Alexander Hamilton Jones

Alexander Hamilton Jones (July 21, 1822 – January 29, 1901) was an American politician, Union Army soldier, newspaper editor, and Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from North Carolina during the Reconstruction era. He was associated with the Union League and later edited the Hendersonville Pioneer newspaper, becoming a notable Unionist figure from western North Carolina.

Jones was born near the city of Asheville in Buncombe County, North Carolina, on July 21, 1822. Raised in the mountainous western part of the state, he came of age in a region where loyalties during the Civil War were often divided, and where Unionist sentiment, though a minority, was significant. Before the outbreak of the Civil War, he engaged in mercantile pursuits, establishing himself in business and local affairs.

With the intensification of the Civil War, Jones’s Unionist convictions led him to enlist in the Union Army in 1863. He became actively involved in organizing support for the Union cause in the border and mountain regions and was captured in east Tennessee while raising a regiment of Union volunteers. Imprisoned by Confederate forces, he remained in captivity until he made a successful escape on November 14, 1864. After his escape, he again joined the Union forces in Cumberland, Maryland, continuing his service until the end of the conflict.

Following the war, Jones returned to North Carolina and quickly entered public life during the early phase of Reconstruction. In 1865 he was a member of the North Carolina state convention, which met to reorganize the state government and address the legal and political consequences of secession and defeat. That same year, in November 1865, he was elected as a Republican to the Thirty-ninth Congress. However, like other representatives from the former Confederate states, he was not permitted to qualify or take his seat while Congress debated the conditions for readmission of those states to representation.

Upon the formal readmission of North Carolina to representation in Congress, Jones was again elected, this time in April 1868, as a Republican to the Fortieth and Forty-first Congresses. He served as a Representative from July 6, 1868, to March 3, 1871. His tenure coincided with the central years of Reconstruction, when Congress addressed civil rights, the reintegration of the Southern states, and the political status of formerly enslaved people. Jones’s alignment with the Republican Party and the Union League placed him among those Southern Unionists who supported federal Reconstruction policies. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1870 to the Forty-second Congress, bringing his congressional service to a close in early 1871.

After leaving Congress, Jones remained active in public and civic life while moving frequently across the country. He resided in Washington, D.C., until 1876, then lived in Maryland until 1884. He subsequently returned to his native region, residing in Asheville, North Carolina, until 1890. During this period he edited the Hendersonville Pioneer newspaper, using the press as a platform for his political and social views and contributing to public discourse in western North Carolina. In the 1890s he joined the broader westward migration of many Americans, living in Oklahoma until 1897, when he moved further west to California.

Jones spent his final years on the Pacific coast. He died in Long Beach, California, on January 29, 1901. He was buried in Long Beach Municipal Cemetery, closing a life that had spanned the antebellum era, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the nation’s westward expansion, and that had included service as a Union soldier, Republican leader, and Reconstruction-era Congressman from North Carolina.