“3 families boast oldest farms in Oneida” 

In their search for the oldest farm in Oneida County still remaining in the original family, it appears that the Farm Bureau’s Women’s Committee has a three-way tie. 

Three local families can trace their relatives back to the fall of 1864, after a wagon train of pioneers from the east trudged 1,000 miles across the endless, bleak plains in ox teams and hand carts to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. 

The family history of John J. Williams was explored last week, and this week’s article will investigate the early beginnings of the Oren J. Jones’ and William Donald Evans’ farms. 

(Missing content) …and Annie found additional hardships in her new pioneer life. Food shortages from devastating grasshopper infestations, is one well-known incident in Oneida’s farming history. James also encountered great difficulty in clearing his land for farming, as sagebrush was higher than a man’s head. 

Big Indians 

“Mother was greatly frightened many times by a great big Indian coming out suddenly from behind the tall sagebrush,” daughter Mrs. Norman (Gwen Jones) Crowther wrote in a Pioneer biography. “She would give them food so…” (Missing content) 

James E. Jones’ children and grandchildren learned to love the old home and farm, and “the laughter and tears of eight of his great grandchildren still rings in the old high-ceiling room,” Mrs. Jones says. 

(Photo of the “Old Grove Farm” in 1905 along with Gwen Jones Crowther, James T. Jones, Annie Jones Evans, James E. and Annie Jones, Maggie Jones Peterson, John, and Daisy Jones Mandry.)