Maryland Society,

Sons of the American Revolution

John Paul Jones

It was a significant journey and challenge to locate John Paul Jones. Below you will read what went into finding him and bringing him home

Finding John Paul Jones

Historians enjoy turning historical events into exciting stories that capture an audience’s attention, in this case the story surrounding the finding and transporting of John Paul Jones to be put into the Crypt in front of you. I want to take you back to the turn of the last century. Let’s go….

For those of you that were here in the crypt last year for my talk on the life and times of John Paul Jones, I thought I would pick up the story from his untimely death in Paris of a severe brain tumor at the age of 45.

It was common knowledge that John Paul Jones had died in Paris on July 18, 1792, but his death and burial certificates were burned during French revolutionary disturbances. An article in an 1859 French publication authored by Charles Read expressed the opinion that the John Paul Jones burial site was in the then-abandoned cemetery of St. Louis, located on a street called L'Hospital St. Louis, later changed to Grangeaux-Belles which had been used for the burial of foreign Protestants. The quest for the burial site started quietly in June 1899 by US Ambassador to France Horace Porter two years into his service when he began pouring over old records relating to the death and burial of John Paul Jones in Paris. Porter verified the fact that at the time of Jones's death, St. Louis was the only place of burial for foreign Protestants in the city of Paris. Sifting through a mountain of records and documents Porter discovered a letter stating that Jones's funeral expenses of 462 francs had been paid by a timely and generous act of an admiring foreigner, Monsieur Simonneau. The interment was deemed important and to be only temporary. He also discovered in these records a letter written by a Revolutionary War friend of John Paul Jones, Colonel “Blackenden” (probably referencing a Lieut Col. Blackden, of the Second Continental Dragoons, Battles of Saratoga), "His body was put in a leaden coffin on July 20th in case the United States, which he had so essentially served and with so much honor, should claim his remains, that they might more easily be removed." The next step was to excavate the abandoned cemetery, but news of Ambassadors Porter’s interest in the property had become public before he could make arrangements for excavations and the landowners of the cemetery thought they could reap a windfall from this project, speculating that a rich American government would spare no cost. Ambassador Porter put the project on hold until the sensation died down. So preposterous were the terms for purchase of the property, Porter withdrew from contention for purchase of the burial area for over two years. After this time had passed, he was able to conduct reasonable negotiations with the landlords and occupants resulting in an agreement in early 1905 with all concerned for access to property for a period of three months. During this time, he was able to succeed in obtaining reasonable options and wired President Theodore Roosevelt of the offers. Porter estimated the project would cost about $35,000. President Roosevelt recommended that Congress appropriate funds for this amount, but it never did so. Porter had the work started using his own funds on 3 February 1905. Ambassador Porter would eventually spend over $36,000 of his own money, a small fortune in today’s dollars, culminating in six years of research and investigation to find where Jones had been buried.

Excavation of John Paul Jones’ body

The excavation began in the spring of 1905, Ambassador Porter’s last chance in his six-year search for the body of naval hero John Paul Jones before having to return to Washington. Porter was confident that his research had brought him to the right spot, the forgotten cemetery of the church of the Paris Church of Saint Louis, now covered over by a grocery store, a cheap hotel, a laundry, a granary, and a photography shop. Additional research by Porter enabled him to direct a work crew to reach five underground burial shafts in the cemetery. Time was of the essence, as Porter's time and money were running out and in a matter of days his term as ambassador would be up and the 68-year-old Civil War veteran would be headed home to New York.

Ambassador Porter was able to direct a work crew to the spot he had assessed to reach five underground burial shafts in the cemetery. Knowing that Jones was buried in a lead coffin gave rise to the hope of finding somewhat preserved remains. He described the discovery of the burial site of John Paul Jones as follows:

“After having studied the manner and place of his burial and contemplated the circumstances connected with the strange neglect of his grave, one could not help feeling pained beyond expression and overcome by a sense of profound mortification. Here was presented the spectacle of a hero whose fame once covered two continents and whose name is still an inspiration to a world-famed navy, lying for more than a century in a forgotten grave like an obscure outcast, relegated to oblivion in a squalid corner of a distant foreign city, buried in ground once consecrated, but since desecrated by having been used at times as a garden, with the moldering bodies of the dead fertilizing its market vegetables, by having been covered later by a common dump pile, where dogs and horses had been buried, and the soil was still soaked with polluted waters from undrained laundries; and as a culmination of degradation, by having been occupied by a contractor for removing night-soil.”

From the December 2nd 2023 wreath laying ceremony presented by Past Chapter President Christopher Beck

Map of the St. Louis Cemetery showing the 1792 street names and the 1905

names.

The Search for John Paul Jones’ Remains

The cemetery itself is about 120 feet long on the Rue de la Grange aux Belles and 130 feet wide with underground burial galleries under the southeast portion of the cemetery (refer to hand drawing from 1905). The oblong mark on the diagram shows the approximate location of the lead lined coffin of John Paul Jones. The higher courtyard was no longer used for burials and in 1905 was mostly built upon.

The excavation work began on Friday, February 3, 1905. Although the stench was staggering, workers with picks and shovels kept digging for weeks, tunneling in the dim, lantern light and stagnant air, beneath a rundown block of shops in this squalid northeast corner of Paris, encountering shattered caskets, human skulls, scattered bones, and the rotted corpses of animals.

Ambassador Porter described the final cemetery gallery excavations: “Two more large shafts being sunk in the yards, another two on the Rue Grange-aux-Belles for a total of five shafts. Work was round the clock, yielding more galleries, pushing in every direction to find lead coffins for burials.” He goes on further to describe ‘‘soundings being made between them with long iron tools adapted to this purpose, so that no lead coffin could possibly be missed.”

On 22 February, excavations of shafts along the Rue de la Gin yielded lead coffins. The first lead coffin discovered had an attached copper plate which identified the remains as someone other than John Paul Jones. Another shaft discovered on 23 March also had an easily read plate –again not Jones. On 31 March, a third leaden coffin was found, but without identification.

The Verification

According to Ambassador Porter, it was decided to open the last gallery on 7 April which yielded five more lead coffins with only four being easily identified through the principle of elimination or legible identification plates, and none could be identified as John Paul Jones.

However, seven days later, on April 18th in this same shaft, a last lead coffin was discovered. According to Porter, this coffin was “superior in solidity and workmanship” to the first two exhumed. Moreover, all the coffins, except for this one, could positively be identified with a name plate. This fifth coffin was without an inscription plate but of an unusual length, prompting Porter and the researchers to open the lid of the coffin. Upon opening it, they found the skeleton of a man, 5’7” tall, slightly taller than the average for a man of the period. The head had been turned slightly to the right and the nose bent, due to the placement of too much straw beneath the head prior to the casket being closed. The only items of clothing on the body were a linen cap and ruffled linen shirt. On the cap was an embroidered letter “J” with a very pronounced loop. When the cap was reversed, the letter appeared to be a “P”.

        A French Doctor Papillault made all the necessary anthropometric measurements of the head, features, length of body, etc., and found them so exact, that based a bust of Jones made by famed French sculpture Jean-Antoine Houdon regarded as extremely accurate, and he was convinced that the bust was made from the subject before him. The length of the body, 5 feet 7 inches, was the same as the height of the Admiral. All of the comparative measurements were set forth in his detailed report, the greatest difference between any of measurements being only 2 millimeters in difference as matched against the known body features of John Paul Jones. Dr. Papillault concluded in his report in the following paragraph, “Without forgetting that doubt is the first quality of all investigators, the most extreme circumspection should be observed in such matters, I am obliged to conclude that all the observations which I have been able to make plead in favor of the following opinion: The body examined is that of Admiral John Paul Jones.” Another Professor Hervé, called attention to a peculiar shape of the ear lobe which he said was, in his experience, something very rarely seen as matched against the Houdon sculpture.

Photographs of the shaft containing John Paul Jones’ remains.

A 1908 plaster casting of John Paul Jones taken from an original model in 1781 by Jean-Antoine Houdon, now housed at the National Maritime Museun in Greenwich, London

The top photo in this group shows members of the excavation

crew including Horace Porter at the far right posing with the lead coffin of

John Paul Jones before it is raised to the surface. They were astonished by its

well-preserved condition which can attributed to the coffin being filled with

alcohol before being sealed. The alcohol poured into the lead coffin preserved

the body quite well. Only the nose was distorted by being pressed against the

coffin. Comparison with an authentic life-size Houdon bust confirmed the

identification. (Photos from the US Naval Academy, Nimitz Library)

Nearly 60 years later, according to retired Navy Captain Stone, a 1917 graduate of the Naval Academy and nephew of Horace Porter, who recalled conversations with his “Uncle Horace” when he was 11 years old, remembering his Uncle Horace saying there was a feeling of awe in the room, and that approaching the corpse with some reluctance, he grasped the actual hand of John Paul Jones. Captain Stone commented that he believed it had been the right hand. It was soft and pliable and he did not hold it long. Captain Stone added that, to Uncle Horace, it seemed that John Paul Jones seemed alive. Note: No photograph was made until 2 days later (see above photo) which by that time his face had noticeably deteriorated along with the rest of his remains, due to exposure to the air.

The Autopsy

While physical measurements indicated the remains were of John Paul Jones, further verification was sought by performing an autopsy – doubtlessly the only one in history ever made on a body that had been buried for a hundred and thirteen years. The autopsy revealed that the left lung displayed signs of the pneumonia, showing a spot which clearly indicated an attack of pneumonia consistent with his experience in St. Petersburg during which Jones had been diagnosed as having in late 1788. The heart, liver, gall bladder, and stomach all appeared to have been healthy and normal. However, the kidneys presented clear evidence of interstitial nephritis, commonly called Bright’s disease. This agrees completely with his 1792 diagnosis of dropsy which showed distinct indications of kidney disease that were consistent with symptoms the admiral had displayed just prior to death. Moreover, the absence of scars or other evidence of battle wounds was also consistent with the belief that Jones had never been seriously wounded in any of his many engagements.

Formal documents concurring with leading anthropologist, Doctor G. Papillault’s conclusion that the body examined is that of Admiral John Paul Jones were signed by all in attendance. Notified of the panel’s definitive findings, President Roosevelt immediately dispatched a squadron of four cruisers to escort the admiral home.

The Return to America

Now that Admiral John Paul Jones’ remains were positively identified, it became a matter of national interest to return them to America with the utmost dignity and respect due to his stature as a

Revolutionary War leader and hero.

The first step was to replace his remains into the original coffin with various preservatives, then it was placed inside an outer coffin of oak with eight silver handles. The coffin was then transported to the American Church of the Holy Trinity on 20 April 1905. Meanwhile during this time Ambassador Porter conferred with the President of France as well as other French dignitaries as to what part they wanted to play in the transfer ceremonies for John Paul Jones into American possession. They all expressed an enthusiastic wish to pay every possible honor on this occasion to his memory. According to witnesses as the body of John Paul Jones was moved out of Paris, moving solemnly past the sarcophagus of Napoleon, it was noted that heartfelt sentiment deeply touched the

hearts of all participating in the ceremony.

On 6 July 1905 (John Paul Jones’ birthday), after many receptions and parties, 500 French sailors escorted the coffin and remains of John Paul Jones from Paris by train for the trip to the port of Cherbourg and eventual transfer to US warships, dispatched by President Theodore Roosevelt to transport Jones’ body to the United States. The cruiser USS Brooklyn, which would carry the coffin, was escorted by three other cruisers, two of which were the USS Chattanooga and the USS Galveston.

The cruiser squadron landed at the port of Cherbourg on 8 July 1905 and left the same day. On approaching the American coastline, seven U.S. Navy battleships joined the cruiser flotilla likely arriving in the Chesapeake on or about the 22nd of July 1905. The flag-draped casket containing the Jones’ remains was lowered from the Brooklyn onto the waiting Navy tug Standish at Annapolis Roads to be taken to the US Naval Academy. The casket landed without great ceremony and was placed in a temporary brick vault with appropriate ceremonies befitting Admiral Jones on the 23rd of July in Dahlgren Hall. These ceremonies were attended by President Roosevelt who gave a speech paying tribute to Jones and holding him up as an example to the officers of the Navy.

The final internment of the remains of John Paul Jones Jones, now placed in a spectacular in a bronze and marble sarcophagus, designed by French immigrant artist, Sylvain Saliéres for the newly completed crypt beneath the transept of Naval Academy Chapel Crypt, took place on the 26th of January 1913, and is the sarcophagus you are all currently viewing. As a bit of local flavor or interesting aside, in the Annapolis Capital on 2 November 2023, an article on the passing of the ex-funeral director Donald Taylor noted that the longstanding John M. Taylor Funeral Home assisted the Naval Academy with the installing and entombing the remains of John Paul Jones in Bancroft Hall while the new crypt was under construction in the lower levels of the Academy Chapel.

Factoids on the Civil War Background on General Horace Porter

Horace Porter has well-established roots in Civil War history. He was a graduate of West Point and was presented with the Medal of Honor for actions at the Battle of Chickamauga. He accompanied General Grant through the Wilderness campaign and the siege of Richmond and Petersburg. He was present at the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse where he loaned a wooden pencil to General Lee to mark some recommendations to the surrender terms. He was invited to accompany President Lincoln at Ford’s Theater on the fateful night of his assassination on April 14th, 1865 (Porter was a cousin of Mary Todd Lincoln), however he was in a hurry to return home to his young wife and declined the offer. Horace Porter would later go onto to become a President General of the new Sons of the American Revolution.