August 16, 1979
Picture #1 – Gideon Jones’ house as it originally appeared
Picture #2 – Jones’ house after Dautermans restored it in 1944. Dallas Dauterman is shoveling snow
Picture #3 (missing) – Seneca County Road 592 is “Jones Road” to Fostorians. The photo shows its intersection with North Union Street.
Picture #4 – Gideon and Eliza Jones are buried in Fostoria’s Fountain Cemetery, which he laid out and surveyed
The road markers call it “Seneca County Road 592”, but it is really known to Fostorians as Jones road, and was known as that until recently, when it was widened and rerouted, to join up with Ohio 12, east of town.
It was originally named Jones Road in honor of Gideon Jones many years ago. He was a pioneer settler of Fostoria, having been brought here by his parents at age 2, from Virginia.
Jones was a schoolteacher in the town’s early days and also did much surveying, including Fountain Cemetery.
He lived on a farm in the vicinity of Jones road, which included the land where The Peabody Buggy was located, later to become Allen Motor Car, and still later Electric Auto-Lite…now Bendix. The Jones house still stands at the corner of Union street and Jones road. See accompanying photos.
Gideon Jones was also one of the early representatives from Seneca County to the Ohio Legislature. He was also a trustee of Jackson Township in 1843, 1844, 1863, and 1865. Before his death in 1867 he had amassed a large fortune, according to early historical notes.
His wife Eliza (Davidson), referred to in other Potluck articles was the first woman schoolteacher in Seneca County, and had (Gov.) Charles Foster and Rawson Crocker as her pupils. She also taught the first Sunday School class in this town.
Fostorian Edna Hatfield’s husband, Chalmer, was a grandson of Mr. and Mrs. Gideon Jones. According to a newspaper clipping dated Jan. 4, 1916, from the Fostoria Daily Review, Mrs. Jones died on that date, at age 98, retaining all of her faculties but eyesight. She died at the home of her daughter, Mrs. William Kinnaman, Columbus Avenue.
Mr. and Mrs. Dallas Dauterman, 1685 N. Union St. are possessors of the abstract for the old Jones property during the period when they owned and lived there from 1938 to 1954.
Others who owned the property after the Gideon Jones family lived there were in succession: Peter Dyer (1898); William Deibley (1899); Theodore Wentz (1899); Harrison Fling (1920); Chauncey Doe (1923); Harriet Geer (1932); Alzina Fling (1932); Eugene Lannes (1954); and Robert Ward who presently owns it.
One accompanying photo show the Jones property as it appeared in 1939 when Dauterman purchased it, which is the way it looked at the time it was built. The other photo is the way is appeared after the Dautermans had restored it, and the way it is today, except shrubbery now partially conceals it.
According to Dauterman, the old house contains black oak flooring. The staircase is black walnut…all coming from the forests that surrounded this area back then.
Mrs. Dauterman said Earl Ash once told her that the Jones property was a stagecoach stop during the early days of Fostoria.
The only living descendants of Gideon and Eliza (Davidson) Jones known to the writer are: Don Kinnaman and his children, Carolyn (Kinnaman) Hyte, and son Jim, all living in Arizona; Helene Hatfield, Fostoria; and the children of Lloyd Hatfield (deceased), grandson of the Jones’. Lloyd Hatfield’s widow, now living in Clearwater, Fla., was Gladys Bower, a former Fostorian, whose father was J.P. Bower, operator of a drug store on West Center Street many years ago.
Older Fostorians will probably always refer to County Road 592 as “Jones Road”…and this story will inform all readers why.
READER FEEDBACK AMERICAN HOUSE TEMPLE STORY
Mrs. Howard Turner, now living in Oconomowoc, Wis., wrote: “I called once in a while when I lived in Fostoria, but now I have to write to tell you I do enjoy reading Potluck, many buildings and people I remember”.
“The July 12th issue took me back a few years. I remember The American House. The building back of it was my father’s (Robert Doke) livery stable barn”.
“A few years after the Masonic Temple was built my father started The Basket Market across the street from the Temple…(actually the location was in the frame building that stood on the lot where the barbershop is now, next to Dillon Auto Parts. Basket Market occupied the one next to the alley. The old frame buildings were demolished many years ago).
“At that time my father started the store there were no chain stores. Every Wednesday he had a sale, known as Flour and Potato Day. I remember one of the flours was Harters A-1. He would have the Review print circulars telling prices…ham 12 1/2 cents a pound; bread five cents a loaf.
I worked in the office, and when I married Howard Turner, my father retired and sold the store to Namon Fruth.
MASONIC STORY
Frank Longfellow, Florida wrote: “Thank you for sending me copy of the Masonic story. It was very well done and I feel honored to be in it. It will be placed in my scrapbook. You can tell Floyd Harrison, and other Fostorians, that my wife Bess, is still living and very active in church affairs. She will be 83 in December and I am 83 now. We have a son and a daughter living close by and that makes our living perfect. Thank you again, Paul, and be sure to stop in if you get to Florida.