John Coffin Jones

John Coffin Jones Jr. (1796 – December 24, 1861) was the first United States Consular Agent to the Kingdom of Hawaii.

Early life John Coffin Jones Jr. was born in 1796 in Boston, Massachusetts, and baptized on June 26, 1796, by the minister of the Brattle Street Church. His siblings included Christopher Champlin Jones and Anna Powel Jones and his elder half-siblings included Thomas Jones and Margaret Champlin Jones and Mary Jones.

Through his mother, he was the nephew of U.S. Senator from Rhode Island Christopher G. Champlin and grandson of Christopher Champlin, a merchant, ship owner and financier of Newport, Rhode Island.

Career Jones worked for Marshall and Wildes of Boston before he was appointed as the first Consul to Hawaii, which was then known as the Sandwich Islands, on September 19, 1820. He was considered an advocate for commercial interests in Hawaii, and was often in conflict with missionary elements in the island. He was a Unitarian. His career was full of turmoil and complaint, and had limited support or instruction from Washington, D.C. Although "his disposition was so unsteady and irascible", he was known for his entertainment of visiting dignitaries, including John Sutter.

In 1838, Jones returned to Hawaii after a business trip in California and introduced Manuela Carrillo as his wife. Still married to Hannah, she initiated a divorce, after which King Kamehameha III refused to acknowledge him as the Consul from the United States. Together, Hannah and John were the parents of:

Elizabeth Jones (1830–1852), who married Captain John H. Brown (1820–1892) in 1848.

While in Hawaii and still married to Davis, Jones fathered three children with Lahilahi Marín (d. 1844), a daughter of Don Francisco de Paula Marín, the Spanish born confidant of Hawaiian King Kamehameha I. Their children were:

Francis Jones (1830–1850)

While in Santa Barbara, California on business, he met and married Manuela Antonia Carrillo (1820–1900) on June 4, 1838. She was the daughter of Governor Carlos Antonio Carrillo and Josefa Raymunda Castro. Together, they were the parents of:

Margarita Antonia Jones (1840–1904), who married Robert F. Clark (b. 1838). John Coffin Jones, Jr. (1842–1919), who served in the U.S. Civil War, became a stockbroker, and married Ella Maria Sumner in 1866. Benjamín Geronimo Jones (1844–1845), who died young. Anna Powell Jones (b. 1846). Joseph Cutler Jones (b. 1849). Charles Carrillo Jones (1850–1869). Martha Josepha Jones (b. 1855).

Jones died on December 24, 1861, in Newton, Massachusetts. After his death, Manuela married George Nelson Kittle in 1867 and, later, moved to France where she died at Nice in 1900.