Peter Cushman Jones

Peter Cushman Jones
1892 Cabinet, second from right
Minister of Finance
In office November 8, 1892 – January 12, 1893
Monarch	Liliʻuokalani
In office January 17, 1893 – March 15, 1893
President	Sanford B. Dole
Personal details
Born	(1837-10-12)October 12, 1837 Boston
Died	April 23, 1922(1922-04-23) (aged 84) Honolulu
Occupation	Businessman, Politician

Peter Cushman Jones (October 12, 1837 – April 23, 1922) was a businessman and politician during the Kingdom of Hawaii, Provisional Government of Hawaii, Republic of Hawaii and Territory of Hawaii. He founded the second bank in the Hawaiian Islands.

Peter Cushman Jones was born December 10, 1837 in Boston. His father was also named Peter Cushman Jones (1808–1885), and his mother was Jane MacIntosh Baldwin, whose grandfather Isaac Baldwin (1738–1775) died in the Battle of Bunker Hill. He traces his ancestry to several notable early Bostonians, including Thomas Dudley (1576–1653) and daughter Anne Dudley who married Simon Bradstreet. He was fourth of nine children.

He was educated at the Boston Latin School in 1849. However, as he describes himself:

As a scholar I was extremely dull, I never remember having been at the head of my class at school but have many times been at the other end of the class, the "foot."

Although his parents expected him to attend Harvard, he transferred to a less disciplined school briefly and then took a job instead in April 1852 (at the age of only 14). He would never go back to school. In 1857 he decided to leave, and planned to go west to Saint Paul, Minnesota. His father objected, so instead he left in June 1857 to Honolulu, since William Austin Whiting, the son of his employer, had been there. He arrived on October 2, 1857 with total assets of 16 cents.

He found various jobs as clerk with former New Englanders in the islands. On May 12, 1862 he married Cornelia Hall (1842–1876), daughter of merchant Edwin O. Hall, and on February 27, 1864 he officially became a citizen of the Kingdom of Hawaii.