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Show fjRS. OF MARY ELIZABETH JONES by NEW YORK IS PROBABLY WORLDS WEALTHIEST WOMAN th ,ounJer of the family xtent But when the conversation Our would approach anything that related bW t0 w the particularly to her personal business own of yeara and 10 affairs or those of the great Jones esinvesting the surplus Income." tate, of which she is a she inarge att estat hav yo here variably shifted the sharer, conversation to bout the manor house?" matters genealogical or to generalities. d0 now ,h act number of Ancestor a Pirate? acres, but I own for two miles nearly The most interesting of the many all around it." famous ancestors of Dr. and Mrs. wuld ,mpan that the lands Jones is the founder of the line in adjoining the manor house America. Some of the ruder historians grounds form what In real estate e say he was a pirate, and intimate that would be called a "parcel of it was by scuttling.ships and maraudground" which would contain about on the high seas generally that he ing lx square miles. Now, a mile accumulated his many barrels of has Just 640 acres. It is square almost "pieces of eight which he Is alleged to buy an acre of ground in to have brought to Oyster Bay when the western part of Long Island nowadays. Practically every inch of even he settled there. At any rate, he himself was markedly reticent about his the harrenest of plains has been earlier history, except that ho fought snapped up by real estate companies for James II. in the Battle of the aold oa at from WO to Boyne. He even wrote bis own ep. $1,000 a lot. Tho six square miles of land that Mrs. Jones owns about her taph: home In Cold Spring Harbor, if it could he bought, would be Hire Lyra Interd Th Body of snapped up In 24 hours at the average price of $1,000 an Major Thomas Jones Who Cams acre. At this figure the value of From that Straliane in the Kingdom of alone would be nearly $4,000,- Ireland. Bottled Here and Died December 1711. From Distant Lands To this Wild W'aste He Came Antedate the Astors. Thla Seat he Chose and Here Your family is older and has He Fixed Ills Name. Long May Ilia er possessions than tho Astors greatBon Thla Peaceful Bpot Enjoy And Isn't so? that No 111 Fate hla Offspring Here Anhazarded the reporter. noy. Mrs. Jones laughed. "We're certainly older by a hundred years or so in this country. As to which is the He died in 1713 and was buried a greater I couldn't say, for I know as distance south of the old Brick short little about what the Astors have as House, on the east bank of the Massa-pequ- a they do about what I own. I hardly river. The ancient burial place, know the latter myself accurately, about 30 feet square, was threatened that Is. But, speaking of the ancestry of our family, there la much that is In- by Inroads of the tides, and In 1893 bis remains were removed. His headstone, teresting to me. In fact I always have bearing the inscription quoted above, been fond of and proud of the men and is still well preserved. In the early women who were our ancestors. I his was known as the "Pirate's have several volumes of histories that days for many years after his have been written about the family, Grave, and death it was the common belief (says but, as is usually the case when one John II. Jones In his history of the has a home in the city and one In the family) that some of Maj. Jones' country, the things one wants at the wealth was hurled with him, and so moment always are among those left rooted had this become that his behind. That is why I haven't any of deeply was opened by vandals In the grave them here to show you. No, I think of relics, and the ancient bones there is one over there. The Jones queststrewn on the ground. His releft Family of Long Island. You may take mains now rest in the burying-grounit to look over if you wish. The edges adjoining Grace church, at South Oys are a little tattered. I guess one of ter Bay. the puppy dogs must have oeen playRecord of History, with . it. ing About Maj. Jones being a pirate litOne of the puppy dogs, who had tle is known. There is extant a letter apparently been lurking within earshot from Lieut. Gov. Colden to jiis son, in the hall came sidling In just then as written in 1759, In which be says: if to beg the visitor not to take away While Col, Fletcher was governor the book his until he had given it a few inhabitants of New York carried on a more bites. trade to Madagascar while that Island Family Fortune Kept Intact was frequented by pirates, and many "I have spoken of Thomas Jones, our of the pirates came and dispersed on ancestor, went on the richest woman Long Island and around Delaware Bay. In America. He came from Ireland It has often been remarked that none the history I will lend you tells all of the pirates made any use of their about him. He originated the policy money to any real advantage excepting of our family to keep handing down one Jones, who settled on Long Island, the bulk of the fortune Intact, so far and whose son made a remarkable figas possible, from one generation to the ure as speaker of the assembly while next. It Is to a certain extent very Mr. Clinton was governor. much like the English laws of primo- It is also known that James IL noli? MaJ Tboma8 ,89 kP par-lanc- pywr MRS. YORK. The In America MARY ELIZABETH JONES. richest or In down from the eldest of one family to the the eldest of the next five through may not be Mrs. Hetty generations, until now the bulk of the NEW The greatest vast accumulations rests with Mrs. In America may not be one Mary Elizabeth Jones. These are the of the Aetors. Mrs. Jones is the daughter of would be Charles Hewlett Jones and of Elizaconclusions that probably and the Astor beth Grade Gardiner. She was born reached if the Green possessions could be valued correctly July 6, 1804, and was married to Dr. with those Oliver Livingston Jones, her cousin, md the figures compared which would represent the vast wealth when Bhe was 19. They have six chilJones of New dren, two daughters and four sons. of Mrs. Mary Elizabeth fork and of Cold Spring Harbor, L. I. In summer, and in fact at intervals Further than that, the social crown during the winter, the family live in of America, long held by the Astors by the old Jones manor house, at Cold reason of their wealth, would belong to Spring Harbor, L I. There is nothing Mrs. Jones if she chose to claim it, for ornate or especially striking about her fortune Is doubtless greater and this country home of the woman who her lineage in this country runs a centis perhaps the richest of her sex In ury further back. She is related also, America. It is simply a large, well-buifar and near, to nearly every one of mansion of the later colonial the great families in New York and style of architecture, of which it is one New England whose names are written of the best examples in this country. large on the pages of American history The rather battered surrey, driven from the days of the Colonial wars to by the son of the owner of the "hackin' ow. business" at Cold Spring Harbor, Probably no one, not even Mrs. stopped in front of the main entrance Jones herself, could say accurately to the mansion and remained there how great Is her fortune. It is mostly during the hour and more that the rein land. She acknowledges that she porter was talking to Mrs. Jones. owns and pays taxes on land in every The richest woman in America was ichool district on Long Island, in gowned quite simply in something York light blue, comfortable and well worn. nearly every county in New state and in every state in the union A diamond ring or so, with the stones except Texas. The property immedia- set In the fashion of a generation ago, tely surrounding the old manor house sparkled on her fingers. Her almost at Cold Spring Harbor, where she white hair was combed straight back Urea In summer, is worth millions of from her forehead, with just a slight dollars. puff to relieve its severity. In her girlHer husband, Dr. Oliver Living-Do- hood Mrs. Jones must have been very Jones, is also a great beautiful; she Is handsome in her midhut his possessions fall far short of his dle age. But her chief charm and atwifes. Then there is the Jones estate, traction now is her quick, clear-cu- t which is owned by . some 25 heirs, manner of speaking, and her large, which also runs dark eyes, which look straight at one up into scores of In value. Three or more theat- while she talks. She is a woman of exers In New York city are owned by traordinary strength of mind and charher, and It is said to he her ambition acter, and it takes but a moment's to own property In every city In the acquaintance to understand why the lt STEAMER EIGHT OF mil-So- THTOKE-mTHAl- L States. She owns property in of them now and each year gets rer to a realization of her ambition. 8 0,ker day she had a controversy ta the city of New York about the ttorBhlp of the sunken meadows up the East river. They are estimated worth $1,000,000. The grant to ! Jones family goes back to Queen IBp o It Is likely Mrs. Jones will aln possession. Pounder of the Fsmlly. foundations of her vast fortune !re laid by Maj. Thomas Jones, "who e from Strabane In the kingdom of ntl" and Bottled with his young 6 hoar what is now called Oyster y I., In 1693. He brought with a comfortable fortune, won on tho t through privateering privileges ''ad him by James II., whose cause X'iught for in the battle of the yttThis fortune has been handed - grown with great Jones fortune has management, her such rapidity under property In Many States. "is it true that you own property United States. everywhere In the Wl "Yes! almost everywhere," she "I pay taxes In every school Island In every or d district on Long York state, every county In New In the union. No, I forgo. about Texas. Sat some property in Texas, own I used to a while ago and there down was I but I don't care No, it. sell to concluded were. reasons (o say what the I have "That Is the only property acreoflandthat an ever sold, except friend a while I sold to a very dear buy and to Is always My rule the rule Is that 2ver to sell. In fact, and was generation to generation, liatJtso. geniture and entail. These English laws, however, could not be followed in this country, as the statutes are against such a procedure. With us, however, it has become a sort of family understanding. "The Jonea estate or property has passed directly through five generations In unbroken descent to its present holders. On my mother's side I am descended from Lion Gardiner, the first proprietor of Gardiner's Island. John Lyon Gardiner, the twelfth promarried Elizabeth Coralle prietor, Jones. My maiden name was Jones, so when I married Dr. Oliver Livingston ' Jones I didn't have to change my name. The visitor being somewhat of a connoisseur in colonial furniture could not help commenting on some of the in splendid pieces of old mahogany This was he . where sitting. the room led Mrs. Jones to take him from one room to another on the ground floor. "All this old furniture has been in the family for generations. Of coUWe we have some that is new, but the old Is too beautiful and too well built to be It put aside. I see no reason why should not he beautiful and serviceable still a hundred years from now," Mrs, Jones remarked. "1 am fond of good A good on. pictures, too." she went Inheriare many of these paintings tances from my father and those before him who had some taste in art, and some I have bought because I liked them rather than because they were done by famous artists." Mrs. Jones was disinclined to talk of the specifically about the details various holdings which make up her own vast possessions In New York and acthroughout the United States. Sheherand husband her that knowledged self wfere Interested in almost every branch of Industry to a greater or less Maj. Jones, in 1690, as a compensation for services rendered, a commission to cruise agalnBt Spanish property. At any rate, the privateering business did not last long, hut was immensely profitable while it did. It was considered a legitimate business In those days. and Among the many famous families who are related to the richest woman in America and her husband are the Willetts of Flushing; the Van Wycks of Flatlands (prominent in the colonial wars) ; Dr. Valentine Mott, the great surgeon; the Underhills, famous mariners; the Remsens, who Intermarried with the Do Peysters and the Livingstons; the Tangier Smiths (whose ancestor was governor of Tangier, Africa, under Charles II.); the Cornells, the Weekses, the Livingstons (who were among the aristocracy when New Amsterdam was a village); the Gardiners, who were and are the lords of Gardiners' Island; the Scudders, the Hewletts and scores beside. They are also related to the Folsom family, of which Mrs. Grover Cleveland Is a member. Such is the woman, her family past and present. No International Marriages. About the last words that closed the reporter's interview with Mrs. Jones was his query whether any of her family had made or were likely to make any international marriages, and thus transfer some of the Jones millions to bolster up decayed nobility. We certainly have not, and I don't think we are likely to, she answered "We are Americans, emphatically. and are proud of it. Our wealth lies here, and here it vylll stay so long as I God wills to keep it in our hands. had rather be a plain American woman, as I am, than the queen of any country under the sun. granted well-know- Virtually in the Hands of Fighting; Men Summoned to Teheran to Protect the Throne. St. ran!. A special to the Pioneer from - Winnipeg, Manitoba Press says: When 6hah Is Unable to Comply With Their Extravagant Demands for Money, the Tribesmen Threaten to Plllaga tho Town. St Petersburg. Special dispatches received here from Teheran, give a tragic-comidescription of the position of the phnh of Persia, who is virtually a prisoner In the hands of wild tribesmen summoned to Teheran to protect tho throne against the revolutionists, but who have become greater menace to the monarch than his other foes. The tribesmen tre extravagant in their demands for money, which the shah Is unable to grant and they threaten to dastroy the palace and pillage Teheran. The $250,000 secured from tho Russian hank recently as a loan on the crown jewels of retGeneral ain already is exhausted. Llukhoff's cossacks are unable to make any headway against the tribes-mon- , who have refused to permit the shah to leave the camp at Bade Shuks for Saltanabad, where the harem is now staying. Famine Is reported to be Imminent in southern Persia and this promises to bring about a crisis in political affairs in the autumn. c DISCORD AMONG OFFICIALS. Former Ministers of Sultan Now Accusing Each Other. Discord reigns Constantinople. among the former ministers and pal-rc- e officials detailed at the ministry ef war. Men Dough Pasha, former minister of the interior, Is at loggerheads with Tahsln Pasha, the sultans former secretary, who reproached him with not having adopted his advice three months ago to solicit the sultan to grant amnesty to political prisoners., The secretary, who Is suffering from acute melancholia, replies that it were better to have died than to witness the present state of affairs. Kokhl Pasha, who was recently dismissed as Inspector of military schools, is also reported to he a prisoner at the ministry of war, half demented and constantly requesting a revolver with which to end his life. To this rqquest the response was made that he must live and render to the nation an account of his doings. He has contributed $25,000 toward a fend to purchase two cruisers to be earned after the heroes of the revolution. Former Presidential Candidate Aids In Stopping Runaway. San Luis Obispo, Cal. Judge Alton B. Parker of New York brought first aid Sunday afternoon In what was almost a fatal runaway. IVhlle A. U. Mills, wife and daughter of this city, and David Oliver, a school director of San Francisco, and daughter were riding In a surrey the tepm became frightened at an approaching automobile and ran away. The surray was overturned and Mr. Oliver and daughter and Miss Mills Mr. and were caught underneath. Mrs. Mills were thrown clear of the tho tangle, hut Mr. Mills grabbed reins, and after the surrey had been dragged 100 yards with Its pinioned captives, succeeded In checking the runaway team just as Judge Parker and Delancey Nlcoll, also of New York, whirled up the road in an auto mobile. Woman Shackled to Bedpost. Blskee, Arizona. The authorities hove hern advised that there Is no law under which the deportation of Mrs. Wardwell, the leper, to the leper colony of Molokai can be ordered. Mrs. Wardwell, who Is in quarantine at Tombstone, has become a raving maniac and is kept shackled to a bedpost. Her husband, General Ward-welaged 88 years, Is very weak from Governor nn operation for cancer. Klbbey will bo asked to pardon Albert Cole, a brother or Mrs. Wardwell, who Is serving a term In prison. In order that he may care for the aged couple. l, Struggle for Mastery Christ Church, New Zealand. The newspapers here cordially welcomed the arrival In New Zealand watera of fleet The the American Atlantic Christ Church Press, In an article on the subject of the visit of the fleet, declares that the conclusion of tho alliance was only a temporay expedient to secure peace, and professeB to see In the future a struggle for the mastery In the Pacific, in which the United States and Great Britain will be natural allies against thd far eastern forces. Anglo-Japanes- PERISH Fire Occurred at Night, Those Who Escaped Leaping Into Water and Being Picked Up by Boata. PARKER TO THE RESCUE. r, PASSENGERS THEM n land-owne- AT DOCK; BURNS e New Religious Craze. Newark, N. J. John A. Heckerson, u negro wra calls himself the high priest of a band of his race In thla vicinity, each of whom, men and women, claim to he "the new Jesus," has been arrested, with William Hughes, a white man, who Is a folwas lower of the sect. Heckerson arrested on information furnished by the daughter of Hughes, who said she was taken to the headquarters of the sect by her father, detained two days, and that Heckerson kissed her "In the name of the Lord. The steamer Premier, Captuln Stevens, was burned to tho water's edgo at Warren Landing, the northern ten minus of Lake Winnipeg, on Thursday morning. Six passengers and two of tho crew lost their lives. Docks and other buildings in the The vicinity were also destroyed. fire started In the engine room of the hold during the night and, spread with frightful rapidity. The Premier left Selkirk for the north on Monday morning with passengers and crew to tho number of thirty-eighAbout twenty were sleeping on hoard when the fire broke out. When the cry of firo" was raised, those who escaped did so In scanty attire by jumping overboard, when they either swam to shore or were picked up by boats. t. . SULTAN CLAIMS' CREDIT. Saya the New Constitution Was Re suit of His Work. FriThe regular Constantinople. day selamllk, or the going of the sultan to say his prayers, to the beautiful white moBquo Just outside tho confine of the Ylldix kiosk was observed last Friday by the chiefs of all the foreign diplomatic missions. After the ceremony tho dllpomat were received In audience by the sultan, who had with him the grand vizier and Tewfik Pasha, the foreign minister. His majesty gave the foreign representatives further assurances of hla good Intentions and reiterated his firm resolve to mulntaln integrally the new constitution, which be declared to bo his own work. HARRY THAW BROKE. Piles Petition In Bankruptcy. Pittsburg, Ta. A voluntary petition in bankruptcy was filed on Friday in tho United Slates court by Attorney Morchnusher of New York, representing Harry K. Thaw of thla city, who Is now confined in tho Dutchess county. New York, Jail. In the petition Thaw states that bis assets are $128,012.38, and his liabilities $453,140.43. Roger O'Mara, a well known Pittsburg detective, and personal friend of the Thaw family, was appointed as receiver. 8layer of White First Bank of Wonder in Hand of Receiver. Reno, Nev. Judge Orr on Friday morning declared the Wonder Bank tk Trust company of Wonder to be Insolvent after, listening to testimony given by Bank Examiner Wildes. The liabilities amount to more than $20.-00the face value of the assets was over $59,000. However, the actual assets, according to the examiner, are but $6,587.62. The Wonder bank was the first bank in that camp during Its balycon dayB. Mine owners and business men of Wonder are the only losers. Staid Old Boston Visited by Storm oi Cloudburst Character. Boston. For half an hour Friday afternoon Boston was swept by one of the most severe thunderstorms In years. Tho rolnfall, which was of cloudburst character, was accompanied by terrific lightning and thunder. Streets were flooded from curb to curb, while the wind drove mist and spray in clouds so that it was Impossible to see buildings forty feet away. Street trafllc of every description for the time being was suspended. Tho rainfall was 1.C5 Inches. 0; Engine Went Over Embankment. Imboden, Ark. Three persons were killed, four mall clerks badly Injured and a number of pasengers slightly bruised when the engine pulling San Francisco passenger train No. 206 was derailed twelve milps east of here. The engine dashed over a twelve-foo- t embankment, pulling tho mall, baggage and smoking cars with it. The gas tank In the mall car exploded and the mall car. with all Ha mail, was burned. A party of sailors put out a fire which started In tho baggage car, and the hasr.age was saved. Want Half a Million. Lincoln, . Neb. Tho Fairview, wherewithal with which to conduct the Democratic campaign was tho momentous question under dlsjusslon at Fairview on Friday. It had beea fully realized that a properly conducted campaign requires adequato funds to pay the legitimate expenses, but the question of who is to put up the money is one which has been tho subject of more or less discussion ever since the nominations at Den-1 ver were mado. At least $500,000 regarded as necessary to meet expenses of the campaign. Lost Roll at Poker Table and Then Took Hia Life. Chicago. Gus Schotr.heck, foundry foreman, lost $750 at poker on Thursday night and entering, without a cent, his home at 3007 Robey street, daughter met his Mary. "Papa, give me a penny for candy," said the little girl. Silently Schoenbeck stepped Into an adjoining room, picked up a revolver and aunt a bullet crashing Into his body. At tho county hospital, where he was taken unconscious and without utter Ing a word, It was said he would seven-year-ol- dl. |