Jones-Councill School

After the Civil War, larger plantation such as Avalon began to dismantle and parcels were often sold off to the formerly enslaved. The recently emancipated and freeborn Jones family owned and rented parcels of the land, including Reuben Jones, one of the earliest Black Alabama legislators, who operated a Blacksmith shop here. During Reconstruction, the Jones-Councill School, one of Madison County's first schools for Black students operated on the land.

In 1809, this land was originally granted to George Dilworth, and then sold to Irby Jones in 1817. Irby and Mary Jones sold the land in 1820 to Llewellyn Jones to settle a debt. Llewellyn Jones was a Revolutionary War veteran who moved to the property and set up a cotton plantation he named Avalon Plantation. The Jones family farmed the land until 1868 using enslaved people until Emancipation. After the death of several Jones-Perkins descendants, the land was sold to the Drakes, suffragists and opponents of the Black vote, from Indiana. The Drakes sold and rented much of the land to descendants of the formerly enslaved. Reuben Jones and his sister-in-law, Tomietta Beasley, purchased some land from the Drakes. The census listed both Reuben and Tomeitta as "mulatto."

Reuben Jones, son of the formerly enslaved Eliza Jones, fought for the Union in the Civil War, under the name Reuben P. Morris, and later represented Madison County in the General Assembly. Reuben Jones rented land to William Hooper Councill, a founder of Alabama A&M, to create one of Madison County's first Black schools. The Freedmen's Bureau paid ten dollars a month in rent to Jones for the school's land. Councill was the sole teacher for the school. Councill reported that the public received the school well. This stands in contrast to the harsh and violent reactions to other Black schools in the state including the Stevenson school and the Trinity school.

Allen, Samantha. (2021)

Fulton, Charlotte. Holding the Fort: A History of Trinity School in Athens, Alabama 1865-1870. Athens, Alabama. Athens-Limestone Community Association, 2014.

Madison County Deed Books, MM:95-96.

Madison County Deed Books, TT:488 & UU:350.

Madison County Deed Books, RR:315-316.

Teacher’s Month School Reports, Jones School, January 1869 - June 1870.

United States Census, 1870.

Weeks, Stephen B. History of Public School Education in Alabama. Washington, D.C.. The Bureau of Education, 1915.