John Paul Jones

He was born John Paul, on an estate called Arbigland on the Solway coast of Scotland, and the sea took him at 13 — apprenticed out of Whitehaven aboard the Friendship, bound mostly for Virginia, where his older brother had settled. By 1764 he was third mate on the slave ship King George, and two years later first mate aboard Two Friends, a 50-foot vessel working out of Kingston. He left the trade in 1768, calling it an abominable trade, and worked his way up to command. Then a crewman he had flogged after a failed mutiny died a few weeks later, and the dead man turned out to belong to an influential Scottish family. Arrested, bailed, and advised by the local governor to change his name, he did.

The Continental Navy commissioned him first lieutenant of the Alfred on December 7, 1775, and in February 1776 he hoisted the first American ensign flown over a warship. On April 23, 1778 he put two boats ashore at Whitehaven, the English port he had shipped out of as a boy, spiked the town's defensive guns and tried to fire the merchant fleet at anchor. It failed — the lanterns had run dry and part of the landing party stopped at a quayside public house. Off Flamborough Head on September 23, 1779, the Bonhomme Richard fought HMS Serapis for hours and Jones took the British ship as his own went down under him. The defiant line always quoted from that night rests on crew recollections printed in newspapers days afterward. Congress voted him a gold medal in 1787.

Two men died at his hands before he was 30. The second he ran through with a sword aboard the Betsy at Tobago in an argument over wages, and rather than wait months for an Admiralty court where the first man's family had influence, he abandoned his fortune and vanished. There is an 18-month hole in the record before he surfaced in Virginia with a new surname. The gravest charge came later. In St Petersburg on March 31, 1789, Jones was accused of raping a 10-year-old girl, Katerina Stepanova. A regimental surgeon and a midwife testified to physical evidence. He denied it and offered more than one account of the night. Catherine II, whose officers faced beheading for the offense, gave him two years' leave abroad instead. He never held a fleet again.

He was found face-down on the bed of a third-floor Paris apartment on July 18, 1792, dead at 45 of interstitial nephritis, and the American papers half forgot him — some took him for a French hero. A Frenchman named Pierrot François Simmoneau paid over 460 francs to have the body preserved in alcohol and sealed in lead, on the reasoning that the United States might one day want it identifiable. It took 113 years. Horace Porter, the American ambassador, spent six years hunting the built-over cemetery, sounded for lead coffins and opened five. The third, on April 7, 1905, was Jones. Battleships escorted him across the Atlantic. He lies in a marble sarcophagus beneath the chapel at Annapolis.

John Paul Jones's life against the full span of the corpus.

• First American ensign flown over a warship other
  Hoisted aboard the Alfred on the Continental Navy's maiden cruise 1776
• Raid on Whitehaven mission
  Two boats ashore at the port he had shipped out of as a boy 1778
• North Channel Naval Duel mission
  Fought during the Ranger's cruise in British home waters 1778
• Capture of HMS Serapis mission
  Taken off Flamborough Head as the Bonhomme Richard sank 1779
• Black Sea campaign aboard the Vladimir mission
  Rear admiral in Catherine II's navy, against a far larger Turkish fleet 1788

• 1764 aged ~17 Signs aboard the slave ship King George as third mate He moved to the Two Friends out of Kingston two years later.
• 1768 aged ~21 Leaves the slave trade, calling it an abominable trade
• 1770 aged ~23 A crewman he had flogged dies and Paul is jailed at Kirkcudbright Released on bail, and told by the governor to leave and change his name.
• December 7, 1775 aged 28 Commissioned first lieutenant of the Continental ship Alfred
• April 23, 1778 aged 30 Lands at Whitehaven and spikes the harbor guns The fires never took hold. Part of the landing party had stopped for a drink.
• September 23, 1779 aged 32 Takes HMS Serapis off Flamborough Head as his own ship sinks
• April 23, 1787 aged 39 Enters the service of Catherine II as a rear admiral
• March 31, 1789 aged 41 Accused in St Petersburg of raping a 10-year-old girl Catherine II granted him two years' leave abroad rather than a trial.
• April 7, 1905 His lead coffin is opened in Paris, 113 years after burial The body had been preserved in alcohol at a private citizen's expense.

• Benjamin Franklin 1706–1790
  Polymath who invented the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove, among many other creations. patron in Paris
• John Adams 1735–1826
  Second President and key Founding Father who helped secure independence and shaped early American diplomacy. American commissioner in France
• Patrick Henry 1736–1799
  Revolutionary orator and Virginia leader remembered for mobilizing resistance and opposing centralized federal power. married the woman Jones courted
• John Hancock 1737–1793
  Merchant who presided over the Continental Congress and signed the Declaration first and largest. friend among the American elite
• Theodore Roosevelt 1858–1919
  26th President known for progressive reforms, conservation efforts, and assertive foreign policy. spoke at his reinterment
• Chester W. Nimitz 1885–1966
  Fleet admiral who directed U.S. naval strategy in the Pacific during World War II. heir to the tradition