| 12. | Ebenezer Jones was born on 21 Jan 1763 in Kent Co, or Dover Co, Delaware (son of Zachariah Jones, (immigrant) and Ellen Smith); died on 9 Mar 1862 in Washington, Daviess Co, Indiana; was buried in Old Fellows Cem, Washington, Daviess Co, Indiana. Notes:
Ebenezer Jones, moved west with his family and settled in Indiana in 1811, and there with his family endured a pioneer life. He [---,unreadable] been converted when a boy and became a preacher in the M.E. Church. He lived to see his hundreth year.
The most definitive research on Ebenezer Jones has been carried out by Gilbert X. Drendel, who has written an important book called ?Footprints in the Frontier.?314 This book clarifies many early myths, based on family traditions, that appear to have germs of truth, but to have been mixed up in many cases. The most important early work, which has shaped much of the thinking about Ebenezer Jones, was done by Mrs. Olive Smith, who wrote a book that was privately published and widely distributed in the early 1970s,315 and a great deal of work by Jesse Mattes Jones, who left reams of notes and wrote dozens of letters to other Joneses, but who had the unfortunate habit of not recording sources. It appears that much of what Mattes discovered and disseminated is truth, but some is speculation that has been taken as fact by the new ?internet generation? of family searchers.
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The following tradition was originally written by Mrs. Olive Smith. More recent research by Gilbert S. Drendel suggests that Ebenezer Jones actually was not a Revolutionary War veteran.
?Ebenezer enlisted at Dover, Delaware in the Continental Army on January 20, 1776, in Captain Nathan Adams' Company.316 A family tradition, passed down by Ebenezer's grandson, Enoch Jones, is that "Ebenezer Jones was a husky lad, but wasn't quite tall enough to pass the lax requirements for the Continental Army. Being patriotic and resourceful, he just put padding in his shoes and was accepted. A boy of 13 was as expert with a gun in those days as any man. Ebenezer played a fife as part of his duties during the war. This battered instrument is still in existence somewhere among his descendants." Enoch Jones, son of Hullum Jones, lived to be nearly 99 and knew his grandfather Ebenezer Jones very well. The foregoing story, and others recounted in this essay, were told to Mrs. O. J. Smith. In a letter to the author, dated June 24, 1982, Mrs. Smith said "I knew my great uncle, Enoch Jones (b August 9, 1834 - d December 25, 1932) well, for he lived in Palmetto, Fla. with his daughter Bertha. I was in Palmetto in high school (1912-14) and I often talked with him. He was my favorite uncle! He told me about knowing and talking with his grandfather Ebenezer Jones (b January 21, 1763 - d March 9, 1862). These dates were from O. P. Estes' family bible. O. P. Estes was the grandson of "Gincy" O. Garten, Ebenezer's youngest child."?
Ebenezer Jones became a minister of the Methodist Church at the age of 18, according to family tradition. According to Rowan County probate records, Minister Ebenezer Jones and the trustees of the Methodist Church bought one acre of land on Cedar Creek in Rowan County for the purpose of erecting a church building. Ebenezer and Mary Jones had 15 children in the 26 years they lived in Rowan County. The entire family was recorded in a bible that was kept by the family in their early years in Indiana. The Bible is on display at the Washington Museum in Washington, Indiana. It was printed in 1816 and is five inches by seven inches in size. The writing in the Bible is very faded and its pages are brittle. Accompanying the Jones Bible is a letter that reads, in part, as follows:
"June 23, 1969
Columbus, Ohio
Dear Elva:
I received your letter this past week end, yes, I do have an old Bible that I am sure must have belonged to the Jones Family. Aunt Eula gave me the Bible sometime ago, it was with some things that have belonged to the Wallaces' for years. I imagine the old Bible came from the old Jones Fort which I think was also close to my grand-father Wallaces' house.
Sincerely, Anne Brown"
Because of the open warfare that existed with the Indians, the early settlers of the Vincennes area erected several forts. Although they normally lived in log cabins on their own farms, the settlers repaired to the forts for refuge during especially troubled times. Each of the forts was about 150 feet square and was constructed from timbers about twelve feet high with sharpened tops. There was a gateway for wagons in one wall. Within the enclosure was a two-story, hewed-log house, called a block house. Other block houses were built at the northeast and southwest corners of the fort. The block houses were about 25 by 18 feet in dimension and the second floors were reached by ladders. Some of the inhabitants lived in the three block houses, while others built huts of various size and form, according to their taste and means. In "forting times" the life was spartan, the settlers subsisting on stores of corn, potatoes, turnips, cabbage, pumpkins, and a little meat. One of the forts, called Comer's Fort, was on Ebenezer Jones' farm.317
In 1812, Jesse Jones, son of Ebenezer and Anna Jones, was killed in an altercation with Indians. The following account is abstracted from History of Knox and Daviess Counties.318 "In September of 1812, General Samuel Hopkins was assigned the duty of destroying the Indian settlements along the Wabash and Illinois River. With 2000 volunteers, General Hopkins accomplished the destruction of the Kickapoo town at the head of Lake Peoria. He then returned to Vincennes with his mounted forces, most of whom he proceeded to discharge on the grounds they refused to obey their commander. He then assembled a new force, mostly infantry, and sallied forth with the intention of destroying Prophetstown, which had about 40 cabins and huts, and the large Kickapoo village adjoining it on the east side of the river. On September 21 the force discovered a band of Indians on Wild Cat Creek. The Indians fired upon a scouting party and killed a man by the name of Dunn. The next day a party of 60 horsemen went forth to bury their dead comrade and scout out the Indian force. Approaching the spot where the slain man lay, they discovered a mounted Indian. The troopers dropped their burying tools and started in tumultuous pursuit of the Indian. Their quarry at first kept a northeast course, but gradually inclined to the north, until he arrived at the head of a ravine, which was quite steep at the sides, and covered with timber and thick underbrush. When his pursuers had proceeded about 300 yards down the hollow, they received a very heavy fire on both flanks. A general route ensued. Those who escaped the ambush had to cut their way through the enemy lines. The next day the whole army went out to bury the dead, of which there were eighteen, and found the bodies to be 'much mutilated.' Some who were reported missing were never found. Two of those who were killed in this ambuscade were from the settlement at the forks of the White River--Samuel Culbertson and Jesse Jones, a son of Ebenezer Jones." Family tradition holds that Jesse Jones' saddle girth broke, causing him to fall from his horse. It is said that he was scalped by the Indians. Jesse Jones' estate was probated in 1813.319
The Indian troubles subsided and had virtually ended by the end of 1813. Indiana was granted statehood in 1816 and Daviess County was incorporated in 1817. Its population, which had been but 300 in 1811 when Ebenezer Jones and Joseph Hobbs settled there, had grown to 3432 by 1820. One of the first official activities of the new county was the election of officials. Ebenezer Jones was elected County Treasurer in June, 1817 at a temporary log Court House in the new town. His first report, filed in 1819 showed receipts of $1,126.43 and expenses of $1,064.68. Another of the early activities involved in the establishment of the new county was the creation of a County Seat. The town of Washington was officially established in 1817. Building lots were sold at public auction to raise money for construction of the necessary county buildings. Ebenezer Jones and Joseph Hobbs purchased two of these lots.320
Ebenezer's wife Mary died in 1829, at the age of 67, near Washington, Indiana. She was buried at Washington in the Old City Cemetery, which was abandoned in the late nineteenth century; in 1936 it was levelled by the WPA to build a public Park.321 Two years later, on June 15, 1831, Ebenezer married the widow Kattarine Slinkard, of Green County, Indiana.313 In addition to being a Methodist minister in Washington, Ebenezer was a cabinet maker. The 1850 and 1860 Daviess County Indiana census records show that Ebenezer lived his last quarter century with his son Wiley.322 He died on March 9, 1862 at the age of 99, and was buried in the Old City Cemetery alongside Mary, his first wife.
Another account is given by Eileen Phipps:175
Living in Frederich County, Joseph Sr and Ann Hobbs were neighbors and good friends of the Josiah Roten family. After the Josiah Rotens moved to Rowan County, North Carolina, they maintained close contact with Joseph and Ann, encouraging them to join them in Rowan County. Joseph Hobbs Sr did eventually buy some land in Rowan County, but he and his family never moved there. Instead, they sold their North Carolina land in November of 1784.
The Josiah Rotens had a grown daughter named Mary who was married to Ebenezer Jones. Ebenezer and Mary Jones were living in North Carolina when they, along with some fifteen other families, decided to move to Indiana. In August of 1810 they formed a train of 35 wagons and headed west. Joseph Hobbs Sr seems to have found Indiana a more appealing destination than North Carolina, as he agreed to join the Ebenezer Jones Wagon Train somewhere in Virginia.
On this wagon train young Joseph Hobbs Jr met Ebenezer and Mary Jones's teenage daughter Anna. Joseph Jr and Anna began a courtship that lasted some ten months on the wagon train and culminated in marriage in Washington Township, Knox County, on July 12, 1811, about two weeks after the wagons reached Indiana.
A similar account was told by Mr. Jesse M. Jones, Jr., of Beaumont, TX:161
?Sometime around the last of August in 1810, the Ebenezer Jones Wagon Train, consisting of some 35 wagons, and 16 families left the Salisbury District of North Carolina, in Rowen Co and headed westward to Indiana. As the Jones family and the Roten family had been writing to one another, the idea of migrating westward to Indiana interested the Joseph Hobbs, Sr. family and they agreed to migrate with them. They decided to join the wagon train somewhere in Virginia. It was on this wagon train that young Joseph Hobbs, Jr. met Anna Jones and it was the beginning of a ten and a half month courtship which ended about two weeks after the wagon train reached Washington Township, Knox Co, Indiana when on July 11, 1811, Joseph and Anna were married.?
These last two stories appear to be based on family tradition, probably embellished somewhat by Jesse M. Jones. The part about ?Joseph Hobbs Sr. and Ann Hobbs? refers to a Joseph Hobbs who was married to Ann Maynard in Frederich Co MD. Somewhere along the line, someone decided that this couple must have been the parents of the Joseph Hobbs who married Anna Jones. However, there is good evidence that Joseph Hobbs and Ann Maynard were not the parents of Joseph Hobbs; see miscellaneous notes under Joseph Hobbs for a full explaination.
161. ?A set of papers authored by Jesse M. Jones, Jr. Bob Robison received a copy of these from Andy McDermott.,? Aug 19, 1999., The cover letter is addressed to Mr. A.E. Worthey, 611 John Page, San Antonio, TX 78228., http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin...brobison&id=I719.
http://heathcock.org/genealogy/ps01/ps01_227.html
(see this link for more notes)
also see Rootsweb site:
http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=bobrobison&id=I719#s6?op=GET&db=bobrobison&id=I719
Ebenezer married Mary Wroten in 1782. Mary was born on 8 Apr 1762 in Frederica, Delaware; died in 1829 in Washington, Daviess Co, Indiana; was buried in Odd Fellows Cem, Washington, Daviess Co, Indiana. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]
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1850 - 1928 (78 years)