Background
George Jones was born on August 16, 1811 at Poultney, Vermont, the son of John and Barbara Davis Jones, both immigrants from Wales.
George Jones was born on August 16, 1811 at Poultney, Vermont, the son of John and Barbara Davis Jones, both immigrants from Wales.
George Jones received his general education from country schools.
At the beginning of his career Jones worked in a country store, and at the age of twenty went into business in New York. Horace Greeley, whom he had known as a boy in Poultney, asked him to become his partner in founding the Tribune in 1841, but Jones preferred a salaried position in the business office, where he formed a friendship with Henry J. Raymond, Greeley's chief editorial assistant. The two were soon talking of starting a paper of their own, but the plan was not realized till 1851.
Jones by that time was living in Albany, where he had prospered as a "free banker" dealing in the heterogeneous currency of the period; but a law which reduced the profits in note shaving persuaded him to give up his business and join Raymond in the establishment of the New York Times. Thanks in part to his direction, it had become an extremely valuable property when Raymond's sudden death in 1869 left it without a head.
A newspaper was still regarded as the organ of its editor; that the Civil War had finally made the news department more important than the editorial page was not yet appreciated. Jones, though the second heaviest stockholder in the Times and its business manager since 1856, had no editorial experience; he took command at first as a sort of regent for Raymond's son, who was still in college. But a brief and unfortunate experience with a hired editor soon compelled him to take over the direction of the editorial policy which was successively executed for him by Louis J. Jennings, John Foord, and Charles R. Miller.
The successful fight against the "Tweed ring" which followed (1871) was due chiefly to Jones. Foord and Jennings did the work but he took the risk; the Times was subjected to legal attacks, suffered a considerable temporary loss in advertising, and might have been ruined if its campaign had failed. Tweed tried vainly to buy control of the paper, and finally Controller Connolly offered Jones five million dollars to give up the crusade. This story rests, to be sure, only on Jones's word, but Connolly was far more capable of making such a proposal than Jones of inventing it. Whatever contributions other men made to the fight, it was Jones's immovable determination that carried it through to victory.
In 1884 the Times, which had been Republican since the party was founded, bolted the presidential ticket. This was due to the initiative of Miller and Edward Cary, but Jones gave his assent and cheerfully bore the heavy financial loss which desertion of the party entailed. Four years later he privately preferred Harrison but permitted his editors to continue the paper's support of Cleveland.
It was his pride that while he controlled the Times no man was ever asked to subscribe to it or to advertise in it. Such reticence became outmoded; but he died, rich and honored, before he found that out.
Jones died on August 11, 1891, five days before his 80th birthday. He is interred in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York.
George Jones became an Episcopalian, but retained a Welsh Baptist delight in song.
In his political affiliation George Jones was a Republican, so the Times had been Republican as well, since the party was founded.
Jones always had the final word, as Jennings discovered when he challenged him on the issue of a third term for President Grant; but Jones selected editors in general agreement with his own opinions and showed due deference to theirs.
Jones was a member of he Union League Club.
Personally George Jones was quiet and retiring.
George Jones was married to Sarah M. Gilbert of Troy in 1836.
American author and statesman who was the founder and editor of the New-York Tribune.
American journalist
English journalist and Conservative politician.
American lawyer and politician from Wilmington, Delaware.
