My Genealogy Hound

THOMAS C. JONES is one of the enterprising and successful citizens of Dunkirk, who has an undoubted right to feel an honest and just pride in the success he has achieved in his business career, as he practically began the battle of life at the age of eleven years without a dollar. He was born in Buffalo, Erie county. New York, September 16, 1840, and is a son of Thomas and Elizabeth (Dear) Jones. His father was a native of London, England, and was born in 1797. He married Elizabeth Dear, of Bedfordshire, England, and had twelve children. He came to the United States in 1835, located at Buffalo, this State, and worked at making soap and candles. In 1851 he came to Dunkirk, and engaged in the same business for Camp Bros. Politically he was independent, and in religion was a member of the Episcopal church, as was also his wife, who died October, 1881, aged seventy-three years. In August, 1886, he joined her in another and a better world at the age of eighty-nine years.

Thomas C. Jones attended the public schools in Buffalo until he was eleven years old, and then received employment in a grocery store, where he remained one year, and then began to learn the butcher’s trade, at which he worked until 1862, when he enlisted in company D, 72d New York Volunteers, served until the close of the war, and was honorably discharged at Kingston, New York. In 1866 he opened a butcher shop in Dunkirk, in which business he still remains, and now has the largest and best-equipped shop and the largest trade in Dunkirk. He also owns some valuable real estate here. In politics he is a Republican, has once been mayor of Dunkirk, and has served four years in the City Council, where he now has a seat. In the fire department, where he has been seventeen years, he has held every position from ladderman to chief engineer. In religion he is a member of the Episcopal church. He is a member of Dunkirk Chapter, 191, R. A. M., Dunkirk Commandery, No. 40, and has received the thirty-second degree A. and A. Scottish Rite.

Thomas C. Jones, in 1869, married Mary L. Andrews, a daughter of Horatio Andrews, of Pomfret, this county, by whom he has had two children (sons), George H. and Charles C.