Cornelius J. Jones (Issaquena County)

Cornelius J. Jones

State House: 1890-1891

Born: August 13, 1858 in Vicksburg, MS
Died: March 16, 1931 in Oklahoma

Lawyer. Son of Cornelius Jones and Hannah Donaldson (view their July 10, 1864 marriage record in the Freedmen's Bureau collection).

Jones represented Henry Williams in the Williams v. Mississippi case that went before the Supreme Court and maintained that Williams’ conviction could not stand because Mississippi’s electoral laws meant that only white people could be on the jury. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Mississippi’s suffrage provisions were not discriminatory. In the early 1900s, Jones moved to Muskogee, Oklahoma, where he continued to be involved in law and politics.

Listed on the 1900 census as a lodger in Washington, D. C. Listed on the 1920 census in Muskogee with wife Maggie (m. September 3, 1919).

The Schomburg Center at New York Public Library holds the Jones-Sadler family papers, a collection of materials related to Jones, his sister, Sarah Jones Sadler, and her family.