The popularity of Pirates of the Caribbean and Spongebob Squarepants has introduced us to the term “Davy Jones’ Locker.” But where did this originate? It seems that no one really knows. The term is a figurative meaning for the bottom of the sea and the resting place of dead sailors. To be sent to Davy Jone’s Locker means death at sea.

The very first written reference to the term appeared in Tobias Smollett’s The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle which was published in 1751:

This same Davy Jones, according to sailors, is the fiend that presides over all the evil spirits of the deep, and is often seen in various shapes, perching among the rigging on the eve of hurricanes:, ship-wrecks, and other disasters to which sea-faring life is exposed, warning the devoted wretch of death and woe.

One interesting theory is that a British Ale Owner by the name of Jones, used to dump men into ale lockers and then sale them to passing ships for deck hands. The song, “Jones’ Ale is Newe” was popular in 1594.

Davy Jones in mentioned in both Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (1851) and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island (1883).

Davy Jones of the group the Monkees, actually appears in an episode of Spongebob Squarepants showing off his “locker.”