Jones, John Rice, Jr., 1792-1845

John Rice Jones, Jr., (1792-1845), son of John Rice and Mary (Barger) Jones, was born in Vincennes, Indiana, on January 8, 1792. He and Stephen F. Austin were boyhood friends in Missouri, where their fathers were partners in a lead-mining operation. When the partnership was dissolved, the Jones family moved to St. Louis. Jones, Jr., served in the War of 1812 under Gen. Henry Dodge and held several civil positions before he moved to Texas in 1831, the first of three brothers to immigrate to the future republic. He received a grant of a league of land on Cummins Creek, now in eastern Fayette County, where he established a plantation known variously as Fairland or Fairyland Farm. He lived for a time at San Felipe and in October 1835 joined the Texas army. On December 11, 1835, the General Council elected him postmaster general. He held the position until December 22, 1836, when Robert Barr succeeded him. Jones was reappointed postmaster general by Mirabeau B. Lamar on December 14, 1839, and served throughout Lamar's term. Jones was first married to Ruth Mary Hawkins. After her death on September 5, 1837, he married Sarah Fidelia Heard. He died in 1845 at his home on Cummins Creek and is buried in the family cemetery.

John Rice Jones III, (ca. 1815-1850), the son of John Rice Jones, Jr., was born about 1815, possibly in Missouri. He moved to Texas with his father in 1831 and lived with his family at Fairland Farm in Fayette County and at Spanish Camp in Wharton County. On April 25, 1843, with his uncle, M. F. Jones, he left Georgetown as a member of the Snively expedition. When the expedition was captured by a detachment of the United States Army on the Arkansas River, John Rice Jones III, with some other members of the party, returned to Texas via St. Louis, where he arrived about September 20, 1843. He was a clerk in the General Land Office at the time of his death on August 21, 1850.

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