John Jones

Who was John Jones?

John Jones was a Mississauga Ojibwa teacher, missionary and Chief.

Fathered by Augustus Jones, Jones was born to Tuhbenahneequay on July 10, 1798 in the Humber River valley. Augustus Jones and Tuhbenahneequay had been married in the 1790s in an Ojibwa ceremony. Jones was named Thayendanegea, sometimes spelt Tyantenagen, for his father's friend Joseph Brant. The year of Jones' birth, his father married a Mohawk woman, Sarah Tekarihogen, in a Christian ceremony. Augustus Jones lived with Tekarihogen on his farm at Stoney Creek, Ontario during much of the year, and Tuhbenahneequay while surveying. In 1802, Tuhbenahneequay and Augustus Jones ended their relationship, and John Jones' care, as well of that of his full brother Peter, was left to his mother.

In 1816, their father fetched John and Peter to live with him and his wife at his farm in Stoney Creek. Both Peter and John were enrolled at a local school, as neither spoke much English. The next year, the family moved to the Grand River Valley, near Brantford. Jones lated enrolled in a Hamilton school to study his father's profession, surveying.