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John M. Jones
John M. Jones (now owner of the Knoxville woolen factory,) was a native of Ohio, and one among the first white men that came to the county. Being an employee of the American Fur Company, in that capacity he traveled over most of the state in the summer and fall of 1842, and first made a claim on White Breast. Here he spent the winter in a camp, during which time he made three trips with team to Meek's mill, at Keosauqua, for breadstuff, traveling a portion of the distance on the ice of the Des Moines.
Soon after settlements were permitted, the elder Jones, with the rest of the family, moved in. Mr. Jones, Sen., was a turner by trade. Having brought his tools with him they at once put up a temporary lathe, and proceeded to manufacture bowls from slabs split from the trunks of walnut trees. This ware, John, Jun., loaded into his wagon, hauled them to the old settlement, and peddled them out for corn, at from 25 to 75 cents apiece. A load of bowls would thus secure him a load of corn, and this he would get ground at Meek's, and return with meal enough to subsist upon for some time. Mr. J. says that some of the stumps of the trees that furnished the materials for these bowls are still visible.
They were frequently visited by the Indians during the early period of their settlement here. On one occasion the savages made the visit something of a visitation. The men were all out on a hunting expedition, leaving the mother and only sister in charge of the house, when a squad of about two hundred dusky warriors came in in single file, unannounced, and totally regardless of the fears of the two defenseless women, filling the little cabin to its utmost capacity. They immediately began searching for plunder, laying hands upon whatever they thought fit to eat. Among other things prized by them as an article of food, were a couple of pigs in a pen near the house, intended for breeders. The Indians thought one of them would make an excellent mess of soup, and, regardless of the protestations of the women, and their loud calls for the men, who they hoped might be within hearing, murdered the male swine, a shoat of sufficient age and size to possess much of the peculiar odor common to his species, threw it across the back of a pony and vanished.
This was a loss not easily replaced in those days, for hogs were scarce and money ditto. The expense of bringing such stock from a distance made the loss at least $25.