1885–1961

Introduction

portrait

Born: De­cem­ber 12, 1885, York­ville, Geor­gia

Died: Ju­ly 5, 1961, Ful­ton Coun­ty, Geor­gia.

Buried: York­ville Ce­me­te­ry, Pauld­ing Coun­ty, Geor­gia.

Biography

Pledger was the son of Ben­ja­min Cul­lock Jones and Mar­jo­rie Eli­za­beth Dean, and hus­band of Tru­die Vash­ti Bone (mar­ried 1910).

At the age of 13, P. B. be­gan to write mu­sic and this pas­sion would lat­er de­vel­op in­to a life­long ca­reer…

Throughout the first years of [his] mar­riage, P. B. worked as a farm­er in Pauld­ing Coun­ty and start­ed the P. B. Jones Sing­ing School Class where he taught lo­cal child­ren and adults us­ing the shaped-note style tech­nique.

From 1931 to 1932, P. B. is list­ed as serv­ing in the Georg­ia House of Rep­re­sent­atives.

By the mid-1940s, the Jones fa­mi­ly had moved to Vi­lla Ri­ca in Car­roll Coun­ty where P. B. bought and owned the Pledg­er B. Jones Com­pa­ny, a fun­er­al home lo­cat­ed across Bankhead High­way from the rail­road tracks.

He al­so owned a ca­fé near the mill in Vil­la Ri­ca. His ca­fé may have been lo­cat­ed in Fullerville, the cen­ter of ma­ny tex­tile mills and a cou­ple miles north of Vil­la R­ica.

At some point P. B. and Tru­die moved to Dal­las [Tex­as] and then to south­west At­lan­ta

Throughout his life and re­gard­less of the ca­reer he oc­cu­pied, P. B. con­tinu­al­ly wrote songs. At the time of his death, he had wri­tten ap­proxi­mat­ely 400 hymns and a large ma­jo­ri­ty of these were pub­lished by J. M. Hen­son Mu­sic Com­pa­ny in At­lanta, Geor­gia.

Pledger B. Jones Fa­mi­ly Pa­pers, Uni­ver­si­ty of West Georg­ia

Sources

Lyrics

Music

Help Needed

If you know where to get a bet­ter pho­to of Jones,