Thomas E. Jones is a representative agriculturist and stock-raiser of San Joaquin county, residing four miles west of the town of Lodi, where he owns a hundred and sixty acres of the fine land in his home estate, and has another place of one hundred and sixty acres in the vicinity. He is a practical, successful, and energetic farmer and business man, has made excellent use of his opportunities since arriving at manhood, and having followed his present occupation all his life, is thoroughly at home in and conversant with all its manifold details, so that prosperity has come to him as a matter of due sequence.

A native of Herefordshire, England, where he was born March 26, 1848, he is of Welsh extraction on his father's side and English from his mother's people. His parents were John and Susanna (Edwards) Jones. Reared in his native land until attaining man's estate, he has been trained to make his own way from an early age and during the early years of his manhood he followed farming in his native country. In 1870 he emigrated to America, taking a steamer from Liverpool to New York, and from the latter place went west to Kenosha county, Wisconsin, whee he spent a year or so on a farm. In 1872 he came out to San Joaquin county, and has been a resident of this portion of California for the subsequent thirty odd years. He moved to his present farm in 1888, and he has made his property both attractive and valuable, and has one of the model farms of his county.

At this writing he is serving as a trustee of the Lafayette school district, and throughout his period of residence here he has been a friend of education and advancement along all lines. In politics he is a Republican, and is affiliated with Jefferson Lodge, I. O. O. F., at Woodbridge.

November 1, 1888, Mr. Jones was married to Miss Amelia B. Bischofberger, a daughter of Jacob Bischofberger, who is another representative San Joaquin county citizen with a sketch on another page of this work. Six children have been born to the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Jones, five of them living: Hazel, Irene, Anna Pearl, Rose Adele, Thomas E., Jr., Edwin, deceased, and William Stanley.

Source: History of the New California Its Resources and People, Volume II

The Lewis Publishing Company - 1905
Edited by Leigh H. Irvine