The Family › Temple–Catchings › Jones
Susan Jones
1825–1864
✦ A story has been written about this person: How I Met My Great-Great-Great Grandparents — A memoir of finding the Essex County, Virginia people in person.
✦ A story has been written about this person: Henry Waring Latané Temple and Susan Jones — The Essex County parson generation.
✎ This person appears in a case file: № 5 — The father who would have been three years old — The tree gave Thomas Jones of Essex County a birth year that made him three when his first daughter was born, and a wife who never existed. Two courthouse books put both right.
Life
- Born
- 1825 · Essex, Virginia, United States
- Died
- 9 Jan 1864 · Essex County, Virginia, USA
Parents
Marriage & children
Timeline
- 6 Feb 1843MarriedRev. Henry Waring Latane Temple — Tappahannock, Essex County, Virginia
- 1860ResidenceLloyds, Essex, Virginia, USA
Life as they lived it
Not the dates — the person. What the records happen to show of work, habits, possessions and the odd episode. Each line says where it comes from.
1837 By June 1834, when she was nine, her father was dead, and the county court bonded her grandfather as guardian to her and her three sisters, orphans of Thomas Jones. In 1837, at twelve, she was a defendant when her sisters sued to divide their parents' trust property: she and her sister Mary Ann admitted "the propriety thereof" but withheld consent, because as minors only a court of equity could make a division binding.
episode · Essex County guardian's bond, 16 June 1834, and chancery cause 057-1837-013, Dorothe Jones &c. v. Susan Jones &c. (Library of Virginia)
1845 The family Bible records the deaths of her first two sons six weeks apart in the autumn of 1845, Wm Henry, not yet two, on 23 October and Joseph, five days old, on 3 December; and her own on 9 January 1864, five months after her daughter Susan Matilda's and seven months before her daughter Susan's. It writes the year of her death as 1854, a slip of the pen: the census found her alive in July 1860, and her son William was born in May 1861.
body · The Latané family Bible, births and deaths pages; 1860 U.S. census, Essex County, Virginia, p. 38
1848 In a letter of July 1848 to her sister-in-law Lucy, signed "SJT," she wrote that whooping cough was expected and measles had appeared "among the servants at Westwood, and may get here: indeed I wish it could go through our family." The peaches were "getting eatable," and "Henry nor I have gotten out any wheat."
voice · Letter signed “SJT,” Millers Tavern, 24 July 1848, Wayland letters (the transcriber reads the initials as Susan Jones Temple; originals at The History Center, Diboll)
1860 In July 1860 she was living at Lloyds in Essex County, the wife of a Protestant Episcopal minister who reported $10,000 in land and $32,000 in personal property. The slave schedule taken the same day lists him as the owner of 43 enslaved people in ten slave houses, recorded by age and sex but not by name.
household · 1860 U.S. census, Essex County, Virginia, free and slave schedules, p. 38
1861 In February 1861 her uncle Orlando S. Jones willed her for life all his land in Arkansas and the people he enslaved there, named as Annaka and her children, Elen, Isakiah, Jim Hickman, Alfred, Andrew, Ben the younger, George, Izaah and Elder, to pass at her death to her eldest sons. The record does not show whether he outlived her.
household · Will of Orlando S. Jones, 14 February 1861, Arkansas (1910 certified typescript copy), p. 2
Records behind this page
read the transcript
"...the said THOMAS JONES and KETURAH HIS WIFE, that the said Hoskins & Carlton should deliver up the said property and the increase thereof to the children of the said THOMAS M. JONES & KETURAH HIS WIFE, both those now in being and those hereafter to be born..." "...are the ONLY CHILDREN of the said Thomas M. Jones and <struck: Susan> KETURAH HIS WIFE..." [the clerk eye-skipped "Susan" from two lines above, STRUCK IT, and wrote Keturah] "...that the said KETURAH the wife of the said Thomas M. Jones SURVIVED HIM AND DIED DURING THE PRESENT YEAR - and they now sue for a division..." "...and that their GRANDFATHER THE SAID JOHN JONES, who has been duly appointed their GUARDIAN, has all the property..." "...the following property to wit SEVEN NEGRO SLAVES NAMED CARTER, SUKEY AND THEIR CHILDREN ANDREW, PATRICK, TURNER, BAYLOR AND VIOLET and the future increase of the females..." ⛔ THIS REFUTES THE NAME 'SELENA', which stood uncited in this tree for years. The wife of Thomas M. Jones was KETURAH. The letter is a capital K with its two diagonal arms; the same pages show what this scribe's S looks like. She SURVIVED Thomas and died in 1837. ◎ AND IT SOURCES [866] THOMAS M. JONES TO [2121] JOHN JONES DIRECTLY: the orphans' guardian, 'John Jones (B)' of the 1834 bond, is stated here to be their GRANDFATHER. ⚠ The four children are all INFANTS (under 21) in 1837, so all were born after 1816. ⚠ Keturah's maiden name is NOT in this cause, and that is a settled negative rather than an unread page: the 1827 deed has NO 'Whereas' recitals at all and is signed by John Jones and Thomas M. Jones ONLY. It is a father-and-son settlement, not a marriage settlement, so there is no recital block where a bride's family could sit.
read the transcript
"Know all men by these presents that we John Jones (B) and Richard D Dunn & James Wright are held and firmly bound unto Warner Lewis, Edmund Noel, Jones C Clopton and Larkin Hundley Gentlemen Justices of the Court of Essex County now sitting in the sum of four thousand dollars ... Sealed with our seals and dated this 16th day of June 1834, in the 58th year of the Commonwealth - The Condition of the above obligation is such that if the above bound John Jones (B) his executors and administrators shall well and truly pay and deliver or cause to be paid and delivered unto DOROTHEA JUNE, MARY ANN, ELLEN AND SUSAN JONES ORPHANS OF THOMAS JONES DECEASED all such estate or estates as now is or are or hereafter shall appear to be due to the said Orphans when and as soon as they shall attain to lawful age" This bond fixes three things. (1) The four girls are SISTERS. (2) Their father is THOMAS JONES and he is DEAD by 16 Jun 1834. (3) Susan Jones was an orphan, which the family has always said. Because Orlando S. Jones's 1861 will (SourceID 347) calls BOTH Susan "wife of Henry W L Temple" AND Mary Ann "wife of E. Lawrence Wright" his NIECE, Thomas Jones was Orlando's BROTHER.
Research notes
Working notes from the research, kept verbatim — what was read, what it proved, what stays open. Many open with a line grading the parentage; what the grades mean.
Research note · 15 Aug 2026
Elsewhere
This person on Ancestry (sign-in required)