Muscogee County GaArchives Photo Place.....  City Mills May 12, 2007
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Christine Thacker http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00033.html#0008100 May 13, 2007, 7:01 pm

Source:             Christine G. Thacker
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                  4 Men Were Keys to Construction:
                 Jones, Williams, Jordan and Wright.
 ( This is a very large article, so I will post each builder seperate.Three of 
the builders has pictures, there is no picture for Seaborn Jones. CGT) 

                          By william Rowe 
                        Ledger Staff Writer

  Builders are more than ordinary men and no city can achieve 150 years of 
growth without them.
  Four who came to shape Columbus with the force of their talents are Seaborn 
Jones, Charlie Frank Williams, George Gunby Jordan and Raymond M. Wright.
  Among their contributions are, respectively, the city's first industry, home-
country club-military construction, civic-sports-nationally noted golf classic, 
and homes of distinction.
  Earliest in time was Seaborn Jones, born Feb. 1, 1788, died March 18, 1864. A 
lawyer and planter from Milledgeville, he served as solicitor-general of the 
Ocmulgee Circuit in 1817-1818. Major (later Colonel) Jones was aide-de-camp to 
Governor George M. Troup and helped arrange a grand fete for the visit of 
French General Marquis de LaFayette in the early spring of 1825.
  Jones was master of ceremonies at a famous banquet tendered the old champion 
of liberty at Milledgeville, then Georgia's state capital, which historians 
hailed as perhaps the most brilliant in Georgia's social annals prior to the 
Civil War, and Jones won acclaim as the embodiment of grace.
  Major Jones was sent in 1825 to investigate Indian affairs in the territory 
where Columbus would be founded in 1828. 
  Col. Jones came to Columbus and founded Jones and Jones law firm. In 1828 he 
established City Mills, first Industry in the new town. He was the first man to 
throw a dam across the Chattahoochee River to harness its energy, becoming the 
forerunner of others who built other darns making the city a hydro-electrlc 
center. Jones soon afterward drew plans for a house he called El Dorado (land 
of beauty) that was completed in 1833, with 12 Doric columns on three sides, 
which in more recent years has become known as St. Elmo. Here the niece of Mrs. 
Jones, Augusta Jane Evans, wrote the  novel "St. Elmo" that was published in 
1866.
  Jones and S. M. Ingersoll established a ferry across the river one mile below 
Columbus in 1831, John H. Martin's history records.
  Columbus experienced a cholera scare in 1833 and it was Jones who sought a 
young doctor, John A. Urquhart, to come to the town's assistance.
  Jones ran for Congress and was elected to the House of Representatives, 
serving in 1835-45-47. He is recorded as advising the city council in 1836 on 
action to legalize issuance of bonds to construct the Western and Atlantic 
Railroad. He was active in legal cases and affairs of the Methodist General 
Conference.
It was on Sept. 12, 1839, that Seaborn Jones' only daughter, Mary Howard Jones, 
who had served as a flower girl at the LaFayette fete, married Henry L. 
Benning. This Columbus attorney became a Confederate general noted as "Old 
Rock," for whom Fort Benning was to be named.
  Jones owned a fountainhead spring known as Leonard's Spring that was used in 
1850 to establish an aqueduct bringing water through wooden pipes and hydrants 
for some three miles through Columbus. It was Jones in 1850 who was chosen to 
welcome former President James K. Polk of Tennessee to Columbus on a March 15 
visit.
  The pioneer Columbus builder was considered one of the most distinguished 
members of the antebellum group of Georgia lawyers who practiced at the 
Columbus bar.
  But for all his brillance, Seaborn Jones apparently had the human failing of 
thinking of his own affairs last and too late, for he died intestate without a 
will. He was burled at Columbus' Linwood Cemetery, in a plot near the grave of 
his son-in-law General Benning. 




Special Sesquicentennial Supplement III
Ledger- Enquirer, Sunday, April 30, 1978, pg S-28. 

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