Hugh Jones

An English clergyman and teacher, Hugh Jones lived from 1669 to 1760 and is remembered today for writing The Present State of Virginia (1724). In that book, he described Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina for readers in Britain, offering a lively picture of colonial society, religion, education, trade, and everyday customs.

Jones was connected with the College of William & Mary and served as a minister in colonial Virginia. He also wrote An Accidence to the English Tongue, a grammar book associated with early English-language instruction in America.

What makes his writing still interesting is its immediacy: it captures how an educated observer in the early eighteenth century saw the American colonies, with all the insight and limitations of his time. For listeners interested in colonial history, his work opens a direct window onto the world before the American Revolution.