 Augustus Jones was born around 1757 in the Hudson River Valley of the Province of New York, the son of Ebenezer Jones, a Welsh immigrant. He trained as a land surveyor in New York City in his youth. After his training, he worked for some time in New York, and his name appears in paperwork for land transfers in Newburgh, New York in 1783 and 1784. Sometime in the 1780s, Jones fled the United States with his family as loyalists during the American Revolution. Jones was sent ahead of the rest of his family, and obtained 300 acres (1.2 km2) of land in Saltfleet Township. Soon after this Jones'father Ebenezer, his brother Stephen and Stephen's family, and his sisters, Mary Jones Gage, widow of James Gage and Susannah Gage, wife of William Gage followed. The fields around his sister's farmhouses would later be the scene of the Battle of Stoney Creek.
