1839 – 1911
by Ellen C. Weig, Saint Matthew’s Church, Hillsborough, 2010
Baptized Eliza Adam Jones, Miss Lizzie was the daughter of Mary Cameron Jones and Hillsborough physician Halcott Pride Jones. Both parents were from genteel families of longstanding Episcopal faith. Miss Lizzie attended the Burwell School from 1848-1852. It was a progressive education at the time, and seems to have included an early form of female empowerment that Miss Lizzie took to heart. She was an excellent musician, studying in Hillsborough and in New York. By her twenties Miss Lizzie’s life revolved largely around St. Matthew’s. Her religious faith, musical talent, and purposefulness found a focus there as church organist and choir director. At the age of 27 she assumed the presidency of the Ladies Sewing Society, a group of industrious churchwomen who worked for substantial church improvements, including painted windows, a slate roof, and an organ. In the financially tight years following the Civil War Miss Lizzie motivated her peers to make needlework a serious business venture. Her own skills included embroidery, knitting, crocheting, making braid, and sewing. She made socks, slippers, infant shirts, spool-cases, needle-books, sleeve loops, and bands. She gently kept the Society on task, saying in her President’s Address of July 7, 1871:
“It would afford me intense gratification if you would come provided with needle, scissors, and thimble – Now that I am prepared to give instruction in many branches of work, I find that what is now a very heavy job for one would be light work to all.”
Her words demonstrate that she was not only skillful in her crafts, but that she provided a forceful leadership within the Society, and encouragement and inspiration to the Ladies to work together for their common purpose. Miss Lizzie never married, which was not uncommon in her day since a great swath of young men had been lost in the War. She is buried at St. Matthew’s, and is perhaps best remembered in the words of Episcopal Bishop Joseph Blount Cheshire, who said in his historical address at St. Matthew’s in 1924:
“I remind you of one noble woman, whom most, if not all, of you must have in mind before I name her, your organist for so many years, the faithful co-laborer with Dr. Curtis in creating the high standard of sacred music, which characterized his services; and the perpetuator for so many years after his death of his musical tradition, - Miss Lizzie Jones. Omitting only the names of Bishop Green and Dr. Curtis, I doubt if any should be put on a level with hers, in respect to her influence upon the life and work of the parish, as well on its spiritual side, as in the expression of that life in the worship of the sanctuary… .In my mind’s eye I can see her now, sitting there before the organ, radiant with the light of unaffected goodness and devotion, “the beauty of holiness.”