Dr. Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones Jr. (born 1899) was an American archaeologist and historian who taught at Marshall College in New Jersey. Jones was one of the most famous archaeologists of his time, having participated in many adventures during the early to mid-20th century, fighting bandits, thieves, cultists, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union throughout his career. Eventually, he retired and settled with Marion Ravenwood, telling stories of his adventures to his grandchildren and strangers alike.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Henry Jones Jr. was born in 1899, the son of Henry Jones Sr., an archaeologist who emigrated from Scotland. He was a strict Catholic who engrained the religion in a young Jones. Though strict, his father was also fair. Jones took the nickname of Indiana after his beloved dog, usually shortened to Indy by his friends. His mother Anna Mary Jones died of scarlet fever in 1912, which made a great impact on the young Indy.
Utah[]
After his mother's death, his father decided to move to Utah; there, Indy joined the Boy Scouts. One day in 1912, during a Boy Scout expedition into Arches National Park, Indy and his friend Herman Mueller split off from the group to explore the Native American tunnels despite being told explicitly not to do so by their troop leader. There, they witnessed a group of men in a cave searching for the Cross of Coronado, an old Spanish treasure lost in the 1520s that belonged to Francisco Vásquez de Coronado in life and supposedly contained a piece of Jesus Christ's cross.
Indy stole the cross, arguing that "it belong[ed] in a museum". A lengthy chase began through the tunnels, on horseback, and onto a circus train where Indy developed his fear of snakes and mastery of the bullwhip. The relic hunters later found him at his house accompanied by the local Sheriff, who told Indy to gave back the Cross. Indy was forced to do so, though the leader, only known as Fedora, was impressed by the young man, giving his own fedora to Indy. This same fedora would stay with Indy for the rest of his life, with the incident also inspiring Indy to utilize a whip throughout many of his adventures.
Mexican Revolution & World War 1[]
In 1916, Jones was captured by Pancho Villa in Columbus, New Mexico during the final years of the Wild West. The Mexican leader became a good friend with Indy, and he taught him to speak in Quechua. Indy met Remy Baudouin, a Belgian man, who became his friend in his youth. He fought in the Mexican Revolution and briefly encountered General John J. Pershing and Lt. George S. Patton. Patton then shot up the bar that contained many of Pancho Villa's men.
During World War I, Jones fought in the Belgian Army in the Western Front and in Africa, where he met Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck In a secret mission of the British to capture him and tail him to British Kenya, but Jones failed.
After the war[]
Henry as "Indiana Jones"
He studied at the University of Chicago, between 1918 and 1923. In 1926, he restarted his career as professor in Marshall College, where he met Marcus Brody. In 1921, he helped famed Western movie director John Ford and famous Wild West lawmen Wyatt Earp make a movie.
Interwar period[]
He was one of the most famous archaeologists in the 1930s. In 1935, he helped Indian Authorities to take down a neopagan cult ruled by a High Priest named Mola Ram. Next year, he tried to stop a Nazi archeological expedition in Egypt, where his enemy René Belloq was working to find the Ark of the Covenant. Two years later, he met his father again and helped him find the Holy Grail and defeat the Nazi American collaborator Walter Donovan, who wanted the Grail for himself and for helping Adolf Hitler to conquer all Europe and maybe the World.
WW2 & Cold War[]
Henry Jones Jr. In 1957.
During WWII, Jones helped the war effort against the Nazi regime. In 1947, he joined the secret mission of finding the remains of Roswell's incident UFO and its alien pilot in New Mexico.
In 1957, he left Marshall College under the suspicion of being a communist; ironically, Jones was a staunch anti-communist who supported the Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower. That same year, he got married with Marion Ravenwood, the daughter of Abner Ravenwood, his mentor and friend.
Nearing academic retirement in 1969 and after losing his son to the Vietnam War, a crippling grief that almost cost him his marriage, the archaeologist was pulled into an adventure with his goddaughter Helena Shaw and forced to confront the legacy of World War II when he found himself up against a former Nazi scientist brought in by the US as part of the national effort to win the Space Race against the USSR.
Retirement[]
Gallery[]
