Frank Jones is Dying, But Slowly

The date on this old New York Times report made me blink. On January 19, 1902, the Times published a front-page article headlined “Frank Jones is Dying.” The end of New Hampshire’s “Uncrowned King,” the paper reported, “is but a matter of a few days.”

The article summarized the career of the “millionaire brewer” who, by today’s standards, would certainly have been a billionaire. Approaching his 70th birthday, Frank Jones had evolved from a barefoot farm boy from Barrington, NH, to the most powerful political figure in the state. A classic Horatio Alger story, Jones had grown from selling old rags to stoves to beer. He was a Portsmouth mayor and New Hampshire congressman. He ended up owning hotels, factories, racing stables, a bank, an insurance company, railroads, and the local telephone and electric utilities.

Frank Jones was a large man with a reputation for thinking big. He transformed the boxy little Wentworth Hotel into one of the largest and grandest summer resorts on the Atlantic coast. His Rockingham Hotel was a hotbed of local politics. The 1,000-acre grounds surrounding his Portsmouth mansion, known as Maplewood Farms, was a wonderland of ponds, bridges, statuary, stables, gardens, and imported trees. His brick brewery in the city’s West End once produced a quarter million barrels of beer annually. It is now a thriving 15-acre complex of shops, offices, condos, and eateries.

By 1901, Jones also owned the Portsmouth Music Hall, which he cleverly renovated by adding a huge backstage building and a decorative stage proscenium. But Jones was also very sick with “Bright’s disease,” a 19th-century term for kidney problems. Despite his condition, Jones continued to wheel and deal. He was, even then, looking to purchase two hotels in Boston and build a paper mill on the Piscataqua River. News of his failing condition, therefore, was the last thing Jones’ powerful cronies wanted to see in the newspapers. The Portsmouth Herald scarcely mentioned Jones’ illness, but then again, editor F.W. Hartford was in Jones’ pocket.

Yet, there it was in black and white for all the world, including potential investors, to see. Was the article a scoop called in from a Portsmouth source? Or was this headline payback from one of Jones’ many enemies or political rivals? Curious minds want to know.

True to his nature, Jones ignored the negative press and remained alive until October 2, 1902. His passing, the Herald noted, “cast a shadow of gloom over Portsmouth which will be long in lifting.” Although not a charitable man, Frank Jones changed the shape of the city. His funeral shut down schools and businesses. His remains lie today under the tallest tombstone in town, a 29-foot memorial in Harmony Grove that Jones purchased as a memorial to himself.

© 2018 by J. Dennis Robinson, all rights reserved. (Jones portrait courtesy of the Strawbery Banke Museum Collection. Headline from the New York Times archive. This article is adapted from the book Music Hall by the author.