Iowa Old Time
Settlers
23 August 2016
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| Jehu Jones |
On
1 January 1797 Enoch and Nancy Addy Jones’ second son, Jehu Paten Jones, was
born near the town of Harper’s Ferry in Berkeley County, Virginia. Jehu Jones
would probably have thought he was born in Jefferson County, Virginia which was
created from Berkeley County in 1801 as that Jefferson would have been his
earliest childhood memory. He was the second son of Enoch Jones and Nancy Addy,
natives of New Castle County, Delaware.
When Jehu Paten Jones was born his
father, Enoch, was 33 and his mother, Nancy Addy was 24. The United States was
still a young country and George Washington was just finishing the last few
years of his Presidency.
Jehu never knew his Delaware Jones
people other than his uncle Malachi Jones who was married to Jehu’s mother’s
older sister Martha Addy and perhaps Elias Jones whose kinship is undetermined.
The naming of Jehu Paten Jones is
intriguing because it does not follow the normal naming pattern of offspring in
the 18th Century. There are no known members of the Addy or Jones’ families who
are named Jehu. It was a tradition in colonial times to name the first born son
after the wife’s father and second son after the husband’s father. This was
often done so a child might be favored by a grandfather who might leave him a
legacy in a will. As that Jehu’s supposed grandfather Enoch Jones had died some
9 years before he was born there was no chance of that.
However as that son Jehu was given a
middle name of Paten [Patton] that indicates that he may have been named for
someone whom the parents had admired like perhaps a preacher. Children were
often named for popular ministers, American presidents, or Revolutionary War
heroes.
Jehu Jones ancestry is Celtic as that
his one grandfather was of Welsh descent while his other grandfather was a
Scotsman who emigrated from Ulster in Northern Ireland. It was believed that he
came to America to avoid trouble with the English authorities in Ireland.
Jehu’s grandfather William Addy had a
large family and the younger members of it were nearly the same age as he. His
favorite uncle, James Addy, was just a year older than Jehu and both boys were
always on some adventure according to recollections of Addy.
Jehu Jones spent much of his early childhood in Virginia at the confluence of the Shenandoah River and the Potomac River. He would have seen a lot of river trade with barges going up and down the two rivers when ever he went to town with his father. His father’s farm was near Harper’s Ferry which was an important village as it contained one of the two Federal Armories in the United States.
Jehu Jones spent much of his early childhood in Virginia at the confluence of the Shenandoah River and the Potomac River. He would have seen a lot of river trade with barges going up and down the two rivers when ever he went to town with his father. His father’s farm was near Harper’s Ferry which was an important village as it contained one of the two Federal Armories in the United States.
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| Harpers Ferry |
Although raised on a farm about three
miles west of Harper’s Ferry, coming into town, he would have seen United
States Soldiers in their uniforms interspersed with rough frontiersmen wearing the
home spun and buckskin attire. It would
also have been a common sight for him to see African Americans in bondage
doing heavy labor on the docks under the supervision of overseers. For all
intent and purposes he was in the heart of slave country.
Jehu Jones could read and write unlike
his father. Jehu attended school in Jefferson County, which was formed from
Berkeley County in 1801. He probably attended with his brother Jesse and his
Addy aunts and uncles who were nearly his same age. His uncle James Addy, who
was born in May 1796 and was only about 7 months older than Jehu, stated for a
newspaper interview that he had attended school in Virginia and there is no
reason to not to believe that Jehu Jones also received some rudimentary
education there.
As a child most of his playmates would
have come from within his mother’s family unit. Jehu Jones would have been closer
to his Addy relatives than his Jones cousins by his Uncle Malachi as that until
moving to Ohio, his uncle and his cousins were moving from place to place in
western Pennsylvania.
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| Guernsey County, Ohio |
His mother’s relatives including his
grandfather and Grandmother, once in Ohio, settled in what would become Linton
Township in Coshocton County. The Addys were among the earliest and best-known
settlers in Linton Township as were the following pioneers: the Bakers, Marletts,
and the Meskimens. Many of these families who settled in this part of the
Military District Tract were Baptists and members of Tonoloway Baptist Church.
They probably emigrated as a group from the tristate area of western Virginia,
Maryland and Pennsylvania.
The Bakers were from Pennsylvania and
came into the Will’s Creek area as early as 1802. Rezin [Reason] Baker lived on
a farm in what is now known as the north bend of Will's creek, of which he took
possession in 1808. He became an uncle to Jehu when he married Polly Addy the
sister of Jehu’s mother. Rezin Baker remained in Coshocton County until his
death at the age of 62 in 1842.
The Scot-Irish James Meskimen and his
family were Baptists also from Jefferson County, Virginia and had attended
church with the Fullers and Maples in Maryland. They were relatives of Jehu’s
future wife Anna Maple. The Meskimen family were originally quite large
landholders in Coshocton County and the patriarch “James Meskimen” was said to
have been “a man of more than ordinary force”. He was also on the first board
of county commissioners. Some of the children of James Meskimen intermarried
with the Addy family.
Jehu’s father Enoch Jones remained in
Jefferson County after the Addy family left probably to dispose of his
property. He and his brother Malachi were in Ohio by 1809. 1810 tax records for his father Enoch Jones
show that he did not follow Jehu’s grandfather to Ohio immediately. When Jehu
Jones arrived in Ohio he was becoming an adolescent or what was usually known
as a “youth”. He was also back with his uncle James Addy and they were probably
best of friends but lt appeared that Addy was not the best influence on him.
This area of southwestern Ohio where his father settled was part of the Military District of government lands which was just being opened up for farmers to purchase. Jehu’s father purchased some farm land in the North West portion of neighboring Guernsey County in what became Knox Township. The township in which most of the Addys settled abutted the township of where Enoch Jones lived. Although they were in separate counties they all lived within 5 miles of each other.
This area of southwestern Ohio where his father settled was part of the Military District of government lands which was just being opened up for farmers to purchase. Jehu’s father purchased some farm land in the North West portion of neighboring Guernsey County in what became Knox Township. The township in which most of the Addys settled abutted the township of where Enoch Jones lived. Although they were in separate counties they all lived within 5 miles of each other.
Coshocton and Guernsey Counties were hilly
and heavily forested, being on the western slope of the Appalachia Mountains.
Only small plots of land in the creek bottoms were suitable for farming and
much of a farmer’s income came from logging timber rather than from crops. Much
of the land was also not suited for raising livestock and most farmers like
Jehu’s father Enoch had only a few horses and cows for their own personal use.
All farmers kept hogs and sheep for wool as most clothing was homespun. The
family would have had dogs also not so much as pets as to help with hunting
game which was plentiful in those early days. Fur trapping was an important
source of income one that Jehu Jones would profit from.
The 1810 Census of most of Ohio was
destroyed but in that year Jehu would have been 13 years old and included in
the household of his father Enoch Jones, who would have been 46 years old and
his mother Nancy Addy Jones, age 36. Others in his family would have been his
old brother Jesse Jones age 15, William Jones age 11, Polly Jones age 7, James
Jones age 4 and Eliza Jones age 1. More than likely the family was living in
the southeast corner of Coshocton County which had just recently been formed
from parts of Muskingum. There his grandfather Addy had settled with most of
his Addy uncles and aunts as well as his uncle Malachi Jones.
Jehu Jones uncle, James Addy, related
a story how in 1811 when Addy was 15 years old, he was upset with his folks and
he ran away from home. Later his older brothers learned of his whereabouts and
brought him home to his aged parents. He remained a while “till another runaway
fit seized me, and I went away again, this time “toling” away a nephew, my
sister’s child.” While James Addy does not mention this “nephew” by name, he
had to have been either Jesse Jones who was 16 years old or Jehu Jones who was
age 14. It is doubtful he could of “tole” away a youth older than himself but
he certainly could have an impressionable younger boy.
The slang “toled” came from the word
stole meaning to take away. As that Jehu Jones would take off twice with his
teenage uncle, this showed that these youths had an adventurous bond between
the two of them.
It appears that James Addy had
convinced his 14 year old nephew, Jehu, to run off with him. “We were
overtaken, when some miles away, by my companion’s father, “Knoch” Jones, who
took his son back with him, and said to me that my brothers would soon overtake
and carry me back. We had agreed to go to Virginia, but on being left alone I
changed my course and went to Cambridge, and from thence struck out to Zanesville
again.” Cambridge was the county seat for Guernsey and at the time Zanesville
was the capital of Ohio and probably more appealing to the adventurous James
Addy. The teenage boys were planning on running off back to Virginia probably
to Harper’s Ferry an area which would have seemed exciting compared to the
frontier life in remote and sparsely populated Ohio.
While James Addy and Jehu Jones were
uncle and nephew in reality there were just two teenage boys nearly the same
age living on the frontier and looking for some adventure which was not to be
found on the family farm. This story speaks to an adventurous streak in Jehu
Jones, one that probably 30 years later led him to Indian country in the Iowa
Territory.
Again in the year 1813, during the War of 1812, the two boys would run off again. This time James Addy was 17 years old and Jehu was 16. “In the spring of 1813,” as James Addy told the story, “I went to Pittsburgh. But my badness had not been fully “sweated” out of me, for I again “toled” away my nephew. We reached Pittsburgh. I was employed to go on a boat up the Allegheny. I afterwards followed boating several years, to some advantage, financially.”
Again in the year 1813, during the War of 1812, the two boys would run off again. This time James Addy was 17 years old and Jehu was 16. “In the spring of 1813,” as James Addy told the story, “I went to Pittsburgh. But my badness had not been fully “sweated” out of me, for I again “toled” away my nephew. We reached Pittsburgh. I was employed to go on a boat up the Allegheny. I afterwards followed boating several years, to some advantage, financially.”
James Addy
does not go on to say what happened to Jehu Jones. As he was 16 years old it is
doubtful his father would have gone after him to bring him home as he would
have been considered almost a man. The town of Pittsburgh was some hundred
miles away from Jehu’s father’s farm but less than a week journey on foot. They
probably journey north eastward to Fort Steuben where they would have followed
the Ohio River to its source at Pittsburgh.
James Addy found work as a teamster
during the War of 1812 and logged and chopped timber to make money before
returning home to Coshocton County. He may have felt closer to his uncle Enoch
Jones than his aging parents as he would buy a farm in Knox Township near his
uncle.
Jehu Jones may have found work in
Pittsburgh learning the trade of “woodturning” to create wooden objects on a
lathe. Woodturning differs from most other forms of woodworking in that the
wood is moving while a stationary tool is used to cut and shape it. Jehu as a
married man would supplement his family income by selling wooden bowls he made.
Jehu Jones returned to Guernsey
County, Ohio probably with a bit of money and at the age of 22 years on the 3rd
of February 1819 he purchased, along with his father Enoch Jones and brother
Jesse, 80 acres in the west half of the Northeast Quarter of Section 22 in
Township 4 in Range 3. Section 22 became known as Knox Township and was where
Enoch and Nancy Jones probably spent most of their lives before traveling in
their old age to Illinois circa 1836 to be near their children.
During the Panic of 1819, many land
speculators, bankers and other lenders, as well as farmers like the Jones were
affected by an economic down turn. Too many settlers, who should have used
their funds to improve lands they already owned, purchased additional land
beyond their ability to pay. More than 29% of public lands were in default on
payment. This may have been what happened to Jehu and Jesse who are shown on later
tax records as not owning any land.
The 1820 Census of Ohio is the first
census in which Jehu and his father Enoch Jones appear. Jehu was 23 years old
and his father was well into middle age at age 56 years old along with his
mother who was at the age of 46. None of his siblings are married at this time
but it is probable that he was although there are no marriage records to
support that.
The 1820 Census of Linton Township Coshocton
County, Ohio lists 92 heads of households as of 9 August. The main families who
had 5 to 4 heads of households of the same name were the Maples, Bakers, and
Williamses which made up 15 percent of the population. Nine families had three
heads of households with the same surname. They were the Joneses, Miskimens,
Wills, McClanes, McClarys, Smiths, Wiggins, Jefferieses, and Johnstons who made
up 29 percent of the households. Those nine families with two households of the
same name were the Fullers, Elsons, Merritts, Brownfields, McLains, Loves,
Platts, Clarks, and Rodricks and made up 20 per cent of the township. Thirty-four
families consisting of a single head of household were 36 percent of the
population and within this group was William Addy.
The 1820 Census of Linton Township,
Coshocton, Ohio, enumeration date 7 August, listed the Household of Jehu Jones as
containing three adults living within this household.
Free White Male – ages 16 thru 25: 1795-1804
Free White Male – ages 16 thru 25: 1795-1804
Free White Female - ages 26 thru 44:
1776-1794
Number of Persons - Engaged in
Agriculture: 2
As
that Jehu is listed as the head of the household it is very likely he was
married otherwise his brother Jesse, being older, should have been listed as the
head. A marriage for Jesse Jones is not recorded until 1823 and one for Jehu
Jones is not recorded not until 1828.
The woman in the household could have been Anna Maple who was born 1801 according to the age range but that does not seem likely. Jehu Jones had three children born
between 1822 and 1826 who could not be the children of Anna Maples whom he
married 8 July 1828 when he was 31 years old. Anna Maples was born 7 January
1801 and would have been 27 years old in 1828.
Jehu’s eldest child, John M. Jones,
was born 14 March 1822 in Guernsey County, Ohio. If he was conceived in June
1821 his parents certainly could have been married by August 1820.
There are several speculative
suggestions regarding the birth of Jehu Jones’ first three children. The 1st
and obvious is that he was married twice but there is no record in Guernsey or
Coshocton Counties, Ohio of such a marriage. Other members of the Jones family
had their marriages recorded in Coshocton and Guernsey Counties. As that his eldest son was named John M Jones,
if the M stood for Maple it is possible that he married into the Maple family
and when his wife died he married his first wife’s relative. Anna Maple supposedly had an older sister
named Sarah that nothing is known about while the rest of her siblings are well
documented.
Secondly Anna and Jehu may have lived
together for eight years before solemnizing their common law marriage. This
doesn’t seem probable as the Maple family were strong Baptists so it’s unlikely
their eldest daughter would live with Jehu Jones sans a marriage license.
Thirdly without examining the original
document it is possible that the date was transcribed as 1828 instead of 1820.
More research into this is needed to determine for certainty the mother of
Jehu’s children John M Jones, Rebecca Jones and Jehu Jones Jun. Until proven
otherwise it seems that Anna Maple was the step mother of these three children.
Jehu Jones oldest daughter Rebecca
Jones was born 12 August 1824 in Guernsey County, Ohio, and a son named Jehu
Jones Junior was born 7 September 1826 in Guernsey County, Ohio. As that Jehu
Jones Junior was born in September 1826, Jehu Jones first wife died between
1826 and 1828. As that widowers usually waited 6 months to a year after a wife
died, but as Jehu had three children under the age of five he could have
married at anytime.
Jehu Jones married Anna Maple on 8
July 1828, in Guernsey County, Ohio. She became the mother of his three
children John M. Jones, Rebecca Jones, and Jehu Jones junior. Jehu and Anna
Maple Jones first child was a son named Isaac Jones, named certainly after
Anna’s brother Isaac Maple. Isaac Jones was born 2 March 1829 in Knox Township,
Guernsey, Ohio. He would be the direct ancestor of Kenneth Jones as his second
great grandfather.
The 1830 Census of Ohio showed that
Jehu Jones and much of the Addy, Fuller, and Maple families were still living
in Guernsey and Coshocton Counties. Jehu Jones had moved from Coshocton County
and was living in Knox Township in Guernsey. Jehu Jones was probably living on
his father Enoch Jones’ 80 acre farm in the western half of the Northeast
quarter of Section 22 of Knox Township.
The 1830 census showed that Jehu Paten
Jones had three children prior to the marriage of Anna Maple. Jehu was 31 years
old when he married Anna who was 27 years old which certainly opens the
possibility of an earlier wife.
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
Jehu and Anna Maple Jones’ second son
was named George Washington Jones. He was born 22 May 1831 in Knox Township,
Guernsey, Ohio.
A tax list for Knox Township in 1832 showed
that Jehu Jones had only a single horse and 1 cow with the total value of $48
as taxable property. It also revealed that he did not own any real estate. This
indicates that he may not have been a farmer as much making a living as a fur
trapper and a peddler of his wooden bowls. His father Enoch Jones paid property
taxes still in Knox Township on his 80 acres in the west half of the North East
quarter of section 22. The 80 acres was still valued at $104 and he paid a tax
of $1.02. Enoch had 2 horses valued at $80, 3 cattle valued at $24. Jesse Jones
paid a tax of 56 cents on a horse and 2 cattle together worth $56 while.
Guernsey County Tax records also showed that Knox Township was the poorest in
the county.
Also in 1832, according to a history
of Hollis Township in Peoria County, Illinois, Jehu Jones moved with relatives
to from Ohio. A wagon train was made up of Jehu, age 35 years old, his brother
Jesse Jones age 37 years old, his cousin Hugh Jones son of Malachi Jones and
brothers in law Isaac Maple age 28 years and Abraham Maple and 21 years old,
all who moved to recently opened land in Illinois for settlement. Anna Maple
Jones’ brothers Isaac Maple and Abraham were married to Jehu Jones’ sisters.
Polly Jones was married to Isaac Maple and Charlotte Jones was recently married
Abraham Jones.
This move to Peoria County was nearly
450 miles from Guernsey and Coshocton Counties and these pioneering folks
settled on land by the La Marsh Creek and the Illinois river. This wagon train
consisted of eight adults and the 13 children of the Jones and Maple families.
They moved to Illinois at the conclusion of the Black Hawk War where the Sac
and Fox Nations were forced give up their lands on the eastern side of
Illinois.
These tribes had coalesced in the St.
Lawrence River Valley area during the 18th Century. Here they had controlled
the fur trade routes along the Fox River near the Green Bay Trading Post. Under
French colonial pressures, the nations migrated to the southern side of the
Great Lakes into tall grass prairie in the American Midwest. The Fox settled
mainly along the western side of the Mississippi and the Sac settled on the
eastern side of the river.
The Black Hawk War was a conflict
between the Sac Indians mainly and the American government. A treaty from 1804
had Sac and Fox Indian chiefs ceding to the United States lands east of the
Mississippi. President Andrew Jackson as part of his Indian Removal Act of 1830
used this treaty from 1804 to force the removal of the Sacs from Illinois.
However warriors under a Sac chief named Blackhawk resisted the attempt to
remove them from their homeland in Illinois and from April to August 1832 the
Illinois Militia along with the U.S. Dragoons fought the uprising.
Interestingly a Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis both fought in the Black
Hawk War.
After the Black Hawk War in 1832, the
Fox and Sac Nations were stripped of land in Illinois and eastern Iowa. With
the defeat of Chief Blackhawk’s warriors and by the peace treaty of 1832, the
United States forced all of the native tribes across the Mississippi River into
what would become Iowa Territory. After the Black Hawk War the United States
officially combined the two Fox and Sac tribes into a single group known as the
“Sac and Fox Confederacy” for treaty-making purposes. While the Fox tribe had
little to do with the Blackhawk War they were forced to ceding of a strip of
land in what is now eastern Iowa along the eastern banks of the Mississippi.
It is doubtful that the Jones and
Maple families would have come to Illinois if they thought their families were
in any danger. They may have also come to the area because that same year in
1832 a coal mining operation began in Peoria County on the banks of the La
Marsh Creek where these families settled. This was surface coal mining and the
coal mines in Peoria did attract people to the area for economics which caused
a population boom. Besides, the area was fertile for farming and stock raising
and for growing grapes. The first vineyard in the county was planted in1832.
Most of the early Jones and Maple
pioneers of Peoria County, Illinois returned to Ohio in 1833 after Charlotte
Jones Maples, wife of Abraham died at the age of 22. She died from complication
from childbirth after delivering a baby girl. Jehu Jones wife Anna Maple Jones
who was also pregnant may have prompted the families to return to Ohio where
there were doctors and more relatives. Abraham Maple was a young widower with
an infant to rear and was most likely the other reason for the return.
Thirty-two year old Anna Maple Jones
delivered her baby James Jones on 6 August 1833 in Knox Township, Guernsey
County, Ohio. The baby did not thrive and died before he was a year old. Anna
Jones became pregnant again in the fall of 1834 and had another son born on 3
July 1835 that she named William Franklin Jones probably for his grandfather
William Maple. William Franklin Jones was born in Knox Township.
A year later, in 1836, the families of
the Joneses and Maples with other Baptist families moved from Ohio permanently
to what was then Fayette Township, Peoria County, Illinois. This is land where
they had claimed in 1832. Isaac and Abraham Maple bought the northwest and
southwest quarters of Section 18 in Fayette Township near the La Marsh Creek.
Their father William Maple bought the northeast quarter of Section 18. Each of
the properties consisted of 160 acres each but was not recorded until 10 March
1843. This may have been because William Maple was seriously ill and wanted to
legalize their improvements. These Maple brothers planted orchards as well as
farmed. In 1838 they planted the first chestnut trees in Peoria County. They
also operated a cider mill to press apples from their apple orchards and sold a
product called Apple Jack. The brothers Isaac and Abram Maple prospered so much
that 20 years later in 1858 they built a three story steam saw and grist mill
for $5,800.
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| Peoria County |
On 4 July 1838, the U.S. Congress
established the Territory of Iowa. President Martin Van Buren appointed Robert
Lucas governor of the territory, which at the time had 22 counties and a
population of 23,242. Most of the territory however was inhabited by the
Mesquakie Nation known to Anglo-Americans as the Fox and Sac tribes. The
Mesquakie called themselves Meshkwahkihaki, "the Red-Earth people."
In 1839 the Fox Indians were forced
to leave the last of their eastern Iowa villages
by a treaty signed in 1837. A
main Fox Chief, Poweshiek, told the government he was resigned to leave but
stated, “I want to live where men are free. Soon I will go to a new home. You
will plant corn where my dead sleep. Our towns, the paths we have made, the
flowers we have loved will soon be yours. I have moved many times. I have seen
the white man put his foot in the track of the Indian and make the earth into
fields and gardens. I know I must go far away, and you will be so glad when I am
gone. You will soon forget the lodge fire, and the meat of the Indian has ever
been free to the stranger, and [all] he has asked for … what he has fought for…
the right to be free.”
An observer of the forced removal of
the Fox from the western Mississippi strip remarked in 1839, “Among these
Indians and along the bank of the Iowa River was Poweshiek’s village. He moved
up stream and made another home; but before setting out on the journey the
squaws of the tribe waited to bid farewell to their old home and their dead who
were buried nearby. There was a great moaning and wailing and chanting, for
Indian women do not weep as white women do; and the white men who were near at
that time have said that it was a sad departure.”
With the removal of the Indians, white
settlers poured into the western side of the Mississippi River in 1839. The
rapid growth of Iowa Territory was due in part to the advertising which Iowa
received in the press. In March, 1839, the Buffalo Journal declared "that
taking into consideration the soil, the timber, the water, and the climate,
Iowa territory may be considered the best part of the Mississippi Valley. The
1840 Census stated that Iowa Territory had 43,112 residents, a growth of 20,000
people within two years.
Jehu Jones and his son John M Jones
were agent of the American Fur Company which played a major role in the
development and expansion of the young United States. During the early part of
the American period of the fur trade, many independent traders came to Iowa but
the American Fur Company gained control of much of the Iowa trade and hired its
own agents. Their company’s headquarters for Iowa Territory was at Keokuk where
its main buildings were known as Rat Row. The American Fur Company opened the
way for the settlement and economic development in much of the Midwestern and
Western United States.
Many American Fur trading posts were
established in the neighborhood of Red Rock in Iowa Territory. Jehu and John M
Jones traveled over large parts of Iowa before setting up a trading post
between the White Breast Creek and English Creek. White Breast Creek was a
tributary of the Des Moines River which flows south east down to the
Mississippi River.
A frontiersman wrote of the White
Breast Creek area of Iowa where Jehu Jones had a trading post, "I am in
the region of furs here. Mink, otter and beaver are plenty in their season.
Possibly I may be able to bring some home with me. I wish you would give me the
prices that I may rely upon getting for mink, otter and beaver. I know too
little of furs to venture much in that line. I was talking with an old trapper
here, who said he sold a silver-gray fox skin last year for $1 but that he had
heard they were worth $3 now; hadn't trapped much the last winter, as furs
didn't sell well; that otter and beaver didn't sell, etc.”
At one point fur trading was the most
important economic resource in Iowa but as fashions changed in Europe the
demand for fur began to drop. Also much of the fur bearing animals were being
decimated or driven out of their habitats as the westward movement of white
population advanced into Iowa.
The native people were removed further
west in 1839 to where the fur-bearing animals had already retreated. This forced
men like Jehu Jones to go deeper into the territory as “the fur trader's
profits readily decreased.”
Jehu and his son were gone for months
at a time from the family in Peoria County, Illinois. The Iowa fur traders
usually left for the Indian country in September or October. They took with
them a supply of flour, tobacco, hatchets, knives, powder, lead, kettles,
blankets, woolen dress goods, calico, and such trinkets and colored beads,
ribbons, looking glasses, and silver ornaments usually on credit. Traps for
catching animals made up another important part of their cargo. During the
fall, winter, and early spring the trader would collect pelts at his trading
shack from Native Americans.
The Iowa native people arranged their
life to fit the seasons of the fur trade and they became more and more
dependent on the traders for a living and indebted to them. The Fox Indians
would come to Jones’ trading post in the fall and secure a supply of goods for
the winter. When the Indians came they were usually painted in their most
ornate colors.
Besides furs they often brought along
jerked buffalo meat or venison, baskets, wild honey, and maple sugar to trade
for the goods of the post. After the winter hunt they returned to their
villages and in the spring Jehu Jones would load his boats with packs of
muskrat, deer, beaver, mink, bear, otter, and raccoon skins, and would set out
down the Des Moines River to Keokuk where after an exchange of pelts for cash
he would head home to Illinois to see his family.
The Illinois census of 1840 showed
that the population of that the southern part of the Black Hawk Purchase in
Illinois, where the Jones and Maple families had settled, was completely
occupied. The frontier line of settlement had now approached the Mississippi
River northward from Missouri's northern boundary. The crowding conditions and
lack of cheap available land had restless people looking to the west.
In the 1840’s the whole nation was
restless and on the move as Americans felt that it was their destiny to spread
across the North American continent. This notion became a political ambition
with the election of John Knox Polk in 1844. This idea, known as Manifest
Destiny, would by mid 1840’s send hundreds of thousands over the Oregon,
Mormon, and Santa Fe Trails westward to the Pacific Ocean and down into Texas
and be the catalyst for the War with Mexico in 1846.
At the beginning of the 1840’s decade
most of the Jones and Maple family had moved away from Guernsey and Coshocton
Counties Ohio westward to the La Marsh Creek area of Peoria County, Illinois.
Remaining in Coshocton County were Jehu Jones’ oldest brother Jesse but not for
long. He was probably the last of the family to move to Illinois as that Jesse
Jones was enumerated in Oxford Township in Coshocton.
The official enumeration day for the
1840 census was 1 June 1840. Thus it can be assumed that Jesse Jones came to
Peoria County after that date and before 1850. The same was the situation with
Jehu Jones’ brother in law, William Maple, who was found in Linton Township,
Coshocton, Ohio.
The 1840 Census of Peoria County,
Illinois show there were 58 families comprising 316 people living Lafayette
Precinct, which later became Hollis Township. Most of them seem to be relatives
or friends from Guernsey and Coshocton Counties and were probably of the same
Baptist faith.
The 1840 census does not list Jehu
Jones’ father Enoch Jones as the head of any household. It does however show
that within Lafayette Precinct there lived his sons and sons in law, James
Jones, John Jones, Jehu Jones, Isaac Maple and Abraham Maple basically on adjoining
farms. Enoch Jones is probably the man listed in his son William Jones
household as the 70 to 80 year of male living there. Enoch Jones was the oldest
man in the precinct. However the oldest woman was list as being 100 years old
in the household of Robert Starling.
The Jones families seemed to cluster
together around LaMarsh Creek with a few outlying Joneses. A William Jones Jr
is 17 households away from James Jones. A neighbor from Coshocton, James
Miskimens, is 11 households away from James Jones. The households following
James Jones are William Jones, John Magee, Jehu Jones, William Maple Sr., John
Jones, Isaac Jones and Abraham Jones. Only Magee is not a known relative in
this cluster of eight families. After Abraham Maple family came the Buck families,
Jacob Easman, and John Fuller. The Fuller families were cousins to the Maples.
Between Joseph Fuller and Alexander Fuller was the family of William Maple
Junior. The 57th household included in Lafayette Precinct was Elias Jones.
The census record for Jehu Jones’
household, as was most of Lafayette Precinct, is extremely faded and very hard
to decipher but it appears to have included the following individuals as of 1
June 1840:
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 Rebecca
Jehu
Jones Junior who in 1840 would have been 14 years old is missing from the
records as is . Rebecca Jones who is also not enumerated in the age category 15
to 19 when she was 16 years old. Family information stated that Jehu Jones died
young so this record indicates that he died before the age of 14. Additionally Jehu
Jones family records do not contain a daughter in the age category 5-9.
Although they certainly could had a daughter who died young but it also just
may be a simply clerical error on the part of the census taker and this is
Rebecca.
By the 1840s, Jehu was spending more
time away from home living among the Indians than at home in Illinois with his
family while working for the American Fur Company. His son Isaac Jones would
however was at home to help his step mother Anna Maple Jones with farm chores.
According to the census of 1840, there
were more than 43,000 people living in Iowa Territory, mainly on the western
side of the Mississippi River in the Iowa Strip which included the frontier
towns of Burlington, Keokuk, Ft. Madison and Montrose. Many of the inhabitants
of Lee County, Iowa at the mouth of the Des Moines River were displaced Mormons
who had been expelled from Missouri. The Mormons had led an insurrection
against Missouri and their leader Joseph Smith had barely escaped execution for
treason. The Mormons mainly gathered on the eastern side of the Mississippi in
Hancock County, Illinois until 1846 when they were expelled from that state.
However while in Illinois, under the
direction of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet, the Mormons went to work
building the city of Nauvoo which at its height in 1844 had over 15,000
residents making it the largest city in Illinois. Followers of Joseph Smith
numbered at least another 10,000 people located outside Nauvoo on both sides of
Mississippi River in Lee County, Iowa and Hancock County Illinois. The
influence of Mormons in Illinois and Iowa Territory politics eventually caused
friction with their non Mormon neighbors and they would be forced to go on an
exodus to the Rocky Mountains.
Jehu Jones’ travels to Iowa Territory
would have made it impossible for him not to have come in contact with Mormons
even though Nauvoo was 125 miles due west of Peoria County. Jehu Jones may have
even traveled to the small metropolis on the Mississippi out of curiosity as he
ferried across the Mississippi to Iowa Territory before heading to his trading
outposts on the Des Moines River. Nauvoo’s saloons and mercantile stores would
be the last vestige of civilization for him before spending the winters in Iowa
at his trading posts.
Jehu Jones and John Jones would also
have taken a steam paddle boat up the Des Moines River as far as Red Rocks
before taking their kit and pack animals to his trading post at White Breast
Creek. The steamboat “Pavilion” in 1838 ascended the Des Moines River all the
way to Fort Dodge and would have passed through what is now Marion County.
By the early 1840s Jehu Jones would
have noticed that the demand for furs in Europe began to decline as the
fashionable beaver skin hats gave way to silk hats. Prices for fur began to
drop leading to the stagnation of the fur trade. He would have also noticed
that after white settlers began to come into eastern Iowa Territory seeking
farm lands, the fur trade became less and less important to the economy.
Although the fur trade was the most
important industry in Iowa for more than a hundred and fifty years, it was
giving way to a more important industry, agriculture. Jehu Jones like other
licensed traders would have had to travel farther and farther to follow the Native
people westward as they were being pushed out of Iowa. The American Fur Company
eventually declared bankruptcy in 1842 and ceased trading altogether in 1847. Jehu
Jones was out of a job but staked out a claim along the White Breast Creek. In
fact Jehu Jones is credited as being the first white man to have located in
what became Marion County, Iowa.
Times were quickly changing for Iowa
Territory as a new Indian Treaty removed all Native Americans to west of the
Missouri River. When Jehu Jones traded
along the White Breast Creek in the late 1830s and early 1840’s the region
still remained an Indian possession. In 1841 the United States government, however,
again approached the indebted Fox and Sac Nations to give up their lands and
move.
An Iowa official exemplified the
sentiment of that the native people were impeding progress. “The citizens of
the Territory have a right to expect that its growth will not long be retarded
by the occupancy of so large and valuable tract of land within its limits by a
people not amenable to their laws, whose wild and savage character, render them
dangerous neighbors.”
In 1841 Iowa Territory Governor John
Chambers tried to negotiate a removal treaty with the Sac and Fox nations. In
exchange for selling their land, they would receive a reservation in present
day Minnesota. The Sac and Fox refused to move to Minnesota Territory as that
was home to their Sioux enemies and their refusal led to the United States
government stepping in to force the Indians out.
A new round of treaty negotiations was placed before the Indian council, this time the offer was for them to sell their lands in Iowa Territory in exchange for a reservation in Kansas Indian Country. Poverty and debt forced the tribes to agree to the treaty of 1842 with the Governor of Iowa Territory and the U.S. government. Some of the Indian debts were to the fur traders when the fur market had diminished drastically.
A new round of treaty negotiations was placed before the Indian council, this time the offer was for them to sell their lands in Iowa Territory in exchange for a reservation in Kansas Indian Country. Poverty and debt forced the tribes to agree to the treaty of 1842 with the Governor of Iowa Territory and the U.S. government. Some of the Indian debts were to the fur traders when the fur market had diminished drastically.
 |
| Fox Chief Poweshiek |
The Indian chieftains of the Fox and
Sac Nations met with government agents in October 1842 to negotiate the terms
of the treaty but they had “difficulty in bringing their minds to part with
their lands”. They were most concerned about abandoning “the graves of their
fathers and remove to a new and distant country.”
Chief Poweshiek, said he “knew it was
right that they should leave, but, … there will be crying in the bottoms.” One
of the government negotiators wrote, “How natural the expression of the old
chief. Here was the land where their fathers had lived for ages and here rested
the bones of some of their greatest chiefs and most renowned warriors for whom
it was fit that there should be crying in the bottoms. Several chiefs spoke
upon the subject of their leaving and other connected with their tribe, but
Poweshiek’s regret still hung upon our memory.”
On 11 October 1842 the treaty was sign
by which terms all the Indian lands in central Iowa were to be ceded to the
United States with the Indians agreeing to leave the area by 11 October 1845.
Under the provisions of this treaty the Americans were given the right to
settle lands east of the White Breast Fork of the Des Moines River but not
until after 1 May 1843.
Immediately after the treaty of
October, 1842, a detachment of United States dragoons was sent into the Sac and
Fox country and took up quarters at Fort Des Moines, where the state capital is
now located. The objects of the dragoons were to guard the Sacs and Foxes from
attacks by the Sioux, and to prevent white settlers from coming into the new
purchase until after 1 May 1843. In order to prevent the encroachment of the
whites on Indian lands, the dragoons built Fort Des Moines in 1843 at the
confluence of the Raccoon and Des Moines Rivers. The fort grew into the capital
city of Iowa.
The dragoon’s commanding officer,
Captain James Allen, was instructed “to see that no immigrants crossed the line
prior to that date. The presence of the dragoons did not prevent Americans from
exploring the country during the interval before they were officially allowed
in. However army officers patrolled the territory to check any attempt which
the interlopers might make to run lines or to mark off claims.
In the fall of 1842 while this treaty
was being signed at a council of chieftains sixty miles to the south east at
Agency City, Jehu selected a claim on the White Breast Creek, where he had
spent his winters at his trading post surviving on deer, turkeys, ducks, geese
and various other kinds of game. As that he was a licensed agent he had a legal
right to remain in the area that was to become off limits to white settlement.
Jehu Jones was not alone for also in
the fall of 1842, George Henry, James Carnilius and another man, erected three
cabins near White Breast Creek and afterwards returned to Missouri. However when
they returned the following spring in 1843 they found that their cabins had
been destroyed by the dragoons.
It has been claimed by some
authorities that George Henry and his associates were the first settlers in the
Marion county. However another historian stated, “But the mere fact that they
built some pole cabins in the fall of 1842, before a legal settlement could be
made, and then abandoned them certainly does not deserve to be called a
settlement,” and about the time he came back quite a number of other pioneers
came into the county.
Jehu Jones on the other hand lived on
his claim during the winter of 1842-1843. This area had been where his winter
trading post was located and as he was known to the Indians, the Dragoons left
him alone. Jehu Jones selected his claim east of the White Breast Creek in the
fall of 1842 and set up a lodging where he stayed over the winter probably
scouting out the land. He built a lathe over the winter and began turning
wooden bowls out of walnut timber, and drinking whiskey. During these times of
solitude it would be reasonable to assume that Jehu kept a supply of whiskey
for himself, for other trappers, and although it was illegal probably also for
trade with the Indians.
Back in Illinois Anna Maples Jones was
raising Jehu’s children mainly without the help of her husband who was
providing for his family from hundreds of miles away. However she was
surrounded by kinfolk both Maple and Jones to keep her company. She raised her
children to read and write and they attended school as well. Her life could not
have been easy with a husband gone half the year but perhaps, if he was a hard
drinking man, because of her Baptist beliefs, she probably did not mind his
absence. She would have attended Baptist services with her children, kinfolk,
and friends in Peoria County, outside in good weather and in each other’s homes
in bad.
Jehu Jones’ presence usually added
another child for Anna Maple Jones her to rear. The last known child of Jehu
Jones was Mary Ann Jones who born 11 November 1841 in Hollis Township, Peoria
County, Illinois. She was conceived in February in one of Jehu’s trips home but
probably was born while Jehu was away in Iowa. Jehu and Anna Jones had at least
one more child in 1844, an unknown infant who would be buried with Jehu.
Feeding her family would have been a constant chore, for Anna Jones, as well as keeping up the laundry with only her step daughter Rebecca to help. “Keeping house” was the general occupation of women in 19th Century censuses. Meals for the family were prepared at the fireplace, a long handled skillet, and iron teakettle and a large iron pot were the principal cooking utensils. “The skillet was used for frying meat or baking bread, coals being heaped upon the lid so that the bread would bake on the top as well as on the bottom. Boiled dinners were cooked in the large kettle. Few fancy dishes were prepared, the food generally being of the kind that “stuck to the ribs.” Chicken and hogs were raised and a cow provided milk and cream. Her kinfolk probably provided meat on the table by hunting and trapping game animals.
Feeding her family would have been a constant chore, for Anna Jones, as well as keeping up the laundry with only her step daughter Rebecca to help. “Keeping house” was the general occupation of women in 19th Century censuses. Meals for the family were prepared at the fireplace, a long handled skillet, and iron teakettle and a large iron pot were the principal cooking utensils. “The skillet was used for frying meat or baking bread, coals being heaped upon the lid so that the bread would bake on the top as well as on the bottom. Boiled dinners were cooked in the large kettle. Few fancy dishes were prepared, the food generally being of the kind that “stuck to the ribs.” Chicken and hogs were raised and a cow provided milk and cream. Her kinfolk probably provided meat on the table by hunting and trapping game animals.
In Iowa the Fox and Sac Indians were
preparing to move west of the White Breast
Creek dividing line in preparation
of the 30 April 1843 deadline. A witness to removal of the Indians wrote in
1843 “I had a great desire to witness the departure of the Indians, as I felt
it to be the last departure of the red man of the forest…The most noted feature
of the act of breaking camp and packing up was the silent and systematic action
of the whole tribe.” “A solemn silence pervaded the Indian camp; the faces of
their stoutest men were bathed in tears and when their cavalcade was put in
motion, toward the setting sun, there was a spontaneous outburst of frantic
grief.”
 |
| Chief Wapello |
Theoretically, the first move in 1843
was to be to the western part of the ceded land past a boundary called “Painted
Rocks” or “Red Rocks” and the second move was to be across the Iowa border into
Kansas by the 1845 deadline. However, the actual removal process was not a
smooth transition due to repeated treaty violations by the Fox Indians, who
kept returning to their old village sites in the eastern part of the state.
These frequent boundary infractions disturbed the settlers and thus the
military was perpetually summoned to chase the Fox Indians back across the
Painted Rocks line. These multiple confrontations reflected the tribe’s strong
desire to stay in this area as well as an equally strong dislike for the treaty
terms.
On 30 April 1843, “eager settlers
camped along the border of the ceded lands and, at the sound of a shotgun, they
raced towards the 'New Purchase." The eastern half of Indian lands was
thrown open to white settlers on 1 May 1843. Between midnight of April 30th and
sundown of May 1st, it is said that at least a thousand settlers staked their
claims within the boundaries of Marion County’s neighboring Wapello County
alone. Within a month of this settlement, 5,000 people were living within
Wapello's borders.’
Jehu Jones had staked a claim already
as soon as the land was opened to settlement officially. Jones then returned to
Peoria County and brought his family to their new home in the wilderness.
The history of Marion County had this
to say. “At a very early time, probably contemporaneous with the settlement of
Mr. Henry, came a family by the name of Jones. There were five men of this
name, John M. being the first one to visit the county while in the employ of
the fur company. In the first development of the material resources of the
county there was no family which contributed more than the Jones family, and
representatives of this original Jones family have since, till the present
time, been prominently identified with the interests of the county.” As that when this history was written Jehu had
been long dead it failed to mention him by name.
Shortly after Jehu Jones family
departed Peoria County, Illinois, his father in law William Maple drew up his
Last Will and Testament on 2 June 1843. He named Anna Jones as a legatee
although named as Olima which researchers assumed was Anna’s middle name. It is
possible that a poor reading of the script of William Maple misidentified Anna
for Olima. “To Olima Maple wife of Palin Jones, Fifty Dollars worth of property
personal or Fifty Dollars in money.” The person who wrote William Maple’s will
wrote his J’s like P’s. Perhaps Palin is actually a misreading for Jehu.”
The will of William Maple was amended on
8 July 1843 stating “Ann Jones has received one Cow worth ten dollars on her
part of the dory [dowry].” This showed that Anna Jones had received part of her
inheritance in the form of a cow probably at the time of the departure of Jehu
Jones family for Iowa. Jehu Jones, his wife Anna, his four sons, John M, Isaac,
George, William, and daughters Rebecca and Mary Ann settled in what is now
Knoxville Township on the claim that is now part of the Knoxville Veteran
Hospital. They were soon joined by the families of Conrad Walters, Tyler Overton,
and John Conrey.
By 1843 Jehu Jones, his wife Anna,
four sons, John M, Isaac, George and William,
and daughters Rebecca and Mary
Ann were all settled in what is now Knoxville Township, in Marion County, Iowa.
However when they pioneered the area, Iowa was still a territory, and Marion
County had not been formed. The area was untamed full of wild animals, fur
bearing animals, and rattlesnakes. These “were also to be found in such large
numbers and of such immense size that some stories told by the early settlers
would be incredible were it not for the large array of concurrent testimony
which is to be had from the most authentic sources.”
One report stated that “the grass and
weeds along the Skunk River were so tall and dense and the wolves and
rattlesnakes so plenty that it was necessary to proceed with great care and it
was not prudent to start out to hunt the cattle without being provided with a
large club or some other weapon of defense.”
Jehu Jones’ grandson George Jehu Jones
told of his grandparent’s pioneering days by saying, “They cut timbers and
constructed their log cabin on the northeast corner of the land on which the
government hospital now stands. The opening of the farm was done with crude
implements such as a wooden mole board plow drawn by a yoke of oxen to break
the prairie sod, and the heavy hazel. The first year they planted corn which
was called sod corn and not used for anything but fodder [for farm animals].”
Jehu Jones began to support his family
primarily by making bowls by wood turning and when he had a wagon load of bowls
ready, his oldest son John Jones who was now 21 years old would start out to
peddle them among the settlers in the older settlements farther east. A load of
this wooden ware would buy a load of corn, which Jehu would have ground into
meal at Keosauqua, and by this means the family was kept supplied with
breadstuff.
As more settlers moved to the future
Marion County, mills were built on the water ways which made life on the
frontier easier. In 1844 Andrew Foster built a saw mill on English Creek, a few
miles from the Joneses and a little later he added a small mill for grinding
corn. Landon J. Burch located in the county in 1844 and was a near neighbor to
the Joneses. Landon J Burch was instrumental in forming a Baptist community
there and was a ancestor of Kenneth Louis Jones through the wife of Jehu’s
grandson Silas Jones.
In the Spring of 1845, Burch built a
mill on White Breast Creek about three miles north of Knoxville. It was not
completed till late in 1846 and was the first one erected in that part of the
county. It had a capacity of milling from fifteen to twenty bushels of
corn-meal per day but it was not arranged for the manufacture of flour.
Jehu Jones’ father Enoch died in May
1844 and was buried in the burial grounds on Abraham Maple’s land in Peoria
County, Illinois. It is doubtful that Jehu learned of the death of his father
until months later as there was no mail service to this part of the Iowa
Territory in 1846. His father’s estate was not settled until 1845 until after
Jehu, himself, had passed away. Interestingly the heirs of Jehu Jones were not
included in the request to administer the property of Enoch Jones.
At the end of June 1844, across the
Mississippi River in the anti Mormon town of Carthage, Illinois, Joseph Smith, the
leader of the Mormon Church and his brother were murdered while in custody of
the state. His murder exasperated an already tense situated between Mormons and
their neighbors which would within two years have the Mormons move in mass to
the Rocky Mountains. While the Joneses lived far enough away from the Mormons
to not worry about retribution that was threatened on non Mormons for the murder
of their prophet, they still they lived among the Fox Indians, on the west side
of White Breast Creek, some who were reluctant to leave their old homes.
On 27 September 1844, a government
report stated that “The Sacs and Foxes have manifested no discontent in their
change of residence, though a small band of Foxes returned last winter to their
old village on the Iowa river, and became so troublesome to the white
inhabitants on the Iowa and Cedar that it was found necessary to compel them to
return within their proper boundary by a military force from Fort Des
Moines…These people will, I think, with few exceptions, cheerfully remove from
the country, they have ceded to the government when the time arrives at which
they have agreed to do so.” This report grossly exaggerated the feelings of the
Fox Indians.
Ten months after his father died, Jehu
Paten Jones himself died on 1 March 1845. George Jehu Jones wrote about his grandfather’s
death. “In 1845 the first crop of wheat that my grandfather raised was set on
fire by the Indians and most of it burned. The wheat that was saved was taken
to the mill at Eddyville to be ground. It was on the return trip from Eddyville
that my grandfather took sick and died.”
Jehu Jones died the day before his son
Isaac’s 16th birthday and two weeks before his eldest son, John’s 22nd
birthday. George Jehu Jones’ recollections are from events that happened 15
years before he was born.
“A sad story connected with their
early history shows the hardships of early pioneer life in Iowa. It was in 1845
that grandfather Jehu Jones, wife and son J. M. Jones went to Oskaloosa by
wagon on a business trip. On the morning of the return grandfather Jones felt
poorly, ordinarily a very strong man. They started home and did not get half
way until Mr. Jones had passed away. There were very few houses on the way. It
was near the home of D. T. Durham the sad death occurred and that noble citizen
rendered assistance to the afflicted family.”
There was another death in the family
about the same time as that Jehu Jones’ tombstone states that an infant was
buried with him but the name or gender of the child is unknown. It makes one
speculate is the sudden death of her husband caused Anna to miscarry.It is claimed by the Marion County Historical Society that Jehu Jones was the first burial in Marion County and he is buried in a small burial ground on property he once owned is in Knoxville Township Section 2 Township 75 Range 20 that is now known as the Schlotterback Cemetery after the family of George Schlotterback who eventually owned the property. George Schlotterback married Elizabeth Ann Fee the daughter of Christopher Fee whose family lived on a farm adjoining William Booth whose daughter Mary Jane Booth would become Isaac’s bride.
Isaac’s mother, Anna Maple Jones, was
44 years old when she was widowed however she chose to stay in Iowa on the
frontier rather than return to Illinois and live off the charity of her family
in Peoria. Her decision to stay may have also been prompted by having older sons
to help and because her sister Polly Maple Jones and her brother in law and
Jehu’s brother, John Jones had moved to Iowa and settled near her. She now had
relatives to rely on. Eventually other Maple relatives would move to
neighboring Lucas County.
Jehu Jones tombstone states that his age at
the time of his death was 48 years and
two months. The cause of death is
unknown but as he led a hard life living in the wilderness, he may have simply
been worn out. However, something as simple as an infected cut or a bad fever
could have carried him off. Hard drinking led to many premature deaths on the
frontier also. There was one doctor in the area named Luther Conrey who was
also a Baptist but if he did attend to Jones he wasn’t able to save him.
As that Jehu Jones was buried with an
infant, presumably his child, according to his tombstone he may have died of
some contagion that carried both of them off. This would have made for a double
funeral and probably was almost beyond grief for his wife Anna to have lost a
husband and a baby at the same time. She was widowed at the age of 44 and would
never marry again. Jehu Jones died the day before his son Isaac’s 15th birthday
and two weeks before his eldest son, John’s 22nd birthday.
Jehu Jones was said to be first burial
in Marion County and is buried in a small burial ground on property he once
owned but is now known as the Schlotterback Cemetery after the family of George
Schlotterback who eventually owned the property. Interred with him was an infant
child of his.
George Schlotterback married Elizabeth
Ann Fee the daughter of Christopher Fee who family lived on a farm adjoining
William Booth. Another daughter of Christopher Fee Lucinda would become the
third wife of George Washington Jones, Jehu’s son. William Booth became a
father in law to Jehu’s son Isaac.
The quarter acre Cemetery contains 28
head stones but contains 12 more unmarked graves. The second burial in the
graveyard was that of Jehu’s daughter Rebecca Jones Thompson who died in 1848.
They are the only ones with marked headstones who were buried in the 1840’s.
The Schlotterbacks may have acquired the property by 1852 when 4 year old Denny
C Schlotterback was interred there. Other Jones family members interred within
the cemetery are Mary Essex Jones, the wife of John M Jones, in 1854, Anna
Maple Jones, wife of Jehu, in 1865, and Hannah Maple Jones, wife of George
Jones, in 1872.
Today the cemetery is located on the
oldest portion of the Veteran Administration’s Medical Center Knoxville campus.
Although in the middle of the former VA golf course, it is privately owned and
does not belong to the federal government. It is located near the crossroads of
McGregor Road and 118th Place in the VA Golf Course which is Section 2 of
Township 75 Range 20 in Knoxville Twp.
 |
| Schlotterback Cemetery |
Jehu Jones at the time of his death
owned the property where the cemetery in which he was buried. The land is now
in the west part of the town of Knoxville in Section 2 of Township 75 in Range 20.
Without a county court house in which
to file a probate, the family went back to Peoria County, Illinois to file
Jehu’s probate there. As that his probate records there have not been examined
it is not clear whether he had left a written will or died intestate.
When her husband died Anna Maple Jones
became the sole support for her children, Isaac Jones age 15 years, George
Washington Jones age 13 years, William Franklin Jones age 9 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. Anna Maple Jones was
44 years old when she was widowed however she chose to stay in Iowa on the
frontier rather than return to Illinois and live on the charity of her family
in Peoria.
After the death of her husband Anna
Jones was in the position to be able to keep the farm as that she had teenage
sons to manage the livestock and work in the corn fields and gardens. The
family food stuff was supplemented by the wild fruits that grew in abundance in
the woods, and on their farms they raised crops of Indian corn, and hay as well
as vegetables. Anna had at least one cow maybe more that was given to her by
her father when she moved to Iowa in 1843. She raised hogs according to
documents in which she registered the ear marks on the livestock.
In the spring of 1845, while the Jones
family was grieving, an Iowa official wrote
regarding the impending removal of
all Indians from the territory. He wrote “our Indian neighbors… have conducted
themselves with more than ordinary propriety during the last winter and present
spring. The Sacs and Foxes, with a few exceptions among the latter, give strong
assurances of their intention to remove next autumn from the western part of
the lands ceded by them to the United States by the treaty of October, 1842.
Their removal will open an extensive, fertile and beautiful portion of the
Territory to immediate settlement.”
 |
| Dragoons |
Marion County was formally organized
10 June 1845 three months after Jehu Jones died and on 25 August 1845 the
community of Knoxville within the township of Knoxville was chosen as the
county seat. When Knoxville was formed, Jehu Jones’ family was considered
prominent among the first pioneers along with Landon J. Burch, William Burch,
John Essex, Elias Fuller, John Conrey, Luther C. Conrey, Tyler Overton, Conrad
Walters. R. S. Lowry, John R. Welch, , Lysander W. Babbitt, Christopher Cox,
Lawson G. Terry and Michael Livingston, all of whom had located in the township
of Knoxville by 1845.
Jehu Jones daughter Rebecca Jones was
the first to marry when she married Thomas S. Thompson on the 4th of July 1845
in neighboring Mahaska County which had been formed in 1843 and self-governing
since 1844. Even though Marion County had been formed a month before, Mahaska
county was the first in Iowa to have a sheriff and a justice of peace who
married the couple. Rebecca was 20 years old at the time of her marriage and
she married 4 months after her father died most likely to move out of her step
mother’s household.
The town of Knoxville owed its origin
to the action of the commissioners appointed by the Legislature to locate a
permanent seat of justice for Marion County. On August 25, 1845, a report in
favor of locating the county seat on the northwest quarter of section 7,
township 75, range 19, was made saying the location was "a high, level prairie
or plateau, about one mile south of the exact center of the county, and in the
near neighborhood of excellent timber."
This is the quarter section upon which
the courthouse stands today. In their report, the commissioners did not
recommend any name for the town, but to the local authorities they suggested
that it be called Knoxville, to commemorate the patriotic services of General
Knox, a distinguished American soldier in the Revolutionary war.
The names of the voters to accept Knoxville as the county seat were given in the order in which they cast their votes: L. W. Babbitt, William McCord, James W. Watts, John Babcock, Thomas Thomson, John P. Glenn, Nathan Bass, John M. Jones, J. Brons, Henry Hall, James Boakens, W. M. Blankship, John Johnson, Landon J. Burch, Samuel H. Babb, Richard R. Watts, Wm. D. Burch, Lossen G. Terry, A. C. Sharp, Isaac Walters, William D. Halbey, John Kinney, Elijah Johnson, James Walters, Wm. H. Garrison, Jeremiah Shepherd, John Essex, Hiram Pugh. Thomas “Thomson” was the husband of Rebecca Jones and John Essex would later become the father in law to John M Jones.
The names of the voters to accept Knoxville as the county seat were given in the order in which they cast their votes: L. W. Babbitt, William McCord, James W. Watts, John Babcock, Thomas Thomson, John P. Glenn, Nathan Bass, John M. Jones, J. Brons, Henry Hall, James Boakens, W. M. Blankship, John Johnson, Landon J. Burch, Samuel H. Babb, Richard R. Watts, Wm. D. Burch, Lossen G. Terry, A. C. Sharp, Isaac Walters, William D. Halbey, John Kinney, Elijah Johnson, James Walters, Wm. H. Garrison, Jeremiah Shepherd, John Essex, Hiram Pugh. Thomas “Thomson” was the husband of Rebecca Jones and John Essex would later become the father in law to John M Jones.
Soon after the selection of the site
for Knoxville, Isaac B. Power, who was elected county surveyor on 1 September
1845, was directed to lay out the town. The first sale of lots was on 29
October 1845. Probably the first white settler within the present city limits
of Knoxville was Dr. Luther C. Conrey, who laid claim to the land upon which
the county seat was afterward located, and in whose house the first meeting of
the county commissioners was held in September, 1845.
Other early settlers were Lysander W.
Babbitt, Conrad Walters and the Jehu Jones family. Although some of the latter
did not live immediately in the town, they were more or less intimately
connected with the industrial development of the embryo city, and for a number
of years Jehu Jones son John M. Jones was proprietor of the Knoxville Woolen
Mills.
The Sac Indians left for Kansas in two
large groups on 30 September in 1845, a few weeks ahead of the October 11th
deadline to be gone from Iowa. In comparison, the Fox Indians hadn’t even begun
preparations to leave despite being bound by the same agreement. The Fox tribes
were threatened with full military action and were assured that one way or
another the tribe would be “gone” by October 11th.
Finally the Fox Indian march towards
Kansas began on October 8th, but not in the same orderly manner as the Sacs.
They rapidly dispersed in very small groups leaving every fifteen minutes apart.
This chaotic form of departure made it very difficult for the military to keep
track of who had left and in which direction they headed.
When the Iowa Indians were officially
required to move from Iowa Territory to the Kansas country, the Baptist Church
of Knoxville was organized in October 1845. Among the original members were Dr.
Luther C. Conrey, H. C. Conrey, Lawson G. Terry and his wife Martha Terry, M.
J. Post and the widow Anna Jones. Elders M. J. Post and G. W. Bond “expounded
the gospel to the young organization” with Dr. Conrey being the first clerk of
the church until October 1847 when G. W. Bond was elected the first pastor and
took charge of the church. The Baptist Church would have been the center of
Anna Maples Jones social and spiritual life and no doubt provided support to
the widow for the rest of her life.
John M. Jones married Mary Essex on 13
November 1845. She was the daughter of John Essex and his wife Nancy Goodwin.
The Essex and Goodwin families were Baptists from Peoria County and the Jones
family would have known each other. Anna Maple Jones youngest brother Abraham
Maple married as his 3rd wife Mary Goodwin daughter of Joseph Goodwin and Sarah
Essex, a double cousin to Mary Essex. Additionally, after John M Jones first
wife died, he married Mary Essex’s cousin Margaret Hornbacker the daughter of
John Hornbacker and Margaret Essex. John Essex, Sarah Essex, and Margaret Essex
were all siblings. John M Jones and his bride Mary Essex were both 23 years old
at the time of their marriage and were married eight months after his father
died.
It was discovered that by early winter
1845 only one-fifth of about twenty-two hundred Fox population’s whereabouts
were accountable at the Kansas “Osage River” reservation. Clearly, four-fifths
of the Fox were somewhere else…primarily, right back in Iowa. Some Fox escaped
to near present day Madrid, Missouri. A company of dragoons were sent to
capture and escort them to Kansas. A stone tablet was found years later
inscribed 10 December 1845 “Found 200 Indians hid on and around this mound.
They cried, No Go! No Go!, But we took them to Fort Dodge.”
Ironically the following day 11
December 1845, James Clarke, Governor of Iowa Territory, wrote to the
President, “In accordance with the stipulations contained in the treaty
negotiated by my predecessor in office in 1842, the Sac and Fox Indians early
in the past fall, quietly and peaceably abandoned the whole of the country
owned and occupied by them in Iowa and proceeded to the new home provided for
them by the government lying South and West of the Missouri.”
At the end of 1845 the Commissioner of
Indian Affairs also assured President James Knox Polk that the Sac and Foxes
were now on their way to Kansas and concluded the removal as a success. By the
beginning of the New Year, newspapers in Iowa began announcing that the Sac and
Fox had been removed. In reality a many Fox Indians secretly remained in Iowa
and some of those who moved to Kansas were unhappy with the poor conditions
there and decided to return to Iowa.
On January 6, 1846, it was ordered by
the board of commissioners of Marion County "That Luther C. Conrey be, and
he is hereby, appointed agent for the board of county commissioners to sell and
dispose of the town lots in the Town of Knoxville; and that he give bond with
security in the penal sum of $500, conditioned for the faithful performance of
his duties."
Among the many duties of the county
commissioners was that of registering ear marks of livestock. In early days
there were but few fences and cattle, hogs and stock of all kinds were
permitted to run at large. Thus it was of no unusual occurrence for stock to
get together and disputes frequently occurred as to the ownership and identity
of stock.
To protect himself, the frontier
farmer cropped the ears of his cattle, hogs and sheep in a peculiar manner and
these marks were recorded with the same care as the titles to real estate.
Among the marks were the plain crop, the under and upper bits, the under and
upper slopes, the slit, the round hole and a few others, by a combination of
which each settler could mark his stock so that it could be easily
distinguished from that of his neighbor.”
If someone found a stray animal marked
with a crop off the left ear and an under bit in the right, all he had to do
was to inquire at the recorder’s office to ascertain who had registered such a
mark and thus learn the name of the owner. It was equivalent to theft for any
individual to put his ear-mark on any stock which did not belong to him and
such an offense was punishable by heavy penalty. Once an ear-mark had been
registered with the board of commissioners, it was prima facie evidence of
ownership when found on a horse, cow, hog or any other animal. These marks were
rarely violated and they protected the settler against loss as surely as the
registered trade-mark protects the manufacturer of some special product.
On 6 January, 1846, “Anny Jones” made
return of her ear mark for hogs, cattle, etc., to be recorded, which is as
follows; to-wit., a swollow-fork in the left ear. "L. W. Babbitt, Clerk
Board of Commissioners”. This document is the first indication that Anna Maple
Jones was also called “Anny.”
On the same day John M. Jones “made
return of his ear-mark for hogs, cattle, etc., to be recorded, which is as
follows; to-wit., a swallow-fork in the left ear and a square-crop off the
right ear." A year later on 6 January 1847 “John Jones”, recorded his
ear-mark. "John Jones made return of his ear mark for hogs, cattle, etc.,
to be recorded as follows; to-wit., an under-bit in the left ear and a slit in
the right ear." This John Jones was the younger brother of Jehu Jones who
had just recently moved to Marion County along with his wife Polly the sister
of Anna Maple Jones.
The Mormon exodus began in earnest in
February 1846 when the Mormons migrated west from Nauvoo, their fallen
city-state. In the spring of 1846 the Mormons were compelled to leave Illinois.
During their westward migration through southern Iowa many of them stopped
within that Territory and erected homes. Settlements were made at Garden Grove
about 55 miles southwest of Knoxville. While the principal Mormon settlement
was near Council Bluffs nearly 20,000 people would travel along the Mormon
Trail over the course of the next few years.
As Mormons were preparing to head west
to the Rocky Mountains, Fox Indians were still not complying with the treaty of
1842 to remove themselves from Iowa Territory. An 1846 correspondence between
Iowa officials stated “It is understood that Capt. Allen’s company of dragoons,
which has been for the last three years at Fort Des Moines, at the mouth of the
Raccoon, has been ordered to Ft. Leavenworth, with instructions to see to the
removal to the Kansas country of all the Sac and Fox Indians who have not gone
thither. These Indians by a treaty made in 1842, agreed to remove south of the
Missouri by October 1845, but as yet more than six hundred have complied with
the treaty stipulation. Some fifteen hundred yet remain on their old hunting
ground.”
In February and March 1846 the
dragoons were still escorting all the Fox Indians, who had have not left the
Territory of Iowa, to their permanent homes. In March two lodges along with 300
stragglers were escorted to Fort Dodge.
Elections for the formation of
Knoxville Township was held in April, 1846 and there were twenty-five votes
cast. The names of these voters affords a good idea of who the early settlers
of the township were. They are as 'follows: L. W. Babbitt, James Bothkin,
Christopher Cox, Thomas S. Thompson, Emanuel Jenkins, John M. Jones, John
Essex, Samuel H. Robb, W. M. Bassett, G.B. Greenwood, Lawson G. Terry, Moses
Tong, Gerret W. Clark, Conrad Walters, Nathan P. Cox, Joseph Tong, Landon J.
Burch, George Gillaspy, Francis Daygraaton, Francis A. Barker, Noah Bonebrake,
John R. Welch, Reuben S. Lowry, Eli Wickersham, David Immel, Benjamin Casner.
John M. Jones of course was Jehu Jones eldest son and about 24 years old at
this time. His brother-in-law was Thomas S. Thompson and father in law was John
Essex.
In May 1846 the United States went to
war with Mexico while Mormons were traveling across southern Iowa in their
migration west to Utah. U.S. Army Capt. James Allen met with Mormon church
leaders in June 1846 at Council Bluffs in order to recruit members for a
“Mormon Battalion” to march westward with Brig. Gen. Stephen W. Kearny. Five
companies of 100 men each were recruited from Iowa with the stipulation that
their army pay would be directed into the church treasury and their weapons and
equipment issued by the Army would become private property when their
enlistments expired. Known as the Mormon Battalion, they eventually traveled
more than 1,500 miles across the southwestern United States before the war
ended with an American victory on February 2, 1848. Mormons working at Sutter’s
Mill were the first to discover gold in California.
While this may seem insignificant, in
July 1846 the first mail route was opened to Knoxville and actually it was one
of the most important event that affected every day normal life. Unless someone
was going to and fro from Knoxville, Iowa to Peoria Illinois, Anna Maple Jones
would have heard very little from her kinfolk in Illinois but once the post
office was established it became much easier to communicate news between
families.
In Octobert 1846 it was discovered
that only 847 Fox Indians were at the Kansas reservation to receive their
annuity payments. The missing Fox Tribes were scattered in Iowa. Between 1846
and 1856 Fox bands kept returning to Iowa or remained hidden within its
borders. There is documented evidence of a constant presence of the Fox Indians
in Iowa in violation of the 1842 treaty.
Eventually in 1856 this group of Fox
Indians requested and received permission from the Iowa General Assembly to
purchase and live on land in the state. With continued support from the state legislature
for their right to own property in Iowa, they purchased land in Tama County.
However when the Fox Indians returned to live in Iowa, the federal government
withdrew financial support promised in earlier treaties. Years of hardship
followed as the tribe worked to make a living on an area of land too small to
support so many people.
Finally state officials convinced the
government to resume the annual payments. The tribe used the money to purchase
more land. Today the Fox Indians now known as the Mesquakie own over 3,000
acres along the Iowa River in Tama County. The Mesquakie worked diligently to
support themselves and to recover their way of life.
In November 1846 a commissioner court
was called to create the Knoxville township from township 75 and all of 76
“lying south of the Des Moines River, both of range 19; also towns 75 and 76,
range 20. The Anna Maple Jones farm was included in the new Township which is
the now largest and most centrally located township in the county.
On 28 December 1846, Iowa became the
29th state in the Union when President James Knox Polk signed Iowa's admission
bill into law. Once admitted to the Union, the state's boundary issues were
resolved, and most of its land had been purchased from the Indians.
Anna Maple Jones’ father William Maple
died 6 March 1848 at the age of 69 a little more than 3 years after her husband
Jehu and nearly five years after making out his last will and testament. He
died in Hollis Township, Peoria Co., Illinois and was buried in the same cemetery
as his grandson William Becannon and Jehu Jones’ father Enoch Jones. As that
mail service operational the news of the death of her father arrived in a
timelier manner within weeks than the news of Enoch’s death which may have
taken months for the news to reach them.
About two and half month later, Anna
Maple Jones step daughter Rebecca Jones Thompson died on 28 May 1848 at the age
of 24 years. She died of complications from childbirth and left an infant named
Charles Henry Thompson. Rebecca Jones was buried near her father in the
Schlotterback Cemetery. Charles Thompson was raised in the households of his
Jones relatives. It is unknown what happened to his father.
In 1849 news of gold found at Sutter’s
Mill in California set off a Gold Rush the likes of which America has never
seen before. But it is unlikely that any of the Joneses developed Gold Fever as
they are all located in the 1850 Census of Marion County. Anna Maple Jones’
mother Mary "Polly" Fuller Maple died 9 April 1850 in Hollis Township,
Peoria County. She is buried in La Marsh Baptist Church Cemetery, Illinois near
her husband.
The population of Iowa jumped from
43,112 in 1840 to 192,214 in 1850. However the decade beginning in 1850 was to
witness a migrating tide which was to sweep over the State and “inundate the
valleys and hills with more than sufficient human energy to build up a
Commonwealth of the first rank.”
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. Anna Maple Jones was listed as
being able to read and write as were Isaac Jones and John M Jones. However none
of Anna’s children listed in her household were listed as having attended
school within the last year. Two of her children were teenagers but her
daughter was only 9 and should have been attending school.
On 13 September 1850 Jehu Jones’s
widow and children are listed within 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 between Anna Jones were her
son Isaac and her step son John M. Jones who must have had adjoining farms.
They are listed in separate dwellings and in order of the visitation showing
that these three families lived in close proximity.
Jehu Jones’ son Isaac Jones was listed
as household 539. 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 40 acres worth of property. Within his household was his recent bride
Mary J Booth Jones age 20 [1830] and born in North Carolina. Also included in
Isaac Jones’ household was his nephew Charles W. Thompson age 3 [1847] and born
in Iowa. He was the son of Isaac’s half sister Rebecca Jones Thompson. Mary
Jane Booth was the daughter of William Booth, a farmer who was eight households
away at household number 547. Isaac and Mary Jane Booth were still newlyweds
when the census was taking having only married the previous fall on 16 October
1849 in Marion County.
Enumerated after Anna Maple Jones at
household 541 was Jehu Jones’ son John Jones age 27 [1823] born in Ohio. He was
a carpenter with a farm worth $1000. He may have taken over his father’s lathe
and wood turning business with the term carpenter meaning wood working. Within
this household was Mary Ann Essex Jones age 26 [1824] born in Ohio, Abraham
Jones age 6 months [March 1850] and Luther Ward age 35 [1815] born in
Massachusetts and a laborer. Mary Ann Essex was the daughter of John and Nancy
Essex who were household 559, twenty households away from his son in law. This
census shows that John Essex was 53 years old and born in Virginia.
Late in the year 1853 a movement was
started for the incorporation 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 should decide the question. Sixty four votes were
cast, only four of which were against the proposition to incorporate.
"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."
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." 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 the
Mississippi.
John M Jones’ wife Mary Ann Essex
Jones died 1 September 1854 at the age of 32. She 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 Anna Maple Jones was a 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.
In the 1856 Iowa recorded a state
Census of its residents. 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.
Jehu Jones youngest brother 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] wasage 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 were all born 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. 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.
George Washington Jones is listed as a
widower, a farmer, a registered voter, and a member of the Marion County,
Militia. He had married Narcissa Nichols 1 March 1855 on the tenth anniversary
of his father’s death but his bride died from complications from childbirth
leaving him a widower at the time of this census with an infant son William
Henry Jones. She is listed as a Nicholson in some family records but as that a
Joseph Nichols was living next door to Isaac Jones in the 1856 census and there
are no Nicholasons in the county, she more than likely is the daughter of Margaret
Nicholas age 55 from Virginia and sister of Joseph Nichols.
William Franklin Jones who was 20
years old in 1856 was also listed as a farmer and a member of the Marion County
Militia but was too young to be registered to vote. No doubt that these brothers
voted for Abraham Lincoln in the general election of 1860 as one of their sons
was named Abraham Lincoln Jones.
Charles Henry Thompson was Anna Maple
Jones first grandchild by her step daughter Rebecca Jones Thompson who died
also from complications of childbirth. He seemed to have been shuffled among
the brothers in the family.
Both brothers, George Washington and
William Franklin Jones, married in January 1857. George married his 2nd cousin
Hannah Maple 11 January 1857 perhaps around a year after his 1st wife’s death.
He was married in Lucas County, Iowa where Hannah’s parents who were Anna Maple
Jones’ 1st cousin had moved about 40 miles south of Knoxville. Hannah’s parents
were William Henry Maple and his wife Sarah Maple Cowgill. When Hannah Jones
died she was buried in the Schlotterback Cemetery with a stone. It is probable
that Narcissa Nichols is also buried there but location was not permanently
marked.
George W. Jones would marry a third
time the widow of his sister in law Margaret Gibbs Jones’ brother. Lucinda Fee
was the widow of Jerome Temple Gibbs. He was William F. Jones brother in law.
She was married to Jerome Gibbs 29 June 1856 and had 8 children by him when he
died in 1878. Upon this marriage George W Jones became the step father of 8
children and had two children with Lucinda along with his 8 children by his
first two wives. Lucinda Fee Gibbs Jones was the daughter of Christopher
Columbus Fee and Susannah Means neighbors of Anna Jones.
William Franklin Jones married in
Marion County a week after his brother to Margaret Gibbs on 18 January 1857.
She was the daughter of James Gibbs and Martha McElwee and sister of Jerome
Temple Gibbs. The Gibbs family had just come to Iowa in 1851 and her father
James Gibbs was a lawyer.
John M Jones is listed some distance
from the farms of his family at household number 445. He is not listed as a
farmer but rather as a carpenter although he did raise 800 bushels of corn on
16 acres. He was listed as age 34 [1822] born in Ohio and a registered voter and
a member of the militia. His wife is Margaret [Hornbacker] age 19 [1837] born
in Illinois. Children in the household were Abraham Jones age 6 [1850] and
George Jones age 4 [1852] both born in Iowa. John M Jones came to Iowa in 1843
but Margaret just in 1855 when she came to marry John who was a widower.
Margaret was his 1st wife’s cousin.
John M. Jones moved west to Nebraska
Territory about 1857 as he had a child born in Iowa in 1856 and another child
in Nebraska in 1858. On 17 April 1854, the Indians relinquished their rights to
the lands west of the Missouri river and on 30 May 1854, an act created the
Territory Of Nebraska. At that time the Territory of Nebraska included much of
Colorado, all of Wyoming, Montana and the two Dakotas. Later on 24 June 1854,
by a proclamation of President Franklin Pierce the Territory of Nebraska was
thrown open for settlement and land seekers hurriedly crossed the Missouri on
many kinds of make shift rafts and staked out their claims. A claim may embrace
320 acres 80 acres of which may be timber and may be in detached parts.
John M Jones settled in the community
of Rock Bluff which was a pioneer crossing on the Missouri River. First settled
in 1854 Rock Bluffs became a leading point for equipping freighting outfits to
cross the plains during the 1850s. John Jones prospered there and made a small
fortune as a carpenter.
 |
| John Brown |
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.
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.
Although it is odd that Anna Maple
Jones and her daughter Mary Ann are not listed in the census of Marion County
in 1860, records show that Mary Ann Jones was married in 1861 in Marion County.
Also Anna Maple Jones was buried in the Schlotterback Cemetery in 1865. It is a
mystery.
On 12 June 1860 Anna Maple Jones’s son
John Jones and brother in law and sister were 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 [Nancy Ann] 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
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
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
On
15 June 1860 William F. Jones was enumerated as living in Knoxville Township,
Marion, Iowa Post Office: Knoxville. He was family number 173 and owned a farm
worth $1000 and his home and personal property and livestock was worth $200. He
was enumerated 70 families away from his brother Isaac.
William Jones age 24 [1836] born in
Ohio Occupation farmer
Margaret Jones [Gibbs] age 20 [1840]
born in Kentucky
Isaac Jones age 2 [1858] born in Iowa
Jehu Jones age 4 mo. [Feb 1860] born
in Iowa
Charles Thompson age 12 [1848] born in
Iowa
On
15 June 1860 George W Jones was enumerated as living in Knoxville Township,
Marion, Iowa Post Office: Knoxville. He was family number 175 and owned a farm
worth $1200 and his home and personal property and livestock were worth $400
George W Jones age 29 [1831] born in
Ohio Occupation Farmer
Hannah Jones [Maple] age 25 [1835]
born in Ohio
William H Jones age 4 [1856] born in
Iowa
Anna M Jones age 2 [1858] born in Iowa
Theodore C Jones age 8 months [Nov
1859] born in Iowa
John
M Jones lived some 180 miles west of Marion County, Iowa where he is found in
the 1860 Census in Nebraska. On 9 June 1860 John M Jones was enumerated as
living in Cass County, Nebraska Post Office: Rock Bluff. He was family number
310 and owned a farm worth $3000 and his home and personal property and
livestock was worth $500
John M Jones age 37 [1823] born in
Ohio Occupation Farmer
Margaret Jones [Hornbacker] age 23
[1837] born in Illinois
Abraham Jones age 11 [1849] born in
Iowa
George Jones age 9 [1851] born in Iowa
Mary A Jones age 4 [1856] born in Iowa
Ann M Jones age 2 [1858 born in
Nebraska
James Jones age 1 [1859] born in
Nebraska
Franklin Davis age 18 [1842] born
Indiana Occupation Laborer
Abraham
Lincoln’s election 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 in Missouri and Kentucky but was
opposed by pro-Union state governments. Abraham Lincoln ordered the arrest of
the Maryland legislature to keep them from voting for succession. The counties
of western Virginia including the home counties Berkeley and Jefferson broke
away from Virginia and formed a new state called West Virginia.
Anna Maples Jones was 60 years old
when the American Civil War broke out over the preservation of the Union and
the abolition of slavery. She must have been deeply worried how the war would
affect her family as some of her sons and a son in law joined the Union Army.
Her youngest child Mary Ann Jones had married Peter Shirey on the 4th of July
1861. He would later go off to serve in the Civil War. Sentiment in Iowa was very pro Union and perhaps
she would have been proud that her sons rallied around the flag that where ever
it went set people free.
The war was over when General Robert
E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox to General
Ulysses S. Grant on 9 April 1865 and it is more than likely that all Anna Maple
Jones sons were furloughed and had made it back to Iowa when Anna Maples Jones
passed away on 12 July 1865. She died in Knoxville Township in Marion County,
Iowa at the age of 64 years.
The Jehu and Anna Maple Jones Family
Jehu
Paten Jones
Born
1 January 1797 Harpers Ferry, Berkeley, Virginia [Jefferson County West
Virginia]Died 1 March 1845 in Knoxville, Marion County, Iowa Territory at the age of 48.
Anna
Olima Maple
Birth:
7 January 1801 Somerset County, PennsylvaniaDeath: 12 July 1865 Knoxvile, Marion, Iowa at the age of 64 years, 6 months and 5 days old.
1)
John M Jones
Birth
14 March 1822 Guernsey County, Ohio, USADeath 24 February 1911 Beacon Mahaksa, Iowa
1st Marriage 13 November 1845 Marion County, Iowa Territory
Mary Ann Essex dau of John Essex and Nancy Goodwin
Birth: 1822 Ohio
Death: 1 September 1854 Knoxville, Marion, Iowa
2nd Marriage 8 April 1855 Marion County, Iowa
Margaret Hornbacker dau of John Hornbacker and Margaret Essex
Birth 20 January 1837 Hollis, Peoria, Illinois
Death: 28 December 1904 Beacon, Mahaska, Iowa
Among the first settlers within the
bounds of Knoxville township was John M. Jones. He moved for a time to Cass
County, Nebraska Territory before returning to Knoxville, Iowa where for many
years was connected with the Knoxville Woolen Mills. The firm McClatchey &
Van Houten had opened a woolen mill in Marion County which was the first in the
county. In 1869, John M Jones became a partner in the company and had the mill
was moved to Knoxville. The firm’s name then being Jones, McClatchey & Van
Houten. They continued the business for two years, when Van Houten retired, and
at the end of four years McClatchey retired. John M Jones became sole
proprietor of the Woolen Mill in 1875 and moved to Mahaska County.
2)
Rebecca Jones
Birth:
12 August 1824 Knox Township, Guernsey County, OhioDeath: 28 May 1848 Knoxville, Marion, Iowa
married 5 Jul 1845 Oskaloosa, Mahaska, Iowa
Thomas S. Thompson
Birth 7 September 1826 Knox Township Guernsey County, Ohio
Death
unknown died young with no issue.
4)
Isaac Jones
Birth
2 March 1829 Knox Township, Guernsey, Ohio, Death 9 June 1905 Knoxville, Marion, Iowa
Married 16 October 1849 Knoxville, Marion, Iowa
Mary Jane Booth daughter of William Booth and Mary Ann Lane
Birth 23 February 1830 Raleigh, Wake, North Carolina,
Death 25 September 1917 Knoxville, Marion, Iowa, USA
5) George Washington Jones
Birth
22 May 1831 Guernsey, Ohio, USA
Death
14 December 1908 Hartington Cedar County, Nebraska, 1st Marriage 1 March 1855 Marion County, Iowa
Narcissa Nichols
Death 1856 Marion County, Iowa
2nd Marriage 11 Jan 1857 Lucas County, Iowa,
Hannah Maple daughter of William Henry Maple and Sarah Cowgill
Birth: 23 September 1835 • Wheeling Township Guernsey, Ohio,
Death: 13 February 1872 at the age of 36 years, 4 months and 20 days old.
3rd Marriage circa 1879
 |
Lucinda Fee  |
Birth: 27 October 1837 Indiana
Death: 24 April 1923 Norfolk, Madison, Nebraska, USA
She married 29 June 1856 Marion County, Iowa Jerome Temple Gibbs (1834-1878) and had 8 children by him
When George Washington Jones was born on May 22, 1831, in Guernsey County, Ohio, his father, Jehu, was 34 and his mother, Anna, was 30. He married Narcissa Nicholas and they had one son together, William Henry Jones. He then married his cousin Hannah Maple and they had eight children together, Mrs. Anna M Jones, Theodore C. Jones, Abraham Lincoln Jones, Jehu Isaac Jones, Mrs. Sylvia Narcissa Doane, J.A. Jones, Mrs. Cora Ann Sharpe, and Sarah Adeline Freland. He married for the 3rd time and had two sons with Lucinda Fee, George Washington Jones Jr an Edward William Jones. The 1880 Census shows him living next door to his brother William Franklin Jones in Audubon County, Iowa. George died on December 14, 1908, in Cedar County, Nebraska having lived a long life of 77 years.
6)
James Jones
Birth
6 August 1833 Guernsey County, Ohio, USADeath 1834 Guernsey County, Ohio
When James Jones was born on August 6, 1833, in Guernsey County, Ohio, his father, Jehu, was 36 and his mother, Anna, was 32. He had six brothers and two sisters. He died as an infant in 1834 in Guernsey County, Ohio.
7)
William Franklin Jones
Birth
3 July 1835 Knox Township Guernsey County, OhioDied after 1900 Knox County, Nebraska
1st Marriage 18 January 1857 Marion County, Iowa
Margaret Gibbs daughter of James Gibbs and Martha McElwee
Birth 1839 Kentucky
Death 2 September 1875 Exira, Audubon, Iowa, USA
2nd Marriage 10 November 1878 Audubon County, Iowa
Eliza Ann Stephenson daughter of James Stephenson and Nancy J Smith
Birth
6 February 1837 Armstrong County, Pennsylvania
Death
20 March 1910 Hartington, Cedar, NebraskaWhen William Franklin Jones was born on July 3, 1835, in Guernsey County, Ohio, his father, Jehu, was 38 and his mother, Anna, was 34. He married Margaret M Gibbs daughter of James Gibbs and Martha McElwee and they had nine children together before she passed away in 1877. They were John Isaac Jones, Mary M Jones, Mrs. Candace E. Pattison, William Jones He then married Eliza A Blackmer a widow on 10 November 1878 in Audubon County, Iowa. She was the daughter of James Stephenson and Nancy Jane Smith and widow of James Madison Blackmer who died about the same time as William F. Jones’ wife. Mrs. Eliza Ann Blacker was the mother of Nancy Jane Blackmer who had married William Henry Jones, William F. Jones nephew.
Nancy and her mother Eliza J Jones are
both buried in the Hartington Cemetery in Cedar County, Nebraska. William H
Jones and his father George is also buried in the same cemetery. If William
Franklin is buried here it is in an unmarked grave. He died after 1900 when he
is living in Knox County, Nebraska.
William Franklin Jones served in the Union
Army which he enlisted on August 19, 1862, in Iowa, when he was 27 years old. He
served in the 40th Infantry. This regiment was mustered into service at Iowa
City, November 15, 1862, and immediately moved to Columbus, Kentucky, arriving
on the 18th, where it remained during the winter, until March 3, 1863, when it
moved to Paducah, Kentucky. May 31, by order of General Grant, the regiment was
ordered to Vicksburg, Mississippi.
It is not known where or when William
Franklin died. The 1900 census show that his children were scattered. His
eldest son John Isaac is in Denver Colorado, Candace Pettison is in Linn
County, Oregon, William Jones junior is in Cedar County, Nebraska and Ida
Southwick in Knox County, Nebraska.
8)
Mary Ann Jones
Birth
11 November 1841 Hollis Twp, Peoria County, Illinois
Death
22 December 1919 Effingham, Kansas
Married
4 July 1861 Marion County, Iowa
Peter
Shirey son of Stephen Kellog Shirey and Lucinda Neir
Birth
11 November 1835 Wayne County, Indiana
Death
05 April 1912 Atchison, Atchison, Kansas, United States
  |
| Ulysses Alonzo Shirey and Peter Shirey's Graave |
When Mary Ann Jones was born on November 11, 1841, in Hollis, Illinois, her father, Jehu, was 44 and her mother, Anna, was 40. She married Peter Shirey on July 4, 1861 and he soon left to fight for the Union during the Civil War. They had two children during their marriage. They were George S. Shirey and Ulysses Alonzo Shirey. She died on December 22, 1919, in Kansas, at the age of 78, and was buried in Atchison, Kansas.
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