Lee County Iowa Genealogy

The life of Pioneer Jonathan Jones
in Pilot Grove, Lee Co., Iowa

Being an Account Written about 1893 by His Daughter, Hariet Jones Goodell, to her Half-Brother, Walter Clyde Jones of Pilot Grove to Keokuk
then Chicago.


Transcribed by Nancy Brown Jones, edited and [interpolations] by Gair Tourtellot __ April, 2008

Our father was a man of Indomabe will phisical strength and energy. Of his early childhood and young manhood I have heard but little. He was
the son of Isaac Jones who was from Harrison Co. Ohio formerly from Pennsylvania. Our father came from Ohio in 1837 presenting[?] land going
1.25 an acre, in Lee County Iowa at that time even Chicago was a small town – Soon after this he was married to Eleanor Steele they lived on this
land it was to be their home they had little or no money all was to be done by hard work. I have heard people tell of our father building his house
himself with a jack knife and a plane. he had entered some timber land from which he hauled much of the timber for the house. it was a good one in
every respect comfortable with six rooms as I remember it. there were few in our neighborhood so imposing he worked hard too hard. I have heard how
he worked his horses of which he had some fine ones and oxen too who did their shares he had a beautiful team of young horses matched he
worked them on a threshing machine all one day. (The machine was one of those which was treaded with horses how well I remember this machine)
he got up the next morning one of the horses was dead the next morning the other one was dead. This was a blow to a young man just beginning life
on a farm with everything to make. he would go to the woods for fire wood—every one burned wood in those days not knowing of the coal that was
found later in Iowa. he would drive one wagon with the horses the oxen following with with[sic] another wagon two loads of wood would be cut and
hauled home instead of one as other people did. My earliest recollections of our home I think I was 8 or ten years old [1853 or 1855]. The family
consisted of father Mother my sister and myself 3 or 4 children dying in infancy. At this time the post-office was at our house the stage run from West
Point to Salem carrying passengers and the mail only two or three times a week. I think the postage was 25 cts at this times. Our father took several
papers one being the “New York Ledger” which about this time or a little later [1851–52] printed Uncle Tom’s Cabin in installments. I read this story then.
Our father’s people living at Salem were Quakers and many were the negroes who were helped on their way to Canada. The feeling between the north
and south even at this time was intense. About this time our brother Frank was born [abt 1855]. There was rejoicing in the houshold. Soon after this
father having succeeded well in the farming business having added many acres to his farm until he had near a section of land [nearly 640 acres, possibly most of Section 10,


Marion Twp.?] he raised many cattle and hogs. I remember how the price of hogs not being enough to suit him he killed them himself 69 large ones
and packed smoked the meat When the lard was rendered there were eight barrels of it paid him well to do this. There was much work to this but work
never seemed to bother him. Having this money he concluded to build a new house on a more imposing style. This was a brick house having 15 large
rooms not being enough to suit him he killed them himself 69 large ones and packed smoked the meat When the lard was rendered there were eight
barrels of it paid him well to do this. There was much work to this but work never seemed to bother him. Having this money he concluded to build a new house on a more imposing style. This was a brick house having 15 large rooms

There are some things I remember so plainly about this house They had just finished putting on the tin roof Tin roofing was just beginning to be used
then it was a Sunday afternoon and windy My sister and I with our father went to see the house. We climed to the roof father and Emma walked over
it but I more cautious contented my self looking through the hatchway hole We returned to our mother and the house the wind kept blowing The roof
was blown from the new building. it was shingled then. Father raised much fruit for many years apples and cherries many hundred bushels of apples
each year as to cherries neighbors would come for miles to pick them on shares one year we made a barrel of cherry wine, besides drying and canning
at this time canning fruit was a very new industry, and the cans used were tin ones it was yet to be tried of it would be a success every one dried for months—dried apples dried cherries dried corn and pumpkin.

There were no railroads in Iowa at this time traffic being done by means of the rivers and this reminds me of the trips our father made to St. Louis each
 fall on the steamer to get groceries for the year the night before he started he would take from their hiding place little sacks (like a five cts sack of salt)
 gold and silver we children were allowed to stand and watch these pieces being counted The reason money was kept in this way was people did not
have confidence in the banks it was the time of wild cat money so many banks were failing. The next morning he would start on his trip taking the boat
from Keokuk, returning in a few days with the provisions with a barrel of sugar light-brown and dark brown (There being no white sugar in those days only
loaf a barrel or two of syrup kegs of fish sacks of coffee. green there being no roasted coffee We would roast it ourselves covering it after being roasted
with a little butter and the beaten white of an egg and such coffee we get none like it today.

We had lived in the few house but a short time when my mother died [4 Nov 1858] then I was my father’s housekeeper with the help of a german girl
who lived near us this I did going to school also and here is where my father showed how good he was he took good care of us ever kind and helpful at
this time I was 13 Emma 10 Frank 4 We lived this way for 6 or 7 years being at home with the family two years after I was married we went to keeping house. Emma was then father’s housekeeper for a time. Until he married Sarah Buffington your mother she was a beautiful woman made him a good wife
we children all loved her he married her in Cincinatti Ohio she has told you of him. He was greatly interested in law and studied the statutes of Iowa for
that until I believe he knew it by heart there was a big german settlement near us [St. Paul] he did their law
business for them..business for them..1
 


Postscript

Jonathan Jones was born a Quaker near Freeport, Harrison County, Ohio, on 12 Feb 1815. Disowned by the Quakers as a teenager, he nevertheless
moved with his Quaker parents, Isaac and Mary Millison Jones, and his six siblings, to Salem, Henry County, Iowa, probably in the spring of 1840.
They were joined shortly by members of the Buffington, Jackman, and Millison kindred who shared the same origins in Pike Run Twp., Washington Co.,
PA. Jonathan soon bought land and moved to the site of Pilot Grove in Lee County. About 1843, he married (1) Eleanor Steele (b. abt 1820), of
currently unproved Ohio parentage. Hariet describes what their life was like. They had six children, three surviving infancy. The three who did not were
Abigail 1845 (10 mo 28 ds), Henrietta 1851 (1 yr 8 mo 2 ds), and William 1853 (6 mo 10 ds). They are buried in the Old Pilot Grove Cemetery with their mother, the first four interments there. After Eleanor died in 1858, the year Pilot Grove was platted, Jonathan married (2) Sarah Buffington from Cincinnati about 1866. Sarah was his first cousin once removed (his maternal grandparents and her paternal great grandparents held in common). They had three
sons, William Harry, Walter Clyde, and (Dr.) George Washington Jones. The family moved to Keokuk, Iowa, in 1874. Jonathan died there in 1883. The
letter was probably stimulated by a meeting in Chicago of Hariet J. Goodell, 48, and her nearly unknown half-brother, Walter Clyde Jones, 22, at the
World’s Columbian Fair in 1893.

1 From the unsigned, undated letter written by Jonathan’s eldest daughter. She often used spaces or ends of lines to separate sentences, rather than periods and capital letters.

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