James McHenry Jones (August 28, 1859 – September 22, 1909) was an American educator, school administrator, businessperson, and minister.

He increased federal and state funding to the institute, and expanded the campus through the construction of classroom, dormitory, and industrial mechanics buildings.

[2][3] Jones's parents, inspired by Baptist preacher Thomas Jefferson Ferguson, aspired to be middle class and emphasized the importance of education to their children.

[5] West Virginia state auditor J. S. Darst cited Jones as a person who rose to prominence, despite his early unfavorable environment—the "tough", "bloody First" Ward of Pomeroy.

[4] He then received permission to attend the all-white Pomeroy High School, where he studied for four years, and, in 1882, graduated first in his class out of seven students with honors.

[4] Because of the school's growth during his first year of leadership, Jones hired an additional teacher in 1883, his future wife Carrie M.

[4] West Virginia Attorney General Alfred Caldwell Jr. decided that it was illegal for African-American and white children to attend the same school or be classified together, which led to racially segregated commencement ceremonies in 1886.

[2] The State Board of Regents elected Jones as principal of the West Virginia Colored Institute on September 21, 1898,[3][11][a] to fill the vacancy left by the resignation of John H.

[3] The institute had been founded in 1891 under the Morrill Act of 1890 to provide West Virginia's African Americans with education in agricultural and mechanical studies.

[14] During Jones's tenure at the institute, he increased federal and state funding, and expanded the campus with the construction of classroom, dormitory, and industrial mechanics buildings.

[15] Following his death in office in 1909, a committee of the State Board of Regents elected Byrd Prillerman to succeed Jones as president of the institute.

[2][18][19] During his speech to the British Odd Fellows in 1897, Jones remarked that, "African-Americans could decrease the force of racism and acquire acceptance in the social order ... through the associations of class and especially middle-class values and morals".

[18] While Jones was a supporter of the state's Republican Party, he did not run for elected public office, nor did he accept any appointments.

[24] Literary scholar John G. Mencke stated the novel's character, Regenia Underwood, represents a movement in African-American literature where the heroine devotes herself to the profession of teaching in the American South, rather than pursue a more comfortable life elsewhere.

[25] Hugh Gloster assessed that Hearts of Gold "presents decorous characters and probes the consequences of interbreeding in the Reconstruction period".

[26] He concluded that Hearts of Gold was noteworthy because it was the first American novel with a leading character who was the offspring of a lawful marriage between a white woman and an African-American man.

[27] By 2010, only eight known copies of Hearts of Gold had survived until the West Virginia University Press republished the novel in February of that year.

[28][29][30] The company's other incorporators were George A. Weaver, Wilbur F. Jones, and journalist Ralph Waldo Tyler.

[28][29][31] In recognition of his management of West Virginia Colored Institute, Wilberforce University awarded Jones an honorary Master of Arts degree.

[32] Jones's body lay in state at the institute's Hazelwood Assembly Hall on September 25 and was visited by hundreds of mourners.

[3] Governor Glasscock spoke at the service and said of Jones: "Always his hands, heart, and mind were engaged in lifting up his fellow man, in making smoother the path of adversity, and throwing the light of knowledge into the dark corners of ignorance.

[1][35] Jones Hall was built in 1924 and originally served as the institute's elementary training school and laboratory for observation and directed teaching of elementary-level grades.

[35] Jones Hall is currently home to West Virginia State's University Printing Services, and the National Center for Human Relations, a forum for "communication, understanding, and cooperation among people, groups, and institutions with a special focus on issues of human diversity and race relations".