Captain Allen Carter Jones is one of the best known and most popular men in Texas. He is, too, a self-made man; like so many of the hardy sons of Texas—having had no advantage in early life. His success is due to his unaided efforts, a keen business sagacity, and a prompt and decisive way of taking hold of things.

             His parents were A. C. and Mary Jane Jones, and his grandfather, Jacob Jones, was a Captain in the revolutionary war, ('76.) He was born in Nacogdoches county, in 1830, and reared on the very borders of civilization. His boyhood was spent among scenes of privation and danger, when every man had to labor and fight. Of course, he had but little advantage in the way of education, only such as was afforded by country schools, irregularly and imperfectly conducted; and what education he has, is the result of after-study and reflection.

             Captain Jones began life as a farmer and stock-raiser,—with a capital of $2500, at the age of 22; and now he has over $100,000 invested in business, lands and cattle. He removed to Goliad early in life. In 1858, 1859 and 1860 he served as Sheriff of Goliad county; later, was Treasurer of Bee county, which position he held some six or eight years; was elected to the Legislature, but his friends claim that he was defrauded of his seat by one Thos. A. Blair. In 1854 he married Miss Margaret L. Whitby, by whom he had three children, Martha M., William W. and Clara F. S. Their mother died when they were very young, -November 1, 1861.

             On the breaking out of the civil war, in 1861, Mr. Jones enlisted as a private soldier, in Company E, Waller's Battalion, in Gen. Dick Taylor's command; and after eighteen months of hard service, was promoted to a Captaincy. He was then ordered to report for duty to Col. Santos Benavides, in West Texas, but falling in with Jno. S. Ford's command, on the San Fernandez, he went with them to Rio Grande City, and remained on duty with that command until the last gun of the Confederacy was silenced. As a soldier, Capt. Jones was noted throughout the army as a popular and influential officer, and held many positions of trust. The war being over, Mr. Jones retired to his home, and in 1871 began merchandising, This he followed until 1884, successfully. In those years he made the greater part of his fortune. After the death of his wife he remained a widower up to 1871, when he married his present wife, Miss Caroline Jane Fields, of Goliad. She has given him no children. Capt. Jones attributes much of his success to the advice and wise counsels of his present wife. It is a matter of pride with the Captain that he was the first man to build a pasture fence in Bee county. He owns vast tracts of land in that county, and the town of Beeville is surrounded by his pastures. He takes great interest in stock-raising, and has built many miles of the new style of fence, and consequently, when fence-cutting became an epidemic curse in Texas, and had spread all over the State, even to the borders of Bee county, and was threatening his and his neighbors' possessions, he took a bold stand in opposition to its further invasion. In this he was backed by the entire community of intelligent and law-abiding people, and to him Bee county, and adjacent counties, are indebted for the arrest of the plague, on their very borders, without loss to them. To-day he has more than 30,000 acres of fine pastures, around Beeville, stocked with fine graded Durham, and other blooded cattle. His family residence is in Beeville, and if he is not "monarch of all he surveys," —he cannot, at least at one view, survey all of which he is lord and master.

             Politically, the Captain is, of course, a Democrat, and though never desirous of holding any political office, nevertheless he has not kept altogether free from the contagion engendered in heated political campaigns, and once was so enthused as to "stump" the district (85th) for his favorite candidate. He is an old Mason, and has taken all the degrees up to the Commandery of Knights Templar. He takes an active interest in the advancement and development of the State and of his section; and it was due to his influence and exertions that Beeville was made a station on the S. P. R. R. and the Aransas Pass R. R.

             The Captain stands six feet in his shoes, and is a man of dignified and commanding appearance. He has auburn hair and beard, streaked with gray; bright blue eyes, with a kindly light, and not infrequently a merry twinkle, as he recalls some incidents in his varied career; weighs 196 pounds, and is as erect as a young Kentuckian of twenty-five; a good neighbor, a warm friend and a God-fearing and law-abiding citizen.