Source: "Lives of the Eminent Dead and Biographical Notices of Prominent 
Living Citizens of Montgomery County, Pa," Moses Auge, privately published, 
Norristown, Pa., 1879, pp. 194-7
(transcribed by John Morris)

"Caleb P. Jones
The Jones family is one of the most numerous and respectable in eastern 
Pennsylvania.  The following is the genealogy of the family under consider-
ation, as given by our subject's surviving brother and sister, Nathan H. 
Jones and Hannah M. Ogden, still residing in that classic homestead which 
Washington occupied as headquarters during the long, dreary winter just 
one hundred years ago.

About the year 1700 John Evans, with his wife, son and two daughters, 
emigrated from Wales to Chester county, settling near the forks of the 
Brandywine, in East Bradford township.  The son, according to a custom 
among Welsh people, received the surname of his father reversed, and was 
called Evan Jones.  He married Sarah Woodward, and died in 1773.  Of this 
marriage was born John Jones, who intermarried with Rachel Hayes, and 
they were the parents of James Jones.  The latter married Ann Pusey in 
1806.  The decendants of this connection were Caleb Pusey Jones (the 
subject of this notice), Nathan H. Jones, and Hannah, intermarried with 
Thomas Ogden, the last now many years deceased.  Both Nathan H. and Hannah, 
as has already been stated, still reside on the Valley Forge property, the 
latter in the very house Washington occupied as his headquarters, and her 
brother in another mansion near by.  The genealogy of the maternal ancestry, 
the Pusey family is thus given: It came from Wantage, Berkshire, England, 
along with William Penn.  Caleb Pusey, the elder, brought with him a nephew, 
Caleb Pusey, who was married in 1712 to Ann [no, her name was Prudence] 
Carter.  They lived on a thousand-acre tract taken up from the proprietor, 
bounded on the Street road, a great thoroughfare leading from Philadelphia 
to [London] Grove meeting-house.  The elder Caleb was a member of the 
Colonial authorities very soon after the settlement, and was a useful man 
in settling difficulties among neighbors.  In the line, down to the subject 
of our notice, the couple whose marriage has just been stated, and whose 
certificate, engrossed upon parchment and numerously signed by the members 
of Chester meeting, is still preserved by descendants, had two sons, Thomas 
and David [the third brother Robert moved to Virginia and perhaps was 
forgotten by the Joneses].  The former married Mary Swayne, and had three 
sons, Caleb, Thomas, and Jesse [fourth son Abner perhaps did not survive 
childhood?].  The first, born in 1745, married Hannah Bailey in 1775 [1778], 
and they had five children, Ann, Caleb, Phebe, Lydia, and Susan.  Ann, the 
eldest, was married to James Jones, the father of our subject, as elsewhere 
stated.

Caleb P. Jones was the sixth and next to the youngest of the family.  He, 
with most of the children of his parents, was born on the old Jones home-
stead in East Bradford township, Chester county, which property the father 
sold to enter a labor-combination enterprise, started at Valley Forge about 
the year 1826.  This scheme did not prove a success, as originally designed, 
and it was soon dissolved.  His father, James Jones, on the dissolution of 
the society, bought the old headquarters homestead, grist mill, and part of 
the old Valley Forge or Potts' estate, and the family, with an intermission 
of two years from 1826 to 1828, have resided upon it ever since, now over 
half a century.

At a very early age Caleb P. showed a fondness for books and papers, read-
ing then much solid matter, and was conversant with the Scriptures when 
quite young.  Between the ages of fourteen and sixteen he was sent to 
Westtown boarding school, an institution fo Friends, where he made rapid 
progress in grammar, chemistry, and the higher mathematics.  He was remark-
ably correct and thorough in elementary studies, became a very clear and 
forcible writer, and so terse and perspicuous in style that he usually 
took the lead in writing out resolutions and making brief speeches at 
temperance, anti-slavery and free soil meetings, to which his heart was 
deeply committed while he lived.  He had joined the Methodist Episcopal 
church in 1844, and that fire infused into his Quaker blood made him 
courageous and intrepid to the last degree when any great question of 
human rights, such as slavery or temperance, was concerned.   He was a 
frequent contributor to the reformatory press, especially of the type just 
mentioned.  After arriving at majority he went to teaching school, and 
continued for several years near home, at Wilkesbarre and Philadelphia.  
While thus engaged at the last place his health gave way in a severe 
attack of inflammatory rheumatism.  On recovering he was advised to seek 
more active employment, and obtained a sort of supervisory position on the 
Reading railroad, which he held with a few intervals for twenty years, his 
residence in the meantime being at Reading and with his sister at Valley 
Forge.  Had he not been so heartily identified with anti-slavery and temper-
ance reform movements, in advance of the age, he had all the qualities to 
have made a successful politician and legislator.  Although social and very 
courteous, he was retiring in his habits.  His delight was to read, store 
his mind with useful knowledge, and do good.  He was, in fact, to his family 
and neighbors a walking Encyclopedia.  His life was a busy one.  At the time 
of his death he had an immense amount of literary labor projected, leaving 
some valuable papers worthy of publication behind him.

In person Mr. Jones was rather under the medium height, light complexion but 
dark hair, and of comely, pleasant features.  He died, unmarried, at the age 
of 46 years, in 1865, and was buried at Friends' cemetery in Schuylkill 
township, two miles above Valley Forge.  Hon. J. Glancey Jones, of Reading, 
who was possibly a distant relative, and a particular friend, as also the 
writer, were at his funeral.

His brother, Nathan H. Jones, from whom most of the facts of this notice 
have been gathered, is a man of high moral character and much culture, 
being a very fine mathematician.  Caleb P. Jones, notwithstanding his 
activity as a reformer, left considerable estate to his brother and sister.

The following lines, dedicated to his memory by A. J. Chrisman, are added:
Bending o'er thy dust, my brother,
O'er thy sad and lonely tomb,
I would lay a sweet wreath on it,
Flowers that memory bids to bloom."