Families, first joined together by slavery, reunite at ancestral home

• The Long’s ancestors owned the Jones’ ancestors as slaves

GARYSBURG — Walking through the historic Longview Farm house just outside of Garysburg, Alice Jones pointed to the parlor near the front door. 

“My great-grandfather, Brazil Jones, was married here, so was his son, Emmitt Jones, and so was I,” she said.

Alice Jones, almost 200 of her family members and the Long family, who own Longview, were all together Saturday afternoon for the Maria-Brazil Jones Family Reunion, a unique gathering of two families whose lives are intertwined through slavery. For eight generations now, the Long and Jones families have been tied to Longview Farm and each other. 

Despite the deep, historical connection the Jones family has to Longview, they never were its primary residents or its owners. 

In the early 1800s, John Jones, the patriarch of the Jones family, was shipped from the slave colony of French Guiana in South America to Northampton County where he was bought by the Long family.

Most of John Jones’ descendants at Saturday’s family reunion can trace their family history to one of his three grandchildren, Brazil, Ned or Virginia Bradley, said Paul Hardy, a third cousin to Alice.

Hardy grew up on and around the farm, but now lives in Ohio. He and Alice said that for years the Longs and Joneses, who’ve maintained a close and friendly relationship since emancipation, would only see each other during weddings and funerals. 

“And we would say ‘Oh isn’t it a shame we only get together when it’s a funeral or wedding,’” Alice said.

So Hardy and Alice started organizing the reunion and reached out to Longview’s current owners, Joe and Jane Brown.

Jane Brown, the daughter of William Long, said they were thrilled by the idea and happy to host the reunion.

“We’re all from here, that’s what we say,” she said. “We all have roots here.”

Since its construction in 1827, Longview is and has been the home of the Long family.

“The farm has been in our family as long as any farm in North Carolina,” said William Long, a direct descendant of the farm’s founder, William Gray. “An unbroken chain; it’s never been sold. The Jones and the Longs have been together for about eight generations, way back to slavery times.”

For generations, Jane said, the two families have had a good relationship. 

Her father later said it’s a relationship he hopes continues through future generations of Longs and Joneses. 

“The goodness is what we’re after, and that’s what’s happening out here,” Long said. “We’ve got a lot of goodwill that’s passing from one generation to the next. It’s unusual and we’re trying to promote that.”

The unusualness of their situation isn’t lost on either the Joneses or Longs. Hardy said the families have a relationship he hasn’t heard of or seen anywhere else.

“I don’t know of another family connection or relationship that is equivalent to what we have,” he said.