In 1856, Uriah James Jones published his History of the Early Settlement of the Juniata Valley, compiling accounts of the early pioneers to write its history. Ten years earlier in 1846, Jones wrote his findings on the life of Pennsylvania frontiersman Simon Girty, who was seen as a half-breed villain to some, and a hero to others.

In a 1940 reprint of his Juniata County history, physician, author, and historian William Henry Egle included a biographical sketch of what is known about the life of Jones, who was born in Union County, married a girl from Columbia County, and who died a tragic death after being struck by a train in Harrisburg where he worked for the Harrisburg Patriot and Union newspaper.

“U.J. Jones was born in New Berlin, Union County on March 23, 1820. Very little is known of his parents and upbringing. People who knew Jones as a youth could provide Dr. Egle with little information concerning his family. Egle wrote, “except that his father died when very young and left him and a brother (Eli) to their mother's care. The lads were brought up on a farm, and Mr. Jones, until the age of 16, had no education whatever.”

At the age of sixteen, Jones became an apprentice to learn the trade as a printer on the Union Times of New Berlin. From New Berlin, he went to Lewisburg, where he worked for a time and then found himself in Harrisburg, where he worked for the Keystone newspaper. While there, he authored his book on Simon Girty.   

There, H. Frank McReynolds, another printer, was associated with Jones in printing and publishing the book. Jones would write a chapter for McReynolds to "set" while he went to the case and set the type, containing the thread of the story, without copying it.

Wanting to see other parts of the country, in 1842, Jones became a tramp printer. The job was exactly as it sounds. He was an itinerant printer who had no problem in finding employment in any printing office where he applied.

Dr. Egle’s said in the biographical sketch of Jones, “In the course of his travels, having a great love for the histrionic art, he joined a theatrical company and traveled with them for almost a year. The season closed at New Orleans, and there, Jones was stricken with yellow fever. He recovered to find himself robbed of all he possessed by his landlady, who had fled at the approach of the fever and took his watch, money, and everything but the clothes he had on.

While on his travels as a strolling actor in Berwick, Columbia County, he met Miss Margaretta L. Traugh, sister of O. A. Traugh, who later published the Hollidaysburg Standard. He married Margaretta Traugh in 1846 and shortly afterwards went to Pittsburg, where he published a paper called the Keystone. It was a flat failure, and he soon returned to Hollidaysburg to take up local editing again. He soon made the paper famous all over the United States

Egle said Jones could tell a local happening in a way that made you read it despite yourself. He was the first newspaper man in the United States to make a distinctively local department in his paper, placing all local stories together and classifying them under the caption of " Local News."

Publishing the History of Juniata County in 1856 brought some fame but didn’t improve his finances. Jones became a correspondent for papers in Philadelphia, Pittsburg, and New York, writing sketches, stories, poems, and other literary articles "to keep the pot a-boiling."

In 1858, he was the local editor of the Lancaster Express but soon returned home. In 1860, he was offered the place of city editor of the Harrisburg Patriot and Union, which he accepted, and where he undertook the local department of this paper and acted as a correspondent of several Philadelphia newspapers. On November 18, 1864, he was tragically killed by a train in Harrisburg.

The Harrisburg Telegraph of November 19 reported that no one saw the accident happen, and his body was discovered beneath the “cowcatcher” of a train that had arrived at the depot. He died at the age of forty-four and was interred in Harrisburg Cemetery.

In his sketch, historian Dr Egle eulogized U.J. Jones: “Educated entirely in a printing office, his command of language was astonishing. He was never at a loss for a word. A high-toned, honorable man, scorning to do that which would in the least reflect upon him, he died poor, leaving his children his good name and bright, honorable record. On a small marble shaft in Harrisburg Cemetery is cut this inscription: " U. J. Jones, Author and Journalist." And as such, he was known to the world.”