Thomas S. (Thomas Samuel) Jones

Born in Boonville, New York, in 1882, Thomas S. Jones Jr. was an American poet whose work appeared in the early twentieth century. Reliable library and poetry sources identify him as Thomas Samuel Jones Jr. (1882–1932), and Project Gutenberg lists The Rose-Jar among his books.

His poetry was substantial enough to be preserved by major reference collections, including Representative Poetry Online, and later remembered by New York literary history projects. Columbia University’s finding aid for his papers shows that his literary life extended beyond published poems: the archive includes books, correspondence, manuscripts, scrapbooks, and photographs, with letters involving literary figures.

Those papers also hint at a more unusual side of his interests, noting manuscripts of automatic writing and photographs from his homes and travels, including a 1922 visit to Glastonbury Abbey in England. He died in Manhattan in 1932, leaving the picture of a poet who moved through both conventional literary circles and more private, searching forms of writing.