Robert Jones. — The first Jones who was related to Robert Jones of Cynthiana came to America from Wales to Baltimore, Maryland. The grandfather of Robert Jones was a tory and lived in Baltimore about the time of the War of the Revolution. He sympathized with the British, but took no active part against the patriots. He had four sons, all too young to be in the Revolution; but when they were old enough to think for themselves, they became patriots. Joshua Jones, father of Robert Jones, married Mary Sands, who had several brothers in the service of the navy. Benjamin Sands, uncle of Robert Jones, was a commodore. Joshua Jones was in the war of 1812, and belonged to a company of light horse artillerymen. Robert Jones, son of Joshua and Mary Sands Jones, was born in 1803. When General Ross attacked Baltimore and the British fleet bombarded Fort McHenry, Commodore Sands was commanding in Fort McHenry and Joshua Jones was with the troops that defended the city. Robert Jones was but a lad, but he remembered the battle well. His mother and other patriotic women had been preparing provisions for the soldiers all day, and as evening approached wagons containing them w^ere sent down by soldiers to the scene of the conflict. Robert Jones and his brother, Richard, jumped in one of the wagons and went with the stores to where the battle was raging. His father, in giving some orders to his men, discovered his two little sons in a place of great danger, watching with the coolness of veterans the progress of the battle. He forced them to retreat, which they did reluctantly. The children of Joshua and Mary Sands Jones were Sarah, Richard, Robert, Caleb, Joshua, Mary Ann, Ellen, Sophia, Eliza, William, and Benjamin. Three died in infancy, The others came to years of maturity. Robert Jones married Amelia Smith, w^ho was born in Dorsetshire, England. Eleven children were born to them ; all died in infancy, but two daughters, who are still alive, Sarah Jones, wife of Dr. McNees, and Ellen, wife of William Haviland. Robert Jones came to this town with his father and his father’s family in 1816, and was a dry goods merchant of this place for seventy years. He was as brave as any one of his ancestors, and as honest as he was brave. He died at the advanced age of eighty-nine and a half years.
A son of Commodore Sands lives in Mobile, Alabama. Many of the Sands family still live in Baltimore.
The Chronicles of Cynthiana