St. Paul's Millionaire

For the most part the parishioners of St. Paul’s over the past 150 years have not been rich or famous people, but the ordinary faithful folk of Monongahela. There is, however, one notable exception, a bona fide millionaire coal baron. Mr. William Ivill Jones worshiped with his wife and young children at St. Paul’s Church. Jones was quite active in the life of the church. He served as a vestryman and, for a time, as junior warden. The Jones family donated one of the stained glass windows on the north side of the church.

Jones’ father owned the Pittsburgh-Buffalo Company which operated coal mines all over western Pennsylvania. William Jones was the secretary of the firm. He was a well loved figure in turn-of-the-century Monongahela and was involved in many community organizations and beneficent orders.

When he unexpectedly died at age thirty-five in 1905, his funeral was one of the most heavily attended and extravagant services ever held in our church. Below is the Monongahela Valley Republican’s account of the funeral, dated December 7, 1905:

Grave Closes Over Honored Citizen
Hundreds of Sorrowing Friends Brave the Chilly
Weather to do Homage to all That is Mortal
of William Ivill Jones.

The vast concourse of people who turned out Sunday afternoon to attend the funeral of W. I. Jones at St. Paul's Episcopal Church was a touching and fitting tribute to the man and speaks volumes for the esteem in which he was held. All classes of people from every walk of life honored and respected him and it was therefore not surprising that the church was unable to furnish even standing room for those who gathered to do homage to the man, whose friends were legion, and to take one parting look at those once comely features now cold in death.

Shortly after two o'clock the cortege left the late home on East Main Street. Mr. Jones' two brothers-in-law, William Holsing, of Canonsburg, and James Ternent, of this city, and his four brothers acted as pall-bearers at house and at the cemetery. At the church the Elks had charge of the services and R. E. Byers, Prof. C. B. Wolford, F. B. Wickerham, James P. Moore, F. R. Colvin and Fred Cooper were the pall-bearers. The beautiful Episcopal ritual was used, however, and Rev. J. P. Norman read a passage from the fifteenth chapter of Corinthians, commencing with the 20th verse.

The church was entirely filled, with the exception of a few seats in front reserved for the family and immediate friends, when a dirge, sadly beautiful, was played on the pipe organ by Prof. Grundhoffer and the surpliced choir-boys marched down the center aisle, followed by the members of the choir and the pall-bearers, who slowly bore the rich casket in which silently reposed all that was mortal of William Ivill Jones. Then came the heartbroken widow, the three little children, the grey-haired father and the bereaved brothers and sisters. All hearts go out to Mrs. Jones and her children in the hour of their affliction...