Brother of my great great grandfatlher, John Newton Jones
Dr. Alfred Jones and wife, Jane P. Clingman Jones, came to Mount Ida, in 1857 to join Dr. A. M. Clingman in the practice of medicine. Dr. A. M. Clingman was a brother of Jane Clingman Jones and was a delegate4 to the Confederate Convention from Montgomery County when the Southern States seceded from the Union.
After the Civil War, Dr. Alfred Jones moved to Caddo Gap, where he practiced medicine and reared his family.
Dr. Alfred Jones was elected to the legislature from Montgomery County in 1874; he was county treasurer for eight years. This couple, who built their home on acreage adjacent to Buttermilk Springs, raised to maturity eleven children, namely, Melinda Ann, who married James D. Cubage; Fannie, who married William Highsmith; Mary, who married W. D. Diffie; Granville, who married Alice Timms, and later, Jean Bandy; Isaac J., who married Medie Payne; Lee Julia, who married Jepthah Chandler; Arthur, who married Ella Olive Stevens; Grace, who married Thump Palmer; ;Guilford, who married Margaret McCall, and later, Jeanette Thomas.
After World War I, the eleven children, plus their families, met at the farm home of Melinda and Jim Cubage—a reunion so happy that the following year saw a repetition. Then, feeling a homeward pull, they camped at Buttermilk Springs and helped many young family members to a treat by climbing Crystal Mountain. Youngsters were also impressed with Buttermilk Springs, when by churning up the while shale which covered the bed of the unenclosed spring, they made buttermilk. Now all were of a mind to continue these reunions, After much looking, 200 acres of land, one quarter mile wide and five quarters long, lying up and down the carter Creek by the Gap Mountain in Montgomery County was purchased. On September 3, 1923, the family formed a corporation so that this land could be used as a permanent reunion ground. Many have made this valley their retirement home and lived there permanently. Many have their last resting place in the family cemetery located there on a gentle hillside. This Clingman – Jones reunion, which convenes each year on the Fourth of July, has been a drawing card to bring the family closer together, and the valley offers a place of refuge and repose for its members. It represents a lasting memorial to those brave pioneer ancestors who toiled in this wilderness top establish standards of education, decency and morality, which we all may emulate.
An interesting history of Montgomery County was written by Melinda Jones Cubage, daughter of Dr. Alfred Jones, and was published in the Arkansas Gazette in 1936.
By Olive Cameron
This info was taken from the genealogy library at Old Washington, Arkansas by Jenk Stephenson, whose great-great grandfather, John Newton Jones, was a brother to Dr. Alfred Jones.