Note Type
Historical NoteNote
The subject is the owner’s great-grandfather. Richard Watson Jones (b. May 16, 1837, d. Dec. 17, 1914), married to Elizabeth Susan "Bettie" Spratley, served as captain, major, and finally lieutenant colonel in the Confederate Army, taught mathematics at Randolph Macon College (Ashland, VA), was president of Petersburg (VA) Female College, president of Martha Washington College (Abingdon, Virginia), Professor of chemistry at the University of Mississippi, and the first president of the Industrial Institute and College at Columbus, Mississippi, where he was in charge of the initial building and hiring the faculty. That school later became Mississippi State College for Women and is now Mississippi University for Women. He retired to Laurel, Mississippi, where, after his death, the portrait hung in the home of a granddaughter, Evelyn Jones (Mrs. Walter S., Jr.) Love, until her death in 1988, when it was passed on to the current owner.