Dr. William Richard (Dick) Jones was the eldest son of Dr. Thomas Hicks Jones and Delilah Cotham Jones.  He was born in Hickman County, Tennessee in early 1851 before the family came to Arkansas in April of that year.

It is not known where he took his medical training; it may have been under his father’s tutelage.  He practiced in Van Buren County, Arkansas, and took over his father’s practice in that county upon the death of Dr. Thomas H. in the 1890s, long after the law required a medical examination and license to practice.  His death date is not known.