How Jones, the Namesake of Jones Beach, May Have Helped a Pirate Escape

A proposed pirate connection

Bailey says depositions from associates of pirate Henry Every suggest that Jones served as a “wheelman,” helping the crew evade authorities with tens of millions of dollars in gold and silver. The alleged role followed the raid on the Ganj-i-Sawai in the Red Sea.

Governor’s investigation of Jones

Documents show New York’s governor investigated Jones years later. In 1698, the governor wrote, citing witness depositions, that a “barrel of money” had traveled from the city to Long Island and reached Jones’s house.

The governor described Jones as “formerly a pirate.” Jones testified that he knew nothing about the barrel. By then, he had become a wealthy whaling-operation proprietor on the Long Island barrier beach that now carries his name.

Jones’s life on Long Island

In 1696, his father-in-law, Thomas Townsend, gave Jones and his wife land on Long Island’s south shore, property records show. Bailey says Jones built a home and raised a family there. The mansion was demolished in the early 1800s; accounts said it had been haunted.

Historians weigh the evidence

A family history published in 1906 by a Jones descendant called the pirate stories “slander” and “improbable fictions.” Hanc and other experts say it was plausible that Jones had at least some involvement in piracy. Schulman said privateers lost their special status when the conflict ended, and described them as pirates backed by a government or patron. Blakemore said the evidence challenges the image of pirates as social outcasts and points to links between early British colonies and piracy.