Singleton T. Jones

Although he had little education, Jones taught himself to be an articulate orator and was awarded the position of bishop within the church .

Singleton Thomas Webster Jones was born in Wrightsville, Pennsylvania, on March 8, 1825.

[2] Jones was apprenticed to a lawyer, Thomas Kelly, in York, Pennsylvania at the age of ten.

[2][3] He continued on foot to Harrisburg where he found employment at the Temperance House Inn.

Jones attended the Wesley Union AME Zion Church, led by Rev.

[1] He was the first African American to receive an honorary Doctor of Divinity from a reputable college.

[1][5] His sermons are brilliant with unmeasured poetry, and abound in wit, invective, glowing rhetoric, and logic… No one sleeps under the preaching of Bishop Jones, for he has long been considered the most eloquent man in his denomination.

He established a mission, for what in nine years became the Galbraith African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, in northwest Washington in 1843.

[8] Jones was noted for his ability to help his Harrisburg congregants manage the post-war challenges: The keen desire for education, the awareness of self-effort and heartbreaking attempts to forge the race into strong souls of industry, found the Church spending long hours at prayer and study and communion, and with these, work, hard work.He, with Harriet Tubman were identified as two people from the Church who best understood the needs of African Americans and offered wholesome and worthwhile contributions.

[2] Their children were George Galbreth, Chester Stevens, Ann Catherine, David Eddie, Elizabeth Jane, Mary Ann, Singleton Thomas, William Haywodd Bishop, Alice Williamson, Joll Robinson, Jennie Catherine, and Edward Derussa William Jones.

[2] His son, Edward D. W. Jones (1871–1935) was a bishop of the John Wesley AMEZ Church.