The public is invited to view inside the 1843 S.S. Jones Law Office located on the south end of Langum Park in St. Charles and learn more about Stevens S. Jones, an attorney, judge and newspaper editor during the early years of St. Charles.

The Law Office was also used as a holding cell for deserters during the Civil War and there is graffiti on an interior wall, believed to be drawn by one of the prisoners.

The Thornapple Questers will serve as docents for the S.S. Jones Law Office from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on the third Sunday of June through September. Last year, the Thornapple Questers contributed funding for a period cast iron stove and stove board, and a window restoration. The Illinois Questers provided a matching grant for the project.

Questers is an international organization whose mission is to encourage preservation, restoration and conservation of historic buildings, sites and antiquities.

The Law Office is on the site of Camp Kane which served as a training ground for the 8^th and 17^th Illinois Calvary under Gen. John Farnsworth. One out of six St. Charles men served in these regiments.

Farnsworth, an abolitionist and personal friend of Abraham Lincoln, was authorized to form a volunteer regiment and fulfilled the 1,200 men quota. President Lincoln called the 8^th Illinois Calvary “Farnsworth’s Big Abolition Regiment.”

The Jones Law Office was moved in 2014 from the former Dunham-Hunt Museum on Cedar Avenue where Jane Dunham had it moved in the 1980s and restored. Originally the Law Office was attached to Jones’s Home at IL Route 64 and IL Route 25.

Langum Park is located along IL Route 25 near the St. Charles / Geneva border. The Jones Law Office is located near the south end of the park, where parking is available.

SOURCE: Thornapple Questers news release