Home County: Washington
Term of service at the Supreme Court of Missouri: November 1820 – February 1824
John Rice Jones was born February 11, 1759, in the village of Mallwyd, Wales. He was educated in both medicine and law in Oxford, England, before moving to London and beginning a private practice in law around 1783. The following year, he moved to the United States and settled in Philadelphia.
In Philadelphia, he made the acquaintance of a number of individuals, including Benjamin Franklin. After moving to Kentucky and serving in the military, Jones settled in the Indiana Territory, where he served as attorney general under Territorial Governor William Henry Harrison from 1801 until 1805.
In 1805, Jones was selected as a member of the legislative council of the Indiana Territory, where he served in 1808. During part of his time with the legislative council, Jones served as the council’s president. Jones then moved to the Illinois Territory, where his son, Rice Jones, had a law practice. Jones left for Missouri in December 1808, after his son was killed. Jones traveled first to Ste. Genevieve, then to St. Louis, and eventually settled in Potosi in Washington County.
Shortly after arriving in Missouri, Jones was selected as a delegate for Washington County to the State Constitutional Convention in 1820. After helping draft the Missouri Constitution, he was appointed November 20, 1820, by then-Governor Alexander McNair to serve on the Supreme Court of Missouri. Jones first heard cases argued during the Court’s March 1821 term.
Judge John Rice Jones served on the Court until his death, on February 1, 1824, in St. Louis. He was 64 years old.
Biographical information by Matt Orf, 2017, University of Missouri-Columbia, Missouri.
Sources used (please note a copy of each is located on file at the Supreme Court of Missouri Law Library):
Buel Leopard, Floyd C. Shoemaker, eds., The Messages and Proclamations of the Governors of the State of Missouri, (Columbia, MO: The State Historical Society of Missouri, 1922), 47.
Louis Houck, ed., Reports of Cases Argued in the Supreme Court of Missouri, from 1821 to 1827, (Cape Girardeau, MO: Kimball & Taylor, Printers, 1870) 2.
St. Louis Missouri Republican, February 2, 1824, page 2, column 2. Information available from SHSMO Newspaper Database on the State Historical Society of Missouri website, accessed June 2017.
W. A. Burt Jones, John Rice Jones: A Brief Sketch of the Life and Public Career of the First Practising Lawyer in Illinois, (Chicago, United States: Fergus Printing Company, 1889), 3-4, 9, 11-22, 25, 27.