Col. Benjamin S. Jones, farmer and stock-raiser, of Rock Prairie Township, was born in Putnam County, Ind., in 1832, his parents being the Rev. Benjamin and Hester (Alexander) Jones, born in Maryland in 1779 and 1796, respectively. They were married in Kentucky in 1822, and the same year moved to Indiana, where he died in January, 1845, the mother dying in April of the same year. Mr. Jones was a Methodist minister for twenty-five years. He was of Welsh descent, a son of Benjamin Jones, who was born in Wales, and came when a young man to America, settling in Virginia, where he died when his son Benjamin was four years old. Grandfather Peter Alexander was a Revolutionary soldier, and died in Kentucky. The subject of this sketch, the eighth of a family of ten children, was left an orphan at the age of twelve years; he then lived with an elder brother till he was eighteen years of age. He was educated at the common schools till the age of seventeen, when he attended one year at Asbury, now De Paw University, Indiana, after which he went to Iowa and taught school about ten years. At the breaking out of the war he was clerk in a bank, but enlisted in Company M, Third Iowa Cavalry, and on organization of the regiment was made first lieutenant. He held the offices of captain, major and lieutenant-colonel, and September, 1864, was made colonel of the regiment, which he commanded till the close of the war, when he was mustered out at Atlanta, Ga., August 9, 1865, after nearly four years of hard service. He was at the battles of Pea Ridge, Hartsville, Mo.; Little Rock; Tupelo, Miss.; Tallahatchee, Miss.; Montevallo, Ala.; and many others. In 1864 he married Mrs. Kate Newcomb, daughter of James McCashen, of Pennsylvania, she having been born in Ohio. Mr. McCashen died in Lee County, Iowa. They have one daughter, Cora F. The Colonel now lives one and a half miles east of Everton, where he has a fine farm of 280 acres, which he himself has well improved. He is a genial, sociable and esteemed gentleman. From 1868 to 1870 Col. Jones was treasurer of Wayne County, Iowa; he then served four years as auditor of the same county, when he assumed the editorship of the Wayne County Republican, which he ably edited for eight years, when he was compelled to resign on account of ill health, and after spending some time in Kansas looking for a suitable location, finally settled near Greenfield, Dade County, Mo., where he lived a few years. In politics he has been a life-long, earnest Republican, casting his first vote for Fillmore, in 1856; he has been an earnest worker for the party. He is the present commander of Everton Post No. 359, G. A. R., and is a devout member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. His wife died in 1883.
