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With the ill treatment by his mistress “burning and broyling in [his] Breast,” Thomas Hellier, an indentured servant on a Virginia plantation, knew he had to escape. In 1677, Hellier was tricked into signing an indentured servant contract back in England with the promise that he would not be forced to perform physical labor and would instead be put to work in some trade that took advantage of his considerable skills and education.

After crossing the Atlantic and arriving in Virginia, Hellier was delivered to Lewis Conner. Connor owned a huge estate, which he amassed by taking advantage of a Virginia law that granted 50 acres to anyone who paid for the overseas passage of a servant. Conner would import servants, collect the land rights, and then sell them to someone else for an additional profit. In this way he acquired 1,280 acres in Nansemond County, and by 1704 he owned 2,200 acres in Norfolk County, the third largest total owned by one person.

Connor sold Hellier to Cutbeard Williamson, a small-to-middling planter, who promised Hellier that he would serve as the teacher to his children and not have to perform “laborious work” unless absolutely necessary. But there was one problem. Williamson and his wife did not have any children.

As soon as Hellier arrived at Hard Labour, the name of Williamson’s plantation, he was handed a hoe and sent out into the tobacco fields. Hellier tried to make the best of the situation, but he regularly received verbal abuse from Williamson’s wife,

who would not only rail, swear and curse at me within doors, whenever I came into the house, casting on me continually biting Taunts and bitter Flouts; but like a live Ghost would impertinently haunt me, when I was quiet in the Ground at work. And although I silently wrought as fast as she rail’d, plying my labour, without so much as muttering at her, or answering any thing good or bad; yet all the silence and observance that I could use, would not charm her vile tongue.

Unable to take such treatment any longer, Hellier ran away from the plantation and hid in a ship.

“I could not contain my self”

Thomas Hellier was born in 1650 in Dorsetshire, England. He attended school up until the age of 15 or 16, when he was bound as an apprentice to a barber-surgeon. During this time, his master’s son also taught Hellier how to be a stationer (i.e., a bookseller or someone involved in the book trade). Hellier gained his freedom after six years when his master died, and he soon afterward inherited 50 acres of land from his grandfather. He got married and had a daughter, and all would have gone well, except, as he later confessed, “I could not contain my self within the due bounds of Sobriety and Moderation.”

In 1673 or 74, Hellier cheated his father out of 12 pounds and without the knowledge of his family took the money to London with the aim of rising up in the world. He took out loans to set up a business as a barber-surgeon and stationer, but instead of tending to his business, he spent most of his time in taverns buying drinks for the high company he kept. Meanwhile, his debts continued to accumulate as he became “notoriously addicted to Cursing and Swearing” and “profaning the Sabbath.”

Hellier left London without ever paying his debts and went back to the country. But he continued his profligate ways, and in time local creditors claimed the cattle on his estate and then the estate itself. As a result, his wife and family all began to distance themselves from him. Fearing that he would end up in debtor’s prison, Hellier fled to London, where he signed on to become a surgeon on a ship with a German captain who possessed a French privateer commission. But before they could cast off, the captain was arrested and accused of being a pirate.

With no money for food, Hellier had no choice but to sell his clothes. Now at the end of his rope, he signed a contract to become an indentured servant in Virginia.

Back Home

After running away from the Hard Labour plantation, Hellier remained hidden for three weeks before Williamson discovered his whereabouts. As punishment, Hellier was subject to six weeks being added on to his term as a servant and to having his curly, dark brown hair cut close to his head to mark him as a former runaway.

Not surprisingly, Hellier’s mistress with “her odious and inveterate Tongue” treated him worse than before. All Hellier could do was think about escaping the “Hell upon Earth” that he was in. Running away did not work, so he came up with another plan.

In the early morning of May 24, 1678, Hellier put on his best clothes and got his ax. After mustering his courage two or three times, he rushed in to the bedroom of his master. In fright, the maid who regularly slept in the same room grabbed her bedroll and ran out. Hellier went straight for Williamson’s bed, raised the ax, and brought it down several times on what he presumed to be his master’s head.

Williamson’s wife jumped out of bed and grabbed a chair in an attempt to defend herself, but Hellier easily thrust it aside. She begged him to spare her life and said that he could take anything he wanted and leave the plantation. But the offer from his “greatest Enemy” did not satisfy him, “so down she went without Mercy.” When the maid heard her mistress in trouble, she returned to the room, and even though he initially had no plans to hurt her, she felt the blade of his ax as well. But unlike the other two, she survived the attack and ended up dying one or two days later.

Hellier broke open a closet, grabbed provisions, and loaded them onto a horse. With his master’s gun in hand, he headed off to enjoy the freedom from Hard Labour that he had so desired.

In the Woods

In working his way through the complicated woods and twisting waterways of the Virginia countryside, Hellier became lost. After wandering all day and night, he spotted a plantation where he knew one of the servants. He found the man and asked him the way to the James River. The servant pleaded ignorance, but said that he would go ask someone else. The master’s son shortly appeared and, most likely recognizing Hellier as a runaway by his short hair, asked him to come into the house for breakfast. Hellier declined the offer. The master’s son-in-law also showed up and asked Hellier to join the two in smoking some tobacco, which Hellier again turned down.

The two men finally agreed to show Hellier the way to the river and began walking with him, one in front and the other behind. They led Hellier to some water, and as they were passing through it, one of them seized the gun Hellier had been clutching and emptied it by firing a shot in the air. Hearing the blast, the master ran down, and the three men bound Hellier’s hands and took him to the Justice of the Peace.

Hellier was tried in Jamestown on July 26, 1678 and found guilty of the bloody crime. While Hellier waited in prison for his execution day, he recounted his life to a minister, who at Hellier’s request took the story back to England and published it. In the autobiography, Hellier refuted the belief by some that he had been transported to Virginia as a highwayman by maintaining that he never abused anyone on the English highways, except “one pittiful Beggar.” Hellier was traveling when he was approached by the beggar and figured that the poor-looking man had more money in his pocket than he did. He tricked the beggar into handing over some of his money and when the man demanded it back, Hellier justified keeping it by saying “I had little Money, and a great way to ride; but he could beg for more Money, I could not.”

At the Gallows

On August 5, 1678, like most convicts who were about to be executed in the 17th century, Hellier gave a speech to the crowd that gathered at the gallows. Hellier confessed his crime and asked God for forgiveness, but he also underhandedly took the opportunity to chastise Virginia planters.

Hellier admitted in his speech that he had been guilty of profaning the Sabbath, but he also wished aloud that such a practice were not as common as it was in Virginia, where masters regularly compelled servants to perform work on Sunday. He also confessed to committing the sins of cursing and swearing, but he pointed out that in Virginia he often heard children mimic their fathers and mothers in doing the same. Even more, he complained, masters regularly use such language against their servants: “They are not Dogs,” Hellier proclaimed, “who are professed Christians, and bear Gods Image; happily they are as good Christians as your selves, and as well bred and educated, though through Poverty they are forced to seek Christianity under thy roof; where they usually find nothing but Tyranny.”

After Hellier was executed, his body was hung in chains at Windmill Point on the James River as a warning to indentured servants not to defy their masters.

Sources

• Breen, T. H., James H. Lewis, and Keith Schlesinger. “Motive for Murder: A Servant’s Life in Virginia, 1678.” The William and Mary Quarterly, Third series, 40:1 (Jan. 1983), 106-120.
• The Vain Prodigal Life, and Tragical Penitent DEATH of Thomas Hellier. London: Sam. Crouch, 1680. Database: Eighteenth Century Collections Online: ProQuest.

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Daniel Wilson was confident he could escape from prison one more time. He was being held in the Providence jail after committing a rape back in December 1773 in Smithfield, RI. He had escaped from the jail twice before, although both times he was caught and returned. But he vowed to himself on this early Sunday morning in April that this time was going to be different.

For his most recent escape from prison, Wilson copied the pattern of the key that locked his cell door and passed it to some friends. They used the pattern to create a pewter key, which they slipped back to Wilson. After making a few adjustments, Wilson used the key to open his cell door and walked out. With his newfound freedom, he proceeded to steal ten pairs of shoes from Jabez Pearce and sold nine of them. He then stole a horse from Jonathan Cobb and rode to Connecticut. But an advertisement for his capture provided enough information to lead to his return to the Providence jail.

Wilson had incentive to escape from prison this third time: he was scheduled for execution. Wilson feverishly filed off a rivet that held together an iron loop that circled around his waist and was attached to a chain. From there, he broke out of his handcuffs and fetters and began to groan loudly. The jailor came up to his cell to find out what was wrong. Wilson claimed he was ill and needed immediate attention, but as soon as the jailor opened the door, Wilson pushed him aside, ran from the room, and jumped out a second-story window.

“I Followed My Trade with Diligence”

Wilson was born in Bellingham, MA on June 25, 1749. He could not recall committing any transgressions during his youth, except that he once stole some apples out of a hold in the ground from an African American. At 17, he left home to learn carpentry from Abraham Joslyn in Mendon. After working three years for Joslyn, Wilson set up his own carpentry business in Bellingham and claimed, “I followed my trade with diligence, and to good advantage.”

At 23, Wilson met John Arnold of Gloucester. Arnold had received ten dollars from a Dr. Wood from Uxbridge to help him scare away a rival doctor with the last name of Willard. Arnold convinced Wilson and another man to participate in the scheme by offering them equal shares in the money. Arnold’s plan was to go to Dr. Willard one night and tell him that a patient needed his help right away. Wilson and the other confederate were to wait in hiding and, when the doctor appeared, jump out and terrorize him. Willard showed up at the designated place, but the plan did not go as scripted because he was able to run away from the two ruffians.

Even though the scheme failed, Wilson and Arnold maintained their friendship, and it was during this time that Arnold convinced Wilson to become a horse thief. Wilson’s first couple tries at his new profession failed, but he finally found success in stealing a horse from Dr. Dagget of Wrentham. He briefly kept the horse at Arnold’s, and then rode far out to Springfield to exchange it for another one. But Wilson was arrested for the crime nonetheless. He was committed to the Boston jail, and after being held six weeks, he offered money to Dagget to settle the affair and was let go without any further punishment.

But Wilson continued his thieving ways by stealing another horse in Grafton. Once again he was detected but was able to smooth the matter over with money. Lacking success as a horse thief, Wilson turned to burglary. He broke into a shop on the border of Waltham and Watertown and took some silk, velvet, and other articles, along with eight or ten dollars in money.

It was after he carried out this burglary that Wilson committed the rape that earned him a death sentence. Wilson’s Life and Confession does not provide any details about the rape except that the evidence against him clearly convinced the jury of his guilt.

One Hundred Pound Reward

After Wilson jumped out the window of the Providence jail during his escape, the sheriff rounded up a posse from the town to pursue him. The Deputy-Governor also issued a proclamation that offered a reward of 100 pounds for Wilson’s capture. Two days later on Tuesday morning, the posse seized Wilson in Mendon. This time, Wilson was placed under round-the-clock military watch until the appointed time of his execution arrived on April 29, 1774.

Over twelve thousand people showed up to see Wilson executed, including a number of armed townspeople who joined the prison guard to provide added security. Earlier that morning, an alarm was set off throughout the town when word arrived from Smithfield that a mob from the surrounding area was expected to gather to rescue Wilson. But no rescue attempt ever materialized.

Accounts say that Wilson “behaved in a very decent manner” as he stood before the gallows. After an hour of ceremony, he was finally executed in front of the approving crowd. His body was later taken down and given to his friends for burial.

Sources

• Dialogue Between a Reverend Clergyman and Daniel Wilson. Boston: E. Russell, [1774]. Database: America’s Historical Imprints, Readex/Newsbank.
• “Providence, April 2.” Norwich Packet, April 7, 1774, vol. I, issue 27, p. 3. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• “Providence, April 23.” Providence Gazette, April 23, 1774, vol. XI, issue 537, p. 3. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• “Providence, April 30.” Providence Gazette, April 30, 1774, vol. XI, issue 538, p. 3. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• “Providence, January 15.” Providence Gazette, January 15, 1774, vol. XI, issue 523, p. 3. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• “Providence, March 12.” Providence Gazette, March 12, 1774, vol. XI, issue 531, p. 3. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• Wilson, Daniel. The Life and Confession of Daniel Wilson. [Providence?, 1774]. Database: America’s Historical Imprints, Readex/Newsbank.

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It was love at first sight for Samuel Bellamy and Mary Hallett. According to local lore, when the two met on a spring evening in 1715 in a tavern in Eastham, MA on Cape Cod, they began to talk about marriage. But when Hallett’s wealthy parents put a stop to the plan when they learned of their daughter’s desire to marry a penniless sailor, Bellamy stormed off, vowing to make his fortune and then return to claim his lover.

Soon after Bellamy left, the legend continues, Hallett discovered she was pregnant, and later in the winter she was found in a barn holding a dead baby. As punishment, she was publicly whipped before being thrown in jail to await her trial for murder. While in prison she lost her mind and with the help of the Devil escaped. She then lived a hermit’s life, where she roamed the beaches, scared children, brewed up storms, and waited for her lover to return.

The love story of Bellamy and Hallett is far-fetched, but historians have verified that a Mary Hallett did live in Eastham in 1715. She was the daughter of a wealthy settler, and she died childless in 1751. Was she Samuel Bellamy’s lover? We do not know.

The Treasure Hunt

While the story of the two lovers may or may not be true, we do know that around this same time Bellamy met Paulsgrave Williams, a silversmith from an affluent and well-connected family. When the two young men learned that an armada of eleven Spanish ships transporting an enormous treasure had run into a hurricane off the coast of Florida–and that the precious cargo now littered the shallow shores just waiting for those with means to dive into the water and retrieve it–they recognized their opportunity to make their fortune. Williams secured a ship, and with Bellamy lending his seafaring expertise, the two headed south to join in the treasure hunt.

Bellamy and Williams spent a month down in Florida at the site of the wreck, but the most they could find were scattered coins and cargo. They needed to come up with a new plan. As they picked up and headed further south into the Caribbean, they decided that if they could not find treasure from ships lying on the ocean bottom, they would turn pirate and simply seize it from ships sitting above water.

The two aspiring pirates had no trouble finding sailors in the Caribbean who wanted to join them in their adventure. Eventually, they teamed up with Captain Benjamin Hornigold, the most successful pirate at the time. Hornigold was so impressed with Bellamy’s skills that he appointed him captain of one of his newly captured ships. Before long, they came across another pirate, Olivier La Buse, and the three teamed up to terrorize merchant ships carrying precious cargo back and forth between the New World and the Old.

After experiencing great success, the partnership eventually soured. Hornigold was unwilling to attack English vessels out of loyalty to his home country, whereas Bellamy and La Buse maintained that any ship of any nationality should be fair game. The disagreement was put up to a crew-wide vote–in deciding matters of policy on board pirate ships, democracy ruled–and two-thirds of the men sided with Bellamy and La Buse. Hornigold left humiliated with only 26 loyal men following him (including Edward Teach, who would later become known as “Blackbeard”). In time, Bellamy and his French partner also went their separate ways.

After Bellamy’s meteoric rise from being a poor sailor in Massachusetts to becoming a feared pirate captain, he was now in charge of 170 pirates, who had backgrounds as varied as English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, and African. Under his command, he had a medium-sized warship and a sloop-of-war, the Sultana and the Marianne, and with them he enjoyed great success in attacking merchant ships throughout the Caribbean. But his ascent had not yet reached its zenith, because he was about to increase his maritime arsenal substantially.

The Slave Ship

The Whydah was a newly built slave ship that could carry an enormous load of up to 700 slaves or the equivalent in cargo. It was also armed with 18 powerful cannons mounted on its sides with room for more. In February 1717, Captain Lawrence Prince was returning with it back to England after buying hundreds of slaves on the Slave Coast of the Gulf of Guinea, selling his human cargo in Jamaica, and then loading the ship back up with sugar, indigo, silver, and gold to take back to England.

Only a few days out on the final leg of his circular journey, Prince noticed that the Whydah had gained two shadows. Even though the two ships following him in the distance were flying the Union Jack, Prince was worried. He ordered his crew to put up more sails in an attempt to lose them.

The chase lasted three days until the Sultana and the Marianne finally pulled up alongside the Whydah. Despite all of his ship’s firepower, Prince got off only two shots at the attacking vessels. The threatening display of Bellamy and his crew waving cutlasses, muskets, and hand-made grenades was enough to scare Prince and his crew into submission. For the 30 to 50 Africans on board Bellamy’s ship–pirates who had willingly joined Bellamy after he raided in similar fashion the slave ships that were transporting them–the capture of this vessel must have been especially satisfying.

Now that the Whydah was in their possession, Bellamy’s crew transferred all of their valuable cargo and guns from the Sultana onto their new prize. They also removed any unwanted cargo from the Whydah and loaded it onto the Sultana. Bellamy gave his unwanted ship to Prince, along with an amount of gold worth a paltry 20 pounds, so that he and his crew could sail home.

Thomas Davis, a carpenter who had previously been forced to join the pirates, asked Bellamy if he could go with Prince, since the pirate captain had promised to release him at some point. But the pirate crew overruled Bellamy by voting to retain Davis on account of his valuable skills. Several of Prince’s men, in contrast, decided to stay with Bellamy rather than return home with their captain. Bellamy forced three other members of Prince’s crew to remain on his ship because they possessed special skills and were unmarried–Bellamy never forced a married man to join him.

Bellamy not only took possession of a state-of-the-art warship; the Whydah was also carrying a mind-blowing amount of treasure and gold valued between 20,000 and 30,000 pounds. The gold was counted out and divided into bags containing 50 pounds each in order to hand them out later as shares to the 180 men. The bags were kept unguarded in chests between decks, although no one was allowed to enter the hold without the Quarter Master present.

North

With the Whydah and the Marianne under his command, Bellamy now headed north, seizing and plundering dozens of ships along the way. At one point off the coast of the Carolinas, the pirates took a small sloop. The ship was too small to be of use to the pirates, so as Bellamy’s crew unloaded its cargo, they debated what to do with it. Bellamy and Williams were in favor of giving it back to its captain, but the crew voted otherwise.

Reluctantly, Bellamy called Captain Beer into his cabin to give him the bad news. “Damn my blood,” Bellamy said, “I am sorry they won’t let you have your sloop again, for I scorn to do anyone a mischief when it is not for my advantage. Damn the sloop, we must sink her and she might have been use to you.” With that, Bellamy’s crew set the ship on fire and rowed Beer over to the Marianne, so that Williams could eventually drop him off at Block Island.

Bellamy and Williams became separated before reaching Rhode Island. After dumping Captain Beer and his crew off, Williams hung around off the coast of Rhode Island and the mouth of Long Island Sound waiting for Bellamy to meet up with him. But Bellamy continued heading up toward Cape Cod. Local lore again says that Bellamy’s destination was Eastham, in order to show off his newfound wealth to the family of his sweetheart. Along the way, Bellamy captured the Mary Anne, which turned out to be carrying a large load of wine from Boston to New York. Bellamy put eight of his men in charge of the ship and looked forward to the wild drunk fest they would enjoy once they reached land.

Bellamy continued the journey with his new prize in tow, but dense fog began to roll in, and the two ships were soon separated as well. The pirates on board the Mary Anne made the most of the situation by breaking into the hold and starting to drink the wine. But the party was interrupted when they discovered that the ship was taking on water. As they assigned their captive crew the grueling task of manning the pumps, the sky blackened and the winds stiffened. It was not long before 30-foot waves started to batter the ship, and 70 mile per hour winds began to push it towards the coast of Cape Cod.

Despite the efforts of the crew to keep the ship away from shore, the bottom of the ship collided with the ocean floor. One of the pirates grabbed an ax and began chopping away at the masts to take them down and relieve the stress on the shattered hull. After two of the three masts fell, the pirates and the captive crew all huddled together in desperation to hear one of the literate men on the ship read from the Book of Common Prayer.

Daybreak

The pirates and sailors on the Mary Anne were relieved when daybreak arrived. The ship ran aground on a small island south of Eastham, and it being low tide they could actually jump down from the ship onto dry ground. The pirates picked up at the point where they were so rudely interrupted by continuing to drink down the wine that survived the storm.

Ten miles to the north, Bellamy and his crew were not nearly so lucky. The mighty Whydah turned out to be no match for the violent waters, which smashed the ship up against the shoreline. The ship’s canons came loose, the main mast came crashing down, and the hull broke apart and emptied its contents, including the men and the treasure, into the sea. In the end, only two of the pirates on board the Whydah made it safely to shore: John Julian, a Mosquito Indian, and Thomas Davis, the carpenter who requested to leave the pirates when the Whydah was captured. Everyone else, including Bellamy, perished.

At ten o’clock in the morning, two local men, John Cole and William Smith, spotted the wreck of the Mary Anne and rowed over to the island to help transport the crew back to the mainland. While the pirates argued in front of Cole and Smith over what they should do next, one of them blurted out that they were members of Sam Bellamy’s pirate crew. Realizing the error, the men gathered up their things and moved on.

Cole ran straight to the authorities, and the seven pirates were picked up in the Eastham Tavern and thrown in jail at Barnstable.

Treasure Grab

News of the shipwrecks continued to spread. Massachusetts Governor Samuel Shute tried to act quickly to prevent looting and recover as much of the pirate treasure for the Crown as he could. He issued a proclamation ordering people to turn over to the state any escaped pirates and any treasure, goods, or merchandise from the wreckage. He then sent Cyprian Southack, a cartographer and sea captain, to the site of the Whydah’s wreck to oversee the recovery.

Southack arrived at the scene only to discover 200 people already combing the beach and carting off whatever fragments of the wreckage they could find among the hundred plus battered corpses strewn across the beach. It being low tide, he could spot the anchor of the Whydah out in the water, but the rainy weather and rough seas prevented him from finding any of the supposed treasure that might have been buried in the sea.

Southack issued a public demand for the return of any items that people took from the wreck, but he only received what amounted to 200 pounds worth. The rest of the ship’s loot either made it into the hands of individuals or remained at the bottom of the ocean. Southack marked the location of the shipwreck on one of his maps and moved on. About two months later, two anchors, two great guns, and other items recovered from the wreckage of the Whydah were auctioned off at the Crown Coffeehouse in Boston.

Trial

Governor Shute ordered the seven pirates being held in Barnstable to be transferred to Boston, where they were put in the same prison where Captain Kidd was held back in 1699 (at what is now 26 Court Street). The two sole survivors of the Whydah were also picked up and placed in prison with the others. Julian’s stay there was not long. Due to his dark skin, he was sold off as a slave. In this case, his fate turned out to be a blessing, because the rest of his crewmates were about to face trial for piracy.

26 Court Street, Boston - Site of Boston Prison

The view of the Old State House from the site of Boston Prison

The eight remaining pirates were tried at what is now the Old State House near Faneuil Hall, right down the street from the Boston Prison. The seven pirates aboard the Mary Anne were tried together first. They were all found guilty and sentenced to death except for one, a carpenter named Thomas South, who convinced the court that the pirates forced him to join their crew. Thomas Davis from the Whydah was tried separately and was also found not guilty for the same reason. When the two men each heard the verdict in their favor, they dropped to their knees and thanked the Court.

The famous New England minister, Cotton Mather, visited the six remaining pirates in prison, and on November 15, 1717, he accompanied them to the Charles River ferry landing, where a large crowd gathered to witness their execution. According to Mather, the pirates showed consternation and penitence for their actions as they stood on the scaffold. One of the pirates made a short speech, “which every body trembled at,” warning the sailors in the crowd not to repeat his wicked living and to avoid if at all possible falling into the hands of pirates. Mather noted, to his chagrin, that his speech was riddled with salty language.

Mather later published the conversations he had with the pirates about salvation and other religious matters, although the dialogue he supposedly reproduces show the pirates to be more devout than can be believed. He also included the sermon he delivered on the occasion of their execution entitled, “Warnings to Them That Make Haste To Be Rich.”

Epilogue

Paulsgrave Williams, who rode out the storm in safety near Rhode Island, eventually learned of Bellamy’s fate. He reluctantly turned around and headed south to Nassau to spread the news about what had happened to other pirates. He continued to capture and loot ships along the way.

When word reached Blackbeard that Massachusetts had hanged six members of Bellamy’s crew, he was furious. In revenge, he burned one of the ships he captured “because she belonged to Boston alledging the People of Boston had hanged some of the pirates.” He then vowed to disrupt and destroy as much British shipping as he could.

Bellamy’s ship remained underwater and undiscovered until 1984, when undersea explorer Barry Clifford found the wreckage by using Southack’s map to help him find it. To date, the Whydah remains the only positively-identified pirate shipwreck ever to be discovered. Over 200,000 pieces have been found over the course of the Whydah recovery project, including the ship’s bell, which has an inscription that confirmed the ship’s identity. The value of the recovered treasure, though, resides more in the information it has given to us about pirates and their lives than in actual monetary riches.

Sources

[Advertisement]. Boston News-Letter, From Monday July 22, to Monday July 29, 1717, issue, 693, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers: Readex/Newsbank.

“Advertisements.” Boston News-Letter, From Monday June 10, to Monday June 17, 1717, issue 687, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers: Readex/Newsbank.

“Boston.” Boston News-Letter, From Monday April 29, to Monday May 6, 1717, issue 681, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers: Readex/Newsbank.

Dow, George Francis and John Henry Edmonds. The Pirates of the New England Coast 1630-1730. New York: Dover Publications, 1923 reprint.

“Education Through Exploration.” The Whydah Pirate Museum. Website: http://whydah.com/barry-clifford-biography.pdf.

[Mather, Cotton]. Instructions to the Living, from the Condition of the Dead. Boston: John Allen for Nicholas Boone, 1717. Database: America’s Historical Imprints: Readex/Newsbank.

Rediker, Marcus. Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004.

The Trials of Eight Persons Indited for Piracy &c. Boston: B. Green for John Edwards, 1718. Database: America’s Historical Imprints: Readex/Newsbank.

Webster, Donovan. “Pirates of the Whydah.” National Geographic Magazine, May 1999. Website: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/whydah/story.html.

Woodard, Colin. The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down. New York: Harcourt, 2007.

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After one week, hunger finally drove Owen Syllavan out of his hiding place in the Connecticut woods and forced him to seek refuge with an acquaintance. Syllavan cut open a plank in the floor of his friend’s house, dug a large cavity that went under the hearth of the fireplace, and rigged a vent so that the smoke from his own makeshift fireplace would go up the main chimney.

As Syllavan sat in the dark in 1756 with only the fire in his chimney for light, he must have reflected on how he had come to be lying in a hole in the ground and perhaps about how his present situation was not unlike a scene from his childhood.

“All kinds of mischief”

Owen Syllavan was born near the town of Fethard, Ireland and admits that from a young age, he was “always in all kinds of mischief; so that I never minded Father or Mother, Sister nor Brother; but went on in all Manner of Vice.” When he was eleven, his parents became so fed up with his behavior that they locked in a room for a period of time and fed him only bread and water. But the punishment failed to have its effect, because when Syllavan finally gained his liberty, he was “ten times worse” than he was before. Exasperated, his parents sent him away to live with a strict schoolmaster.

Syllavan’s real name was John, and as if to underscore this point, an evil spirit began to visit him while he slept at the schoolmaster’s house and repeatedly called his name, “John, John, John.” This chant would go on for several minutes at a time throughout the night. The visitations continued three nights in a row, so the schoolmaster began to stay with Syllavan in his room. But the spirit kept appearing.

Ministers were brought in. People prayed. They tried moving Syllavan to another house. All to no avail. As soon as the clock hit eleven o’clock, the spirit began calling, “John, John, John.” Syllavan became sick, and the sounds of the spirit began to grow. Finally, Syllavan was returned home, but this time the spirit did not follow him.

Syllavan continued his evil ways until at the age of thirteen he left the “tyranny” of his parents and ran away. He came upon some men who were about to sail to Waterford, and when he asked them to take him there so that he could visit his aunt, he told the men his name was Owen Syllavan. The name stuck, although at other times he went by John Brown and John Livingston (whether either of these last names was his real one is not known).

Indentured Servitude

Syllavan continued to travel around Ireland until he met a man on the road who asked him where he was from. Syllavan answered that he was from Dublin and, his poor parents being dead, that he was travelling to Cork to see if he could find any of his relatives. The man told Syllavan that if he agreed to live with him instead, that he would be his “friend and relation too.” Syllavan ended up going back to the man’s house, where he indentured himself to him for seven years and became the foot-page of the man’s wife.

After serving the family for six years, Syllavan suddenly became homesick, so when his master asked him to deliver a letter one day, Syllavan used the opportunity to run away. He ended up back at Waterford, but never made it back to his parents. Instead, he once again bound himself as an indentured servant–this time for four years on a ship headed to Boston.

The trip lasted nine weeks, and there were not enough provisions on board to satisfy the number of people who had signed up for the trip. Syllavan was desperately hungry, so he offered to give the captain three more years of his service in exchange for all the biscuits he could eat within a specified time span. The captain laughed and agreed to the bargain, although he added the condition that Syllavan could not drink anything within that time frame.

After the ship arrived in Boston, Syllavan was sold to a man who lived in St. George in what is now Maine. He spent two and a half years clearing land and chopping wood, until the family moved to Boston in fear of the French and Indian War. Syllavan’s owner sold his remaining time to a captain, and Syllavan spent the next two years serving as a soldier. He then reenlisted in the army against the wishes of his master and eventually became the chief armorer, where he learned to engrave guns. Syllavan enjoyed the rigors of the army, and his rising success prompted him to get married.

A New Career

The marriage turned out to be disastrous. The two newlyweds began to drink too much, and “through her aggravating Tongue,” he began to neglect his duties and was demoted to a common soldier. Syllavan used his time off-duty to practice his skills as a silversmith. One day, he cast a Spanish dollar, and absent-mindedly left it out on his workbench. Someone saw the coin and turned him in for counterfeiting. He was tried in front of a court marshal and even though he pled guilty to making the coin, he was acquitted. Later, he quarreled with a fellow soldier and received fifty lashes as punishment.

Syllavan’s regiment broke up around the end of 1748, so he set up an engraving business in Boston. One day, two men asked him to engrave a plate that could be used to print New Hampshire money and paid him well for doing so. In the belief that he had stumbled upon “an easy way of getting money,” Syllavan started to counterfeit Boston bills of credit.

Neighbors watched as Syllavan began to live large, but they also noticed that his expenses never seemed to match his income. Then Syllavan’s wife inadvertently cried out during an argument, “Hey, you Forty Thousand Money-Maker.” The neighbors overheard the remark, and they lodged a complaint. When the authorities searched Syllavan’s workshop, they discovered a mold for casting dollars, ink, copperplate, and pieces of paper on which Syllavan had practiced imitating the signatures on bills of credit. Syllavan was immediately arrested and put in jail.

While Syllavan was in confinement, he used his free time to engrave three plates that could be used to print New Hampshire and Boston money. He then sold the plates to a friend in exchange for help in getting him out of prison. As a result Syllavan was released on bail, but he was soon found guilty of committing forgery. As punishment, he stood two hours in the pillory and received twenty lashes at the whipping post.

After his release, the two men who originally commissioned the New Hampshire plates from Syllavan were caught holding counterfeit money. In an attempt to save themselves, they both “turned King’s evidence” by offering to provide testimony against the engraver, but Syllavan managed to escape capture and fled to Rhode Island.

Twelve Thousand Pounds

While in Rhode Island, Syllavan returned to his counterfeiting business and added several accomplices to his operation. With their aid, he printed and distributed 12,000 pounds of Rhode Island money, but the wife of one of his partners was caught passing some of the counterfeit bills, which threatened to bring down the whole operation.

Boston Post-Boy - August 17, 1752 (From Early American Newspapers, an Archive of Americana Collection, published by Readex (Readex.com), a division of NewsBank, inc.)

Syllavan tried to protect his associates by telling them to claim that they believed the counterfeit money they received from him to be real, but one member of the group, Nicholas Stephens, decided to protect himself by giving evidence against the others. Stephens’s plan backfired. Syllavan’s confederates held firm to their story, and Syllavan backed them up by pleading guilty and maintaining that he had cheated them without their knowledge. As a result, both Stephens and Syllavan were found guilty and sentenced to branding on both cheeks with an “R,” cropping of their ears, and imprisonment.

Syllavan charmed the public and his captors so much that not only was his corporal punishment inflicted in such a light manner that it barely showed, but he was so casually guarded that he broke free from the guards, grabbed a cutlass, and used it to encourage the executioner to administer Stephens’s punishment to its full effect. Syllavan escaped several times during his imprisonment and on his last attempt fled to Dutchess County, New York.

The Dover Money Club

In New York, Syllavan formed a new gang of counterfeiters, and since they were centered in the town of Dover, they became known as the Dover Money Club. Almost all of the members had a crop or brand mark, which they wore with honor, since the marks indicated that they were seasoned in their field.

By this time, Syllavan was an accomplished engraver, and he produced high quality bills that were almost impossible to distinguish from the originals. The Club developed an extensive network of passers and agents throughout Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New York, and Syllavan traveled throughout New England printing bills for Club associates. But Syllavan had become quarrelsome and demanding, and he was rarely sober. In addition, the extensive activities of the gang were beginning to catch the notice of the authorities.

In early 1756, someone recognized Syllavan and his gang hanging out in western Connecticut and reported them. The authorities swooped in and began arresting the members of the Club. But Syllavan learned what was happening before they could capture him. He retreated into a wood near a swamp and then into the mountains, before ending up in the bunker he had dug under his friend’s house.

Underground

While Syllavan hid underground, several men arrived looking for him. The owners of the house denied any knowledge of his whereabouts, but one of the men discovered some newly moved dirt, so they began a more diligent search. They entered a bedroom where a woman was presumably sleeping, moved the bed to the side with the woman still in it, and discovered a loose plank that was cut in two. After the men removed the plank, Syllavan emerged from the earthen cavity and surrendered.

Syllavan was first taken to the New Haven jail and then transferred to New York, where he was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to execution. He took pride in the fact that even though his accomplices deserved the same fate as him, that he did not betray any of them. At his execution on Monday, May 10, 1756, he expressed hope that his associates would destroy all of their money, plates, and counterfeiting accessories, so that they would not meet a similar end.

Syllavan essentially received his wish. Only one other gang member out of the 29 in the group was ever punished, with the rest either eluding capture, escaping after arrest, or receiving acquittals due to a lack of evidence.

(Prints and Photographs Division - Library of Congress)

Sources

• [Advertisement]. Boston Evening Post, June 7, 1756, issue 1084, Supplement p. 1. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• “Boston.” Boston News-Letter, September 13, 1750, issue 2522, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• “Boston, 14, September 1750.” Boston Evening-Post, September 17, 1750, issue 788, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• “Newport, August 14, 1752.” Boston Post-Boy, August 17, 1752, issue 921, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• “New York, May 17.” Boston Gazette, May 24, 1756, issue 60, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• Scott, Kenneth. Counterfeiting in Colonial America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1957.
• Syllavan, Owen. A Short Account of the Life of John *********, alias Owen Syllavan. Boston: Green & Russell, 1756. Database: America’s Historical Imprints, Readex/Newsbank.

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As soon as Joseph Andrews read the newspaper article in the St. Christopher’s Gazette, which reproduced the deposition William Harris gave to the authorities, he knew he had to leave the Caribbean island of St. Eustatia immediately.

The decision was a wise one, because as soon as Governor John De Windt read the same story in the same newspaper, he issued a proclamation that anyone caught assisting Andrews or his partner, Nicholas Johnson, in leaving the island of St. Eustatia would have to pay a penalty of 50,000 pieces of eight. But the governor’s action came too late. Andrews had already left the island on board a coasting sloop bound for Casco Bay under the name of Joseph Saunders.

De Windt quickly wrote Governor Francis Bernard of Massachusetts Bay to inform him of Andrews’s pending arrival, and Bernard responded by issuing his own proclamation on December 2, 1766 that ordered all justices of the peace, sheriffs, and civil officers within the province to use their “utmost Diligence” in locating and capturing Andrews.

What was in the newspaper article that initiated the manhunt for Andrews and Johnson?

William Harris’s Deposition

In August 1766, Joseph Andrews left New York and headed to the West Indies in the sloop Polly. He observed that the captain and the passengers had a lot of money with them, so he and Nicholas Johnson devised a plan to take possession of it.

With William Harris at the helm on the night before the ship was due to arrive at the island of St. Christophers (now Saint Kitts), Johnson walked over to the captain, who was sleeping up on deck, and with one blow of an ax killed him “without a Groan or Struggle.” Andrews and Johnson then turned on the rest of the passengers and crew and killed them in similar fashion. They even struck the young mate with an ax and threw him overboard while he was still alive. (Andrews later gave the excuse that the boy was mortally wounded, so he figured that it would be best to finish him off then and there rather than make him suffer over the course of weeks.)

When Harris saw what was happening, he cried out, “For God Almighty’s sake, Andrews, what are you about?” With ax in hand, Andrews then chased after Harris, who ran to the end of the bowsprit with a knife as his only defense. Andrews figured that they might need Harris to help with navigation, so Andrews told him that with everyone else on board dead, the ship was now in their possession. But if Harris joined them and swore to keep what happened a secret, they would not harm him and would share the plunder. Harris realized that he had little choice, so he agreed to the proposal.

The three men broke open the chests and lockers of the captain and crew and toasted their success with a bottle of wine. They also found a Bible, and the two instigators made Harris swear upon it never to betray them. After a few days of sailing, they spotted land, so they transferred their booty into a smaller boat and abandoned the ship. They let Harris steer the boat towards land, but along the way Andrews and Johnson fell asleep. Harris quickly stripped down, slipped off the boat, and swam to safety. Good thing, too, because the other two had concocted a plan to kill Harris just before they reached land.

When Harris arrived on St. Christophers, he consulted with a minister, who assured him that the oath he took on the Bible was not binding, and, more than that, that it would be criminal for him to keep the oath. So Harris went straight to the Judge Surrogate of the Admiralty and gave a deposition that detailed everything that had happened on the Polly, which was subsequently printed in the Gazette.

Nicholas Johnson’s Crucial Error

Nicholas Johnson apparently made the crucial error of not reading the same newspaper article that Andrews and Governor De Windt did, because he was quickly captured on St. Eustatia. According to the law of the island, no one could be put to death without first confessing his crime, no matter how much evidence is accumulated or how many witnesses step forward to testify. To get around this legal obstacle, the suspect was normally put on “the Rack” (although in this case, it is also known as the Breaking Wheel) and tortured “more or less in proportion to the Appearances or Evidence against him” until he finally declared his guilt. Most suspects confessed right away rather than face the torture, and in so doing limited the need to accumulate evidence against them.

Such was the case with Johnson, who, in fear of the rack, gave a full confession and made bringing Harris in from the island of St. Christopher to testify against him unnecessary. Johnson was sentenced to be publicly executed on November 15, 1766–by means of the rack.

At 9 a.m., Johnson was brought out of the fort that held him and was secured with cords to a wooden cross lying parallel to the ground. The executioner surveyed the scene, then held aloft a heavy iron bar, and brought it down on Johnson’s right leg. In the same way, he then proceeded to break Johnson’s other leg and two arms. Up until this point, Johnson took the punishment without so much as a groan, but when the executioner hammered away on Johnson’s thighs, the condemned criminal screamed out in pain. With Johnson’s limbs now “mangled and shattered,” the executioner began to strike Johnson’s stomach. After twenty-two blows to his middle, Johnson finally expired.

Johnson suffered this gruesome end because he happened to be caught on an island that did not fall under English rule and consequently was not governed by English law.

Who Was Joseph Andrews?

Joseph Andrews was captured in Boston shortly after he arrived in New England. He denied being involved in the murders on the Polly, but several items with the captain’s name on them were later found in his possession, along with large sums of money and gold. When he was discovered, Andrews had cut off his black, curly hair and was wearing a wig. But his disguise failed to keep his identity a secret. What remained a secret, however, were the biographical details of his life.

Conflicting accounts of Andrews’s background circulated in the colonial American media, to the point where it is impossible to know which story is the correct one. The Last Dying Speech and Confession of Joseph Andrews, which is written in the first person, claims that Andrews was born to Portuguese parents. His father was a Mendicant friar who renounced his vows to marry Andrews’s mother, and, in order to escape judgment and shame, the two moved from Lisbon to Vigo, Spain. Andrews’s mother died while in childbirth, and his father later died of dysentery when the boy was 13.

Free of supervision, Andrews moved to Lisbon and worked on the docks. After he married the older widow of an acquaintance who had died, Andrews started to drink to excess and eventually left his wife after he became intoxicated and beat her “in a most shocking Manner.” He briefly joined a group of banditti and committed “Sundry excesses, and depredations upon innocent People who had never injured me” before leaving the country on board a ship headed for Brazil. He traveled around South America and the West Indies, all the while “meditating Schemes to get suddenly Rich.”

The Last Dying Speech lists several murders that Andrews supposedly committed, including one in which he murdered the captain of a French schooner and his crew, and then set a wife, child, and a “Negro Wench” who were on board off in a canoe without any food or drink. But other accounts accuse Johnson of having committed some of these very same crimes, and it is not clear if they carried any of them out together.

An Account of the Trial of Joseph Andrews for Piracy and Murder gives an entirely different account of Andrews’s life. It claims that Andrews was born in Wales in the town of Swansea to poor, but honest, Protestant parents. He traveled to Boston as an indentured servant and was apprenticed to a captain. But he deserted his master when they were at port in Lisbon, and his ability to speak Portuguese is attributed to the time he spent there afterward. He later lived in New York, where he married–and later abandoned–a widow.

Newspapers give varying accounts of Andrews’s background as well. Some insist that he was Welsh, while others say that he was Portuguese and was always trying to pass himself off as a Welshman, which was the case when he was apprehended in Boston.

Punishment

When Governor Henry Moore of New York learned that Andrews was being held in Massachusetts, he requested that he be transferred to his province to receive trial. Before Andrews could be moved, however, he tried to kill himself by slitting his throat, but the knife was too small to accomplish its end.

Under the guard of two men, Andrews sailed to New York along with the evidence that was found on him–that is, except for the money and gold, which remained in Boston until “further Order.” When Andrews arrived, a crowd of spectators gathered to see him transferred from the ship to the gaol.

Andrews remained in prison for almost two years before he was tried. Finally, after a long trial, Andrews was found guilty of piracy and murder on May 18, 1769 and was sentenced to be executed with his body to be afterwards hung in chains, as was the custom for pirates.

The night before he was executed, Andrews tried to use his life story as a means of blackmail. He said that he would “give a particular account of the Transactions of his Life” if the authorities agreed not to hang his body in chains after this death. But if they could not meet his demand, “the World should have little Satisfaction from him.”

Andrews was executed on May 23 by hanging on the east side of the Hudson River, near Domini’s Hook. His body was afterward hung in chains “on the most conspicuous Part of the Pest or Bedlow’s-Island, in New York Bay, as a Spectacle to deter all Persons from the like atrocious Crimes”–which is perhaps why we will never know the true story of Joseph Andrews.

Sources

• An Account of the Trial of Joseph Andrews for Piracy and Murder. [New York], 1769. Database: America’s Historical Imprints: Readex/Newsbank.
• Andrews, Joseph. The Last Dying Speech and Confession of Joseph Andrews. [New York]: Swiney & Stewart, [1769]. Database: America’s Historical Imprints: Readex/Newsbank.
• “Boston, April 6.” New-York Journal, April 16, 1767, issue 1267, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers: Readex/Newsbank.
• “Boston, December 22.” Boston Gazette, December 22, 1766, issue 612, p. 3. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers: Readex/Newsbank.
• “Boston, December 22.” New-Hampshire Gazette, December 26, 1766, issue 534, p. 3. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers: Readex/Newsbank.
• “Boston, December 29.” Boston Evening-Post, December 29, 1766, issue 1632, p. 3. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers: Readex/Newsbank.
• “By His Excellency Francis Bernard, Esq. . . . a Proclamation.” Boston Evening-Post, December 8, 1766, issue 1629, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers: Readex/Newsbank.
• “The Deposition of William Harris.” New-York Journal, November 13, 1766, issue 1245, p. 1. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers: Readex/Newsbank.
• “The English Prints . . .” New-York Mercury, June 6, 1767, issue 813, p. 3. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers: Readex/Newsbank.
• A Narrative of Part of the Life and Adventures of Joseph Andrews. [New York, 1769]. Database: America’s Historical Imprints: Readex/Newsbank.
• “New-York, May 18.” New-York Journal, May 18, 1769, issue 1376, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers: Readex/Newsbank.
• “New-York, May 29.” New-York Gazette, May 29, 1769, issue 918, p. 3. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers: Readex/Newsbank.
• “St. Christophers, November 19.” Boston News-Letter, December 12, 1767, issue 3306, p., Supplement [1]. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers: Readex/Newsbank.
• “St. Eustatia, November 12, 1766.” New-York Gazette, From Monday December 8, to Monday December 15, 1766, issue 401, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers: Readex/Newsbank.

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The merchants and planters in and around Bath, North Carolina had had enough of Edward Teach, a.k.a. Blackbeard. The pirate had been living–and carousing–in town, and had been pillaging ships up and down the inlets and rivers of the colony. But the citizens knew that they could not complain to Governor Charles Eden of North Carolina, because he tacitly approved Blackbeard’s actions.

Earlier in the summer of 1718, Blackbeard secretly met with Eden, who was eager to bring money into his backwater colony. The Governor agreed to issue pardons for past actions to Blackbeard and his pirate crew, and Blackbeard and his closest allies would then settle down in North Carolina to lead what would appear to be normal lives. With the pardon serving as cover and with government officials looking the other way, Blackbeard could then freely attack vessels along the coast. In exchange, Eden would receive a cut of Blackbeard’s spoils and serve as a fence for the rest.

Since the merchants and planters of North Carolina could not rely on their own governor, they instead looked north to Governor Alexander Spotswood of Virginia. Spotswood was no saint, either. He nurtured a culture of corruption in his colony by building a lavish Governor’s mansion for himself and using his position to take private possession of 85,000 acres of public land. With political opposition to his administration mounting, Spotswood saw the pursuit of Blackbeard as an opportunity to shift attention away from his own misdeeds, so he agreed to help out.

The Most Powerful Pirate in the Atlantic

Blackbeard was born around 1680 in Bristol, England’s second largest port at the time. He was educated to read and write, and he went out to sea at a young age. He was tall, thin, and–true to his nickname–sported a long beard.

Starting in the early 1700’s, Blackbeard served on privateer ships, which attacked and plundered Spanish merchant vessels in the Caribbean under English sponsorship during the War of the Spanish Succession. But when peace with Spain brought an end to privateering in 1713, Blackbeard joined Benjamin Hornigold to embark on a new profession: piracy.

In the fall of 1716, Hornigold captured a ship that could be outfitted perfectly for piracy, so he rewarded Blackbeard’s loyal service by placing him in command of it. Blackbeard outfitted the ship with 40 guns and renamed her the Queen Anne’s Revenge. By the spring, Blackbeard had 70 men under his leadership. He was the fourth most powerful pirate in Nassau and was well on his way to becoming the most powerful pirate in all of the Atlantic.

Blackbeard enhanced his ferocious reputation as a pirate through his appearance. He braided pigtails in his hair and beard, and when he attacked a ship, he would dangle lit fuses out from under his hat and around his face. This fiery display, along with his “fierce and wild” eyes, made him look like he was a demon from Hell. Yet, despite coming off as a madman, there is no evidence that he ever killed outright anyone on board a seized ship, and he won public support with his kind treatment of captured crewmembers and the return of cargo that he did not need. His look and act was specifically designed to scare ships into submission rather than to provoke a fight, since avoiding violence ultimately benefitted both sides.

Pirates like Blackbeard created a crisis in the Atlantic trade system with their attacks on merchant ships. Indeed, in the spring of 1717, Blackbeard completely disrupted trade and produced terror throughout the city of Charleston, South Carolina when he blockaded the sea route to the city in order to procure medicine to treat his wounded crew. The devastating effect that piracy had on trade is why pirates were harshly treated if they were ever caught. Captured pirates were quickly brought to trial and hanged in chains if found guilty, with their decaying bodies serving as notice to other seamen who might think about following a similar path.

When Blackbeard learned in April 1717 that the Whydah sank in a storm taking pirate captain Samuel Bellamy down with her and that the survivors were to be hanged in Boston, he was incensed and changed tactics. From now on, Blackbeard vowed to disrupt and destroy as much British shipping as he could. He still respectfully treated passengers and crew who submitted to him, but the cargo was another story. He now dumped into the ocean any goods that he did not need. And when he captured a Boston merchant vessel, he exacted revenge for the executions of the Whydah’s crew by setting it on fire. The mid-Atlantic coast now seemed to be at his mercy.

The Hunt for Blackbeard

When Spotswood ordered the hunt for Blackbeard, he shrouded the plan in the greatest of secrecy in fear that it would be leaked to Blackbeard in some way. He did not even share the plan with British government officials. Spotswood enlisted Lieutenant Robert Maynard to head the covert mission into North Carolina. In the meantime, he pushed a proclamation through the Virginia Assembly that offered a reward for the capture or destruction of any pirate within the year and specifically set the reward for capturing Blackbeard at one hundred pounds.

Maynard arrived in the neighboring colony with two ships on November 21, 1718 and soon spotted Blackbeard’s ship hiding in shallow waters. The next day, he sent an exploratory boat, which received fire once it got close enough to Blackbeard’s ship. Maynard immediately raised the British flag and sailed after the pirate. Eventually, both Blackbeard’s and Maynard’s ships ran aground, but Maynard removed all of his ship’s ballast and began to close in on Blackbeard.

Blackbeard shouted, “Damn for you Villains, who are you? And, from whence came you?” Maynard responded, “You may see by our Colours we are no Pyrates.”

Blackbeard fired a broadside that took out twenty men on Maynard’s ship and nine on the other. Maynard ordered his men below deck and told them to ready themselves for close combat. Blackbeard’s men then lobbed several grenades–bottles filled with powder, shot, lead, and iron with a quick match inserted into their mouth–at Maynard’s ship as it approached, but since almost everyone was below deck by this time, they did little damage.

In the belief that only a handful of men were left on Maynard’s ship, Blackbeard cried, “Let’s jump on Board, and cut them to Pieces.” As soon as Maynard spotted Blackbeard through the smoke of the grenades, he signaled to his men, who rose and attacked the pirates. Maynard and Blackbeard each fired a pistol at one another, and each was wounded by the shot. The two then attacked each other with swords. In the middle of the fight, Maynard’s sword broke, and as he stepped back to cock another pistol, Blackbeard moved to strike him with his cutlass. But one of Maynard’s men at that same instant wounded Blackbeard’s neck and throat, so Maynard came away from the blow with just a small cut on his fingers.

Blackbeard received another shot from Maynard’s pistol, yet he continued to stand and fight. In the course of the mêlée, Blackbeard received twenty-five wounds, five from pistol shots, but as he cocked another pistol, Blackbeard fell down dead. Without their leader, the pirate crew quickly surrendered.

But Maynard’s crew was not out of danger yet. A black pirate named Caesar was hidden away, waiting to carry out orders to blow up the ship if Blackbeard was taken or killed. Africans and African-Americans, both enslaved and free, served on pirate ships in significant numbers. In fact, before Blackbeard “retired” to North Carolina, 60 out of 100 of his crewmembers were black. Luckily, two prisoners prevented Caesar from carrying out the plan. Otherwise, the ship and everyone on it would have been blown to pieces, as would have papers and letters between Blackbeard, Governor Eden, and some New York traders that were found on the ship after it was searched.

Maynard had Blackbeard’s head severed from his body and in triumph dangled it from the front of his ship as he traveled back to Virginia to collect his reward. He brought fifteen of Blackbeard’s crew with him, and all but two of them were executed by hanging.

Even though Maynard’s crew valiantly fought against Blackbeard, the experience was not enough to dissuade them from later becoming pirates themselves. The fact that government officials cheated these sailors out of the prize money that was owed them for their role in killing Blackbeard perhaps had something to do with their shift in loyalty.

The defeat of Blackbeard did not clear the way for free and safe trade throughout the Atlantic. In 1724, when Governor Spotswood planned a trip to London, he needed a well-armed man-of-war to protect him on his voyage. Otherwise, if he ran into a pirate on his journey, he most certainly would have received retribution for his role in killing Blackbeard and executing his crew, much like the Boston merchant ship received when Blackbeard exacted revenge for the execution of the Whydah’s crew.

Sources

• Defoe, Daniel. A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1999.
• Johnson, Capt. Charles. The History of Black-Beard and Roche. Salem, MA: Cushing, 1802. Database: America’s Historical Imprints, Readex/Newsbank.
• Rediker, Marcus. Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004.
• Wilkinson, S. The Voyages and Adventures of Edward Teach, Commonly Called Black Beard, the Notrious Pirate. Boston: Book Printing Office, 1808. Database: America’s Historical Imprints, Readex/Newsbank.
• Woodard, Colin. The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down. New York: Harcourt, 2007.

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In the fall of 1703, the owners of the 80-ton brigantine, the Charles, desperately wrote to various West Indies ports in an attempt to discover any information on the whereabouts of their new ship, but without success.

This leading group of Boston merchants—Charles Hobby, Col. Nicholas Paige, William Clarke, Benjamin Gallop, and John Colman—built the ship as a privateering vessel specifically to attack French ships off the coasts of Acadia and Newfoundland. Most likely, their goal was to protect their own ships from pirates, reduce competition in trade from the French, and profit from the spoils of capturing French merchant ships all at the same time. But their resourceful plan ran into a major snag.

Privateers

England was at war with France and Spain during the early eighteenth century, and one of its means of patrolling the waters of the Atlantic was by enlisting privateers, i.e., private citizens commissioned by European governments to sail the seas and attack and plunder enemy ships. For these nations, the privateering system was a handy way to supplement their naval power, disrupt the trade routes of their enemies, and accumulate wealth.

Charles Brooking, "The Capture of a French Ship by Royal Family Privateers"

Daniel Plowman, the captain hired by the owners of the Charles, received from Joseph Dudley, the Governor of Massachusetts, a privateering commission that authorized him “to War, Fight, Take, Kill, Suppress and Destroy, any Pirates, Privateers, or other the Subjects and Vassals of France, or Spain, the Declared Enemies of the Crown of England.” But before Plowman could set sail from Marblehead, he fell sick. He also sensed that something was wrong with his crew, because he wrote the ship’s owners on August 1, 1703 and advised them to send someone up from Boston to investigate the state of their ship.

One of the owners made the trip to Marblehead and after surveying the situation recommended that the ship set sail as planned, but with a different captain. When Plowman learned of the decision, he wrote the owners once again and implored them to sail the ship down to Boston and replace the crew. But it was too late. The Charles went out to sea before anything could be done.

Southward

Apparently, while Plowman’s second letter was headed towards Boston, the crew of the Charles locked the captain in his cabin. John Quelch, the lieutenant-commander of the ship, then agreed to take control and sail southward, where they could find more lucrative ships to attack than the French ones in the north. After setting sail, the crew threw Plowman overboard, although it is not known if he had succumbed to his illness or was still alive at the time.

It is not surprising that the crew enlisted to sail on the Charles turned out to be a rough bunch. They had to be, because in many respects the only difference between privateers and pirates was that the former were officially sanctioned by a particular government and the latter sailed independently of any nation-state. So by setting sail without authorization of the ship’s owners, and by radically changing the course of their original mission, John Quelch and his crew became pirates.

Quelch reached the waters off the coast of Brazil in November, 1703 and over the next three months he captured nine ships, which yielded a significant booty: a hundred weight of gold dust, gold and silver coins worth over 1,000 pounds, ammunition and arms, fine fabrics, provisions, and rum. But the problem was that Quelch attacked vessels belonging to Portugal, which at the time was an ally of England.

Arrival at Marblehead

In May 1704, a small notice appeared in the Boston News-Letter: “Arrived at Marble-head, Capt. Quelch in the Brigantine that Capt. Plowman went out in, are said to come from New-Spain & have made a good Voyage.” Soon after the ship landed, most of the crew began to disappear. This fact, combined with the abrupt departure of the ship in the fall and the inability of the owners to discover its whereabouts before it surfaced again in Massachusetts, raised questions about the ship’s recent voyage.

Quelch claimed that he and his crew acquired the treasure during the recovery of a wreck in the West Indies in order to hide his pillaging of Portuguese ships and justify the rich rewards he brought back with him,. But the owners knew this story to be false, since they had received no word from any port in the West Indies that their ship had been spotted in the area.

Acting on their suspicions, two of the owners of the Charles lodged complaints with the Attorney-General, and a manhunt began to find Quelch and his crew. Within two days, Quelch and six other crew members were apprehended, and others were soon to follow. The Governor also sought to confiscate the gold that Quelch brought with him into Massachusetts and managed to recover seventy ounces of it and an equal weight of silver. In the end, 25 of the 43 pirates were captured along with a considerable amount of the treasure, which ensured that rich awards would be handed out to the informers and to the officials involved in bringing the pirates to justice.

The captured pirates were quickly brought to trial in Boston on June 3, 1704. Quelch was accused of committing piracy, robbery, and murder, and two crew members who claimed that Quelch had refused to set them on shore after taking over the ship provided testimony about how the pirates had attacked and killed the captains and crews of the Portuguese ships.

In the end, Quelch and six other pirates were sentenced to death. The rest were held in prison for a year until they finally received royal pardons. At one point during their stay, some members of the crew paid 30 pounds for the right to walk around freely within the prison yard, but after two or three days, they were returned to their cells and held as before.

Led by the Silver Oar

On Friday, June 30, 1704, the seven pirates condemned to die walked in procession from the prison down to Scarlett’s wharf with “the Silver Oar” carried in front of them. They were loaded on a boat and carried to their place of execution, near where Langone Park and the Andrew P. Puopolo Jr. Athletic Field in the North End of Boston are today. Forty musketeers guarded them to make sure nothing went wrong.

Thousands of people gathered to witness the executions. Some of them stood on what is now Copp’s Hill, while 100 to 150 boats crowded the Charles River to watch the spectacle from the water.

As Quelch climbed up to the scaffold, he said to one of the ministers, “I am not afraid of Death, I am not afraid of the Gallows, but I am afraid of what follows; I am afraid of a Great God, and a Judgment to Come.” But his fears seemed to be overcome once he reached the spotlight of the stage, because he pulled off his hat and deeply bowed to his audience. Rather than express repentance when the ministers called upon Quelch to address the crowd, he declared, “Gentlemen, ‘Tis but little I have to speak; What I have to say is this, I desire to be informed for what I am here, I am Condemned only upon Circumstances. I forgive all the World: So the Lord be Merciful to my Soul.” And while one of the other pirates warned the crowd about associating with “Bad Company,” Quelch chimed in, “They should also take care how they brought Money into New-England, to be Hanged for it!”

At the last minute, one of the pirates received a reprieve, but the remaining six were not so lucky. After the scaffold dropped, some people claimed to have heard the shrieks of the women in the crowd from more than a mile away. As was the custom with pirates after execution, the six corpses were placed in gibbets and remained in them until they decayed and eventually disappeared.

Sources

An Account of the Behaviour and Last Dying Speeches of the Six Pirates. Boston: Nicholas Boone, 1704. Database: America’s Historical Imprints, Readex/Newsbank.

Boston News-Letter, May 22, 1704, issue 5, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.

Boston News-Letter, July 3, 1704, issue 11, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.

Dow, George Francis and John Henry Edmonds. The Pirates of the New England Coast 1630-1730. New York: Dover Publications, 1996.

[Mather, Cotton]. The Deplorable State of New-England, By Reason of a Covetous and Treacherous Governour. [Boston], 1721 [Reprint of 1708 copy]. Database: America’s Historical Imprints, Readex/Newsbank.

Rediker, Marcus. Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004.

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Joseph Lightly relates in his Last Words and Dying Speech that when his mother learned he had enlisted in the British army, “she told me she hoped she should hear of my being hanged, for my Cruelty of going to leave her against her Will.” Lightly’s mother may simply have been reacting to the moment, but her words nonetheless seemed to serve as a curse on her son.

All Manner of Vice and Wickedness

Joseph Lightly was born in Newcastle, England in 1739 to poor, but “benevolent and kind” parents. He received a common education before he was apprenticed to a weaver at the age of fourteen. Four years later, he left his master to join the British army during its engagement in the Seven Years’ War and was sent to Dublin, Ireland. He was stationed in Ireland for four or five months until his regiment received orders to march to Cork, where he and his fellow soldiers boarded a ship and headed to America.

Like many early American criminals, Lightly’s turn to crime can be traced to his military service. Lightly says he enjoyed the good will of his officers before embarking for America, but after landing in Philadelphia he “began to forget God, not having the Opportunities of religious Worship, as I had in my own Country.” The army turned out to be a place where “all Manner of Vice and Wickedness prevail’d,” and Lightly quickly “fell into Cursing and Swearing, taking great Delight therein; as also in contriving all Sorts of Mischief.”

British soldiers fighting in the Seven Years' War - 1756-1763

Desertion

Lightly’s distaste for the soldier’s life prompted him to run away from his regiment, but he soon returned. Lucky for him, he did not receive punishment for his unsanctioned leave on account of the bravery he had previously displayed on the battlefield. But after he and his captain drew swords over the affections of a young woman, Lightly deserted the army once again, even though he won the duel and sent his captain running.

This second time around Lightly was easily taken up as a runaway soldier owing to the poor condition of his clothing. And because he put up a fight during his arrest, he was thrown in prison for 13 months. Upon his release, Lightly was sold into servitude for three years to recoup the costs of his confinement, but after three weeks of service, he stole his master’s horse and ran away.

After “taking a small Tour thro’ the Country,” Lightly reenlisted and returned to his regiment a third time before leaving the army for good. He then traveled the country in order to acquaint himself with the roads and prepare for his newly chosen career: highway robber and thief. As part of his “apprenticeship,” Lightly stole two shirts and two pairs of trousers.

Fortunes and a Farm

During the course of his travels, Lightly met Elizabeth Post, who became captivated by his claim that he could tell fortunes. He also led her and her family into believing that he owned a farm. Post joined Lightly on the road in the belief that the two would eventually get married, but Lightly had a different plan: convince her to sell her cows and her estate, take control of the money from the sale, and then abandon her.

As they proceeded in their journey to his fictional farm, Lightly claims that Post “behaved in a most adulterous Manner, which caused me to be more gross with my Tongue, and use her with bad Language.” Post openly complained about the way Lightly freely spent her money, which infuriated Lightly, who believed that her accusations “caus’d the People to give me a worse Name than I deserved.”

In the winter when the two reached Ware, MA, Post fell sick and died—or so Lightly claims. In January 1765, Lightly was arrested in Hartford, CT on suspicion that he had murdered her. At the time, Lightly was described in the Boston News-Letter as a “transient Person, who one time says his name is Joseph Lightly, and at another, Joseph Pritty, neither of which names is supposed to be his right one. . . . He is of a ruddy complexion, about five feet nine inches high, [and] well built.”

Lightly was transferred to Cambridge, MA and stood trial in front of the Superior Court on November 4 for the murder of Post. He was found guilty, even though he maintained in his Last Words and Dying Speech that he was innocent and that the four men who testified against him perjured themselves.

Lightly may have lacked the true powers of a fortune teller, but his mother’s curse turned out to be prophetic: Lightly was executed on November 21, 1765 in Cambridge. One newspaper reported that before he was hanged, Lightly sold his body to a surgeon for three dollars, although a different newspaper said it was for ten. What he did with the money during the short time he had to enjoy it is anybody’s guess.

Sources

Boston Newsletter. November 7, 1765, supplement, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.

“Boston, Nov. 4.” Boston Post-Boy. November 4, 1765, issue 429, supplement, p. 1. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.

Cohen, Daniel A. Pillars of Salt, Monuments of Grace: New England Crime Literature And the Origins of American Popular Culture, 1674-1860. Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2006.

“Hartford, January 28.” Boston News-Letter. February 7, 1765, issue 3181, p. 3. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.

Lightly, Joseph. The Last Words and Dying Speech of Joseph Lightly. [Boston, 1765]. Database: America’s Historical Imprints, Readex/Newsbank.

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George Burns made one last desperate attempt to save himself: he wrote to the Attorney-General and named Ephraim Jones and Arthur Sykes as accomplices in a robbery that he had actually helped to pull off with three different men on July 29, 1766. The victim of the robbery, John “Ready Money” Scott, had mistakenly fingered Jones and Sykes as actors in the crime, so Burns tried to take advantage of Scott’s error by implicating the two men as well.

Burns hoped that by offering to testify against Jones and Sykes he would be “admitted as King’s evidence.” Once he secured a pardon for his testimony, his plan was then to change his story and impeach the other three men–Jeremiah Fulsom, Nathaniel Foster, and Thomas Grey–who actually carried out the robbery with him.

Blacked and Disguised

Jeremiah Fulsom originally came up with the idea of robbing John Scott. Scott was a well-known storekeeper in the backcountry of South Carolina, and his nickname must have made him an enticing target. Fulsom presented his plan to Burns, who later claimed that he was reluctant to participate in the scheme. But Burns relented, and the two secured the additional help of Nathaniel Foster, since the robbery “would require more force” than just the two of them could bring. They also enlisted Thomas Grey, who was an acquaintance of the storekeeper.

On the day of the robbery, the four men crossed from Georgia into South Carolina in a canoe and arrived at Scott’s home after sunset. Grey went to the house first, both to engage Scott in conversation and give warning if any neighbors happened to be present, which turned out not to be the case. Armed with a gun and a stick, Foster stood outside the house in order to sound an alarm if anyone else happened to show up and to prevent Scott from escaping if need be.

Burns and Fulsom were designated to carry out the attack. In preparation, they blackened their faces and adopted disguises, which accounts for why Scott originally misidentified his assailants. With Foster in position, the two burst into the house through the open door and found Grey talking with Scott and his wife.

Outlaw Gangs

Around the time that Burns and his confederates schemed to rob John Scott, outlaw gangs were relentlessly attacking people and property throughout the South Carolina backcountry. Horse thieves, robbers, and murderers banded together to terrorize the countryside and more effectively carry out their crimes. Some outlaws painted their faces to look like Indians or blackened their faces to hide their identity, as Fulsom and Burns did. Even so, the presence of Native Americans and runaway African slaves in these gangs was common, so that many of them were tri-racial in composition.

These roving bandits took advantage of the relative absence of a criminal justice system along the southern frontier. Indeed, well over a year and a half passed between the time that Burns participated in the robbery and when he was finally captured and charged with the crime.

To counter these lawless gangs, white settlers banded together to create large vigilante groups that became known as Regulators. Naturally, the methods and motivations of the Regulators and the outlaw groups sometimes made it difficult to tell the difference between the two, and their confrontations often became a clash of race and culture, given the identities of each group’s members. The efforts of the Regulators eventually paid off, because by the end of the 1760’s they had effectively reduced outlaw activity in the backcountry.

The Robbery

As soon as Burns and Fulsom entered Scott’s house, they demanded that he turn over his money to them. Scott offered them a few half-pence, but the villains refused to take the coins and said that they “had not come 500 miles for his coppers.” Burns then seized Scott’s wife, threw snuff in her eyes, tied her up in a blanket, and pushed her into the chimney-corner. Scott darted towards the door, but Fulsom hit him on the back with a stick, and the two intruders tied him up.

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Scott still refused to tell them where his money was hidden. So Fulsom grabbed a hot iron and “held him to the fire till his eyes were ready to start out of his head, burnt his toes almost off, heated irons and branded and burnt him in a shocking manner” until Scott finally disclosed its location. Burns retrieved the money while Fulsom made Scott swear three times on the Bible that he did not have any more hidden away.

The original plan was for Burns and Fulsom to tie up Grey along with the Scotts so as to conceal his participation in the robbery. But instead, Burns pretended to strike him after entering the house, and Grey ran out crying “Murder.” Once the robbery was completed, the four men met up at the river and crossed back over to Georgia that same night. The next day they gathered to divide the spoils, which amounted to a considerable eighty pounds in South Carolina currency each.

Mercy

On January 18, 1768 in Charlestown, SC, George Burns, Thomas Grey, and Arthur Sykes were convicted for the robbery and sentenced to be hanged, although Sykes was recommended for mercy. During this same court session, two other men were convicted of horse theft and were burned in the hand, one man was fined 350 pounds for “killing a Negroe in the heat of passion”–as was another “for making Negroes under his care whip a white person”–and a woman was fined 100 pounds for keeping a disorderly house.

Burns was held in the Charles-Town Goal until his execution. After his failed attempt to secure a pardon by falsely accusing Arthur Sykes and Ephraim Jones of taking part in the robbery, he revealed their innocence in his Confession and Declaration. On the strength of Burns’s admission, both Sykes and Jones were granted “his Majesty’s free pardon.” Even though “the still more unhappy Thomas Grey” maintained his innocence in the robbery, he was executed along with Burns on February 10, 1768.

Sources

• Boulware, Tyler. “A ‘dangerous sett of horse-thieves and vagrants’: Outlaws of the Southern Frontier during the Revolutionary Era.” Eras 6 (Nov., 2004): ftp://ftp.uic.edu/pub/library/scua/ERAS/2004.06.03.ERAS.pdf.
• Burns, George. The Confession and Declaration of George Burns. Charleston, [SC]: John-Hugar Van Huerin, [1768]. Database: America’s Historical Imprints, Readex/Newsbank.
• “Charles-Town, (S. Carolina) August 18.” New-York Mercury, October 13, 1766, issue 781, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• “Charles-Town (South-Carolina) Dec. 29.” New-York Gazette, or Weekly Post-Boy, March 7, 1768, issue 1314, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.

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The Native-American servant Patience Boston developed, in her words, “some groundless Prejudice” against her new master, so she tried to come up with ways to take action against him. She thought about poisoning his food, but she did not have access to a toxin that would kill him. She tried to burn down his barn, but she was prevented from carrying out her plan. With these failed attempts, the choice became clear: she needed to act on the “wicked Oath” that she had made with herself last fall, which was to kill the master’s grandchild, “though I seem’d to love him, and he me.”

Sinful Courses

Patience Boston, alias Samson, was born on December 26, 1711 in Monamoy, which is an island near Chatham, MA on Cape Cod. Her mother, Sarah Jethro, died when Boston was three, so her father, John Samson, bound her as a servant to Paul Crow. The Crow family taught her to read, counseled her in following Christ’s word, and warned her about “sinful Courses.”

But Boston was “very Wicked.” She played on the Sabbath, told lies, and ignored her family’s teachings. At age twelve, she tried to set the house on fire on three separate occasions. While members of the household were at church, Boston would let the cattle out into the corn fields. As she got older she “went out a Nights, and kept bad Company, and followed lewd Practices.” She left the Crows after completing her term of service and began to steal. One year later, she married an African-American servant, and she became a servant as well when her husband’s master insisted that she become bound to him for as long as the two should live.

Soon after her marriage, Boston “was drawn in to the Love of strong Drink, by some Indians.” When she became intoxicated, she would abuse her husband with both word and action. After she discovered she was pregnant, she began to have thoughts about murdering her expected baby. While her husband was away on a whaling voyage, she ran away from her master, drank to excess, and committed adultery. She returned home in time to deliver the baby, but her wild excursion resulted in the child being born with two broken arms, and it died within a few weeks.

Second Pregnancy

Boston continued her course of drinking, lying, swearing, and arguing with her husband until she became pregnant once again. Thoughts of murdering her baby returned to her after it was born, but before acting on her impulses the two-month-old child suddenly died in its bed.

Less than a month later, in order to get back at her husband during a fight, she lied and told him that she had murdered their last child. He immediately brought her before a Justice, who saw that she was drunk and put off making any judgment about her case until the morning when she was sober. But in order to strengthen her resolve to stick by her story, Boston got drunk in the morning. Once again, the Justice put off a decision until later in the day, but before he showed up a third time in the evening, Boston drank still more rum. She continued to maintain that she had murdered her child, so she was finally sent to prison.

At her trial, Boston pleaded not guilty, and she was acquitted on account of the change in her story and there being no other evidence against her. She was released from prison, and, with the consent of her husband, she was bound to a different master, Capt. Dimmick, who then sold her to Joseph Bailey of Casco Bay. While in Maine, she continued drinking and swearing and even claimed to have murdered another one of her babies, although nothing came of it, because the body of a child could not be found where she claimed to have buried it and an examination by a panel of matrons concluded that she had not recently delivered a baby.

The Well

Joseph Bailey must have grown tired of Boston’s behavior, because he sold her to the master who now earned her scorn. On July 9, 1734, the perfect opportunity finally arrived for Patience Boston to act on her resolution to kill her master’s grandchild, whom he had been raising as his own. Both her master and mistress were out of the house and had left Boston and the boy home alone together. She lured the child out into the woods with the intent of beating him over the head with a large stick, but just as she was about to lift up the weapon, she began to tremble and lost her courage.

Instead, she went to the well, dropped her stick down it, and asked the boy to help her retrieve it, and when he arrived at the edge of the well, she pushed him in. She then grabbed a long pole and used it to hold the boy under the water until he drowned. Seeing that he was dead, she lifted up her hands and eyes toward the sky and cried, “Now am I guilty of Murder indeed; though formerly I accused my self falsly, yet now has God left me.”

Boston left the child in the well and walked two miles to a house, where she confessed to carrying out the deed.

Conversion

Boston stayed in prison for months while she waited for the Supreme Court to convene and hear her case. During that time, one witness often found her,

crying out in a most terrible Manner, such as I never heard the like. She smote her Hands together often, and kept continually lamenting and roaring and shrieking, for I think Hours together, with little Intermission. Some of her Expressions, which she repeated with utmost Vehemency, ten or twenty Times together, were such as follow–O I have offended a merciful God! a merciful God! I have offended the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. O Sin, Sin, Sin! &c.

But a sudden change came over Boston. She reflected later that “my Case seemed desperate, till I seemed to have some Glimmering of Hope.” One night she fell asleep “full of Trouble,” but she awoke at one point in the night “in a more calm and easy Frame than I had been for a Week before, when I used sometime to cry out at my first Waking, that I was going to Hell! But now I could think about Believing in Christ.”

Boston pleaded guilty to the murder and was sentenced to die. Even though she continued to experience moments of despair after her sudden conversion, two ministers–the father-and-son duo, Samuel and Joseph Moody–continued to counsel her until she fully embraced the religion that her first master and mistress failed to instill in her at a young age. At one point her third child, whom Boston must have delivered while she was in prison, came down with a fever. The thought occurred to her that, if God pleased, the best situation might be for him to die before she did. But she asked the congregation to pray for the child, and he recovered.

Boston was executed on July 24, 1735 in York, ME. She was assured before she received her final punishment that her child was in the custody of a good family who would attend to the welfare of both its body and soul.

Side Notes

A Faithful Narrative of the Wicked Life and Remarkable Conversion of Patience Boston, Alias Samson was not published until 1738, three years after Boston’s execution. The text contains a preface by Samuel and Joseph Moody, who in it maintain, “This astonishing Relation of a bloody Malefactor’s Conversion, was taken from her Mouth while she was in Prison, and being publickly read to her on the Lecture a few Hours before her Execution, she did unconstrainedly own it, as what she had in very Deed experienced.”

The Moodys go on to admit, “It must be confessed, that it could not be exactly taken in her own Way of expressing her self.” But they then use their claim that the “Account was not drawn up in haste, but Things were written down at twenty several Times–One Day Week and Month after another” as further proof of the authenticity of Boston’s narrative.

By the time the Moodys’ manuscript was ready for publication, interest in the case of Patience Boston had died down, and so there were not enough subscribers to bankroll its publication. Years later, a gentleman saw a copy of the text while conducting business at court, and he was so moved by the story that he offered to cover the entire cost of publishing it.

As a further side note, at the time that Joseph, the younger Moody, helped write the Preface, he began wearing a veil over his face and refused to remove it unless he was facing a wall or had his eyes shut tight. This eccentric behavior supposedly symbolized his sorrow over the accidental death of a childhood friend and the recent death of his wife. He became known as “Handkerchief Moody,” and Nathaniel Hawthorne used him as inspiration for Parson Hooper in his story, “The Minister’s Black Veil.”

Sources

• “Boston.” New-England Weekly Journal, July 22, 1734, issue CCCLXXX, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• “Boston.” New-England Weekly Journal, June 23, 1735, issue 429, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• Boston, Patience. A Faithful Narrative of the Wicked Life and Remarkable Conversion of Patience Boston, Alias Samson. Boston: Kneeland & Green, 1738. Database: America’s Historical Imprints, Readex/Newsbank. A web version of the text can be found at: Text of the work: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA05/peltier/conversion/boston.html.
• Cohen, Daniel A. Pillars of Salt, Monuments of Grace: New England Crime Literature and the Origins of American Popular Culture, 1674-1860. Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2006.
• Williams, Daniel E. Pillars of Salt: An Anthology of Early American Criminal Narratives. Madison, WI: Madison House, 1993.