Commander Jacob Nicholas Jones was an American naval officer. He is noted for his service as commodore of the United States’ squadrons in the Mediterranean from 1821 to 1823 and in the Pacific from 1826 to 1829.
Background
Jacob Nicholas Jones was born on March of 1768 near Smyrna, Delaware. His mother, née McDermott, died in the child's infancy, and his father, a well-to-do-farmer of Welsh-English stock, also named Jacob, died soon afterward. He had married again, and the boy was reared by his stepmother, a granddaughter of Judge Ryves Holt of the Delaware supreme court.
Education
He was educated in the academy at Lewes, Delaware, studied medicine for four years under Dr. James Sykes of Dover, and after further study at the University of Pennsylvania began practice in Kent County, Delaware.
Career
Finding progress as a physician slow, he became clerk of the Delaware supreme court. Then, after the death of his first wife, a sister of Dr. Sykes, and in the excitement of hostilities with France, on April 10, 1799, at the age of thirty-one, he entered the navy as midshipman in the frigate United States, serving thus till the close of the war. Of a quiet, thoughtful nature, well beyond the average young officer in education and range of knowledge, he rose quickly to lieutenant, February 22, 1801, and was second lieutenant in the Philadelphia when she grounded and was captured off Tripoli, October 31, 1803.
After twenty months' captivity, he was released at the end of the Tripolitan War and was in routine naval duties until the War of 1812, being promoted commander April 20, 1810. In command of the sloop-of-war Wasp, he left Philadelphia, October 13, 1812, and near midnight of the 17th, east of Hatteras, he ran into a British convoy protected by the brig Frolic, commanded by CaptainT. Whinyates.
Having about equal broadsides, Jones attacked next day and forced the enemy's surrender after a hard-fought, close-range artillery duel of forty-three minutes, on converging courses in a heavy sea. The Wasp was almost stripped of sails and rigging, but her own fire, delivered as she sank in the seas, was lower and more accurate, sweeping the enemy's decks and hull. When the Wasp closed and boarded there was no resistance. Of the 110 men in the Frolic not twenty remained uninjured, while the Wasp had but five wounded and five killed. Unfortunately, both vessels were encountered that same day by the British 74-gun ship Poictiers, and being in no condition to escape were captured and taken to Bermuda; nevertheless, his victory brought Jones well-earned fame. Congress awarded him a gold medal, with $25, 000 for officers and crew.
Exchanged from Bermuda, he was made captain, March 3, 1813, and given the frigate Macedonian in Decatur's squadron at New York. Owing to the British blockade, he was transferred in April 1814 to Lake Ontario, where he commanded the Mohawk till the close of the war.
In 1815 he was again in the Macedonian in Decatur's squadron against Algiers. He commanded the Mediterranean Squadron, 1821-23, and, after a term as navy commissioner, the Pacific Squadron, 1826-29. Thereafter, he was on shore duty at the Baltimore station, 1829-39; at New York, 1842-45; and later in charge of the Philadelphia Naval Asylum until his death.
Achievements
Personality
Jones's personality was more of a quiet and thoughtful nature.
Quotes from others about the person
Jones was characterized in 1815 by Commodore John Rodgers as "a good officer of far more than ordinary information, " though--perhaps because of late entry into the service--he lacked "the particular kinds to qualify him" for the office of navy commissioner
Connections
Jacob Nicholas Jones was married two times. By a second marriage he had a daughter and a son, Richard, who rose to commander in the navy, and by a third marriage, in 1821, to Ruth Lusby of Cecil County, Maryland, he had three daughters and a son.