lawyer, lumberman, businessman, b. Harrisburg, Lewis County, N.Y. He moved with his stepmother to Wisconsin about 1872, settling near Byron, Fond du Lac County. He graduated from the Univ. of Wisconsin (B.S., 1882), and served two years as principal of the Grand Rapids (now Wisconsin Rapids) high school. In 1884 he began reading law in the offices of Silverthorn, Hurley & Ryan of Wausau, was admitted to the bar in 1886, and joined the law firm the same year. After 1917 he practiced independently in Wausau. One of the leaders in the development of the paper-making industry in the Wisconsin River valley, Jones was president of the G. D. Jones Land Co. (1900-1924), and was secretary-treasurer of the Jones-Hart Lumber Co., the Wright Lumber Co., the Jones-Anderson Timber Co., and the Wisconsin Valley Improvement Co. He was secretary of the Walter Alexander Timber Co. and the Neal Brown Land Co., and was a director of the Wausau Sulphate Fiber Co., the First National Bank of Wausau, and was one of the original stockholders and directors of the Marathon Corporation. From 1910 to 1922 he served as a regent of the Univ. of Wisconsin. M. M. Quaife, Wis. (4 vols., Chicago, 1924); Wis. Reports, 187 (1925), pp. xxix-xxxiv; L. Marchetti, Hist. of Marathon Co. (Chicago, 1913); Wausau Daily Record-Herald, Sept. 13, 1924.

The Wisconsin Historical Society has manuscripts related to this topic. See the catalog description of the Granville Duane Jones Papers for details.

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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]