Mary M. Thomas Jones
Birth 7 Feb 1784
Buckingham County, Virginia, USA
Death 20 Dec 1848 (aged 64)
Centerville, Wayne County, Indiana, USA
Burial: Old Centerville Cemetery
Centerville, Wayne County, Indiana, USA
Levi M. Jones after his marriage (to Mary Thomas) continued farming in West Virginia until March, 1815, when he started for Wayne County, Indiana. He journeyed down the Ohio river on a flatboat to Cincinnati, and then drove across country to Wayne County. He first located at Old Salisbury and a year later bought 160 acres in Center Township of Wayne County. Two years later he sold that property and bought lots in Centerville, where he built a hotel, and in 1819 constructed the first brick house in the town.
This brick house became associated with many important events in the history of Wayne County. Levi M. Jones also took the first contract to carry mail from Centerville to Indianapolis, and his son Lewis was the carrier, making the trip of sixty-five miles without any stop. Levi M. Jones was not only a man of much business enterprise but of generosity and confidence in his fellowmen that was frequently betrayed, and security debts swept away most of his estate. He died October 5, 1823, honored and respected, but left his family in straightened circumstances. It was his wife, (Mary Thomas Jones) a noble woman of the pioneer type, who came to the rescue of the family fortune.
One of her sons speaking of her later said: "Thinking over the past and of the early history of my mother's family, my mind runs back nearly sixty-one years to the scene of the Town of Centerville, Wayne County. I fancy I see a little group of ten children and a mother and other relatives mourning over the loss of a dear father and a loving companion."
The prospects for keeping the family together and rearing those children would be a very gloomy one under the circumstances to my mother's friends. After a consultation about the matter the friends advised my mother to put the children ‘out,' as they did not think it possible for her to keep them together and raise them. She listened to and thanked her friends for their advice but to them she said, ‘nay, as long as I have a finger to scratch, these children shall never be separated.' And they never were separated except as they reached maturity and were married.
The last thing we children would hear at night when we went to bed was the wheel or loom, and it was the first thing in the morning. It seemed as though she never slept. Oh, for such courage, for such a will to do, and for such economy as she used in raising her children. Would that there were more mothers in this present day who possessed the will and courage that she did.
I will venture the assertion that in the first ten years after my father's death there was not a bill of $10 run by the family at any store. If ever a mother did her whole duty in raising a family of fatherless children my mother was such a one. After living to see them all grown and married except one she departed this life for a better home. She died December 20, 1848.
The children of this noble woman were: Lewis, born in Kanawha County March 26, 1807, died at his home near Centerville April 3, 1877. He first married Caroline Level, and his second wife was Ruth Commons. Sallie Jones, born November 6, 1809, was first married in 1831 to John Boggs, and in 1854 became the wife of Robert Franklin. Oliver Tindal Jones, born September 19, 1810, died at his home near Centerville December 16, 1874, his wife having been Mary King.
He was a large land owner and farmer and also a banker at Centerville. Norris Jones, born August 19, 1811, and died at Connersville, Indiana, March 22, 1881, married Sabra Jenkins. Harrison Jones, born May 10, 1813, died at Centerville August 13, 1844. His wife was Eliza Bundy. Rebecca Jones, born March 15, 1815, and died in Wayne County August 7, 1866, was married to Daniel S. Shank.
Source: Indiana & Indianans; Vol 3; By Jacob Piatt Dunn ~ 1919
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/40312020/mary-m_-jones
