John P. Jones
Encyclopedia
John Percival Jones was an American politician who served for 30 years as a Republican United States Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

 from Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...

. He made a fortune in silver mining and was a co-founder of the town of Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and...

.

Early life

John P. Jones, one of thirteen children of Thomas Jones (1793–1871) and Mary A. Jones, was born in Herefordshire
Herefordshire
Herefordshire is a historic and ceremonial county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire" NUTS 2 region. It also forms a unitary district known as the...

, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. The family immigrated to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and settled in Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...

 in 1831. Thomas Jones purchased property, and established himself in business as a marble manufacturer.

California Gold Rush

In 1849 John P. Jones went to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 to participate in the Gold rush
Gold rush
A gold rush is a period of feverish migration of workers to an area that has had a dramatic discovery of gold. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, and the United States, while smaller gold rushes took place elsewhere.In the 19th and early...

. He settled in Trinity County, California
Trinity County, California
Trinity County is a large, rugged and mountainous, heavily forested county located in the northwestern portion of the U.S. state of California, along the Trinity River and within the Salmon/Klamath Mountains. It covers an area of over two million acres , and as of the 2010 census its population...

 where he engaged in mining and farming. He served as county sheriff, and was a member of the California state senate from 1863 to 1867. In 1867 he was the nominee of the Republican party for Lieutenant-Governor.

Comstock Lode Nevada

In 1868, Jones moved to Gold Hill, Nevada
Gold Hill, Nevada
Gold Hill is a community in Storey County, Nevada, located just south and downhill of Virginia City. Incorporated December 17, 1862, in order to prevent its annexation by its larger neighbor, the town at one point was home to at least 8,000 residents. Prosperity was sustained for a period of 20...

 where he was superintendent of the Crown Point silver mine which was part of the Comstock Lode
Comstock Lode
The Comstock Lode was the first major U.S. discovery of silver ore, located under what is now Virginia City, Nevada, on the eastern slope of Mount Davidson, a peak in the Virginia Range. After the discovery was made public in 1859, prospectors rushed to the area and scrambled to stake their claims...

. When a body of silver ore was stuck in 1870, Jones and Alvinza Hayward
Alvinza Hayward
Alvinza Hayward was a well-known gold mining millionaire who made his fortune in California. He later became a prominent financier and businessman in the San Francisco bay area.-Early life:...

 acquired shares and were able to gain control of the Crown Point mine.

US Senate

In 1873 he was elected by the Nevada state legislature to the United States Senate, in which he served five terms from 1873 to 1903. He served as chairman of the Senate Committee on Auditing the Contingent Expenses from 1877 to 1881 and from 1883 to 1893, and as chairman of the committee on epidemic diseases from 1893 to 1903. Jones was involved with the minting of the Twenty-cent piece silver coin
Twenty-cent piece (United States coin)
The United States twenty cent coin was a unit of currency equalling 1/5 of a United States dollar....

. Like many Republicans from the western United States, Jones left the party in 1896 over the issue of bimetalism and joined the Silver Republican Party
Silver Republican Party
The Silver Republican Party was a United States political faction active in the 1890s. It was so named because it split from the Republican Party over the issues of "Free Silver" and bimetallism. The main Republican Party supported the gold standard....

. He later rejoined the main Republican Party, but decided not to run for re-election to the Senate in 1902.

Panamint Silver Mines

In 1874, Jones and fellow Nevada senator, William M. Stewart
William M. Stewart
William Morris Stewart was an American lawyer and politician.-Biography:Stewart was born in Wayne County, New York. As a child he moved with his parents to Trumbull County, Ohio. As a young man he was a mathematics teacher in Ohio. In 1849 he began attending Yale University but left in 1850 to...

, invested in the Panamint
Panamint City, California
Panamint City is a ghost town in the Panamint Range, near Death Valley, in Inyo County, California, USA. It is also known by the official Board of Geographic Names identity, Panamint. Panamint was a boom town founded after silver and copper were found there in 1872. By 1874, the town had a...

 silver mines near Independence
Independence, California
Independence is the county seat of Inyo County, California. Independence is located south-southeast of Bishop, at an elevation of 3930 feet . The population of this census-designated place was 669 at the 2010 census, up from 574 at the 2000 census....

, Inyo County, California
Inyo County, California
-National protected areas:* Death Valley National Park * Inyo National Forest * Manzanar National Historic Site-Major highways:* U.S. Route 6* U.S. Route 395* State Route 127* State Route 136* State Route 168* State Route 178...

. Jones planned to build a railroad from the mines to the ocean at Santa Monica. By 1877, the Panamint mines were exhausted and closed.

Santa Monica

Jones visited Los Angeles in 1874 and bought a three quarter interest in Colonel Robert S. Baker
Robert Symington Baker
Colonel Robert Symington Baker was a businessman and landowner originally from Rhode Island. He came to California in 1849 and engaged in mining supplies business in San Francisco...

’s ranch
Rancho San Vicente y Santa Monica
Rancho San Vicente y Santa Monica was a Mexican land grant in present day Los Angeles County, California given by governor Juan Alvarado in 1839 to Francisco Sepulveda soldier and citizen of Los Angeles...

 in Santa Monica
History of Santa Monica, California
The history of Santa Monica, California, covers the significant events and movements in Santa Monica's past.-Population by decade:* 1880 - 417* 1890 - 1,580* 1900 - 3,057* 1910 - 7,847* 1920 - 15,252* 1930 - 37,146* 1940 - 53,500* 1950 - 71,595...

. In 1875, Jones and Baker laid out the town of Santa Monica. Jones built the first railroad (Los Angeles and Independence Railroad
Los Angeles and Independence Railroad
The Los Angeles and Independence Railroad , opened October 17, 1875, was a steam powered rail line which travelled from a wharf North of the current Santa Monica Pier in Santa Monica along a private right-of-way to 5th and San Pedro Street in downtown Los Angeles...

) from Los Angeles to Santa Monica. Due to financial pressures, Jones was forced to sell the railroad to Southern Pacific
Southern Pacific Railroad
The Southern Pacific Transportation Company , earlier Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company, and usually simply called the Southern Pacific or Espee, was an American railroad....

 in 1877.

Miramar

In 1903 Jones retired to his 1889 home, Miramar, in Santa Monica where he continued to oversee his businesses. Shortly before the Senator died, Miramar was sold to King Gillette. Gillette rarely visited the house, and after a brief spell towards the end of World War I as a boys military academy, the estate was sold to hotelier Gilbert Stevenson and it became the Hotel Miramar in 1921. Since then, it has been run by various hoteliers — except for during World War II, when the Army Air Corps took over the Miramar and used it as a redistribution center for officers and other enlisted men returning from overseas. The mansion was demolished in 1938, leaving as the oldest structure, the six story "Palisades" wing built in 1924. The Moreton Bay Fig Tree, given to the Jones’ by the bartender in 1889, still stands where it was planted by gardener W.H. Lee. The site is now the home of the Fairmont Miramar Hotel
Fairmont Hotels and Resorts
Fairmont Hotels & Resorts is a Canadian-based operator of luxury hotels and resorts. Currently, Fairmont operates properties in 18 countries including Canada, the United States, Mexico, Bermuda, Barbados, United Kingdom, Monaco, Germany, Switzerland, Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, the...

.

Family life

Jones married the widow Hannah Cornelia (Conger) Greathouse, in 1861, and they had one son, Roy Jones. Hannah died in 1871, and Jones married Georgina Frances Sullivan in 1875. They had three daughters, Alice (MacMonnies
Frederick William MacMonnies
Frederick William MacMonnies was the best known expatriate American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts school, as successful and lauded in France as he was in the United States...

), Marion
Marion Jones (tennis)
Marion Jones Farquhar is a former American female tennis player. She won the women's singles titles at the 1899 and 1902 U.S. Championships...

 (Farquhar
Robert D. Farquhar
Robert David Farquhar was an architect working in California 1905 - 1940.-Early life:Farquhar was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of David Webber Farquhar and Sarah Malvina Joslyn. He attended Phillips Exeter and Harvard...

) and Georgina (Walton).

Jones died in 1912 in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

 and was buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery in San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

.
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