Salt Spring Island's first teacher was a young black man called John Craven Jones.

He was born in Raleigh, North Carolina on September 10, 1834.

In 1850, John Craven Jones went to Oberlin College, Ohio, and was enrolled in the Preparatory Department. By the end of just one year, 1850-1851, John Craven Jones had learned what he needed to be accepted into the college courses. John enrolled in the college in the Classical Course in 1851 and graduated with an A.B. degree in 1856.

John's father Allan Jones believed passionately in education for the Black people. He was a Black man, born into slavery in America. He became a free man. (We don't know for sure, but he probably bought freedom for himself and his wife and children) When he was free, he started a school for Black children. People who did not believe that Black children should learn to read and write burned down his school. He started another school. That school was also set on fire and destroyed. He started a new school. It, too, was burned down. Then Allan Jones sent his sons to Oberlin College, Ohio, to get a high class education. All three Jones brothers graduated from the college. John was the brother who wanted to teach. Like his father, he especially wanted to teach his own people. Oberlin College had taught him how to start a one-room school for children, and how to give them a really good education from grade one through to grade eight.

When he graduated from Oberlin College, John Craven Jones taught for two years as the only teacher in a one-room school for Black students, in Xenia, Ohio.

In 1859, when he was 25 years old, John Craven Jones and his brothers came to Salt Spring with the first group of non-native people making a new life for themselves by settling on Salt Spring Island. (Before 1859, the land and coasts of Salt Spring Island were used only by the First Nations people of the area) Some of these new settlers were white men, bachelors who married Indian women. Indian women knew how to gather food and how to survive on the island. But almost all of the Black people came as families, husbands and wives with children who needed education. John Craven Jones was teaching these children almost immediately, and continued to do so for many years, without any pay. (The families made sure he had all he needed to stay teaching on the island, so they shared food with him, and helped him with his other needs).

The first new settlers arrived on Salt Spring Island in the summer and autumn of 1859. By 1861 they were building a big log schoolhouse at Central (beside where Central Hall is today) But before that, we know that Mr. J.C. Jones was teaching the children wherever he could, in rough sheds or in a family's cabin for a day. Soon, he had two schoolhouses: the one at Central, and a 'shack' further north, near where Fernwood School is today. For three days he taught at Central, and for three days of the week he taught in the North End, so that the children did not have to walk so far to school. On Sundays, the log schoolhouse was used as a church, where the children were taught Sunday school by a Black man called William Robinson.

At first Mr. Jones taught the Black children. By 1866 we know there were 42 children at Sunday School in the north end of Salt Spring Island, and still Mr. Jones was the only school teacher. (Many of those children were babies and toddlers) The Black children were not the only children at school any more. By 1866 the Indian women married to white men had children, and when they were old enough, they came to school to be taught by Mr. Jones.
(By 1867 there were only nine public schools in all of B.C. - the school on Salt Spring Island, and others at Craigflower, Cedar Hill, Lake District, South Saanich, Cowichan, Nanaimo, and two in Victoria.)

Mr. Jones was the only school teacher on Salt Spring Island for about twelve years. (By 1872, the community in the south end of the island had enough children to start a school of their own, in the Burgoyne Valley - ten students. The teacher was not an Islander, but someone sent by the government. On June 27th, 1872, John Craven Jones had 25 students, 7 in the North End, 18 at Central. In 1872 in all of B.C. there were 500 pupils in 14 public schools, and J.C. Jones was one of only 16 public school teachers in the province. We know all this from a School Inspector's Report. Mr. Jones continued to teach on Salt Spring until 1875. Now he could concentrate on farming his land.

Later, John Craven Jones went back to Oberlin for a visit. In Oberlin, he met a Black woman who had graduated from Oberlin College. Her name was Almira Scott. In 1882, John married Almira. He was 48 years old. They decided to sell the Salt Spring farm and go back to where John was born. By now, North Carolina was a different place from what it was like when John grew up there. Slavery had ended. (The American Civil War began after John left, and had ended with the Declaration of Emancipation, January 1st 1863, ten years before John returned.) John and Almira Jones went to Tarboro, North Carolina, where he taught in a school for Black students. John and Almira had three children. John taught in Tarboro for about 20 years before retiring as a farmer. John Craven Jones died at Greensboro, South Carolina, on December 17, 1911.