Daniel Jones (minister)

Jones settled in Jacksonville, Oregon, living for a few years before moving to Crescent City, California, to be closer to the sea and the good health effects he believed it would bring. He then moved to Salem, Oregon. He was there during the Oregon Indian War, and Jones escaped some danger. In 1862, Jones married. He had four children. Jones taught schools in Oregon, and in 1869 joined the Methodist Episcopal church. He was soon licensed to preach in the Oregon Conference. He enrolled in Willamette University in Salem, the first black man in the class. In 1873, he was a delegate from Oregon to the Civil Rights convention in Washington, DC.^[1]

In 1873, Jones transferred as a preacher to Newark, New Jersey, where he remained for three years. He then transferred to Cincinnati, Ohio, then to Indianapolis. In 1878 he campaigned for the Republican presidential ticket in Indiana. He was then appointed presiding elder of the Lexington, Kentucky, district, a position he served until the end of his life. He moved to a church in Paris, Kentucky, and then Winchester, Kentucky. In 1880 he received votes for bishop at a general M.E. conference. He was also a delegate to the National Convention of Colored Men in 1880 in Nashville, Tennessee. During his career, he was an occasional correspondent of the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette and other local papers.^[1]

His ordination as deacon was by Bishop Edmund S. Jones and as an elder by Bishop Edward Raymond Ames.^[1]

Jones died on December 25, 1891, in Winchester, Kentucky, of influenza.^[2]