Dan Jones (Mormon)
American politician
Dan Jones (August 4, 1810 – January 3, 1862), often referred to as Captain Dan, was an influential Welsh missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Jones is well known for having heard the final prophecy of Joseph Smith, namely, that Jones would fulfill a mission to Wales before he died.
Early life
Jones was born in Halkyn, in the county of Flintshire, north-east Wales, the sixth of Thomas Jones and Ruth Roberts's eight children.
When he was sixteen years old, Jones became a sailor. On January 3, 1837, Jones married Jane Melling, a childhood friend from Halkyn. In 1840, Jones and his wife emigrated to the United States, where Jones became captain of the Ripple, a steamship on the Mississippi River. The Ripple primarily carried passengers between New Orleans and St. Louis. After the Ripple struck a rock and sank, Jones captained the Maid of Iowa, which could transport approximately 300 passengers.
Conversion
During his travels on the Mississippi River, Jones heard of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which had recently moved its headquarters to Nauvoo, Illinois, a city on the river.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Dan Jones (Mormon)” as american politician. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american politician. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 9, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5213763. VIAF identifies the subject as 9692982. The Library of Congress control number is nr90003549. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1810, 1862, 1837 and 1840.
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This entry incorporates text from “Dan Jones (Mormon)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.