The magnet: Our original design honoring Captain John Paul Jones. Printed in the USA on a thin, flexible magnet.
Size: 1.59" x 4"
This design is also available on a crewneck t-shirt and women's v-neck shirt.
Historical Background Behind the Design
John Paul, born in Scotland in 1747, went to sea at thirteen. By his early twenties, he was a captain - with a reputation for harshness after he killed a sailor in a fight over wages. To avoid legal troubles, John Paul adopted the surname "Jones" and sailed to America.
When thirteen British colonies allied to seek independence, John Paul Jons offered his maritime experience to their Continental Congress. As hard as Jones fought British armed ships, however, he feuded with other American captains more. Eventually Captain Jones was sent off to hunt British shipping in the eastern Atlantic alongside the French navy.
Jones's most famous fight was a ferocious battle off the English coast in September 1779. Invited to surrender his ship Bonhomme Richard, he declared, "I have not yet begun to fight," and captured the Royal Navy's Serapis. Jones sailed his new flagship into a neutral Dutch port.
At the time, American diplomats in Europe understood their flag to have a blue canton with thirteen white stars and "thirteen stripes, alternatively red, white, and blue." So that was how the Serapis's new flag was entered into Dutch records - not in accord with the Congress's 1777 guidelines.
At the end of the Revolutionary War, Jones received a French knighthood and became an admiral for Russia, but he still got into controversies. The mariner died on an American diplomatic mission in France in 1792. Historians drew on his reports and memoirs to make John Paul Jones a signal hero of the U.S. Navy
— John Bell, author, The Road to Concord and Boston1775 .
And thanks also to John for recommending the Serapis flag.
Thanks to John Bell, author of the book, The Road to Concord and Boston1775, for recommending the Serapis flag for this design.