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“Yours sincerely,

“J. P. H. CRISMUND.”

I wrote as Mr. Crismund suggested, but could get no further information.

VIII. The Joneses of North Carolina

Now to revert to the North Carolina account. It comes down as straight as such a story could. Colonel Cadwallader Jones of North Carolina, in a privately printed genealogical history of his family, states that he was born in 1812. His grandmother, Mrs. Willie Jones, died in 1828. He lived with her for the first fifteen years of his life. He declares positively that she told him that John Paul had taken the name for the reasons mentioned. The matter was generally so stated and accepted in the family. Mrs. Willie Jones was a woman of unusual mental force and character, and preserved the full use of her faculties until her death.

The same statement is made independently by descendants of other branches of the Jones family. For instance, Mr. Armistead Churchill Gordon, of Staunton, Va., had it direct from his great-aunt, who was a kinswoman of Mrs. Jones, and who heard from her the circumstances referred to. And there are still other lines of tradition which create a strong probability in favor of the credibility of the theory.

For one thing, if Jones did represent his sister in the settlement of his brother’s estate, it is probable that he would have to give bond for the proper performance of his trust, and it is sometimes stated that Willie and Allen Jones went on his bond for five hundred pounds–just the sum required of the Executors, by the way. It is also singular, in view of this will leaving property to his grandmother, that the Louden whom Mr. Buell knew–and who is said to have died in New Orleans 1887–should have been so mistaken in his statements; but on this point the evidence of the will is absolutely conclusive.

IX. Paul Jones Never a Man of Wealth

Colonel Buell claims that John Paul Jones had riches and influence in Virginia after the death of his brother, but the claim is not tenable according to an exhaustive review of his book in the Virginia Historical Magazine. In the face of the present exhibit, and in the view of the fact that Jones himself spoke of living for two years in Virginia on fifty pounds, the story of his wealth cannot be credited. It is therefore entirely in harmony with the facts to accept the North Carolina tradition, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary. The direct statement coming to us in one instance through but one generation is entitled to respect. As a matter of fact both Colonel Buell’s version of the matter and my own story rest upon tradition alone, with this difference–the evidence submitted absolutely excluded one of the accounts; the other, therefore, logically comes to the fore.

And thus, I think, I have contributed to clear up one mooted point in American history.

NOTES:

[1] My reason for including in this volume a paper on this great sailor whose career has already been discussed in “Revolutionary Fights and Fighters” (q. v.) is because this present article contains a new and original contribution to history, never before published in book form, which absolutely and finally settles one phase of the much mooted question as to why John Paul assumed the surname Jones, as will be seen hereafter.

[2] Of which he (General Taliaferro) had become the owner.