Thompson Jones – Tombstone Inscriptions

Jones, Thompson
Section 28.8
ID # 281099

Thompson Jones
Davidson Co.

Nineteen Penitentiary inmates died of Cholera during the June 1833 Epidemic in Nashville. They were buried at Nashville City Cemetery. In 2016 wooden markers were placed at the cemetery for these Cholera victims.

Fred Zahn of the Metropolitan Historical Commission was responsible for the carving of the inscriptions on the 19 wooden markers and locating where to place them at the Nashville City Cemetery. To read about his work on the project, click here.

To read the account of John Hill, a contemporary of these men and survivor of his time in the penitentiary, click here.

For more information, and to see a listing of the inmates’ names & counties of residence prior to incarceration, please see the following newspaper article in the Nashville Republican and State Gazette, Friday, July 5, 1833.

Charles A. Sherill has given permission to quote from Tennessee Convicts: Records of the State Penitentiary, Vol. I. 1831-1850, by Charles & Tomye M. Sherrill, published 1997:

Page 58
“Thompson Jones was received in the Penitentiary 24 Dec. 1831. He is 55 years old, 5′ 71/2” high, weighs 175 lbs. Black eyes, his hair grey and thin on the top, round full face, large nose. Has the likeness of a woman and child on the left arm, put in with india ink or powder and at the feet of them the letters T.J.J. A.M.J. He has a large scar on the under side of the left arm, caused by a cut. He was born near Fredericksburg, Virginia and raised in Caswell Co., North Carolina. Has lived nine years in Tennessee. He has a wife and five children now living in Williamson Co., Tenn. One brother living near Cincinnatti, Ohio. Found guilty of horse stealing at the Circuit Court of Davidson County and sentenced to three years and eight months confinement in the Jail and Penitentiary House of the State of Tennessee. Thompson Jones died of Cholera on the 15th day of June, 1833. [Ledger 45, page 77]”

Research Report August 2017


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