Biographical Details
Date of Birth: October 11, 1813
Birth Location: Daviess County, IN, USA
Graduation Year(s): 1836
Degree(s) Earned: Bachelors
Date of Death: July 29, 1897
Death Location: Bloomington, IN, USA
William Harrison Jones
Life Experience
Listed in IU’s first (1831) college catalog, William Harrison Jones was born in the Indiana Territory. He was educated in the common schools of Daviess County before graduating from Indiana College in 1836. His main occupations were teacher and bookseller. After the 1854 fire that nearly destroyed Indiana University, Jones donated over two hundred law books to its new library, some of which dated back to the reign of Charles I (1625–1649). Unfortunately, all of these volumes were lost in the subsequent fire of 1883.
In September of 1861, just weeks before his forty-eighth birthday, Jones enlisted into the Union Army. He mustered into Company G of the Indiana Infantry as a sergeant. He was in the line of battle near Perryville and participated in the Siege of Corinth, the Battle of Stone River, and the Battle of Fort Donelson. Discharged due to a disability on March 17, 1863, Jones was transferred to the Veteran Reserve Corps, where he served as a clerk in the provost marshal’s office in Indianapolis.
Interesting Anecdote
Theophilus Wylie (Presbyterian minister, college professor, and cousin of IU’s first president, Andrew Wylie) wrote, “Education, religion, and temperance had always an able advocate in W. H. Jones.”
References
- Wylie
- Findagrave.com
- Wikipedia