John Madison Jones, one of eight children born to William and Florence Jones, lived at the end of Sunset Drive. His Uncle Barnabas Jones resided at the old Jones Homeplace off highway # 42 with his wife Hattie Parker Jones, our first Fuquay Springs Post Mistress. A small yeoman farmer, John tended acreage adjoined by that of his brothers Gene (Eugene) and William. Together their farms stretched from Sunset Drive south across what is now Judd Parkway.
Peggy says that originally this was Smith land; however, there are numerous tracts in the land grant records of the area identified with family names like Jesse Jones, and others. In her quiet bucolic setting, Peggy resides on the only one of the three farms still existing. Both other properties have been sold off for development. John Madison himself sold five acres off his farm as a site for the Fuquay-
Varina Branch Hospital opened at the end of Ransom Street on October 10, 1960. With wry humor,
Peggy vows that her “old mule” walks over to the edge of her pasture fence and looks the patients in the eye.
J. M. and wife, Sula Maggie Eakes, accounted for 11 children in the large Jones clan. Peggy expresses fond memories of her in-laws, with whom she and husband, Jack, lived the first six years of their marriage. She recalls John as a tough, conservative individual who often walked barefooted to
V. O. Tilleyʼs store on Main Street, sometimes minus his shirt, too. Sula was a kind, sweet homemaker who welcomed the fifteen year old Peggy as her daughter-in-law when she and Jack married during high school.
The original frame home was four rooms, scarcely enough for the large family. In the late
1930ʼs when the Town of Fuquay Springs installed water lines, John arranged to remove some of the loose stone, which was rampant within the trenches. Jack and other family members hauled the matter by mule and wagon to the farm where John had hired a black mason to attach four stone rooms to the front of his dwelling. So much rock was required for the foundation and walls that only two rooms could be erected. A unique structure, the rooms boast smoothly laid stone walls inside and out. Doors and windows exhibit large supporting framework to carry the weight of the one-foot thick walls.
Jack and Peggy moved away when he entered the army. Upon his retirement from the A & P
Company in 1974, the couple purchased the farm from the other heirs and proudly returned to the old house they loved. When they ceased farming tobacco in 1986, they opened the Jones Greenhouse on the exact spot Mr. John had given to Miss Sula for her beloved flower garden years earlier.
The Incorporation by the General Assembly of Fuquay Springs on March 6, 1909 provided for a
“.... mayor, secretary, treasurer, five commissioners and a constable or marshal and said policemen as in the judgment of the mayor and commissioners may be necessary for the preservation of peace and good order in said town.” Section 8 of the same incorporation named the mayor, commissioners and one Ebenezer Knox as marshal. (Knox kept a hotel in town.)
John Madison Jones generally lived the hard life of a tobacco farmer; however, his greatest claim to fame related to his legendary stint in law enforcement for the town. An earlier edition of The
Independent reprinted a 1953 unidentified interview with the sixty-eight year old Jones. Jones’ recollection was that he was known as the “First town marshal (who) kept the rough element in” An admitted supporter of J. D. Lee in his election for mayor on June 15, 1915, Jones credited Mr. Lee with selecting him as “marshal.” The town minutes state that John Madison Jones became “Chief of Police” on December 7, 1915.
The 1953 interview recalled, “Those were the days of the ʻquart law.ʼ North Carolina was legally dry but one could, under the law, order a quart from without the State every 15 days. Most times, however, local saw-mill hands and others who imbibed upon occasion didnʼt bother to order their spiritus frumenti but bought the standard brand of the day, Tar Heel white lightning from the nearest bootlegger, and oldtimers will vouch for the fact that the bootlegging population even in those days of Fuquay
Springs, was notoriously prolific.
“Young John Madison Jones had been filling in on weekends as an officer and he had shown plenty of grit and gumption. He couldnʼt be shoved around by the lawless element.
“How his chest swelled when he was handed his commission! And the job actually paid $40 a month. That was big money in those days. The Democrats had just come back into power nationally after being out in the cold for 16 long years and, true to the predictions of their Republican adversaries, everything had ʻhit the bottom.ʼ Cotton was down to six cents, tobacco was little better. Forty dollars a month was a whale of a lot of money then for young John Madison Jones.
“That was the period when Fuuay Springs on July 4th staged one of the biggest celebrations in the entire state. The Norfolk Southern and the Durham Southern ran special trains into town and the people came by the thousands.
“A lot of folk, then as now, felt that liquor was an indispensable adjunct to any form of celebration.
As a consequence, these annual celebrations did not pass without the usual quota of drunks by day’s end. To meet the problem a number of citizens were deputized to help John take care of the situation.
“ At first these law breakers had to be carried to the Raleigh jail. Later, when Prohibition came and there were four or five times as many drunks as ever before, a little “guard house” as Mr. Jones called it, was erected near where the new funeral home is now located (corner of Academy street and Fuquay
Avenue).
“ Back in those days,ʼ related John, Otis Tilley (who later became postmaster and mayor) had a little grocery store about where Rufus Ashworthʼs store is now located. One day three tough, uncouth fellows of gigantic physique and unkempt beards, donned in dirty overalls, walked into the Tilley store.
They ordered sardines. Mr. Tilley accommodated them. They then demanded crackers. Mr. Tilley explained that he couldnʼt furnish crackers with the sardines, that he would have to charge them for the crackers.
“The fellows, whom I took to be bootleggers from Johnston County, then let loose a volley of profane words and walked from the store leaving the sardines uneaten and unpaid for. Otis reported the matter to me. I pursued the trio to the spring and placed them under arrest. I carried them to Mayor
Lee and he fined them.
“One of the guys dared the mayor to double the fine, whereupon he did so. At that, they refused to pay. Take them to Raleigh, John,” the mayor ordered. “I took them down to the railroad station
(little depot on Depot Street) and while we were waiting for the train, the fellows started begging to be let off. They begged so hard, I carried them back to Mayor Lee and they gladly paid the double fine in order to obtain their freedom.”
The length of Jones’s term is not clear in town minutes, but he recounted that he was asked to remain in office by the next mayor ( he named W. H. Aiken, but actually it was A. G. Elliott, Sr.). The town had grown from a few houses and a population of 127 and was experiencing the fifth mayoral administration. Mayor A. G. Elliott, Sr. (1917-1919) had opened a drugstore on Main Street in 1914 only to be destroyed in the 1916 fire. Jones recalled, “The business part of town was nearly wiped out.”
“John Jones could cope with the situation as could but few men. Having the common touch and knowing most of the culprits personally, he could handle an offender with ease whereas some other officer could have done so only with the greatest of difficulty,” the writer concluded. Peggy, with a glint in her eyes, reported hearing Mr. Jones say that “he had his worst problems with some of his own family.”
When John Marshall left full-time policing to return to farming, he continued to serve as a special officer. Town Minutes indicate that extra policemen numbering four to six were routinely hired to police the large crowds at the mineral spring.
On December 6, 1921 J. D. Jones (Jeatus Jones was not related) was named Police Chief for 12 months at $45 while on May 4, 1925, L. H. Smith became town marshal. No clarification is made as to these offices and their duties, if they were different. Police chiefs were sometimes designated to collect taxes and look after street repair which were not tasks Jones remembered.
Both J. M. Jones and J. D. Jones served as special policemen for Christmas in 1925 and 1926 at $4 per day. During the years 1929, 1930, and 1931, the two Jones men and others worked on Easter Monday and July 4th for $3 per day. There is no record of J. M. Jones being employed after 1931.
Historically, the celebrations at the spring had dwindled and perhaps the prior problems had abated.
Citizen John Madison Jones served the town when terms were politically controlled and tenure indefinite, when titles and responsibilities changed with new commissioners and mayors, and while the young town weathered large, rowdy crowds on special holidays and local revelers who descended upon
Main Street each Saturday night. The times required special men!
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