My Genealogy Hound

JONES, COL. KILER K., Sec.26; P. O. Quincy, retired; was born in Hanover, Chautauqua county, N. Y. April 13, 1825; married to Miss Ambolena Hanson in 1851. She was born in Norway August 23, 1827. Eight children, six of whom are still living, three sons and three daughters.

His father, William Jones, came to Chicago in an early day and was during life a much valued citizen of that city. Col. Jones learned the printers’ trade in early life and established the paper known as the “Gem of the Prairie” at Chicago, which afterward merged into the Chicago Tribune, but being possessed of an unusual amount of ambition, and believing “one iron not enough in the fire,” he began branching out in other directions, building a large pier and grain elevator, and also several vessels. He began the grain forwarding and commission business, in which he continued for years, and which proved a pecuniary success. His donations and contributions have been the most generous and liberal, to which the elegant Jones library, with its building and grounds at Manitowoc, Wis., point conclusively, as also the library of the high school at Camp Point, which was presented by Col. Jones, in May, 1869, as a nucleus for one of larger size, but by neglect, or carelessness, or both, on the part of those most interested, has not increased beyond the $300 worth of standard volumes so generously donated by him. He was, on the 26th of September 1861, appointed by the Hon. Alex W. Randall, Governor of Wis., Lieutenant Colonel of the 15th (Scandinavian), Regt. of Wis. Inf., and on the first of January, 1862, was mustered into the Service of the United States.

Ever since his residence here he has been one of the most energetic and active of citizens. Commenced the construction of the splendid gravel road out 12th street, and kept agitating the subject until we are the best supplied county in the state with free gravel roads. Republican in politics and one of the strongest advocates of those principles.