N. E. (Nelson Edward) Jones

Born in 1821 in Londonderry, Ohio, Nelson Edward Jones grew up in a Quaker family and was born, according to the Smithsonian Libraries' history of the Jones family, in a log cabin on a farm. That same source describes him as a rural physician with a deep interest in natural history and ornithology, interests he passed on to his children.

Jones is remembered as the author of The Squirrel Hunters of Ohio; or, Glimpses of Pioneer Life, published in the late 1890s. The book looks back on early Ohio settlement and pioneer experience, and it stands out because he wrote not just as a collector of stories but as someone close to the people and places he described.

Archival records also show the lasting reach of his family and papers in Ohio and beyond. Taken together, the available sources suggest a man whose life joined medicine, regional history, and everyday observation of the natural world, making his writing especially vivid for readers interested in the early American Midwest.