George Noble Jones (1811–1876) was a wealthy American southern plantation owner who owned the

El Destino Plantation El Destino Plantation was a large forced-labor farm of located in western Jefferson County and eastern Leon County, Florida, United States established by John Nuttall in 1828. It was worked by enslaved African Americans (prior to the end of the ...

and

Chemonie Plantation Chemonie Plantation was a forced-labor farm of in northern Leon County, Florida, United States established by Hector Braden. By 1860, 64 enslaved people worked the land, which was primarily used to produce cotton as a cash crop. Location Chemo ...

. In 1839 he hired English architect

Richard Upjohn Richard Upjohn (22 January 1802 – 16 August 1878) was a British-born American architect who emigrated to the United States and became most famous for his Gothic Revival churches. He was partially responsible for launching the movement to su ...

to build a house on 253 Bellevue Avenue in

Newport, Rhode Island Newport is an American seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, ...

. Upjohn had earlier designed a Maine house for Jones' relatives. This house, one of the earliest summer "cottages" in Newport, was in 1863 renamed Kingscote by new owners. Kingscote, a classic Gothic Revival building, is now a National Historic Landmark and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. George Noble Jones was born in 1811 to Noble Wimberley Jones (1784-1818) and Sarah (Fenwick Campbell) Jones (1784-1843), families with a long colonial heritage. His ancestor, Noble Jones, established Wormsloe Plantation near Savannah, Georgia. On May 18, 1840, Jones married Mary Wallace Savage (Nuttall) (1812-1869) and purchased Chemonie as well as the Nuttall's El Destino Plantation. Jones was one of the first members of the elite gentlemen's club, the

Newport Reading Room The Newport Reading Room (also known as The Reading Room), founded in 1854, is a gentlemen's club located on Bellevue Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island, USA. Its primary building features an actual book reading room. The Spouting Rock Beach Associ ...

. When the Civil War broke out, he permanently left Newport and the North, returning to El Destino. George Noble Jones died in 1876 in Jefferson, FL.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, George Noble 19th-century American planters 1811 births 1876 deaths