Jones Beach namesake linked to 1695 pirate heist

New York’s most visited state park, aside from Niagara Falls, shares its name with a man who may have helped a notorious pirate escape justice centuries ago. James Bailey, an amateur historian, claims recent findings link Thomas Jones to the 1695 raid on the Ganj-i-Sawai, a royal Indian treasure ship.

Bailey argues that Jones served as a getaway driver for Captain Henry Every and his crew after they seized tens of millions of dollars in gold and silver. The discovery challenges the local history of Jones Beach, a site visited by millions of New Yorkers each year who generally know the namesake as a wealthy landowner rather than a pirate associate.

Bailey gained initial attention five years ago after unearthing ancient coins believed to be connected to Every. Since then, he has analyzed colonial-era depositions and records to trace the movements of the pirate crew. The research indicates that Jones, then a resident of the American colonies, was recruited to help the crew evade authorities following the violent seizure of the ship.

The raid on the Ganj-i-Sawai in the Red Sea resulted in the torture, murder, and rape of the royal ship's crew. The event triggered a global manhunt, the first of its kind in pirate history. While some members of Every’s crew were captured and executed, Every himself vanished. Historians believe the surviving crew scattered across Europe and the American colonies to hide their wealth and identities.

Records cited by Bailey show that New York’s colonial governor investigated Jones years after the raid. The governor, acting on orders from the British crown to suppress piracy, targeted Jones after the former pirate had reinvented himself as a successful whaling operator. Jones had settled on the barrier beach on Long Island that now bears his name.

In 1698, Governor Richard Coote reported that a specific barrel of money had been transported from New York City to Long Island and deposited at Jones’ residence. Coote described Jones as “formerly a pirate.” During his testimony, Jones claimed he knew nothing about the origin of the funds, despite witness depositions linking him to the proceeds of the heist.

Jones’ life path fits a common pattern for privateers of the era. Meagan Schulman, a doctoral candidate at Fordham University specializing in 17th-century piracy, notes that privateers were essentially state-sponsored pirates. When wars ended and their commissions lapsed, many continued raiding and were later branded as pirates. Jones had previously served in the English military and worked as a privateer before moving to the colonies.

After the heist, Jones briefly returned to Rhode Island. In 1696, his father-in-law, Thomas Townsend, gifted him a large tract of land on Long Island’s south shore. Bailey suggests this transfer of property allowed Jones to establish a new life away from the intense scrutiny in New England, where authorities were actively searching for Every’s accomplices. Jones built a homestead on the land and raised a family.

Rumors about Jones’ pirate origins persisted long after his death in 1713. Local legends claimed his mansion was haunted by ghosts and that grave robbers desecrated his burial site in search of buried treasure. A 1906 family history dismissed these stories as slander and improbable fictions, but modern historians view the connection to piracy as plausible given the era’s economic realities.

Richard Blakemore, a maritime history professor at the University of Reading, cautions that the findings are not yet conclusive due to the commonality of the name Thomas Jones. Kevin McDonald, a history professor at Loyola Marymount University, notes that piracy often provided foundational wealth for prominent families in the Northeast. The research suggests that early British colonies were more economically connected to piracy than popular images of outcast pirates imply.