Jane McCrea was born in Bedminster, New Jersey, one of the younger children in the large family of Rev. James McCrea. After her mother died and her father remarried, McCrea moved in with her brother John who lived near Saratoga, New York, where she eventually became engaged to David Jones. When the American Revolutionary War broke out, two of her brothers joined the Continental Army and three others became Loyalists, while her fiancé fled to Quebec, which was under British control. During the summer of 1777, as British Army officer John Burgoyne's expedition neared the Hudson River, John (who by now was serving as a colonel in the Albany County militia) took up service in the 13th Albany County Militia Regiment. Jones, on the other hand, was serving as a lieutenant in a Loyalist militia unit accompanying Burgoyne's expedition, and was stationed at Fort Ticonderoga after the British captured it from the Americans.