
“Thursday at half past 12 o’clock David D. Jones, the aged grocery keeper, was walking along Gallia street near Stinton, went suddenly into the residence of Henry W. Smith and told the inmates he was deathly sick, which circumstance was already apparent to the sympathetic household, and they sent for Dr. Ricketts1 and did all they could for him personally. The doctor soon arrives, also Dr. Kline2, but it was all too manifest that the aged citizen’s days, and even moments, were numbered. He barely recognized Dr. Ricketts with a smile. The rattling in the cavity of the chest told that an artery of the heart was ruptured. Bentley Lloyd came along with a carriage and kindly offered his services to convey the stricken man home, but he died in a few minutes, and he was carried into his residence a corpse.”

“Deceased was born in Wales, October 7, 1808, and came to America in 1832. He came to Portsmouth in 1837, having been married in 1834 in Butler county, this State, his wife being Miss Margaret Griffith. He was an ironworker, and had previously worked in the South. He worked in Gaylord’s rolling mill for many years, and also kept grocery. He was a member of the Baptist Church, he and his wife having been baptised at the same time in Nashville, Tennessee. He had not had a day’s sickness for fifty years, and save his defective hearing had better health than any member of his family up to the time of his taking off.”
“Deceased was the father of the late Colonel HE Jones3, and of David L. and John, Mrs. Mason and Mrs. Williams, also of George and the late Lieutenant James Jones, of the regular army. Just one year ago to the hour from Mr. Jones’ death, he received news of the shooting of his son at Newport, Rhode Island, which resulted in his death.”

“Deceased was an upright Christian -a man without an enemy.”
“The funeral will take place from the Baptist Church this morning at 10 o’clock.”4
- Dr. Edwin Saunders Ricketts
- Dr. Peter James Kline
- Colonel Henry Ewing Jones
- Fell dead! (1887, January 1). Portsmouth Times, p. 3.