Jonestown, Pa.: Our Family Seat
We who are descendants of Benjamin Jones will find many of our deceased relatives buried in the Jonestown Cemetery, up on a hill overlooking Jonestown, a small village in Columbia County, Pennsylvania. There's a little chapel on the cemetery grounds, but otherwise you are surrounded by only gravestones that date back into the early 1800's. If you start at the road you will find the oldest, and as you drive or walk down the little gravel road you will find the more recent generations. I believe that my father's is the most recently dated stone. It was important to my mother, Marian Jones, to have her name in that home place, but neither my father nor mother are buried there. Their cremains were carried by the tide out into the Atlantic off the coast of Maine. As I've worked on the Jones genealogy the names have become meaningful to me.
Jonestown today is only a ghost of the village that our ancestors inhabited. This is an old picture postcard of Jonestown with a cancellation date of 1909. It was the Columbia County Historical and Genealogical Society's Photo of the Month for June, 2006 (Photograph # 11067). It shows the main crossroads of Jonestown with a horse and buggy pulled up to the general store. Ashbel Jones' house is to the right of the store out of view. I think this was taken from the hill on which the Jonestown Cemetery is located. If you go to the Jonestown, Columbia County, Pa. google map which is below, and go up Ridge Road, the cemetery is right in the curve. In real life, it's up on a hill or rise, overlooking the "town", such as it is. The Dudder cemetery is across the road from the Jones cemetery.
Jonestown
Jonestown is located at coordinates 41.126639, -76.302364 in northeast Columbia County, Pennsylvania. It is situated on Huntington Creek, which empties into Fishing Creek. This would be the source of water power for the grist and sawmills planned by Benjamin Jones and Richard Brown in 1809. According to a deed from Phillip Duderer dated June 3, 1809, they bought land from Abraham and Eleanor Duderer. The land acquired through that purchase became the site for water-powered Grist and Saw Mills, the General Store and the Jones (and Brown?) Farm properties. Abraham Duderer was one of the earliest landowners in the area. source:Ellen Jones ShockleyThere is a covered bridge over Huntington Creek which flows past the village into Fishingcreek at Forks. The road across the bridge goes over Jonestown Mountain seen in the background on its way to Berwick. In the early 1820s there also existed a woolen mill for a period of time.(source: colcohist description)
The population of Jonestown was only 34 at the 2000 census with an official census area of .3 miles, but at its peak Jonestown was a bustling village with many outlying farms and houses. Jonestown's population diminished after the turn of the century as people sought the increased employment opportunities of the urban areas. Nearby Berwick grew with the auto industry, and Wilkes-Barre was a large industrial area. Coal mining was a large draw, and our ancestor Robert McGuire and then Sheldon Jones was a ventilation engineer in the coal mines. (There are 4 Jonestowns in Pennsylvania, so make sure you look at the one in Columbia County!) Go there now! googlemaps to Jonestown
Early Development in the Area
The early roads of the 18th century followed Indian paths, which were narrow, faintly marked, and not suitable for horses and buggies. The establishment of a road from Berwick to Mauch Chunk, then to the Lehigh River linked the Susquehanna and Delaware Rivers and was an important step in encouraging commerce between this outlying area and Philadelphia. Berwick was one of the earliest towns in the area, founded in 1780 and named after Berwick-on-Tweed in northern England (a hint at the homeland of the earliest settlers). Between 1806 and 1818 the Susquehanna and Tioga Turnpike Road was built to link Berwick, Pa. on the Susquehanna with the Tioga River at Elmira, New York, a big advantage to the settlement and economy of the area. This item points up the importance of Jonestown to travellers on this route: "The Susquehanna and Tioga Turnpike started in Berwick following a route over Jonestown Mountain to the town along Huntington Creek named for early settler Benjamin Jones, the first postmaster of the Fishing Creek Post Office. Jonestown was first settled about 1809." Source: Columbia County History and Genealogical Society
