From These Roots

Leslie Augustus Jones was born on July 21, 1879, in Orangeburg County, South Carolina to parents James Alfred Jones and Cornelia Wannamaker Jones. Leslie was the oldest of about six children and his father was a farmer and a postmaster. The family moved to Salley, SC when Leslie was a kid and he attended the Salley Graded School and the Orangeburg Collegiate Institute.

Jones furthered his studies at Furman University and graduated in 1902. During his time at Furman, he was a member of the Philosophian Society. Later that year, he became the principal of Ridge Springs High School. Jones stayed at Ridge Springs for two years.

                In 1904, Jones accepted the position as the sixth principal of North Greenville High School. Right away, Jones noticed that the new men’s dorm at North Greenville desperately needed to be completed. So, in his first report South Carolina’s Southern Baptist newspaper, the Baptist Courier, he put out a plea for donations towards the new dorm. He wrote, “The cost of furnishing a room in the dormitory will be about fifteen dollars, and we trust those who have read what has been said will lend a helping hand. Perhaps some friend, some church would like to furnish a room. To better humanity at large, to better the state, to better the cause of Christianity, give the boys and girls an education.”

                When the time came to decide if he would stay at North Greenville for another year, he agreed to do so with stipulations. His stipulations were that the men’s dorm construction be completed, a new well dug, the main school building be pained inside and out, and that new seats be furnished. The trustees agreed to try their best to meet all of Jones’s stipulations. The campus improvements were slow in coming, but Jones remained patient through it all.

                One of the most important things to happen to North Greenville under Jones’s administration was a new partnership with the South Carolina Baptist Convention’s Home Mission Board. The Home Mission Board had started a new ministry of Mountain Mission Schools intended to give young people in the Appalachian Mountains a Christian education. The Home Mission Board supported their Mountain Mission Schools financially and North Greenville joined the program in 1905. It was through this financial help that North Greenville was able to build a new administration building that was completed in 1906. The original school building was moved to the side and converted into the first dorm for women on campus.

                North Greenville did very well under Jones’s leadership. Each summer, Jones would go around on horseback for two months canvasing the state for more students. These travels are likely the reason the enrollment rose steadily during his time at the school.

                After six years in Tigerville, Jones left North Greenville in 1910 to become the principal of another Southern Baptist Convention Mountain Mission School named the Barbourville Baptist Institute in Kentucky. He stayed at Barbourville for a couple of years before becoming principal at a third SBC Mountain Mission School named Unaka Academy in Erwin, Tennessee.

                Jones returned to Salley, SC in 1913 to become the principal of Salley High School. After one year at Salley, he became the principal at North High School. He stayed at North High School until 1919 when he left the field of education to take a job in the War Risk Insurance Bureau and later an auditing job with the Income Tax Division of the government in Washington, D.C. By 1921, Jones was promoted to the position of Revenue Inspector for South Carolina, and his headquarters was in Greenville. Eventually, he transferred to Aiken, which was much closer to his hometown of Salley, SC. This allowed him to be near his brothers and their families.

                In February 1935, Jones became a hero while traveling to Orangeburg with his brother. As their car was headed down the road, a woman frantically started waving them down. When they looked in the direction she was pointing, they saw a house on fire. The brothers ran to the woman’s aide and discovered that her child was still in the burning house. Jones ran into the house, grabbed the child, and both were able to escape without injury. The brothers helped to extinguish the fire before resuming their road trip.

                Saving the child from the burning house would be one of the last major events of Jones’s life. Leslie Augustus Jones passed away on July 23, 1935. Jones never married or had children of his own, but he was very close to his brothers and their families. He is buried in the Salley Oakview Cemetery and the inscription on his tombstone states, “To live in the hearts we leave is not to die.”