Jones, Joseph, 1833-1896. | Tulane University Special Collections

Joseph Jones was born September 6, 1833, the second son of Charles Colcock Jones, Sr., a Presbyterian minister from Liberty County, Georgia. He attended the College of New Jersey at Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania. Jones began teaching in 1856 at Savannah Medical College, and later at the University of Georgia as well as the Medical College of Georgia. In 1858 he married Caroline Smelt Davis of Augusta, Georgia. Jones served in the Confederate military forces as Surgeon Major throughout most of the war. He conducted studies of the diseases and injuries in Confederate hospitals and prisons, particularly Andersonville. Because of his activities at Andersonville, Jones was summoned as a witness at the trial of Henry Wirz.

After the Civil War, Jones joined the faculty of the University of Nashville Medical School. Two years later, he accepted a position at the University of Louisiana (later Tulane University). His wife died in 1868, and in 1870, he married Susan Raynor Polk, daughter of the Episcopal bishop of Louisiana. Joseph Jones' children were: Mary Cuthbert (from his first marriage), Frances Devereaux, Hamilton Polk, and Laura Maxwell. In 1872 Jones was appointed to the Chair of Chemistry and Clinical Medicine at the University of Louisiana, which he held until 1893 when he resigned due to ill health. He died in New Orleans, Louisiana, on February 17, 1896.