Viewing John R. Jones (1828-1900).

John R. Jones (1828-1900).

In the spring of 1855 John Robinson Jones, a lawyer, moved to the village of Chatfield in Fillmore County, Minnesota, and began practicing law. Except for three years in the army during the War, he remained in Chatfield practicing law and Democratic politics for the rest of his life. He had been elected county attorney and state senator before the War, but in postbellum Minnesota, a Democrat had no chance of winning a state-wide election. In 1865 he ran on the Democratic ticket for Secretary of State and lost badly. A dozen years later he ran for Attorney General and lost again (in the 1875 election for this office, his older brother Richard also lost). He died on June 26, 1900, at age 72. His obituary in the Chatfield News noted that he was a founding father of the community:

"John Robinson Jones was a pioneer in Fillmore County, building the third shanty at Chatfield, and hanging out the first 'shingle' in this part of the state. He practiced here when his field of legal conflict extended from fifty to one hundred miles in all directions, and when there was not a bridge spanning a stream in Southern Minnesota. He early and thoroughly studied by observation the geography of this part of the commonwealth, and probably no man in Fillmore county was better acquainted with its 'nooks and corners' well its history had he had at his tongue's end."

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