John Jones | |
Birth Date: | 20 January 1749 |
Birth Place: | Charleston, Province of South Carolina |
Death Place: | Savannah, Georgia, U.S. |
Placeofburial: | Old Midway Church, Midway, Georgia, U.S. |
Birth Name: | John Letton Jones |
Allegiance: | |
Rank: | Major |
Branch: | Continental Army |
Battles: |
John Letton Jones (January 20, 1749 – October 9, 1779) was a major in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He was aide-de-camp to general William Howe and brigadier general Lachlan McIntosh.[1]
He was killed in the 1779 siege of Savannah. Jones Street in Savannah, Georgia, is now named for him.[2] [3]
Jones was born to Joseph Lewis Jones and Mary Taliaferro in Charleston, Province of South Carolina, in 1749.
He married Mary Sharpe, daughter of James Sharpe and Mary Newton, on December 28, 1769. The couple had five children: Mary (1770), John (1772), Millicent (1774), Hannah (1778) and Joseph (1779).[4] One of his posthumous grandchildren was Charles Colcock Jones, son of John.
Jones moved to coastal Georgia in the 1770s, purchasing a plantation in St. John's Parish.
Jones was killed on October 9, 1779, in Savannah, Georgia, during the city's siege. He was reportedly cut in two by a cannon shot during the assault on Spring Hill Redoubt (in today's Yamacraw Village).[5] [6] [7] Aged 30, he was interred in Midway Cemetery in Midway, Georgia,[8] around thirty miles southwest of Savannah. He had been living in nearby Sunbury.
His wife remarried, to major Philip Low.[9]