Tavern Treasures

“I write a few lines to let you know I am well.” So starts Edward Jones’ letter to his father, William Pitt Jones, on November 17, 1836, detailing his sometimes harrowing, always fascinating journey from Boston to Middletown, Ohio. Edward went west to start his life anew in a place which offered him more affordable land and greater opportunity than he could find in Weston. The letter and the fuller story of Edward's life in Ohio shed light on a period of history less well known but no less interesting than the Revolutionary War times that preceded it or the Civil War times that followed.