The following information was assembled from numerous sources and cannot be used directly as proof of Qualifying Service or Lineage.
It is considered a research aid and is intended to assist in locating sources that can be used as proof.
Author: Varse Wayne Jones
Edward Jones served as a Private with the George Rogers Clarke Regiment (the Illinois Regiment) for 12 months from December 1780 through December 1781. He volunteered and joined the regiment at Washington County, Virginia; returning there after he was discharged at the Ohio Falls - today named Louisville, Kentucky. At that time the regiment’s primary duties were to defend against or engage the hostile Indian tribes that had joined in an alliance with the British against the American fight for independence. His service was in the areas west and south of Virginia in what today is Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky and possibly parts of northern Tennessee.
Edward Jones was born in 1757 in North Carolina but migrated to Southwest Virginia prior to April 1778 when he signed the Oath of Allegiance to the Cause of Freedom and Independence in Montgomery County, Virginia. After his service, he lived in Washington and Montgomery Counties until about January 1786, or slightly sooner, when he moved to Davidson County in the Territory South of the Ohio - later named Tennessee. It was in that month he worked in Davidson County as a chain carrier for the Territorial Surveyor Martin Armstrong. In 1787, Edward served in the Davidson and Sumner Counties Militia on the Chicamauga Indian Expedition. In the following year on February 4, 1788 in the newly formed county of Sumner, Tennessee (North Carolina at that time); he married Magdaleen Ruyle, a daughter of Henry Ruyle, Sr and his wife Catherine. Henry Ruyle, Sr was also a Patriot of the War for Independence. In 1783, he moved from Virginia and settled with his family in what was to become Sumner County.
Edward and his wife made their home in Sumner County in 1788. Between 1789 and 1805, they had seven children; six sons and one daughter. They were all born on the family farm in Sumner County. Both Edward and Magdaleen lived on the farm until his death in February 1837 and Magdaleen’s death in October 1839. While no record of his burial has been found to date, it is believed that he was buried on that farm which was located in an area that is now Hendersonville, Tennessee. The location was just north of the Cumberland River and west of Drakes Creek.
Their wills did not name all their children; however, property deeds that were recorded to settle the estate of Edward Jones did name all seven. The children were: William, Gabriel, John, Samuel, Elizabeth, Wiley, and Peter. Two of the children stayed in Sumner County for their entire lives while others moved to counties in western Tennessee. One son moved on to settle in Polk County, Missouri and one other son settled in Johnson County, Texas.
Send a biographical sketch of your patriot!
Patriot biographies must be the original work of the author, and work submitted must not belong to another person or group, in observance with copyright law. Patriot biographies are to be written in complete sentences, follow the established rules of grammar, syntax and punctuation, be free of typographical errors, and follow a narrative format. The narrative should unfold in a logical manner (e.g. the narrative does not jump from time period to time period) or have repeated digressions, or tell the history of the patriot's line from the patriot ancestor to the author. The thinking here is that this is a patriot biography, not a lineage report or a kinship determination project or other report published in a genealogy journal. The biography should discuss the qualifying service (military, patriotic, civil) of the patriot ancestor, where the service was rendered, whether this was a specific state or Continental service, as well as significant events (as determined by the author) of the patriot's life. This is the entire purpose of a patriot's biography.
Additional guidelines around the Biography writeup can be found here:
Send your submission1, in a Microsoft Word compatible format, to patriotbios@sar.org for inclusion in this space 1Upon submission of a patriot biography, the patriot biography becomes the property of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, and may be edited to conform to the patriot biography submission standards.