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MONONGALIA COUNTY WEST VIRGINIA
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Submitted to the West Virginia Biographies Project by:
PJSTON@aol.com
December 6, 1999
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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume II
pg 95 + 96
Clement Ross Jones. The State of West Virginia owes an important debt to
Clement Ross Jones for his long continued service and his splendid work in
reorganizing and equipping the engineering department of the University of
West Virginia, where for twenty years he has been professor of mechanical
engineering and mechanical arts, and for the past ten years dean of the
Engineering College.
Professor Jones was born at the old Jones homestead near Knottsville in
Taylor County, West Virginia, April 19, 1871, son of Uriah and Pernissa Jane
(Ford) Jones. He attended school near home, graduated from the Grafton High
School in 1889, and in 1894 received the degree of Bachelor of Science and
Civil Engineering from the University of West Virginia. While he has
practiced his profession and has acquired several important business and
industrial relations, Mr. Jones almost from the first has been devoted to the
educational side of his calling. In 1895-97 he was assistant in mechanical
engineering and graduate student at the university, receiving the degree of
Mechanical Engineer in June, 1897. He was instructor from 1897 to 1899, and
assistant professor during 1899-1901. During the summer of 1896 he was a
student in the Worcester Polytechnic Institute of Massachusetts, and in the
summer of 1897 at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey, while
during 1899-1900 he was in the graduate school of Cornell University, from
which he received the degree Master of Mechanical Engineering in 1900.
During the Spanish-American war the head of the department of mechanical
engineering was called to active duty with the navy, and Mr. Jones remained
as acting head. Soon afterward the old Mechanical Hall with all its
equipment was destroyed by fire, and as the head of the department did not
return, it fell to the lot of Mr. Jones to plan the new building and
equipment and reorganize the department. In 1901 he was advanced to the
grade of professor of mechanical engineering and mechanical arts, and since
1911 has been dean of the College of Engineering and professor of steam and
experimental engineering. Under his direct supervision, therefore, the
engineering college has been developed as one of the most important adjuncts
of technical education in the state. Professor Jones is the author and joint
author of a number of text and reference books and notes used in the College
of Engineering, and has contributed numerous papers and reports to
engineering magazines. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, a member of the American Society of Mechanical
Engineers, American and International Societies for Testing Materials, is
former vice president of the Society for the Promotion of Engineering
Education, is a member of the West Virginia Coal Mining Institute, the West
Virginia Engineers Club of Morgantown, a member of the Natural Gas
Association of West Virginia and America, is secretary of the engineering
section of the Land Grant College Association, and his work and abilities
have earned him a high reputation in technical societies both at home and
abroad.
He has also done much of the practical work of his profession, and from 1894
to 1898 was a member of the engineering firm of Jones & Jenkins. He is a
director in the Federal Savings & Trust Company and of several industrial
companies.
During the World war Professor Jones was fuel commissioner for Monongalia
County, was chairman of the War Service Committee of the University and
educational director of the Students Army Training Corps. When he graduated
from the University in 1894 he was first lieutenant and adjutant of the West
Virginia University Corps of Cadets and subsequently was appointed first
lieutenant in the National Guard and was advanced to captain in 1896. He is
a member of Morgantown Union Lodge No. 4, A. F. and A. M., Morgantown
Commadery No. 18, K. T., and Osiris Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Wheeling.
He is a member of the honorary scientific fraternity Sigma Xi, the Phi Beta
Kappa, Theta Psi, Phi Sigma Kappa and is a member of the Morgantown Rotary
Club and the First Methodist Episcopal Church.
July 22, 1915 he married Elizabeth Charles Gambrill, of Parkersburg, daughter
of Philip Dodridge and Ione (Kinchloe) Gambrill. They have one son, Ross
Gambrill Jones, born September 29, 1917.
No family had a larger share in the great adventure which settled the
frontier of West Virginia than that of Professor Jones. He is a descendant
of Jacob Jones, who was born near Wilmington, Delaware, in 1732. His mother
subsequently married Samuel Lewellen, and about 1779 the Lewellens moved to
what is now Monongalia County, West Virginia, and established the old
Lewellen Ferry near the Pennsylvania line, where Samuel Lewellen obtained a
grant of land in 1771. Jacob Jones accompanied his mother over the Alleghany
Mountains and proceeded on to the west side of the Monongahela River, near
the present town of Pentres. It was Indian country and the settlements were
greatly disturbed by Indian raids, beginning in 1774 and continuing through
the Revolution. During the outbreak of 1777 Jacob Jones and other members of
his family were besieged in the home of a neighbor, and two of his children,
Mary and John Jones were taken captive. Mary was adopted into the Wyandot
tribe of Indians and spent many years with her chosen people near Sandusky,
Ohio. John Jones was not satisfied to remain an Indian, and eventually
escaped, going to Detroit, was educated in medicine by his adopted father and
later visited his father and other members of the family in West Virginia and
for many years lived near the Town of Grafton. Jacob Jones made his escape
from the Indian besiegers and subsequently removed to a safer situation on
Cheat River. He was a frontier soldier until the close of the Revolution,
and about 1794 he obtained a grant of land near Knottsville in Taylor County,
where both he and his wife died about 1829 at the respective ages of
ninety-six and ninety-three. His wife was Dinah Stanton, who was born in
Delaware in 1735. They were the parents of eight children. The fifth was
William Jones , one of the ancestors of Professor Jones. William Jones was
born May 4, 1774, in Monongalia County. Just before his birth occurred the
Indian raid of that year. His mother being unable to leave home, the older
children were sent on to the nearest fort and subsequently, following a
second warning, Jacob and his wife also started for the fort. The son
William was born after they had proceeded about five miles, and a neighbor
carried the new-born child while the father supported his wife as best he
could until they reached safety. William Jones lived near Knottsville, where
he died in 1843. His wife was Sarah Anderson, and they were the parents of
ten children. Of these, Samuel, the sixth child, was born February 2, 1808,
and was a farmer and shoemaker near Knottsville, where he died in 1897. He
married Frances Limber who was born in 1818 and died in 1888. Their second
child, Uriah Hones, father of Professor Jones, was born near Knottsville,
January 14, 1839. During the Civil war he was a member of the Seventeenth
West Virginia Regiment, and devoted his active years to farming. Uriah Hones
married Pernissa Jane Ford, who was born September 22, 1843, daughter of
Lanty and Rebecca (Jones) Ford, and a great granddaughter of William Ford,
who is said to have been a soldier of the Revolution and who some years after
that war moved from Fauquier County, Virginia, to the west side of Tygart's
Valley River near Webster, West Virginia. His son George spent his active
life as a farmer in Taylor County and was the father of Lanty Ford, who was
born in December, 1800, and after a long and active career as a farmer in the
Knottsville District died in 1881. His wife, Rebecca Jones, was born in 1804
and was a granddaughter of Jacob and Dinah (Stanton) Jones, previously
referred to.
The children of Uriah Jones and wife were" Harry H., deceased, Clement Ross,
George E., Fannie Rebecca and Ethel Belle.
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