Mary Catherine Green Jones

My third-great-grandmother was Mary Catherine Green, first wife of Joseph Thomas Jones. I've previously covered Joseph on this blog in a variety of posts, and after reviewing Joseph's Civil War pension file, I now have a death date and location for Mary Catherine, including a Findagrave entry showing her headstone.

Source: Findagrave.com

Mary Catherine was the daughter of Thomas Green and Sarah Sally Hickey, and was born on 12 April 1839 in Jefferson County, Tennessee. In the 1840 US Census, the family was in the Northern Division of Jefferson County (listed on the same page as Richard Thornhill, brother of Elizabeth Thornhill Jones).

Thomas Green & family appeared in the 1850 US Census in District 13 of Jefferson County (present day Hamblen County). Mary Catherine appears as 12 years old.

As noted previously on the post from February regarding Joseph Thomas Jones, Mary Catherine and Joseph were married in Jefferson County on 25 February 1856. The family lived for a time in Hawkins County, where Joseph was working as a foreman on the Rogersville section of the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad. By 1860, the family appears in Morristown (Alpha neighborhood according to Joseph's Civil War pension file). At the time, this was part of Jefferson County. Hamblen became a separate county in 1870, with Morristown as its county seat.

Joseph and Mary had five children:
1. Martha E. Jones, born 13 November 1856, died in Kay County, Oklahoma in 1933
2. Mary Jane Jones, born 16 December 1858
3. Thomas Robert Jones (my 2ndgreat-grandfather), born on 23 March 1860, died on 1 November 1937 in Darlington, Montgomery County, Indiana (Note - Joseph's pension file lists Thomas' birth date as 26 March 1860)
4. Marion Columbus Jones, born 29 April 1862, moved to Oklahoma, then Kansas
5. Nancy Cornelia Jones, born 24 November 1864
(Note - birth dates for the Jones children were listed in Joseph Jones' Civil War pension file, viewed on 31 October 2012 at the National Archives in Washington DC, on a form signed by Joseph Jones to the Department of the Interior on 23 January 1899. At the time, he said all five were living.)

By 1870, Joseph, Mary Catherine and family had moved to Witts Foundry, in District 11, Jefferson County. It is interesting to see the family living next door to Thomas W. Thornhill (Joseph's cousin, nephew of Elizabeth Thornhill Jones), Benjamin Hickey (Mary Catherine's Uncle, brother of Sarah Hickey Green) and Louisa P. Thornhill Hickey (Joseph's cousin).

In 1880, Joseph and Mary Catherine were in Sugar Creek Township, Boone County, Indiana. Their neighbors were William Gilbert Daniel, Sarah Melissa Jones Daniel (Joseph's sister) and their family, and Martin Van Buren Jones (Joseph's other brother) and his family. Another Jones sister, Margaret Caroline Jones Walker, was living nearby in Franklin Township, Montgomery County, Indiana. Caroline's husband, Anderson Walker, appears in Joseph Jones' Civil War pension file.

Joseph and Mary Catherine lived in Boone County for three years before returning to Tennessee. They moved to Maryville, Blount County, Tennessee. Their son Marion Columbus Jones joined them in Maryville for a few years, where he married Eva Watkins. Mary Catherine would likely have spent these years in Maryville with her grandchildren (Marion & Eva's children) Willie and Clarence Jones.

Mary Catherine died on 15 September 1890 in Maryville, Blount County, Tennessee. She was 51 years old. She is buried in the Old Quaker Cemetery.