journalist publisher collector bibliophile
Herschel Vespasian Jones was born on August 30, 1861 in Jefferson, Schoharie County, New York, of mixed English, Scotch, and Welsh stock. His father, William S. Jones, a descendant of Welsh settlers of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1663, kept a village store and cultivated a small farm. His mother, Helen (Merchant) Jones, was the daughter of a retired farmer of the village.
Jones attended the Delaware Literary Institute, an academy of the old type, at Franklin, New York. His leanings toward journalism and books were both indicated early. There were only nine books in the family library, but at the age of ten he joined a subscription library. He earned the five-dollar fee by doing odd jobs. About the same time he began his first newspaper--a small sheet, printed with a lead pencil, limited to six or eight copies weekly and distributed to friends. Prevailing newspaper fashions of the day were followed by including in each issue an instalment of a "continued story" and several complete items composed by the youthful editor.
At the age of fifteen his formal education stopped, and Jones began to work on the staff of the Jefferson Courier at three dollars a week. At eighteen he bought the paper for $700. His grandfather gave him $250 and Jones gave notes for the rest. In 1883 he visited a group of western cities and selected Minneapolis as his future home.
In 1885 he sold the Jefferson Courier at a profit of $700 and went to Minneapolis as a reporter on the Minneapolis Journal, with which he was continuously connected until his death. Convinced that the government forecasts of crops were unsatisfactory, in 1890 he started a market and crop report service in the Journal.
Two notable predictions, one of heavy crops in 1900 and one of wheat-rust losses in 1904, gave him a national reputation. He traveled as much as 30, 000 miles yearly gathering data for this service. In 1901 he founded the Commercial West, a financial and grain news weekly. In 1908 Jones bought the Minneapolis Journal for $1, 200, 000 on an available personal fortune of $25, 000. This tested to the utmost his lifelong theory that "credit, based on character and integrity" was more important than available cash.
He was a director of the Associated Press and one of a group of American newspaper editors who toured the European battle-fields as guests of the British government.
Jones is perhaps even more widely known as a book-collector than as an editor. His first collection, comprising about six hundred volumes of first editions of modern authors, was one of the early first-edition collections.
This was sold. His second collection, which included about 2, 000 volumes of incunabula and early English poetry and drama, was sold at auction in New York in 1918-19 for about $400, 000 at one of the notable sales of its kind.
His personal library of about 3, 000 volumes of standard works and his collection of early Americana are still intact. The latter, owned by his estate, is one of the most notable collections of its kind still in private ownership. His interest and taste in books and art were wide and discriminating.
Herschel Vespasian Jones died in 1928 in Minneapolis and was interred at the Lakewood Cemetery.
Herschel Jones's main achievement was in his service as a long-time national Director of the Associated Press (AP), and Trustee of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Minnesota Historical Society. Jones is perhaps even more widely known as a famed collector of rare books and art. He collected chiefly as a means toward systematic self-culture. He was a trustee and benefactor of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts to which he gave a fine collection of prints. He bequeathed trust funds, of $25, 000 each, to the Minnesota Historical Society and the library of the University of Minnesota.
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This independence was one of his chief characteristics as a journalist. Jones neither held nor sought political office of any kind.
His rather reserved manner with mere acquaintances sometimes hid his real friendliness and wide sympathy, characteristically shown by his bequest for a fund for the relief of widowed mothers.
Quotes from others about the person
In his valedictory editorial in the Jefferson Courier, February 25, 1885, he said: "To support a party is not always to be in accord with it. "
In his initial editorial as publisher of the Minneapolis Journal on September 1, 1908, he stated: "The principles that should govern the publication of a newspaper are honesty and fairness. "
Herschel Vespasian Jones married Lydia A. Wilcox, of Jefferson, New York, September 30, 1885. Their family included four sons and three daughters.
1886–1967
1889–1959
1895–1983
1861–1942
1839–1928
1891–1965
1887–1957
1890–1974
1894–1979
1893–1893
1863–1939
1836–1894
