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.
Thanks for this info. sfm
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