James McHenry Jones

19th-century illustration of Pomeroy, Ohio, from the Ohio River

Jones was born on August 28, 1859, in Gallipolis, Ohio, the son of Joseph Jones and Temperance Reed Jones.[2][3][4] He was the sixth of ten children, nine of whom were boys.[2][3] Jones's parents, inspired by Baptist preacher Thomas Jefferson Ferguson, aspired to be middle class and emphasized the importance of education to their children.[2] Jones was raised in Burlington and New Richmond, before his family settled in Pomeroy, Ohio, along the Ohio River.[3][4] He also spent time on his grandmother's farm in Lawrence County, Ohio.[4] As a child, Jones learned the trade of a cooper and worked in this profession before and after school.[4]

Jones attended Kerr's Run Colored School in the Kerr's Run area of Pomeroy's First Ward.[5] Future West Virginia state auditor J. S. Darst, cited Jones as a person who rose to prominence, despite his early unfavorable environment—the "tough", "bloody First" Ward of Pomeroy.[6] Darst was a childhood playmate of both Jones and James Edwin Campbell.[6] At 16, Jones became a schoolteacher and taught two terms in the district schools of Meigs County, Ohio.[4] He then received permission to attend the all-white Pomeroy High School, where he studied for four years, and, in 1882, graduated first in his class out of seven students with honors.[2][3][4] Jones was the first African American to graduate from the school School.[4] At 17, he joined the Free Will Baptist church, and despite his young age, he was ordained a minister to churches in Pomeroy and Middleport, Ohio, because of his "special fitness".[3]

Jones became an influential figure in West Virginia through his participation in African-American religious and fraternal institutions.[2] While in Wheeling, Jones became affiliated with the Simpson Methodist Episcopal Church (later known as Simpson United Methodist Church), and worked to develop and grow the church and its community.[3] He spoke at the church's elaborate Masonic cornerstone laying ceremony in 1893.[17] Jones was active in the movement for African-American advancement, and became a frequently invited speaker throughout West Virginia,[3] using this platform to deliver speeches that highlighted African-American achievements.[2] He became well known as a speaker on Chautauqua circuits.[18]

At 18, Jones became a member of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows in America, an African-American fraternal order.[2][4] By 1880, he represented the Ohio District Lodge at the order's convention.[4] Jones continued to rise within the order, being elected as District Deputy Master in Springfield, in 1882; District Master in Columbus in 1883; and reelected District Master in Dayton, Ohio, in 1884.[4] In 1888, he was elected leader of the order's District No. 24 consisting of Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia.[4] At the order's 1896 convention in Indianapolis, Jones was elected the order's first fraternal delegate to participate in the British Odd Fellows' annual meeting in the United Kingdom, which Jones attended in 1897.[2][18][19] During his speech to the British Odd Fellows in 1897, Jones remarked that, "African-Americans could decrease the force of racism and acquire acceptance in the social order ... through the associations of class and especially middle-class values and morals".[2] In 1902, Jones became the Grand Master of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows.[3][18] He served in this position for two terms, spanning four years total.[3] Jones was also a member of the interracial Epworth League religious organization,[20] and in 1908, the league selected him to speak at its Quadrennial Convention in Seattle, Washington.[3] Jones was also a member of the West Virginia Teachers' Association, and participated in the association's third annual meeting in Parkersburg, West Virginia, in 1893.[21]

Jones also became influential through his political contacts.[2] He was a supporter of George W. Atkinson, a Wheeling attorney, newspaper editor, and Republican politician.[2] In 1896, Jones was invited to speak at West Virginia's Republican Convention in Parkersburg.[22] In his speech, Jones seconded Atkinson's nomination as the Republican candidate for Governor of West Virginia in 1896.[2][22] Jones also founded the Atkinson Republican Club, which had a membership of over 100 African-American voters.[2] He used his political influence to advocate for equal rights for African Americans and fought for equal public accommodations for African Americans to include railcars.[18] While Jones was a supporter of the state's Republican Party, he did not run for elected public office, nor did he accept any appointments.[18]

Jones served as an associate editor of Charleston's African-American newspaper, The Advocate.[18] In 1896, he wrote and published a novel entitled Hearts of Gold.[2][20][23] In it Jones details a community of African-American leaders combating racism and systemic injustice in the post-American Civil War era, and highlights their dedication to education, journalism, and fraternal organizations for African-Americans abandoned by the white political system.[2][20] African-American literature scholar Robert Bone stated that Hearts of Gold reflected a growing belligerence in response to white discrimination and violence against African Americans in the 1890s, and cited his characterization of this repression as "the reign of poor whites".[24] Literary scholar John G. Mencke stated the novel's character, Regenia Underwood, represents a movement in African-American literature where the heroine devotes herself to the profession of teaching in the American South, rather than pursue a more comfortable life elsewhere.[25] Hugh Gloster assessed that Hearts of Gold "presents decorous characters and probes the consequences of interbreeding in the Reconstruction period".[26] He concluded that Hearts of Gold was noteworthy because it was the first American novel with a leading character who was the offspring of a lawful marriage between a white woman and an African-American man.[27] By 2010, only eight known copies of Hearts of Gold had survived until the West Virginia University Press republished the novel in February of that year.[2][20] Jones reportedly wrote several other novels, however, literary critics have only located Hearts of Gold.[20]

In December 1902, Jones was an incorporator of the Wilgera Oil and Gas Company, with $50,000 in initial stock.[28][29] The company's other incorporators were George A. Weaver, Wilbur F. Jones, and journalist Ralph Waldo Tyler.[28] This company was likely one of the first African American-owned fossil fuel companies in the United States.[28] Jones served as a director of the company.[28][29]

In recognition of his management of West Virginia Colored Institute, Wilberforce University awarded Jones an honorary Master of Arts degree.[3] In 1908, he received an honorary Doctor of Literature degree from Rust College in Holly Springs, Mississippi.[3]

Jones died on September 22, 1909, at 11:22 p.m. in Institute.[3][11][30] He had experienced poor health in the final year of his life and was diagnosed with Bright's disease in August 1909.[30] Jones's body lay in state at the institute's Hazelwood Assembly Hall on September 25 and was visited by hundreds of mourners.[3] Jones's funeral was held in Charleston, and was attended by West Virginia's governor William E. Glasscock, state auditor John S. Darst, the state superintendent of schools, and former justice of the state's Supreme Court of Appeals Henry C. McWhorter.[3] Governor Glasscock spoke at the service and said of Jones: "Always his hands, heart, and mind were engaged in lifting up his fellow man, in making smoother the path of adversity, and throwing the light of knowledge into the dark corners of ignorance. His idea of life was to make the world better and happier."[3] Jones was interred at Cabell Cemetery on the campus of West Virginia State.[1][31]

A later memorial service for Jones was held in December 1909 at the Kanawha Light Lodge No. 1637 in Charleston.[32] In 1911, the Lincoln School Alumni Association unveiled a white marble memorial plaque at the school in Jones's memory.[33]

The university named West Virginia State's Jones Hall in his honor.[1][34] Jones Hall was built in 1924 and originally served as the institute's elementary training school and laboratory for observation and directed teaching of elementary-level grades.[34] Jones Hall is currently home to West Virginia State's University Printing Services, and the National Center for Human Relations, a forum for "communication, understanding, and cooperation among people, groups, and institutions with a special focus on issues of human diversity and race relations".[34][35]

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