George Wallace Jones (April 12, 1804 – July 22, 1896) was an American frontiersman, entrepreneur, attorney, and judge, was among the first two United States senators to represent the state of Iowa after it was admitted to the Union in 1846. A Democrat who was elected before the birth of the Republican Party, Jones served over ten years in the Senate, from December 7, 1848, to March 3, 1859. During the American Civil War, he was arrested by Federal authorities and briefly jailed on suspicion of having pro-Confederate sympathies.

Early life

Jones was born in Vincennes, Indiana. He was the son of John Rice Jones, who became active in efforts directed toward the introduction of slavery to the country north of the Ohio River. When George was six years old, his father moved the family to Missouri Territory, recently acquired from France as part of the Louisiana Purchase. He later moved to Kentucky where he attended Transylvania University in 1825, and returned to Missouri to study law with his brother. Part of the territory was in the process of becoming the state of Michigan, and already had a de facto state government in place, so Jones helped push forward legislation to create a new Territory of Wisconsin comprising what remained of Michigan Territory. That legislation became law on April 20, 1836, and Wisconsin Territory came into existence on July 4 of that year.

An election was held in October 1836 to choose the new territory's Congressional delegate, and Jones won. He took his seat at the opening of the next session of Congress on December 5, 1836, as the delegate from the Territory of Wisconsin. In that position he successfully persuaded voting members to support the designation of areas of Wisconsin Territory west of the Mississippi River as Iowa Territory.

Contested election

In September 1838, Jones lost an election to James Duane Doty to serve as the Wisconsin Territory's delegate to Congress. Jones went to Washington to take his seat for the session beginning that December, reasoning that his term through January 26, 1837, had been as the delegate from Michigan Territory, and thus he was entitled to a full two-year term beginning March 4, 1837, as the delegate from Wisconsin Territory. He believed Doty should not be seated until his own term expired on March 4, 1839. At the opening of the session, Isaac Crary of Michigan moved that Doty, also in attendance, be seated, and the matter was referred to the Committee on Elections. The committee determined that Michigan Territory had ceased to exist on June 15, 1836, and thus Jones had ceased to be its delegate at the same time, notwithstanding that Crary had not been seated as the new state of Michigan's representative until January 27, 1837, the day after statehood was officially granted.

Other territorial offices

President Martin Van Buren appointed him as Surveyor-General of the Wisconsin and Iowa Territories, where he served (most likely in Dubuque, in Iowa Territory) from early 1840 until the end of the Van Buren administration in 1841. In 1845, following the election of another Democrat, James K. Polk, as president, he was reappointed Surveyor-General of Iowa Territory, However, after the 1848 elections gave the Democratic Party a greater share of Iowa legislators, Jones became a candidate for one of the two seats, and after four ballots won the Democratic caucuses' nomination for one of the two seats. As a senator, Jones was described by his biographer as a "Democrat in politics and a southerner by instinct."

In 1859, President Buchanan appointed Jones as Minister Resident of the United States to New Granada (encompassing modern Colombia and Panama), requiring his relocation to Bogotá.

His service in Bogotá ended just as the Civil War broke out, as the Abraham Lincoln administration succeeded the Buchanan administration. Jones' two sons joined the Confederate Army. based upon correspondence with his friend, Confederate President Jefferson Davis. He was never indicted or placed on trial. Jones was held for 34 days, until he was released by order of President Lincoln.

Jones then began a long retirement in Dubuque. In 1892, he was granted a pension by special act of Congress for his services in the Black Hawk War. In 1912, the State Historical Society of Iowa published the biography George Wallace Jones, by John Carl Parish.

Notes

  • Digitized Augustus C. Dodge and George W. Jones letters, MSS 4046 at L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University

:*Transcription of above letters

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