R. T. Jones Lumber Company, Inc.

R. T. Jones Lumber Co., Inc. – Tonawanda Island - Established in 1901
on Tonawanda Island; also owned Georgian Bay Lumber and River Road Lumber, its retail outlet.

1936 Photo of the Sales Staff.  Raymond T. Jones, Sr., is in the middle row, center, to the right of the hatless gentleman.  At the far right in the first row is William Sommerfeldt, behind him in the second row (short man) is Lewis A. Keppen, standing in the second row at the right end is William D. Miller.  Mr. Keppen worked for R.T. Jones Lumber Co. for 27 years until his death of a heart attack in his office in the building shown.  Mr. Miller worked for R. T. Jones Lumber Co. for 72 years!  Both Mr. Keppen and Mr. Miller began working for the company when they were 16 years old.

THE R.T. JONES LUMBER CO., INC.
Detroit Street, Tonawanda Island, North Tonawanda, NY 14120

In the photo below: Raymond T. Jones, Sr.

MEMORIES OF R. T. JONES AND PEOPLE WHO WORKED THERE

FROM A SERIES OF INTERVIEWS WITH ALMA MILLER MILLER BY DONNA ZELLNER NEAL- 2004

R. T. Jones Lumber Co., Inc. was founded in 1901 in North Tonawanda.  Raymond T. Jones and other members of the Jones family came from Elmira to found the lumber company in North Tonawanda. Lumber came from Canada and New England , mainly from White River Junction, New Hampshire. A March 2, 2004 "Do You Remember?" column in the Tonawanda News noted that on March 2, 1994 , the R. T. Jones Lumber Co. was in danger of closing. 

William D. Miller began working at the R. T. Jones Lumber Co., in 1903, at the age of 17.  His friend, Lewis A. Keppen, began working for R. T. Jones in 1922 when he was 16.  Both had only a 6th grade education.  Lewis Keppen was the father of North Tonawanda History Museum Director Donna (Keppen) Zellner Neal. Mrs. Neal’s grandfather, Ralph Fire, Sr., Lewis A. Keppen’s stepfather, was a night watchman and gardener for R. T. Jones Lumber.  Lewis A. Keppen died in his office at R. T. Jones Lumber Co., Inc., at the age of 43 of a heart attack on October 21, 1949 , his 43rd birthday.  He was Traffic Manager at the time of his death, having worked there 27 years.

It was said that William D. Miller could look at a pile of lumber and tell how many board feet were in it just by looking at it.  He started at age 7 as a tallyboy.  Tallyboys took inventory.  Then he was a teamster and drove a team of horses to move lumber, before tractors were used.  Dockwallopers moved the lumber.  Bill Miller became Superintendent of the yard and held that role for over 50 years!  He broke his hip at age 80 and went back to work in a motorized cart the Jones family bought for him.  At 82, he could no longer drive so the Jones family sent a man to Pendleton to pick him up at his farm every day and take him home at night until he died in 1975 at the age of 89, having worked for the R. T. Jones Lumber Co. for 72 years!   In 1917, the Jones’s sent William D. Miller to Alabama and Georgia to select lumber.

When his daughter, Alma, was born, the Jones family bought her a bedroom suite.  They always gave her gifts for Christmas.  The Jones family hadn’t had a girl in four generations until Raymond Jones, Jr.’s 3rd child was a girl.

 Some of the other people Alma remembers from those days besides the Jones’ family members are Bill Sommerfeldt, Herman Hawn, Hank Connelly, Henry Connelly, Jr., Miss Connelly, and Irving Bartel.  Alma says that Irving Bartel was the first person to manage Georgian Bay Lumber, which was owned by R.T. Jones Lumber.  Bartel was later transferred to New Jersey to run a lumber firm there for them.  He married Miss Cobb, who also worked at R. T. Jones.

River Road Lumber was the Jones’ retail lumber outlet.

Billy Sommerfeldt, Lewis Keppen, and Hank Connelly worked in the office, along with the secretaries, Lois Dick, Miss Cobb, Mildred Primeau, and others.  Leroy Butz drove a truck.  Other employees were Ed Ernst, Rick Wittenburger, Frank Aldridge. Jimmy Judd (wife Hazel) was a salesman. Gus Coomb (spelling?) was a big man.  There was a John McRae or MacCray? who was a salesman who raised peonies on the Miller farm for the Jones yard gardens.

Alma has donated to the North Tonawanda History Museum a wonderful collection of photos and other memorabilia about her father’s career at R. T. Jones Lumber. Some of the photos she donated show how a windstorm knocked the lumber down, the new office after the fire, and the Niagara River full of ice.  There was a fire which destroyed the office building, which was then rebuilt. When the Jones boys came to William D. Miller’s funeral, they told the family that Bill should have been buried with a piece of knotty pine in his hands.

Alma could not remember when Jones Lumber went Chapter 11.

Raymond T. Jones, Sr., Raymond T. Jones, Jr., (had sons Thomas and David (David had a son, Fred )) Walter Jones, Thomas Jones, Charlie Jones, Morton Jones, Morton Jones, Jr.  One son of Raymond T. Jones, Sr., Walter, was killed in World War I.    Morton Jones, Sr. ran for Congress.

Only two Connelly family members worked for the company; F. Henry Connelly (Hank) and his aunt, Mary Connelly. Henry Jr. wasn't born until the 1940's. They were both from Elmira.  Hank died in October of 1962 and Mary died in March or April of the same year.