Jonathan graduated from Yale in 1819 and studied law under Judge Gould at the Litchfield Law School. Following he practiced law for many years in Hartford, where, for a time, he was Judge of the Probate Court. Later he removed to Troy of which city he was subsequently chosen mayor and from which he was elected several times to the state legislature (Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, 1887, v.2, p. 312 as cited in New York Genealogical & Biographical Record, vol. xcii, no.2, April 1961, pg. 84). He was the fourth in a direct line bearing the name of the distinguished theologian (Ibid, pg. 84) and was descended from William Edwards, colonist to Connecticut Colony in 1639. A complete genealogy of the Edwards family is in the library of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society (New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, July 1940, no. 3).