Charles Cresson Jones

Mr Charles Cresson Jones was born in Darby, Delaware, Pennsylvania on 22 January 1866.

He was the son of Stacy Jones (b. 1828), a physician, and Martha (b. 1837), natives of New Jersey and Pennsylvania respectively. He had two siblings: Annie (b. 1859, later Mrs W. D. Allen), a teacher and Henry (b. 1863), a doctor.

The 1870 and 1880 censuses show Charles and his family were still living in Darby, Delaware, Pennsylvania.

He was married around 1890 to Ida Amelia Garfield (b. 3 December 1867), a native of Tyringham, Berkshire, Massachusetts. Ida had previously been married in 1885 to Hiram Oles (b. 1863) and had a son who died not long after birth; the couple were later divorced. Charles and Ida were shown on the 1900 census living in Tyringham and Charles was described as a farmer; they had no children of their own. They later moved to Bennington, Vermont and appear there on the 1910 census. Charles worked in Bennington as superintendent of the 4000 acre Fillmore Farms, the estate of James C. Colgate (1860-1942), whose family had founded the toothpaste brand.

Jones had journeyed to England to purchase sheep from a farmer named James Foot in Dorset and, on 5 April 1912, attended an estate sale of livestock at Puddletrenthide in Dorset, the property of Edmund Barkworth, the brother of Algernon Barkworth who survived the sinking of the Titanic.

For his return to the USA he boarded the Titanic at Southampton as a first class passenger (ticket number 694 which cost £26). Also travelling with him, albeit in second class, were Elizabeth Mellinger and her daughter 13-year-old Madeleine, who were travelling to the Colgate Estate in Bennington to work as housekeepers.

Whilst aboard Jones wrote a letter to Mr Foot, thanking him for his hospitality (the letter was still in the hands of Foot's family until recently) and he also shared social time with two English men, Arthur Gee and Algernon Barkworth, among others (including possibly Howard Case). Barkworth, the only survivor among the group, later recounted:

"... Coming over I made the acquaintance of two most agreeable chaps... One was a chap named Jones, who was a sort of farmer, he told me, up in Vermont. I think he had once lived in England for he could imitate the Dorset shepherds to perfection. The other man was A. H. Gee. He was coming over to take a job as manager of a linen mill near Mexico City. I was discussing in the smoking room with them late on Sunday night the science of good road building in which I am keenly interested..."

Following the collision Barkworth later met up with his shipboard acquaintances. Following all workable lifeboats having cleared the ship, Barkworth made preparations to save himself by jumping overboard and swimming for it. He last saw Charles Jones and Arthur Gee with their arms folded upon a railing, perhaps resigned to dying.

Mr Jones died in the sinking; his body was recovered by the MacKay Bennett (#80) and was delivered to Dr. James H. Donnelly on May 1, 1912 for transportation to Bennington, Vermont.

What became of Charles' widow Ida is uncertain although she is believed to have died in the mid-1920s.