Jones County

As in other Piney Woods counties, economic activity in Jones did not revolve around agriculture, and the county was among the lowest in Mississippi in raising cotton, corn, and cattle during the antebellum period. The land was described as rich enough a man wouldn't starve but poor enough they wouldn't grow rich. Residents owned considerably more hogs than average, and Jones ranked eleventh in the state in rice production. In 1860 the county’s industrial workforce included only nineteen people working in flour or lumber mills.