Horatio Gates Jones, Jr. excerpt from Ministers of the PBA

Horatio Gates Jones, Jr.*: b. Jan. 19, 1822, Roxborough, Pa.; d. Mar. 13, 1893, Roxborough, Pa.; . . . though a lawyer by profession, he became an eminent nineteenth-century historian of the Philadelphia Association; united with his father’s church at Lower Merion, Pa., 1840, where he thereafter retained his membership, being appointed a deacon there on Dec. 4, 1879, though later he would generally attend the Baptist church at Roxborough where he resided, supporting the church in all its undertakings. . . .[A]fter attending the Roxborough School House, he entered Haddington College, where he studied Latin, and the College of Germantown, before entering the junior class at the University of Pennsylvania in 1839, where he grad. A.B., July 3, 1841, A.M., 1844; also awarded honorary A.M., Brown University, 1863, D.C.L., Judson University, 1883; “In 1845 he made a tour through some of the Western States, and upon his return studied law under Joseph A. Clay, Esq., of Philadelphia, and was admitted to that Bar, 7 May, 1847” (Jones, The Levering Family); m. Caroline Elizabeth Vassar Babcock (Feb. 19, 1824, Barrington, R.I.-Mar. 7, 1889, Roxborough, Pa.), daughter of Rufus Babcock (q.v.), pastor at Poughkeepsie, N.Y., May 27, 1852, at Poughkeepsie; the couple had no children; . . .during the Civil War he served as 1st Lieutenant, Company A, Phila. Home Guards, and was acting Assistant Adj.-General at Chambersburg, Pa., 1863; . . .he spoke the Welsh language fluently and served as president of the Welsh Society for 26 years; he was elected to serve in the Pennsylvania Senate from Phila. in 1874, and was re-elected in 1876 and 1878. Though never a minister with the Philadelphia Association, he served as its stated clerk for 15 consecutive years, Oct. 1858-Oct. 1872, resigning at the meeting in Oct. 1873 (after which he was chosen as moderator that year); he was also a member of the first board of trustees for the Association elected under the amended charter in 1854, serving also as its secretary in 1867, then its president, 1867 until his death in 1893; “He died March 14, 1893, in the room in which he was born, in the house in which he lived all his life at Roxborough” (Bicknell). Jones rendered invaluable service to the Association by gathering materials and writing the histories of some of its leading early ministers and churches. . . . [Some of his more notable works are listed here.] The gravesites of Jones and his wives are in the Leverington Cemetery, Philadelphia County. “In his profession, in social and church life, in politics, in business, and in official relations he was an active, benevolent, manly, Christian citizen” (Bicknell); “For more than half a century his name has been intimately associated with our various denominational enterprises, and in many official and advisory relations he has been known as an able and zealous helper. His memory will be long and gratefully cherished as the memory of a man whose conspicuous purpose in life was that of keeping other departed and departing worthies in perpetual remembrance and unfading honor”—Memoriam.