The best books about pirates (fact and fiction)

The best books about pirates (fact and fiction)
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Sunday, March 8, 2015

The Perpetuation of Pirate Myths



                A friend came across this article in his new issue of Lost Treasure Magazine and was nice enough to scan it over to me. I found it interesting because of all of the incorrect information and perpetuation of pirate myths it contains.
                I should have known something was up when I saw that there was a part of the article above the title, and then the entire article below it. There are only some sources listed before the title and then some at the end of the second article. A second warning is the fact that both listings of sources show that whoever the author of the article is used two articles that previously appeared in earlier issues of this same magazine. A little online research showed me there apparently was also an issue that mentioned this same topic in 2012, but that issue apparently wasn’t used as a reference here.  
                The premise of the article is that in the “latter part of 1716, a small band of pirates led by the infamous pirate Samuel Bellamy, buried a small fortune in gold, silver and jewels somewhere along the Machias River in Washington County, Maine.” The location of this fortune is said to be a few miles north-west of modern day Machias, Maine. The of 180 bags of gold that we know the pirates had on board the Whydah at the time its demise are said to be buried here. (As opposed to having gone down with the ship, which is the version told by at least two of the pirates during their interrogation before trial for piracy in Boston, Massachusetts in 1717.)
                The full article has Bellamy and Paulsgrave Williams starting out as Cape Cod fishermen who decided that the hard labor of fishing was not for them and joined forces with Thornigold and Lebous. (Yes, they spell the name Thornigold!)
                They are said to have sought out a safe harbor to affect repairs after a damaging storm. They pulled in to the mouth of the Machias River on the southeast coast of Maine. Here the article says that to avoid mutiny because they weren’t at a port where the men could spend their loot on women and alcohol, Bellamy made them start building a log fort to use as a permanent base of operations. The fortifications included a large underground vault.
                Bellamy is said to have been the only crew member aboard his ship that knew the art of navigation and thus was the only one who could find his way back to the fort.
                After they finished building this fort and headed back out to sea, the article has them capturing a ship called the Mary Jane, which seems to be a miss-spelling of the ship Mary Anne. It also has the crew of the Mary Anne shipwrecking off the near the town of Orleans instead of Eastham, Massachusetts.
                The article does get right the fact that Thomas Davis and John Julian are the only two recorded survivors of the wreck of the Whydah, but then it has them tried and hung for piracy, when Thomas Davis was acquitted and John Julian sold into slavery. It also has Davis and Julian confirming the location of this fort during their interrogation before trial. I have a copy of those trial transcripts, and Thomas Davis never mentions such a thing in his testimony and John Julian was never interrogated before being sold.
                Supposedly some of the logs and earthen defenses were visible until the 1970’s. Maybe the author was confused with the fact that it was sometimes parts of the Whydah which were visible for many years after the wreck.
                One of the sources of this article is said to be the Machias Chamber of Commerce, which I haven’t had a chance yet to contact. It might prove interesting to get their point of view on this subject. Since there are next to no records (other than Captain Kidd, I believe) of any pirates burying their treasure, I thought it was interesting to see yet another article come out perpetuating this myth.
                Keep in mind that this magazine is directed at amateur treasure hunters who search for lost treasure using metal detectors, etc.

“Lost Pirate Treasure,” Lost Treasure Magazine, April 2015, pps.  53-54.
               
               
               


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