V  The Fate of John U Jones

John U. Jones (1817 – 1856) In 1988 there was enough geospatial evidence to suspicion that he (person # 60 in my book) was one of Isaac Jones’s grandchildren but there was no clear link to Thomas, Wiley or Burrell. And Joshua D Jones was too young to have been his father. So his parentage was a puzzle.

The 1850 Calloway County Census provides the names of John U and Nancy Evaline Wells Jones’ (1819 TN– 1862KY) first four children (birth and death dates places added);

ü  Milton Wells Jones 1840KY – 1892KY

ü  Francis Elizabeth Jones 1842KY – 1926KY

ü  James Jones 1845 KY – >1860?? 

ü  William O. Butler Jones 1850KY – 1897 KY

John U Jones purchased land as early as 1841 in Calloway County near the Tinsley survey. In 1848 Isaac Jones sold him some of the original Tinsley lands for the bargain price of $8 dollars and since Isaac Jones didn’t make trivial land deals this act suggests they had a special relationship. John U Jones’ last local land transaction was a deed dated 16 November of 1853 in which John U & Nancy E Jones sell parts of NEQ 15, T3, R5 E and NWQ, S14, T3 N, R5 E to T E Goodwin for $250.00. After that transaction they disappeared from Calloway County. 

But they were nearby; John U and Nancy Evaline Jones were next listed in the McCracken County KY birth records as the parents of a child named Andrew C Jones, born on 26 Dec 1852. Unfortunately that child died on 13 Jan 1853 and the McCracken County record again confirmed they were his parents.

Three years later a death was recorded in McCracken County recorded for a Mr. John M Johns that at first seemed irrelevant. The details revealed that this married man, who died on 10 April, 1856 was a white male, 38 year old farmer who had been born in North Carolina (see below).

1856 McCracken County Death record for John M Johns (actually John U Jones)

Subsequent, McCracken County records revealed that a certain Nancy E Jones married Mr. William James Wright on 17 June 1858. The marriage record did not say she was a widow but the timing; roughly 2 years after the death of John M Johns suggested this clue was worth following.  

Looking for Mrs. Wright in the next census was rewarding. The Graves County KY Census of 1860 (adjacent to McCracken, Marshall and Calloway Counties) shows the Wm J Wright’s household to include his new wife Nancy. More importantly this same household also included two of her sons with deceased husband John; their names were James and William Jones.

William, whose full name was William O “Butler” Jones (1850 KY - 1897 KY) lived a full traceable life and was buried near where he lived in 1860 in Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Cemetery, Graves County KY. This was strong evidence we had the correct family.

James Jones who was born in 1845 unfortunately could not be traced after the 1860 census. Mr. W J Wright’s household also included another Jones child that was not listed in the 1850 Calloway County Census; a female named Dursilla who was 5 years of age. No record of her birth has been found.

Final proof would lie in finding the other children of John U and Nancy E Wells Jones near their mother’s new home. Another Wright family lived nearby and in that household was a 19 year old male named M. W. Jones. Tracing him forward in time revealed that this was Milton Wells Jones the eldest son of John U and Nancy E Wells Jones. Finding this son, whose middle name was sourced from Nancy’s family name was proof we had found the correct Nancy and her family. Milton Wells Jones married in Graves County and had a large family before dying at the age of 51. He and his mother are both buried in the Wright Chapel Cemetery in Graves County KY.

In early 1860 Nancy and John’s eldest daughter Frances Elizabeth Jones had married an older, widowed man named Presley Atwell Knight in Graves County KY. She and Mr. Knight were found in the 1860 census living close to the Wrights. After the death of Mr. Knight she remarried Mr. Lowe and is buried nearby in Pleasant Grove Cemetery, Graves County KY.

Knowing what happened to Nancy E Wells and four of the five known children she had with John U Jones is definitive proof that the John M Johns death record was actually that of John U Jones . . . there is more!

Proof that John U Jones was a son of Thomas and Mary Jones 

As you can see John M Johns (John U Jones) death record provides the name of John’s father and mother. His parent’s names were recorded in excellent script as Thomas and Mary Johns. These findings indicate that Thomas’s first wife Nancy had died and that Thomas had remarried to a Mary (maiden name unknown) who was the mother of John U Jones. Perhaps Nancy Brown Jones’s name was more complex, i.e. Mary Nancy Brown, Nancy Mary Brown, nicknames etc but this seems unlikely.

This finding makes it likely that Mary was also the mother of Thomas’s other children born between 1818 and Mary's death before his 3^rd marriage to Martha A Nunley circa 1845.