James M. Jones has been actively identified with affairs in Coulterville
for over half a century. He has been a positive factor in its business
life and has contributed of his capital and his energy toward the
substantial development of the community. It was his initiative that
developed the first real industry of the place during and upon the heels
of the Civil war. It was his yearning for achievement that prompted his
burrowing down into the vitals of the earth in search of coal, and which
resulted in uncovering a mineral deposit which gives Coulterville its
real life throb today, and in a myriad of other minor ways he has become
a powerful influence in the life of his locality.
Mr. Jones was
born in Jackson county, Illinois, on the 16th of February, 1839. While
he was still a babe in arms his parents moved to old Eden, Randolph
county, and there in the healthy atmosphere of country life he spent his
youth. His father, Andrew Jones, was born in Randolph county, Illinois,
in 1815, the son of an Andrew Jones, who had migrated to this part of
the country during the early years of 1800.
Andrew Jones, Sr.,
was a native of South Carolina, the date of his birth being near the
close of the Revolution. He evidently had some education, for he served
as justice of the peace, and his appointment by the Government as one of
the commissioners to select a location in the west for the Cherokee
reservation indicates clearly that he was a man of standing in the
community and that he had an unusual knowledge of the country both
geographically and economically. On first coming to Illinois the
savagery of the Indians forced him to make his home in the old "block
house" near Steeleville. While living here he held the relations of a
trader with the tribes, learning their language, fighting them with both
strategy and fire arms, able to don the dress and play the part of the
red man when occasion demanded. His long and active life, came to a
close during the Civil war.
Among the children of this brave old
fighter was his son Andrew. Like his father, the son was a tiller of the
soil, and he also resembled him in his knowledge of the habits of the
Indians. His wife was Martha Marshall, whose father, William Marshall,
had braved the unknown dangers of the broad Ohio and had brought his
family down the river in a box boat to Shawneetown, not knowing at what
moment the uncertain craft might be caught in a fatal current or sunk on
a hidden snag. On making a safe landing at last the father brought his
family across the country to the old Eden locality. The mother of these
brave pioneers was Martha Marshall.
His intimate knowledge of
Indian lore made Andrew Jones a valuable soldier during the campaign of
the Black Hawk war. The campaign of 1832 proved to be fatal to him, for
he died in 1842 from the effects of an arrow wound received during that
year. His children numbered three. The eldest, Paul Jones, was captain
of Company A, of the Eighteenth Illinois Infantry, during the Civil war.
He had been a blacksmith during the years previous to the war, and after
its close he returned to his forge in Tilden, where he later died,
leaving two sons. The second son went to Texas in the early part of
1861, and is there believed to have lost his life in conflict with the
Southern forces. The youngest was James M. After the death of Andrew
Jones his widow married George Brown, who was a native of South Carolina
and had fought through the Revolution. His death occurred several years
before the Civil war, and his widow continued to live in Coulterville
until her death, in 1895.
Because of the unsettled condition of
public affairs and for domestic reasons James M. Jones' education was
very limited. He was early in life selected for a blacksmith and was
bound to one Joseph Bates. He subsequently had a disagreement with his
master and left him, later going to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, where he
had a thorough training in his trade while working in an edge tool
factory. No sooner did he find himself equipped for the struggle with
life than the outbreak of the Civil war called him back to Illinois to
enlist in the ranks of the Blue. With others he was soon ordered
discharged, but was later drafted into a regiment that was sent into
Missouri in pursuit of General Price's army, which was then making one
of its famous raids into that state. After some months his service ended
and he returned to his trade at Coulterville.
The trade of a
blacksmith was a very profitable one during the years following, for the
demand for war materials and later for the tools with which to again
start the pursuits of peace made his shop pay from the start, and he was
soon employing a force of assistants. He foretold the demand for plows
and erected a small factory for their manufacture. He foresaw the demand
for wagons and began their manufacture. He brought the first lathe for
turning iron to Coulterville, and, endeavoring to meet the demands made
upon him, equipped his factory, located upon the corner of his block,
with the most modern tools of his craft. Until 1870 he did a thriving
business, but at this time he was forced into competition with the
capitalized interests and with the installation of costly machinery, and
these factors necessitated the closing of his shop.
In 1872 Mr.
Jones turned his attention to the mineral field. He and Hugh Kennedy,
his father-in-law and a prosperous farmer, sank a shaft just east of
Coulterville and found coal at the depth of about three hundred feet.
With his partner, Hugh Kennedy, he worked the mine and became an
operator of note in this district. After the death of Hugh Kennedy, J.
Qi Nesbit bought his interest; when the Consolidated Coal Company, of
St. Louis, made overtures for purchasing the plant they sold out to
them, and Mr. Jones then bought a farm of two hundred acres west of
Coulterville, where he sank a shaft. Since that time he has been a mine
owner and operator. He is also interested in agriculture, owning several
farms adjacent to his town, but he is a farmer only by proxy.
As
has been pointed out, James M. Jones has led a busy and strenuous life.
His success as a financier has commended him to the public as a safe and
sane executor of public affairs, yet he has refrained from mixing in
official matters, save for his service as justice of the peace. He has
been three times elected to that minor office but has permitted his
colleague to perform the bulk of the work coming before a magistrate.
He was married west of Coulterville, Illinois, on the 8th of August,
1861, to Miss Margaret J. Kennedy, a daughter of Hugh Kennedy. Their
only son is Lewis Jones, manager of the Jones mining property. He
married Miss Lizzie Dickey on January 22, 1896.
In his spiritual
beliefs Mr. James M. Jones is not orthodox. His fathers were of the
strict Covenanter faith; but he found it impossible to conform to the
tenets of their creed and his practices and professions have deviated
from the "straight and narrow way." In politics he is a Republican. He
believes. in the survival of the fittest, as applied to men in the
industries and the trades, and is jealous of no man because of his
honorable business achievements. Whatever a man produces by his own
skill or by his own capital is yielded to him for his own enjoyment and
no human legislation should attempt to deprive him of its use. There is
no temporizing with socialism, a mild form of anarchy with James M.
Jones, and his doctrines are calculated to restore confidence among men,
stifle the spirit of unrest in the ranks of labor and place the whole
business fabric of the country upon a sound and healthy basis. Mr. and
Mrs. James M. Jones celebrated their golden wedding anniversary August
8, 1911. They have lived in Coulterville over fifty years, and have the
distinction of being the only couple who have lived continuously in the
city for over half a century. They are highly esteemed by their
acquaintances.
Extracted from 1912 A History of Southern Illinois, by George W. Smith, volume 2, page 966.