The Willie Jones and John Paul Jones Tradition
Willie Jones lived at "The Grove," near Halifax. These old mansions, grand in their proportions, were the homes of abounding hospitality. When John Paul Jones visited Halifax, then a young sailor and a stranger, he made the acquaintance of those fine old patriots, Allen and Willie Jones; he was a young man but an old tar with a bold, frank sailor-bearing that attracted their attention. He became a frequent visitor/at their house, where he was always welcome. He soon grew fond of them, and as a mark of esteem and admiration, he adopted their name, saying that if he lived he would make them proud of it. Thus John Paul became John Paul Jones— it was his fancy. He named his ship the "Bon Homme Richard," as a compliment to Franklin; he named himself Jones as a compliment to Allen and Willie Jones. When the first notes of war sounded he obtained letters from these brothers to Joseph Hewes, member of Congress from North Carolina, and through his influence received his first commission in the navy.
Read more about this topic: Willie Jones (statesman)
Famous quotes containing the words jones, john, paul and/or tradition:
“Come all you rounders if you want to hear
A story ‘bout a brave engineer;
Casey Jones, that was the rounder’s name
On a heavy eight-wheeler he rode to fame.”
—Unknown. Casey Jones (l. 1–4)
“Iknowwhata mother tiger does when she’s upset. She eats her young.”
—Guy Trosper, U.S. screenwriter, and John Frankenheimer. Robert Stroud (Burt Lancaster)
“Paul: You have a great body.
Kiki: Yes. Not a lot of scars.”
—Joseph Minion, U.S. screenwriter, and Martin Scorsese. Paul (Griffin Dunne)
“Almost always tradition is nothing but a record and a machine-made imitation of the habits that our ancestors created. The average conservative is a slave to the most incidental and trivial part of his forefathers’ glory—to the archaic formula which happened to express their genius or the eighteenth-century contrivance by which for a time it was served.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)