John Luther Jones

Jackson was where Jones's life was settled. He married Janie Brady at St. Mary's Catholic Church on November 25, 1886, after being baptized in Alabama to please her. He fired for the Mobile and Ohio, switched to the Illinois Central in 1888, and was made engineer on February 23, 1891, running freight between Jackson and Water Valley, Mississippi. After the wreck at Vaughan, his body came home by train. The funeral was held on May 2, 1900, at St. Mary's, and fifteen enginemen from Water Valley rode 118 miles to attend before he was buried at Mount Calvary.

What the plaque says

John Luther Jones Born, ~1864, in Missouri, he spent his youth in Cayce, Ky., whence the nickname, "Casey". An engineer on the Illinois Central RR, he was killed in a wreck at Vaughan, Miss., Apr. 29, 1900. He is buried here. The folksong originally sung by Wallace Saunders, Negro engine wiper in the roundhouse here, has preserved his memory.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Pinson Mounds State Archaeological Park — 12 mi
  The largest group of Middle Woodland mounds in the United States, about two thousand years old, with the second tallest mound in the country, a museum and paved trails.
• Tina Turner Museum at Flagg Grove School — 26 mi
  The one-room Black school Tina Turner attended in Nutbush, moved to Brownsville in 2012 and opened as a museum in 2014 beside Sleepy John Estes's house.

More markers nearby

• Lane College — 0.3 mi
• Occupation of Jackson — 1.3 mi
• Lambuth College — 1.3 mi
• 61st US Colored Infantry Regiment — 1.5 mi