From History of Texas, Published in 1896

John Wasdin Jones is the owner of one of the fine farms in Hood county, a tract of three hundred and seventy-six acres, the greater part of which is under a high state of cultivation. There are good improvements upon the place, including a handsome country residence, substantial out-buildings, well kept fences and the other accessories of the model farm, and the owner is now successfully engaged in general farming and stock-raising. He is progressive in his methods, energetic and persevering in his work, honorable in all dealings, and is justly regarded as one of the leading and influential agriculturists of his adopted county.

Mr. Jones is a native of North Carolina, his birth having occurred in Wayne County on the 5th of January, 1837. His parents, John and Mary (Wasdin) Jones, were both natives of the same state and their respective fathers belonged to old Virginian families. In early manhood John Jones learned the saddler's trade, at which he worked for some years, but later in life he became a farmer. He died in North Carolina in 1851, and his wife, surviving him ten years, passed away in 1861. They were the parents of eight children-two sons and six daughters, only three of whom are now living: Sarah wife of William Bardin, who is living near the old homestead in North Carolina; J.W., and Alva A. Balance, also a resident of North Carolina.

J.W. Jones was reared on his father's farm and acquired a good English education in a private school near his home. At the age of eighteen he assumed the management of the home farm, which was largely covered with pine forests, and the manufacture of turpentine therefore became the labor to which he turned his attention. He was extensively engaged in this business at the breaking out of the Civil War. He had removed to South Carolina in 1859 and was doing a large and profitable business, when, in 1861 he put aside all considerations of personal gain to aid in the protection of the southern principles and institutions which had been familiar to him from his earliest infancy. He joined the "boys in gray " of Company A, Fourteenth South Carolina Infantry, with which he was connected until the close of the war, participating in many engagements with his regiment. He was slightly wounded at the battles of Gettysburg and Gaines' Mills, and on the 10th of May, 1864, was taken prisoner at Spottsylvania and held at Fort Delaware until June, 1865, when the war was at an end and he was released.

Mr. Jones returned to his home in South Carolina to find his possessions gone. While he was thus forced to begin life anew, he began school-teaching; which he followed until the close of the year 1865. On the 7th of December of that year he married Sue E. Carter, a native of South Carolina, and a daughter of Giles and Martha Carter, who were members of old families of that state. After his marriage Mr. Jones began farming, and followed that pursuit until 1870, when he came to Texas, arriving in Harrison County on the 18th of March. In the succeeding autumn he came to Hood County, reaching his destination on the 28th of October. He purchased land, but owing to a defective title he was unable to hold it. In 1874 he taught the first school in this part of Hood County, conducting the same for four terms, and at the same time carrying on agricultural pursuits. In 1873 he purchased seventy-six acres of land ten miles south of Granbury, and thereon made his home until 1887, when he took up his residence upon his present farm. In addition to this he owns a tract of one hundred and twenty-five acres elsewhere.

Our subject and his wife are consistent members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. In his political association Mr. Jones is a Democrat, and has always taken an active interest in all public questions of the day. He was elected county commissioner in 1892, filling the office for one term. He belongs to Mistletoe Lodge, No. 67, K.P., and is a man of strong personality and marked intelligence, who keeps well abreast of the times on all public questions, state and national. He is an excellent citizen, highly regarded by an extended circle of friends, and his fine home is the abode of that genuine hospitality for which the south is so justly noted.

SOURCE

History of Texas, 1896, Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Co.

~ Web Page by Jo Ann Hopper ~

1999 HOOD COUNTY TEXAS GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY