The man who gave his name to New York's most visited state park after Niagara Falls may have helped a murderous pirate and his crew escape justice, according to an amateur historian's reading of colonial-era documents.
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pirate → give → documents
Thomas Jones, the namesake of Jones Beach, is implicated by James Bailey's research into the fate of Capt. Henry Every, the English pirate who led a raid on a royal Indian treasure ship in 1695.
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who → implicate → 1695
Bailey made headlines five years ago when he unearthed ancient coins believed to be linked to Every.
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he → make → Every
He has since pored through documents to dig deeper into the bloody raid on the Ganj-i-Sawai on the Red Sea and the mystery of what became of the pirate.
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what → pore → pirate
“You have millions of visitors and generations of New Yorkers going to this beach,” Bailey said.
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Bailey → have → beach
“Nobody knew that he was actually a major player in arguably the biggest heist in the history of piracy.”
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he → know → piracy
According to Bailey, documents including depositions from Every's associates suggest Jones was recruited to serve as a “wheelman,” helping the pirates evade authorities after they made off with tens of millions of dollars' worth of gold and silver.
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they → accord → gold
The pirate crew is said to have tortured, killed and raped those aboard the royal ship, sparking global outrage and what is considered the first worldwide manhunt.
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what → say → outrage
Some crew members were caught and executed.
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members → catch → ?
Many others, including Every, were never heard from again and are believed to have scattered to Europe and the American colonies.
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others → include → Europe
Other documents show that New York's governor, charged by the British crown to crack down on piracy, investigated Jones years later, by which time he had remade himself as the wealthy proprietor of a whaling operation on the barrier beach on Long Island that now bears his name.
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that → show → name
Three years after the Ganj-i-Sawai heist, Richard Coote, New York's colonial governor, described how one of his efforts to root out piracy had led him to Jones.
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one → describe → Jones
Citing witness depositions, the governor wrote in 1698 that a certain “barrel of money” traveled from the city to Long Island, where it ended up at Jones' house.
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it → cite → house
But Jones, whom the governor described as “formerly a pirate,” testified that he knew nothing about the barrel.
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he → describe → barrel
Bailey's research, which he hopes to publish, sheds light on a part of Jones' checkered past long alluded to but never fully fleshed out in local history books, says John Hanc, author of “Jones Beach: An Illustrated History,” which includes a chapter on Jones.
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which → hop → Jones
Jones was a major in the English military before moving to the American colonies.
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Jones → move → colonies
He initially settled in Rhode Island before eventually becoming a prominent businessman and landowner in New York.
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He → settle → York
Jones owned thousands of acres of land on early Long Island, then just a rural expanse well east of the rapidly growing New York City.
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Jones → own → City
After helping Every and his crew evade capture, the documents Bailey cites show Jones briefly returned to Rhode Island.
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Jones → help → Island
Then in 1696, Jones' father-in-law, Thomas Townsend, a wealthy New Yorker, gifted him and his wife a significant tract of land on Long Island's south shore, property records show.
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records → gift → shore
Bailey, who recently retired from Rhode Island's corrections department, posits that allowed Jones a fresh start, as authorities continued to scour pirate-friendly New England for Every and his accomplices.
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authorities → retire → Every
On Long Island, Bailey says Jones built a homestead and raised a family, but his pirate past was never far behind.
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past → say → family
Rumors of how Jones had initially made his fortune persisted long after his death in 1713.
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Jones → make → 1713
Before it was demolished in the early 1800s, his crumbling mansion was said to be haunted by ghosts and strange occurrences.
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mansion → demolish → ghosts
Jones' grave was repeatedly desecrated by robbers searching for buried treasure before it was relocated to a family burial plot behind a nearby church.
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it → desecrate → church
A family history published in 1906 by one of Jones' descendants dismissed the pirate tales as “slander” and “improbable fictions.”
“People were disposed to cast slurs upon his memory, either for mischievousness, or a spirit of malice,” Thomas Floyd-Jones wrote.
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Jones → publish → malice
“These myths were cherished for over a century after his death, which ignorance and superstition did not fail to magnify.”
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ignorance → cherish → death
Hanc and other experts say it wasn't too far-fetched for Jones to have at least dabbled in piracy.
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Jones → say → piracy
After serving in the British military, Jones made a career as a privateer, or a seafarer authorized by the English crown to raid the commercial ships of its rivals during wartime, said Meagan Schulman, a Fordham University doctoral candidate who specializes in 17th century piracy and wasn't involved in Bailey's research.
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who → serve → research
But when the conflict ended, privateers like Jones lost their special status, she said.
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she → end → status
Those that continued the high seas raids were branded pirates.
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that → continue → raids
“The reality was that privateers were pirates, just sponsored by a certain government or patron,” explained Schulman, who grew up going to Jones Beach.
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who → sponsor → Beach
Jones can be called a pirate, by some people, but he probably did not ever see himself as one.
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himself → call → one
Bailey's findings are compelling but shouldn't be considered conclusive, cautions Richard Blakemore, maritime history professor at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, who also wasn't involved with Bailey's work.
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who → consider → work
After all, he said, Thomas Jones is a fairly common name.
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Jones → say → ?
“Popular images of pirates show them as outcasts, but many historians have argued the opposite, based on evidence like this,” agreed Blakemore.
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Blakemore → show → this
“It may surprise readers to find just how much early British colonies were both socially and economically connected to piracy.”
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colonies → surprise → piracy
If anything, Jones' possible ties to Every underscore how piracy provided “foundational and multi-generational wealth” for many of the prominent families in the Northeast, says Kevin McDonald, a history professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles who wrote a book about colonial-era piracy but wasn't involved in Bailey's research.
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who → underscore → research
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