My name is Deacon Prince Jones and my grandfather was Gilliard Jones. My grandfather came up from North Carolina with his brother while working on the railroad. Upon arriving at Somerset Station, they decided to stay in the area. By 1880, my grandfather had set up a blacksmith shop at Somerset. By this time, my grandparents had married and my father, Daniel Jones, was born in 1880.
My grandparents settled on land in Tibbstown and eventually my grandfather moved his blacksmith shop from Somerset to Tibbstown. In the 1880 census, Andrew Jackson is listed as a blacksmith and is adjacent to my grandfather. There is some possibility that Jackson took over my grandfathers operation at Somerset when he moved his shop to Tibbstown at his home. In his work, my grandfather was well respected for shoeing horses, mending tools, and making just about anything you could need out of iron.
This is a photo/painting is of my mother (Julia Jones White) and my father (Daniel Jones). My parents became acquainted while walking down the lane to the school house they both attended. My mother’s family was the Fields and my maternal grandfather, William Fields owned much land and was a farmer. The homes of both my grandparents and my mother are no longer standing My father died when I was 11 months and my mother raised the family at our home place near her parents land.
This digging bar was made by my Grandfather— which I believe he fashioned from a buggy axle. His strength as a blacksmith was well known, in fact his strength was made legendary by his winning a wager for carrying a 300 pound barrel from Somerset Station to his blacksmith shop.
By the time he finished carrying it he was down on the ground, but he succeeded!
Blue Run Baptist Church was founded in 1766 with two blacks among its founders. By the 1850s, 80% of the congregation was black and following the Civil War, the black congregation purchased the church.
During the late 19th century, Blue Run served the Jacksontown, Tibbstown, and Carytown communities. Deacon Jones first joined the church in 1924 and served as chairman of the board and deacon for 30 years.
He is the oldest congregational member at Blue Run Baptist Church.
Tibbstown is between Somerset and Barboursville and less than a mile from Blue Run Baptist Church. Today much of Tibbstown is in wooded areas, accessible only by long- abandoned roads.
My Grandmother and Grandfather Jones and father are buried in a family plot on the slopes of Hardwick Mountain. Their graves are marked by stone markers and are adjacent to a road we always knew as “D Cut that led to the top of Hardwick Mountain.
The number 7 school at Tibbstown is where I attended primary school and graduated from the 8th grade. This school, located beside Route 20, replaced an earlier one-room school house that was located further in the Tibbstown community.
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