Amanda G. Jones, for many years principal of the Bingaman and Orange street school, in Reading, was one of a family in which many members have distinguished themselves by their intellectual attainments, either as teachers or ministers, a distinct scholarly trait appearing through several generations. Miss Jones, herself, was particularly successful in her work, in which she was engaged from the time of her graduation from the Reading high school in 1863, until her death March 16, 1908. She was a member of Berks County Chapter, D. A. R., by virtue of her descent from Lieut. Josiah Philips, her great-grandfather. Miss Jones was the daughter of Jonathan and Joanna (Philips) Jones, the latter of whom moved to Reading in the spring of 1860, after the death of her husband. Jonathan Jones, a resident of Chester county, was the son of Samuel and Rachel (Davis) Jones, and grandson of Joseph and Lydia Jones of Pikeland township, Chester county. His mother, as Rachel Davis, taught in the township long before the days of public schools, and was a very learned woman for her day. In religious faith she was a Baptist, and for fifty-nine years was a devoted member of the Great Valley Church.

On the maternal side Miss Jones traced her descent from Joseph and Mary Philips, who came from Wales to Chester county in 1755, and whose remains are interred there in the Vincent Burying Ground. One of their sons, Lieut. Josiah Philips, was a personal friend of George Washington, and served in the Revolution, three of his brothers being in the same company. One of Lieut. Philips’s sons, Rev. Josiah, at one time pastor of the Windsor Baptist Church, in Chester county, was the father of Joanna Philips, who married Jonathan Jones.

Jonathan and Joanna Jones were the parents of eight children, four sons and four daughters: Samuel, Josiah, Ann Jane, Rachel D., Mary S., A. Judson, Amanda G. and Jonathan. Both parents are now deceased, and are interred in the Great Valley Baptist burying ground. Of the children there are two living [in 1909]: Miss Rachel D. lives in Reading; and A. Judson, of Minneapolis, was in early life a teacher, teaching his first term in Cumru township, Berks county. During the Civil war he served in the army, for more than three years, in Company B, 24th Wis. V. I., and afterward settled permanently in Minnesota. Samuel was a soldier in the Civil War. Ann Jane died aged six years. Jonathan, the youngest, was graduated from the Reading high school in 1863, served some time in the army and then entered Bucknell College, receiving a degree therefrom, and became principal of the Young Ladies' Seminary connected with his Alma Mater, a position he was ably filling when he died in Lewisburg, in 1882. Mary. S. graduated from Bucknell College, and was a teacher in the Reading schools.

References

From: Biographies from Historical and Biographical Annals of Berks County by Morton Montgomery, 1909. Courtesy of Richard Dorsey.