Margaret Evans

The family of Joshua Jones emigrated from Wales at an early date. They took part in the Welsh settlement of Pennsylvania. Edward Jones and Katherine, his wife, bought 3121/2 acres of land from William Perm in 1683. Their son, Edward, had a son Richard who married Jane Evans. Their son, Evan, was Joshua's father. His mother was cousin to Evan and his grand- mother an Evans. Joshua Jones was born in the Quaker settlement of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He early evinced the adventurous spirit that had led his forebears across the stormy Atlantic. With his brother, Jonathan, he went into Virginia as a surveyor and in 1763 they surveyed lands for the state. Joshua made the first survey of the lands on the Holston and Clinch rivers. He surveyed and entered 273 acres on One Mile Creek. Then he returned home and married Hannah Todhunter. With her family, she had left the Quaker meeting in Pennsylvania and come to Loudoun County, Virginia, and there in July, 1767, they were married at Fairfax Monthly Meeting of Friends, to the despair of "Friends" at her "outgoing" in marriage.

Though Joshua had come of good Quaker stock, the rigors of his life had been such that he had been forced to abandon his Quaker belief in non-combativeness to protect himself from savages in the wilderness. Hannah Todhunter's family and "Friends" wrestled with her "to no avail." Her grandfather, John Todhunter, the English Quaker, had left England in 1687. He had become a Quaker, refusing to pay tithes and taxes to the Church of England and had been excommunicated for "con- science's sake." He married Margaret Hoopes (widow of Abram Beakes), daughter of Joshua and Isabella Hoopes, from Yorkshire, England. The son of John Todhunter and Margaret Hoopes, John Todhunter II, married Margaret Evans, daughter of Thomas Evans, who was son of Evan Evans from Merionethshire, Wales. In 1776, Joshua Jones enlisted in the militia of Virginia battling "British, Tories and Savages."