A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans/Biography/Seward Allen Jones

One of the finest printing establishments of the State of Kansas is that conducted at Topeka by Seward A. Jones and A. D. Birch, who have been its proprietors since 1915. Mr. Jones is a practical printer of experience, having gained his training in this direction in the difficult school of newspaper life, and from the time he reached the age of sixteen years has been identified with type and presses. In his present business he is demonstrating the fact that he is a thorough master of every department of printing.

Seward Allen Jones was born March 25, 1869, in Randolph County, Illinois, and is a son of Alexander G. Jones, and a member of a family which came to America about the time of the American Revolution and has always been noted for its patriotism and for the men of prominence which it has given to the trades and the professions. His grandfather, Gabriel Jones, was a native of Virginia, who removed from the Old Dominion to Illinois in 1830, settling in Randolph County, and subsequently becoming a man of importance and known wide and favorably throughout Southern Illinois. Eight uncles of Seward Allen Jones (his mother's maiden name was also Jones) fought in the Civil war, and three lost their lives while in the service. Alexander G. Jones began business with Gabriel Jones, who later became his father-in-law, at the age of fourteen years, and continued as a merchant until 1912, in which year his wife died and he retired somewhat from active affairs, now making his home with his son, Seward A. In spite of the fact that he is nearly seventy-two years of age, he is as active, both in mind and body, as most men twenty years his junior, and still acts as a secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association, in the work of which he has always taken a helpful part.

At the age of sixteen years, after receiving a public school education, Seward Allen Jones took up the printing business, which he followed until 1885, at that time coming to Mitchell County, Kansas, and establishing the Scottsville News. A short time later he went to Beloit and bought the Beloit Weekly Call, which he changed to a daily, and made it the first daily in Mitchell County as well as the first in the Sixth Congressional District of Kansas. This he continued to publish with increasing success, developing its advertising and subscription list to large proportions, until 1904, when he sold out to advantage and went to Concordia, there becoming the founder of the Concordia Daily Blade. This publication he conducted for five years, at the end of which time he came to Topeka, where, upon the death of Mr. M. O. Frost, he bought the printing plant of his estate and soon built up a business which necessitated his securing larger quarters. Accordingly, in 1915, in partnership with Mr. A. D. Birch, he purchased a new plant and established a business at No. 923 Kansas Avenue, one of the best in the state. The proprietors have installed modern printing machinery of every kind, and are prepared to handle the best grade of work in any line in printing.

Mr. Jones is one of the business men of Topeka who realizes that civic prosperity assists greatly in business progress, and therefore is always willing to help his community in beneficial enterprises. In business circles he bears the reputation of being an honorable and straightforward business man, while in the printing trade he is recognized as a master of the craft.