Lt. John Paul Jones - Portrait and Bio

The man whom Thomas Jefferson later described as "the principal hope of America's future efforts on the ocean" was born in a gardener's cottage on the 6th of July, 1747, in Kirkbean, Scotland. He received his first ship command (when he was twenty-one) and came to Virginia (in 1773) to escape the consequences of an altercation with one of his crew.

The Continental Congress gave him a commission for its new navy in December of 1775. According to the U.S. Navy's Historical Center:

On 3 December 1775, as first lieutenant of Alfred, he hoisted the Grand Union flag for the first time on a Continental warship. The flag's Union Jack [the British flag] in the upper left canton and thirteen red and white stripes represented a united resistance to tyranny but loyalty to the English King.

After the war was over, Jones worked in Paris. During 1778, he served as a rear admiral for Catherine the Great of Russia. His plan was to gain experience commanding a battle fleet so he could be appointed to higher command if the newly formed United States authorized a permanent Navy. Instead, he returned to Paris, in 1790, where he died on the 18th of July, 1792.