I Iones (Jethro Jones) 
A Timeline and His Planes

Jethro Jone observations and notes.

 

Rich De Avila and Mike Humphrey have covered much of what we know about Jethro Jones in their two Chronicle articles. There was one theme that remained fairly consistent over Jethro's life .... Jethro didn't stay in one place long unlike either Cesar or Sambo. So, in this review, it makes sense to divide what's known about Jethro and his family into the list of towns he and his family lived in.

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Limited family information was found in the 2nd edition (2011) of Joseph Carvalho's Black Families in Hamden County, Massachusetts, 1650-1865. The Ancestry family tree mentioned above, also lists additional children Cyrus b ca 1775 and Josephine b ca 1780 as well as providing a ca 1775 birthdate for Jason.

 

Medway.

In general, little is known about his early Medway years, aside from his F&I War records. It should be noted that the May 1758 company rolls do not provide the name of the town each soldier was from. The 1761-1763 service records, however, do provide the name of enlistee's towns of residence. There are some uncertainties about whether he lived exclusively in Medway during the early 1760s as three enlistment documents from 1761, 1762 and 1763 have his respective residences as Medfield, Medway and Medford. These records may be accurate, but the possibility exists that the recorder simply mis-identified the town of record. Medfield is right next to Medway during this period (so that remains a viable possibility) while Medford is more distant ... north of Boston (less of a possibility?). Based on these enlistment records, Jethro spent only a few months outside of military service for the 1761-1763 period. This may of been true also for the years between 1758 and 1761 ... we just don't know. (It should be pointed out that the card files summarizing his service for the years 1761, 1762 and 1763 stated that the original documents were not dated ... but instead, they were endorsed sometime later. However, a search through the actual document images did yield dates...which are provided in the timeline.)

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Wrentham.

Jethro's presence in Wrentham was documented in the years 1765 through 1767. GAWP5 records a tax record from 1764, but this has not yet been found by the author. Period town records (Dedham and Wrentham) place Jethro in Wrentham in 1765. Tax lists from 1765 and 1766 place Jethro next to Cesar Chelor indicating a direct linkage between the two men. On the Meeting House tax for 1765, Cesar had real estate and personal tax evaluations, while Jethro did not. A similar pattern was found in the 1762 tax list between Sambo Freeman and Cesar Chelor. In the 1766 Wrentham tax list, the tax liability was split between Cesar and Jethro.