Dade County, Missouri Biographies-Col. Benjamin S. JONES

History Of Hickory, Polk, Cedar, Dade And Barton Counties, Missouri, 1889.
published by Goodspeed, 1889; Pg. 820

Col. Benjamin S. Jones, farmer and stock-raiser, of Rock Prairie Township, 
was born in Putnam County, Ind., in 1832, his parents being the Rev. 
Benjamin and Hester (Alexander) Jones, born in Maryland in 1779 and 1796,
respectively.  They were married in Kentucky in 1822, and the same year 
moved to Indiana, where he died in January, 1845, the mother dying in 
April of the same year.  Mr. Jones was a Methodist minister for twenty-five
years.  He was of Welsh descent, a son of Benjamin Jones, who was born in 
Wales, and came when a young man to America, settling in Virginia, where 
he died when his son Benjamin was four years old.  Grandfather Peter 
Alexander was a Revolutionary soldier, and died in Kentucky.  The subject 
of this sketch, the eighth of a family of ten children, was left an orphan 
at the age of twelve years; he then lived with an elder brother till he 
was eighteen years of age.  He was educated at the common schools till the 
age of seventeen, when he attended one year at Asbury, now De Paw 
University, Indiana, after which he went to Iowa and taught school about 
ten years.  At the breaking out of the war he was clerk in a bank, but 
enlisted in Company M, Third Iowa Cavalry, and on organization of the 
regiment was made first lieutenant.  He held the offices of captain, major 
and lieutenant-colonel, and September, 1864, was made colonel of the 
regiment, which he commanded till the close of the war, when he was 
mustered out at Atlanta, Ga., August 9, 1865, after nearly four years of 
hard service.  He was at the battles of Pea Ridge, Hartsville, Mo.; Little 
Rock; Tupelo, Miss.; Tallahatchee, Miss.; Montevallo, Ala.; and many others.
In 1864 he married Mrs. Kate Newcomb, daughter of James McCashen, of 
Pennsylvania, she having been born in Ohio.  Mr. McCashen died in Lee 
County, Iowa.  They have one daughter, Cora F.  The Colonel now lives one
and a half miles east of Everton, where he has a fine farm of 280 acres, 
which he himself has well improved.  He is a genial, sociable and esteemed 
gentleman.  From 1868 to 1870 Col. Jones was treasurer of Wayne County, 
Iowa; he then served four years as auditor of the same county, when he 
assumed the editorship of the Wayne County Republican, which he ably edited
for eight years, when he was compelled to resign on account of ill health, 
and after spending some time in Kansas looking for a suitable location, 
finally settled near Greenfield, Dade County, Mo., where he lived a few 
years.  In politics he has been a life-long, earnest Republican, casting 
his first vote for Fillmore, in 1856; he has been an earnest worker for 
the party.  He is the present commander of Everton Post No. 359, G. A. R.,
and is a devout member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.  His wife died 
in 1883.

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