 80 acre farm in the west half of the Northeast quarter of Section
22 of Knox Township.
Household Jehu Jones 1830 Census of
Guernsey County, Ohio
Free White male age 20 thru 29: [1801-1810] Jehu Jones
age 33
Free White female age 20 thru 29: [1801-1810] Anna Maple age
29
Free White male age 5 thru 9: [1821-1825] John Jones age
8
Free White female age 5 thru 9: [1821-1825] Rebecca Jones age
6
Free White male age Under 5: [1826-1830] Jehu Jones age
4
Free White male age Under 5: [1826-1830] Isaac Jones age
1
Isaac
Jones had a brother born in 1831 when he was two years old and his parents in
1832 decided to move to Illinois with Isaac’s aunts and uncles. His older
siblings were old enough to care for their selves but Isaac and baby George
were still infants. The family did not remain long in Illinois as that his
young aunt died in childbirth and his mother was pregnant with her third child
and wanted to be home with her mother and aunts for the delivery. Another
brother named James was born in 1833 but as he died less than a year old it is
doubtful that Isaac had any memory of this brother. Another sibling was born
when Isaac was six years old. His brother William Franklin was born in 1835.
The following year the family again
decided to return to Peoria County, Illinois with relatives and other members
of the Baptist Church from Coshocton County. They settled at La Marsh Creek
that flows into the Illinois River.
Isaac Jones’ son George Jehu Jones
stated that he was asked by the Knoxville Editor to write some of the history
and early incidents of the life of his father Isaac Jones, his grandfather Jehu
Jones and of his own. He stated “I have spent my life in Marion county. My wife
was a daughter of E. B. Ruckman of Marion County. We were united in marriage on
November 11, 1886. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since that day. We
feel at this time that our children and grandchildren have been a blessing to
us and we are grateful for the friendship and love of good neighbors and
friends. I will say that the following consists of my recollection of what my
father told me of the history and early experiences of his father and himself
and some of my own experiences.
Do you know that where Knoxville now
stands was once heavy timber and brush? Father cut a large bee tree on the
northeast corner of the public square. In those days they would drive [145
miles away by wagon] to Burlington and Keokuk to get their supplies. These
pioneers were not of the modern type. They were fearless and very determined to
build for the future and nothing seemed to be too hard for them.
The writer can well remember when
there was not a single mowing machine in Marion county or a reaper to cut the
heavy grain that these rich prairies produced. All was cut with a scythe and
raked with a wooden rake. I will just mention a few of the trials and dangers
that my father has told me that he experienced in the very early days in Marion
county.”
Thus Isaac Jones’ son George Jehu
Jones preserved some family history and traditions that were passed down within
the family. However the Jones’ origin story, according to George Jehu, is
inaccurate. Perhaps they were stories he heard from other related families. He said “My great grandfather [Enoch Jones] came
from Wales to America and settled first in Vermont and this was the birthplace
of my grandfather, Jehu Jones. The next I know of my grandfather's family was
that they came to Guernsey County, Ohio, March 2, 1829 and from Ohio they moved
to Peoria, Illinois in 1836.”
Actually his great grandfather Enoch
Jones, while of Welsh descent, was born in 1764 in New Castle County, Delaware
not Vermont. His grandfather Jehu Paten Jones was born 1797 near Harpers Ferry
in Berkeley County, Virginia now Jefferson County, West Virginia. About 1810
Enoch Jones brought his family into the Ohio Wilderness and settle in Knox
Township in Guernsey County, Ohio where he owned an 80 acre farm. George Jehu is
accurate however about the family moving to Peoria County in 1836 and where his
great grandfather Enoch Jones died in 1844 at the age of 80 and is buried in
the Maple Ridge cemetery next to the La Marsh Baptist Church.
There in Peoria County Isaac’s
father’s, Jehu Jones, household was listed in the1840 United States Census as living
in Lafayette Precinct.
Free white male age 40 -50 [1790-1800] Jehu Jones age
43
Free white female age 30-40 [1800-1810] Anna Maple age 39
Free white male age 15-19 [1821-1825] John M. Jones age
18
Free white male age 10-14 [1826-1830] Isaac Jones age
11
Free white male age 5-9 [1831-1835] George W. Jones age
9
Free white male age 5-9 [1831-1835] William F. Jones
age 5
Free white female age 5-9 [1831-1835] daughter (most likely
Rebecca and age group in error). While living in Peoria County, Illinois,
Isaac’s sister Mary Ann Jones was born the following year in 1841.
Isaac Jones’ father and oldest half
brother worked for the American Fur Company trading with the Fox Indians in
Iowa Territory. Their main trading post was near the White Breast Creek a
tributary of the Des Moines River. Jehu Jones being one of the first white men
that came to the country and an employee of the American Fur Company, traveled
over most of the state in the summer and fall of 1842. It was then he first
made a claim on White Breast.
“Here he spent the winter in a camp,
during which time he made three trips with team to Meek's mill, at Keosauqua
for breadstuff, traveling a portion of the distance on the ice of the Des
Moines river” according to George Jehu Jones.
In 1842 the United States signed a
treaty with the Sac and Fox Indians of Iowa in which the Indians were to give
up their lands for a reservation in Kansas and government support. Reluctantly
they agreed and signed the treaty in October 1842. The treaty gave the Indians
3 years to remove themselves west of the Missouri however only 6 months to
remove from lands east of the White Breast Creek at Red Rock. On 1 April 1843
white settlers then could settle east of the White Breast Creek.
The U.S. Dragoons were sent into the
area to make sure whites were not jumping the starting date to claim land.
However Jehu Jones as a licensed agent of the American Fur Company had
permission to spend the winter of 1842-43 where he staked a claim to file in
the spring.
George Jehu Jones recalled, “For the
first two or three years here, the Indians had the most of the game either
killed or run out of the country, so that the scarcity of food, became a thing
of first magnitude. Hunting from morning until the shadows of the night were
falling without a ray of hope for another meal and weak from hunger would try
the heart of the strongest of men, but it was only to get up in the morning and
go again or starve. Just take your choice.
Fighting the battles of life in this
early day with cornbread and wild game for food and with a log cabin to live in
with a fireplace in one end, would with that hardy stock of pioneers develop a
race so strong that they would do the things necessary to build what we see
today. We have a country now on wheels going at the rate of 50 miles per hour.
If the things they did was conducive of human happiness, and they were, have we
defeated them in the race of life? One thing is certain; in that day there was
more good will among the people than today with all its luxuries.”
George Jehu Jones continued, “During
April 1843, my grandfather walked to Iowa crossing the Mississippi on the ice.
He entered the land where the Government Hospital now stands, paying $1.25 an
acre for this land, and went back to Illinois, returning in the fall of 1843
with his wife and six children, namely: John M. Jones, Isaac (my father),
George, Will and two daughters.”
While it is more likely that Jehu
crossed the Mississippi to Illinois and not the other way as he would have went
home to Peoria to put a crop in before taking the family off to Iowa. This bit
of information also confirmed that Isaac’s brothers Jehu and James had died
before coming to Iowa. The government hospital that George Jehu is referring to
was the old Veterans Hospital on whose golf course is the cemetery in which
Isaac’s parents are buried. Certainly land that now surrounds the hospital
complex was the original homestead claim that Isaac’s father filed on.
After her husband died Anna Maple
Jones became the sole support for her children, Isaac Jones age 16 years,
George Washington Jones age 14 years, William Franklin Jones age 10 and Mary
Jane Jones age 4 years old. Her two stepchildren John M Jones age 22 years and
Rebecca age 20 years were to marry within the year and left her care.
Isaac Jones’ half sister Rebecca Jones
was first to marry and married Thomas S Thompson on 4 July 1845. She would die
about 3 years later from complication due to child birth. She died on 28 May
1848 and was buried in the same burying ground as her father. She left behind a
son named Charles Henry Thompson who was raised within the Jones family. Isaac
eldest brothet John M Jones married Mary Essex in November 1845.
George Jehu Jones related a story
regarding his grandmother Anna Jones. “We are wont to look back to the olden times
as the best days but there were hardships many. Mrs. Jones and her boys had the
battle of life alone but they fought it heroically. Their first crop of wheat,
after it was put in stack, was consumed by lightening.
The Indians were numerous and thieving.
They drove away her fatted hogs and butchered them while her family looked on. They
were frequently visited by the Indians during the early period of their
settlement here. On one occasion the savages made them a visit. The men were
all out on a hunting expedition, leaving the mother [Anna Jones] and only
sister [Mary Jones] in charge of the house, when a squad of about two hundred
dusky warriors came in single file unannounced and totally regardless of the
fears of the two defenseless women, filling the little cabin to its utmost
capacity. They immediately began searching for plunder, laying hands upon
whatever they thought fit to eat.
Among other things prized by them as
an article of food, were a couple of pigs in a pen near the house, intended for
breeders. The Indians thought one of them would make an excellent mess of soup
and regardless of the protestations of the women and their loud cries for the
men, who they hoped might be within hearing, murdered the male swine, threw it
across the back of a pony and vanished. This was a loss not easily replaced in
those days for hogs were scarce and money too. The expense of bringing much
stock from made the loss at least $25.00.”
George Jehu Jones continued saying
“That was the only thing that the Indians ever stole from my father. They were
very friendly toward him and many times during the cold winters my folks would
wake up at night to find 4 or 5 Indians, warming by the fireplace.” This may
have happened in September 1845 when the Sac and Fox Indians were forced to
leave Iowa for Kansas by the Treaty of 1842.
As George Jehu Jones heard most of
these stories from his father Isaac they could have been embellished over time
or may have over the years misunderstood these early adventures. Certainly it
probably was Jehu Jones’ family to whom the Indians were friendly as that he
had a fur trading post among the Indians for years. No doubt Jehu Jones had his
Indian friends especially the Fox stay with the family on cold winter nights as
the Indians prepared to leave Iowa for Kansas by the terms of the 1842 treaty.
There are no deeds in Marion County
recorded before 1847. Iowa had just become a state in December 1846. One of the
earliest recorded deeds is that of Isaac’s half brother John M Jones who
acquired 160 acres on 11 February 1847 from an Infantry Warrant Grant that was
first patented to a John Kinney. He was a private in Captain King’s Company in
the 1st United States Infantry and had died 18 February 1843 in Baton Rouge,
Louisiana where he was a surgeon.
This 160 acres included 80 acres
located in west half of the South west quarter of Section 1, 40 acres in the
Northeast quarter of the South east quarter of Section 2 and another 40 acres
in the Northwest quarter of the Northwest quarter of Section 12 which was
located just below Section 2. The grant was approved 1 June 1850 and recorded
30 November 1850.
Sections in a township consisted of
a square mile with 36 sections making up a township. A section was then divided
into 4 quarters of 160 acres each. These quarters were in the northeast,
northwest, southeast and southwest of the section. Each quarter was then
divided into four quarters of 40 acres. A half of a quarter was 80 acres. A
half of a quarter of a quarter was 20 acres. Property descriptions were usually
described as a quarter of a quarter depending where it was located within the
section.
When Isaac Jones was 20 and half years
old he married. “My father and mother were married in 1849. My mother's maiden
name was Mary Jane Booth. She came from North Carolina with her folks who
settled in Monroe county.”
 |
| Isaac Jones and Mary Jane Booth |
Actually Mary Jane Booth’s family
settled first in Mahaska County to the east of Marion County and moved to
Monroe County, south of Marion County after the Civil War. Mary Jane Booth was
the eldest daughter of William Isaac Booth and Mary Ann Lane. William Isaac
Booth’s ancestry was Scot-Irish. While census records of his children say that
he was born in North Carolina, he was actually born in Mercer County,
Pennsylvania and had moved to North Carolina as a young man where he married
Mary Ann Lane in Guilford County, North Carolina.
In 1837 the family left North Carolina
to Vermillion County in Illinois. The family remained in Vermilion County,
Illinois until 1843 when they move to Iowa Territory after a treaty had been
signed to remove the Indians and open new land for white settlement.
A man named Lysander W. Babbitt
journeyed with an ox team to the Knoxville Township where he built a mill and
opened a store in 1844. He became the post master of the community of Knoxville
but Babbitt did not like the name of Knoxville for the county seat of Marion
County. He was worried that the name Knoxville, might become confused with
Knoxville, Tennessee, or some other town of the same name, “in the handling of
mails”.
During the session of the first State
Legislature, in January, 1847, Babbitt took it upon himself to secure the
passage of a bill changing the name of the town to Osceola. “Upon his return
home he informed David T. Durham, whom he had left in charge of the post
office, of what had been done”, and in this way the "news got out."
“The indignation at Babbitt's presumption and officiousness was universal” and
a petition was hurriedly circulated. It was signed by nearly everybody in the
town, asking for the repeal of the “obnoxious act”.
The petition was then sent to Iowa
City by a special messenger, who turned it over to Simeon Reynolds, the
representative from Marion County who lost no time in drafting and introducing
a bill to repeal the act changing the name back. There must not have been hard
feelings as that Babbitt was elected a Representative in the state Legislature
where he served two terms in the House. While a member he introduced and urged
the passage of a bill to remove the capital from Iowa City to Des Moines, then
a new town laid out upon the spot where he had camped six years before. In 1853 Babbitt was appointed Register of the
United States Land Office at Council Bluffs and he moved from Knoxville.
Lysander Babbitt owned most of the
land in the Knoxville Township and sold much of it off to the Jones Family. Lysander
Babbitt own 308 acres situated in two parcels in Section 2 as of 28 December
1848. One parcel contained 160 acres inthe South half of the Northwest quarter
and the north half of the Southwest quarter. The 148 acres were in the North
half of the Northeast quarter, the Southeast quarter of the North east quarter
and the Northeast quarter of the Northwest quarter.
Land records for Township 75 Range 20
in Marion County, Iowa show that in Section 2, Isaac’s uncle John Jones owned
156 acres in the Northeast quarter of the Southwest quarter as of 21 November
1848 when it was recorded.
On the same date Isaac’s brother John
M Jones was shown owning 80 acres in the West half of the Southwest quarter.
John M Jones father in law John Essex owned 36 acres worth $45 in the Northeast
quarter of the Northwest quarter as of 30 July 1849 when the deed was recorded.
Certainly these men occupied their lands years
before the deeds were recorded. In Section 2 of Township 75 Range 20, John M
Jones owned 40 acres in the Northeast quarter of the Southeast quarter as of 21
November 1848 and 40 more acres located in the Southeast Quarter of the
Southeast quarter as of 8 November 1849.
Isaac Jones’ uncle John Jones also
owned 36 acres in Section 4 as early as 21 October 1846. The land was in the
northeast quarter of the Northeast quarter and worth $75. In Section 10 which
is directly below Section 3 Christopher Fee had 80 acres more.
Christopher Fee had 120 acres located
in West half of Southeast of the South east quarter and the Southeast quarter
of the southwest quarter in Section 1 as of 22 November 1849. Christopher Fee
also owned 40 acres in Section 3 in the Southwest quarter of the Southeast
quarter worth $50.
In Section 11 which is just south of
Section 2 John M Jones, Christopher Fee, and William Booth all owned property.
John M Jones had 120 acres in the East half of the Northwest quarter and the
Northwest quarter of the North east quarter as of 8 November 1849.
Christopher Fee owned 40 acres in the
Northeast quarter of Northwest quarter as of 22 November 1849 and William Booth
has 40 acres at $1.25 an acres worth $50 in the Northwest quarter of the
Northwest quarter. John M Jones had additional property in Section 12
connecting his lands in Section 1. He had 40 acres in the Northwest quarter of
the northwest quarter as of 21 November 1848.
Isaac Jones in his 20th year, on 16
October 1849, was united in marriage with Mary Jane Boothe in Knoxville
Township, Marion County, Iowa. “Father and mother bought land from the
government west of town, later known as the Stittsworth land. They cut their
own timber and built their home, a log cabin of one room with a large
fireplace. Their sole possessions consisted of 1 bedstead made from logs set up
on blocks, boxes for chairs, one skillet, a wagon made from logs, one team of
oxen and two hogs.”
George Jehu Jones wrote about Anna
Maples Jones who was his grandmother and who died when he was 4 years old. The
information he passed along as family tradition had to have come from others
and therefore slightly garbled.
“While I am writing this sketch, I
have a word to say about my great and good “grand” mother, the very oldest of
the pioneer women of Marion county and of Knoxville, and only one perhaps who
had continuously resided in the county for a period of 75 years, three quarters
of a century. [Actually Anna Maple Jones only lived in the county from 1843 to
1865, a little more than 20 years. His Booth grandmother Mary Ann Lane Booth
lived in the county from 1843 until her death in 1887 and thus lived 44 years
in the county. George Jehu Jones own mother Mary Jane Booth Jones however lived
in the county from 1843 until her death in 1917 which is 74 years.] This
information from George Jehu Jones has to be a combination of recollections of
Anna Maple Jones, Mary Ann Lane Booth and Mary Jane Jones
“In fact her [Mary Jane Booth] life in
vicinity of Knoxville covered the entire history of the county seat. She came
with her parents to the territory of Iowa and settled near the present town of
Knoxville before the county had been given a name-in the year 1845, when Marion
county was a part of Mahaska, and the legislators were debating on whether to
call it Polk or Marion county. She endured all the hardships of the early days
on the frontier-the husband tilling the soil with the rude agricultural tools
of those days, while the wife did her part and more, carding, spinning and
weaving and looking after her household, a family of 14 children, which was
none the less laborious because of the primitive methods of the times.”
“The claim on which she [Anna Maple
Jones] lived, (the government hospital) was in the midst of a wilderness-wild
men and wild beasts to the west, north and south and while, almost equally
wild, to the east, the forerunners of civilization. Hardy frontiersman carving
the way. On more than one occasion when the husband would go far to the eastern
limits of the territory to mill, often as far as Jefferson and Henry counties,
Indians would seek to terrorize the wife and little children by climbing on the
clapboard roof of the cabin and dance and whoop until the entire structure
would tremble. That would certainly be a remarkable experience even for a stout
hearted pioneer. She was a grand good Christian character, a member of the
Baptist church since young womanhood.”
“Some of the people here at the time
of my father bought his land were: Robert Mulky's father, Kitt [Christopher] Fee,
Landon Burch (my note-Landon was the son of John Burch, Jr. and brother of
Robert Benham Burch. He was the grandfather of Silas Jones’ wife Josie
Cronkhite), and Lyman Babbit. The first church was a M.E. [Methodist
Episcopalian] church, of which my grandmother [Mary Ann Lane Booth] was a
charter member.” Anna Maple Jones was a charter member of the Knoxville Baptist
Church. “The first store that I can remember was a general store on the
northwest corner of the square. All public meetings were held in the homes.”
“The Indians were paid annually at Red
Rock by the government. They would buy flour at my uncle’s mill, John M. Jones.
They couldn't be cheated on the quality. They would put a little of the flour
in the palm of their hand, spit on it, mix it up and tell exactly what grade
they were getting. They would buy chickens from the farmers but would not buy a
rooster.”
The 1850 Census of Marion County, Iowa
was begun on 16 August 1850 and was finished 28 September 1850 after
enumerating 775 households. The census taker was required to enumerate
households as they consisted on 1 June 1850 and births and deaths after that
date were not counted. The census taker was also required to list all people
over the age of 20 who could not read or write. According to this census all the
Joneses and Booths could read and write.
On 13 September 1850 Isaac and Mary
Jane Jones were listed as household 539 in Marion County. He is listed as being
21 [1829] and born in Ohio. His occupation was given as “farmer” and he owned a
farm worth $280. This would have been about 80 acres worth of property plus his
home. Within his household was his recent bride Mary Jane Booth Jones age 20
[1830] and born in North Carolina. Also included in Isaac Jones’ household was
his nephew Charles Thompson age 3 [1847] and born in Iowa. He was the son of
Isaac’s half sister Rebecca Jones Thompson. Isaac and Mary Jane Booth were
still newlyweds when the census was taken having only been married the previous
fall on 16 October 1849 in Marion County. However Mary Jane was five months
pregnant when this census was taken.
Living next to Isaac and Mary Jane Jones
was his widowed mother and his younger brothers and sisters in house hold
number 540. Anna listed her age as age 47 born in Ohio. She actually was born 7
January 1801 in Pennsylvania and was 49 years old. She does not state an
occupation as that the census only required the occupations of males in the
household over the age of 15. Her farm was worth $700. Within her household was
her son George Jones age 19 [1831] born in Ohio, her son William Jones age 15
[1835] born in Ohio, and daughter Mary Ann Jones age 10 [1840] born in
Illinois. Both George and William listed their occupations as farmers.
Located next to Anna Jones at
household 541 was her step son John M. Jones. They all must have had adjoining
farms although they are all listed in separate dwellings but the order of the
visitation showing that these three families lived in close proximity.
Isaac Jones’ father in law, William
Booth, was eight families away at household number 547 and was also enumerated
on 13 September 1850. He was listed as a farmer but owned no real estate as
that no monetary value was given to him. Often the census taker spoke to
whoever was at home and the information is only as accurate as the knowledge of
the person giving it. William Booth is recorded as age 43 [1807] and born in
North Carolina. This suggests that Mary Ann Booth provided the information for
certainly William Booth would have known he was born in Pennsylvania. Others in
the home were Mary A Booth age 40 [1810] born in North Carolina, “Jessee” L
Booth age 16 [1834] born in North Carolina, John F Booth age 14 [1836] born in
North Carolina, Isaac E Booth age 12 [1838] born in Illinois, William H Booth
age 9 [1841] born in Illinois, Joseph B Booth age 7 [1843] born in Iowa,
Charles W Booth age 5 [1845] born in Iowa, George D Booth age 2 [1848] born in
Iowa.
This census stated that both William
and Mary Ann Booth could read and write compared to the 1840 census which said
that only one of them could. Mary Ann Booth was either pregnant with James
Henderson Booth, who was born 1850 in Knoxville Township, Marion County, Iowa,
or had given birth to him after 1 June 1850 when births and deaths were not
counted. The two oldest daughters of William Booth are missing from this 1850
census. Mary Jane Booth had married almost a year earlier and her sister
Elizabeth Ann Booth had married Nathan Steadman circa 1848 and had given
William Booth his first grandchild named “Welcome Judson Steadman” born in
September 1849.
It can be assumed then that she
married Nathan Steadman no later than January 1849 when she would have been 17
years old. Nathan Steadman was born circa 1828 probably in Chatham County North
Carolina however Nathan, Elizabeth, and their infant are not located on any
census in 1850. There are no Steadman’s listed in Iowa at all in the 1850
Census when Nathan Steadman would have been about 22 years old and Elizabeth
would have been 18 years old with a 1 year old baby in 1850. He is located in
Adam Township Mahaska County, Iowa in the 1851 state census which only listed
heads of households. Next to him is a C J Steadman no doubt his relative.
Elizabeth Ann Steadman is mentioned in
her father’s will dated 1851 as “my second daughter.” Nathan and Elizabeth
Steadman had three children before they headed to California in 1858 where he
died in Calaveras County.
 |
| Lysander Babbitt |
A township consisted of 36 square
miles with each section being a square mile. A section equaled 640 acres. A
half section 320 acres, a quarter section 160 acres, half of a quarter section
80 acres and a quarter of a quarter section 40 acres.
Anna Jones’ 40 acres was in the
Northwest quarter of Section 2. Isaac Jones’ 80 acres in the Northeast quarter
shared a property line with his mother on the west. John M Jones owned 80 acres
south of Anna Jones property line in the Southwest quarter of Section 2.
Additionally John M Jones owned 80 acres in the Southeast quarter of Section
two and 80 acres in the Southwest quarter of Section 1. This property bordered
Isaac Jones’ land on the eastern half of his southern property line.
Christopher Fee lands made up the southern border the western half of his land.
On 23 October 1850 Isaac Jones sold
his 80 acres in Section 2 that he bought from Lysander Babbitt for $100 to John
Wilkinson and David Wilkinson for $400 which was recorded 24 October 1850 in
Book B 389. The land was located in the south half of the of the Northeast
quarter of Section 2 and the deed was witnessed by William M Clark Justice of
the Peace and Thomas S. Thompson the widower of Isaac’s half sister Rebecca
Jones Thompson. Thompson’s son Charles Henry was living within the house hold
of Isaac and Mary Jane according to the 1850 census.
With the profit Isaac made from that
transaction, he bought from Moses Long on 23 October 1850, 80 acres for $300, a
mile or so north in Township 76. The land was located near the White Breast
Creek in the North half of the Northeast quarter of Section 34 Township 76
range 20. This deed was recorded in Book B page 390 dated 28 October 1850. The
property was located in Township 76 Range 20 in section 34. William M Clark and
Andrew Long witnessed the deed.
Mary Jane Booth Jones gave birth to
Albert M Jones on 24 January 1851 in Knoxville Township which was her first
born. He and his cousin Welcome Steadman were the only grandchildren that
William Booth lived to see.
John M Jones sold to Christopher Fee
on 6 June 1851 20 acres “more of less” for $65 located in the East half of the
Northeast quarter of the South west quarter of Section 2 in Township 75 in
Range 20. Witnesses were David Immel and William M Clark recorded in deed book
C page 260.
About the time Mary Jane Jones’ father
died, she and her husband Isaac sold to Isaac’s half brother John M Jones
property in the township just north of Township 75 in Section 34 of Township 76
for $500. The property was located in the Northwest quarter of the North east
quarter of Section 34. The property was sold 3 December 1851 but was not filed
until Christmas Eve 1852 and recorded 2 February 1853. Witnesses were again
David Immel and William M Clark. Deed recorded in Book D page 314.
Silas William Jones, the second son of
Isaac and Mary Jane Booth Lane was born 17 February 1852. He would grow up not
knowing any of his grandfathers.
A year later a series of land
transactions on 14 February 1853 occurred among the Jones family which was very
profitable to them. John M Jones sold to Isaac Jones 60 acres in two parcels of
40 and 20 acres recorded 14 February 1853. The 40 acres was located in the
northwest quarter of the northwest quarter of section 12 in Township 75 Range
20 and the smaller parcel was located in the west half of the northwest quarter
of the Southwest quarter of Section 2 Township 75 Range 20. Deed recorded in
Book D page 43.
On the same day Isaac Jones sold to
Jacob Butcher for $500 the same property he had bought from his half brother.
The deed was filed 14 February 1855 and is recorded in Book D page 452. Isaac
Jones was moving about 3 miles northwest from Section 2 in Township 75 to
Sections 33, 34, and 35 in Township 75 still part of Knoxville Township where
his Uncle John Jones had a farm. For three days later on 17 February 1853 Isaac
Jones bought from Claiborne Hall for $200 40 acres in Section 35 in Township
76. This land was located in the Northwest quarter of the Southwest quarter.
The deed was recorded in Book D page 454
On 23 April 1853 John M Jones would record a
deed for about an acre that he gave to Knoxville School District Number 8 for a
school that was located on his property in the northeast quarter of the
southwest quarter of this property just below Anna Jones lands. All the school
children in section 2 most likely attended this schoolhouse. Today this
property is part of the Knoxville High School.
County Taxes for 1853 show Isaac Jones
paying on two pieces of property he owned. One was 80 acres he owned located on
the west half of the southwest quarter of Section 35 Township 76 Range 20 that
was valued at $420. The other parcel was 20 acres located in the west half of
the Northeast Quarter of the Northeast Quarter of Section 4 in Township 75. No
value was attached to the property but as unimproved land was valued at about
$1.25 an acre it was probably worth $25. He paid 50 cents in county taxes and
$2.00 in a road tax
Isaac’s mother Anna Jones was still
living on her 40 acre farm in Section 2 of Township 75 and her farm was valued
at $280 which would have included the home and all out buildings like barns and
such.
A few days later Isaac Jones had two
deeds between him and Claiborne Holt and John M Jones recorded 17 February 1853
in Deed Book D pages 436 and 437. On 9 July 1853 Isaac Jones and his wife Mary
Jane recorded a deed where they sold 40 acres of land to Levi Marquest located
in the northeast quarter of the northeast quarter of Section 34 Township 76
Range 20. Deed is recorded in Book E page 71. This property was next to the 40
acres Isaac Jones had sold to his half brother.
Jasper Newton Jones was born 4 October
1853 on the family farm in Knoxville Township however he died two and a half
years old on 20 April 1856.
On 17 November 1853 Isaac Jones’
bought from his uncle and aunt John Jones and Polly Maple Jones 20 acres for
$70 located on the west side of the North east quarter of the North east
quarter of section.
About this time a movement was started
for the incorporation of the town of Knoxville as a legal entity. A petition
was presented to the county judge, who ordered an election for Saturday, 28
January 1854, at which the voters would decide the question. Sixty four votes
were cast, only four of which were against the proposition.
"Whereas, a majority of the legal
voters of Knoxville, Marion County, Iowa, on the 28th day of January, 1854,
have voted in favor of having said town incorporated, notice is hereby given
that an election will take place at the courthouse, in the said town of
Knoxville, on Thursday, the 9th day of February, 1854, for the purpose of
choosing three persons to prepare a charter for said village."
Also in 1854 the Kansas-Nebraska Act
overturned the Missouri Compromise’s use of a latitude as the boundary between
slave and free territory and instead, using the principle of popular
sovereignty. This meant that residents in a Territory would determine whether
the area became a free state or a slave state. As a result proslavery and
free-state settlers flooded into neighboring Kansas to try to influence its
status. Violence soon erupted as both factions fought for control. Abolitionist
John Brown led anti-slavery fighters in Kansas before his infamous raid on
Harpers Ferry.
As Kansas Territory was struggling
over slavery, settlers were still pouring into Iowa. Someone wrote in June 1854
“For miles and miles, day after day, the prairies of Illinois are lined with
cattle and wagons, pushing on toward this prosperous State. At a point beyond
Peoria, during a single month, seventeen hundred and forty-three wagons had
passed, and all for Iowa. Allowing five persons to a wagon, which is a fair
average, would give 8715 souls to the population." During the fall and
early winter of 1854 there was an almost uninterrupted procession of immigrants
crossing the ferries at Prairie du Chien, McGregor, Dubuque, Burlington, Davenport,
and Keokuk. It was noted that sometimes they had to wait in camp two or three
days for their turn to cross.
Isaac Jones sister in law, wife of
John M Jones died 1 September 1854 at the age of 32. Mary Ann Essex Jones was
buried in the Schlotterback Cemetery. As a widower with two young sons under
the age of five, John M Jones remarried 6 months later on 8 June 1855. His
bride was the 18 year old cousin of his first wife who had recently moved to
Marion County. Her name was Margaret Hornbacker the daughter of John Hornbacker
and Margaret Essex.
During the next two years from 1854 to
1856 there was an increase of more than one hundred and ninety thousand in
Iowa's population. The number of settlers who came during those two years
almost equaled the total population of the State in 1850.
In August 1855, the Knoxville Baptist
Church of which Isaac Jones’ mother Anna Maple Jones was a founding member
purchased a lot at the northwest corner of First and Robinson streets in
Knoxville and a little later appointed a building committee. In January, 1856,
the church voted unanimously in favor of building a church house. The building
committee, decided to build a brick edifice, 40 by 60 feet, which was completed
at a cost of a little over four thousand dollars. It was located in Block 18
lot 8 on the southeast corner.
Isaac Jones eldest daughter, named
Mary Ann Jones, was born on the 3 October 1855 in Knoxville Township, Marion,
Iowa, the day before her brother Jasper’s 2nd birthday. However six months
later in April 1856, Jasper N. Jones died prior to the 1856 Census was taken
about two and a half years old. He was probably buried in the Schlotterback
Cemetery as that was the family burial grounds.
The population had grown so much by
1856 that the state took a state census to count the people residing Iowa. In
Marion County Isaac Jones is listed as household 418, John M Jones as household
421, and Anna Jones as 426.
Isaac Jones is listed as 27 years old
[1829] born in Ohio and a resident of the state 13 years [1843]. He was a
registered voter, a member of the Marion militia and a farmer. The census
showed that he raised 500 bushels of corn on 10 acres, produced 200 pounds of
butter, 30 pounds of wool, and made $18 in domestic manufacturing. Probably
much of the wool was produced to sell to woolen mills but some may still have
been used for home use for clothing. There was a place for hogs and cattle on
the census form if sold but he had none listed. While he would have had been
raising sheep and cows for their commercial products, his domestic personal use
livestock like hogs, chickens, goats, mules, horses etc. would have not been
included.
Others in his household were his wife
Mary Jane [Booth] Jones age 26 [1830] born in North Carolina, and children
Albert M Jones age 5 [1851], Cyrus W. [Silas] age 4 [1852] and Ann Jones age 1
[1855]. The census has Mary Jane Booth’s family coming to Iowa in 1842 a year
before the Jones but they would have been probably in Lee County.
Isaac’s uncle John Jones is listed as the
head of household 421 and the census shows that he was a very successful
farmer. He is listed as 40 years old [1816] His wife Mary [Polly Maple and
Anna’s sister] age 42 [1824] born in Ohio. Children listed in this house hold
were Henry C Jones age 12 [1844], Nancy Ann Jones age 9 [1847], and Jehu Jones
age 6 [1850]. He was a registered voter and a member of the militia and had
come to Iowa ten years before in 1846. Henry C Jones was born in Illinois but
the younger children all in Iowa.
The 1856 state census of Iowa is the
last census in which Anna Maple Jones can be found although she did not die
until 1865. She is household 426 listed in Knoxville Township as Anne Jones a
widow age 55 years old [1801] born in Pennsylvania which is correct. She is listed
as the head of household that included G.W. Jones age 25 [George Washington
1831] born in Ohio, William Jones age 20 [1836] born in Ohio, Mary Ann Jones
age 14 [1842] born in Illinois, Charles H Thompson age 8 [1848] born in Iowa
and William H Jones age 0 [1856] born in Iowa. Both Anna Jones and George W.
Jones are listed as widow and widower.
The census asked each family how long
they resided in the state and all but the two children who were born in Iowa
said 13 years which would have been 1843 when Jehu Jones brought them to Iowa
Territory after Marion County was opened to White settlers.
As that the Census was an agricultural
census as well, it showed that Anna Maple Jones and her sons raised 160 bushels
of oats on 4 acres, 600 bushels of corn on 12 acres, made 150 pounds of butter,
had 15 pounds of wool, and made $13 in domestic manufacturing. From this it can
be surmised that the family was growing mainly corn and oats, had cows and
sheep as livestock and made some furniture. They probably also had a horse and
hogs but they were not counted in the census.
According to George Jehu Jones “After
several years in Christopher Fee’ neighborhood on Whitebreast Creek” his
parents and “their young family moved to what is now the David Stitsworth
place, north of the Buckeye schoolhouse closer to the Des Moines River.” That
farm was their home 23 years. They may have been living here at the time of the
1856 census.
Children born to Isaac and Mary Jane
Jones after the 1856 census and before the 1860 federal census were Charles
Henry Jones born 3 June 1857 and Zaccheus Isaac Jones born 9 Jan 1859. They
were both born in Knoxville Township.
On 16 October 1859 staunch
abolitionist John Brown and a group of his supporters descended upon the town
of Harper’s Ferry near where Isaac Jones’ father, Jehu Jones, had been born in
1797. Brown and his men captured prominent citizens and seized the United
States largest federal armory and arsenal in the South in hopes to start a
slave insurrection. Colonel Robert E. Lee killed many of the raiders and
captured Brown who was quickly placed on trial and charged with treason against
the state of Virginia, murder, and slave insurrection. Brown was sentenced to
death for his crimes and was hanged on 2 December 1859.
When the
decade of the 1860’s began the Jones family would have been aware of the great
national debate that was soon to tear the nation apart. While Iowa was a free
state, Knoxville Iowa was only 80 miles north of where human beings were bought
and sold like livestock in Missouri.
All of Anna
Maple Jones children were married by 1860 except for her youngest daughter Mary
Ann Jones. When the 1860 census of Marion County, Iowa was taken however, Anna
and Mary Ann were not enumerated as a household or within the household of any
of her sons. She would have been 59 years old and her daughter 19 years old.
Why she was not enumerated is an enigma but a simple explanation is that she
was simply skipped as there were no males in her household.
The 1860 US
Census of Iowa reflected the population boom that the state experienced between
during the 1850’s. The state’s population in 1850 was 192,214 however in 1860
the population more than tripled to 674,913 just prior to the election of
Abraham Lincoln and the outbreak of the Civil War.
On 12 June
1860 Isaac Jones was enumerated as living in Knoxville Township, Marion, Iowa
Post Office: Knoxville. He was family number 103 and owned a farm worth $1000
and his home and personal property and livestock was worth $400. Mary Jane Booth Jones was 7 months pregnant
when this census was taken
Isaac Jones
age 31 [1829] born in Ohio Occupation farmer
Mary Jones
age 30 [1830] born in North Carolina
Albert Jones
age 9 [1851] born in Iowa
Silas Jones
age 8 [1852] born in Iowa
M A Jones
[Mary Ann] age 4 [1856] born in Iowa
C H Jones
[Charles Henry] age 2 [1858] born in Iowa
Z Jones
[Zachariah] age 1 [1859] born in Iowa
Another son named George Jehu Jones
was born 10 September 1860 in Marion County, Iowa. He was followed by a sister
named Martha Jane Jones born 30 August 1862 also in Marion County.
Isaac Jones’
uncle John Jones, who had moved to Marion County in 1852, was enumerated as
living next to Isaac in the 1860 census. On 12 June 1860 John Jones was
enumerated as living in Knoxville Township, Marion, Iowa Post Office:
Knoxville. He was family number 102 and owned a farm worth $2500 and his home
and personal property and livestock was worth $400
John Jones
age 43 [1817] born in Ohio Occupation Farmer
Mary Jones
[Polly Maple] age 46 [1814] born in Ohio
Henry Jones
age 16 [1844] born in Illinois
N.A. Jones
[NancyAnn] age 14 [1846] born in Iowa
Jehu Jones
age 10 [1850] born in Iowa
David Emmel
age 34 [1826] born in Ohio Occupation Teamster
Mary Emmel
age 4 [1856] born in Iowa Sarah Emmel age 7 [1853] born in Iowa Isaac
Abraham Lincoln’s election to the
presidency in November 1860 resulted in eleven southern states declaring
secession from the United States. South Carolina was the first state which
voted to secede on 20 December 1860. Mississippi followed on 9 January 1861,
Florida on 10 January 1861, Alabama on 11 January 1861, Georgia on 19 January
1861, Louisiana on 26 January 1861 and Texas on 1 February 1861. After 12 April
1861 when Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, refused to surrender to the
Confederates and was fired upon, Abraham Lincoln called for an army to put down
the rebellion. This call to arms had Virginia secede on 17 April 1861, Arkansas
on 6 May 1861, North Carolina on 20 May 1861, and Tennessee on 8 June 1861.
Secession
was declared by supporters of the Confederacy in Missouri and Kentucky but was
opposed by pro-Union state governments. President Lincoln ordered the arrest of
the Maryland legislature to keep them from voting for succession otherwise the
nation’s capital would have been in the Confederacy. The counties of western
Virginia including the Jones’ home counties of Berkeley and Jefferson broke
away from Virginia and formed a new state called West Virginia.
The
succession crisis had the governor of Ohio on 17 April 1861 called for a
regiment of Iowa Volunteers to help suppress the rebellion. When the American
Civil War broke out over the preservation of the Union and the abolition of
slavery, the widows Anna Maples Jones and Mary Ann Booth both had sons old enough
to be called into service. They must have been deeply worried how the war would
affect their families as some of their sons would enlist in the Iowa Regiments
to serve in the Union Army.
Isaac Jones
who was 32 years old when the war of Southern Rebellion began in 1861 was the
father of seven children all under the age of ten years. Additionally he
probably was the main support for his 60 year old mother and his youngest
sister until she married on the 4th of July 1861.
It is
unlikely that Isaac Jones enlisted. There’s no records of an Isaac Jones who
fits his profile as having joined the Union Army. Additionally the 1890 census
of civil war union veterans does not list Isaac as being a veteran nor do any
records in the Civil War data base. It is doubtful that neither he nor his
younger brother George Washington Jones served in the war.
George
Washington Jones was 30 years old when the Civil War began and was married with
three children and a pregnant wife. His wife had a baby born in August 1861
whom they named Abraham Lincoln Jones.
Isaac Jones’
youngest brother William Franklin “Will” Jones enlisted as a private, at the
age of 27, on 19 August 1862 in Company G, of the Iowa 40th Infantry Regiment.
He was married at the time with two young children when he enlisted. His
enlistment records say that he was a resident of Knoxville and a native of
Indiana which is an error. He enlisted with his brother in law Peter Shirey.
Isaac’s
youngest sister Mary Ann Jones had married Peter Shirey on the 4th of July
1861. Peter Shirey was 26 when he enlisted as a private on 14 August 1862 in
Company G of the 40th Regiment Iowa Infantry, which was the last of the Iowa
three years' regiments to fill its ranks and enter the field of battle against
the rebels.
About a month
and a half after shots were fired at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, on 29 May
1861 John M Jones and his 2nd wife, Margaret, who were living in Cass County,
Nebraska, gave power of attorney to Isaac Jones to sell their property in
Marion County Iowa. “By our attorney Isaac Jones” they sold to Anne [Anna]
Jones 265 acres “more or less” for $3,000. Nearly all the property was in
Section 35 in Township 26.
In the
meanwhile Isaac Jones is shown paying taxes on four parcels equaling 120 acres
worth $640 in a tax record for Marion County 1862. All of his properties were
now located in Township 76 but in three different sections that the White
Breast Creek ran through. His most valuable property was in Section 23 and
where his home most likely was.
He owned 40
acres in the Northwest quarter of the Southwest Quarter and that farm was worth
$320. In Section 27 he owned another 40 acres that was worth $160 located in
the South east quarter of the Southeast quarter. The two parcels in Section 35
equaled 40 acres. Ten acres valued at $40 was the west quarter of the Northeast
quarter of the Northwest quarter. The 30 acres values at $120 acres was in the
west ¾ of the Northwest quarter of the Southwest quarter. Land seemed to be
valued at $4 an acre in 1862 which means that his 40 acre property valued at
$320 was either worth twice as much or $160 of that was his home and out
buildings.
Isaac Jones
was listed in the 4th Congressional District in a draft census taken by Captain
James Matthews Provost Marshall. He was listed as a resident of Knoxville
Township as of 1 July 1863 and was 34 years [1829], Marion, Iowa. He was listed
as born in Ohio and married. He was not drafted however.
On the 23rd
of November 1863 his mother Anne [Anna] Jones sold to Henry G Curtis 10 acres
for $100 located in the North east quarter of the Northwest quarter of Section
35 of Township 76. She signed with her mark as that she couldn’t write her
name.
After the
war ended in April 1865, Isaac
Jones was a respectable family man living on a prosperous farm in Marion
County, Iowa. His mother, Anna
Maple Jones, died on 12 July 1865 at the age of 64 years. She lived long enough
to see all her sons return from the war.
Isaac Jones is located on 16 June
1870 in Knoxville Township, Marion, Iowa, for the 1870 federal census. His Post
Office address was Knoxville and he was enumerated asHousehold 197
Isaac Jones age 41 Ohio farmer Real
estate $6000 personal property $2800
M J Jones [Mary Jane] age 40 North
Carolina keeping house
A Jones [Albert] age 19 Iowa farm hand
S Jones [Silas William] age 17 Iowa at
home
M A Jones [Mary Ann] age 12 Iowa at
home
Chas Jones [Charles Henry] age 9 Iowa
at home
Z Jones [Zaccheus Isaac] age 8 Iowa at home
Geo Jones [George Jehu] age 6 Iowa at
home
Jane Jones [Martha Jane] age 5 Iowa at
home
L Jones [Louisa Ellen] age 4 Iowa at
home
T Jones [Theodosia] age 3 Iowa at home
M E Jones [Edward Morgan] age 2 Iowa
at home
He
was enumerated next to his younger brother William Franklin’s family at
household 196.
George Jehu stated, “My father used ox
teams until 1870. Oxen were very stubborn, if they wanted to leave the field
and go to the creek for a drink, they took plow and all and went there was no
stopping them. The last day my father worked oxen they were doing this very
thing. An old Indian was riding along on his horse and saw them. He said to my
father, "If I was fool enough to work, I would work horses." My
father said that was just what he was going to do and from that day on he used
horses for his farming.”
Isaac Jones daughter Louisa Jones
Shields told her grandkids how she, her mother and her sister Mary Ann would
walk 30 miles round trip for supplies. She said “her mother said she wasn't
tired, but her sister (Mary Anne) was because she wasn't very strong.”
Isaac Jones second son Silas William Jones
at the age of 23 years married Mary Josephine “Josie” Cronkhite on 28 February
1875 in Knoxville Township. He was the first of Isaac’s children to marry. Josie
Cronkhite Jones was the daughter of Abraham Cronkhite and Nancy White Burch.
Their son Fred Newton Jones was Isaac and Mary Jane’s first grandchild born 17
May 1876 in Knoxville Township. They had three more children Donald Weaver
Jones, Jack Augustus Jones, and Ruth Jones. Silas and Josie were prosperous
farmers until their deaths in a house fire on 20 October 1894 at their home in
Dallas Township, Marion, Iowa. Silas Jones was 42 years old when he died.
On 21 December 1876 at the age of 25
years Isaac and Mary Jane Booth’s eldest child Albert Jones married Olive Burch
daughter of Landon Burch and Elizabeth Pursley. She was the younger aunt of
Silas Jones’ wife. Shortly after their marriage they moved to the town of
Pocahontas in Randolph County, Arkansas where their only son Franklin “Frank”
Fred Jones was born New Years Eve 1878.
The 1880 census of Randolph County
shows Albert Jones as a border age 28. His occupation was given as a “miller”.
The census taker however crossed out his name shortly after the census was
taken on the 29th of June evidently to show that he no longer lived there.
Albert gave his marital status as “widower”. His son Frank Jones grew up
married and had a career as a bridge builder before he died in 1951.
Nothing more is known of Albert Jones
until he died 19 February 1884 at the age of 33 in Knoxville. He is buried in
the Little Flock Cemetery located in Knoxville Township, Section 20 Township 76
Range 20, Iowa. The cemetery is about 3 miles west of Knoxville, then 4 miles
northwest of the intersection of Hwy. 92 and 92nd Ave.
This little cemetery is in the middle
of a field and is not apparent from the road, surrounded by trees and bushes.
Inside it is a well cared-for spot with not a single broken stone or any lying
flat. There are about two dozen graves, with a few recent burials. The cemetery
is located on the John and Carolyn Murphy farm.
On 24 August 1879 at the age of 23
years Isaac’s eldest daughter daughter Mary Anne Jones married William Francis
Antle son of Thomas Antle. They had four children and she died at the old age
of 88 years 4 November 1943. She was buried in the Kellogg Cemetery in Jasper
County, Iowa.
Also in 1879 Isaac Jones bought what
had been known as the old Charles Zin farm, also in the Buckeye neighborhood,
and here he and his family resided 23 years until 1902.
The 1880 Census was taken while they
lived at this place. United States Census of Knoxville, Marion, Iowa, USA Head
of Household 580 taken 2 August 1880
Isaac Jones age 51 born Ohio Farmer
parents from Ohio
Mary Jane Jones age 50 born NC keeping
house parents from NC
Charles H. Jones age 22 born Iowa
farmer
Zacheus Jones age 21 born Iowa farmer
George J. Jones age 19 born Iowa farm
hand
Martha J. Jones age 17 born Iowa house
work
Louisa E. Jones age 15 born Iowa at
home
Theodosia R. Jones age 14 born Iowa at
home
Edward M. Jones age 12 born Iowa at
home
John Q. Jones age 8 born Iowa at home
Jesse R. Jones age 5 born Iowa at home
Mary A. Boothe age 70 born NC mother
in law visitor parents from NC .
Daughter
Theodosia Rebecca Jones married at the age of 22 years on 1 July 1883 Thomas
Lincoln Karns at Ora Dell, Marion County. They had seven children in 13 years.
She died as a young mother on 9 March 1899, in her hometown, at the age of 33,
and was buried in the Little Flock Cemetery.
Zaccheus Isaac Jones at the age of 24
married Mary E Dickson on 13 December 1883 in Jasper County Iowa. The couple
had one son before she died in 1886. He remarried on 30 September 1887 in
Marion County, Iowa to Anna Bridges by who he had two daughters. Around the
time of WWI he moved from Iowa to Madison County, Nebraska. He would live in
California during the winter and there he died 6 Dec 1952 in Lynwood, Los
Angeles, California, at the age of 93. One of his sons brought his body home to
be interred in the Union Cemetery in Battle Creek, Madison, Nebraska.
Three years later, Isaac Jones’s son
George Jehu Jones married at the age of 26 years Mary Elizabeth Ruckman on 11
November 1886 in Union Township, Marion County, Iowa. They were the parents of
six children. He spent his entire life in Marion County and died 3 October 1943
at his farm in Union Township at the age of 83 years. He is buried in the
Greenwood Cemetery. He is the author of most of the pioneer stories regarding
his father.
Isaac’s daughter Martha Jane Jones was
married on New Year’s Day 1889 in Des Moines, Polk, Iowa to William Barnes at
the age of 26 years. They had three children before she became a widow in 1897.
She remarried again to Charles Griffin on 11 Oct 1899 and had one more child before
she died 1 March 1905 about three months before her father. She is buried in
the Little Flock Cemetery.
Edward Morgan Jones was married 7
February 1892 at the age of 24 in Knoxville Township, Marion, Iowa to Gurphy B
Barnes sister of William Barnes, They had three children before his first wife
died in 1908. He remarried a widow Mrs. Grace May Clement Bender in 1909 and
had another son by her. He moved to Dallas County Iowa where he farmed until
moving to Des Moines and operated a boarding house. He died 26 July 1947 at the
age of 79 in Des Moines but was buried next to his first wife in the
Pleasantville Cemetery in Marion County. His second wife who died in 1971 is
also buried beside him.
The family of Isaac Jones continued to
prosper until the economic depression known as the Panic of 1893 hurt the
family’s fortunes. Isaac Jones brother “John M. Jones was a wealthy man” by
this time and had bought up a lot of land and built several houses, which is
now known as the John M. Jones addition to Knoxville. He enlarged his mill and
tied his money up in properties.
George Jehu Jones stated, “People
bought on credit from my uncle's mill and during the panic he could not get any
cash and had to mortgage his properties to the Marion County Bank for $12,000 to
keep running his mill, and in order to extend credit to his customers who could
not pay at that time. Larkin Wright, president of the Marion County Bank asked
that a surety [had to be signed for] my uncle's note and my father signed for
him. Everything kept getting worse instead of better and my uncle couldn't
collect any of the money due him. The result was that the bank was compelled to
foreclose and that both my uncle John M. Jones and my father lost all of their
property.”
Isaac and Mary Jane Booth’s children
Louisa Ellen Booth and John Quincy Booth had a double wedding on 4 April 1895
in Des Moines, Polk, Iowa. Daughter Louisa Ellen Jones married at the age of 30
Fernando Wiet Shields on 4 April 1895 at Des Moines, Polk, Iowa. They had six
children one of which because the Poet Laureate of Colorado. The family moved
to Montrose County, Colorado shortly after Isaac Jones had died. Louisa died at
the age of 61 in Olathe, Montrose County, Colorado, 4 May 1926. She is buried
in the Olathe Cemetery, Montrose County, Colorado.
John Quincy Jones also married on 4
April 1895 at Des Moines, Polk, Iowa. At the age of 23 years he married Mary
Elizabeth Lemmon. They had five children in 19 years. They moved away from
Marion County during World War I to Allen County Missouri where he farmed until
about 1927 when he became a preacher and known as a “Reverend” in city
directories of Council Bluff, Pottawattamie, Iowa. In 1932 when the Great
Depression was in full swing he was shown as having no occupation other than
being titled “reverend.” He was soon able to find work as the County Court’s
Bailiff and in 1938 he was made a Deputy Marshall for the County Courts.
Sometime after 1941 and 1951 he and his wife moved to Portland, Multnomah
County, Oregon where he died 23 April 1951 at the age of 79. He and his wife
are buried in the Lincoln Memorial Park in Portland.
The last census to include Isaac Jones
was the one taken on 5 June 1900 of Knoxville, Marion, Iowa. Marital Status:
Married; Relation to Head of House: living Farm schedule 61 owned farm and
house
Isaac Jones age 71 born March 1829
farmer Ohio married 50 years father born Maryland and mother in Ohio
Mary J Jones age 70 born Feb 1830
North Carolina Mother of 15 children 9 living parents born North Carolina
Charley H Jones age 42 born June 1857
Iowa farm laborer
Jesse R Jones age 25 born Nov 1874
Iowa farm laborer
Lucy M Brees age 25 born Oct 1874 Iowa
Servant house keeping
This
record has Mary Jane Booth Jones having 15 children although only 13 are accounted
for. She may have been counting pregnancies and miscarriages for even still
born children were often given a name in family records. He was still affluent
enough to afford a housekeeper for his aged wife.
 |
| Top Left - Mary Ann, Louisa Ellen, Martha Jane- Theodosia is seated chair front |
In 1902 Isaac Jones moved his family
from Knoxville Township to a homestead in Union Township still in Marion
County. Isaac was living here when in May 1905 he had an accident with his
riding horse and died on June 9th from the result of peritonitis caused by the
accident. An extensive obituary was printed 16 June 1905 in the Knoxville
Journal newspaper.
“Marion Counties Oldest Settler Dies
At An Advanced Age”
CAME TO MARION COUNTY IN 1843: For
more than six decades Isaac Jones has been a resident of this county-settled in
the very border line of this white man's country. Isaac Jones, the dean of the
Marion county pioneers, a gentleman who for several years past has been
generally recognized and acknowledged to be the last of the very early settlers
"west of the Red Rock line," died at his home in Union township
shortly after 12 o'clock, noon, on Friday, June 9, 1905, aged 76 years, 3
months and 7 days. Death resulted from peritonitis, which was caused by
injuries received three weeks ago, when a horse which he was attempting to
mount, reared and fell, striking Mr. Jones across the stomach and bowels.
Isaac Jones was born in Guernsey Co.,
Ohio, March 2, 1829. His parents were Jehu and Anna (Maple) Jones. When the
subject of this sketch was a very small boy his parents and their family
removed to the vicinity of Peoria, Ill. That was in the year 1836. Seven years
later, in the fall of 1843, the family removed to the Territory of Iowa and
settled within the present limits of Knoxville, on what is now known as the
"Mile Track farm." That was 18 months before the New Purchase from
the Sacs and Fox Indians had been affected, consequently their homestead may be
said to have been bounded on the west by "nothing but the Indian country
and the setting sun," the Jones holdings being on the very edge of civilization.
The country to the east, north and
south for many miles was almost as wild and uninhabited as that in the
direction of the Missouri river and the Great Plains. Knoxville had then never
been dreamed of and all the tract between the Jones cabin and the little creek
now called Competine (which includes the tract now comprised in the city
proper) was a hazel and crabapple thicket, overshadowed in places with trees of
the primitive growth.
Only one other white person had ever
resided so far west in what is now Marion County. He was John M. Jones, also a
son of Jehu and Anna Jones and a brother of the late deceased. John M. was then
in the employ of a fur company and had spent the winter of 1842-43 in a cabin
on white breast creek. He is still living (aged 83) and is a resident of
Oskaloosa. He was not included in the opening reference to early pioneers
because he has not resided in the county for several years.
ISAAC WAS A CONTINUOUS RESIDENT OF THE
COUNTY DURING THE PAST 62 YEARS, 59 years of that time having been spent within
the limits of Knoxville township! Those of the early Marion county pioneers who
remember the hardships of the early days of 1850 and 1855 would do well to
attempt to form a mind picture of what the actual conditions must have been 10
or 12 years previous when the Jones family first settled in the howling
wilderness of Marion county, among the wild animals and the wilder and more
dreaded human inhabitants-the crafty, suspicious and cruel Indians.
Mr. Jones' sons tell the writer that
their father often mentioned occasions when as two, three and even five hundred
painted savages gathered around their father's cabin. Surely those were times
such as the historians have recorded, "days which tried men's souls."
The dangers which beset the family both
by day and by night were augmented to a scarcity of food. They had come here in
the fall, making the trip for Illinois with ox teams, expecting to depend on
wild game for the winter's supply of provisions. However, the different
government treaties with the Indians had had the effect of congregating the
original inhabitants of the country along the line which separated their
hunting grounds from the lands which had been ceeded to the whites.
The elder Jones, Isaac's father, was a
turner and woodworker by trade and had brought his tools with him when he
emigrated to this section. At last he hit upon the expedient of making wooden
bowls to sell or to trade to the settlers farther east. Settling the boys to
the task of supporting the family by hunting and fishing, he busied himself
early and late, carving bowls of various sizes until finally he had
manufactured a wagon load of such wooden utensils.
Then he hitched up his oxen and
started on a trading expedition, exchanging his wares for anything that would
serve as food. Bacon, meal, corn, potatoes, hominy, dried beans and other
articles of food were thus obtained and for several weeks after his return the
family regularly "sat down to a square meal."
Twenty-five years ago the stumps from
which this "bowl timber" was cut could still be seen on Whitebreast
creek. On the trip referred to, Jehu Jones drove as far to the east as
Keosauqua, Brighton, Fairfield and Burlington. The load of provisions brought
back was heavier than the load of bowls that he had been taking away.
Shortly after the memorable
"wooden bowl expedition," in the year 1845, Jehu Jones the head of
the family and father of the subject of this sketch, took sick and died. His
remains lie buried in a little overgrown cemetery on the W. C. Daugherty place,
about a half of a quarter west of the new State building. His was doubtless the
first funeral of a white person that ever occurred in Knoxville Township. His
wife survived until 1865. She is also buried in the Daugherty cemetery.
What befell the family in the way of
hardships after the death of the father can never be described except by those
who were thus left to battle with the adversities of life, and without a
captain to shape their destinies. It is even doubtful if any one of the surviving
members of that pioneer family could now, after a lapse of sixty years, give
anything like an adequate pen-picture of their actual condition at and
immediately after the fathers' demise. A rudderless, masterful ship in an ocean
storm could be in no worse a condition that that family craft, left without a
master on the billows of a great wilderness.
But the courageous blood of the father
had been transmitted to the sons and within a few years, after passing
dangerously near many breakers, we see the family prosperous and their cabin
the nucleus of a little settlement.
The living members of the original
Jones family which settled here in 1843 are: John M., mentioned in the
foregoing, now a resident of Oskaloosa; George W., now of Cedar, Co., Neb.;
William, emigrated to Nebraska years ago and is now in Holt county, in that
state and Mary A., now Mrs. Shirey, of Lincoln Nebraska. There were other
members of the family but all have been dead for many years.
When in his 21st year, on Oct. 16,
1849, Isaac Jones was united in marriage with Miss Mary J. Boothe. She is still
living but in very poor health. The family fear that the stunning sorrow which
has so recently befallen her will shorter her days.
To Mrs. and Mrs. Isaac Jones thirteen
children were born, only eight of whom are now living, 6 sons and two
daughters, as follows: Mary, now Mrs. O. M. Antle, of Kellogg, Jasper Co., C.H.
still at home, A.J. of Indiana township: G.J., of Union township, Louisa, now
the wife of F.W. Shields residing west of Grinnell; John Q., now on the old
home place near Buckeye school house, and Jessie at home.
After several years in the Fee
neighborhood on Whitebreast Mr. and Mrs. Jones and their young family moved to
what is now the David Stitsworth place, north of the Buckeye schoolhouse. That
farm was their home 23 years. In 1879 they bought what had been known as the
old Chas. Zin farm, also in the Buckeye neighborhood, and resided there 23
years. They have been on the present Jones homestead in Union township only
about three years.
Mr. Jones had been in splendid health,
strong and vigorous for one of his age up until about 4 weeks ago last
Wednesday, when he was injured by a horse mentioned in the foregoing. He
appeared to be recovering from the injury, which had been almost forgotten,
when he was taken ill on Sunday June 4. He did not take to his bed until the
following day. He died Friday noon after 4 1/2 days of intense suffering.
Never since the organization and
settlement of Marion County has her people been called upon to mourn the death
of one more worthy of universal esteem than was Isaac Jones. He was an
unassuming, honest, straightforward Christian gentleman. To say that now it
truthfully means that no more glowing tribute can be paid to the memory of
frail humanity.
He was a strong character in the early
history of our county; one strong to make a pathway for himself and his family
and leave to them the inheritance of a good name. "It is appointed unto
all men once to die," but it is not appointed to all men to spend 62 years
in one community and have lived so that all men who know of it sorrow at his
death and whom not a man in the great population which has grown up around has
aught of harm to say.
In the death of Isaac Jones, Marion County
loses a revered pioneer; his neighborhood a valuable friend and the family a
loving husband and father.
The writer had known him for more than
25 years and in these poor tributes does not attempt to disguise his heartfelt
sorrow. We feel that we have lost more than a mere friend; that one is gone in
whose presence we always felt as if in the presence of a patriarch of the olden
times. The funeral was held at the home on Sunday, June the 11, at 10 o'clock
a.m., conducted by elder John Cline, of Des Moines, an old time friend of
deceased.
One touching and appropriate feature
of the ceremony was noted in the fact that the sixsons acted as pallbearers.
The burial was in Watkin's cemetery 2 1/2 miles north of Donley.”
The
youngest son of Isaac Jones and Mary
Jane Booth was not married until almost months after his father had died. Jesse
Rufus Jones married Grace Elizabeth Jordan on 29 November 1905 in Madison
County, Iowa at the age of 31 years. He was a farmer in Union Township. They
had one child during their marriage. He died on September 28, 1928, in his
hometown, at the age of 53 and is buried in the Greenwood Cemetery in Marion
County, Iowa.
The last of Isaac and Mary Jane’s
children to marry was Charles Henry Jones. He married Sarah G Johnson on 26
October 1916 when he was 59 years old. His wife was 38 and there were no
children from this marriage. He died on August 31, 1935, at the age of 78 and
was buried in the Dunreath Cemetery Otley, Marion County, Iowa. The widow Mary
Jane Booth Jones lived with various children after the death of her husband in
particular her son, Charles Henry Jones. The 1910 Census for Marion County,
Iowa shows her as living with her son “Charley” neither one of them employed.
They are living in Union Township as of 5 May 1910 next door to George Jehu
Jones. She stated in the census she was the mother of 12 children with eight
children still living. She actually was the mother of 13 children. She died 25
September 1917 in Union Township, Marion County, Iowa while the United States
had entered World War I. She was buried in the Watkins Cemetery next to her
husband of 55 and half years. The Watkins Cemetery is located in Section 28,
Township 76, Range 20.
 |
Top Row Left to Right Edward Morgan, John Quincy, Jesse Rufus -
Front Row Left to Right: George Jehu, Zacheus Isaac, Mary Jane, Charles Henry
|
Children of Isaac Jones and Mary Jane
Booth
1.
Albert M Jones Born 24 January 1851 • Knoxville, Marion, Iowa, USA Died 19
February 1884 age 33 years Knoxville, Marion, Iowa, USA Buried in Little Flock
Cemetery Married 21 Dec 1876 in Marion County, Iowa Olive Burch daughter of
Landon Burch. They had one son.
2
Silas William Jones Born 17 February 1852 • Knoxville, Marion, Iowa, Died 20
October 1894 age 42 Dallas, Marion, Iowa, burieb in Greenwood Cemetery He Married
28 Feb 1875 Marion, Iowa, Mary Josephine "Josie" Cronkhite daughter of Abraham Cronkhite and Nancy White
Burch
3.
Jasper N Jones Born 4 October 1853 Knoxville Twp Marion County, Iowa, USA Died
20 April 1856 age 2 and a half years Knoxville Twp Marion County, Iowa, USA
Buried probably in Schlotterback Cemetery
4.
Mary Ann Jones Born 3 October 1855 Knoxville Twp, Marion, Iowa. Died 4 Nov 1943
in Kellogg, Jasper County Iowa. She married 24 Aug 1879 Marion County, Iowa
William Francis Antle (1858–1931), She is buried in Our Silent City Cemetery
Kellogg, Jasper County, Iowa, next to her husband.
5.
Charles Henry Jones Born 3 June 1857, in Knoxville Township, Marion Iowa Died
31 August 1935 Otley, Red Rock Township, Marion County, Iowa. He married 26
October 1916 Sarah G Johnson daughter of Abraham Johnson of Red Rock, Marion
Iowa. He is buried in the Dunreath cemetery is located in Red Rock Township
section 27, Township 77, Range 20 in the southern part of Red Rock Township.
6.
Zaccheus Isaac Jones born 9 January 1859 Knoxville Township, Marion, Iowa. He
died 6 December 1952 in Lynnwood, Los Angeles County, California. He was buried in Madison County, Nebraska. He
married Mary E Dickson and they had one son together before she died. He then
married Anna Bridges and they had two daughters together.
7.
George Jehu Jones Born September 10, 1860 Knoxville Township, Marion, Iowa.
Died October 3, 1943 Knoxville Township, Marion, Iowa. He married 11 November
1886 Mary Elizabeth Ruckman. He and his wife had six children in 19 years. He
died in Knoxville, Iowa, at the age of 83, and was buried in the Greenwood
Cemetery there.
8.
Martha Jane Jones Born 30 August 1862 Knoxville Township, Marion, Iowa, Died 1
March 1905 in Marion County, Iowa at the age of 43 years and just about three
months before her father died. Buried Little Flock Cemetery. She married 1 Jan
1889 William Barnes (1841–1897) in Des Moines, Polk, Iowa. She married second
Charles Griffith. She and William Barnes had three children together. After the
death of William Barnes in 1897, she then married Charles M Griffith and they
had one son together.
9.
Louisa Ellen Jones Born 18 July 1864 Knoxville, Marion County, Iowa, Died 4 May
1926 Olathe, Montrose County, Colorado. She married 4 April 1895 in Des Moines,
Polk, Iowa, Fernando Wiet Shields (1861–1949). Written by her daughter Edna Gilbert June 1980
at the age 82. “We lived on a farm in Iowa and when it was decided to move to
Colorado. It was not a very productive farm and mostly feed for the livestock
was grown. When we moved out here from Iowa in October 1905, our folks
chartered a railroad freight car to bring their furniture, two horses, two or
three cows, some chickens and some farm machinery. They could not use it in
this country because of rocks in the ground and the type of soil.
My father bought 160 acres of land 2
3/4 miles northwest of Olathe on Ash Mesa in 1905, where some of the family
still lives. It was purchased from the Ash brothers who homesteaded it about
1881.
Our father set a good example for us
with his kindness, thoughtfullness and good care of us all the time. A few
words from our father was all we needed for correction. He left the main
punishment to our mother and it was sure and swift. Our mother was a strict
disciplinarian. We obeyed what she said or we were in trouble. One trouble was
enough for one misdeed.
We had many Primitive Baptist
preachers in our home during these years. Many of them were here for the night,
too; some for several days or a week.
The children in the family were Maud,
Edna, Milford, Pearl, Mary and Charley who was born here. The rest were born
near Kellogg, Iowa.”
Louise Shields was buried in the
Olathe cemetery situated 11 miles north of Montrose, Colorado. Her son Milford
Shields turned out to be the 4th Poet Laureate for the State of Colorado from
1954-1975. Shields, lived in Durango and as a poet of the Cold War years,
Shields interpreted the role of the poet laureate in the traditional sense: one
who celebrates significant state events. His vigorously worded patriotic poem
"Air Force Academy" celebrates the 1954 announcement by the Secretary
of the Air Force that Colorado had won the competition to be the home of the
Air Force Academy.
10.
Theodosia Rebecca Jones Born 3 March 1866 Knoxville, Marion, Iowa, died 9 Mar
1899 • Knoxville, Marion, Iowa, age 33 years old. She married Thomas Lincoln
Karns on July 1, 1883. They had seven children in 13 years.
11.
Edward Morgan Jones Born 29 Jan 1868 Knoxville, Marion, Iowa, Died 26 July 1947 Des
Moines, Polk Iowa age 79 years. He married Gurphy B Barnes and they had three
children together. He then married Grace Mae Clement and they had one son
together. He was buried in Pleasantville, Iowa.
12.
John Quincy Jones Born 31 December 1871 Indiana Township, Marion, Iowa Died 23
April 1951 Portland, Multnomah County, Oregon at the age of 79. He married 4
April 1895 age 23 in Des Moines Township, Polk County, Iowa Mary Elizabeth
Lemmon daughter of Michael Lemmon and Nancy Bridges. They had five children in
19 years.
13.
Jesse Rufus Jones Born 2 November 1874 Knoxville Township, Marion, Iowa, Died
28 September 1928 Union Twp Marion County, Iowa. He was buried in Greenwood
Cemetery. He married 29 Nov 1905 Winterset, Madison County, Iowa Grace
Elizabeth Jordan the daughter of a Primitive Baptist Elder Francis Marion
Jordan and his wife Mary Jane Reed. They had one child Helen Jane Jones. He and
his wife Grace were members of the Primitive Baptist Church in Marion County
where he was a farmer until he died at the age of 53. His widow never remarried
but moved to Des Moine, Iowa and later lived with her daughter who never
married. She was the proverbial Old Maid Librarian but got her education in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and with the Librarian at Columbia University in New
York City in 1940. She and her mother later relocated to West Covina Los
Angeles County, California where they lived out the remainder of their lives.
No comments:
Post a Comment