My Genealogy Hound

JAMES M. JONES was born April 6, 1826, in Morgan County, Ga., and is the sixth of nine children; those who grew to man and womanhood are Oliver C., Harriet A., Nancy B., William H., James M. and Irene T. The parents were Timothy and Elizabeth (Avery) Jones, the father a son of Joel Jones, and the mother a daughter of Gabriel Avery, who was lieutenant in the war of 1812. The parents of our subject were born and reared in Georgia. The father was in the war of 1812, and died in 1850, aged fifty-seven years. The grandfather of our subject was a slave-owner in Georgia, and made provisions in his will to emancipate and settle them in Ohio, but the laws of Georgia would not permit them to be sent from that State. James M. Jones was reared on a farm until seventeen years old, when he engaged at printing, at which he continued more or less until 1869. In 1851 he established in Corinth, Miss., the Republican. In 1858 the name was changed to the True Democrat, and advocated the Douglas principles. In 1861 the citizens of Corinth passed resolutions not to board or furnish supplies to any person connected with the paper. Mr. Jones then went to Nashville, where he was engaged as compositor on the Press and American; then to Hamburg, Tenn., where he enlisted in May, 1862, in an independent company, called the Governor’s Guards. At Nashville the company was organized as Company F, Tenth Tennessee Infantry (Federal). Our subject was first lieutenant in the original company, and was sent by Governor Johnson to west Tennessee to recruit for the Federal service. In October, 1862, he reported at Nashville, and was commissioned first lieutenant of Company G, Alvin C. Gillem colonel commanding. He did provost duty at Nashville. In the spring of 1863 he resigned, and was afterward sutler for the Sixty-fourth Illinois till they reached Atlanta. He returned to his family in Richfield, Ill., and thence moved to Cairo, where he engaged in the printing business in the spring of 1865. He was appointed, by Gen. Ord, registrar of Tippah County, Miss., under the Reconstruction laws, and was subsequently engaged at the printing business in Cairo, Paducah and Nashville, until the spring of 1869, when he moved to Ballard County, Ky., where he has been engaged at farming ever since with good success. He located where he now lives, on eighty-four acres of land, in 1880. Our subject was married, October 29, 1848, to Martha George, of Tishomingo County, Miss., a native of Dickinson County, Tenn., and daughter of Daniel and Nancy (Pollard) George, natives of North Carolina and of Irish descent. There were born by this union nine children: Emily K., now Bichou; William Thomas; Daniel T. (deceased), Paul, Nancy H. (now Haden), Mary E., Harriet M. (now Gourieux), Dennis D., Dennetta M. Our subject cast his first presidential vote for Pierce in 1852; in 1856 he voted for Fillmore; in 1860 he voted for Douglas, and since has voted the Republican ticket. Mr. and Mrs. Jones are members of the Christian Church.