John Jones born 25 April
1774 the first child of his parents, Ephraim and Phoebe Harned Jones. Sometime before 1778 the family moved to
Northumberland County PA. John got some schooling and may have apprenticed to a
miller.
About 1794 he married Lily Benjamin daughter
of Jonathan and Margaret Brown Benjamin. Both the families moved to the Ohio
River Valley about the same time. Ephraim settling in what is now Monroe County
Ohio and the Benjamin’s and the family of John Jones on the Virginia side of
the river.
Traditional information places the birth of
John and Lily Jones’s first three children near Bull Run which is across the
river from Marietta, Ohio. The oldest were two daughters Phoebe and Margaret
named for their grandmothers. Their exact dates are not know but Phoebe was
born about 1796 and Margaret about 1797. Ephraim B Jones was born 25 March 1800
in Wood County Virginia.
In 1800 John Jones and some of his in-laws
moved their families to what is now Licking County Ohio. John chose to settle
in an area which became Granville. On 1 October 1802 Lily gave birth to the
first European child born in the county, Jonathan B. Jones. Lily fell ill and
died 22 October 1802.
John was left with four young children. He
decided to move to his parent’s home in what in now Monroe County. According to
the notes of B.F. Atkinson he moved with family friends James and Margaret
Atkinson. He may have stayed with his parent until he remarried in 1806 to
Sarah Hurd, but there is a record of him in Ohio County, VA in 1805. John,
Sarah and children lived across the Ohio River from Monroe County near Fishing
Creek, Virginia for about 8 years. John and Sarah had seven children. Five were
living in 1850: Nancy born about 1808; Johnston born 25 Nov. 1811; Hulda born 1814; Owen J. born 1815 and Lily born 1819. John was an Associate Justice in Monroe
County in 1815.
Sarah Jones died in 1843 and John married a
woman named Deborah. John died 12 August 1852.