The History of the Jones Family
In Philadelphia,
on June 11, 1842, Joseph T[homas] Jones was born to Albanus A. Jones and Jane
Thomas. His parents were English
immigrants attracted to the Unites States by the Quaker mode of life and the
earlier arrival of his mother’s brother.
Joseph T. Jones’ father had died when he was one year old and his mother
raised him and his sister. His uncle, a building
contractor, was an important influence in his youth.
Civil War
After successfully completing his education, in order to sustain himself and his
family, on September 10, 1861, at 19, Joseph enlisted in the military service
for three years as third sergeant in Company H and was given rifle number 78. He
was 5 feet 7 inches tall, of light complexion, and light hair.
On May 1862, he was promoted to second sergeant. He fought at the battle
of Gettysburg and was remarked as a courageous, industrious and tenacious
soldier. He was accepted as a commissioned officer on June 18, 1863, becoming
second lieutenant on July 16, 1863. According to military documents of the
period, his nickname was “Josie” and he was well liked by his men.
He was appointed “acting” captain in May 1864.
He was severely
wounded in both feet on June 2, 1864 at the battle of Cold Harbor. Apparently,
all his life he would have difficulty walking because of his war wounds. On July
7, 1864, he received a twenty days leave. On August
28, 1864, he received his command as Captain. He was discharged from
military duties on October 1st
1864 (or September 23, 1864; documents record 2 dates) because of a physical
disability resulting from wounds received at Cold Harbor. On October 7, 1864, he
applied for a military pension that was denied. He went back to Philadelphia and
with the money he had saved from his military pay, he took care of his mother
and, being crippled, learned to walk with crutches.
The Oil Producer
In 1865 he left
Philadelphia for the Cherry Run district above Rouseville in western
Pennsylvania to take advantage of discovery of oil. The city is located six
miles north of Oil City, on Oil Creek and 16 miles south of Titusville where on
August 27, 1858, Colonel Drake discovered bed rock oil for the Seneca Oil
Company which was eager to dominate the emerging interest in kerosene which had
been found as a suitable alternative to whale oil as a primary lamp fuel. Using
what was left of his military money ($2,500; $32,000 in today's dollar value), and
borrowing from local banks investing in the Pennsylvania oil boom, Jones
successively bought twelve leases and drilled wells that were dry. By then he
was $6,000 in debt. He was finally successful in the winter of 1867, on the 13th
try, with a well located at Shaw Farm on a hill above Cherry Run.
As oil transportation from the well was
difficult in the winter, he stored the oil harvested on site and sold his first
full production at the end of winter for $90,000 ($10,625,000 in today's dollar value). He paid his debts, bought new
leases that were successful, and constructed a pipeline to be able to evacuate
his oil production to a railroad line no matter the season. In 1872 he
consolidated his operations in Venango County (PA) and purchased leases and oil
in Clarion County. In 1877 he merged his operation with Standard Oil started in
1870 by John D. Rockfeller as an Ohio oil company.
On October 15,
1876, Jones married Melodia Elizabeth (Lou) Blackmarr who was the daughter of
Rev. R. L. Blackmarr, the minister of
the Methodist Episcopal Church in Venango county. She was born in Sinclairville,
Chautauqua County, New York. She attended schools in New York and Pennsylvania
in Perrysburg, Lima and Farmington. She received her higher education at Mt.
Union College in Alliance, Ohio where she graduated in 1871.
Lewis Miller, the industrialist, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, and
co-founder of the college, was a resident of the city of Chautauqua. O.N.
Hartshorn, co-founder of that institution and its first president, often
referred to Mount Union as a "cosmic institution for the people." Hartshorn
listed among the distinctive features of Mount Union College during the latter
half of the l9th century : the early emphasis upon coeducation, elective
studies, summer instruction and the four term plan, economy of expense,
illustrative and integral education. Although
Mount Union was not sponsored nor founded by a religious denomination, it did
acquire the patronage of the Methodist Episcopal Church during the Civil War
years. This recognition added respect and dignity to the institution but failed
to help solve the perennial problem of its indebtedness. Melodia E. Jones was to
remember her college and its financial plea; in her will she left $50,000 for Mt
Union for its general endowment of the Humanities.
At the time of his
marriage, Joseph T. Jones had the largest extensive individual production in the
Bradford oil fields. He owned 500 producing wells and leases for 200 more. In
1877, after merging his oil operations with Rockfeller’s Standard Oil, and
following his wedding, he moved to Bradford (PA), the “World’s First Billion
Dollar Oilfield.” With a few
partners he incorporated the Bradford Oil Company and rapidly became its sole
owner. In 1877 with other oil barons, he established the Bradford Oil Exchange
that, on 33 Main Street, controlled the oil market and the price of oil in that
part of Pennsylvania. In Bradford, documents show that the BOE recorded on
average one million dollars in transactions daily. The highest production year
was 1881, when more than 22 million barrels (a barrel of crude measures 42
gallons) were harvested. In addition to his financial interest in oil, Joseph T.
Jones became a major stockholder in the Atlantic Pipe Line Company.
Today Bradford may
appear to be a small sleepy town on the border between Pennsylvania and New
York. At the time of the oil boom it was a cosmopolitan “boom town” of 11,000
inhabitants boasting a tramway. A document describes life there in the early
1880’s as : “ Up-to-date transportation,
Bradford could boast an opera house and numerous hotels. It could also boast
several stores, offering everything from clothing, furniture and jewelry to
medicine, groceries and meats – just to note a few. Along with household needs,
Bradford merchants furnished livestock feed and supplies, guns and ammunition,
and oilfield supplies and equipment. Launderers, photographers, milliners and
tailors offered their services to city residents and visitors alike. “ (Linda K.
Delaney, The Gamble for Glory,
Bradford : Forest Press, 2007, 14).
According to the 1880 census, Jones owned a comfortable hotel located on 94
Mechanic Street, between Bank street and School street, that was the official
residence of his family. His profession is listed as “Oil Producer.” The Jones
had a three-year old son, Joseph
Albert. Later that year, in September, a
daughter, Grace, was born; Melodia E. Jones was 36 years old.
The Industrialist and Financier
Following the
steady decline of the price of a barrel of crude in the 1880’s to the late
1890’s from 80¢
to 64¢ and the sharp decline
in oil production, Jones decided to diversify and invested in different
industries around Sistersville in West Virginia on the Ohio river. He was a
registered Republican and in 1888 he was appointed a Presidential elector from
Pennsylvania for Benjamin Harrison who was elected even if he did not receive
the greatest number of popular votes (Grover Cleveland did).
In 1891 Jones and his family moved to
Buffalo, New York; at that time with Chicago, the greatest city of the Great
Lakes region. Jones invested in flour milling, wheat storage and paper
manufacturing industries in Niagara Falls. They lived in local hotels while
their residence was being built at 1192 Delaware Avenue, to this day one the
most sumptuous residences of the Buffalo “Champs Elysées.”
The house had been paid in full when they moved in with a one resident
servant in 1892. In 1893 Jones bought the Niagara Gorge Railroad Company in
Buffalo and transformed it into an international railroad scenic attraction that
was extremely successful and single handedly boosted the touristic attraction of
the Niagara falls by providing a direct link between the falls and Canada.
In 1895, with three partners, Jones formed the Bradford Construction
Company first to harvest 63,000 acres and after a few years 108,229 acres of
prime timber around Saratoga, Mississippi. Soon Jones understood that he needed
to have an accessible transportation system to move the timber to a main city
where it could be sold. The Gulf & Ship Island Railroad had been issued in 1850
a Charter to create a railroad from Gulfport to the northern part of Mississippi
but the project was interrupted by the Civil War. In 1882 a new Charter was
issued and the grading of the railroad was completed
to Hattiesburg. In 1892 the company went in receivership. Joseph T. Jones
bought it in 1895 as it was an answer to his need for fast and reliable
transportation. In 1897 the railroad was completed between Gulfport and
Hattiesburg. In 1899 the G & S I company purchased secondary railroads in the
area, in particular the Laurel and Tallahoma Western Railway that was serving
many timber companies between Laurel and Mize. The line was extended from Mize
to Saratoga and in 1900 the line connected Jackson to Laurel and the G & S I was
almost completed from Gulfport to Jackson. The first full journey from Gulfport
to Laurel took place in 1905. The
Company owned approximately one-hundred sixty miles of standard gauge main
lines, about one-hundred forty-seven miles of branch lines and one-hundred six
miles of track in Gulfport. In addition, the Company controlled a six mile
channel connecting the railroad to Ship Island. According to the G & S I
official records, in 1907 G & S I transported annually 800 million board feet of
lumber. On July 1925, the Illinois Central railroad company purchased the G & S
I for $5,000,000 cash and assumed a debt of $3,000,000.
The success of the
G & S I railroad was entirely predicated on the capacity of the harbor at
Gulfport to export the timber produced by the lumber mills of southern
Mississippi. There too Jones discovered that the situation was less than ideal.
He
requested that Congress authorize a study on dredging a channel to
connect Ship Island harbor with the railroad pier at Gulfport that had been
chosen by the previous owner of the railroad, William Harris Hardy, who had
selected an undeveloped area of the coast. The study showed that the cost of the
dredging work could not be justified by possible revenue and recommended that
any harbor installation be located in the neighboring town of Biloxi.
Jones wanted to be able to control his own terminal and pier and
therefore, starting in 1897, invested millions of dollars by building the
Gulfport Harbor, dredging the channel to Ship Island, and developing Gulfport.
In so doing, he became
"The Grand Old Man of Gulfport." Although he owned a vast track of land north of
the city, he built the Great Southern Hotel at Gulfport to serve
as his residence in the South.
Buffalo and the Pan-American
Tragedy
In 1987 Buffalo
began preparations for the Pan-American Exposition of 1901 that was going to
take place there from May 1 to November 2, 1901 on a 342 acre site between
Delaware Park Lake on the south, the New York Central railroad tracks on the
north, Delaware Avenue on the east, and Elmwood Avenue on the west. The city and
its industrialists had a great ambition to showcase the city that was the second
city of the state of New York and an economic success by every standard. Jones
was one of the Associates of John
Milburn, the President of the Company in charge of the
Pan-American expo and several of his
industrial ventures in the city would be involved in the features of the expo.
When it became apparent in January 1901 that the expo needed more money
immediately so that many buildings and the center of activities could be
completed on time Jones subscribed for $100,000 worth of bonds of the
Pan-American Exposition in addition to his $25,000 stock subscription. The local
press celebrated Jones for his action indicating that his large subscription was
an act of confidence in these securities as an investment. Many other investors
then followed Jones’ decision and the preparatory work for the Pan-American expo
was completed on time. Between
8,000,000 and 11,000,000 visitors went through the expo, less than expected
(12,000.000). As a result the exposition had lost over $6,000,000 and the
Company in charge of the expo would have to default on over $3.5 million in
bonds. Certainly Buffalo was now an
internationally known city at the level of Chicago and New York, and it had been
able to foreground latest technologies,
including electricity and transportation.
The financial debacle, however was not the worst result of the
enterprise. The Pan-Am exposition was the occasion of one of the most tragic
assassination in the history of the United States. In the afternoon of September
6, the anarchist Leon Franz Czolgosz shot the President William McKinley who was
on an official visit to the Pan-Am Expo. The President died eight days later at
the home of John Milburn on Delaware Avenue. Theodore Roosevelt was inaugurated
President at the Wilcox House on September 14, 1901, a house situated across the
street from the Jones house. On the morning of his assassination President
McKinley had been visiting Niagara Falls with his wife in the Jones’ car of the
Niagara Gorge Railway and the Jones were immediately behind him when he entered
the Temple of Music where the assassination will take place.
During the first decade of the twentieth century, in 1900, 1901, 1904-05, 1906, 1907 severe hurricanes extensively damaged Gulfport and its area. Jones always rebuilt his properties which were damaged ; this created a large drain on his own money. In addition, the financial panic of 1907 caused by the downfall of the Knickerbocker Trust Company—New York City's third-largest trust brought about a widespread financial panic that resulted in a retraction of market liquidity by a number of New York City banks. No credit was available and it was a major complication for Jones who had just deposited $150,000 in his account at the Knickerbocker Trust Company to cover his railroad bond interest payments. Without access to liquidity and in need of immediate funds to cover this loss and pay his financial obligations, Jones was forced to sell his Sistersville investments, and many industrial and real estate properties including his own home on Delaware Avenue in Buffalo.
That year Melodia E. Jones, bought a new family house on 297 North Street. The
rental revenue of the house (now the historical Bemis-Ransom house) had been
bequeathed by the last owner, Mrs. Thornton Campbell, who died in 1903, to the
Church Charity Foundation of the Episcopal Church. The executors of Mrs.
Campbell’s estate accepted the sale of the house so that they could use the
money for the construction of a new building in the memory of Mrs. Campbell’s
father. Since then, three
generations of the Jones family have lived at this Buffalo address for almost
fifty years.
Fortunately, during the fateful year of 1907, Joseph T. Jones did not divest his
Mississippi industrial holdings and, as the weather improved, Gulfport became a
remarkable source of income. According to the local archives, from 1910 through
1913, the Port of Gulfport shipped and exported more timber than any other port
in not just the US, but the world. On December 25, 1911, Christmas day, Joseph
and Melodia Jones’ son, Albert, died.
The Melodia E. Jones Legacy
Joseph T. Jones died at the Buffalo family home on December 13, 1916
; his death, due to a protracted illness, was not
unexpected. In the afternoon of December 14 the body was laid to rest
in the Jones mausoleum in the Forest Lawn cemetery downtown Buffalo. As a very
well educated lady Melodia E. Jones
had always maintained close contact with her husband’s affairs and due to his
limited capacity to move in his old age had often been the one that actually
signed the contracts for business related to the family life as was the case for
the purchase of the new family home. She naturally took over the management of
his properties after his death and became the president of the Niagara Gorge
Railway and the Gulf and Ship Island Railway running through Mississippi from
Jackson to Gulfport. She also supervised the Jones activities related to the
port of Gulfport. In her business capacity her signature was “Mrs. Joseph T.
Jones” while her official marital name was “Mrs. Melodia E. Blackmarr Jones.”
It is clear that by not using any of these official names to establish
the Chair in her name she wanted to accentuate the personal and not the business
nature of the gift to the University of Buffalo.
The funds that were to be used to establish the distinguished Chair would
come from her own personal funds.
Melodia E. Jones’ capacity as a business woman was tested immediately on July 1st,
1917. On that day twelve passengers of the Niagara Gorge Railway died, and
twenty four tourists were injured when a trolley filled with passengers derailed
and plunged into the Niagara River at the upper end of the Whirlpool Rapids just
below the Whirlpool Bridge. This tragic accident was as a result of heavy rains
undermining the rail bed. The trolley rolled down a thirty foot embankment
coming to rest upside-down on several submerged rocks before rolling on to its
side and into the raging river. A customs officer had alerted the staff of the
Great Gorge Route of the unstable rail-bed approximately thirty minutes before
the accident and the trolleys were not stopped. As a result, every day after
this tragic event, Niagara Gorge Railway inspectors rode the belt line to ensure
safety before the line was open to members of the public.
Progressively Melodia E. Jones devoted her time and money to philanthropic
activities. In particular she
supported medical causes and public health. She founded the Association for the
Blind and provided the locale for the association at 180 Goodell street.
She also purchased a building at 708 Ellicott street to create the
headquarter of the Buffalo Tuberculosis Association and paid for the remodeling
of the building to provide modern clinic facilities. She created the Buffalo
branch of the Red Cross and found a locale for the new organization. Over the
years she contributed large sums of money to the Millard Fillmore Hospital. She
gave $20,000 to the buffalo Musical Foundation and $5,000 to the Grenville
Mission of Nova Scotia. She gave her Gulfport home, a property with considerable
acreage, to the local municipality for a public park and the downtown library.
As part of her philanthropic activities, in 1929 she pledged $125,000
specifically for the creation of a
“French Professorship” at the University of Buffalo and made a $50,000 donation
to her Alma Mater, Mt Union College in Alliance, Ohio.
She occupied an important social position in the cultural and social life of
Buffalo. She was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the
Twentieth Century Club, The Town Club, The College Club, The American
Association of University Women and the Buffalo Tuberculosis Association. Her
gift for the establishment of endowments of Chairs for French studies at the
University of Buffalo and Mt Union College brought her the official recognition
of the French Republic and she was awarded the membership in the Legion of
Honor.
In 1930 her health started to
deteriorate and she became a recluse with her daughter increasingly in charge of
the family affairs. Melodia E. Jones died on March 13, 1931 and was laid to rest
in the Jones mausoleum in the Forest Lawn cemetery in downtown Buffalo.
The History of the Jones
Distinguished Chair.
According to the “reminiscences”
of Julian Park, first Dean of Arts and Sciences (1919-1954)1 at the
University of Buffalo, the history of the Melodia E. Jones Chair started during
the University of Buffalo Endowment Fund Campaign of 1929 which raised a total
of $5,000,000. As a member of the
College Club, Mrs. Joseph T. Jones was solicited for a donation and she
suggested that her contribution could add “another teacher to the faculty.”
She restricted the choice to a “native-born Frenchman.”
She conceived the position as “something different from the conventional”
and simply indicated that she did not necessarily want to support the
appointment of an “academic person” but an “ambassador of French culture.”
Also it was not required that the appointee would “lecture exclusively on
French literature” but on any type of discipline as long as it was done so as to
cover a French topic. According to Dean Park, journalism, philosophy, etc. could
be represented. As the original donation was for $25,000 it was judged
insufficient to appoint a holder of the chair for a full scholastic year; on the
basis of the French academic schedule, it was accepted that the lecturer would
come for the first semester so as to be able to return to the French university
system in November. However, when
the negotiations were concluded and the campaign over, a legal agreement was
signed between the representative of Mrs. Jones [L.S.] and the university
treasurer for an endowment of $125,000 ($5,255,000 in today's dollars) that was to be paid by January 30, 1930
for the purpose of “establishing, and endowing in perpetuity, a Professorship in
French at the University of Buffalo.” A
second article of the letter of agreement outlined the specific aspects of the
Professorship: “The University will forthwith establish and maintain in
perpetuity a Chair of Instruction in its College of Arts and Sciences to be
designated and known as, ‘THE MELODIA E. JONES PROFESSORSHIP IN FRENCH.’ […] And
that the said gift of $125,000.00 shall be maintained as a separate fund for the
establishment of the said Chair in French, to be filled by a native of France of
high scholastic standing.” The
internal documents of the campaign recorded the deed but modified the second
close to read “to be filled by a native of France of high scholastic
attainments.” The official internal document of the University of Buffalo in its
listing of the distinguished Chairs recorded the wording of the documents of the
1929 Campaign and not the wording of the legal agreement; thus it reads : “ to
be filled by a native of France, of high scholastic attainments.”2
Mrs. Jones’ gift to the University was the 5th highest in that
campaign, the major donation being a gift of $1,000,000 by the Schoellkopf
Foundation “for whatever purposes the members of the Council may deem to be in
the best interests of the University.” There was also the gift of $500,000 by
Mr. Thomas B. Lockwood, “to build Lockwood Memorial Library.” No other major
donation stated as its purpose the endowment of a teaching position.
On December
1930, Mrs. Melodia E. Jones wrote a letter to the Chairman of the Board of
Trustees of the University of Buffalo complaining that although she had paid
$25,000, no appointment had been made even if she had complemented that sum with
“other moneys for the French language Department.” In the same letter she
suggests that if an appointee cannot be found, the money paid can be used to
create a French house “in which the French language is spoken exclusively” and
she gives the example of the University of Cleveland.
She further requests that the money be used at least for fall 1930.3
The ”controversy”
was apparently the result of the fact that Mrs. Joseph T. Jones had only paid a
deposit of $25,000 by the date stated in the official agreement signed at the
end of the 1929 Campaign. Mrs. Jones’ letter was accompanied by a letter from
her lawyer indicating that it was a “rather serious situation that has to be
carefully handled.”4 The letter was also sent to Dr. Samuel F. Capen,
Chancellor of the University of Buffalo. In that letter, Walter P. Cooks
recommended using a friendly intermediary to help resolve the ‘controversy” : “
in the first instance a call by Mr. Baird and yourself will be better.”5
The mediation suggested seems to have worked and a strategy was agreed
upon, Mr. Baird would ask his wife, Mrs. Baird, to communicate directly with
Mrs. Jones to propose that since the deadline by which she was supposed to pay
the full amount “is past,” a new date, left at her discretion, would have to be
determined. One has to remember that this discussion is taking place during a
time of great financial turmoil and thus, probably, it was decided not to
pressure Mrs. Jones during this difficult period and to give her the
responsibility of deciding when she would be able to finalize the term of the
agreement signed in October 1929. So the letter to Mrs. Baird indicates: “I am
leaving blank the date by which Mrs. Jones agrees to pay. She probably wants to
determine that date herself.”6
The Treasurer of
the university who, it seems, was in charge of the negotiations, did not receive
any answer from Mrs. Baird, nor from Mr. Baird, and thus, on January 14, fearing
that Mrs. Jones would follow up on her threat to forfeit the rest of her
donation, sent by special messenger (Miss Brugge) a note to Walter P. Cook, Mrs.
Jones’ lawyer in which he outlines what has been done : “I have not heard
further about it and am just hoping that something has been done, or will be
done before the fifteenth.”7
The deadline
passes and on February 6, 1931, Mrs. Jones’ lawyer writes to George D. Crofts
and suggests accommodating Mrs. Jones new understanding of the endowed teaching
position until she pays the full amount: “ If she wants such income as we have,
spent for teaching of conversational French, I do not see any reason why we
should not comply with her request until she pays us enough so that the income
is enough to supply a professor. Our attitude with her should be, first, to get
it clear that what she is now suggesting is different from what she asked at the
start, and, second, that within reason we want to do anything she wants.“ In his
final sentence he includes a remark that is quite relevant : “After three weeks’
trial, have not been able to get in
the front door, but I really think that she is a sick woman.”8
Mrs.
Jones died on March 13, 1931. No
correspondence on the creation of the Melodia E. Jones exists in the archives
for the period between February 1931 and November of the same year. A letter,
dated November 7, 1931, from George D. Crofts to Mrs. Woodford T. Stewart (the
Jones’ daughter) thanked her for a check of $100,000 “in full payment of the
balance of your mother’s generous pledge to the University for the endowment of
a Professorship in French Literature.”9
Following the felicitous resolution of the Melodia E. Jones endowment, it seems
that the University administration found a candidate for the first appointment
and informed the estate of Mrs. Jones of the decision. In the report of the Dean
of the College of Arts and Sciences dated August 10, 1932 there is just a
sentence: “The [Mrs] Joseph T. Jones chair of French studies was inaugurated by
Bernard Faÿ, of the Collège de France, who was in residence from the beginning
of the semester to the second week in December. No choice could have been
happier, from every point of view, scholarly and personal.”10
In a letter dated July 13,
1932, “Grace Jones Stewart” [Mrs. Woodford T. Stewart] thanked S. Capen,
Chancellor of the University of Buffalo, for fulfilling the “wish” of her mother
by appointing a first holder to her named Chair ; apparently Chancellor Capen
requested her approval for the appointment: “I thank you for referring the
question of the designation of the chair of French founded by my Mother at the
University of Buffalo, to me. It is a courtesy that I sincerely appreciate. [..]
I feel sure that Mr. M. Bernard Faÿ will bring great distinction to the chair
and I feel that you have made a very happy choice.”11
Since the academic year 32-33, 54 Professors or Lecturers have held the Melodia
E. Jones Chair at the University of Buffalo or under the SUNY system at the
University at Buffalo. With the prestigious appointments of Raymond Las Vergnas,
André Maurois, J.H. Bornecque, Pierre Emmanuel, Michel Butor, Michel Foucault,
Roland Barthes, Hélène Cixous, Geoffrey Hartman, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Serres,
René Girard, Jacques Derrida, Louis Morin, etc. and more recently Roland Le
Huenen, Raymond Federman and Gérard Bucher, the “wish” of Melodia E. Jones has
been realized and her gift created
the most prestigious Chair for French studies in the US, a significant aspect of
the internationalization and drive for excellence of the University at Buffalo.
NOTES
1.
Julian Park, Remembrance of Things Past,
unpublished papers of Julian Park, Library of the University at Buffalo, SUNY,[s.d.],
pp. 41-42.
2.
On this document describing the Melodia E. Jones "Professorship in French” a
handwritten note dated 12/18/86 and signed (A) or (JA) confirms the official
description of the chair. The date corresponds to the date of appointment of
Roland Le Huenen, as he was the first holder appointed to a permanent position.
3.
Letter from Mrs. Joseph T. Jones, dated December 23, 1930 addressed to the Hon.
Walter Platt Cooke, Chairman of the Board of Trustees. Melodia E. Jones
documents, Archives, University at Buffalo, SUNY.
4.
Letter from Walter P. Cooks, from the firm of Kenefick, Cooke, Mitchell. Bass &
Letchworth to George D. Crofts, Treasurer of the University of Buffalo, dated
December 31, 1930. Melodia E. Jones documents, Archives, University at Buffalo,
SUNY.
5.
Letter from Walter P. Cooks, from the firm of Kenefick, Cooke, Mitchell. Bass &
Letchworth to Dr. Samuel F. Capen, Chancellor of the University of Buffalo,
dated December 30, 1930. Melodia E. Jones documents, Archives, University at
Buffalo, SUNY.
6.
Letter from unknown author (no signature, initials CDC.B) to Mrs
Frank B. Baird, dated January 9, 1931. Melodia E. Jones documents,
Archives, University at Buffalo, SUNY.
7.
Letter from unknown [George D. Crofts] to Walter P. Cooks, from the firm of
Kenefick, Cooke, Mitchell. Bass & Letchworth, dated January 14, 1931. Melodia E.
Jones documents, Archives, University at Buffalo, SUNY.
8.
Letter from Walter P. Cooks, from the firm of Kenefick, Cooke, Mitchell. Bass &
Letchworth to George D. Crofts, Treasurer of the University of Buffalo, dated
February 6, 1931. Melodia E. Jones documents, Archives, University at Buffalo,
SUNY.
9.
Letter from George D. Crofts to Mrs. Woodford T. Stewart, dated November 7,
1931. Melodia E. Jones documents, Archives, University at Buffalo, SUNY.
10.
Report [academic year 32-33] of the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences,
August 10, 1933. Archives, University at Buffalo, SUNY.
11.
Letter from Grace Jones Stewart to Mr. S. Capen, Chancellor, University of
Buffalo, dated July 13th, 1932.
Melodia E. Jones documents, Archives, University at Buffalo, SUNY.