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Note: 1759 - 1824
Son of John Jones and Ann Williams.
Husband of Mary Barger.
Father of Myers Fisher Jones, John Rice Jones, George Wallace Jones,and Augustus Jones.
Grandfather of Amelia Scott Jones Fariss.
A 57-page paper on Judge John Rice Jones and another son, Rice Jones1781-1808, written by W. A. Burt Jones, was published in 1890 in VolumeIV of the Chicago Historical Society's Collections, "Early Chicago &Illinois."
John Rice Jones was born in Mallwyd, a beaautiful village on themurmuring Dyfi in Merrionethshire, Wales. It is the wildest and mostpicturesque of all Welsh counties. Mallwyd in English is "New Town."
He married Eliza Powell January 8, 1781 in St. Mary's Chapel, Churchof England. He received a collegiate education at Oxford, and then tooka regular course in both medicine and law. He practiced law in London.
He came to America in the spring of 1784. He settled inPhiladelphia, and became a friend of Benjamin Franklin.
In 1787 he named a son Myers Fisher Jones for his best friend andPhiladelphia law partner, Myers Fisher, but mother and infant died inchildbirth. He named another boy Myers Fisher Jones in 1800.
He moved to Vincennes, Indiana. In 1801 he was appointed AttorneyGeneral of Indiana by Pres. William Henry Harrison. In 1805 he was amember of the Territorial Council. In 1808 he was President of the 2ndGeneral Assembly.
He moved to Kankaskia, Illinois Territory, which is now Missouri, in1808. He was the first practicing attorney in Illinois. He moved toMine-A-Breton, Missouri in 1808. It later was renamed Potosi. He wasin the lead-smelting business with Moses Austin at Potosi. John Jones,Myers Fisher Jones, and Stephen F. Austin were boyhood playmates.
Moses Austin lost the family fortune, and was trying to start anewwith a Spanish land grant in Texas. Stephen F. came to Texas in 1820,and Moses died soon after that.
Lyda Fariss Wilson in a hand-written note reports that Stephen F.Austin owed the family some money. The Jones boys came to Texas fromCaledonia, Missouri and got land in payment for this debt. John RiceJones came to Texas in 1831, and he may possibly have collected some onthis debt; his first land was in Brazoria County.
Two of his sons married three Reyburn sisters.
Missouri became a state in 1820. He was a member of the 1stConstitutional Convention, and was appointed a member of the SupremeCouncil.
Missouri had three Supreme Court Judges, one of whom was our JudgeJohn Rice Jones. Whenever Court was in session, he rode horseback the55 miles from Potosi to stay with his daughter Harriet Jones Brady inSt. Louis. Court was in session on a Sunday morning when he was takenill. There is some indication that he was stricken in the courthouse,and carried to his daughter's home, but in any case he died in her homeon a Sunday morning in St. Louis on February 1, 1824.
He was very eccentric, and had been stubborn about having an oilportrait made. Immediately upon his death, his daughter called in anartist, a family friend, to do a portrait. This work was started withina few hours after death. Friends and family reported that the paintingwas a remarkably good likeness.
This Missouri country being the territory of the old LouisianaPurchase of 1803, the population was 90% Catholic. For a time, it waseven against the law to build a church or worship in public in theProtestant faith. To be married as Protestants, a couple had to leavethe state. The Jones family was Episcopalian. Harriet had converted tothe Catholic faith at her marriage. She had her father buried in aCatholic cemetery. When his sons, among whom were some strong Masons,arrived in the home town, they were upset. The sons had their fathersecretly disinterred and reburied in a Protestant cemetery. They keptsecret the location of the cemetery. To this day, we do not know wherethe Judge is buried.
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