Patriot of the Month - Seth Jones

Seth Jones was born in Dighton, Massachusetts in September 1775, to Deborah and Elijah Jones. Just two weeks after Paul Revere’s ride, nineteen-year-old Seth and his older brother Increase Jones joined Captain Peter Pitt’s company of the Bristol county militia. Stationed just outside of Boston in Roxbury, Massachusetts during the British siege of Boston, Seth fought in the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, where “his gun became so hot that he had to hold it by the straps.” While the British ultimately won the Battle of Bunker Hill, the colonists proved that their poorly equipped army could stand up to one of the best trained armies in the world.

For his service, Seth was issued a Continental Army bounty coat. These were “common plain” coats of coarse wool, intentionally made to look like a workingman’s coat instead of mimicking the British military uniform. The color was a tobacco brown, and the pewter buttons were stamped with the soldier’s regiment number. It wasn’t until after the Declaration of Independence that some of the Continental Army began wearing the fancier, military-style blue jackets we often think of.

Seth Jones also fought at the Battle of White Plains (New York) in October 1776 under the command of Colonel Simeon Cary, and was in Peekskill, New York in January 1777 where he worked as a skilled carpenter. The location of a busy crossing point of the Hudson River, Peekskill was an important campsite for the Continental Army. It provided a vital connection between the New England states and New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Tons of necessary supplies such as food, tools, and clothing passed through Peekskill. In March 1777, the British sailed up the Hudson from New York City and, after a three-day battle, took Peekskill. The last military record I found for Seth was a pay record dated September 1777.

Back in Dighton in September 1778, Seth married his sweetheart, Sarah Pitts. Over the next twenty years, Sarah would give birth to ten children. The family lived in Windham County, Vermont before moving to the Northwest Territory in 1797, to what is now Meigs County, Ohio.

Seth’s wife Sarah died after arriving in Ohio, leaving Seth with several children still at home. A friend introduced Seth to Esther (Adams) Ford, a widow with four young children, and they married in 1810. Two years after the marriage, the blended family packed up their belongings, took a boat down the Ohio River, and settled near Lawrenceburg, Indiana. By 1815 the family was back in Meigs County, Ohio, having been frightened by the indigenous people in the wilderness of Indiana.

Esther gave birth to five more children. Seth’s youngest child, our ancestor, Milton Adams Jones, was born in 1819, when Seth was 63 years old! Seth Jones died in 1824 and is buried in Letart Falls Cemetery in Meigs County, Ohio. He is the 4-great grandfather of CSH members Nancy Wiseman and Carol Wiseman Kanelos.

Reported by Nancy Wiseman, Caroline Scott Harrison Chapter, NSDAR