Sedgwick County KSGenWeb

Portrait And Biographical Album of Sedgwick County, Kan.

Chapman Brothers 1888

Page 756 

EDGAR H. JONES, representing the Badger Lumber Company, of Kansas City, took up his residence in Clearwater in 1885, and since that time has been closely identified with the interests of Ninnescah Township. He has been a member of the Council since the village was incorporated, and is now its President. His property includes a quarter-section of land in Ford County, and real estate in Clearwater, all of which he has accumulated by the exercise of his own industry and sound common sense. He has been a man never afraid of putting his shoulder to the wheel--just such men as Southern Kansas most needed during the period of her early settlement.

            A native of Fremont County, Ind., our subject was born Aug. 31, 1854, and is consequently still a young man in the midst of his plans and usefulness. His parents, Joseph N. and Mary E. (Brown) Jones, are at present residents of Ventura County, Cal. Joseph Jones and his wife are both natives of New York State, the former born in Cattaraugus County. Both are of Welsh ancestry, and the paternal grandfather of our subject, Henry Jones by name, crossed the Atlantic about sixty years ago and settled in the wilds of Cattaraugus County, N. Y., where he reared his family and spent the remainder of his life.

            In 1855 Joseph Jones left the Empire State with his family and located in Livingston County, Ill., near the town of Fairbury, where Edgar H. spent his boyhood days and acquired his education in the common schools. In the eighteenth year of his age he accompanied his mother to California, the climate of which, it was hoped, would restore the declining health of the latter, and they were joined the following year by the father. Our subject continued on the Pacific Slope some years, and there met his future wife, to whom he was married on the 3d of March, 1873. This lady, Miss Bessie Ferguson, was born in Cedar County, Iowa, Sept. 9, 1854, and is the daughter of John and Jeanette (Fairchild) Ferguson, the mother still residing there; the father died at his home in 1886. Her father was one of the first six white settlers to locate in Cedar County, and endured all the hardships and privations of pioneer life.

            Mr. Jones came with his family to Cowley County, this State, in 1879, where he engaged in farming about five years. He left there in the fall of 1884, at which time he became agent of the Badger Lumber Company, who handle all kinds of building material and coal. The sales at this point amount probably to $15,000 annually. To Mr. and Mrs. Jones there have been born two children: Ernest H., April 16, 1876, and Eva, Dec. 4, 1885. Mr. J. is a Republican, politically, and socially, is a member and Treasurer of Clearwater Lodge No. 265, I. O. O. F.

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