Jones, Thomas Rosenell

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Elizabeth W. McGahan, “JONES, THOMAS ROSENELL (Rosenelle),” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 13, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/jones_thomas_rosenell_13E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Businessman and politician; b. 12 Sept. 1825 in Saint John, N.B., son of John Jones and Eliza Rosenell; d. there 10 April 1901.
    • A descendant of pre-loyalist and loyalist settlers, Thomas Rosenell Jones was educated in Saint John until he was 13, completing his studies at the commercial school of Thomas Addison and his son. He became a clerk around 1840, and after a few years he went to Fredericton, where for about three and a half years he assisted in managing its branch of the boot and shoe business of Stephen Kent Foster.
    • Returning to his native city in 1849, Jones opened his own store as a retailer of clothing and furnishing goods. Business grew, and within 20 years he had become one of the largest dry-goods wholesalers and manufacturers in the region. In the early 1870s the firm moved from King Street to Canterbury Street, where Jones established a manufactory with more than 100 employees which made clothing, especially shirts, “suitable to the country trade,” and sold its products across the Maritimes. By the late 1870s T. R. Jones and Company had one of the most extensive establishments in Saint John. 
    • During the early 1860s it had become apparent that a major restructuring of continental and transatlantic transport systems was imminent, and Jones had recognized that the future prosperity of a city would depend on its links within a larger system. As a Saint John city councilman between 1860 and 1868, he was a major supporter of the city’s investment in the Western Extension railway, of which he was a director. By 1871 the railway had been constructed along much of the west-side waterfront.
    • He was among the proponents of greater business control over the city’s transport assets, claiming in 1873 that “little or nothing could be done” towards improving the port until the Common Council ceased to administer it. What was particularly needed was a waterfront railway on the east side of the harbour. Realizing that the city alone could not assume the fiscal burden for this line, he and his colleagues on the board urged the federal government to extend the Intercolonial Railway. By the end of the 1870s an extension had been completed. Saint John’s two peninsulas now had railways but no connecting railway bridge and it was recognized that rail service to the port was inefficient without one.
    • In the fall of 1880 the signing of the contract for the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway focused the attention of the Saint John business community on the city’s future role in a national transportation system. The lack of a connection between the railways was again brought to notice, and early in 1881 Jones travelled to Ottawa seeking funds for a project which would join them. In March he was one of the incorporators of the Saint John Bridge and Railway Extension Company, created for that purpose, but he and his colleagues failed to secure the necessary investment capital. They were, however, enabled to proceed thanks to a federal loan obtained in 1883 with the help of Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley, minister of finance and mp for Saint John City. Construction of the railway link and its bridge over the Reversing Falls was completed in 1885.
  • Great Grandson of Proven United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=6067
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/215645819/thomas-rosenell-jones