Jones, Calvin, 1775-1846

Calvin Jones, who moved to Smithfield, N.C., in 1795, was a physician; officer in the North Carolina militia; editor of the "Star," a Raleigh, N.C., newspaper; and owner of a plantation near Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn., to which he moved his family in 1832. His son, Montezuma Jones, ran the plantation upon his father's death. His grandson, James W. Jones, was an attorney and member of the Tennessee legislature.

Calvin Jones (1775-1846) was born in Weymouth, Mass., where he studied medicine and passed his examination before the officers of the United Medical Society at the age of seventeen. He practiced medicine in Massachusetts until 1795, when he moved to Smithfield in Johnston County, N.C. He soon became active in many phases of public life: civic, professional, political, military, social, and educational. Jones had a wide circle of acquaintances among prominent men. In addition to medicine, he seems to have been interested in agriculture. He wanted to use the most modern, scientific methods available and corresponded with several persons about farming techniques. He also kept a journal from 1820 to 1835 about his agricultural experiments in Wake County, N.C., and Hardeman County, Tenn.

In 1798, Jones became an officer in the Johnston Militia Company. He continued his military career, becoming adjutant general in 1808. After the outbreak of the War of 1812, Jones was made major general of the North Carolina militia, 7th Division. In 1819, Jones married Temperance Boddie Williams Jones (1786-1873), daughter of Major William Williams of Franklin County, N.C., and widow of Dr. Thomas C. Jones. With her first husband, Temperance B. Jones had one son, Thomas C. Jones. Calvin and Temperance B. Jones had several children, three of whom survived: Montezuma Jones, born in 1822 at Wake Forest, who married Elizabeth Wood and died near Bolivar, Tenn., in 1914; Octavia Rowena Jones, born in 1826 at Wake Forest, who married Edwin Polk of Bolivar, Tenn., and died in 1917; and Paul Tudor Jones, born in 1828 at Wake Forest, who married first Jane M. Wood and second Mary Kirkman and died in Corinth, Miss., in 1904.

Calvin Jones had a younger brother, Atlas Jones (d. 1841), who was in the class of 1804 at the University of North Carolina, and two other brothers of Calvin Jones: Andes Jones (d. 1822) and Horace Jones (d. 1828). Atlas Jones became a lawyer and practiced at Carthage, N.C., and later at Raleigh. He apparently acted as a land and business agent for his brother Calvin. Andes Jones seems to have settled in the Rocky Mount, N.C., area, and also acted as a business agent for his brother. In 1832, Calvin Jones and his family moved to Bolivar in Hardeman County, Tenn., to his estate of 30,000 acres. There, he retired from the practice of medicine and devoted his energies to planting. Calvin Jones and his daughter Octavia made a tour of Europe in 1844. Jones died in Bolivar in 1846.

Calvin Jones's son, Montezuma Jones, continued to operate the plantation near Bolivar after Calvin Jones's death. Montezuma Jones's son, James W. Jones (1855-1934), became an attorney and member of the Tennessee legislature. (For further information on the Jones family, see Series 5 for the inventory of Jones Family Papers in the Tennessee State Library and Archives.)

(Parts of this biographical note were adapted from a sketch of Calvin Jones by Edward Preble in the Dictionary of American Biography, pp. 163-164.)