My Genealogy Hound

MERLIN K. JONES, post-office Opolis. His landed estate consists of 160 acres, well improved. Our subject was born Oct. 16, 1822, and reared in St. Clair county, Ill., a son of Merlin and Mary (Kelly) Jones, both natives of Toland county, Conn., where they married but settled in St. Clair county, Ill., in 1820. At the breaking out of the late war he enlisted in the Ninth Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry, but was soon placed in charge of sixteen men, known as the secret service, and would report to General Grant each night. After the capture of Vicksburg, Miss., he was transferred to General Sherman’s command. In 1864 he was mustered out and returned to St. Clair county, Ill. He was married March 14, 1844, to Miss Isabelle McFarland, born in 1827, being a native of St. Clair county Ill., where she was reared and educated. Their family consists of six children, as follows: Wallace, David, George, Laura, Belle, Frank, and Quincy, who was drowned in 1864, being eight years of age. Our subject and family settled where they now reside in 1878, from Newton, Conn. Soon after the war he settled in Lafayette county, Mo., and purchased a farm. While a resident of that county he served four terms as grand juror and two terms as petit juror of the United States Court, and was a delegate to the Republican Convention at Jefferson City during the Gratz-Brown split, and has served as justice of the peace seven years. He is a member of the Missionary Baptist and Mrs. Jackson of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.