Richard Peter Jones
& Eliza Edwards Jones
(1816-1889) (1816-1896)
Richard
Peter Jones was born 13 May, 1816,
in Wrexham, Denbighshire, No. Wales. As far as we know, he was the only child of
Edward Jones and Sarah Morris.
Eliza
Edwards was born 16 September, 1816,
in Brymbo Lodge, Wrexham, Denbighshire, No. Wales.. She was the
daughter of Simon Edwards and Elizabeth (Betsan) Jones.
We do not
have a marriage date for them. But their
first son, Amos, was born 19
December, 1837 in Ruabon, Denbighshire, North Wales.
They had eight more children in the same area: Joyce was born 17 January, 1839; Edward Simon was born 17 April, 1842; John was born 22 December, 1843; Hannah was born 25 February, 1846; Sarah was born 2 November, 1847; Margaret was born 9 February, 1851; Isaac Alma was born 28 June, 1853; and Lewis was born 6 August, 1855.
It was
during the year 1856, that Richard P. and Eliza Edwards Jones packed their
belongings, gathered their family together and immigrated to the United
States.
At the time, they were living at Ruabon, North Wales. After arriving in this country, they had the
misfortune of losing two members of the family, Margaret age 6 and Lewis age 2
as they were moving toward the West.
Their first
residence was established at Williamsburg, Iowa,
where a little over a year later their youngest child, William Richard was
born. They remained at Williamsburg
for nearly four years. But the lure of
the West, with its glamour of gold strikes and fortunes, was too much of a
temptation to Richard P. Jones, who was an expert mineralogist and
metallurgist. His fervent desire was to
go to the West and see what would fall his lot.
In the spring of 1861, they continued on their journey toward the Rocky
Mountains and the Salt Lake
Valley. The following winter they spent in Provo,
Utah.
In March of
1862, their oldest son, Amos, was married to Leah Parry. They made their home in Salt
Lake. Their oldest daughter, Joyce, was also
married about the same time to David Thomas of Provo. They remained in Provo
to make their home.
The rest of
the family prepared to journey toward the Sierra
Nevada Mountains. They stopped for a short time in Jacks
Valley, Nevada but later went
to Silver City, Nevada
where they established their residence.
It was there that Mr. Jones staked out “The Pride of the West” mining
claim which remained a deserted mine in Silver
City in 1939.
In 1864,
Mr. Jones went to Oreana, Nevada
and erected the first smelter know in the western part of the United
States.
Charcoal was used in the smelter, and the bullion was shipped to Swansea,
Wales for
refining. It was hauled by ox team over
the Sierra Nevada Mountains
to San Francisco and loaded on
boats.
After
completing this smelter, the family again moved back to Silver
City. They did not remain there very long. They moved to Virginia City
which was only a few miles distant. Mr.
Jones again interested himself in the mining game, and he was living in Virginia
City during the days when Fair, Flood and O'Brien made the famous
strike in the Comstock district.
In those
days the Miner's Union was the law, and the outlaw
element, known as “Bushwhackers”, were a low class composed mostly of
Southerners who were against anything that was in line with law and order. They were anti-unionists. The family lived there
during the Civil War days and were living there when Abraham Lincoln was
assassinated.
Some of
those bushwhackers were present in the famous old “Crystal Barr Saloon” when
news of Lincoln's assassination was
brought to the city. Their slighting
remarks of Lincoln caused the
President of the Labor Union to walk forward, take a whip from one of the mule
skinners present, and whip the bushwhacker until blood ran down into his
shoes. Those were the days when Virginia
City was at its best, one of the liveliest towns in the western country, plenty
of money in cirulation and fortunes being made overnight.
In the year
1867, the family moved to Eureka, Nevada,
where Mr. Jones again founded a smelter for Colonel Buhl and Mr. Bateman, and
remained there to operate it over a period of about three years. Thomas Lilly, his son-in-law, operated a
smelter a short distance from his and Mr. Jones was called from one smelter to
the other whenever anything went wrong.
In 1871,
Brigham Young sent for Richard P. Jones to come to Salt
Lake City to make an examination of the iron deposits
in Southern Utah near Cedar
City. The family moved to Salt
Lake City that year.
Mr. Jones went to Cedar City,
as requested by Brigham Young, but could not make a favorable report of the
project on account of the high cost of production. He did tell Brigham Young that the time would
come when the country was more developed with railroad facilities, etc., that
the iron deposits would become valuable.
At that time, they could not meet the competition of the eastern iron
mines. Mr. Jones remained in Salt
Lake and erected the smelter in Murray,
Utah.
The old slag pile still remains at the southern end of the town of Murry
(in 1939). It was there that Richard P.
Jones lost his fortune.
After the
loss of their fortune in Salt Lake,
in 1876, the family moved to what is known as “The Point” at Samaria,
Idaho, and tried their luck as
farmers. Here they lived happily and
humbly, as did the other pioneer residents of that locality. They did not have so much of the worldly
goods that they had been used to prior to coming there, but the peace and
contentment that comes from living close to nature was theirs until the end of
their days.
Richard P.
Jones died 3 September, 1889
in Malad, Idaho
at the age of 73. Eliza followed a few
years later. She died 15 November, 1896 at the age of
80. They are both buried in Malad
City Cemetery.
(This
history was given by William Richard Jones at the Jones Family Reunion at Lagoon
on 25 June, 1939. William Richard was the youngest member of
the family and the only surviving member at that date. He was 82 at the time.)
(Taken from "A Family History of Bernard A. and Mary L. Jones,
1774-1994", compiled and organized by Teri Jones Cook, Mabel Jones
Gabbott, and Sue Gabbott Dewey. Courtesty of Teri Jones
Cook.)
