Gabriel Jones (politician)

Coat of Arms of Gabriel Jones

Gabriel Jones was born on May 17, 1724, approximately 3 miles (4.8 km) from Williamsburg, in York County, Colony of Virginia.[1][2][3] He was a son of John and Elizabeth Jones, who had arrived in Virginia several years earlier from Montgomeryshire in northern Wales, Great Britain, where Jones's family was of noble descent.[1][2][3][4] Jones's father was a weaver.[5] Jones's elder sister Elizabeth was born on August 13, 1721, at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, and his younger brother John was born on June 12, 1725, at the same location as Jones.[3]

According to Jones family tradition, Jones's father lost a significant amount of his wealth while in Virginia, which brought about his family's return to England in 1727.[1] Jones's father's death prior to 1727 also precipitated the family's move, and following their relocation to England, Elizabeth raised Jones and his siblings in London where she had Jones's sister baptized at St Giles in the Fields on February 20, 1727.[3]

In April 1732, Jones was granted admission to Christ's Hospital (one of England's "Bluecoat Schools") in London following his presentation by Thomas Sandford.[1][3][6] Jones attended Christ's Hospital for seven years.[3] On April 12, 1739, he was discharged from the institution by his mother and John Houghton, a solicitor in the Court of Chancery and of Lyon's Inn in Middlesex.[2][3][6] Despite its noble origins, Jones's family was of limited means,[3][lower-alpha 1] and he served as an indentured apprentice studying jurisprudence under Houghton's charge for a term of six years until 1745.[2][3] At the age of 21, Jones was admitted to practice law following the completion of his apprenticeship.[3]

Following his retirement from his position as Clerk of Court for Hampshire County, Jones continued to remain active in Virginia political affairs. In 1784, George Washington visited and dined with Jones at his home at Bogota.[4] In 1788, Jones and his brother-in-law Thomas Lewis were elected to represent Rockingham County at the Virginia Ratifying Convention, where both were fervent proponents for the adoption of the United States Constitution.[2][10][lower-alpha 4] Archibald Stuart of neighboring Augusta County traveled to Rockingham to canvass for Jones prior to the election, and in return, Jones gifted Stuart a chaise to enable Stuart and his wife to return home to Augusta County.[10] Jones was among the first trustees of the Staunton Academy, following its incorporation by an act of the Virginia General Assembly on December 4, 1792.[25]

Jones continued to practice law in Rockingham County until his death. The road upon which he regularly traveled between his residence Bogota and Rockingham County's seat of Harrisonburg became known as "The Lawyer's Road",[4][10] which evolved to its present name of "Lawyer Road".[4] Because of his prominence throughout the Valley of Virginia region, and possibly also due to the fact he may have been the first lawyer in Augusta County, Jones was nicknamed "The Valley Lawyer".[1][5][6] Jones died at his estate Bogota[10] in October 1806.[26]

In the spring of 1887, a memorial window to Jones and his wife was installed in a new Episcopal church erected near their former Bogota residence.[26] Jones was further memorialized in historian Joseph Addison Waddell's Annals of Augusta County, Virginia (1886), in which Waddell remarked of Jones: "He was considered a man of great ability and unbending integrity. His only fault, or the only one which tradition tells of, was an extremely irritable temper, which, when aroused, expressed itself in the strongest terms he could command, mingled with no little profanity. Having a scorn of all dishonesty and meanness, he did not spare a miscreant by tongue or pen."[10] In his Historic Families of Kentucky (1889), historian and genealogist Thomas Marshall Green said of Jones: "Gabriel Jones rose rapidly in his profession; in attainments he was second to no man at the colonial bar; in native ability he was conspicuous among those who stood in the first rank."[6][7]

Margaret Strother Morton Jones bracelet - miniature portraits of Margaret and four children, including Margaret Morton Jones who married John Harvie.[27][28]

Jones was married on October 16, 1749, to Margaret Strother Morton (1726–1822), the widow of George Morton and the daughter of William Strother and his wife Margaret Watts of King George County.[1][2][3][7] Jones's wife lived to be 97, and was described by Waddell in his Annals of Augusta County, Virginia as "a lady of eminent Christian character".[10] Jones and his wife Margaret had three daughters, one son, and a child of unknown sex that died in infancy: Margaret Morton Jones Harvie, married to lawyer Colonel John Harvie of Albemarle County; Elizabeth Jones Lewis, married to merchant John Lewis of Fredericksburg (son of Fielding Lewis and his first wife Catharine Washington); Anna Gabriella Jones Hawkins, married to John Hawkins of Kentucky; and William Strother Jones (born March 21, 1756), married to Fanny Thornton of Fredericksburg.[13][26][29][30][31]

Jones was an Anglican.[1] As early as 1750, Jones used the same family crest and coat of arms as philologist Sir William Jones, indicating a possible familial relationship between the two.[3] Physically, Jones was of short stature,[26] and according to an extant contemporary portrait of him by artist John Drinker, Jones sported a wig and an eyepatch over his right eye.[26] According to Jones's descendants, it was supposed that his right eye was injured in his earlier years while others attributed the loss of his right eye to an accident during his later years.[26] Jones was completely blind in his right eye, and had likely suffered his injury prior to his tenure as Clerk of Court for Hampshire County in 1757.[1] Philip Doddridge described Jones as wearing a bicorne hat, "frilled shirt bosom", and waistbands.[32] He further described Jones as sporting "powdered hair", a blue coat, a white vest, a cravat, silk stockings, and silver knee and shoe buckles.[32]

In his spare time during and between holding political appointments and serving in elected offices,[20] Jones regularly embarked upon "pleasure trips" to various American cities including Baltimore and Richmond.[20] Another known pastime of Jones's was gaming.[20] According to Maxwell and Swisher in their History of Hampshire County, West Virginia (1897), Jones had been gambling over the course of several days while in Richmond until a final game left him with only one shilling remaining in his pocketbook.[20] Jones was wearing a coat fastened with twelve gold buttons each valued at five dollars,[20] and undeterred after losing his last shilling, he began staking one gold button at a time until he was left with one.[20] Without hesitation, Jones removed his final button and remarked:[20] "Here goes the last button on Gabe's coat."[20][33] Maxwell and Swisher state that Jones's remark "became a proverb in Hampshire County" and was used when someone had been driven to extremes and utilized what little resources were left at their disposal.[33]

Jones settled in Frederick County and on March 1, 1747, he acquired a tract of land along Opequon Creek near present-day Kernstown, where he resided for several years.[1][3] On August 8, 1751, Jones acquired from Christopher Francisco of Pennsylvania 244 acres (99 ha; 0.381 sq mi) of land along the northern side of the South Fork Shenandoah River in Augusta County (later Rockingham County) near the present-day unincorporated community of Port Republic.[10]

While still a resident in Frederick County, Jones purchased another 400 acres (160 ha; 0.63 sq mi) on the northern side of the James River in Botetourt County.[10] On December 3, 1753, Jones sold his property near Kernstown in Frederick County and relocated to his tract of land along the Shenandoah River, on which he established his estate later known as Bogota.[1][8][10][13] Jones was the first to settle and construct a residence on his Bogota property upon his arrival in 1753, and the estate received its name under Jones's occupancy. Jones continued to reside at Bogota until his death in 1806.[4][10][14]

Following Jones's death in 1806, his widow Margaret Morton Jones continued to reside at Bogota until her own death in 1822.[34] Jaquelin Harvie, the son of Jones's daughter Margaret Jones Harvie and her husband John Harvie, purchased the Bogota estate after the death of Jones's wife, and Harvie subsequently sold the property in 1830 to Jacob Strayer, who built the current house in 1845–1847.[34] The original house erected and occupied by Jones was demolished shortly after the construction of the current house.[4] The site of Jones's house is presently located on property no longer part of the Bogota estate, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 25, 2009.[4] A log tenant house estimated to have been built during the mid-18th century during the ownership of the Jones family is extant, and remains part of the current Bogota estate, as of 2008.[4][34]

Explanatory notes

Citations

• Media related to Gabriel Jones at Wikimedia Commons