The following history was given at the Jones Family reunion at Lagoon, June 25, 1939:
We are assembled here today for the purpose of commemorating the memory of two beloved persons–Richard P. Jones, and his wife, Eliza Edwards Jones. It is only fitting that we should give some genealogical information of the family. What little information I have been able to assemble, I will give a brief outline as follows:
Richard Peter Jones–To only two members of our group here today known as Father, to a good many more of you known as Grandfather, and to a still larger number, Great Grandfather, and indeed to still others as Great, Great Grandfather. He was born May 13, 1816, at Denbyshire in North Wales, and died in Samaria, Idaho, September 3, 1889. He was buried in Malad.
Eliza Edwards Jones–His wife, was born September 16, 1816, at Brymbo Lodge, Wrexham, North Wales, and died in Malad, Idaho, November 15, 1896. She was buried beside her husband.
To this beloved couple, the following sons and daughters were born:
Amos Jones–Born December 29, 1837, at Ruabon, North Wales. Died in Malad, Idaho, March 21, 1913.
Joice Jones Thomas–Born November 17, 1839, at Flintshire, North Wales. Died in Provo, Utah, March 1916.
Edward S. Jones–Born April 17, 1842, at Flintshire, North Wales. Died in Shelly, Idaho. August 2, 1902.
John Jones–Born December 22, 1844, at Flintshire, North Wales. Died before the family left Wales. Date unknown.
Hannah Jones Mackinson–Born February 25, 1846, at Flintshire, North Wales. Died in Stockton, Utah, July 16, 1928. Buried in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Sarah Jones Williams–Born November 2, 1847, at Flintshire, North Wales. This Beloved member of our family who is now drawing near her 92nd birthday, is celebrating this occasion with us here. Unusually spry for a lady of her age, mentally alert, and with all the charm of a girl of sixteen, we welcome her this day to pay her a special tribute. Will she honor the occasion by taking a bow?
Margaret Jones–Born February 9, 1850, at Flintshire, North Wales. Died during the family’s immigration to the United States, and was buried in Pennsylvania, to the best of our knowledge.
Isaac Jones–Born June 28, 1853, at Ruabon, North Wales. Died at Eureka, Utah, May 1913. Buried at Logan, Utah.
Louis Jones–Born August 6, 1855, at Ruabon, North Wales. Died during the year 1857, at Toledo, Ohio, and was buried in Cleveland, Ohio.
William Richard Jones–Born June 4, 1858, at Williamsburg, Iowa. He is the youngest member of the family and the only other surviving member of the family at this date. He is also present here today, now passing into his 82nd year of life. To him the credit is due for what little history I have been able to obtain of the family. Will he rise and take a bow?
Taken from a news clipping; “Much of Mr. Jones’ life was given over to mining, but of late years he became a livestock advisor and was identified with the development of Idaho. He was a rare spirit, with a vast field of information in the early history of Nevada, and he delighted to recall the days of his youth in the sagebrush state. He was a mild lovable character.”
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 their family, Margaret and Louis, as they were immigrating 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, were 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. So, in the spring of 1861, they continued on their journey toward the Rock Mountains and the Salt Lake Valley. The following winter they spent at Provo, Utah.
The following spring their son, Amos, was married to Leah Perry of Salt Lake, and he went to Salt Lake City to make his home. Their daughter, Joice, was also married about the same time to David Thomas of Provo and remained in Provo to make her home. The rest of the family prepared to journey on 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 here that Mr. Jones staked out the “Pride of the West” mining claim, which still remains a deserted mine in Silver City today. The little white school house up on the hill in Silver City where Sarah, Isaac, and William Richard went to school, still stood there when we made our trip to this famous old town ten years ago, but on our last visit there (June 1, 1939) it had been torn down.
In 1864, Mr. Jones went to Oreana, Nevada, and erected the first smelter known in the western part of the United States. Charcoal was used in the smelter, and the bullion was shipped to Swanzee, Wales, for refining, it being hauled by ox teams over the Sierra Nevada Mountains to San Francisco and loaded on boats.
After completing this smelter, the family again moved back to Silver City, but did not remain there very long the second time, before they moved to Virginia City, which was only a few miles distant. Mr. Jones again interested himself in the mining game. 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 “Bushwackers” were a low class composed mostly of southerners who were against anything that was in line with law and order, and especially 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 Bushwackers were present in the famous old Crystal Bar 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 Bushwacker until the 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 circulation, fortunes being made overnight.
In the year 1867, our family moved to Eureka, Nevada, where Mr. Jones again founded a smelter for Colonel Buhl and Mr. Bateman. He 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. He was called from one smelter to the other one whenever anything went wrong.
In 1871, Brigham Young sent for Richard P. Jones to come to Salt Lake and make an examination of the iron deposits in southern Utah, near Cedar City. That year the family moved to Salt Lake.
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 would be more developed with railroad facilities etc., that the iron deposits would become valuable to them. But it was too far distant at that time as they could not meet the competition of the eastern iron mines. Mr. Jones remained in Salt Lake and erected a smelter at Murray, Utah, the old slag pile still remains at the south end of the town of Murray, and it was there that Richard P. Jones lost his fortune.
In 1876, the family moved to what is known as “The Point” at Samaria, Idaho. They tried their luck as farmers, after the loss of their fortune in Salt Lake. There 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.