He returned to Wales within the year to bring his wife and son, Rice Jones (1781-1808), back to America, though leaving behind his infant daughter, Maria.

[1] After two years in Philadelphia hearing tales of the opportunities awaiting in the new American west, in 1786 he moved to Louisville, Kentucky.

In September, of that year, he joined the frontier Virginia army, of General George Rogers Clark, in the campaign to quash, an uprising by, the Native Americans, of the Wabash Confederacy.

Fluent in French, Spanish, and English, Jones was able to draw on legal clients from all the white inhabitants of the area and would sometimes act as emissary or go-between for the various nationalities.

Early settlers often being cash-poor, Jones would accept land parcels as payment for legal work and became one of the territories largest landowners.

When territorial Governor (and later U.S. President) William Henry Harrison organized his administration in early 1801 he appointed Jones as the first Attorney General.

[1] The following year Jones, a pro-slavery advocate, participated in a conference that urged the U.S. Congress to repeal or suspend certain slavery portions of the 1787 Northwest Ordinance.

[1] After his falling out with William Henry Harrison in 1808, John Rice Jones left Vincennes for good, choosing to relocate his law practice and family to Kaskaskia.

Neither party was wounded in the affair of honor, but Bond's second, Dr. James Dunlap remained unsatisfied and allegedly arranged for the assassination of Rice Jones on a Kaskaskia street.

[5] Soon after, Federal authorities ruled against many of John Rice Jones' land claims in Illinois, causing some financial loss.

[3] In June, 1820 John Rice Jones was a delegate to the Missouri constitutional convention, his legal expertise often called upon in the drafting of the new states laws and regulations.

[1] As a consolation prize of sorts, but really a position much better suited to his temperament and training, John Rice Jones was named one of the three judges appointed to the Missouri Supreme Court in 1821.