MR. EVAN E. JONES, LOWEVILLE, MURRAY, MINNESOTA.
Born at Tanrallt, four miles east of Bangor, Carnarvonshire, Wales, August 17, 1827. Son of John and Elizabeth Jones (Indiana).Emigrated with his parents to Philadelphia in July, 1836, and removed to Cincinnati, O., in November. Thence in the spring of 1837 they moved to Madison, Ind., where his father helped build the first railway west of Madison.
In 1840 the family moved twenty-seven miles north into, what was then, a forest wilderness, and purchased 240 acres of government land.
In 1848 Evan left home, going first to Paddy’s Run, O., and thence to Cincinnati, where he worked seven years in a rolling mill. In 1855 he attended the Baptist University, at Granville, O., for a few months when he visited eastern Kansas and formed the acquaintance of “old John Brown of Osawatomie.” Not liking' it there he returned home and in May, 1856, removed with his parents to Cottonwood, Brown county, Minn., where about June 1, they located on a farm in Section 24.
During the Sioux outbreak of 1862 Evan went to the defense of New Ulm and participated in the battle there. On September 10, of that year his father was killed by the savages in their raid upon Butternut Valley, and Evan was chased by them into the sloughs and was out hiding for eleven days without food, except a few ears of corn and some onions and watermelons he found in the fields at night, and ate raw.
In June, 1866, he married Rachel, daughter of Thos. J. Jones, late of Cambria, Minn. In 1878 he sold his Brown county farm and removed to the vicinity of Lake Benton, Lincoln county, and thence after eighteen months he went to Murray county, where he purchased his present farm of 252 acres on the banks of Bear Lake, in Lowville township.
He has held a number of town offices and has been postmaster at Lowville for many years. Mr. and Mrs. Jones have been blessed with eight children: Elizabeth, Ellen, Mary, Hattie, Alice, Herbert, Dinah and Katie.