on Texas, some of it flowed to Tennessee and Massachusetts. Much of their philanthropy concentrated on education, including large gifts for a business school at Texas Southern University and another to establish Jones College at Rice University. However, they also made substantial donations to hospitals and for the arts. Many buildings in Houston are named for Jesse Jones, including a music venue in downtown Houston known as Jones Hall. Family history and early life Jesse H. Jones descended from Welsh ancestors who made Virginia their first landing place in North America, sometime in the 1650s. After settling there briefly, they relocated to the Chowan River in North Carolina, remaining there for at least a century. In 1774, Eli Jones and one of his brothers, headed west, eventually deciding to an area now known as Robertson County, Tennessee. William, one of Eli's sons, established himself as a farmer there, and married a neighboring farmer's daughter, Laura Anna Holman. The farm was sufficient to provide for all of the needs of the family and grow tobacco for sale, partly from their own efforts, and partly from the work of enslaved persons. Jesse Holman Jones was born to William and Laura Jones on April 5, 1874, the fourth of five children. Jesse's mother died on April 22, 1880, just after he had turned six. Nancy Jones Hurt, his aunt, moved in with the family along with her two sons. She was a "guide, physician, and clothes-maker of all the Jones children," and "a famous cook". Sudley Place was his childhood home. In 1883, the Jones family, including Aunt Nancy and seven children moved to Dallas, Texas, partly in order for William to join his brother Martin Tilton "M.T." Jones in his successful lumber enterprise. Several years earlier M.T. had resettled his family in Terrell, Texas after a stop in Illinois. Aunt Nancy remained in Dallas and enrolled the children in local public schools, while William moved to Terrell to manage the M.T. Jones Lumber Company and look after the firm's other lumberyards in northeast Texas. This allowed M.T. to move closer to his timberlands and other interests in southeast Texas. However, William only stayed for two years and returned with his large family to Robertson County, where he acquired a new farm to work. So Jesse was back in Tennessee at the age of twelve. The new estate of William Jones included 600