When William Newton Jones died on March 1, 1961, at the age of 83, the Idaho State Journal gave him a short obituary on its second page. It identified him with American Falls, where he had once lived, but two details lead back to Arbon Valley: a homestead in the Arbon area, taken up after the couple's arrival at American Falls in 1914, and eleven years of farming it before the move to town in 1925. The American Falls Press of those years fills in some of that story.
From Dayton to Pauline
Jones, born in Kansas in 1877, was a Dayton, Washington, man by 1900, and he took Eva Grace Hatley, a daughter of William Elijah Hatley, as his wife there in 1902. A small migration of Dayton families to the valley began in 1909, and the Hatleys followed: a Hatley family, probably Eva's parents and brothers, came overland with their stock in the summer of 1915 and took up land on the benches north-east of Pauline. Two of her sisters lived nearby, Lillie Mae, the wife of Ed England, at whose place a mile north of the Pauline church grain was bought and weighed, and Jennie, the wife of Dock Pruitt.
The obituary dates the Joneses' arrival at American Falls to July 1, 1914. The earliest valley mentions found are from the summer of 1915. In July the county's list of allowed claims included road work by a "Wm. Jones," listed with Chas. Hatley and Dock Pruitt, and in August the Press noted that "Billy Jones and family of Pauline" had spent a few days visiting at Robert Stott's. After that the Pauline column mentions the family now and then. At harvest in 1917 Lorena Jones, the eldest of the Jones children, went to another family's home to help with the cooking through harvest. That October, while Eva's mother was away in Dayton after the deaths of her father and a sister, the column noted that Mrs. John Bryan had been visiting "Mrs Wm. Jones." In April 1920 the Press reported that "Miss Lorena Jones of Pauline" had left American Falls to visit her aunts, Mrs. Pruitt and Mrs. Ed England.
The Jones homestead was 120 acres in Sections 3 and 10 of Township 10 South, Range 34 East, beside Elijah Hatley's claim, near the Pruitts'. The patent was issued on June 7, 1920. The site's land research suggests that this corner of the valley was opened to entry about the end of 1918 and that the families already living there filed together.
In July 1920 W. N. Jones filed as a Republican candidate for Pauline precinct delegate, alongside J. T. Thomas, with Ed England (E. C. England) filing for precinct committeeman. A "Wm. Jones" was drawn for the county's 1921 trial-jury list among the Arbon, Pauline and Crystal names, near Dock Pruitt and P. S. Hatley. That is probably him, but a William J. Jones was living at Crystal in 1913.
The family seems to have spent some of these years in American Falls. In May 1922 the Press reported that Mr. and Mrs. W. N. Jones had moved "from American Falls to their ranch at Arbon." They had just bought another quarter section, which with the land they already farmed made theirs "one of the largest ranches in the Valley." The last record found of the land is from September 1925, when the county's list of delinquent taxes still carried W. N. Jones against land in Section 3. Nothing found shows when or how the ranch passed out of the family's hands.
The dam and the new town
The year the Joneses moved to town was the year the Bureau of Reclamation began the American Falls Dam. It was finished in 1927, and most of the old town had to be moved to make way for the reservoir. The obituary puts Jones on the dam job and among the men who moved the town, and it names him as the one who put in most of the grass on the new townsite. No other record of that work has been found.
Eva Grace Jones died at American Falls on June 19, 1929, at 43. Her Find a Grave memorial names seven children: Lorena, Opal, Charlotte, Harold Leo, Mary, William Elijah, and Raymond Earl, who was born and died in 1919. Jones lived on for more than thirty years after her death, and his children took him in during his final years.
The Joneses are not to be confused with the other Jones families in the valley papers of the time. These include Frank E. Jones of Arbon, the Jacob W. Jones family at Crystal, the Malad Joneses and the C. K. Jones family of Dayton. No kinship with any of them is shown.
On this site: the Dayton settlers and their 1916 picnic are told in The Washington people's three-day picnic in Bull Canyon, 1916, and the Hatley homesteads beside the Bradley land are described on the Bradley page.
The story as reported
Idaho State Journal, March 2, 1961, page 2. The original article is under copyright; this is our own report of what it said.
A man who farmed in the Arbon country for about eleven years and later helped build the American Falls dam died at Idaho Falls on Wednesday, March 1, 1961. William Newton Jones, 83, once of American Falls, had been sick for a long time before he died at the LDS Hospital there.
Jones was on the crews that built the American Falls dam, and he had a part in getting the town out of the reservoir's way. The paper also singled out his gardening, saying he "planted most of the lawns in the new townsite."
His parents, William and Harriet Hudaberg Jones, had him at Mound City, Kansas, on August 16, 1877, and he grew up partly there and partly in Missouri. Dayton, Washington, became his home in 1900, and two years later, on April 21, 1902, he and Eva Grace Hatley were wed in that town.
According to the paper, the Joneses reached American Falls on July 1, 1914, and claimed a homestead in the Arbon area. They kept at farming there for eleven years, until a move into town in 1925.
Eva died on June 19, 1929. For his last few years, Jones had lived in his children's households.
Of the seven children born to the couple, the daughters Mrs. Charlotte Keller of Arimo, Mrs. Opal Mittelsted of Rupert and Mrs. Mary Kidd of Basalt were still living. His descendants included 17 grandchildren and 36 great-grandchildren.
His funeral was planned for Saturday afternoon at 2 o'clock, with the Rev. Louis Ray leading it at the Methodist church in American Falls. Davis Mortuary arranged for burial in the family's plot at Fallsview Cemetery.
Sources
- Idaho State Journal, March 2, 1961, page 2
- American Falls Press, July 29, 1915, page 4
- American Falls Press, August 12, 1915, page 4
- American Falls Press, August 24, 1917, page 5
- American Falls Press, October 19, 1917, page 7
- American Falls Press, April 16, 1920, page 5
- American Falls Press, July 9, 1920, page 1
- American Falls Press, February 11, 1921, page 8
- American Falls Press, May 25, 1922, page 5
- American Falls Press, September 17, 1925, page 6
- Homestead patent to William N. Jones, June 7, 1920 (IDBL 0030299)
- Find a Grave, Eva Grace Hatley Jones (1885–1929)
- American Falls Dam, Wikipedia