Los Angeles County
Biographies
CHARLES COLCOCK JONES
JONES, CHARLES COLCOCK, Consulting Mining Engineer and Metallurgist, Los Angeles, California, was born at Augusta, Georgia, July 28, 1865, the second son of Joseph Jones, M.D., LL.D., and Caroline Susan (Davis) Jones.
The original ancestor in America was of the “Jones of Liverpool” family, and settled at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1687; later the family moved to Georgia, where large plantations were acquired in Liberty County, near Savannah.
In October, 1779, Major John Jones (the great-great-grandfather of Mr. Jones), Aide-de-Camp to General Lachian McIntosh, fell at the siege of Savannah leading the assault on the British position. Jones Street, Savannah, was named in his memory.
On the maternal side Mr. Jones has French Huguenot blood through the Girardeau family, and claims Scottish descent from the Red Comyn of Inverness, through the Cumming family of Maryland and Georgia. Charles Colcock Jones, his grandfather of Liberty County, Georgia, was a prominent minister in the affairs of the Presbyterian Church.
Charles Colcock Jones, Jr., his uncle, has a national reputation as the Historian of Georgia, and writer on American Archaeology. Joseph Jones, M.D., LL.D, father of Mr. Jones, was for many years, up to the time of his death in 1896, Professor of Chemistry and Clinical Medicine in the Tulane University of New Orleans, Louisiana, and has an international reputation based on his researches and writings on fevers, particularly yellow fever, and general hygiene; in addition he is known through the publication by the Smithsonian Institute of his early researches on the blood and a volume on the Mound Builders of the Mississippi Valley.
In May, 1898, Mr. Jones married at Atlanta, Georgia, Elizabeth Clayton King, of Augusta, Georgia, a direct descendant in the eighth generation from Governor William Bradford of Massachusetts.
Mr. Jones was graduated in Mechanics in 1884 from the Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and in 1887 received his degree in Mining and Metallurgy from Lehigh University, South Bethlehem, Pa., immediately entering as a “learner” in the Blast Furnace Department of the Pennsylvania Steel Company, Steelton, Pa. He rose rapidly to the position of Assistant Superintendent.
In 1889, Mr. Jones went to Virginia, remaining there until 1896, in charge of iron furnaces, iron mines and collieries, the last four years operating the Coeburn Colliery Company, a personally controlled colliery in the Clinch River (Virginia) field.
He then spent two years in the Appalachian gold field and in traveling, removing in 1898 to Marquette, Michigan, as Manager and Engineer of the large iron interests of the Breitung Estate and Edward N. Breitung.
In November, 1902, he was called to California by the Mountain Copper Company, Ltd., of Shasta County, to rehabilitate the Iron Mountain mines, which were on fire and in a generally wrecked condition. After much dangerous work, Mr. Jones successfully installed a system of ventilation and workings that for the first time in the history of mining controlled underground pyritic fire, insured the safety of miners and allowed the extraction of ore otherwise lost.
The next few years were spent as Examining Engineer for the company and especially in the search for phosphates, in order to utilize waste sulphur from copper smelters as sulphuric acid in the manufacture of commercial fertilizers with the result that he discovered and opened the largest known deposits in the world in Utah, Idaho and Wyoming, credit being given him for it in publications of U. S. Geological Survey, and Technical Press.
The opening of this phosphate field was epochal as far as the Pacific Coast is concerned, and of large importance to the whole country; placed as it is in the interior, this “backbone” of the Nation can’t be stripped to benefit Europe as was Carolina and Florida. Phosphate rock from this field is being manufactured into fertilizer for California by the Mt. Copper Co. and Stauffer Chem. Co., San Francisco, and Am. Agricultural Chem. Co., Los Angeles.
In 1904, Mr. Jones established an office as Consulting Engineer in Salt Lake City, and in January, 1906, removed to Los Angeles, from which point he is engaged at times from Alaska to Mexico. He owns large iron mines in California.
Member, Am. Institute Mining Engineers, Sons of Revolution in Cal. and Sierra Madre Club.
Transcribed
by Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 570,
International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Boston, Atlanta. 1913.
© 2010 Joyce
Rugeroni.
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