William Alfred Jones

Background

William Alfred was born on June 26, 1817 in New York City, New York, United States, the son of Judge David Samuel Jones and his first wife, Margaret, daughter of Dr. Thomas Jones of New York and granddaughter of Philip Livingston.

Education

Jones graduated from Columbia in 1836, and studied law with Daniel Lord, but finding this profession uncongenial, he soon gave it up for a literary career.

Career

For some years after his law studies Jones wrote for New York periodicals, notably the American Monthly Magazine, Arcturus, Broadway Journal, United States Democratic Review, and American Whig Review. He was for a time associated with Rev. Francis Lister Hawks in the editorship of the Church Record, with Charles Fenno Hoffman in the Literary World, and with his brother-in-law, Rev. Samuel Seabury, in The Churchman. He was a friend and correspondent of Irving, Bryant, Halleck, Dana, and many other literary men of his day.

In 1840 he published The Analyst; in 1847, Literary Studies; and in 1849, Essays upon Authors and Books. These volumes consisted almost wholly of essays and reviews reprinted from periodicals. His Characters and Criticisms (2 vols. , 1857) was a reprint of most of the material in his previous volumes, with a few additions. These writings, distinctly eighteenth-century in flavor, received high praise from Irving and Poe.

Jones was appointed librarian of Columbia College in 1851, succeeding Dr. Lefroy Ravenhill. He held this position until 1865 and, with the exception of Nathaniel Fish Moore, was the most active and efficient librarian the college had had up to that time. In 1860 he published a catalogue of his personal library, and in 1863 an address, Long Island, delivered before the Long Island Historical Society.

In 1867 he retired to Norwich Town, Connecticut. He died in 1900.

Achievements

• William Alfreds Jones was famous as one of the most active and efficient librarians of Columbia College. His popular published works were "Statement" in the volume of investigations into the affairs of the college; an article, "The Library of Columbia College"; and a Report in 1862. His sketch, "The First Century of Columbia College", calls attention to many interesting little-known alumni.

Works

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• book

  • Literary studies; a collection of miscellaneous essays

    (This reproduction was printed from a digital file created...)

  • Characters and Criticisms; Volume 1

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • Characters and Criticisms; Volume 2

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • Memorial Of The Late Honorable David S. Jones. With An Appendix, Containing Notices Of The Jones Family, Of Queen's County

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

Personality

William Alfred was small in stature; and in manner, brisk and animated. Jones was a man of great disappointment. His early life had been full of promise, and he had some hope of becoming an important literary figure. He had also entertained hopes of inheriting a large fortune from one of his relatives, but he was ignored in that relative's will, and thereafter was a broken man. He was not bitter, but his disappointment was so severe that he had no energy to open new fields for himself, and for over thirty years he lived a retired, eccentric, idle life, keeping much to himself, and completely out of touch with the times, an interesting man, but without interests.

Interests

• Jones took great pride in his ancestry, and published a genealogy of his family in his Memorial of the Late Hon. David S. Jones (1849).

Connections

His first wife was Mary Elizabeth Bill, she died in 1872, and the following year he married Mary Judith Davidson, who survived him. He had no children.

Father:

David Samuel Jones

Mother:

Margaret Jones

Spouse:

Mary Judith Davidson

Spouse:

Mary Elizabeth Bill

brother-in-law:

Samuel Seabury

Grandfather:

Thomas Jones

coworker:

Francis Lister Hawks