Eli Jones (Quaker)

For generations they held their position and worked among the Welsh Hills, Welsh John succeeding Welsh John and being called John's Son, until in the course of time the name narrowed down into that of Jones, and the first of the family, who emigrated to America, was the commander of the Mayflower in 1620, and subsequently, when the Pilgrim and Puritan colonies were in a prosperous condition, three brothers, bearing the name Jones, settled in America—one on the Androscoggin River, six miles from Brunswick, in the township of Durham, District of Maine; he was the father of Abel Jones.

The first meeting of this society held in China was about 1803, in the private house where, in 1806, Abel Jones married Susannah Jepson.

[2] Eli Jones, their son, had but poor educational advantages; in China books were not to be had, and the Bible was almost the only book attainable wherewith he could gratify his thirst for knowledge, and from constant reading of the Bible at an early age he consequently became a proficient Biblical scholar.

Soon after this he returned home, and at the Chadwick Schoolhouse in China first began to speak in the public assemblies of the Society of Friends.

He was at the time less than fourteen years of age, but was afterward often heard, and encouraged by the older Friends to deliver his message when impressed.