Isle of Wight-Nansemond County Virginia USGenWeb Archives Biographies.....Jones, Joseph D., 1890 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/va/vafiles.htm ************************************************ Life of J. D. Jones Read to Descendants FAMILY REUNION OF DESCENDANTS OF JOSEPH DAVID JONES HELD AT MORGART'S BEACH AUG. 21. (By J.B. Jones) This happy occasion would indeed be incomplete without some account of the life of him from whom we are all descended. Because I am now the oldest of us, and therefore my memory reaches farther back into the past than that of any of the rest of you, I have undertaken to record, in a more or less orderly form, the history of my father's life. My father, Joseph David Jones, was born in 1813 in Nansemond county, Virginia. At the time of his birth his father, David Jones, was in the military service of our country in its second war with Great Britain, the War of 1812. Father's boyhood and youth were spent in Nansemond county near the place now known as Holland, and were uneventful. His father, believing that every man should have a trade, apprenticed him to an expert wheelwright and blacksmith, from whom father learned the trade that stood him in such good stead in later life when times were harder than in his youth. Soon after reaching his majority father was made a deacon in the Baptist church, showing that he possessed in youth the fundamental of Christian character that remained with him until his death. The first event in my father's life of particular interest, as it is for so many of us, was his marriage on June 28th, 1838, to Margaret Holland, and to this union were born five children. For the next twelve years father managed his business of wheelwright and blacksmith and by degrees acquired considerable property. The date of the death of father's first wife is uncertain, but in 1850, on October 31st, he married Martha John Savage, and from this second union were born seventeen children. His life continued in the even tenor of its way in pursuit of his calling. He continued to acquire property until at the beginning of the War Between the States he owned a large farm and numerous slaves. Speaking of slaves brings to mind an incident of which I have often heard him tell. Just before the war he was appointed, without his knowledge, to the office of "Patter-roller." Father's standards were high. When he was informed of the appointment he was highly indignant and flatly refused to serve. He said that the business of pursuing, capturing and flogging stray negroes was degrading and beneath the dignity of a man of honor. The fateful year of 1860 that ushered in the War Between the North and the South found father still in Nansemond county and a leading citizen of his community. For him as for his neighbors, the war brought distress, suffering, and in the end poverty. As the conflict pursued its course conditions became even more desperate. People suffered the lack of many things, not the least of which were medicines and medical attention. Because of this lack, in a period of seventeen days, father buried with his own hands four of his children who died in an epidemic of diphtheria. In the winter of 1863 father had his first brush with the enemy. Though his age kept him from (Continued on Page 4) ****************************************************************************** Life of J. D. Jones Read to Descendants (Continued From Page 1) going to war, the war came to him, and on this occasion a Federal army had been on the march through Nansemond county and from daybreak had been passing the farm. The weather was bitter cold and the ground hard frozen. By night the main army had passed, but as dark settled down numerous parties of stragglers filled the road. One of these parties invaded the farm and broke into the hen house. Father went out and said: "Gentlemen, do not strip us. These fowls are all we have to live on." The reply was a threat to put a bullet through him, and a blow on the head. The blow was from a sabre and was so severe that the sabre broke into three pieces that fell on the frozen ground with a clinking sound. Mother had followed father out of the house and had heard the threat and the blow and the noise of the broken sabre. At once she cried out to those in the house, "Bring the gun." The invaders, knowing that they were subject to punishment by both their own army and the Confederates, if caught pillaging, and realizing that a shot would probably bring organized forces to the rescue, fled in terror, leaving brass buttons and scraps of blue uniform clinging to the splintered sides of the hen house. Father did not lose his chickens, but he I had a headache for a week. This experience taught father a lesson and he resolved to be better prepared to defend himself if occasion should arise. It was not long before another army was in the neighborhood, this time in command of General Longstreet. Early one morning an orderly came to the farm with a summons for father to come to the General's headquarters. Arriving there father was asked if he desired a guard to be placed at his home. He promptly said that he did and thanked the general very heartily. As he was about to leave the General invited him to stay and share some very excellent whiskey he had just received. Father replied, "Sir, I thank you for the honor, but I must refuse; I never touch liquor, Sir." The following summer a wounded Confederate soldier named Dick Meade was staying, during his convalescence, in father's home. One morning while the members of the family were at breakfast a sudden disturbance in the yard took my mother to the door, where she was met by the sight of the yard full of Federal soldiers, with several approaching the house. Mother stood her ground in the doorway, while Meade ducked behind a door swinging open into the room. As Meade peeped through a crack in the door behind which he stood, close enough to the Federals to see the color of their eyes, my mother sold them milk by the glassful, never leaving the doorway until the supply was exhausted, when the Federals rode away, and Meade came from behind the door. After the war Meade secured a position in the Norfolk Navy Yard and was working there when the hull of the Merrimac was raised. From a piece of live- oak taken from the hul1 Meade made a walking stick that he presented to my father in token of his esteem and appreciation of what father did for him during the war. This stick is now in possession of one of father's descendants. The war came to an end and gradually father and those about him readjusted themselves to the new conditions. Father had lost about all he possessed in the way of property, but nothing daunted he set to work as a wheel-wright and blacksmith. In the early 80s he sold farm in Nansemond and moved into Isle of Wight buying a farm near Windsor where he lived out the closing years of his life. As he rounded the mile-post of three-score and ten he often remarked that in his entire life he never saw two men fight, he never hit a man in anger, he never called a man a liar and he never took a drink in a bar-room. His striking character is best attested to by the fact he was a deacon in the Baptist church for over fifty years. In the church of his youth he served as deacon for forty-seven years, when he changed his membership, and was one of the founders of the church now known as Holland Baptist church. This church has within recent years erected a modern house of worship and there is in the building a window to the memory of my father. Father's church offered to license him to preach. This he refused, saying that a man didn't need a license to preach, for if God had given him the ability to preach that was sufficient license. Father did preach and I have heard him preach many a funeral. Father died in February, 1890, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. Of his large family there are now living three. Mrs. Katie Atkinson, Trilby, Fla. Mrs. Lula E. Delk, Windsor, Va. J.B. Jones, Smithfield, Va. Joseph David JONES, wheel-wright & blacksmith, b. 8 Apr 1813, Nansemond Co., d. 13 Feb 1890, Isle of Wight Co., interred in the BUTLER-JONES family cemetery*, Lovers Ln., Windsor, "Smithfield (VA) Times," Vol. 11, No. 22, Aug. 28, 1930, pp. 1 & 4 *Isle of Wight County Historical Society {IWCHS} Grave Site Survey Task Force {GSSTF} report #133: http://www.iwchs.com/Cemetery-Reports.html Find a Grave Mem. #135515110 A tattered family record, found by Ralph Raymond JONES, Jr., in a metal box in his late father's possession, was posted to an Ancestry.com family tree by alsowhitchurch. It reads: Births PARENTS. Joseph D. Jones, Born April the 8" AD' 181[3] + Margaret Holland, Born June the 15" AD' 181[5?] CHILDREN. William T. Jones, Born December the 5" 1838.* + Marie E. Jones, Born February the 17" AD. 1841 + James R.* Jones, Born November the 5" AD. 1843* + Margaret V. Jones, Born September the 23" 1846 + Infant Born March the 4" A.D. 1850. Our second Mother. Martha J. Savage, Born December the 14" 18[torn] CHILDREN. + Infant Born July ___ 1851. *The D.Cert. 3903 (Holy Neck #2) of William Thomas JONES gives b. 5 Dec 1836; d. 2 Feb 1914. He is was an orderly sgt. in Co. K, 41st VA Infantry, CSA. He is buried in Holland. Holland list, an extension of Southampton County Historical Society {SCHS} Cemetery Project: http://files.usgwarchives.net/va/nansemond/cemeteries/holland.txt *William's full brother was Rev. James Eldridge JONES, who had been the Capt. of Co. K. He is buried in South Quay Baptist Church Cemetery; the list gives b. 26 Jul 1841; d. 4 Apr 1912. South Quay list, another extension of SCHS Cemetery Project: http://files.usgwarchives.net/va/nansemond/cemeteries/squay.txt Their half-brother Tiberius Gracchus JONES was shot 26 Oct 1908, in Holland, & d. the next day, age 52. He is also buried in Holland. Articles on the incident, with additional notes on the family, are posted at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/va/nansemond/newspapers/19080208td.txt Their half-brother brother Zachary Taylor JONES, a former Marine & policeman, had been arrested 31 Jul 1908, charged with criminal assault. A grand jury twice failed to indict him, and he was convicted in police court 10 Oct 1908 of a lesser charge; however, a grand jury finally indicted him, and he was convicted 5 Mar 1909. He d. 5 Apr 1926, and bu. is buried with his in-laws in the Smith-Hopkins-Cooke Cemetery, in Tabb, York Co. His D.Cert. (#9219 {Kecoughtan 176}) gives bu. Smithville, York Co. Their youngest half-brother Jno. Bunyan JONES, the author of this article, d. 16 Mar 1915, in Norfolk, and bu. is buried in Elmwood Cemetery, Norfolk. (D.Cert. 6691) A photo of his gravestone is posted at the Norfolk City VA USGenWeb Archives, Elmwood list: http://www.usgwarchives.net/va/norfolkcity/cemeteries/elmwood/elm-johnson-n-jones-j.html Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by File Manager Matt Harris (zoobug64@aol.com). file at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/va/isleofwight/bios/j520j1bi.txt