Keeping up with the Joneses Pt 2

Ahhh finally, enough about me, and back to the Joneses! That's why you're really here, isn't it? Well, wait, our family consists of more than the Joneses, doesn't it? Oh Yes, I am so glad you asked! In this blog (not this particular one), we will visit them all, picking apart and debunking myths. I will share what I know.

So where were we? Let's see...        Alfred Hines Jones 

Alfred Hines Jones was a judge of some sort in his new home in Washington State after relocating with all his children to Charleston, Kitsap County Washington in 1912. These days, of course, Charleston is an incorporated part of Bremerton but in the early 1900’s Charleston on the west side of the present day, Bremerton was a distinct and separate municipal entity.

His obituary in the Bremerton paper on the day of his death March 3, 1922 states he served three years as a police judge in Charleston sometime between his arrival in the Bremerton area up until his death. Just what years he was in that position is yet to be determined.

Our grandfather had finally left Arkansas behind in 1912 after liquidating his Arkansas holdings and moved on to Washington State in order to be with his children in his later years. Those children still living with him in Harrison were his daughters Eula and Ruth, sons Albert and Bill and granddaughter May Rutledge and assumedly this group made the trip to Washington together. Already in Washington State were his sons Samuel and Charles. Samuel can be found in Charleston in the 1910 census but Charles is yet to be located. Charles, his son often said he arrived in Bremerton in 1909 which leads me to believe he was still there one year later. Since he was in bridge construction for many years he very well could have been anywhere in the Northwest on a construction site and was simply overlooked in that census year. Two years later Charles married Pearl Baker in Almira, Washington where her family resided suggesting to me that he truly was in the state in 1910.

The following is taken from an e-mail to Charles F. Jones Jr. some time back where I explained what was found in the Kitsap County City directories:

“I just finished looking at Microfilm copies of all Bremerton and Kitsap County city directories covering the years 1909-1934. I was just curious to see which Jones family members were living where and when.

A.H. Jones first appears in 1913 and his last entry is 1921 which was just a year before his death. It's interesting to note that over the years much of his family lived with him off and on, even Charles and his first wife Pearl appear to be living with him in 1916. The house address isn't given, it's just described as Naval Ave, corner of 4th or near 4th"

If I haven't given you enough to hunt down, I'd like to bring to the record another facet of this story and it goes back to Arkansas in the period just preceding the families final departure from Boone County. It is the record of the appointment of Alfred Hines Jones as a Justice of the Peace in Boone County, Jackson Township, Arkansas, in 1898, the location of the Arkansas origins of the Jones family. This is the very area that A.H. Jones settled in shortly after the death of his father Samuel Jones in Gordon County Georgia in 1870

The Arkansas document above was provided to me by one Nancy Hicks, of the Atlanta, Georgia area, a valid descendent in our overall Jones line, during an internet e-mail exchange of several weeks in early 2011. She really is very knowledgeable of the early family origins and is the collaborator with one Kristin Ingram Johnson recently at one time residing in the State of Oregon. Kristin posted her knowledge of the family origins to the internet in the early 2000’s and fortunately, I was able to download her data and I have used it as my baseline for the Jones family. Kristin no longer shares that data online and I am grateful to her for all efforts in the past and I attribute her in a large part of many of the earliest mentions of Jones ancestors in my expanded database. Much of what Kristin published was furnished by Nancy Hicks some ten years ago when as Nancy Hicks confirmed they collaborated on the overall data.

I was eventually able to come across Nancy Hicks in 2011 simply thru Google searches. Kristin had mentioned the help of Nancy within some of her source details and as internet search capabilities improved over the years it was eventually quite easy to make contact with Nancy.

My question at this point is just how accurate is the statement regarding A.H. Jones stating that he had been an early police judge? I do wonder however after searching through early Charleston City Directories, was the statement found in his obituary an exaggeration of his early Arkansas position or did he truly preside as a municipal judge of some sort in Charleston and perhaps he acquired that position based on his Arkansas experiences?

Interesting to speculate but until a thorough search of Kitsap County records can be achieved we may never really know the accuracy of the fact.

The obituary itself has errors in it that makes me wonder just how knowledgeable was the person providing the facts of the man’s life. The newspaper article states he was born in Calhoun County, Georgia but it is well assumed he was born in Gilmer County. The two counties are some distance apart and Calhoun County has no mention in any other early family records. The obituary also mentions he came to Arkansas with Mrs. Jones when in fact he never married previously to his migration to Arkansas. His first marriage was to Elizabeth Johnson in 1872 in Boone County a year or two after his arrival there.

Now onto Alfred Hines Jones 2nd Marriage. I believe I have shown enough sources for his first marriage and children that were born within that wedlock. Now onto his 2nd marriage.

Perhaps one day someone will answer the question by completing a search of all the early Kitsap County records and determine the accuracy of the statement in his obituary.

I can only conclude that I have no doubt that our great grandfather was a Charleston Police Judge but at this point, I have found no real documentation to either prove or disprove the statement. I do believe he very likely did serve in such a position. However, I just want to suggest the possibility that if he did serve as a judge that perhaps his Justice Of The Peace experience in Arkansas may have been a factor in his being appointed to the position in Charleston. Another possibility is that someone writing the obituary took license to extrapolate the facts to the point that described his history in Charleston as an exaggeration of the facts. Time will tell once the actual County Records are accessed.

Until then....

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