"Castle," the Navy Prison on Seavey Island. Some of these subs were refitted for American use. Today the shipyard overhauls the nuclear fleet which includes ballistic missile subs and attack subs.
    But property lines and politicians may be the least interesting things about the shipyard. In 1777, John Paul Jones, "the father of the United States Navy," came to the shipyard to oversee the construction and fitting out of the sloop of war Ranger. Congress appointed him to command the Ranger on the same day they decided what the flag of the original thirteen states would look like. Back then the shipyard and surrounding area were very different. The only town of any size was Portsmouth, N.H. Maine was not a state, but part of Massachusetts. Portsmouth supplied materials to the shipyard off its shore. It was, the shipyard off Portsmouth, on an island hard against the Maine shore.
    When Jones traveled there for the first time, he rented a carriage and driver in Boston in July 1777 spending many days on the rutted, bumpy and dusty roads to Portsmouth. The trip was very important to Jones for he had long sought, with an outstanding naval record behind him, a naval commission and a decent ship. In 1777 it was happening and he was going to attend to the details. His reputation preceded him to Portsmouth where he was welcomed and found a place to stay while his ship was finished.
    Although he considered it in time to be his home base and owned a house there, he would visit Portsmouth only one more time. He had other plans that would make John Paul Jones America's most known naval officer. He was also among the most unique. He led an unusual life, a life that could not be lived in today's Navy. Born John Paul in Scotland in 1747, his father was a gardener on a coastal estate. He went to sea at thirteen on a merchant ship and sailed on many merchantmen and slavers. The West India trade, between Europe, Africa and the West Indies was where he did most of his sailing. At 21 he got his first command, in the merchant brig John.
    One of many influential incidents in his life took place in 1773, while laying over in Tobago. Broke, with his crew unpaid and grumbling of mutiny, the leader of the confrontation charged at Jones on the deck of the ship. Jones held up his saber, the sailor was run through and later died. There was no admiralty court in session at the time to deal with the murder charge and Jones fled. He disappeared for 20 months after which he arrived in the British colony of Virginia. His brother had been a tailor there for some years. It was at this time he added Jones to his name, some say after a family he befriended, but the more practical say to distance himself from his troubles in Tobago.
    He sided with the rebels in Virginia and regularly sought a commission by writing Joseph Hewes, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. This coincided with the birth of the American Navy and in December 1775 he became the first to be commissioned as a lieutenant in the Continental Navy.
    This was the beginning of the reputation for which he would be known and remembered. In August of the next year he took eight English prizes (captured eight ships) and sank eight more. Jones handled a ship well and had great instincts for maneuvering in an engagement. These would serve him well in his most famous battle from which came his most quoted statement.
    After outfitting the Ranger, attending to every detail for his specific purposes, including better than average stores of food for the crew, he sailed for France. The king of France, through contacts with Benjamin Franklin, gave him an ancient Indiaman (a large merchant ship) Jones refitted for war and named the Bon Homme Richard. With four other ships he sailed to raid English shipping. On August 8, 1779 he captured 17 English merchantmen. Jones' capturing ships and raiding the coast of the Irish Sea had the English in a corner they hadn't known since the Viking raids almost a thousand years earlier.
    Leaving the Irish Sea he sailed the east coast of England where he encountered and engaged the HMS Serapis off Flamborough Head, Yorkshire, late on a September afternoon in 1779. The Serapis, a new, large and much more heavily armed ship than the Bon Homme Richard along with another armed sloop were guarding a convoy of supply ships. The engagement that began after dark, had the Richard and the Serapis maneuvering about each other and firing. The Richard sustained damage early on, then got its bowsprit jammed into the aft starboard rigging of the Serapis. The captain called out to Jones to ask if he was "struck" or surrendering and Jones gave his famous reply, "I have not yet begun to fight."
    He hadn't, backing his topsails to get clear, he pulled away. Being very outgunned by the Serapis, Jones knew his only chance was to disable the enemy's rigging and kill off the crew, with musketry and hand grenades or by boarding for hand-to-hand combat. But the two gun decks of the Serapis would make a successful boarding difficult, so Jones used grappling hooks to slam the two ships together alongside. This jammed some of Serapis' gun port doors closed and smothered the superior fire power. Sharpshooters in the rigging prevented the British removing the grappling hooks. The Serapis unable to open their own gun port doors blasted them away from within. The two hulls jammed together were so close the Richard's rigging overhung the Serapis' and Jones' crew climbed into the enemy's rigging, threw down the English crewmen and fired directly down on the deck of the Serapis. After hours of pouring musket, cannon, grenade and anything that would cause a fire into the Serapis, its captain surrendered. Jones and crew boarded the Serapis, leaving the Bon Homme Richard, which had been sinking during the battle, to go down the next morning.
    Jones would many times demonstrate his sailing ability, skill in battle and instincts for both. He continued to seek a commission, an admiral's rank, but military infighting and politics, government bureaucratic squabbling and petty jealousies would frustrate his efforts. After the American Revolution he was given a major general's rank in the Russian Navy and played a crucial role in defeating Turkish forces at the eastern end of the Black Sea. The jealousy and politicking of a Russian officer interfered with Jones' ability to operate. Back in St. Petersburg he was framed in a sex scandal by military leaders and resigned.
    He went to Paris where he communicated with Benjamin Franklin and others in 1790 and once again sought a commission. After years of fighting to get paid what he was owed a from the American Revolutionary War and trying to secure a position, he found himself with growing debt and failing health. In 1792 Congress gave him a commission appointing him American Consul for Algeria, but before word could reach him from Washington, he died at 45 of the bronchial pneumonia that had been dragging him down.
    Portsmouth would go on selling materials to the shipyard in Kittery, Maine. The shipyard would roll out some of the best ships and submarines in the world.