Jones Cemetery – Sugarloaf

This cemetery is located off Marshall Road in Edneyville. The cemetery is about 270 feet on the left past the intersection with Lamb Mountain Road.
Brothers John Jones Sr. and Thomas Jones came to the Edneyville section of what is now Henderson County in the early 1790s. The brothers married sisters, the daughters of Thomas Hicks who purchased land in the area in the early 1790s.
John Jones Sr. married Mary Jane Hicks and Thomas Jones married Lucinda Hicks. Their descendants number in the thousands and are scattered through Polk, Henderson and Transylvania counties in North Carolina and the upstate of South Carolina.
Shortly after the brothers married, they either bought or inherited the land on Little Hungry Creek owned by their father-in-law and brother-in-law, William HIcks, and later expanded their holdings.
Thomas Jones and his family later sold the land along Little Hungry Creek and moved to the area of Mud Creek.
John Jones Sr. kept his land and bought more land. He owned 1,055 acres at one time. He was known in early records of the region as a businessman, money lender and farmer.
At the age of 94, in 1858, he turned his business affairs over to a son, Robert Jones, and a son-in-law, Hiram King.
John Jones Sr. and his wife, Mary Jane Hicks, are buried in the Jones Cemetery at Sugarloaf.
One of their sons, also named Thomas Jones, purchased the home place after his father’s death. His grave is also located in the cemetery, along with several of his descendants.
The cemetery is held in a trust by family descendants of his son, Thomas Jones, and is located on .74 acre off Marshall Road.
Those buried in the old graveyard also include some a daughter and son-in-law of John Jones Sr., the Rev. John Brown and his wife Mary Ann Jones Brown.
Other persons with graves in the cemetery include four Confederate veterans.
Emsley Burgess Hunter Lamb enlisted in the 22nd N.C. Infantry Regiment, Co. I, on 6-5-1861. He was captured 5-23-1864 at Jericho Mills, Va., (Battle of North Anna) during Grant’s Overland Campaign, a prisoner at Elmira, N.Y., and released 7-26-1863. He was a resident of Randolph County at the time of his enlistment. He died in 1930 in Henderson County.
Bailous Edney Laughter enlisted in the 64th N.C. Infantry Regiment, Co. B, on 7-12-1862. He was wounded 12-1-1863 at Bell’s Ridge, Tenn. There are no further military records. He died in 1922. His tombstone lists him as being in the 16th N.C. Infantry Regiment, Co. I. The engraving on the tombstone is clearly an error. At the time of his death, good records were not available. Bird Laughter was in the 16th N.C. Infantry Regiment, Co. I. It is believed that the family mistakenly placed B.E. Laughter in the same regiment.
John Wilkerson Jones enlisted in the 23rd N.C. Infantry Regiment, Co. A, on 9-6-1862. He transferred to the 25th N.C. Infantry Regiment, Co. A, Edney’s Greys, on 1-27-1865. He was captured 4-1-1865 at the Battle of Five Forks during the Appomattox Campaign, a prisoner at Point Lookout, Md., and released 6-28-1865. He died in 1901.
James M. Justice enlisted in the 64th N.C. Infantry Regiment, Co. E, on 7-1-1863. He served through the war. He died in 1877.
Baylus H. Laughter, 1879-1945, was a veteran of World War I.
The oldest legible inscription is that of Elizabeth Case, wife of Thomas Case, who died in 1839.
There are approximately 87 indecipherable or unmarked field stones in the cemetery.