She convinced another slave owned by the same family as herself, Robert A. Perkins, to teach Jones, coming to their home several nights per week.

However, near the close of the American Civil War (1861-8165), the master learned that Perkins could read and write and sold him.

He also attended a private school taught by James Monroe Gregory, later a professor at Howard University.

In the spring of 1868, he was baptized and made a member of the Court Street Baptist Church in Lynchburg.

[1] He was then appointed chair of Greek and Church History[2] where he taught classes in language and philosophy at the Richmond Institute by the American Baptist Home Mission Society of New York City.

[1] In November 1883, he was elected corresponding secretary of the Baptist Foreign Mission Convention of the United States, a position he held until September 1893.