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THE
NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
PRESENTED BY
. Jones. Library , Inc.*—
JanlO,1923.
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
THE STORY OF AN AMHERST BOY
BY
CHARLES S. WALKER
PRESIDENT OF THE AMHERST
HISTORICAL SOCIETY
AMHERST, MASS.
1922
77^07 A
THE JONES LIBRARY INCORPORATED
AMHERST, MASSACHUSETTS
PUBLICATION NO. 1. SEPTEMBER, 1922
Copyright, 1922, by
Thk Jones Library, Inc.
•
THIS LITTLE BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE
BOYS AND GIRLS OF AMHERST, FOR WHOM
THE JONES LIBRARY WAS FOUNDED AND
TO WHOM IT IS GIVEN FOR SELF-CULTURE
AND FOR THE SERVICE OF MANKIND
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
FOREWORD
Amherst, mother of men, has had many children,
soldiers and scholars, readers and writers, tillers of the
soil and master craftsmen, adventurers and missionaries
of the cross : but no one of these has been more grateful,
or shown his gratitude in a more fitting manner, than
Samuel Minot Jones. He received both from his father
and from his mother those traits of New England char-
acter, developed in a long line of ancestors, physical
strength and intellectual vigor, magnanimity of soul and
decision of character, industry and perseverance, public
spirit and patriotism, morality and religious faith, which
he so utilized as to make himself always the man for the
emergency, a brave soldier, a pioneer in unbeaten paths,
a successful business man, a loving son, brother, hus-
band, father and friend, and a public benefactor.
CONTENTS
I. Heredity 1
II. Birth and Early Education 12
III. The Soldier in the Civil War 53
IV. The Man of Business 68
V. Private Life 77
VI. The Jones Library 87
ILLUSTRATIONS
Samuel Minot Jones
The Minot House, Dorchester, Mass. .
Mary Minot's House, Enfield, Mass.
Thomas Jones
The Thomas Jones House, Enfield, Mass. .
Interior of the Thomas Jones House,
Enfield, Mass
"The Homestead on the Hill," Amherst,
Mass
Amherst Academy
Cutler's Store
The Meeting House
Amherst Landscape, Holyoke Range, 1840
The Morristown Home
The Morristown Study
Mrs. Harriet Stenger Jones and Son .
Minot Jones
The Jones Library Board of Trustees
Frontispiece
Facing page 7
9
11
13
15
17
37
43
45
51
75
81
83
85
91
CHAPTER I
HEREDITY
Samuel Minot Jones was born in Enfield, Massachu-
setts, September 16, 1836. His mother was Mary Hub-
bard (Field) Jones, a lineal descendant of Hubertus
de la Field who came from Colmar near Strasburg in
Alsatia on the German border of France. He was a
member of the family of the Counts de la Field, who
resided at Colmar as early as the sixth century. He
came to England with William the Conqueror in 1066,
and in 1068 held land in Lancaster, granted to him by
the Conqueror for military service.
Zechariah Field, of a later generation, who was the
son of John Field and grandson of Sir John Field, was
born in Ardsly, England, in 1600 and emigrated to
Boston and settled in Dorchester in 1630. He moved
to Hartford, Connecticut, in 1636 and came to Hadley
in 1659 and to Northampton later. In 1663 he went to
Hatfield, where he died in 1669. His youngest son,
Joseph Field, settled in Sunderland, on the site of the
present Congregational Church, and died February 15,
1736. Joseph's son Jonathan married Esther Smith of
Hatfield and in 1752 moved to Long Plain, Leverett.
He was a Captain in the Indian Wars and a brave
soldier. His son, Seth Field, born in 1741, married
Mary Hubbard of Sunderland in 1764 and settled in
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SAMUEL MINOT JONES
Leverett. Martin Field, the third son of Seth, born
January 12, 1778, was a graduate of Williams College
in 1798, studied law in Chester, Vermont, and practiced
his profession in Newfane, Vermont. He was attor-
ney of Windham County, a member of the General
Assembly, and Major General of the First Division of
the Vermont Militia.
General Field, February 21, 1802, married Esther
Smith Kellogg, daughter of Daniel Kellogg of Am-
herst, who died June 6, 1867. She was educated at
Maplewood Seminary in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. On
her return home she decorated the parlor of her father's
house with mural paintings illustrating agricultural
scenes. She was a woman of fine personal appearance
and of many accomplishments. Her father served as
selectman of Amherst and as a soldier in the Revolution.
His father, Daniel, born in Hadley, came to Amherst
about 1745 and settled on East Street. The only
daughter of General Martin Field and Esther Smith
Kellogg was Mary Hubbard Field, the mother of
Samuel Minot Jones. She was born in Newfane, Ver-
mont, September 13, 1804. She was educated at the
famous school of Emma Willard in Troy, New York.
Her brother, Roswell Martin Field, was the Nestor of
the Missouri Bar and the father of Eugene Field, the
poet. She married Theodore Francis French, a leading
merchant of Troy, New York, who died September 11,
1828. They had three children, Mary Field French,
born June 30, 1825, died April 15, 1900; Theodore
Francis French, born May 3, 1827, died June 30, 1828;
Theodore F. French, born December 11, 1828, died
September 21, 1865. For her second husband she
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HEREDITY
married, December 24, 1835, Thomas Jones and left
Newfane, Vermont, to make a new home in Enfield,
Massachusetts.
Thomas Jones, the father of Samuel Minot Jones,
was a lineal descendant of John Jones, who died June
22, 1673, and whose wife was named Dorcas. Their
son, Samuel Jones, was born in Cambridge, Massachu-
setts, in 1648, married Elizabeth Potter January 16,
1672, and died in 1717. Samuel's son Nathaniel was
born in 1676, married Mary Rait, September 1, 1696,
and died March 22, 1745. Their son Elnathan, born
March 29, 1697, married September 22, 1721, Hannah
Pierce, born 1701, died 1730. He died July 29, 1772.
Elnathan Jones, Jr., the father of Thomas Jones, was
born the son of Elnathan Jones and Hannah Pierce in
1736, married Mary Minot February 10, 1774, and died
February 27, 1793. He was a prominent citizen of
Concord, Massachusetts, and a prosperous merchant
engaged in the East India trade. Thomas Jones was
born March 6, 1787, and died in Amherst October 21,
1853.
Mary Minot, the grandmother of Samuel Minot
Jones, after whom he was named, was a remarkable
woman, inheriting the best traits from a distinguished
ancestry. She was the eighth child of Deacon Samuel
Minot of Concord, Massachusetts, and the fifth child of
his second wife, Dorcas Prescott, whom he married in
1738. He died in Concord March 17, 1766, and Dorcas
died June 13, 1803, aged ninety-one years. Mary
Minot was born October 5, 1755, and died December 20,
1845, aged ninety years.
Deacon Samuel Minot was born March 25, 1706, the
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SAMUEL MINOT JONES
son of James Minot, the tenth child. This James Minot,
Mary's grandfather, was born September 14, 1653, was
graduated from Harvard College in 1675, studied
divinity and physic and kept the grammar school in
Dorchester in 1679. Later he moved to Concord,
Massachusetts, where he practiced medicine and taught
school. In 1685 he was preaching in Stow. He served
as justice of the peace in 1692. He was a Captain in
the militia and represented his town in the legislature.
He was a man of versatile talents and of sterling char-
acter. He married Rebecca Wheeler, daughter of Cap-
tain Timothy Wheeler, the founder of the ministerial
fund in Concord, and inherited the homestead of his
father-in-law near the residence of the Hon. Daniel
Shattuck, where he died September 20, 1735, at the age
of eighty-three.
These epitaphs in the Hill burying ground, Concord,
where he and his wife were buried, bear testimony to
the high esteem in which both were held by their
contemporaries.
Here is interred the remains of
James Minott Esq. A. M. an
Excelling Grammarian, enriched
with the gift of prayer and preaching,
A Commanding officer, a Physician of Great Value,
a Great Lover of Peace as well as of justice and,
which was His greatest Glory, a Gent'n of distinguished
Virtue and Goodness, happy in a Virtuous Posterity,
and living religiously died Comfortably,
September 20, 1735 Aet 83.
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HEREDITY
Here is interred the body of
Mrs. Rebecca Minott Ye Virtuous
Consort of James Minott, Esq.
and daughter of Capt. Timothy Wheeler.
She was a person of Serious piety and abounding
Charity, of great usefulness in Her Day and a pattern
of Patience and Holy Submission under a long Con-
finement and resigned Her Soul with joy in her Re-
deemer, September 23, 1735. Aged 68.
This famous James Minott was the second son of
Capt. John Minott and Lydia Butler of Dorchester,
whose estate was valued at £978/5. He was born
April 2, 1626, and married Lydia Butler May 19, 1647.
Captain John's father was Elder George Minott, who
was the son of Thomas Minott, Esq., of Saffron,
Walden, Essex, England, born August 4, 1594.
This Thomas Minott was among the first Pilgrim
emigrants in Massachusetts and the first settlers of
Dorchester. His residence was near Neponset Bridge
and he owned the land which has been known as S quan-
tum. He was a freeman in 1634, representative of the
town 1635-1636 and for thirty years a ruling elder in
the church. He died December 24, 1671, with an estate
valued at £277/7/7. His death was much lamented by
the town whose weal he sought and whose liberties he
defended. He was contemporary with Elder Hum-
phrey. In the ancient Dorchester burying ground these
quaint lines carved on the tombstone tell the story of
his service:
Here lie the bodies of Unite Humphrey and Shining Minot.
Such names as these, they never die not.
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SAMUEL MINOT JONES
A picture of the house in Dorchester occupied by
Elder George Minott has been preserved and used to
illustrate Winsor's "History of Boston." President
Timothy Dwight of Yale College tells a story of an
incident connected with this house which gives a vivid
impression of the courage, self-control and heroism
which marked even the women and children of the house-
hold of the Minott family in those early times-
While Mr. and Mrs. George Minott were absent, hav-
ing gone to Boston, an Indian, left by a roving band,
attempted to avenge his chief for some fancied injury
caused by Elder Minott's refusal to grant a demand for
supplies. This Indian, coming out of the bushes where
he had been concealed, tried to enter the house, but failed
because the maid, warned by her master, had barred the
door. Concealing the two children under brass kettles
with instructions to keep quiet, she seized a musket and
guarded the house. The redman's shot missed its mark,
but returning the fire the maid shot him through the
shoulder. Ignoring his wound the man made a rush to
climb in the window. Here he was stopped by a shovel-
ful of red-hot coals thrown in his face. He fled to the
woods, where his dead body was found the next day.
For this act of heroism the girl was honored by the Gov-
ernment of Massachusetts Bay, from which she re-
ceived a silver wristband with the motto inscribed upon
it, "She slew the Narrhaganset Hunter."
Such were the ancestors of Marv Minot. From them
she inherited intellectual power, varied talents, a strong
body, brilliant traits and a resolute spirit. In The Jones
Library is preserved a rare volume, a quarto, bound in
calfskin, showing the marks of long use. It was pub-
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lished 1766 in London by Mark Baskett. It contains
the Apocrypha and the following inscription: "Mary
Minott. Her Bible. The Gift of her mother, Dorcas
Minott, November 27, 1766." Mary was only eleven
years old when she received this precious volume which
she kept until her death, using it for eighty years as the
light of her pathway, and then bequeathing it as a rich
legacy to her children. In it she recorded the birth of
her seven children, three daughters and four sons. Here
also is recorded her own death and that of her children
and grandchildren, as well as their marriages.
Mrs. Mary Minot Jones was a leader in the social
circles of Concord in her day, a famous beauty, whose
portrait Gilbert Stuart was pleased to paint. As the
wife of Captain Elnathan Jones, the successful East
India merchant, her home was filled with the treasures
of the Orient, many of which were long preserved as
heirlooms in the family. During the Revolutionary
War, Captain Jones and his wife were among the lead-
ing patriots.
"There were received," so the records of those days
show, "from Mr. Daniel Cheever of Charlestown 20
loads of stores containing 20,000 pounds of musket balls
and cartridges, 50 reams of cartridge paper, 206 tents,
113 iron spades, 51 wood axes, 201 bill hooks, 19 sets of
harnesses, 24 boxes of candles, 14 chests of medicine, 27
hogsheads of wooden ware, 1 hogshead of matches, 20
bushels of oatmeal, 5 iron worms for cannon, rammers,
etc." These were stored at Captain Elnathan Jones',
Joshua Bonds', W. Houghby Prescott's, James Hay-
wood's, Colonel Barrett's and the town house, and 5
tierces of rice at Deacon George Minott's.
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SAMUEL MINOT JONES
Hearing of these stores, the British sent out an expedi-
tion from Boston to seize them. But when the soldiers
came to Captain Elnathan Jones' East India Ware-
house where many supplies were concealed, Mary
Minott, the Captain's wife, was equal to the occasion.
She invited the British officers into her parlor, served
them the best wine and entertained them with games of
cards played on her mahogany table. Her fascinating
and charming hospitality proved so attractive that her
guests forgot all about the supplies until the patriots
had sufficient time to remove them to a place of safety.
Ralph Waldo Emerson and others have told this story
of Mary Minott's quick wit and patriotic service, for
the inspiration of her posterity.
Mrs. Mary Minot Jones on her wedding day, when
she married for her second husband Robert Field, Esq.,
made a sensation as she came into the church beautifully
dressed. Her bonnet was the latest creation of the
Boston milliners. Her second husband was a justice of
the peace, selectman for five years, representative of the
town in the legislature 1801-1804, an innkeeper, a manu-
facturer and for many years a leading man in the com-
munity. It was in his honor that, when the southern dis-
trict of Greenwich was constituted a town by itself, it
was called Enfield. The house he built in 1776, to which
he took his new wife, still stands, although one only of
the two elms that shaded it now survives. Mrs. Mary
Minot Field's reputation as a good cook and house-
keeper as well as leader in society still persists and her
recipe for cake has been handed down from mother to
daughter.
Mary Minot was the mother of seven children, of
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HEREDITY
whom three were ffirls and four boys. After the Revolu-
tion times changed. The East India trade was no
longer prosperous. Her husband died February 27,
1793. Ten years later, May 8, 1803, she married Robert
Field, Esq., who had fought at Bunker Hill, and went
to live in a fine house which he built in Enfield, where
her sons developed the water power and manufactured
satinets and other fabrics. One of their factories was
named the Minot Mill. Her son, Samuel Jones, died in
Enfield September 26, 1819. The three remaining sons,
Elnathan, Marshall and Thomas, carried on the business
for many years and their families became the patrons of
the industrial, social and religious life of the community.
Dr. Francis H. Underwood in his story of Enfield,
written in 1892, gives the following account of the life
there of Mary Minot and her sons : "A few houses in the
village had an indefinable charm for those who remem-
bered their former occupants. There is one in a com-
manding position near the crossroads which is venerable
in slow decay, and out of relations with modern neigh-
bors. Two ancient elms tower over the grounds and
are seen afar. One of the patriots who fought at Bunker
Hill built the house, then considered a mansion. His
wife, the descendant of a Huguenot family, had three
sons by a former marriage ; and these in their maturity,
were the only persons in Quabbin (the name by which
Enfield was then known) that could in the strict sense
be called Gentlemen. The bright old lady long sur-
vived her husband and made a striking picture as she
moved about in her wheeled-chair, accompanied by one
of her sons, a grave and stately man who lived with her.
Another son built a dwelling nearer the meeting house.
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SAMUEL MINOT JONES
It appeared to be the dream of some inspired carpenter,
a dream of wooden pilasters, wreaths and scrolls, with
a fretwork balustrade of wheel patterns upon the eaves
and an arched and decorated gateway all in a glittering
white. Hillside terraces at the rear with flower beds and
fruit trees were to youthful eyes like the hanging
gardens of Babylon. The owner, with his tropical com-
plexion of pale orange, his gold-rimmed spectacles and
his distinguished manners, in which dignity, courtesy
and kindness had equal share, was a wonderful person in
Quabbin society years ago. For he had actually sailed
around the world; his cheeks had acquired their rich
color in China, where he had been a tea merchant; the
bronze idols and the great vases that adorned his rooms
had come from farthest East. Besides he knew Euro-
pean capitals, and along with his well-earned wealth, he
had brought to the village an aroma from spice lands,
a knowledge of the world, and the grand air that so
becomes a traveled man.
"The third of the brothers, a manufacturer, built a
fine house, but with less ornament, on a knoll not far
distant. All three could have been presented with credit
at any court. They spoke the language of the educated
world; but, along with their somewhat ceremonious
manners they had a sense of what was due to others,
especially to humble neighbors, and as they were public
spirited, just and generous, they were respected and
loved. No one envied them their good fortune — a rare
experience whether in Quabbin or elsewhere.
"The sombre old house with its two elms connected the
village with the by-gone days of the Colony; and the
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Thomas Jones
HEREDITY
little old lady, while she lived, was a link with the great
world, as her family was justly distinguished
"A circle of brilliant associations ended for Quabbin
when the places of the three brothers knew them no
more. Relatives from the county town and from Boston
used to enliven the village and the country roads in sum-
mer, charming and cultivated ladies, budding clergymen
and lawyers, the usual gathering of people of leisure at
hospitable country houses. After the end of the old
regime they came no more. Neither the balustraded villa
near the meeting house, nor the ancient, sombre, elm-
shaded mansion, ever knew again the gaiety of former
days."
The youngest of these three sons of Mary Minot was
Thomas Jones, the father of Samuel Minot Jones. He
married for his first wife Elizabeth M. Lyman of North-
ampton, June 3, 1829. In 1826, he and his brother,
Marshall Jones, organized the Swift Manufacturing
Company, which for eleven years manufactured satinets.
This company was succeeded by the Minot Company,
in which Marshall Jones was the senior partner.
11
CHAPTER II
BIRTH AND EARLY EDUCATION
Thomas Jones, in 1829, bought four acres of land,
including a knoll in the village of Enfield near the cross-
roads, and built upon this site a commodious country-
house to which he brought from Northampton his first
wife. She was the mother of his two sons, Thomas and
William. After her death he married Mary Hubbard
Field French, the widow of Theodore Francis French.
When she became mistress of the Enfield home, the
family included her daughter, Mary Field French, ten
years old, and her son Theodore, aged seven, in addition
to the two sons of Mr. Jones.
The house was none too large for such a household.
It was thoroughly built and stands today, after ninety-
three years' service, one of the best residences in the
town. The front, forty feet in width, is shaded by the
spreading branches of elms and maples. The depth is
one hundred feet, including the annex in the rear. A
large broad hall is entered through a wide door fastened
with a double lock. The front and back parlors are
separated by folding doors which, when opened, make
a capacious apartment for entertaining many guests.
The floors are southern pine. The mantel over the fire-
place and the rest of the woodwork are decorated with
hand carving. The dining-room is connected with an
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ample kitchen which contained the open fireplace and
the brick oven. There is one bedroom on the ground
floor and five on the second floor. The stairs leading up
from the front hall are beautifully carved and protected
by a handsome baluster.
A broad sandstone step leads up to the front door.
The addition to the southwest afforded opportunity for
the many household tasks essential to the support of
family life in the first half of the nineteenth century.
The outbuildings were suited to the mansion house.
From the lawn at the rear of the house and from the
upper windows an extensive view of the valley and
surrounding hills toward the south and west can be
obtained.
In this fine homestead, one of the best in the town,
Samuel Minot Jones was born September 16, 1836, and
here he spent the first three years of his life. The infant
boy had the best of care, with pure air to breathe and
food that gave strength to his muscles and vitality to his
nervous system.
But it was fortunate for him that Enfield should not
remain his home for the years of his youth. Shut in on
all sides by hills and mountains, the narrow valley fur-
nished scant subsistence for the farmers, while the sterile
hillsides, in spite of the toil expended upon their stony
acres, produced a class of people devoid of culture and
denied opportunities for developing the best elements
of manhood. Intemperance prevailed and immorality
was common in the back districts. The schools were of
an inferior grade. The Calvinistic doctrines of the
Puritan Church tended to give a somber cast to religious
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SAMUEL MIXOT JOXES
life. Few were elected to be saved and the broad way
was crowded with multitudes.
The Jones brothers and their friends brought with
them from Concord a new element of progressive civil-
ization. The East India trade having been made profit-
less by the War of 1812, the Jones family turned to
manufacturing to supply the demand for goods which
household industries could no longer provide. In En-
field they found in Swift River a good water power
and in the people good operatives, which discovery justi-
fied the erection of the Minot mill and other factories
that for a time brought wealth to the owners and pros-
perity to the community. But conditions soon changed.
The panic of 1837 unsettled the business of the whole
country. Moreover, the construction of the Boston &
Albany trunk line of railroad left Enfield and its fac-
tories unable to compete with other mills whose raw
material and finished products could be transported by
steam.
The Swift Company failed in 1837 and Thomas Jones
was obliged to seek his fortune elsewhere. Having
friends in Northampton and Leverett he found in Am-
herst a new field for his business ability. In addition
to its manufacturing facilities Amherst's social and edu-
cational advantages appealed to him and his wife with
their family of boys and girls for whom Enfield schools
provided no adequate means for education.
In North Amherst were a good water power and a
community able to furnish the needed working people.
Thomas Jones therefore closed his business in Enfield
and made a new start in Amherst. In March, 1839, he
sold his Enfield house to Alvin Smith and April 26 of
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BIRTH AND EARLY EDUCATION
the same year he made a contract with Robert Cutler
that he should build a house on Amity Street in Amherst
as good as the one he had built in Oak Grove for Luke
Sweetser. It should be located on the two acres of land
bought of Elisha Pomeroy Cutler. It must have two
stories, the ceilings eleven feet high on the first floor and
ten feet on the second, and there must be a piazza forty-
two feet long with balustrades on top.
Into this house Samuel Minot Jones was taken when
he was three years old and in it he spent his boyhood and
youth. It was, as his father intended it to be, one of the
best houses in the town and is today a beautiful mansion.
For a generation it was a center of Amherst business,
social and religious life. Here, after her husband's
death, Mrs. Jones from 1864 to 1876 took care of her
two nephews, Eugene Field and his brother Roswell,
whom her daughter, Mary Field French, taught Eng-
lish literature. In this house, largely through the influ-
ence of Mrs. Jones, who contributed a thousand dollars
for the purpose, Bishop Frederick D. Huntington or-
ganized, September 20, 1864, Grace Episcopal Church.
Here during his life her husband planned his business
enterprises. Here gracious hospitality welcomed many
guests.
After the death of Mrs. Jones the heirs sold the house
to Hiram Heaton, October 7, 1879, who filled its
grounds with choice trees, shrubbery and flowers. Here
his daughter, Mary Heaton Vorse, learned to write
stories which have proved almost as popular as Eugene
Field's poems. Here too David Grayson (Ray Stan-
nard Baker) lived before his present home on Sunset
Avenue was finished.
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SAMUEL MINOT JONES
The years from 1840 to 1854 formed a period of
transition from household industry, in which the pro-
ducer was his own landlord, capitalist, business manager
and laborer, to the era of capitalistic production and the
minute division of labor. Thomas Jones, first in Enfield
and later in Amherst, was a pioneer in the new age of
New England community manufacturing. Many diffi-
culties beset his way. Failures, however, became means
to final success. Fire again and again destroyed his
mills. But he persevered resolutely until he won at last
a competence.
In company with his brother, Elnathan Jones, in
1842 he rebuilt the cotton mill in Factory Hollow, North
Amherst. About this time he owned three mills there in
which Kentucky jeans were made. These mills he sold
to the Amherst Manufacturing Company, chartered in
1846 by Thomas Jones, John S. Adams and J. M.
Whitcomb. In 1845, in company with Bradley, he built
a woolen mill which was burned in 1857. In 1852 he
was a member of the Westville Company, which built a
woolen mill on Meadow Street in North Amherst. His
business interests, however, were not confined to Am-
herst. He was a stockholder in many manufacturing
concerns in western Massachusetts. He was at one time
president of the Carew Paper Company at South
Hadley Falls.
Understanding the value of railroad transportation,
in company with John Leland and Charles Adams he
raised $72,000 for a railroad planned to run around
Mount Holyoke at Hockanum and to pass through
Amherst. His fellow townsmen showed their apprecia-
tion of his public spirit by electing him in 1845 to the
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legislature. He served as a trustee of Amherst Acad-
emy from July 14, 1841, to his death, October 21, 1853.
The following notice, which appeared October 28,
1853, in the Hampshire and Franklin Express, shows
the esteem in which he was held by his fellow citizens :
"The sudden death of Thomas Jones, Esq., strikes
this community with more than ordinary surprise and
sorrow. Though he had been very ill several months,
for some weeks past he had been rapidly improving and
was rejoicing in the prospect of speedy recovery.
"We shared the hospitality of his house and table only
the night before his death and found him serenely exult-
ing in the luxury of returning health and renewed life.
He remarked that it was the best day he had seen for a
long time. At midnight a sudden alarm of fire awaked
him out of sleep and before three o'clock his heart, which
was doubtless the seat of his disease, had ceased to beat.
How impressive the lesson to his friends and neighbors
to be also ready.
"The loss of Mr. Jones will be felt — how severelv it
will be felt by the afflicted family, of which he was not
only the support but also the joy, we dare not under-
take to tell — but it will be felt by the whole community.
His enterprise and public spirit, his large hospitality
and liberal charity, his singular kindness and urbanity,
will be remembered with affectionate regret, not only
by the citizens of Amherst, but by strangers who occa-
sionally visit the town, long after that pleasing and
benignant face, so familiar in our streets and so welcome
to our sight, shall have moldered to dust."
After the death of her husband, Mrs. Mary Hubbard
Field Jones continued as the head of her family and
17
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
maintained her position as gracious hostess, social leader
and religious worker until her death, January 9, 1879,
at the age of seventy-four years. The Amherst Record
in the notice of her death pays this tribute to her
memory :
"Mrs. Jones was a woman of very high character,
highly esteemed by those with whom she was so long
associated, and a wide circle of friends will mourn her
loss."
Funeral services were conducted by Rev. Frederick
Burgess, rector of Grace Church, and she was buried in
West Cemetery, where a granite monument marks the
plot containing her remains resting by the side of those
of her husband.
A tablet in her honor has been placed at the left of the
pulpit in Grace Church. The inscription names her as
one of the founders of the church.
Amherst during the years from 1839 to 1854, in which
Samuel Minot Jones grew from infancy to young man-
hood, furnished an excellent environment for the de-
velopment of those traits and characteristics which he
inherited from his distinguished ancestry. Nature's
method of making good specimens of her handiwork in-
volves two stages of progress. The first is isolation and
protection: the second is the bursting of barriers, ex-
pulsion, dispersion, thrusting her child out into the wide
world to shift for himself, facing defeat and failure, or
making stepping stones of difficulties to wrest success
from untoward circumstances. At first the thistle is
guarded at every part with sharp points: then it blos-
soms and its silken petals are torn from their support
and carried to distant fields to start a new life in a barren
18
BIRTH AND EARLY EDUCATION
pasture. The nestling, so tenderly guarded by the
eagle, in due time is cast out of the nest on the top of the
crag to fly or fall. The Jewish boy is shut up in the
shop in Nazareth for thirty years and then driven into
the wilderness from whence he emerges a Son of Man,
a new type of humanity.
For fifteen years, from the age of three until he was
eighteen years old, Sam Jones was an Amherst boy. In
his home were two older half brothers, William and
Thomas Jones, an older half sister, Mary Field French,
and another older half brother, Theodore F. French,
and a younger sister, Augusta Thayer Jones. The Am-
herst house was commodious, but none too large for such
a family of children. The yard was a big one overlook-
ing the valley of the Connecticut. Immediately below
stretched the Hadley meadows, out of which Mount
Warner arose to hide the river, except in flood time
when its waters rushed around the northern slope. To
the south lay Mount Holyoke and, beyond, Mount
Nonotuck and Mount Tom. There was a splendid big
attic from whose western window could be seen gorgeous
sunsets that glorified the evening skies as the sun ran his
yearly course from Holvoke to Warner's northern
slope. Past his house sometimes ran the stage to North-
ampton, the shiretown, and many private teams bent on
pleasure or driven on business. North of his house were
the famous Cutler orchards. Down the hillside ran the
brook that drained the marshy land between his house
and the common. In winter time the coasting was
splendid. The forests of white oak, of pine, of chestnut
and of hickory afforded great opportunity for tramping
and for filling one's bags with hickory nuts and chestnuts.
19
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
Squirrels, rabbits, foxes, birds of all kinds abounded.
There were trout in the brooks and pickerel in the ponds.
But Sam was brought up to work. Play was not the
chief end of boyhood. His father operated the mills at
North Amherst and knew how to make his own boys as
well as mill hands employ their time usefully. The care
of the large house and grounds and the successful man-
agement of such a household demanded that there
should be no idlers and that each one should contribute
according to his ability that he might draw from the
general fund according to his need.
Amherst was a country town with a broad outlook,
but nevertheless shut in by the encircling hills. It was
a long way to Boston, reached only by relays of stage
horses. Springfield was a thriving village. Northamp-
ton was little larger than Amherst. Horses were com-
paratively few, and ox teams were the main reliance of
the farmer. Wood was the fuel which boys were ex-
pected to chop, saw, split and store in the woodshed and
as needed heap up in the wood boxes. There were nu-
merous great fireplaces in the Jones mansion and it was
no slight task to keep the fires blazing during the long
winters.
It was in this same homestead, under the care of
Samuel Jones' mother and his sister, Mary French,
that Eugene and Roswell Field were trained in their
boyhood. Eugene's testimony as to the value of this
environment enables one to understand how it must have
influenced the older boy Samuel in his day. When
asked who had exerted the most influence in shaping his
life and character, Eugene Field at first said that it was
his grandmother. But later he declared that he was
20
BIRTH AND EARLY EDUCATION
sorry that he had said that, for after mature thought he
was certain that the woman was Mary Field French.
To her he dedicated his "Little Book of Western Verse"
in a poem that shows how much she did for him. These
are the verses :
To Mary Field French
A dying mother gave to you
Her child a many years ago;
How in your gracious love he grew,
You know, dear, patient heart, you know.
The mother's child you fostered then
Salutes you now and bids you take
These little children of his pen
And love them for the author's sake.
To you I dedicate this book,
And, as you read it line by line,
Upon its faults as kindly look
As you have always looked on mine.
Tardy the offering is and weak ; —
Yet were I happy if I knew
These children had the power to speak
My love and gratitude to you.
The influence of this New England homestead never
left him. Traces of it appear again and again in his
writings. Here is one of his pictures :
We see it all — the pictur' that our mem'ries hold so dear —
The homestead in New England far away,
An' the vision is so nat'rul-like, we almost seem to hear
The voices that were hushed but yesterday.
*******
21
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
Why the robins in the maples and the blackbirds round the pond,
The crickets and the locusts in the leaves,
The brook that chased the trout adown the hillside just beyond,
An' the swallers in their nests beneath the eaves —
They all come trooping back with you, dear Uncle Josh, today,
An' they seem to sing with all the joyous zest
Of the days when we were Yankee boys an' Yankee girls at play,
With nary thought of livin' way out West.
The brook that ran down the hillside northwest of the
Amherst homestead made a lasting impression upon
Eugene so that in after years he wrote:
To a Little Brook
You're not so big as you were then,
O little brook !—
I mean those hazy summers when
We boys roamed, full of awe beside
Your noisy, foaming tide,
And wondered if it could be true
That there were bigger brooks than you,
O mighty brook, O peerless brook !
*******
But once — O most unhappy day
For you, my brook ! —
Came Cousin Sam along that way ;
And, having lived a spell out West,
Where creeks aren't counted much at best,
He neither waded, swam, nor leapt,
But with superb indifference, stept
Across that brook — our mighty brook.
22
BIRTH AND EARLY EDUCATION
In his verses entitled "My Playmates" his memory-
reverts to his Amherst boyhood and the Jones mansion
on the hill :
The wind comes whispering to me of the country green and cool,
Of redwing blackbirds chattering beside a reedy pool ;
It brings me soothing fancies of the homestead on the hill,
And I hear the thrush's evening song and the robin's morning
trill ;
So I fall to thinking tenderly of those I used to know
Where the sassafras and snakeroot and checkerberries grow.
O cottage 'neath the maples, have you seen those girls and boys
That but a little while ago made, oh! such pleasant noise?
0 trees and hills and brooks, and lanes, and meadows, do you
know
Where I shall find my little friends of forty years ago?
You see I'm old and weary and I've traveled long and far;
1 am looking for my playmates — I wonder where they are!
One of these playmates was Mary Smith and in his
lines to her he begins :
Away down East where I was reared amongst my Yankee kith
There used to live a pretty girl whose name was Mar}r Smith.
Continuing he exclaims :
How often now those sights, those pleasant sights recur again :
The little township that was all the world I knew of then —
The meeting-house upon the hill, the tavern just beyond,
Old Deacon Packard's general store, the sawmill by the pond,
The village elms I vainly sought to conquer in my quest
Of that surpassing trophy, the golden oriole's nest.
23
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
Roswell Martin Field, who shared with his brother
Eugene the Amherst life, attributes to it much of the
influence which shaped his character and developed his
genius. In his sketch of Eugene's life, Roswell says :
"The formative period of my brother's youth was
passed in New England, and to the influences which still
prevail in and around her peaceful hills and gentle
streams, the influences of a sturdy stock which has sent
so many good and brave men to the West for the up-
building of the country and the upholding of what is
best in Puritan tradition, he gladly acknowledged he
owed much that was strong and enduring. While he
gloried in the West and remained loyal to the section
which gave him birth and in which he chose to cast his
lot, he was not the less proud of his New England blood
and not the less conscious of the benefits of a New Eng-
land training. His boyhood was similar to that of other
boys brought up with the best surroundings in a Massa-
chusetts village, where the college atmosphere prevailed.
He had his boyish pleasures and his trials, his share of
that queer mixture of nineteenth-century worldliness
and almost austere Puritanism which is yet characteristic
of many New England families."
Roswell thus describes how the literary atmosphere of
Amherst led Eugene when a child to write his first
poem:
"The family dog at Amherst, which was immortalized
many years later with 'The Bench-Legged Fyce,' and
which was known in his day to hundreds of students at
the college on account of his surpassing lack of beauty,
rejoiced originally in the honest name of Fido, but my
brother rejected this name as commonplace and un-
24
BIRTH AND EARLY EDUCATION
worthy and straightway named him 'Dooley' on the pre-
sumption that there was something Hibernian in his
face. It was to Dooley that he wrote his first poem, a
parody on 'O Had I Wings Like a Dove,' a song then
in good vogue. Near the head of the village street was
the home of the Emersons, a large frame house, now
standing for more than a century, and in the great yard
in front the magnificent elms which are the glory of the
Connecticut Valley. Many times the boys, returning
from school, would linger to cool off in the shade of these
glorious trees, and it was on one of these occasions that
my brother put into the mouth of Dooley his maiden
effort in verse :
.. .
O had I wings like a dove I would fly
Away from this world of fleas ;
I'd fly all around Miss Emerson's yard
And light on Miss Emerson's trees.
? JJ
This house still stands, used as headquarters of the
Amherst Historical Society and shaded by two magnifi-
cent sycamore trees, but the great elms have both been
broken down by time and stress of weather.
How Amherst scenery affected Eugene, especially
that seen from the Jones mansion, is thus described:
"Throughout his writings may be found the most
earnest appreciation of the joyousness and loveliness of
a beautiful landscape, but as he would share it intellec-
tually with his readers so it was a necessity that he could
not seek it alone as an actuality. In his boyhood, in the
full glory of a perfect day he loved to ramble through
the woods and meadows, and delighted in the azure tints
of the far-away Berkshire hills.
25
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
"Acting was his strongest boyish passion. Even as a
child he was a wonderful mimic and thereby the delight
of his playmates and the terror of his teachers. He or-
ganized a stock company among the small boys of the
village and gave performances in the barn of one of the
less scrupulous neighbors."
That neighbor was Lucius Boltwood and the barn
stood near the ground where now is located Pratt
Memorial Dormitory at Amherst College. But the
literary atmosphere of New England did not stimulate
alone the dramatic and poetic genius of Eugene. It
even compelled him before ten years of age to write a
sermon showing the results of those arduous Sabbath
days in the old meeting house on the hill. But the most
powerful and lasting of all the many influences which
shaped the life of Eugene Field during his boyhood in
Amherst was revealed by Rev. Frank N. Bristol in these
words quoted in Slason Thompson's biography of the
poet, from the address given at the funeral :
"I have said of my dear friend that he had a creed.
His creed was love. He had a religion. His religion
was kindness. He belonged to the church — the church
of the common brotherhood of man. With all the
changes that came to his definitions and formulas he
never lost from his heart of hearts the reverence for
sacred things learned in childhood and inherited from a
sturdy Puritan ancestry. From that deep store of love
and faith and reverence sprang the streams of his happy
songs and ever was he putting into his tender verses
those ideas of the living God, the blessed Christ, the
ministering angels of immortal love, the happiness of
heaven, which were instilled into his heart when a boy."
26
BIRTH AND EARLY EDUCATION
The Jones mills at North Amherst produced material
wealth, but the Jones home on Amity Street, where pre-
sided Mary Hubbard Field Jones and her daughter,
Mary Field French, opened its doors to the orphan boy
from the wild West and so trained his passions wild
and strong and so shaped his eccentric genius that he
became the sweet singer of the nineteenth century whose
songs still make music in the heart of humanity.
Dr. James Tufts, who in his famous academy at Mon-
son prepared Eugene Field for college, bears this testi-
mony which explains much :
"Mary Field French, a daughter of Mrs. Jones by
her first husband, was a lady of strong mind, and much
culture, with a sound judgment and decision of char-
acter and very gracious manners. She was always
sociable and agreeable and so admirably adapted to the
charge of the two brothers. Here in this charming home,
under the best New England influences and religious
instruction, with nothing harsh or repulsive, the boys
could not have found a more congenial home. Indeed
few mothers are able or even capable of doing so much
for their own children as Miss French did for these two
brothers, watching over them incessantly, yet not spoil-
ing them by weak indulgence or repelling them by harsh
discipline."
Such was the home life in which the bov Samuel Minot
Jones shared and which was a potent factor in shaping
his character. If Mrs. Jones did so much for the Field
bovs what must she have done for her own son ? And if
Mary Field French accomplished so much for her
cousins, surely she must have been an inspiration to her
27
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
brother Samuel, who was eleven years younger than
herself.
But the Jones home was only one of many other
similar homes in Amherst. At the present time the
influence of many parents over their own children is
greatly hindered by the conflicting customs and fashions
of neighboring families. But seventy years ago the
best families in Amherst were united in their common
ideas and practices concerning the education and train-
ing of the young.
Professor John W. Burgess, who came to Amherst
from eastern Tennessee during the Civil War, found
this Massachusetts village with its peace, beauty and
charming homes to be for him a Garden of Eden in con-
trast with his own Southern home, which had been
harried first by the Confederate and then by the Union
armies. He became a member of the Jones family and
finally the husband of Augusta Jones, Samuel's own
sister. "I think," he states in a recent letter, "it would
be too much to say that the Jones home on Amity Street
was the center of the social life of Amherst. It was
certainly a center, but Amherst social life was on a very
high plane between 1864 and 1879, the period when I
knew it. In fact, it was almost brilliant. The homes
of the Stearns, the Seelyes, the Tuckermans, the Dick-
insons, the Tylers, the Boltwoods and Clarks were
equally delightful social centers."
The home of the Tylers is one especially worthy of
mention, for in it were reared four boys, Mason, Henry,
William and John, under conditions very much like
those which prevailed in the Jones family. They lived
in a home in Oak Grove adjoining the Sweetser house,
28
BIRTH AND EARLY EDUCATION
which was the model for the Jones mansion. All these
became men of distinction, one a soldier and a lawyer,
two professors and the other a manufacturer. The
Tyler house was placed upon the summit of the hill, the
view from which, similar to that from the Jones house,
is thus described by Professor Henry M. Tyler of Smith
College :
"There were naturally many beautiful glimpses of
scenery to be obtained from different points on the
piazza. The view toward the northwest was peculiarly
fine. You could look out over the rich fields of the
Connecticut Valley, with trees scattered here and there
covered with freshest green in springtime, growing more
sober as summer advanced, and then in autumn covering
themselves with an indescribable variety of brilliant
colors, as if Nature were bent upon proving that with
all of the uniformity of her laws she could indulge in
infinite changes of ornamentation. And over this fore-
ground which seemed never twice to be the same the eye
passed to the sloping hills on the other side of the river,
dotted with white houses and nicked with smooth fields
and rough woodlands, and rested beyond upon the
heights which look down into the valley of the Deerfield.
Strangers were taken to look out over that scene as one
of the best treats of hospitality which could be offered
them, and friends of the house took a last view of it ere
they went away that they might carry its impression as
a part of the remembrance of the house. It was a land-
scape full of gentleness in the summer time. But in the
winter from the wild snows of those same heights the
wind came howling across the open fields never finding
29
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
an obstruction to check its onward rush until it struck
the house upon the hill."
It was the fashion for Amherst boys to work. Con-
tinuing his story of his youthful training, Professor
Tyler says: "Both indoors and out the boys were taught
to work. Regular duties were assigned to everyone and
they were trained to do things in the proper way and
at the proper time. Most of the time we had a horse, if
not a horse and cow, and had to learn to take care of
them. There was always something to be done on the
place. When the hay was to be cut, a man was hired
for the mowing and heavy work, but we all had our parts
to perform, and so generally we were expected to do
what we could We learned to do our work
together We had our regular duties to perform,
but a fair allowance of time was alwavs left to us for
play. We understood that the work had to be done."
The Tyler home was a place where many guests were
entertained whose influence for good was a large factor
in the education of the boys, giving them an outlook on
life. The story continues : "There was in fact a continu-
ous procession of pleasant people going in and out from
the house and helping to dispel the atmosphere of
drudgery and hardship which might be in danger of
gathering there. The house might well be said, I think,
to be given to hospitality To ministers and
teachers the house was always open, so that their visits
were more frequent than those of relatives. But above
all others, missionaries were counted welcome. It would
have been reckoned a misfortune not to have them come.
.... The social life of those days had some decided
advantages. There was less of conventionality than
30
BIRTH AND EARLY EDUCATION
now, but more time and better opportunity for making
lasting friendships The social life of Amherst
half a century ago had some features of rare attractive-
ness It was at the annual commencement season
that Amherst reached the climax of its social advan-
tages The strangers and friends who were thus
brought to the house left in it an influence of culture
and grace, an atmosphere of thought worth more than
if it had been an abode of wealth."
In the making of men the influence of such Amherst
homes was a prime factor. How the thought of such a
home influenced Mason W. Tyler and kept him sane
and sound when a soldier may be learned from these
words from his letter to his parents written November
15, 1863, from Brandy Station, Virginia: "I have man-
aged to get time enough to write my Sunday letter. I
have managed to read the Independent and Congrega-
tionalist at odd spells while waiting for things to
progress and standing over the fire drying myself. Last
night at sundown, the real old Saturday night feeling
came over me and I lay in my tent a good share of the
evening thinking in the dark while outside it was rain-
ing hard. I thought of you gathered around your cheer-
ful fireside, and with your work all laid aside for the
pleasant Sunday, books and papers in each and all of
your hands. I could see you perfectly. I thought you
looked very comfortable. I only wished I could step
in on you for a moment."
With such thoughts of home the boy, even in the midst
of the wild temptations of civil war, could not go wrong.
Another letter home tells of his reading "Old Curiosity
Shop" and "The Last Days of Pompeii." "The fact
31
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
is," he writes, "I sit in my tent and read the most of
the day except when I am occupied with my camp
duties." "While out on picket I read Bulwer Lytton's
'Rienzi.' " At Winchester he read Haynes' and Web-
ster's great speeches and wrote home: "I have had a very
pleasant Sabbath today. In fact the privilege that we
have here of spending a Christian Sabbath in some-
thing like a Christian neighborhood is more like home
than any military experience we have previously had.
The Chaplain has a regimental service in the afternoon
and in the morning I usually attend church in the city
and the rest of the day the quiet of my own room affords
me a place for reading, meditation and praj^er. The
quiet is as marked here Sunday as in our own New Eng-
land village."
Entering the army as Second Lieutenant, Mason W.
Tyler was discharged with the rank of Brevet Colonel
after a brilliant service. His army life instead of un-
dermining his physical strength and moral character
developed both, so that when he entered New York city
life he was master of himself and circumstances and won
both fame and fortune as a leading lawyer and public-
spirited citizen. How much his success was due to his
Amherst home may be inferred from these words quoted
from his recollections :
"My three brothers and I worked the garden in
summer, which composed nearly an acre of ground,
raised vegetables and fruit, harvested the hay, took care
of a horse, a cow and the chickens, sawed the wood and
piled it, and at all seasons carried it by armfuls into the
house until the wood-boxes were filled, built and fed the
fires, and if occasion required helped about the cooking,
32
BIRTH AND EARLY EDUCATION
the bed making, the dish washing, and the other domestic
employments. Many hands made light work, and we
were adepts in the art of despatching work. Our hours
for play were short but they were appreciated and made
the most of.
"Of course the college attracted a great many dis-
tinguished strangers and visitors from all parts of the
world and as accommodations at the hotels were very
uncomfortable, such persons were generally entertained
by some member of the college faculty, who in such
cases exercised a very simple but charming hospitality.
I have seen under my father's roof and at his table
governors of states, United States senators and mem-
bers of the House of Representatives, justices of the
courts, foreign ministers, distinguished preachers, ora-
tors and teachers from my own country and from
foreign lands, and professors connected with foreign
universities altogether too numerous to mention."
Mason Tyler was less than four years younger than
Samuel Minot Jones so that his description of a typical
Amherst home gives one a good idea of what the Jones
home and the environing circumstances must have
been. Mason Tyler thus describes the Amherst of his
boyhood: "I was born June 17, 1840, at Amherst,
Massachusetts. It would be hard to find a more quiet
and peaceful hamlet of twenty-five hundred inhabitants
than Amherst was in my boyhood days. There was not
a public bar nor a drinking saloon in town. There was
not a man in town worth one hundred thousand dollars.
They mostly owned the houses they lived in. No family
had more than one servant; most of them not any
servants. One of the principal industries of the place
33
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
was furnishing board to students of the college. There
were few wealthy students. Many of the students were
working their way through college to become ministers
or missionaries. The price of board ranged from
seventy-five cents to two dollars and a quarter a week."
Amherst schools were a factor of prime value in the
environment added to home training which developed
and molded the character of Samuel Minot Jones.
When Noah Webster sold his house in New Haven,
Connecticut, and came to Amherst to complete his dic-
tionary, the work of his life, he found the schools little
better than those of the average New England country
town. He found the Amherst public school to be as his
daughter thus describes it: "I remember well the forlorn,
unpainted, unshaded building on one side of the village
green. There was an entry way where hats and cloaks
were kept and then one large room with an open fire-
place at each end, and in winter full of green logs with
the sap oozing out of them. Two or three rows of hard
benches with desks before them were on each side and a
tall desk in the center of the room was for the teacher.
There were no maps or pictures of any kind — no maps
or equipments for the assistance of the teacher, but I
remember that the children were happy and anxious to
learn."
But Webster, being a graduate of Yale College and
a scholar and writer of national and international fame,
had, his granddaughter declares, "a passion for educa-
tion, and the fire of his enthusiasm helped to kindle the
desires of the townspeople. He talked in private, he
harangued in public, he showed the advantage and he
pressed the necessity of it. Moreover, he gave his own
34
BIRTH AND EARLY EDUCATION
daughters a far longer and higher course of study than
was then customary. Indeed, he felt the need of this
more advanced school in educating his younger chil-
dren."
As a result of this agitation started by Webster, which
was continued for a generation, we find in Amherst
greatly improved public schools. From an examination
of school reports we learn that the children were taught
both to think and to behave themselves. R. L. Parsons,
who won the approbation of the school board, taught the
winter school. "From the outset," the committee re-
ported, "there was a constant improvement in the order
of the school and in the behavior of the children. Even
when at play in the school yard, they studiously avoided
disturbing the neighbors, and Mr. Parsons was attentive
to the cultivation of good manners. At the close of each
day's session the scholars passed out of the school room
with a courtesy or bow to their teacher which was always
returned. Absence of rudeness and the presence of
easy, graceful manners characterized the school. The
studies included arithmetic, history, physiology, analysis
and geography. Much attention also was given to writ-
ing and spelling."
One cause of the excellence of the Amherst schools is
thus revealed by the school report of 1853: "Your com-
mittee attribute the uniform success of the public schools
under Providence to the superior teachers employed.
These were selected with particular reference to their
past experience, tact in government and literary attain-
ments. Other qualifications being equal, one who could
sing was preferred. Singing has been an occasional
exercise in every school. Females were selected gen-
35
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
erally on account of their superior ability to govern and
educate children, and because their wages are about fifty
per cent less than those of male teachers. The continu-
ance of an excellent teacher in the same school for suc-
cessive terms was always secured when possible." This
committee was guided in its action by the advice of
Horace Mann and Dr. Sears, secretary of the state
board of education.
Another cause of the excellence of the Amherst public
schools was the success of Amherst Academy, which was
founded largely through the influence of Noah Webster.
Mrs. Jones, a daughter of Noah Webster, who re-
ceived her education chiefly within its walls, thus de-
scribes it: "The school became a favorite with the public,
its teachers were Christian gentlemen, and entirely com-
petent for the places they filled, and the lady teachers
were refined, gentle and cultivated, and exerted a beau-
tiful influence on their pupils." Mrs. Ford says: "The
school opened with a large number of students and
attracted pupils from every part of New England. It
had at one time as many as ninety pupils in the ladies'
department and quite as many more in the gentlemen's."
"It was," says Professor W. S. Tyler, "the Williston
Seminary and the Mount Holyoke of that day com-
bined."
Among the pupils in Amherst Academy were Mary
Lyon, the girl from Buckland who afterwards founded
Mount Holyoke Seminary; Abby Maria Wood, niece
of Luke Sweetser, who lived with him in Oak Grove
and who afterwards became the wife of Dr. Daniel
Bliss, the founder of the Syrian Protestant College in
Beirut, Syria, giving her useful life to the service of
36
, r.-SlO%
Amherst Academy
BIRTH AND EARLY EDUCATION
Syrian boys and girls; Helen Fiske, afterwards known
as Helen Hunt Jackson, whose writings signed "H. H."
were famous; and Emily Dickinson, the unique genius
whose posthumous poems and letters, edited by Mabel
Loomis Todd, twenty-five years ago charmed many
readers and made a sensation in the literary world.
Emily Dickinson, when a girl of fourteen, wrote a
letter in which she thus describes the school: "Viny and
I both go to school this term. We have a very fine
school. There are sixty-three scholars. I have four
studies. They are Mental Philosophy, Geology, Latin
and Botany. How large they sound, don't they? I
don't believe you have such big studies I have
written one composition this term, and I need not assure
you it was exceedingly edifying to myself as well as
everybody else We are obliged to write com-
positions once in a fortnight, and select a piece to read
from some interesting book the week we don't write
compositions. We really have some charming young
women in school this term I never enjoyed my-
self more than I have this summer ; for we have had such
a delightful school and such pleasant teachers. Our
examination is to come off next week on Monday
I am already gasping in view of our examination and
although I am determined not to dread it I know it is
so foolish, yet in spite of my heroic resolution I cannot
avoid a few misgivings when I think of those tall, stern
trustees, and when I know that I shall lose mv character
if I don't recite as precisely as the laws of the Medes and
Persians. But what matter will that be a hundred vears
hence ? . . . . Have you heard anything from Miss Adams,
our dear teacher? How much I would give to see her."
37
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
March 15, 1847, she again writes of her school: "I go
this term and am studying Algebra, Euclid, Ecclesiasti-
cal History, and reviewing Arithmetic again to be upon
the safe side of things next autumn. We have a de-
lightful school this term under the instruction of our
former principals, and Miss R. Woodbridge, daughter
of Reverend Dr. W. of Hadley, for preceptress. We
all love her very much. Perhaps a slight description of
her might be interesting to my dear A. She is tall and
rather slender, but finely proportioned, has a most witch-
ing pair of blue eyes, rich brown hair, delicate com-
plexion, cheeks that vie with the opening rose-bud, teeth
like pearls, dimples which come and go like the ripples
in yonder little merry brook, and then she is so affec-
tionate and lovely. Forgive my glowing description,
for you know I am always in love with my teachers."
Another picture of life in the old Amherst Academy
is given by Mrs. Gordon L. Ford (Emily Ellsworth
Fowler Ford), daughter of Professor Fowler of Am-
herst College. She wrote as follows :
"There was a fine circle of young people in Amherst,
and we influenced each other strongly. We were in the
adoring mood and I am glad to say that many of these
idols of our girlhood have proved themselves golden.
The eight girls who composed this group had talent
enough for twice their number, and in their respective
spheres of mothers, authors, or women, have been note-
worthy and admirable.
"This group started a little paper in the Academy
which was kept up for two years. Emily Dickinson
was one of the wits of the school and a humorist of the
'comic column.' Fanny Montague often made the head
38
BIRTH AND EARLY EDUCATION
title of the paper — Forest Leaves — in leaves copied
from nature and fantasies of her own pen work. She is
now a wise member of art circles in Baltimore, a man-
ager of the Museum of Art, and the appointed and in-
telligent critic of the Japanese Exhibit in Chicago.
Helen Fiske (the 'H. H.' of later days) did no special
work on the paper for various reasons. This paper was
all in script, and was passed around the school, where
the contributions were easily recognized from the hand-
writing which in Emily's case was very beautiful — small,
clear, and finished. We had a Shakespeare Club — a
rare thing in those days. There were many little dances,
with cake and lemonade at the end, and one year there
was a valentine party, where the lines of various authors
were arranged to make apparent sense, but absolute
nonsense, the play being to guess the names and places
of the misappropriated lines. Emily was part and
parcel of all these gatherings. Several of this group had
beauty, all had intelligence and character, and others
had charm. My busy married life separated me from
these friends of my youth, and intercourse with them has
not been frequent; but I rejoice that my early years
were passed in scenes of beautiful nature, and with these
mates of simple life, high cultivation and noble ideals."
Such was Amherst Academy in the days of its glory,
as seen through the eyes of the girls who were among
its pupils. Professor W. S. Tyler, quoting the words
of an eyewitness, records these facts concerning this
famous school: "Under the government and instruction
of such superior teachers the academy obtained a reputa-
tion second to none in the State On Wednesday
afternoons all the scholars assembled in the upper hall
39
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
for reviews, declamations, compositions and exercises
in reading in which both gentlemen and ladies partici-
pated. Spectators were admitted and were often pres-
ent in large numbers, among whom Dr. Parsons and
Mr. Webster, president and vice-president of the board
of trustees, might usually be seen, and often the lawyers,
physicians and other educated men of the place. Not
unfrequently gentlemen from out of town were present,
including Dr. Packard, who early became a trustee, and
was much interested in the prosperity of the institution.
Once a vear at the close of the fall term in October, the
old meeting house was fitted up with a stage and,
strange to tell, in the staid town of Amherst where danc-
ing was tabooed and cards never dared show themselves,
reverend divines went with lawyers and doctors to the
house of God to witness a theatrical exhibition."
A valuable library was provided for the use of the
pupils. All were expected to take part in the weekly
Bible lesson and all attended morning and evening
prayers in the Academy hall and public worship in one
of the churches on the Sabbath. There was a weekly
literary society connected with the Academy. Scholars
from out of town could get a room for fifty cents a week
and board for $1.17. Pupils could attend college lec-
tures without charge.
Thomas Jones served on the board of trustees of this
Academy from 1841 to his death in 18.53 and sent his
children to it to be educated. Thomas Jones, Jr., at-
tended this school in 1842, 1843, 1847 and 1848; Mary
French was a pupil in the French class. Samuel Minot
Jones attended this school in 1847, 1849, 18.50 and 1851
and probably previous to 1847. Other Amherst pupils
40
BIRTH AND EARLY EDUCATION
were Charles H. Hitchcock, son of President Hitchcock
of Amherst College, Charles U. Boltwood, Laura
Emerson, Lavinia Dickinson, Henry Hills, M. Fayette
Dickinson, Mason Tyler, Mary B. Snell and Emily
Dickinson. Samuel M. Jones took part in the exhibi-
tion held August 10, 1847, when he was eleven years old
and declaimed Everett's oration. In 1849 he took part
in a farce adapted from Charles Lamb.
The Academy building was for its time an imposing
structure, devoid of ornament and planned for utility.
It was a marvelous schoolhouse in comparison with the
old district schoolhouse on Pleasant Street which Noah
Webster found on his first arrival in Amherst. It stood
in the center of a half-acre lot on Amity Street. It was
a three-story building with a basement. It was fifty
feet long and thirty-eight feet wide and contained recita-
tion rooms, an apartment for a family, with a kitchen,
and an assembly hall. The family superintended the
building and kept a boarding house in the early years
of the institution, but afterwards the building was de-
voted wholly to school purposes. Amherst Academy
was the nucleus out of which Amherst College was
developed.
In this school Samuel Minot Jones was fitted for col-
lege and received that thorough instruction and train-
ing from his teachers which prepared him for practical
life. The culture was intensive and yet broad enough
to give him an outlook into the world. The frequent
reviews and public oral examinations fixed what he
learned in his mind, making it entirely his own for future
use. His compositions and declamations taught him to
express what he thought in the presence of others so that
41
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
they could get his ideas and feel his influence. By asso-
ciating with scholars older than himself, both young men
and young women, coming from distant parts of the
state and country and actuated by a serious purpose, he
gained self-control, self-reliance and self-direction.
The death of his father when Samuel Minot Jones was
seventeen years of age changed the boy's plans. He
would not consent to be dependent upon his mother for
his support and therefore did not enter Amherst College
but went to work in the country store of Sweetser,
Cutler & Company, dealers in general merchandise.
Here one could buy blue and green flannel reefing
jackets, all kinds of clothing, dress goods, china, buffalo
robes and ladies' furs. Groceries, paints, glass and
hardware were offered at the lowest prices.
As in former times young men learned to be ministers
of the gospel by studying divinity with settled pastors,
boys learned to be doctors by studying with practicing
physicians and helping them mix medicines in a mortar,
and bright scholars studied law in the office of a noted
judge where they learned not only principles from
Blackstone but practical details of the profession by
making out legal papers, so, as there were no business
colleges available in his day, Samuel Minot Jones be-
came a clerk and utility man in the village store. Here
was the town forum where leading citizens gathered to
pass the time of day and discuss questions of moment.
Here farmers brought their produce from adjacent
towns. Here women and girls came to do their shop-
ping. Tea and coffee and spices from the East Indies,
cashmere and fine fabrics from Europe, satinets and
calicoes from American mills, led one's mind to think of
42
^v >,
on
3
BIRTH AND EARLY EDUCATION
distant places and of a big world. Human nature dis-
played itself between traders. Mercantile bookkeep-
ing required accuracy and patience. Most customers
had accounts which they settled at least once a year.
Today in a large department store the division of labor
is so great that any one clerk or employee can learn only
a small part of the business. She sells gloves, it may be,
and nothing else. He measures calico by the yard and
that is all. But in the old-fashioned country store the
boy learned the whole business, dry goods, boots and
shoes, groceries, hardware. He swept the floor, built the
fires, delivered parcels, sold goods, kept accounts,
studied human nature. He worked early and late with
hands and feet, with tongue and brains.
Sweetser & Cutler's store was a town institution. In
it George Cutler learned the business in his boyhood
and continued his interest in it until his death at the age
of ninety-six. His son, George Cutler, Jr., followed
him in the same course. In it many of the leading busi-
ness men of Amherst and other towns served their
apprenticeship. One generation after another has
passed, but the business is still continued at the old stand
and conducted along similar lines.
In addition to the training provided by home and
school and country store the influence of the village
church was potent in giving decision of character to
young Jones and in fitting him to accept responsibilities
of life and to keep steadfastly in pursuit of the end of
his being as duty pointed out the path.
Thomas Jones had a pew in the village church and
that it was considered an asset of real value may be
inferred from the following advertisement which ap-
43
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
peared in the Hampshire and Franklin Express: "Pew
for sale. Pew No. 15. Pleasantly situated near the
center of Rev. Mr. Dwight's church on the south side of
the middle aisle and in front of the pew of the late
Thomas Jones." Rev. Edward S. Dwight, D.D., was
pastor of the church from August 21, 1853, to August
28, 1860. He was a graduate of Yale College, and for
many years secretary of the Amherst College board of
trustees. He was a refined, scholarly gentleman of the
old school. He succeeded Aaron M. Colton, who was
pastor thirteen years, from 1840 to 1853, which com-
prised most of the boyhood of Samuel Minot Jones.
This village church of the Congregational denomina-
tion was the dominant institution in the town. Its or-
ganization preceded by twenty years that of the town
itself. The third meeting house was built in 1829 and
was used until 1868, when it became the property of
Amherst College. In this meeting house members of
the family of Thomas Jones were regular attendants.
Music was provided by a choir seated in the gallery. A
bass viol, a flute and other instruments were in use be-
fore an organ was secured. In 1832 stoves were allowed
to be placed in the meeting house and in 1857 a chande-
lier and lamps were used for lighting. The students of
the Academy had seats in the gallery. The church
prayer meeting was considered by young men preparing
for the ministry as a school as well as a place for devo-
tion. Mr. Colton's pulpit, as described by himself, was
"of pine wood, narrow, doored and achingly plain. Man
up there had to look well to his elbows in essaying a
gesture. High and closed against all assaults; but so
were the old Bastile towers in which prisoners were
44
The Meeting House
BIRTH AND EARLY EDUCATION
immured." Its height, however, enabled the preacher
to face his hearers in the galleries as well as the congre-
gation below his desk. But when Sam Jones was a boy
six years old a new pulpit, bought in Boston, replaced
the old one. In later years Pastor Colton said, "Per-
haps the parish has never since been stronger as to
number, character, wealth and standing of chief men."
These included lawyers, doctors, merchants, clergymen,
teachers, an editor, bankers, the postmaster, manufac-
turers and a score or more of leading citizens. Evening
meetings were held in the Academy to save lighting the
church. The pastor preached two sermons on fast days
and two sermons on communion Sabbaths, when the
sacrament was administered during the noon hour, and
a prayer meeting was held the same evening.
During Mr. Colton's ministry there were three re-
vivals, in 1841, 1843 and 1850. The last one began in
January and continued until August. There were 150
conversions and 68 converts joined the church in one day,
August 11. The spiritual awakening was greatly aug-
mented by the temperance revival which accompanied it.
The story as told by Pastor Colton at the 150th anniver-
sary of the church in 1889 is as follows:
"Early in January, 1850, the prayer meetings were
notably fuller and more solemn. A cloud of mercy
seemed to hang over us and ready to drop down fatness.
Days and weeks passed, but no conversions. What was
the hindrance? Once and again the church standing
committee — the Deacons — met in the pastor's study to
talk and pray over this question. Oppressing fear was
felt, lest our dawn should shut down in darkness. The
trouble, we came to believe, was in the rum places in the
45
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
village with fires of hell in full blast. What could be
done? My counselors did wisely in advising prudence,
for we were told the rum men were desperate. Kind
words had been used, but availed nothing. You can
imagine a pastor's anxieties in such an emergency.
March meeting was close by. I drew up two articles
and obtained five signatures asking for their insertion
in the warrant : First, to see if it be the wish of the town
of Amherst that places be kept open here for the sale of
intoxicating drinks in violation of law; and, second, to
see if the town will authorize and instruct their selectmen
to close such places, if such there be in the town. I went
to Lieutenant Dickinson of the South Parish, and
Judge Conkey of the East, and Daniel Dickinson of the
North, and President Hitchcock of the College. They
all promised to give a helping word, Dr. Hitchcock to
speak last. The meeting came. Sweetser's Hall was
crowded to the stairs. There was much excitement. A
man from South Amherst moved that the articles be dis-
missed. This was voted down. Then the main question,
and now the speaking as pre-arranged — Dr. Hitchcock
closing — and a more affecting and effective appeal than
his I have never heard. He said in substance: 'The
people of Amherst are aware that I have not been in the
habit of meddling in the affairs of the town. I feel that
the interests of myself and family are safe in the care
of the town, and I am confident that the good people
here who have done so nobly for the College will not
allow the institution to suffer injuries from evil causes
among us'; and then with an emphasis that fairly choked
his utterance he added : 'But it were better that the Col-
lege should go down, than that young men should come
46
BIRTH AND EARLY EDUCATION
here to be ruined by drink places among us.' Then the
voting — 400 hands shot up for abating the nuisances —
so it was said. Contrary minds — just one hand, and one
only and alone. The next morning at ten o'clock the
selectmen went to these rum resorts and shut them up.
'Then the heavens gave rain and there was a great
refreshing.' "
Professor W. S. Tyler at the 150th anniversary of
the church bore this testimony to the important place it
held in the community :
"As historian of Amherst College I ought to know
something of the origin and history of these (educa-
tional ) institutions. And I have no hesitation in saying
that the officers and members of this church were the
founders of Amherst Academy and Amherst College,
and inasmuch as the Agricultural College was the
daughter of Amherst College, this church is the mother
of them all.
"Amherst College was founded . . . . by a single
local church The ministers and members of this
church took the lead. They bore the burden. They did
the work. They gave the money to begin the work.
They poured it out like water when money was scarce,
when ten dollars was worth as much as a hundred is now,
when it was more difficult to get ten dollars for a college
than it is to get a thousand now. None of them was
rich. Some of them literally made themselves poor by
their liberal giving."
Noah Webster wrote the constitution of the First
Church Sundav school and was the chairman of the
board of managers. Joseph Estabrook, the first pro-
fessor of Greek and Latin in the College, was the first
47
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
superintendent of the first Sunday school in Amherst.
Many of the teachers were college students. "Henry
Ward Beecher," Professor Tyler continues, "then a
senior in college, was the inspiring teacher of a large class
of young men, when I was superintendent. The great
revival of 1831, which was equally powerful in the Col-
lege and the village, originated in the Sabbath School
concert."
"Witness," says Professor Tyler, "the generous sub-
scription to the building and the books of the library of
Amherst College which, beginning as such subscriptions
usually do, in the First Church and parish of Amherst,
extended to the other parishes of this and several neigh-
boring towns, gave the College not only a new library
building but a new epoch in its general prosperity."
The First Church bell came from the foundry of Paul
Revere. When that was worn out others took its place.
The church bell not only tolled for the dead, one stroke
for each year of age of the deceased, but it rang daily at
noon for the dinner hour and at nine o'clock each night
the curfew rang the hour for retiring. Its peals on Sab-
bath day called the people to worship, when as a matter
of course young and old, boys and girls, went to church.
Eugene Field, with his erratic genius, when a boy
chafed under the strict discipline of the Jones family
and the Puritan spirit of Amherst which compelled his
attendance at the meeting house on the hill, where, ac-
companied by George Cutler's flute and the bass viol
played by Josiah Ayres and the strident notes of the
violin, the choir and congregation sang "That awful day
will surely come," and "That last great day of woe and
doom," and "Broad is the way that leads to death." To
48
BIRTH AND EARLY EDUCATION
him and other kindred spirits the Sabbath often seemed
to be a veritable day of judgment. In his later years
Eugene Field spoke humorously of those all-day ses-
sions in church and Sunday school, so his biographer
declares, "though he never failed to acknowledge the
benefits he had derived from the enforced study of the
Bible." "If I could be grateful to New England for
nothing else," the poet declared, "I shall bless her for-
ever for pounding me with the Bible and the spelling
book."
The observance of Sunday, which began at sundown
on Saturday and closed at sundown on Sunday, the
evening and the morning comprising the first day, was
enforced not only by the church but by the town as well.
In July, 1845, a circus was advertised to give two per-
formances on Saturday afternoon and evening. There
were to appear "a melodious brass band and female
equestrians." There was little protest against the after-
noon performance, but to permit a circus to exhibit
Saturday night was to desecrate the Sabbath. The
whole town became excited. The selectmen were called
to account for permitting such a desecration of sacred
time. They in their own defense declared that they had
issued a license for the afternoon only and that the pro-
posed evening exhibition was unauthorized. A special
courier was, therefore, sent posthaste to Worcester bear-
ing the town's ultimatum to the circus managers that no
exhibition should be given in the evening and that if
they were not satisfied with one performance only, in the
afternoon, they must give none.
During the boyhood of Samuel Minot Jones, the
Puritan home, the schools, the business organizations,
49
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
the college, the church and the town were united. These
were all factors of a homogeneous community cooperat-
ing for the general welfare and for the education and
training of the individuals of the rising generation. The
social, intellectual, moral and religious atmosphere was
all-pervasive and most powerful in its influence over the
boy in his infancy and during the period of adolescence.
The traits inherited from his forefathers were strength-
ened in the growth of Sam Jones and so molded as to
give him a character that fitted him for his future career.
He learned the nobility of labor. He was brought up
to work. Everybody worked, young and old, rich and
poor, boys and girls. Labor was not the badge of a
slave. Labor was divine. He was shown the value of
intelligence. It was work intelligently planned and
wisely executed that brought results worth the effort.
In his large family of brothers and sisters he learned
self-control and cooperation. The young folks worked
together as they played together. Intelligence con-
sisted not merely in memorizing ideas of other minds,
but in the power to think for oneself, to discover the
adaptation of means to ends. His father in his factories
must look ahead and anticipate the demand of the
market for his goods and then produce them by organiz-
ing labor, applying it to raw material and producing
what was fitted to supply human need. The Yankee
farmer during the winter planned his next season's
work; in spring, sowing seed to be harvested in autumn;
in summer, preparing for the winter. Intelligence con-
sisted in embodying the truth in such fashion as to be
able to apply it to the practical affairs of life. The
50
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BIRTH AND EARLY EDUCATION
public schools, the Academy, the college, the Sunday
school, combined to make him intelligent.
Sam Jones was taught the majesty of the law and
reverence for law and order. The law of the family,
the law of the factory, the law of the school, the law of
the town, state and nation was not to be defied, ignored
or evaded. It must be obeyed. License was not liberty.
His declamation of Everett's oration and his studies in
the Academy gave him an idea of the sacredness of law.
The church and the Sunday school taught him the neces-
sity of righteousness. The Ten Commandments re-
vealed to him the meaning of two important phrases:
"Thou shalt" and "Thou shalt not." They developed
his conscience and strengthened his will. The sense of
his own individual responsibility, involving self-control
and self-direction, gave him the determination to think
right, feel right, choose right, do right and be right. So
at eighteen years of age we find Samuel Minot Jones
trained to work intelligently, in accordance with the
laws of nature, the laws of thought, the laws of the
State, for righteous ends.
The death of Thomas Jones in 1853 changed the plans
of his son, then seventeen years old. Although pre-
pared for the college which was the pride of Amherst
and which he might have attended while living at home,
he nevertheless would not consent to be dependent upon
his mother for support while spending four long years in
study. He believed that it was his duty rather to sup-
port her and help her maintain her position as head of
the Jones mansion. He was ambitious for a business
life. His half brothers, older than he, were already in
the West located on the wide prairies of Illinois among
51
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
other pioneers. So the young man of eighteen, no
longer a boy, bade good-by to his mother and his sister
Augusta, his schoolmates and many friends, and made
the journey of a thousand miles to Chicago, then a
growing city of 30,000 pioneers recently located on the
southwest shore of Lake Michigan. A canal had been
dug connecting the lake with the head of navigation on
the Illinois River, which emptied into the Mississippi.
Early settlers from New England had made their
journey through the Erie Canal on packet boats, in
which they could board themselves if they so desired, to
Buffalo and thence by steamboats across Lake Erie, and
perchance through Lakes Huron and Michigan. But
in 1854 railroad connections had been made by the New
York Central, the Lake Shore and the Michigan
Southern. Other railroads made Chicago their center.
Sam Jones found employment in the lumber office of
James H. Ferry & Company, at the foot of Washington
Street. Here he remained for two years. The contrast
between his life in his Puritan home in Amherst, where
he was protected from temptation on every side, and his
life in the new city of Chicago, where were gathered to-
gether on the western border men, women and children
from all lands, each in the strenuous fight for money, for
fame or for pleasure, was most remarkable. He was
thrust into the midst of an entirely new world, his own
master, where he could do as he pleased with no one to
compel him to do this or to prohibit his doing that. But
here his self-control, self-direction and dominant pur-
pose to care for and please his mother, kept him from
pitfalls on all sides, proved his salvation, and gave him
final success.
52
CHAPTER III
THE SOLDIER IN THE CIVIL WAR
Samuel Minot Jones, after serving an apprenticeship
in the city, went to Knoxville, Illinois, five miles from
Galesburg, to be associated in the lumber business with
his brother, William G. Jones. Later, about 1857, he
went to Havana, the county seat of Mason County,
located on the Illinois River, thirty-nine miles north-
west of Springfield and midway between Chicago and
St. Louis, Missouri. Here he was in business with his
brother, Thomas Jones. Havana was the market not
only for Mason County, but also for the rich farming
communities on both sides of the river. Wood was
found only along the rivers so that the dwellers on the
prairies must trade their grain and dairy products for
the lumber needed to construct their houses, barns and
other buildings.
Here the Jones brothers, with their New England
thrift and enterprise, were able to meet the demands of
the pioneers who came not only from the Atlantic coast
but also from Ohio and the South to seek their fortune
on the fertile and cheap lands of the new commonwealth.
The business of the firm prospered. The younger
brother, Samuel Minot, became a man and he was fast
realizing his dreams and achieving his plans to be the
support of his widowed mother and his sisters in Am-
53
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
herst, when the whole situation was changed by the out-
break of the Civil War. Abe Lincoln, the Springfield
lawyer, was elected President of the United States. The
election of 1860 and the preceding events, including the
debates between Lincoln and Douglas, created an at-
mosphere in which all the inherited instincts for patriotic
service and love of liberty in the soul of Samuel Minot
Jones were aroused to action. His uncle, Roswell
Martin Field, his mother's brother, won fame by his
part in the trial of the Dred Scott case before the United
States Supreme Court. The convention that nominated
Lincoln was held in Chicago and Illinois was a pivotal
state hotly contested in the election. It was from
Springfield, only a few miles from Havana, that Lincoln
started for Washington to run the gauntlet of assassins
to assume his great responsibility.
Under such circumstances Samuel Minot Jones did
not hesitate to give up his ambition for a business career
and to subordinate his love of mother and of home to
his love of country, and to consecrate his young man-
hood to the service of freedom. He hastened to St.
Louis at the beginning of the war and enlisted, July 9,
1861, aged twenty-five years, in the 9th Missouri Regi-
ment, which afterwards became the 59th Illinois Regi-
ment of Infantry. He was mustered in July 17, 1861,
and commissioned bv the Governor of Missouri First
Lieutenant and was assigned to Company A. He re-
signed January 8, 1863, on account of severe illness re-
sulting from a wound in his leg and an attack of typhoid
fever, and was discharged on that date in Tennessee.
During these eighteen months he shared in all the
strenuous service of his regiment and was repeatedly
54
THE SOLDIER IN THE CIVIL WAR
cited for bravery and distinguished efficiency in critical
emergencies.
The organization of the 9th Missouri Regiment, com-
posed of stalwart, self-reliant pioneer citizens of Illinois
and adjoining states, was completed September 18,1861,
by Colonel John C. Kelton in St. Louis, Missouri.
Three days later it was ordered to Jefferson City, and
soon after was moved to Booneville and brigaded with
the 37th Illinois, the 5th Iowa, the 1st Kansas and David-
son's Battery of Illinois. Colonel J. C. Kelton com-
manded the brigade and General John Pope the divi-
sion. October 13 the regiment moved to Otterville and,
later, to Springfield, Missouri. February 12, 1862, the
regiment was changed to the 59th Illinois. Two days
later, under the command of Major P. Sidney Post, it
pursued the enemy to Cassville.
This regiment participated in the battles of Pea
Ridge, Corinth, Perryville, Knox Gap, Liberty Gap,
Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain, Mission Ridge,
Resica, Cassville, Dallas, Rockyface Ridge, Kenesaw
Mountain, Smyrna Station, Atlanta, Love joy Station,
Franklin and Nashville. It marched through Missouri,
Arkansas, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi and Ten-
nessee, enduring hardships innumerable in all kinds of
weather.
The two memorable battles in which Lieutenant S. M.
Jones took part were at Pea Ridge, Arkansas, and at
Stone River, Tennessee. The battle at Pea Ridge in
the Ozark Mountains, in the northwest corner of Arkan-
sas, occurring early in the war and resulting in a notable
victory for the Union forces, did much to encourage the
55
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
North and to make the South realize the nature of the
struggle upon which it had entered.
The Union forces had been lured far from their base
at Springfield, Missouri, into the mountains, just where
the Confederate generals had set a trap for them. Van
Dorn, McCulloch, Price and Mcintosh coming from
different points concentrated their forces with a regi-
ment of Indians under Pike and Ross so that their com-
bined armies numbered about 75,000, or three times that
of the Union forces. Their plans were skillfully laid to
throw a strong force between the Union army and its
line of communication with the base at Springfield, so
as to surround it completely and ensure its capture.
These plans succeeded so far that General Price threw
his strong force in the rear of the Union army before its
generals were aware of the fact. Why the South's hope
of victory, so nearly attained, was suddenly turned into
an ignominious defeat is explained by this interesting
letter written on the battlefield by Lieutenant Jones and
sent to his brother :
In camp on Sugar Creek, Ark.,
March 16, 1862.
My Dear Brother :
You have doubtless seen e'er this will reach you the full
particulars of our great fight and as I do not feel in a writing
mood I shall not go into details, but merely state a few facts
to you which will be likely to be kept in the dark by those in
high position. Our whole army fell back some fifteen miles from
the advance we first made and on the bluff of Sugar Creek made
preparations to receive the enemy, if he advanced, and, if we
found they were in too heavy force for us, we had the way
open to fall back. Imagine our surprise when on the morning
of the 7th of March at about 10 o'clock it was found the enemy
56
THE SOLDIER IN THE CIVIL WAR
had thrown their whole force into our rear and on our right.
The truth is we had been entirely outgeneraled and were forced
to fight a vastly superior force and to whip them or surrender.
By a train of circumstances which seem little less than miracu-
lous and the unflinching valor of our troops, we accomplished
the former against odds of three to one. What I consider
gained the day for us was the killing of McCulloch and Mcin-
tosh the afternoon of the first day by our Brigade in its en-
counter with their forces and the Indians under Pike and Ross.
When they were killed, their troops were thrown into confusion
and their reserve which amounted to some thousands failed to
come up, leaving our boys victors. Meanwhile Price had been
fighting Carr directly in our rear and had been gaining ground
all day, having taken three of our cannon. So the first day
closed. Our boys bivouacked on the field they had so dearly won.
Towards morning it was found that the forces our Division
had met and routed had left their portion of the field (since
ascertained that discouraged by the loss of their generals they
had all retreated in the night) leaving us Van Dorn and Price
to fight the next day with our whole force which we did and
after a hard fight of four hours completely whipped them at
all points. Had we been obliged to fight their whole combined
army the second day we should have had a terribly tough time
of it.
Lieutenant Jones' reference to the Indians needs to
be explained by this communication from General
Curtis:
Head Quarters Army of South West, Pea Ridge, Ark.,
Mar. 9, 1862.
Earl Van Dorn,
Commander Confederate Forces :
The general regrets that we find on the battlefield, con-
trary to civilized warfare, many of the Federal dead who were
57
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
tomahawked, scalped and their bodies shamelessly mangled,
and expresses a hope that this important struggle may not
degenerate into a savage warfare.
By order,
Brig. Gen'l S. R. Curtis.
How the victory was appreciated by the country may
be inferred from these despatches :
Hdquarters Dpt of the Missouri
St. Louis, Mar. 10, 1862.
Brigadier-Gen'l Curtis,
Commanding in Arkansas.
I congratulate you and your command on the glorious
victory just gained. You have proved yourselves as brave in
battle as enduring of fatigue and hardship. A grateful coun-
try will honor you for both.
H. W. Halleck,
Major General.
Hdquarters Dpt of the Missouri
St. Louis, Mar. 10, 1862.
The Army of the Southwest under Gen'l Curtis, after three
days' hard fighting near Sugar Creek, Arkansas, has gained a
most glorious victory over the combined forces of Van Dorn,
McCulloch, Price and Mcintosh. Our loss in killed and
wounded estimated at 1000; that of the enemy still larger.
Guns, flags, provisions, etc., captured in large quantities. Our
cavalry in pursuit of the flying enemy.
H. W. Halleck,
Major General.
Major Gen'l McClellan,
Washington.
58
THE SOLDIER IN THE CIVIL WAR
The experience of Samuel Minot Jones as a business
man was discovered soon after his enlistment and he
was detailed from company duty to serve as brigade
quartermaster. With the army so far from its base, the
question of food, clothing and other supplies for men
fighting continuously for three days and sleeping on
their arms in the open field in the mountains, was of
momentous importance. But he was the man for the
hour and ready for the emergency. He seldom spoke of
his part in the battle. His sensitive nature shrank from
the bloody scenes enacted about him when, fighting for
their lives and for their country, surrounded by forces
three times as large as their own, those western stalwart
pioneers, attacked by savages with tomahawk and scalp-
ing knives, cut their way out and put the enemy to flight.
But how well he played his part may be learned from
official reports.
Colonel Julius White, commanding 2d Brigade, in
his report to General J. C. Davis, 3d Division, of the
battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas, March 11, 1862, says:
"Brigade Quartermaster S. M. Jones and Brigade
Commissary A. D. Baker have during the three days of
the enemy's presence discharged their duties promptly
and efficiently; their several departments, so essential
to the welfare of the troops, having always been in
order."
After this victory at Sugar Creek the regiment re-
sumed its travels. Post was made its Colonel April 1,
1862. May 20 the regiment reached Hamburg Land-
ing, Tennessee. Eight days later it joined General
Pope's reserve. After the evacuation of Corinth the
regiment pursued the enemy to Booneville and then
59
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
marched to Ripley, Missouri. It participated in the
skirmish at Bay Springs, Missouri, August 5, and on
the eighth reached Iuka. August 18 the Tennessee
River was crossed at Eastport and the regiment en-
camped at Waterloo with Post commanding the brigade
and General Robert B. Mitchell commander of the
division. The regiment reached Florence, Alabama,
August 24, and Murfreesboro, Tennessee, September 1.
The next march, September 3 to 26, ended in Louis-
ville, Kentucky, with General Buell. A new campaign
started in October in pursuit of General Bragg's forces
to Bardstown and on the seventh the enemy was over-
taken at Chaplain Hills near Perryville. The following
day there was a battle in which 113 men out of 361 were
killed or wounded. Pursuit of the enemy was resumed
on the tenth of October and four days later there was a
fight at Lancaster, Kentucky. Nashville, Tennessee,
was reached November 7.
Here seven weeks were spent in preparation for the
winter campaign under General Rosecrans, command-
ing the Army of the Cumberland. The day after
Christmas, 1862, the regiment drove the enemy until
found in force at Nolensville, where after a fight the
Confederates retreated in confusion. Knob Gap was
attacked December 27 and the enemy driven out to
Triune. Here the 59th Regiment rested for two days
before marching to Murfreesboro, where it lay within a
few hundred yards of the enemy's works. Early on the
thirty-first the enemy, adopting the same plan as that
which so nearly succeeded at Pea Ridge, surprised
Rosecrans by throwing a strong body of troops in the
60
THE SOLDIER IN THE CIVIL WAR
rear of the Union Army. The right flank of the 20th
Corps was turned so that the 59th Regiment was obliged
to change front and face to the rear. Here, supported
by the 5th Wisconsin Battery, it held the enemy for a
long time and brought off the battery, whose horses were
killed. As before, some one had blundered and only the
dogged determination of those Western veterans saved
the day. General McCook's right wing was routed. The
enemy following up attacked Davis' division and
speedily dislodged Post's brigade, including the 59th
Regiment.
The story, as told in the report of Colonel P. Sidney
Post, commanding the 1st Brigade, follows:
"Dec. 26, Men after fighting in rain bivouacked on
the field. Dec. 27, marched in rain in rear of Colonel
Carlin's regiment nearly to Triune. Dec. 29, marched in
rear of Colonel Woodruff's brigade toward Murfrees-
boro. Dec. 30, the 59th in reserve to support battery.
Afternoon attacked by Rebel battery, enemy in strong
force. During the night men lay down without fires or
shelter. Dec. 31, awakened in morning and stood in
order of battle one hour before the first light of dawn.
Horses stood by the battery all night.
"As soon as it became light the enemy were dis-
covered moving in great numbers toward our right and
nearly parallel with our line with the evident design of
turning the right wing of the army. I immediately
despatched Lieut. Jones of my staff to inform Brigadier
General Davis."
After the battle of Pea Ridge the services of Samuel
Minot Jones attracted the attention of his superiors so
61
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
that he was made Adjutant. That was a memorable
ride of his, after the days and nights of terrible conflict
with the enemy and the elements, in the early morning
to report at headquarters the serious turn of the battle.
Reinforcements were needed badly and needed at once,
but the appeal did not produce the desired results. Gen-
eral Rosecrans would not believe that the enemy could
circumvent him. It was not in his plan. He imagined
that General McCook could hold his own.
Colonel Post's report continues: "The 59th prepared
with fixed bayonets to receive the enemy's charge. But
being cut off by the enemy in the rear the 59th withdrew
dragging two Parrott guns."
Here Lieutenant Jones appears in a new light. Not
content with bearing despatches he takes the initiative
and does the thing that needs to be done without waiting
for orders. "The 74th and 75th Illinois regiments,"
the report states, "fell back across the cotton field and
under the direction of Lieutenant Jones, who also rallied
a number of detachments from other regiments, made a
determined resistance again checking the foe. The fresh
troops from the reserves here relieved the brigade and I
proceeded to the pike, reformed my shattered battalions
and supplied them with ammunition. I was soon ordered
by Brigadier General Davis to move up the pike and
take position on the right of the line, and the men lay
down for the night.
"The next morning I was ordered to occupy the
open field where I built breastworks and stationed a
battery. During the following day, after skirmishing,
the men crossed Stone River in the afternoon, which
was swollen by heavy rains, rushing through the flood
62
THE SOLDIER IN THE CIVIL WAR
to attack the enemy. They stood at arms all night with-
out fires. Jan. 3, breastworks were constructed under
the fire of sharpshooters. At night during a pouring
rain the men again lay on their arms. At 2 a.m. the
battery recrossed the river and at 4 a.m. the brigade
forded the stream and took position on the right where it
remained until January 6, when it encamped south of
Murfreesboro after passing through the town."
In closing, Colonel Post pays this tribute :
"The zeal and decision shown by Lieutenants Jones,
Hall, Hatch and Baker, members of my staff, and the
intrepidity of my faithful orderly, George Forgel, de-
mand my highest commendation."
"During the long contest and notwithstanding the
extreme inclemency of the weather and the scarcity of
provisions, no word of complaint was heard. Officers
and men seemed alike anxious to do their full duty as
patriotic soldiers. In our advance they pushed forward
boldly and when greatly superior numbers were hurled
against them they awaited the onset with the utmost
coolness and determination. The temporary confusion
which occurred when they fell back was caused to a
considerable extent by the large force of skirmishers,
thrown out to check the enemy, having been driven
toward the left instead of directly upon their own regi-
ments. The deliberation and order with which the 74th
Illinois retired is especially commended."
The part played by Colonel Post's brigade, rallied by
Lieutenant Jones, checked the enemy and gave time for
General Sheridan to come to the rescue. General Mc-
Cook's right wing was routed. The enemy following up
attacked Davis' division and speedily dislodged Post's
63
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
brigade. At this critical juncture Sheridan, after sus-
taining four successive attacks, gradually swung his
right from a southeasterly to a northwesterly direction,
repulsing the enemy four times, losing his gallant
General Sill of his right and Colonel Roberts of his
left brigade, met the advancing enemy and checked his
movements.
This report of Brigadier General Philip H. Sheridan
tells the story:
Jan. 9. Headquarters 3d Div. Right Wing 14th
Army Corps Camp on Stone River, Tenn.
My division alone and unbroken made a gallant stand to
protect the right flank of our army, being all that remained of
the right wing. Had my ammunition held out I would not have
fallen back, although such were my orders if hard pressed. As
it was, the determined stand of my troops gave time for a
rearrangement of our lines.
The real nature of the battle may be learned from
the following paragraph from a letter printed in the
Amherst local paper, written by one who escaped alive
from the fierce fight :
"We were ordered into the Cedar woods and formed our
alignment about fifty yards from the edge. A brigade of our
troops was giving way before the terrible fire of the enemy
and we were relied upon to check the rebels. We lay down
until our troops had all passed to the rear and the enemy
approached to within a hundred yards. We arose and fired and
must have done awful execution. That they damaged us was
apparent. In fifteen minutes thirteen officers and 270 men out
of 575 had fallen. We were forced to retire but our purpose
had been accomplished. The division had reformed in our rear
and the enemy did not advance beyond the edge of the timber.
64
THE SOLDIER IN THE CIVIL WAR
Our dead lay four days upon the field. I have been command-
ing Co. E, 2d Battalion. Five days we lay upon the battlefield
at one time eating corn issued to officers and men for rations."
Another participant in this battle wrote to his friends
in Amherst describing the crushing of Rosecrans' right
wing and the enemy's attack upon the right flank of the
center of the Union Army. He says their rations were
ears of corn and the promise of horse meat. Continuing
he wrote: "We have had hard times all along. It has
rained all the time since Friday evening and we have not
had any kind of shelter and have had to lie in the mud,
half starved, wet, frozen, awake."
The losses as reported were severe. The total killed
and wounded were 8778, including 92 officers and 1441
privates killed and 384 officers and 6861 privates
wounded. Colonel Post's brigade suffered a loss of 161
or 11.33 per cent killed and wounded. Rosecrans esti-
mated the enemy's forces at 62,000 men, including 46,000
infantry, 1200 sharpshooters, 1800 artillery and 13,000
cavalry; and their loss 23% per cent of the fighting
force. The Union forces were 42,000 and the loss 21
per cent. The mobile force of cavalry gave the enemy
a great advantage in hurling an attack with concen-
trated energy at the weakest points. Only the de-
terminated resistance of the stalwart Western regiments
and the genius of Sheridan prevented an utter rout and
final defeat of the Union Army.
By fighting to the bitter end the Federal troops won
the victory which gave new courage to President Lin-
coln and the North. The following despatches an-
nounced the result of the battles :
65
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
Headquarters Department of the Cumberland
Via Nashville, Tenn.
Jan. 5, 1863.
We have fought one of the greatest battles of the war and
are victorious. Our entire success on the 31st was prevented
by a surprise of the right flank ; but we have nevertheless beaten
the enemy after a three days' battle. They fled with great
precipitancy on Saturday night. The last of their columns of
cavalry left this morning. Their loss has been very heavy.
Generals Rains and Hanson killed. Chalmers, Adams and
Breckenridge are wounded.
(Signed) W. S. Rosecrans,
Maj. Gen'l.
H. W. Halleck,
Gen'l in Chief.
Executive Mansion,
Washington, D. C,
Jan. 5, 1863.
Maj. Gen'l W. S. Rosecrans,
Murfreesboro, Tenn.
Your despatch announcing retreat of the enemy has just
reached here. God bless you and all with you ! Please tender
to all, and accept for yourself, the nation's gratitude for your
and their skill, endurance and dauntless courage.
(Signed) A. Lincoln.
The part played by Adjutant Samuel Minot Jones
won repeated citations for courage, gallantry and effi-
cient service. He was always in the right place at the
right time, the man for the crisis, with orders and with-
out waiting for orders, doing the one thing that needed
most to be done. In addition to other public notices of
his valor on record in official documents is this report
66
THE SOLDIER IN THE CIVIL WAR
of W. P. Carlin, Colonel 38th Illinois Volunteers, com-
manding Second Brigade, January 6, 1863.
"Among the staff officers of the army who made them-
selves useful in rallying the scattered men Dr. L. F.
Russell, 2d Minn. Battery; Lieut. S. M. Jones, 59th 111.
Vols.; Capt. Thurston, aide camp to Major Gen'l Mc-
Cook and Chaplain Wilkins, 21st 111. Vols., came espe-
cially under my observation."
Lieutenant S. M. Jones by his distinguished service
as Assistant Acting Adjutant General had attracted the
attention of his superior officers. A brilliant future
awaited him and rapid promotion. But his sensitive
temperament and delicate constitution were not fitted
for the horrors of war. He was not ambitious for mili-
tary glory. Only patriotism and the stern imperatives
of duty led him to enlist and to continue for eighteen
months his arduous tasks.
After the victory of Stone River he found himself
weakened by a wound in his right leg, completely ex-
hausted by the long protracted hardships of marching,
camping, bivouacs and battles, and his constitution
undermined by a severe attack of typhoid fever. He
was confronted by the question, Shall I remain in the
army an invalid and a burden to the government until
speedy death shall close the scene; or shall I resign and
serve my country best as a private citizen? It seemed
wise to choose the latter alternative, believing that a
live servant is of more, value to the nation than a dead
soldier. He resigned therefore at once. His resigna-
tion was accepted and he was honorably discharged
January 8, 1863, while his regiment was still encamped
on the battlefield of Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
67
CHAPTER IV
THE MAN OF BUSINESS
Samuel Minot Jones, returning to Amherst, sought
rest and recuperation in his mother's home. He found
the town busily engaged in making up its quotas of
soldiers. The glamour of war had given place to stern
reality. The draft had been found necessary to provide
sufficient recruits. Those who could not go themselves
provided substitutes. Bounties were freely offered by
the town, the state and private individuals. Public
meetings were held and the recruits were escorted to the
station on their way to the front. But Adjutant Jones,
no longer a citizen of Amherst, from which he had been
absent for nearly ten years, spent his time quietly rest-
ing until he gained strength enough for a trip abroad
where he might forget the terrible scenes of fratricidal
strife in which he had been driven by duty to participate.
As soon as his health permitted he returned to Chi-
cago. Although he never fully regained the physical
strength he lost during his army service, but suffered
more or less during the remainder of his life, he never-
theless continued to do a man's work as long as he
lived. In 1864 he formed a partnership with Charles R.
Barton, who had already begun business for himself.
The new firm of Barton & Jones opened a lumber yard
near the Chicago River at the southeast corner of
68
THE MAN OF BUSINESS
Lumber and 12th streets and Mr. Jones resided at 523
Wabash Street. This firm continued to do business for
twenty-two years, until the death of the senior partner
in 1886.
The story of the prosperity of this firm is told in a
sketch printed in "Industrial Chicago" in part as
follows :
"He met with the success due to hard and intelligent
application to business, to such an extent that the firm
soon became interested in the manufacture of lumber at
various points, having a half interest with the milling
firm of B. Merrill & Company at Muskegon, acquiring
a shingle mill at Manistee and a sawmill at Menominee,
Michigan, with large holdings of pine lands in various
portions of the State of Michigan, increasing the early
manufacture of 4,000,000 feet per annum to 20,000,000
and as high as 30,000,000 feet in later years. The firm
continued in the vard business until 1880 when it with-
drew from that branch of the trade and confined itself
wholly to wholesaling by cargo with office on the market
at South Water and Franklin streets. In 1886 Mr.
Barton died and his son-in-law, D. J. Kennedy, became
associated with Mr. Jones, and the firm of Jones &
Kennedy have for several years past been engaged in
winding up the affairs of the former house, which task is
now happily accomplished. During the continuance of
the firm of Barton & Jones no less than 200,000,000
feet of lumber with a proportionate quantity of shingles
and lath was manufactured at the mills which were
wholly or partially owned by them. In the winter of
1894, the business of the old firm having been settled up,
Jones & Kennedy dissolved partnership and Mr. Jones,
69
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
who during his busy life had time to make several Euro-
pean trips in the interest of health as well as of recrea-
tion, decided to see more of his own country and has
spent the past several months in the South, visiting the
Pacific coast, storing his mind with a better knowledge
of the resources and grandeur of his native land which
he appreciates the more, not less, from his own personal
sacrifices in its interest, than from that pride which
swells the breast of every true-born son of America as he
contrasts his own land with the world at large. Mr.
Jones, with ample fortune, now devoted his time to its
care, having retired from active business. His firm was
for many years a member of the Lumberman's Ex-
change."
An interesting account of Mr. Jones' business career
in Chicago has been written by his former partner, D. J.
Kennedy, as follows :
"Mr. Jones came to Chicago after the close of the
Civil War and went into the lumber business as partner
of Charles R. Barton, my wife's father, under the name
of Barton & Jones, the yard being on the west side of
Chicago River on 12th Street (now Roosevelt Road)
bridge. They manufactured and sold lumber, lath and
shingles. They bought land on which was standing pine
which they cut and sawed (or had sawed for them) into
merchantable lumber.
"Their customers were country lumber dealers, sash,
door and blind manufacturing concerns, interior finish
contractors, carpenters, etc. Later they bought stump-
age, that is, the trees but not the land. They were one
of the large firms though not the largest, and no lumber
firm ever in this city had a better reputation for honesty
70
THE MAN OF BUSINESS
and fair dealing than Barton & Jones. They were abso-
lutely fair and square in all dealings with everyone.
"Mr. Barton died in 1886 at which time Mr. Jones
was too ill to attend to business. He then insisted that I
take the business until he should be well enough to help
look after it. I took mv wife's interest and we con-
tinued under the firm name of Jones & Kennedy until
we had cut nearly all the standing lumber we owned,
about 1894 or 1895.
"Barton & Jones were in business at 12th Street
bridge at the time of the Chicago fire in 1871. The fire
did not burn their yard, but sweeping just north of them
and crossing the river it destroyed the main business
part of the city and the eastern part of the north side.
They had many men and managed to save their lumber
by hiring fire engines outside the city to pump water
from the river.
"In 1886, when I was in the business, we owned a con-
trolling interest in a sawmill at Menominee, Michigan,
on the Menominee River, just across from Marinette,
Wisconsin. We contracted with loggers to cut down the
trees in winter and cut them up into logs and draw them
over snow or ice roads to the banks of Menominee or
its branches or lakes tributary to it. We had estimators
at each camp (usually eight or ten camps) who sent us
each Saturday an estimate of the amount of feet of logs
cut during that week, and we paid the loggers, using that
estimate as a basis.
"About the first week in March of each year we took
from Chicago one or more lumber buyers with us and
went from camp to camp, looking at the logs piled up
on the log rolls and estimating the quality of lumber
71
SAMUEL MIXOT JONES
that could be sawed from the loos, and settled on a price
to be paid for the lumber including everything above the
grade of mill cull. A mill cull is a piece too poor in
quality to pay to ship. A shipping cull is poor quality
but of enough value to pay the freight and handling.
"In the spring, when the ice melted, the logs in the
lake and on the river banks were floated by the Drive
Company at so much per thousand feet to the mill and
put into the mill booms, storage places, and there sawed
during the summer into lumber and piled on our docks
and in the yard. Each Saturday the mill sent us a
statement of the amount sawed that week. We sent a
bill to the purchaser together with a sixty-day note
which the purchaser signed and returned to us and which
we deposited in the bank for collection. We also paid
the mill for sawing, using these weekly statements as a
basis. We finally sold our interest in the mill and our
remaining standing lumber to the Soper Lumber Com-
pany of Chicago. Mr. Jones and 1 bought and cut two
rather small tracts after that, but he was ready to retire
from the lumber business. Though I wanted to con-
tinue. I felt that I had not sufficient experience to go on
alone. He was a good judge of timber and of lumber,
a good business man and was not 'close.' He was care-
ful, but 'hadn't a mean hair in his head.' I consider him
one oi the cleanest, squarest men I ever met. His word
was absolutely good and his conduct in business a
model."
Samuel Minot Jones was the man for the emergency
in the business world as well as in the battlefields of the
war for the Union. If he fought Indians at Sugar
Creek and rallied panie-strieken soldiers at Stone River,
- o
THE MAN OF BUSINESS
he found need of a soldier's courage and a patriot's en-
durance in his fight with the conflagration that was de-
vouring the lives and the property of the great city on
the shore of Lake Michigan.
The fire, starting from a lantern in a stable at 9 p.m.
Sunday, October 8, 1871, spread through the lumber
district on the west side, crossed the river and burned
over 2024 acres, SYs square miles of business blocks and
dwelling houses. The flames burned their way for 2%
miles in an air line in 6% hours. The value of property
destroyed was estimated^ at $187,000,000 and 300 lives
were lost. People fled to the lake shore to escape the
flames. Thousands of men, women and children fled
south and west away from the roaring flames, conveying
their goods in every kind of vehicles, paying extortionate
prices for them. They spoke many different languages.
Wooden pavements burning freely carried the fire in a
stream. Brick walls burned and granite blocks melted.
The panic brought to the front gangs of the under-
world bent on plunder. Some even tried to extend the
disaster. Two caught in the act of firing houses on the
west side were arrested and immediately hung to lamp
posts, one on 12th Street near Barton & Jones' lumber
yard, and the other three miles away on the north side.
This summary action checked the thieves and murderers.
The police department was strengthened by 1500 addi-
tional deputies. General Sheridan came to the rescue
with 500 veteran soldiers. In making arrests forty-one
persons were shot. Out of the ruins ninety bodies were
recovered. Fire on the south side was checked on Mon-
day by the use of gunpowder. On the north side the fire
burned its way almost to the prairie before it was
73
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
stopped after twenty-seven hours, when it began to rain.
The thousands of homeless people found refuge in
schoolhouses and churches which had been saved. Others
were obliged to camp by the wayside exposed to rain
and cold.
In the midst of all this terror Mr. Jones never lost his
courage or his presence of mind. His lumber yard must
be saved, not only because it was his property, but espe-
cially because every foot of lumber would be at once
needed to repair buildings and provide shelter for the
homeless people. He did the one most essential thing.
He sent out into the country and procured two fire
engines and set his force of men pumping water from
the river and throwing it in continuous streams upon the
piles of dry lumber. He succeeded in saving the yard.
Busy days followed when his depleted stock was re-
plenished by shipments from his sources of supply in his
lumber camps and mills in the northern forests.
He was a leader of men. He knew human nature and
drew to himself men whom he could safely trust. No
partnership papers were signed either with Mr. Barton
or with Mr. Kennedy to guard the rights or to secure
the performance of necessary work. His word was as
good as a bond and so he esteemed his partners to be
men of honor and honesty: nor was he disappointed.
His wealth was acquired by efficient work for private
and public welfare.
The firm of Jones & Kennedy was dissolved in the
winter of 1894 and Mr. Jones retired from the lumber
business at the age of fifty-eight after thirty years of
strenuous activity in the city and in the forests. He did
not, however, spend his time in idleness. He found it no
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THE MAN OF BUSINESS
easy task to keep the capital he had saved and to in-
crease it. When a Chicago man learned that S. M.
Jones had made several hundreds of thousands of dollars
in the city and left with it for the East he exclaimed,
"How did he get away with it?" He got away with it
by the same method he used in getting it, by giving
thought and good judgment to the employment of his
time and his money for enterprises designed to promote
the public good. His name appears in the Chicago di-
rectory of 1895, "Jones, S. Minot, Capitalist, 100
Washington Street." He invested his capital in rail-
road stocks, public service bonds, Chicago Telephone
Company, Edison stock and in other diversified securi-
ties. He was no gambler in stocks, but was a cautious
investor. His travels, wide acquaintance with business
men and with resources and demands of the great West,
and his public spirit enabled him to invest his capital
securely, profitably and for the common good.
Leaving Chicago he spent the last years of his life in
the East, in Amherst, Philadelphia, Washington, D. C,
Morristown, New Jersey, and Easthampton, Long
Island, in close connection with New York City.
Many men who have succeeded in the West have miser-
ably failed when they have left their early environment
and gone to New York City with the expectation of
doubling their fortunes. But Mr. Jones was equal to
the demands made upon him in the East and succeeded
in keeping his fortune and increasing it, and at the same
time in winning the respect and confidence of the busi-
ness men with whom he was associated.
He was for several years a member of the board of
directors of the Morristown Trust Company, to which
75
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
he was elected January 10, 1909. The following tribute,
taken from the records of this Trust Company, shows
that his genius for business conducted for the good of
others continued as long as life itself :
"The Board of Directors of the Morristown Trust
Company has learned with deep sorrow of the death of
their former associate, S. Minot Jones, and here record
upon the minutes of the Company our respect and ad-
miration for the sterling qualities of his nature, wisdom
of his counsel, the generous kindness, the genial disposi-
tion and sterling worth which, with his kind thoughtful-
ness for others, have endeared him to us and to all who
know him.
"Mr. Jones was associated with this Company little
more than three and one half years, but during that
time his constant and careful attention to the trust com-
mitted to him was of great benefit to all interested, and
proved the value of his past experience and keen
intelligence."
76
CHAPTER V
PRIVATE LIFE
Samuel Minot Jones in his private life and in society
was admired, respected, trusted and loved. His mother
was the constant object of his filial love and service. He
would not be a burden to her even to secure a college
education for which he was well fitted, but at once after
his father's death he began to support himself and to
work for the welfare of his widowed mother and his
young sister Augusta. Professor Henry M. Tyler of
Smith College, writing of Mr. Jones, says in one of his
letters, "My mother (Mrs. W. S. Tyler of Amherst)
told me that his mother (Mrs. Thomas Jones) spoke to
her of the comfort and help which he had given her in
her advancing years." Professor John W. Burgess of
Columbia University, New York City, writes: "Samuel
Minot Jones was a very devoted son and he adored his
widowed mother. He came constantly to Amherst from
Chicago to visit her and would not marry so long as
there was any likelihood of his having to support her.
He was always contributing to her comfort." When his
sister, Mrs. Augusta Thayer Jones Burgess, the wife
of Professor J. W. Burgess, was ill in Switzerland, Mr.
Jones left his business in Chicago and went at once to
her relief.
His kindness of heart is shown by the following letter,
77
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
written to his brother Thomas and his wife on the occa-
sion of the death of their daughter, Augusta Thayer
Jones, named for her aunt :
Chicago, July 13, 1872.
My Dear Brother and Sister:
May God bless and give you strength to bear up under the
great affliction which in his infinite mercy he has seen fit to
visit upon you.
The dear little girl quite won my heart during my visit last
winter and I had looked forward with pleasure to the time when
I had hoped to be able to have done something that would have
been not only of benefit to her but would also have shown my
love for you. Would that I could find words to express my
feelings of sympathy as well as of courage to you to bear up
under what must seem to you an overwhelming burden of grief.
Again I say, that God may comfort you is the sincere and
heartfelt prayer of your attached brother,
S. M. Jones.
At the time of his mother's death he wrote to this same
brother :
Amherst, January 15, 1879.
My Dear Tom :
I presume you are prepared for the very sad news of
Mother's death. I cannot tell you how grieved I am that I did
not get here in time to see her alive. She died while I was on
the road. On Monday we laid her in the tomb where she now
sleeps in the fullness of the reward which our faith tells us is
the future of a well spent life. She was a good mother to us
all and you little know, Tom, how much she thought of you
and your welfare. She felt you were a good son and did all
you could to make her life one of happiness. It would have
been a great satisfaction for her to have seen you and yours.
78
PRIVATE LIFE
The last letter she wrote me was that she wanted you to make
her a visit. I wish you might have been here to the funeral, but
it was impossible, so we did not send you the telegram
Mary unites with me in much love to you and Minerva.
Ever yours,
Sam.
In society Mr. Jones was a man of attractive and
winning personality. The writer in "Industrial Chi-
cago" says: "He, being of a highly social nature, while
remaining a bachelor, has held membership in various
social clubs, including the Union, Washington Park and
other clubs of Chicago, and the Union and New York
clubs of New York City. Of a genial nature his society
is sought by his friends, and few have a happier faculty
of winning and holding valuable friendships."
His business partner, David J. Kennedy of Chicago,
says: "He belonged to the Chicago Club. John Crerar,
who gave the Crerar Library to Chicago, and Hunting-
ton W. Jackson were his cronies."
He was a member also of the Morristown Field Club
and of the Morris County Golf Club in New Jersey.
His brother-in-law, Professor J. W. Burgess, writes :
"As to the character of Samuel Minot Jones I can
truthfully say that he was one of the most admirable of
men. He was very handsome in person, very intelligent,
brilliant and vivacious, very upright and just in char-
acter, exceedingly generous and charitable. He had
sound business judgment and was a devoted citizen to
his country He was a close friend of Grant and
Sherman and Rosecrans, but especially of Sheridan.
The country has never produced a finer man than
79
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SAMUEL MINOT JONES
Samuel Minot Jones. His character was more than
fine. It was exquisite."
Mr. Jones was a friend also of Robert Lincoln, son of
President Lincoln, and of Admiral Dewey. He fre-
quently met Dewey in Professor Burgess' summer home
in Montpelier, Vermont. One day, previous to the
Spanish- American war, after these three friends had
been recalling their reminiscences of the Civil War,
Dewey suddenly remarked, "They will be making heroes
of us yet!" The coming admiral whose exploits at
Manila Bay made the people idolize him, spoke better
than he then knew.
Having retired from active business with a compe-
tence, having cared for his mother and his sister as long
as they needed his assistance, and having been for many
years the joy of the homes of many friends, the time
came at last when his long cherished desire to have a
home of his own was realized.
March 16, 1898, at Overbrook, Pennsylvania, a
suburb of Philadelphia, he was married by Reverend
Thomas A. Hoyt, D.D., to Miss Harriet Watson
Stenger, the daughter of William S. and Helen M.
Stenger. Her father was a lawyer of note with whom
Mr. Jones had been associated in business. She was a
beautiful and gracious young woman for whom her hus-
band, after residing for a time in Washington, D. C,
made a beautiful home in Morristown, New Jersey, in
addition to their summer residence at Easthampton,
Long Island, New York. It was his joy to provide her
with all that her heart could wish.
Morristown is a beautiful suburb of New York Citv,
composed of numerous elegant residences of wealthy
80
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PRIVATE LIFE
people whose taste and health led them to escape from
the crowded metropolis to the open country. The town
on a high ridge of land commands extensive views and
played an important part in the war of the Revolution.
The Jones house was a fine colonial mansion, ample,
open to fresh air and sunlight, in the midst of lawns
shaded by maples, and commanding a beautiful outlook.
A broad hall from the entrance on the front portico ran
through the house to the stairway, dividing the reception
room from the library. A large porch on the south was
connected with the library. Everything about the home
was in harmony with the character of the man, devoid
of extravagance, nothing of pretense, all things real and
genuine. The library was furnished with study tables,
books carefully selected, walls hung with pictures, a
homelike, comfortable place, a great contrast to the little
wooden office in the midst of piles of lumber in Chicago
where Professor Henry M. Tyler found Mr. Jones
reading with much enjoyment Charles Dudley Warner's
"My Summer in a Garden."
The character of Samuel Minot Jones is to be
learned not only from his valor on the battlefield, from
his work in the forests of Michigan and in the lumber
yard rescued from the Chicago conflagration, and from
his career as a capitalist, but also from the books he chose
for his hours of leisure and for his relief amid the strain
of his daily business toil. While his body was in the
dust, heat and turmoil of a city lumber yard, his soul,
wafted on the wings of imagination, delighted itself and
gained recreation and new vigor by visualizing the
flower beds and vegetable plots and the shrubbery of the
81
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
Hartford garden and by listening to the humorous talk
of the author and chuckling at his wit.
On the shelves of his private library were found stand-
ard works of English and American literature, poetry,
prose, history, fiction, biography, science and religion.
Laurence Sterne, Fielding, Tennyson, Thackeray,
George Eliot, Kingsley, Walter Scott, were his favorite
English authors. Longfellow, Lowell, Hawthorne,
Washington Irving, Motley, Parkman, Julia Ward
Howe, were his American friends. The volumes are
beautifully bound, the print legible and the illustrations
of the best. He loved to see his friends — his books were
among his friends — dressed becomingly, not decked with
meretricious ornaments, but in a garb suited to their
real merit. His books explain in large measure his suc-
cess as a soldier, a lumber merchant, a financier and a
man of leisure. His guide books show that his extensive
travels in Italy, throughout Europe, in Norway, in
Great Britain and in America enriched and broadened
his mind and gave him an insight into the secrets of
nature and human nature and an appreciation of the
best things in art.
Mr. John Crerar, the donor of The John Crerar
Library to the city of Chicago, was one of the personal
friends of Mr. Jones. His example, therefore, must
have influenced the lumber merchant, when he came to
consider the question how best to invest his fortune of
$661,740 for the benefit of the boys and business men
of Amherst, and must have convinced him that he would
make no mistake in providing for them a library of the
best books filled with the best thoughts and the most
beautiful sentiments and the most inspiring incentives to
82
Mrs. Harriet Stenger Jones and Son
PRIVATE LIFE
vigorous action, and in endowing it liberally, that as an
institution it should during the coming generation do for
its patrons as much as, and more than, his own library
had done for himself. The Morristown home had many
things to remind its owner of his boyhood home with his
mother in Amherst. The summer home at the seashore
at Easthampton was an unpretentious cottage near that
of John Drew, the famous actor, with whom Mr. Jones
enjoyed pleasant converse. Here he found recreation
in afternoon walks, fishing and boating.
His life in Morristown was by no means one of idle-
ness. To the last he was interested in the public welfare
and in the worship and work of St. Peter's Episcopal
Church. His wife joined him in private charities.
While not a college graduate, she received a good edu-
cation in her father's home from private tutors.
Their only child, Minot Jones, was born June 21,
1899, at Atlantic City, New Jersey. During the next
eight years Mr. Jones devoted himself to the care of his
family, providing his wife and son with everything that
his loving care could secure. The mother, however,
always having a frail and delicate constitution, soon
began to decline. In spite of all that medical science
could do for her, after protracted suffering she died
September 22, 1907.
The loss of his wife was a severe trial of his faith,
bringing disappointment to his plans for the home life
he so dearly loved. But his religious nature, revealed
in his letters at the time of the death of his little niece
Augusta and of his mother, supported him in this hour
of great sorrow. The following letter from his pastor,
the Reverend Philemon F. Sturges, rector of St. Peter's
83
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
Church in Morristown, shows the man steadfast in
adversity :
"Mr. Jones came to Morristown and settled in the
house on Miller Road, and I remember vividly how
quickly he won the affection of that intensely conserva-
tive little neighborhood and became part of it. He was
a very regular attendant at the services of St. Peter's
Church, and I think every one felt the force of the
serenity and buoyancy of his Christian character which
illustrated in a peculiar way the truth of the old proverb,
'Those whom the gods love are young until they die.'
"I first came into intimate contact with him at the
time of Mrs. Jones' death and remember very vividly
my impression of the man at the time with his very clear
and very calm assurance of immortality deepening at
the end of a very long life, wishing for the sake of their
boy that he might have gone and Mrs. Jones had been
left to care for Minot."
Rector Sturges closes with a reference to the "very
lovable personality with its suggestion of light and peace
at the eventide of a long and full experience of life"
which was manifest in the daily conduct of Mr. Jones.
The habit of attending church, formed during his boy-
hood in Amherst, was dominant in Morristown. His
coachman recalls this incident. When a party of visitors
arrived on Sunday, he sent his coachman to meet them
and give them the message that he would welcome them
on his return from church.
After the death of his wife Mr. Jones devoted himself
to the care of his son, to whom was given the family
name of Minot, so distinguished among New England
patriots. He loved the boy and felt the responsibility
84
PUBt* LIBRAE |
Minot Jones
PRIVATE LIFE
for his education and training. While he was ready to
provide him with all that his fortune could buy for the
young man, he was careful that the boy should not be
handicapped by the temptations which spring from the
love of monev, the root of all kinds of evil. He believed
in work, hard work, wisely directed. He himself was
brought up by his Yankee father to work, and to his
work from his childhood he attributed the success he had
won. His son Minot was provided with the best of tutors
and sent to the best schools, to Thacher's School for
Boys, to the Taft School and to the Ojai School in Cali-
fornia. With the aid of his housekeeper, Miss Jennie
Canfield, who nursed his wife in her sickness, and by the
help of John Mulcahy, his faithful coachman, he con-
tinued to maintain his homes in Morristown and in East-
hampton. He sought recreation at the Golf Club and
the Field Club and in driving and walking about the
country. As director of the Morristown Trust Com-
pany, he found opportunity to serve others by wise
counsel and generous kindness. But his heart, like that
of his father, grew weaker and weaker so that he was
obliged to favor it continually. He found that his daily
walk in the open air fatigued him and must be shortened.
Premonitions of the end led him on May 2, 1912, to add
the last codicil to his will. Finally he closed his East-
hampton house September 1, 1912, and hastened back
to Morristown. Six weeks after his return from the
seashore, at 1.30 a.m. on Thursday, October 10, 1912,
his heart failed and his useful life of seventy-six years
ended.
Simple funeral services were held in the Morristown
home, conducted by Reverend Philemon F. Sturges,
85
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
the rector of St. Peter's Church, assisted by Reverend
Oscar Presdor, rector of St. Luke's Church at East-
hampton, New York, his summer residence. The church
quartet, directed by the choirmaster, sang "I heard a
voice from Heaven" and "Peace, Perfect Peace." The
burial was in Evergreen Cemetery, Morristown, in the
family lot where he had laid his wife, Harriet Stenger
Jones, to rest beneath a beautiful monument, and where
later his son, Minot, was also to be buried. Many of
his neighbors and representatives of Morristown or-
ganizations attended the services and sent beautiful
floral tributes.
86
CHAPTER VI
THE JONES LIBRARY
"Set thy house in order, for thou shalt die and not
live," was a wise saying of an old prophet whose wisdom
commended itself to Samuel Minot Jones and led him
to devote much time and attention to the making of his
will. It was drawn up and dated Washington, D. C,
August 12, 1905. Feeling a due sense of responsibility
in the disposal of his property that had been entrusted
by Providence to his stewardship, he began; "In the
name of God, amen, I, Samuel Minot Jones of the city
of Washington, District of Columbia, being of sound
mind and memory, do make, publish and declare this my
last will and testament :" There follow twenty-two folio
pages of legal cap, typewritten, including four codicils
which were added from time to time to meet changed
conditions, the last being dated May 2, 1912.
The original will left the bulk of his fortune to be
divided, one-half to his wife, Harriet Stenger Jones,
and one-half to his son, Minot Jones. The son's share
was placed in care of trust companies so that he should
have what was needed for his support and education
during his minority, and should receive one-third of his
portion upon attaining the age of twenty-one years,
together with the annual interest of the remainder, and
87
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
upon reaching thirty years of age should then receive the
other two-thirds.
But in case no child of his should attain the age of
twenty-one years, then the share allotted to such an
heir should be given for a free public library in the town
of Amherst, Massachusetts, to be called "The Jones
Library."
After the death of Mrs. Jones he disposed of her
share for the further benefit of his son, Minot. Roswell
M. Field was appointed his guardian. A legacy of
$5000 was left to his housekeeper, Miss Jennie F. Can-
field, and to his coachman, John Mulcahy, $2000. The
final provisions of the will, in case his son should die
before the age of twenty-one years, gave the entire
residue of the estate to The Jones Library that should be
incorporated according to the laws of Massachusetts
with George Harris, John M. Tyler and George Cutler,
Jr., as trustees, and directed that any vacancy on the
board of trustees shall be filled by vote of the town of
Amherst at the annual town meeting. The trustees
were directed in due time to purchase a lot and erect
thereon a fireproof building, leaving not less than
$100,000 as a permanent fund to be put at interest and
the income to be expended in the purchase of books and
the maintenance of the library.
The following bequest shows his regard for the church
and his love for his mother: "I give and bequeath to
Grace Church, of Amherst, Massachusetts, the sum of
one thousand dollars ($1000) absolutely. I do this in
memory of my mother to whom said Grace Church of
Amherst was very dear." He bequeathed a similar sum
to St. Luke's Church in Easthampton, New York, but
88
THE JONES LIBRARY
paid it before his death so that this bequest was revoked.
For St. Peter's Church in Morristown he contributed
from time to time during his life.
Minot Jones after his father's death continued his
education, and for the maintenance of the home in
Morristown and for his personal expenses an abundant
provision was made. He became interested in automo-
biles and when called to the service enlisted as a private
in Company C, 305th Battalion, United States Tank
Corps, at Camp Polk, Raleigh, North Carolina. But
his constitution inherited from his mother was never
strong and was poorly adapted to the severe training of
military service. Attacked by the prevalent influenza
he was sent to Base Hospital Number 12 at Bilt-
more, Asheville, North Carolina. Pneumonia followed
influenza and resulted in his death December 16, 1918.
He was privately confirmed September 16, 1918, three
months before his death. His body was brought to
Morristown and buried in the cemetery where a stately
granite shaft marks the family burial plot in which his
father and mother lay side by side awaiting his coming.
His friends received a beautiful certificate signed by
President Woodrow Wilson, testifying to the fact that
"Minot Jones, Private, Company C, United States
Tank Corps, served with honor in the World War and
died in the service of his country." Above this inscrip-
tion is a significant picture entitled "Columbia Gives
to her Son the Accolade of the New Chivalry of
Humanity."
Samuel Minot Jones was a good judge of lumber.
He could estimate the value of growing forest trees, the
worth of a log in the woods, at the mill and in his Chi-
89
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
cago yard when sawed into merchantable boards, lath
and shingles. He was also a student of human nature
and wise in his choice of friends. He knew whom to
trust, and trustworthy men he associated with himself in
business and trusted them implicitly without bonds and
without suspicion. His partners were bound by no legal
documents. Their word was sufficient. His own honor
was unsullied and in his presence every man showed the
best that was in him.
He loved the young and all children were dear to him.
His hope was that his son would live and with every
advantage at his command would embody and perpetu-
ate the valor, patriotism and distinguished service of his
New England ancestors. But knowing the uncertainty
of human life, he made a wise provision for the future.
Should his own boy die before attaining his majority
and without an heir, it was decided that the fortune
should be invested for the benefit of the people of Am-
herst and of their boys and girls.
In all his travels north, south, east and west, in his
own and in foreign lands he never forgot Amherst, the
home of his boyhood, where from infancy to young man-
hood he received his education and training in his home,
his school and his church ; he could not forget his hills and
valleys, his friendships, the beautiful town where his
father and his beloved mother lived and worked and
died and were buried.
He came back to Amherst and conferred with George
Cutler, who employed him when a boy, and with George
Cutler, Jr., whom he took with him as a companion when
traveling in the mountains or on the sea, and he finally
decided that the town of Amherst, the people of Am-
90
p^:: turns*
Board of Trustees
George Hahris, D.D., LL.U., President
[Died March 1. 1982]
John M. Tyler, Ph.D.. LL.D., Clerk Georgk Cutler, Treasurer
THE JONES LIBRARY
herst, should be his heirs. For them his money should
be expended, to provide a free public library. A suit-
able building should be erected and an ample endow-
ment provided for its perpetual support. He would
not follow the plan of making his gift a burden to those
receiving it, requiring them to tax themselves forever
to perpetuate a memorial in his own honor. The Jones
Library is a free gift to the people of Amherst without
money and without price and without any onerous stipu-
lations. He believed that the name of his father,
Thomas Jones, and of his mother, Mary Minot Jones,
and of the Jones family that during the generations had
wrought so much for the public good, was worthy of
remembrance. He would have them remembered not
because of a huge mausoleum which should emphasize
their superiority to common folks, but have them
through their library be constantly inspiring each suc-
ceeding generation to attain more and more knowledge,
wisdom, virtue and happiness.
In his choice of men to found the librarv and to estab-
lish it upon a sure basis he again showed his good judg-
ment. John Mason Tyler was the son of a dear friend
of his mother and one of the younger boys he knew
before he left for the West, a native of Amherst, who
from his lifelong educational work in the town knew
the needs of the people and how best to supply them.
George Cutler, Jr., he knew intimately from his child-
hood and discerned in him genuine business ability
joined to public spirit and a love for Amherst, his birth-
place. George Harris, president of Amherst College,
he knew by reputation as a New Englander from the
state of Maine, an educator, an administrator, a minister
91
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
of the gospel, of excellent judgment and long experi-
ence. These three men he chose as trustees to whom,
without any burdensome restrictions, he confidently
committed his fortune to be expended in buying a lot,
erecting a fireproof building, establishing an endowment
and organizing and equipping the library. In order
that the town might at length come into full control of
his gift, his will provided further that vacancies occur-
ring in the board of trustees shall be filled by vote of
the town at its annual meeting.
The will was duly admitted to probate and after the
death of the son, Minot Jones, before he had attained
his majority, the trustees secured a special act of the
legislature of Massachusetts incorporating the library
with the three men named in the will as trustees. The
act provided that the corporation shall be authorized to
purchase, or with the consent of the town given by vote
at a meeting legally called for that purpose, to acquire
by eminent domain, a suitable lot of land and to erect
thereon a fireproof building for the accommodation of
said library, to maintain an endowment fund for its
support, and to carry out and fulfill in all respects, in so
far as they relate to said library, the provisions of the
will; that the selectmen may require the trustees and
their successors to give bonds for the faithful perform-
ance of their duties ; that the corporation shall make an
annual report to the town duly audited; that vacancies
shall be filled by vote at an annual town meeting to
serve for three years and that after the death of the last
survivor of the original trustees the town may so arrange
that one trustee shall be thereafter elected annually for
the term of three years. This act of incorporation was
92
THE JONES LIBRARY
approved by Governor Calvin Coolidge, March 21,
1919.
With the receipt of this authority "The Jones Library
Incorporated" was organized with George Harris, presi-
dent; John M. Tyler, clerk; and George Cutler, Jr.,
treasurer. The Morristown Trust Company of New
Jersey immediately after the death of Minot Jones pro-
ceeded to settle the estate according to the terms of the
will. The real estate was sold and January 1, 1921, the
treasurer, George Cutler, Jr., received the income from
all the securities and The First National Bank of Am-
herst was appointed fiscal agent of the corporation. The
total amount received by the trustees from the Morris-
town Trust Company was: stocks, $241,998; bonds,
$405,207 ; cash, $14,542.08 ; total, $661,747.08. The net
income received from these securities for fourteen
months was $44,226.88. The total expense for the same
period, ending December 31, 1921, was $29,608.21. This
covered the entire cost of organizing the present library
as now operated, including equipment, books, periodi-
cals, supplies, rent, insurance, trust management and
incidental expenses. The trustees adopted the policy of
reinvesting and turning into principal all surplus of
funds not required for operating the library.
After qualifying for their trust, the three trustees
found their most important task to be the appointment
of a librarian. This position was one for which many
librarians might eagerly seek, but the trustees de-
termined that the Jones librarian must be more than a
cataloger and keeper of books, more than an expert in
architecture and in booklore, more than a business ad-
ministrator and executive, more than a figurehead, more
93
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
than an embodiment of the latest fads in bibliography.
He must be a man of vision, one capable of compre-
hending the end for which a free public library designed
to serve the common town's people of Amherst should
exist and persist and one who should be able to secure
at all times the adaptation of efficient means for the
accomplishment of this end.
The trustees, therefore, instead of going far to fare
the worse, found the man for the place, not in the
metropolis, not across the seas, but right in the town of
Amherst, one of the townspeople, Charles R. Green.
After having been graduated Bachelor of Agriculture
in 1895 from the Connecticut Agricultural College, he
was employed in various capacities on The Courant of
Hartford, Connecticut. He was soon, however, put in
charge of the library of the editorial department. He
made himself so useful in collecting material and putting
it in such shape that the writers could get what they
needed at a minute's notice, that he attracted the attention
of the Connecticut state librarian, who called him from
the newspaper office and set him to work in the State
Library, where he remained for seven years, from 1901
to 1908. When Kenyon L. Butterfield succeeded Henry
H. Goodell as president of the Massachusetts Agri-
cultural College, he found Mr. Green to be the one man
he must have to build up the college library. For thir-
teen years he served the college with great efficiency, de-
vising and putting into successful execution new plans
for increasing not only the number of new books, but
also the number of people who should make the best use
of the facilities of the library. Branch libraries were
placed in the fraternity houses and in the several depart-
94
THE JONES LIBRARY
ments of the college. Traveling libraries were sent out
to rural communities throughout the state. Lists of
helpful books were made and distributed to secure more
readers and better reading.
Librarian Green made the acquaintance of the people
of this and other towns and worked to interest the young
and old in the best books that he could furnish for their
highest culture. He aimed to know the book, the reader
and how to make the reader choose his book and get out
of it into his own head the best ideas as food for thought,
sentiments to cherish and motives to action. After care-
ful consideration Mr. Green accepted the call of the
trustees and began September, 1921, his work as libra-
rian of The Jones Library.
The trustees decided that the present unsettled condi-
tions in the building trades and in the financial situation
of the country were unfavorable for erecting a library
building that would be a fitting memorial and suitable
for the work to be accomplished. It seemed best to them
first to organize the library as a working institution, to
find out the real needs of the community and then later,
when the favorable time should come, to select the site
and construct on it a building adapted in the best possi-
ble manner to secure the ends the donor desired should
be accomplished.
The second floor of the Amherst House was leased for
three years and fitted up and equipped with whatever
was necessary for the maintenance of a people's library.
A reading-room, well lighted, was provided with periodi-
cals and the latest books for consultation and for home
circulation. A children's room was filled with the best
juvenile books and papers. An assembly-room was
95
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
put at the disposal of literary and other organizations
for lectures and discussions. A study, removed from
the deliverv-room, attracted those who wished to do
special work or hold committee meetings. A stackroom
with steel shelves furnished room for books not in con-
stant use. A librarian's office and trustees' room was
furnished with needed facilities for the business of ad-
ministration. Storerooms and restrooms and work-
rooms completed the apartment. Located at the center
of Amherst's business life, at the meeting place of the
town's thoroughfares, The Jones Library attracted
public attention from the first and led all classes of the
people to use freely the privileges offered. From the
opening of the library, September 7, 1921, to December
31, less than four months, out of a population of 5530 in
the town there was a registration of 1108, an attendance
of 11,701 and a circulation of 10,632. The number of
books on hand was 2890.
The plan adopted is one of growth from small be-
ginnings to greater attainments. Instead of buying
books by the thousands, they are procured one by one as
the need for them is shown and their worth is proven.
The Converse Library at Amherst College and the
Agricultural College Library, the first with its 125,000
volumes and the latter with 70,000 cataloged books, pro-
vide for the needs of college faculties and students, so
that The Jones Library has for its special field the needs
of the men, the women and the children of the towns-
people.
The New England home such as that in which Samuel
Minot Jones was born and reared is passing. The New
England country church no longer dominates the com-
96
THE JONES LIBRARY
munity. The town is no longer homogeneous. Instead
of a few Yankee families constituting a society follow-
ing the same customs, cherishing the same sentiments,
obedient to the same moral standards, there is now a
heterogeneous mass of immigrants, of native born, and
of sojourners from all parts of our own land. The
Polish people are cultivating the farms ; the Greeks are
competing in trade; Italians, Chinese, French, Japa-
nese, Irish and others are making homes in the village
and in the open country. How shall they and their chil-
dren be Americanized and so blended into a composite
society as to make our democracy safe, sound and
secure? The church is so divided into sects that the
task, at least for the present, is too great for it. The
public schools are wrestling valiantly with the problem
and are attempting to teach things practical and theo-
retical, handicrafts, business, sanitation, civics, science,
morals, physical culture, art, music, agriculture, sew-
ing, cooking; but alone they cannot accomplish the
impossible.
In this emergency The Jones Library, in the spirit of
its founder, is coming opportunely with its offer of
assistance to the schools, to the churches, to the family.
The Jones fortune, instead of ministering to the need
of one boy, Minot Jones, his father's only child, has in
the providence of God come to help all the boys and all
the girls of Amherst and vicinity without respect of
race, religion or social station, and to the relief of their
parents as well.
The scholar who goes to school from his father's
library, where from his infancy he has lived and played
with books and pictures and music, and listened to the
97
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
stories of his parents' guests who have gathered about
the fireplace in the library on a winter's night, or sat by
the open window on a summer's day, has an exceeding
great advantage over the child who goes to the school-
room from a house or an apartment destitute of any
such thing as a library. Such a child has missed the
inspiration of the best thought of the great thinkers and
singers of the present and of the past; he has no taste
for books; he knows not how to read; his imagination
has never been kindled by visions and vistas of the great
and glorious world; he has no friends in the realm of
literature; his horizon is limited; he is like one in the
bottom of a well with none to help him climb to the top.
It is the purpose of the trustees of The Jones Library
to make it a home library ; a place where any and every
child of Amherst may come and make himself at home ;
where he can help himself to whatever his mind or heart
shall crave ; where he can see the best pictures, hear the
best stories told, listen to the best music, learn the mystic
open sesame that shall reveal marvelous treasures all his
own for the taking.
The trustees plan to make The Jones Library a place
where teachers in Sunday school, in the day school, in
the pulpit, in the home, in women's and in men's clubs,
shall find the book, the paper, the information, they
require to make their teaching a success; a place where
the working man, or woman, ambitious to excel and rise
to higher positions, shall find every facility for master-
ing the courses of study he has determined to pursue.
There are library schools where one is trained to
catalog books and to become a librarian. The Jones
98
THE JOXES LIBRARY
Library is designed to teach the people how to use a
library for their own pleasure and profit. The progress
of machinery, the eight-hour laws, the multiplication of
holidays, are all increasing the amount of leisure time
the common people have at their disposal. What shall
they do with it ? If they waste it, or worse, abuse it, our
democracy and our civilization will degenerate and be
destroyed. But if this leisure be rightly valued and im-
proved, the common people will grow in wisdom and in
stature, and in favor with God and man, and humanity
in due time will develop sons of God. The powers of
nature are so tremendous that the man who holds them
in his hand must not only be wise, he must also be trust-
worthy ; otherwise Jove's thunderbolts will destroy both
those against whom they are hurled and also him from
whose hand they explode. Every town in Massachu-
setts, with one or two exceptions, has a public library.
Our whole country from east to west is filled with
libraries. The duty of the hour is to attract the multi-
tudes within their doors and show the individual man
and woman, boy and girl, how to use them for their
own salvation and for the welfare of the human race.
Let The Jones Library become a school for the mul-
tiplication of the number of readers, so that each year
from its reading-room shall go forth young people with
a passion for reading, such as shall inspire them to put
into practice what the best thought of the world reveals
for the practical benefit of themselves and their fellow
men, then Samuel Minot Jones will not have labored in
vain, nor will his son, Minot, have died in vain on his
cot in the Base Hospital during the World War.
99
SAMUEL MINOT JONES
Robert Frost, the poet, while teaching in Amherst
College, in season and out of season said to his students :
"Be a Reader! Be a Reader!" This message of the
poet might well be emblazoned on the walls of the new
Jones Library: "Be a Reader! Be a Reader!"
100
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRAR
REFERENCE DEPARTMENT
This book is under no circumstances
taken from the Building
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