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Sunday, January 17, 2016

What happened after separating from Bellamy

Something interesting about the Whydah I found while surfing around Wkipedia:

Abenaki Indians called it Matinicus, meaning "far-out island." The French used it as an early fishing station.

In early May 1717, several pirates from their snow (a type of two masted vessel), the Anne, raided several vessels that were off the shore of Matinicus at the time. The Anne had originally been captured off the Virginia Capes in April by the pirate Samuel Bellamy in the Whydah, which wrecked in a storm on the night of April 26, 1717, off of Cape Cod. The Anne made it through the storm with another captured vessel, the Fisher (which was soon abandoned and the pirates aboard her transferred to the Anne). The pirates arrived at Monhegan Island, Maine, on April 29 and waited for the Whydah, for the pirates had not seen or heard about the Whydah wrecking in the storm of the night of April 26. The pirates eventually realized the Whydah was lost, and proceeded to attack vessels in the area. Several of the pirates set out in a launch from the Anne and proceeded to Matinicus:
"...where they took a sloop belonging to Colonel [Stephen] Minot, one shallop belonging to Capt. [John] Lane and three Schooners. They brought the Sloop and Shallop and (as we are informed) the sails and compasses of the 3 schooners to Menhagen [Monhegan], whereupon they manned the last mentioned Sloop with ten hands..."
The pirates soon departed the area on May 9, 1717, on the 25-ton sloop formerly belonging to Colonel Minot, with a pirate crew of 19.[6]


"Deposition of Ralph Merry and Samuel Roberts" Boston. May 11, May 16, 1717. in Jameson, John Franklin. "Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period: Illustrative Documents." New York: Macmillan Company, 1923, pp. 301-302; "John Newman to Governor Shute" Gloucester. May 12, 1717. Massachusetts Archives 51:290

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