Jones, Horatio Gates

Jones, Horatio Gates (son of David Jones, 1), also a Baptist minister, was born at Easttown, Chester County, Pa., Feb. 11, 1777. His early education was quite thorough, and remarkably so for a young man destined for agricultural life. Gifted with great fluency of speech, young Jones became "the politician" of his own immediate vicinity, and before he had reached his majority enjoyed the prospect of preferment in political life. Just about this time he became conscious, however, of his responsibility to his Maker, and, believing himself to have been the subject of spiritual renovation, he made public declaration of his belief, June 24, 1798, and determined to devote his life to the Christian ministry. He was licensed Sept. 26, 1801, and called to Salem, New Jersey, Feb. 13, 1802. In 1805 his health became enfeebled, and he was obliged to resign, however reluctantly, the charge. Hereafter he devoted himself to farm life on a place which he bought on the banks of the Schuylkill River, about five miles above Philadelphia. But Jones had engaged too heartily in the cause of his Master not to be tempted to reenter the work of the Christian ministry whenever his health should warrant the task. At first he went to different places from time to time and preached; finally he made "Thomson's Meeting house" at Lower Merion, Montgomery County, belonging to the Presbyterians, his headquarters, and he succeeded, after several years of ardent labor, in building up there a Baptist Church, which he served until the end of his earthly days, Dec. 12, 1853. Mr. Jones held a prominent position in the board of trustees of the University of Lewisburg, Pa., and was at one time its chancellor. This high school conferred on him the degree of D.D. The degree of M.A. he received from Brown University in 1812. He was also a member of the Baptist Board of Missions, and was at one time (1829) president of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, of which society he published a History in 1823, and held a coeditorship of the Latter-day Luminary, an early Baptist missionary magazine. Indeed, we are told that '"few men of his day have written so much and so well, and published so little." See Sprague, Annals Am. Pulpit, 6, 452 sq.