John W. Jones House

The John W. Jones House is a historic residence at 1250 Davis Street in Elmira, New York, built in 1868 as the private home of John W. Jones, a formerly enslaved man from Virginia who became a leading abolitionist and Underground Railroad operator in the region. Jones served as sexton of the adjoining Woodlawn Cemetery and, during the Civil War, buried more than 2,900 Confederate prisoners from Elmira's nearby prison camp; the house itself was built partly from materials sold at auction when that camp was disbanded. Rescued from a threatened demolition in 1997, the house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2003 and now operates as the John W. Jones Museum, documenting African American history and the Underground Railroad in the Elmira area.