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From:
Subject: The Jones Family
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 07:32:12 EDT

I am transcribing the book, "A Lost Acadia" and found the following sketch of
the Jones family with ties to Augusta, GA, New Jersey, Virginia, and Alabama.

John Rigdon

A Lost Arcadia
Walter A. Clark
1909
Chronicle Job Print

Seaborn Augustus Jones

The blood of the Jones tribe tinged so thoroughly the strain and lineage of
our community that Jonesville might properly have been added as an "alias" to
its title. Four of its old time homes were presided over by charming
matrons, who had borne before their marriage the name of Jones. One of its
clever residents married a widow Jones. My grandwother [sic], Martha Jones
Walker, one of its earliest settlers, was the grand child of William Jones
who married Mary Jones, and in the early '50s the family of Seaborn Augustus
Jones purchased the home of Moses P. Green and became residents of the
village.

In 1725 there died in Petersburg, VA., a Peter Jones, who was the ancient
sire of all this goodly tribe. He must have been a man of some note, for
Petersburg was named in his honor. He had the further distinction of being
known as "Sweat House Peter," having acquired that title by reason of the
fact that he builded and ownde the only "sweat house" in his community for
the curing of his own and his neighbors' crops of tobacco. He was also
somewhat os to lineage, his father Abram being the son of Richard Jones of
Wales, who married lady Jeffries.

This Peter of Petersburg and sweat house fame had a son bearing the same name
and Peter the Second had three sons, Abram, Henry, and William, who migrated
to Georgia in ante Revolutionary days, located in Burke County and became the
progenitors of the numerous Jones contigent in this and other sections of the
State. William Jones lived near the present site of Story's Mill and was its
original builder and owner. The Jones tribe before or after their advent in
Georgia developed tow marked characteristics, first for marryig their
kinsfold and second for giving their male progeny the name of Seaborn. I
have been informed that the original owner of the name was born at sea - was
literally sea-born, but it he was a scion of this particular Jones tree he
must have lived, as the rural preacher said of Moses, "away back in the
fu-char," for this section failed to hold a sea among its material assets.

But the Seaborns came all the same and came with the variations. Sometimes
it ws Seaborn Augustus and then Augustus Seaborn, sometimes Seaborn Henry and
sometimes Henry Seaborn, as in the case of the present Col. Henry Seaborn
Jones of Hephzibah, who will receive futhter notice in these records as the
untiring, unexcelled and unpaid agent of the Hephzibah Express.

And they married and intermarried. Abram Jones married Martha Jones and
James, their son, married another Jones, and Seaborn son of James married
Margaret Jones. William, brother of Abram married Mary Jones and their
daughter Mary, my great grandmother, not finding a Jones eaxctly [sic] to her
taste, married a relative, Daniel Evans, for the Jones and Evans blood had
mingled in Virginia. William, Jr., son of William, married two sisters fo
Daniel Evans, and Thomas, son of William married another sister of Daniel.
In evidence of this general family tendency, Col. Henry S. Jones is descended
from two of the brothers, Abram and Henry, and his bright little son, Willie
Henry Jones includes in his ancestral lineage the full trio, Abram, Henry and
William, as do also the children of my two brothers Samuel and Edward. In
further evidence of the Jone strain in the cummunity [sic], Nancy Jones,
daughter of William, Jr., and Mary and granddaughter of William, SR., who
married Samuel Bugg and afterwards Alexander Kennedy lived at "Goshen," which
while not known as a Brothersville home was only a mile away.

Aside from the characteristics named above, this goodly race has been notable
in other ways. John J. Jones, descendant of Abram, served as a member of
Congress in the later '50s, and for long years was the foremost citizen of
his county. Col. A. C. Walker and Gen. Reuben W. Carswell, descendants of
William Jones, were both tendered Congressional honors and both declined.
John A. Jones served for one or more terms as State Treasurer. Seaborn Jones
of Columbus was one of its leading lawyers, and Seaborn Jones of Augusta is
named by its historian, Col. C. C. Jones, as one of its most prominent and
influential citizens. Many of them have gone to the Legislature some of them
possibly to jail or other place of equal honor and distinction, but according
to the statement of a prominent member of the tribe made in the presence of
the writer, "only one of the name has ever gone to the dogs,"

The Seaborn Augustus Jones of this sketch was the son of Thomas and grandson
of Abram Jones. He was never himself a resident of Brothersville save for a
year or less as an inmate of the home of James Madison Reynolds, but his
family soon after his death in the early '50s, purchased and occupied the
Moses P. Green home and remained there for some years after the war. He was
married to Maria Las and as a result of their marriage there were two
daughters, Mary, who became the wife of Wm. H. Chew, and Ida, who married
Philip Jones. There were also two sons, Thomas and Seaborn Augustus, both of
whon died in early manhood unmarried. The oldest daughter, Mary, or Mollie
as she was more generally known, died some years ago leaving two sons,
Benjamin and Hull, and a daughter, Ruth, who is living with her husband in
New Jersey. Ida and her children, George, Seaborn, Sydney (Renfroe) and
Ruth, are living in Burke County.

They were both charming girls, lovable women, and I entertained for them both
a very warm and tender esteem. Writing of them today there comes back to me
a quaint remark made by the elder sister when she was only a girl and almost
a child. Some allusion had been made in her presence to another girl, who
had developed symptoms of affectation, of seeming to be what she was not, and
my young friend Mollie said, "I would rather be natural if I have to be a
natural fool."

Seabie the youngest child was a partial cripple from early boyhood and died
when less than thirty five years of age, but a more perfect gentleman I have
never known. Honor, manliness, truth, gentleness, were written in every
lineament of his face and his unfailing courtesy lingered even as his waning
footfall touch the border land. I sat by his bedside when only a few hours
of life were left to him, when even whispered speech was labored and yet
there was no loving service that his sister's willing hands could render that
failed to bring from his whitening lips a grateful "Thank you sister."
Before his health had failed him he attended with me once a Methodist
District Conference at Thomson, Ga. During this session I was invited by a
friend to spend the night at his home some miles away from the town. Before
leaving I presented my friedn Seabie to a young lady resident and asked her
to look after him in my absence. Another friend standing by said, "You are
wasting words - that boy can run his face anywhere in the world," and few
faces have had better right to such a tribute.

The old home has failed to feel the pressure of its owners' footsteps for
many a year and was recently sold to J. E. Roberson of Augusta.

==========

Although a half dozen (or so) histories of the Augusta area have been
written, this book is the only one with significant genealogy information.
It is approx. 200 pages and will be available in late September for $25.00.

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