Hon. James A. Jones, of the firm of Jones & Houston, Woodbury, Tenn., is a native of Alabama, born in 1838. His parents were Joseph and E.A. Jones, the former a native of North Carolina, a dentist, a planter and a very successful business man, dying in December, 1857; the latter born in Butler County, Ala., in 1818, and dying in 1853.
The subject of this sketch completed his literary education at the Brownwood Institute, La Grange, Ga. In 1858, and shortly afterward began the study of law with Judge John K. Henry, of Greenville, Ala., where he remained until April, 1861, when he enlisted in the Confederate Army, becoming sergeant of Company A, Eighteenth Tennessee Infantry, under Capt. M.P. Rushing. He served as sergeant about four months, and was then transferred to the Twenty-third Tennessee Infantry and elected captain of the company just before the battle of Shiloh, after which he returned home. He then served as quartermaster in the Fourth Tennessee Cavalry, and at the close of the war was on the coast defenses in Florida, as lieutenant of his company.
After the close of the war he returned to Alabama, and was engaged in the real estate business until about 1870, and in 1871 he moved to Woodbury, where he has since engaged in the practice of law. In 1874 he was elected to the State Senate from Cannon, Warren, Coffee and DeKalb Counties, and was in the Legislature that elected ex-President Johnson to the United States Senate. In 1859 he was married to Miss Harriett Morton, of Warren County, by whom he has nine children.
Mr. Jones has always been an active man, and was for some time engaged in the newspaper business. He is a Democrat in politics, is widely known and as a lawyer stands very high. He is an elder in the Presbyterian Church, and both a Mason and an Odd Fellow.
Source: Goodspeed Pub. Co. History of Tennessee from the Earliest Time to the Present; Together with an Historical and a Biographical Sketch of the Counties of White, Warren, Coffee, DeKalb, and Cannon, Besides a Valuable Fund of Notes, Original Observations, Reminiscences, Etc., Etc. Nashville: Goodspeed Pub. Co, 1887.