History of Texas, Together with a Biographical History of Milam, Williamson, Bastrop, Travis, Lee and Burleson Counties. Page: 672

HISTORY OF TEXAS.

Colonel G. W. Jones, the subject of this
sketch, was born in Marion county, Alabama,
September 5, 1828. His boyhood days were
passed on a farm in Tipton county, Tennessee,
and February 16, 1849, he located on
the Colorado river, in Bastrop county, where
he followed farmnning two years. He then
studied law, without a preceptor, was admitted
to the bar, and since the fall of 1851
has been a prominent and successful law
practitioner of Bastrop. For a number of
years he was in company with the present
Congressman for this district, Colonel Sayres,
but for the past few years has been associated
with H. M. Garwood. In 1853 Mr.
Jones was a candidate for legislative honors,
but was defeated by a small majority. In
1856 he was elected District Attorney over
A. H. Chalmers, and at the end of his first
term voluntarily declined a re-election, and
returned to private life. The following year
he was an unsuccessful candidate for the
State Senatorship. During the campaign of
1860 Mr. Jones espoused the cause of Douglas,
and fought against secession, but, when
a large majority of the voters declared in its
favor, he conformed to the situation. In
April, 1862, he entered the Confederate service,
before the organization of the Seventeeth
Texas Infantry, was elected Lieutenant Colonel,
and after the battle of Milliken's Bend,
was promoted to the Coloneley, vice Colonel
Allen, resigned. After returning from the
war Mr. Jones was a member of the Constitutional
Convention of that year, and in 1866
was elected Lieutenant Governor on the
Throckmorton ticket. After the days of
reconstruction our subject became dissatisfied
with the Democratic party, and in 1876
became an independent Greenback candidate
for Congress in the fifth district, bI was
defeated by D. C. Geddings, but, two years

later, defeated John Hancock, of Austin. Mr.
Jones served in the forty-sixth Congress,
was re-elected in 1880, and during these
sessions his attention was given to financial
matters. In 1882 he was the candidate of
the independent Greenback party for Governor,
but was defeated by John Ireland, and
again defeated in 1884, but since that time
he has declined to allow his name to be used
for any office. In addition to his extensive
law practice, Mr. Jones, also owns 325 acres
of land in the suburbs of Bastrop, 200 acres
of which is cultivated, and he has lived on
this place since 1856. He is also extensively
engaged in cattle raising, having a ranch of
about 3,000 acres in Runnels county.
August 1, 1855, in Fayette county, Texas,
our subject was united in marriage with Miss
Ledora Ann, a daughter of Ira and Ann
(Doak) Mullin. She came to Texas with her
parents from Mississippi at the age of ten
years. Mr. Jones is independent in his political
views, and socially, is a member of the
Masonic and Odd Fellows orders.
M HI V. TYSON.-For five or six years
following the close of the late war
Texas received large accessions to
her population from the army of discharged
Confederate soldiers from the older
Southern States, mostly young and middleaged
men, who, broken in fortune and discouraged
by the dismal prospects around
them, came West to begin life anew. One
of this number was M. V. Tyson, the subject
of this sketch, a native of Tennessee, but for
some years before his removal to Texas a
resident of Arkansas. Mr. Tyson comes of
good, strong Southern stock, the families
from which he is descended being among the

6fs: