goods to
partially indemnify those whose goods had been seized by the Spanish. In
1790 Jones removed to Kaskaskia, bringing to his residence on the frontier
a mind well trained by education and experience. He early became a large
landowner, in 1808 paying taxes on 16,400 acres in Monroe county alone.
The list of offices held by Jones shows him to have been prominent
wherever he went. He was attorney-general of the Northwest Territory, a
member and president of the legislative council of the same, joint-revisor
with John Johnson, of the laws of Indiana Territory, one of the first
trustees, as well as a chief promoter, of Vincennes University, official
interpreter and translator of French for the commissioners appointed to
settle land claims at Kaskaskia, and after his removal to Missouri, about
1810, a member of the Missouri Constitutional Convention of 1820, and,
upon the admission of the state, justice of its Supreme Court until his
death in February, 1824. In Missouri he engaged in lead mining and
smelting with Moses Austin and later with Austin's sons. He made an
exhaustive report on the lead mines of Missouri in 1816. Jones was well
versed in English, French and Spanish law, especially in regard to land
titles. He was an excellent mathematician, and had also a thorough
acquaintance with the Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, English, and Welsh
languages. The pioneers recognized his peculiar fitness for a legal career
on the frontier. Governor Reynolds, a fellow-townsman of Jones, says:
"Judge Jones lived a life of great activity and was conspicuous and
prominent in all the important transactions of the country ... His
integrity, honor, and honesty were always above doubt or suspicion. He was
exemplary in his moral habits, and lived a temperate and orderly man in
all things."(548)

The founding of the towns of Mt. Carmel, Alton and Springfield illustrates
the work of successful town building on the frontier. Mt. Carmel was laid
out in 1817, Alton in 1818, and the land where Springfield now stands was
entered in 1823.

The town of Mt. Carmel was founded by three ministers, Thomas S. Hinde,
William McDowell and William Beauchamp, the first two being proprietors
and the last agent and surveyor. McDowell probably never settled in
Illinois. Hinde and Beauchamp were men of more than ordinary ability. The
former was a son of the well-known Dr. Hinde, of Virginia, who was a
surgeon in the British navy during the French and Indi