Born into slavery in the mid 1700s in Delaware, and separated from his mother and six siblings at the age of sixteen, a young Absalom Jones was taken to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by his owner to work in his store. Through extraordinary efforts and an early and determined interest ineducation, young Absalom acquired a readingand writing primer, a spelling book, a New Testament Bible, and even attended a school set up for African Americans for a time in Philadelphia.

In 1770 he married a slave woman, Mary King, and put together donations and savings in order to purchase her freedom. He also worked overtime, and by 1784 was able to buy his own freedom as well, while remaining employed as a wage earner by his previous slave master.

Philadelphia was home to a large number of freed blacks like Jones during this era, some of whom attended St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church, which was notable in that it welcomed black as well as white members. Around 1786 Jones became a licensed Methodist lay preacher and the following year founded the Free African Society with Richard Allen, another recently freed slave. This organization, which may have been the first black organization in the United States, provided economic and medical aid to African Americans transitioning from slavery to freedom.

On a fateful Sunday in November of 1787, while Absalom Jones and Richard Allen knelt in prayer in the gallery of St. George's church, some of the white congregation decided that blacks should be confined to the balcony. Pulled to their feet by a church official during opening prayers, an appalled Jones and Allen walked out and formed their own group with other members of St. George's who had also left in disgust. In January, 1791, the Free African Society held religious services for the first time, and the group that grew from that service began to raise funds to build their own church.

Jones and Allen and their group were supported by William White, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese and a leading figure in the formation of the American Episcopal Church as an offshoot of the Church of England. There was also support from Philadelphia's devout and liberal-minded Quaker community. In addition, the group's reputation in the city was enhanced when they courageously worked to aid the sick and bury the dead felled by a three month yellow fever epidemic in 1793, when the city was the seat of the US government. Richard Allen wanted the group to remain Methodist, so in 1793 he left to form a Methodist Congregation. In 1816, Allen left the Methodists to form a new denomination, the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME).

After years of struggle, the church Jones co-founded, the African Church of St. Thomas, was formally dedicated on July 17, 1794. It was affiliated with the white Episcopal Church in order to be granted official recognition by the state, and Jones served as its first lay reader. On August 6, 1795, he was ordained a deacon in the Episcopal Church, with the current rules for deacons to know Greek and Latin being waived for him. And in 1802, Absalom Jones was ordained as the first African American priest in the Episcopal Church.

Jones led St. Thomas Church for many years, and it became a center of social and religious life for Philadelphia's African American community. From the pulpit his sermons advocated the abolition of slavery. He organized petition drives that pleaded with the government to end slavery in the United States. He was also active in education, both as a teacher and founder of a school for blacks, and in the Black Masonic Lodge in Philadelphia, which he served as Grand Master. He co-founded the Society for the Suppression of Vice and Immorality, campaigning against the sale of alcoholic beverages, and was also active in civil defense efforts in Philadelphia during the War of 1812.

Jones' prominence in early Philadelphia history is confirmed by the existence of a formal portrait of him, in ecclesiastical robes and holding a bible, that was painted by Raphaelle Peale, son of the well-known portrait artist Charles Wilson Peale. For a black to be depicted in a portrait that honored his status in life was a rarity at the time. The work currently hangs in the Delaware Art Museum, in Wilmington, Delaware.

Absalom Jones left as his legacy the striving for dignity, self-improvement and autonomy from bondage. He is listed on the Episcopal Calendar of saints and blessed under the date of his decease, February 13th, in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer as "Absalom Jones,Priest, 1818."