JONES – The Missing 20 months

Over the years historians, biographers, professors, naval personal and hundreds of others have debated
many aspects of the life of John Paul Jones. Many will express their opinions, however, when it comes to
the period from about the winter of 1773 to the summer of 1775, there has been almost no consensus
Actually, there is not even agreement on which 20 months are being referred too. Roughly, the time
frame covers a period from which John Paul escaped a potential hanging mob in Tobago at the end of
1773 and the time he arrived in Philadelphia in the summer of 1775 and went to work aboard the Navy’s
first official ship, the USS Alfred. To be fair, John Paul gave birth to this mysterious period himself when
he wrote a letter to one of his business partners, Stuart Mawey, in Tobago on May 4, 1777, hoping to
recoup the finances he was forced to leave behind in his haste to leave the Island. In that letter, he told
Mawey that he had to live for twenty months on the fifty pounds he carried with him.
Not all of that period is unknown. We know for example, that he ended up in Fredericksburg, Virginia
where he became a close friend to Dr. John Read and where his brother had been a tailor until the time
of his brother’s death sometime in 1774.

There is a lot more to this story and it will receive attention in this project. I have had the good fortune
to meet Ms. Elizabeth W. Trotter who resides in her 17 th century home on Martha’s Vineyard that may
have originally served as a tavern visited by John Paul Jones during that summer or early fall of 1774.
Elizabeth is a graduate of McDaniel College and has become a historian in her own right. She
contributed the article below, “In Harm’ Way, Thomas Chase and the Rise of American Sea Power, 1773-
1781 for the Dukes County Intelligencer in 2016 which is a publication of the excellent Martha’s Island
Museum. She has graciously granted permission to include that article here.
In large part, Elizabeth’s article takes into consideration a little-known book that was written by the
grandson of a Mr. Thomas Chase (also named Thomas Chase) entitled, “Sketches of the Life, Character
and Times of Paul Jones” in 1859. Chase tells a story he claims was told to him by his grandfather who
he says met Jones on the island of Martha’s Vineyard during part of the elusive 20 months. He also
relays the events of his grandfather’s capture while a sailor on an American privateer and jailed in
England before being freed by John Paul Jones and Benjamin Franklin during a prisoner exchange in
France. He then became a crew member of the USS Alliance and was part of the famous Serapis-

Bonhomme Richard battle in September 1779. Much of the story we have been able to verify through
British and American documents. Chase, however, wrote his hearsay story years after events and may
have seriously misremembered one very important date that may solve an age-old mystery. Neither Ms.
Trotter or myself will let that cat out of the bag for now but her article is excellent and worth including
for the rest of the world to enjoy.