“Who Has Not Heard Of Shocco Jones?”

Shocco Jones
I am sure Joseph Seawell Jones, a.k.a. “Shocco,” would be astounded at the numerous negative answers to the question posed above. For those of us “so far behind in the spirit of the age-the march of mind-the progress of science…,” never fear. The author “through sheer compassion for [our] ignorance” provides us with a description of Shocco’s campaign through Mississippi in The Mammoth Humbug: Or, The Adventures of Shocco Jones In Mississippi, In The Summer of 1839. It is here that Jones recaps the story of this “historian of North Carolina-the chivalrous defender of southern honor” and his dealings in Mississippi after fleeing from the law for dueling with Mr. H. Wright Wilson of New York.

For a more unbiased look at this infamous hoaxer try Edwin Arthur Miles’s article “Joseph Seawell Jones of Shocco- historian and humbug” in the North Carolina Historical Review. There is also a chapter on Joseph Seawell Jones in Dr. H.G. Jones’s Scoundrels, Rogues and Heroes of the Old North State.

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