John D. Jones, was born near Morgantown, in Berks county, Pennsylvania, on the 9th of December, 1797, and was the son of John and Elizabeth Jones, being paternally of Welsh ancestry, as his name would indicate, with a mixture of Scotch-Irish blood, derived by maternal descent. His great-grandfather, David Jones, came to this country from Wales in about 1720, and settled in Berks county, whither a large number of his native people emigrated, becoming inhabitants for the most part of what is now the beautiful Conestoga valley, and built the pretty little villages of Morgantown and Chuurchtown, in the vicinity of that imposing range of hills known as the Welsh mountains. Being Episcopalians by faith and education--coming to this coultry as zealous members of the "Church of England"--they gave the religious character to the locality, which even to this day has not been removed or impaired. His father was a native and resident of the Keystone State, and died at the age of fifty-two years, on the 14th of Janiuary, 1816, at Reading Forge, Chester county, Pennsylvania, being at that timle a farmer and a recently elected member of the House of the Assembly of Pennsylvania, but died before taking his seat in that legislative body. His wife having departed this life previously, on the 13th of January, 18l4, ten orphan children were left to mourn the loss of parents held in high esteem in the community of which they bad been members. The subject of these remarks was one of the eldest of this family, and while quite young, prompted by ambition as well as necessity, with self-reliance and a determination to engage in the battle of life on his own account, he left the scenes of his boyhood and went to Philadelphia to learn the mercantile business, and was employed by his maternal uncles, Thomas and John K. Graham, East India merchants. In September, 1819, with his older brother, George W. Jones, he came to Cincinnati, crossing the Allegheny mountains in the well-known Conestoga wagons, of whose size and usefulness perhaps only the oldest inhabitants have a just appreciation, and came down the Ohio river in a flat-boat, bringing a stock of dry goods and other necessary parts of an outfit to establish a western store. Thus these young merchants made their first essay in a field of labor at that time of circumscribed dimensions, but which now, by the expansion of trade, the increased facilities of transacting business with those at a distance and the improved condition of affairs in the country generally, has been enlarged commensurate with the skill, science and capacity of those engaged in mercantile pursuits. On the 1st of December, 1820, at the early age of twenty-four years, his brother and partner died, leaving the care and responsibility of a new business, in an undeveloped and almost unsettled country, upon one as yet untried and inexperienced. Notwithstanding this disappointmnent and bereavement, happening when his plans of promise and life had scarcely been formed, he with his uncle, Thomas Graham, continued his business under the firm-name of John D. Jones & Co. till its dissolution, in 1827, at which date his brother Caleb Jones became his partner, and the business was conducted under the firm-name of J.D. & C. Jones, which was pursued with a steady and constant development and attended with uniform prosperity. On the 22d of September, 1823, at Piqua, Miami county, Ohio, the subject of this biographical skletch was married to Elizabeth Johnston, daughter of the late Colonel John Johnston. She was born, September 22d, 1807, at the military post from which the city of Fort Wayne, Indiana, derived its name, while her father, familiarly known as one of our western pioneers, was United States Factor and Indian Agent. But, to return from this diversion to our historical connections, the firm of J.D. & C. Jones was engaged in business for the period of twenty-one years, and succeeded by the firms of J.D. & C. Jones & Co. and Jones Brothers & Co. successively, of which John D. Jones was the senior partner; these mercantile establishments being heirs, so to speak, of the parent house, created years before, and but the substantial changes in name incident to the demands of an increasing and successful business of a mercantile firm well and favorably known throughout the East and West. Mr. Jones retired from all active participation in business in July, 1865, having been engaged in the dry-goods trade uninterruptedly for almost fifty years, during which time, in addition to the close attention demanded in looking after his own interests, he was not unmindful of his obligations and duties to others; and there are not a few men now numbered among the prosperous and prominent merchants of Cincinnati and the West who have received encouragement or substantial assistance as well as good counsel from him, which have been of benefit to them in their mercantile career. As a merchant Mr. Jones has ever pursued a methodical and systematic course, managing his business with close attention and upon strict principles of integrity; and as a citizen has been associated in spirit and action with the party of progress, being identified with many enterprises and public movements which have facilitated the development of the commercial, banking and railroad interests of his city of adoption. In 1834 he was a member of the Board of Directors of the Lafayette Bank, and with Josiah Lawrence, Judge David K. Este, Hon. Salmon P. Chase and others, continued in the management of that corporation for many years. He was also a member of the original Board of Directors of the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton Railroad, and took an active part in the construction of that important public benefit; and also for many years was associated with Henry Probasco, Robert Buchanan and William Crossman in the Board of Trustees of the Cincinnati Orphan Asylum, an institution in which he has always been most earnestly interested, and with which his wife still continues to be identified as one of its managers. Of his once large family but four sons now are living; and of those deceased Colonel William G. Jones, 36th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, a graduate of the United States Military Academy, fell mortally wounded in the battle of Chickamauga, on September 19th, 1863; and Charles D. Jones, Lieutenant United States navy, a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, died, December, 1865, while in the service, having served during the rebellion on the frigate "Hartford," while floating the pennant of our gallant Farragut. Mr. Jones is still alive and living in quietness, relieved from his accustomed business responisibilities, in the beautiful village of Glendale, one of the suburban settlements of Cincinnati.
Source: The Biographical Encyclopaedia of Ohio of the Nineteenth Century, Cincinnati: Galaxy Publishing Company, 1876, pp. 117-118.