page_title: James McHenry Jones
section_title: Early life and education
hierarchical_section_title: James McHenry Jones / Early life and education
caption_attribution_description: English: Identifier: HistoricalCollectionsOfOhio1891V2 (find matches) Title: Historical Collections of Ohio: An Encyclopedia of the State&#160;; History Both General and Local, Geography with Descriptions of Its Counties, Cities and Villages, Its Agricultural, Manufacturing, Mining and Business Development, Sketches of Eminent and Interesting Characters, Etc., with Notes of a Tour over It in 1886 V 2 Year: 1891 (1890s) Authors: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893 Subjects: Ohio -- Biography Ohio -- History Ohio -- Local History Ohio -- Description and travel Publisher: Columbus&#160;: Henry Howe &amp; Son View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book. Text Appearing Before Image: is excursions through these partsdiscovered an enormous sycamore tree belowthe mouth of Carrs run, near where Mur-dock &amp; Nyes mill^ now stands, which wassubsequently occupied as a dwelling-house.Capt. Whitlock, of Coalport, informs methat he himself measured ^ that tree andfound the hollow to be eighteen feet indiameter. Capt. Whitlock further states,that as late as 1821 he took dinner fromthe top of a sugar-tree stump, in a log-house near where the court-house # nowstands, the only table the people had in thehouse. The view shown in the engraving was taken at the mines at Coalport, nearlytwo miles below the main village of Pomeroy. Here horizontal shafts are runinto the hill, at an elevation of more than one hundred feet above the river bed.The coal is carried out in cars on railways, and successively emptied from the carson one grade to that below, and so on until the last cars in turn empty into theboats on the river, by which it is carried to market. The mining is conducted in Text Appearing After Image: MEIGS COUNTY. 479 a systematic manner, and most of those employed are natives of Wales, familiarwith mining from youth. Dr. S. P. Hildreth, in the twenty-ninth volume of Sillimans Journal, writes: 14 The coal strata dips to the north two orthree feet in a hundred yards, requiringdrains to free them from the water whenopened on the south side of the hill. Abovethe coal is a deposit of shale and ash-coloredmarly clay, of eight or ten feet in thickness,which forms the roof of the mines—superin-cumbent on which is a deposit of stratifiedsand rock, rather coarse-grained, of nearlyone hundred feet in thickness. The shaleabounds in fine fossil plants. In mining thecoal, gunpowder is extensively used, a smallcharge throwing out large masses of coal.This coal being of the black slaty structure,abounds in bituminous matter and burns veryfreely; its specific gravity is 1.27. Twentygrains of the coarse powder decompose one hundred grains of nitrate of potash, whichwill give to this coal nearly Note About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.
context_page_description: James McHenry Jones was an American educator, school administrator, businessperson, and minister. Jones was the third principal of the West Virginia Colored Institute from 1898 until 1909, and is considered by West Virginia State as the institution's third president.
  Jones was born in 1859 in Gallipolis, Ohio, and was raised in Burlington and New Richmond, before his family settled in Pomeroy along the Ohio River. He received permission to attend Pomeroy's all-white Pomeroy High School, where he graduated with honors in either 1881 or 1882. At the age of 17, he joined the Free Will Baptist church, and was ordained a minister to churches in Pomeroy and Middleport. While ministering to his two churches, Jones commenced his career in education as a schoolteacher outside Pomeroy.
  In 1882, Jones was elected principal of the Lincoln School in Wheeling, West Virginia. Lincoln School was the first African-American public school in the United States, established in 1866 following the American Civil War. During his 16-year tenure as principal at Lincoln, the school was raised to the high school standard and became one of the top African-American public schools in the state of West Virginia.
context_section_description: Jones was born on August 28, 1859 in Gallipolis, Ohio, and was the son of Joseph Jones and Temperance Reed Jones. He was the sixth of ten children, nine of whom were sons. Jones' family was inspired by the Baptist preacher Thomas Jefferson Ferguson, and aspired to be middle class and emphasized the importance of education. Jones was raised in Burlington and New Richmond, before his family settled in Pomeroy along the Ohio River. Jones attended Pomeroy's public schools, and received permission to attend the town's all-white Pomeroy High School, where he graduated with honors in either 1881 or 1882. At the age of 17, he joined the Free Will Baptist church, and despite his young age, he was ordained a minister to churches in Pomeroy and Middleport on account of his "special fitness."
caption: 19th-century illustration of Pomeroy, Ohio, from the Ohio River
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