GregF

I always found the stories about Julian fascinating, too. I wrote a short post and guest column for the Cape Cod Times recently about Julian and the shipwreck of the Whydah --- http://www.gregflemming.com/2014/04/26/fate-missing-shipwreck-survivors/.

Great posts, William. Related to above -- also taken from the Greyhound by Edward Low on that day was Charles Harris, who was likely not forced and soon after joined Low's crew. Harris went on to become a quartermaster under Low and was in command of the pirate ship Ranger in June 1723, when it was captured by a British warship (ironically, also called the Greyhound) after a brutal twelve-hour battle at sea. Charles Harris was one of twenty-six convicted pirates who were hanged in July 1723 along the shoreline of Newport, Rhode Island. www.gregflemming.com

Great post on the Boston execution of the Whydah survivors. I had not remembered that was today! A few months ago, I wrote a piece for the Cape Cod Times on another of the survivors (not convicted) you mention, John Julian -- http://www.capecodtimes.com/article/20140426/OPINION/404260341.

On September 5, 1722, Marblehead fisherman Nicholas Merritt and nine other men, most of them forced captives like Merritt, escaped from the pirate Edward Low and his crew. Merritt and the other men had been sent aboard the sloop Thomas and James, which was taken near at the Isle of Maio, one of the southernmost of the Cape Verde Islands. In the early morning, “a little after break of day,” on Thursday, September 5, the captives set a course away from Low's other two pirate vessels -- Merritt later said “we hailed close upon a wind and stood away” -- and the men aboard the sloop were able to slip away. On September 26, they arrived at Saint Michael in the Azores. Unfortunately, the men were suspected of being pirates themselves, despite the fact that they had just intentionally escaped from Low's crew, and were placed in jail. Merritt was held until June of 1723, when he finally secured passage back to Boston.

On August 31 1724, the British warship HMS Diamond, cruising in the Bay of Honduras near modern Belize, battled and nearly destroyed two pirate vessels under the command of Francis Spriggs A quick summary here: http://www.gregflemming.com/2013/12/01/logbook-accounts-hms-diamond/

On August 29, 1723, a young fisherman on his first voyage at sea was captured by a small pirate crew off the coast of present-day Canada. That fisherman was John Fillmore, who would become the great-grandfather of the future U.S. president, Millard Fillmore. The pirate crew was under the command of a man named John Phillips. Phillips and four other men had been part of a fishing crew working near Newfoundland when, only days before, they deserted their captain in a stolen schooner and set out as pirates. John Fillmore would sail as a captive aboard Phillips’ ship for eight months. Phillips nearly sliced Fillmore’s head off with a sword at one point and threatened to kill him at another, but Fillmore and several other captives were ultimately able to stage one of the most successful uprisings in the history of Atlantic piracy. My new post on Fillmore here: http://www.gregflemming.com/2014/08/29/capture-john-fillmore/

Very interesting about the search for one of Morgan's ships off the coast of Panama. I had not heard about Frederick Hanselmann or his efforts.

Very interesting about the search for one of Morgan's ships off the coast of Panama. I had not heard about Frederick Hanselmann or his efforts.

June 19, 1723 -- On this day, 26 convicted pirates from the crew of the pirate captain Edward Low were hanged in Newport, RI -- one of the largest mass executions in American history. One of Low’s two sloops, under the command of Charles Harris, had been captured by the HMS Greyhound in June. Exactly one week after their trial in Newport, the condemned men were hanged. Their bodies were buried across the harbor on Goat Island. My description of the executions: http://www.gregflemming.com/read-the-prologue/

Sound advice, Jas. Hook! The young pirate captive Philip Ashton was in a tough spot with no shoes. I've posted some photos on my web site of the island of Roatan, which show the jungle-like environment Ashton had to navigate in bare feet.... http://www.gregflemming.com/photo-gallery/

On July 12, 1726, William Fly and several other convicted pirates were executed in Boston. At the trial a week before, Fly and three other men -- Samuel Cole, Henry Greenville, and George Condick -- were convicted. On July 12, all but Condick were executed before a large crowd in Boston Harbor near the mouth of the Charles River. Condick, a “drunken, ignorant fellow who served as ship’s cook,” was granted a last-minute reprieve at the gallows. Later that same day, several men steered a boat out of Boston Harbor. The wooden craft rode low in the water, weighted down by its cargo. Their destination was Nixes Mate Island, a small patch of land less than six miles from Boston. Today, Nixes Mate Island is little more than a mound of rocks capped by a cone-shaped harbor marker with black and white stripes. But in July 1726, before much of the slate on Nixes Mate had been dug up, there was more to the patch of land. The men were headed there in a boat loaded with the corpses of the three executed pirates. Two of the pirates, Cole and Greenville, were buried. But Fly was hung in chains on the small harbor island to rot, a gruesome symbol of the pirates that sailed the Atlantic during this bloody era. A picture of Nixes Mate Island as it looks today on my web site: http://www.gregflemming.com/2013/08/21/where-pirates-were-buried

I'll have to get a copy. Looks great.

Nice cover!

Great post on William Fly! A few months back, I posted a pic of Nixes Mate Island in Boston Harbor, where Fly was hanged in chains following his execution... http://www.gregflemming.com/2013/08/21/where-pirates-were-buried/

On the morning of June 10, 1723, just before the break of dawn, a British warship stationed out of New York spotted two sloops sailing less than 50 miles south of Long Island. The captain of the warship, Peter Solgard, was all but certain the sloops were trouble -- he had been told by a sea captain three days earlier that they were pirate ships under the command of a notoriously violent captain, Edward Low. It didn't take long for Low's crew to spot the warship, HMS Greyhound, and head directly for it. The next twelve hours gave rise to one of the most dramatic sea battles with pirates in the history of America. After several hours of fighting that day, Low sailed away in his sloop but Low's quartermaster, Charles Harris, was unable to retreat in the second sloop. With so little wind that day and their mainsail practically in pieces, even by rowing Harris’ crew could not get free of the Greyhound. At about five o’clock that afternoon, Harris signaled his surrender. Harris and thirty-five members of his crew who had survived the battle were taken prisoner and many of them were taken back to Newport, Rhode Island in Harris’ sloop. In the Greyhound, Solgard continued to chase after Low for several more hours, but lost sight of their sloop around nine o’clock that evening somewhere in the sea between Block Island and Martha’s Vineyard. The Greyhound then returned to Newport that night. Harris’ crew was put on trial a month later, and most of the pirates were convicted and hanged in July in what remains one of the largest mass executions in the history of colonial America.

That's fantastic! I hope you enjoy the book -- but either way, let me know what you think. It'd be great to have a discussion about Low, Spriggs, and their crews. Thanks for the interest! Greg

Related to above, an interesting interview (listen online or download podcast) with Fieldstone Common about Edward Low, piracy topics and research, Philip Ashton, and my new book. Have a listen if you want -- share any comments or other perspectives on topics discussed. http://www.fieldstonecommon.com/point-of-cutlass-greg-flemming/

On June 3, 1722, Edward Low’s pirate crew struck New England. In that single day the pirates captured three vessels, one after another, as they were sailing near Block Island, just off the coast of Newport, Rhode Island. The captured sloops were robbed and at least two of them were disabled when the pirates stole several sails and masts and vandalized the vessels. One of the victims was a young captain from Rhode Island named James Cahoon, who stood helpless on his wooden deck as the pirates boarded and looted the vessel. The pirates hacked at Cahoon with a sword, leaving him bloodied and badly wounded. They forced Cahoon’s crew to disable the vessel by removing the bowsprit and boom and throwing them overboard. Low’s crew plundered Cahoon’s supply of food and water and took his mainsail back with them to their brigantine, the Rebecca. Another of the sloops taken by the pirates that Sunday was also torn apart and then left stranded at sea about ten miles from Block Island. One of the wealthier passengers aboard the sloop, the adjutant of a militia regiment from New York, was stripped of a sword, a gun, buttons, and a number of articles of fine clothing, including a red Persian silk scarf and a beaver hat with silver lace. The pirates took casks of food, water, and gunpowder from the three vessels they captured that day, but they eventually sailed off to the north without taking any of the vessels or their crews.

For anyone interested in Philip Ashton, the pirate captive and castaway (1722) or the pirates Edward Low, Francis Spriggs, John Phillips, and others -- a terrific review of my new book, out this week, in today's Boston Globe: http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2014/05/31/book-review-point-cutlass-the-pirate-capture-bold-escape-and-lonely-exile-philip-ashton-gregory-flemming/2W65DmD9rOJvlvWMwITofN/story.html

For those interested in this week's premiere of Crossbones, a new post at Adventures in History on Blackbeard's other Caribbean hideouts in the Bay of Honduras, also frequented by many other pirates of the era: http://adventuresinhistoryland.wordpress.com/2014/05/26/crossbones-preview-blackbeards-other-caribbean-hideout-by-greg-flemming/#more-665

She seems really beautiful -- thanks for posting the pictures. I am hoping to go aboard when she stops in Boston later this summer.

I agree with Pyrate Captain's comments above. When I was researching my new book on the pirate Edward Low (half of whose crew was captured and executed in 1723), I used a book by Stuart Banner (The Death Penalty: An American History. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002), which has some good detail about this era. For the Newport execution in July 1723, I concluded that the pirates were placed on a platform of some sort, even though the cart method that Pyrate Captain describes was quite common during this period, because at least one contemporary piece described the pirates as "standing on the stage." Plus, since 26 convicted pirates were hanged that day, it would have been worth the effort to construct a more elaborate structure.

On May 8, 1723, heading away from the coast of present-day Belize, the crew of Edward Low captured at least six vessels off Cabo de San Antonio, at the western tip of Cuba. The captain of one of the captured vessels, John Welland of Boston, was taken with four of his men over to a second of Low's sloops, under the command of Charles Harris, and questioned about the gold and silver he had on board, which the pirates then took from him. Several hours later, Welland was moved over to Low’s sloop, where he was hacked repeatedly with a cutlass. One of the strokes sliced off his right ear. Welland was then forced below decks, where he lay for two or three hours while his wounded head continued to drip blood onto the wooden floor. Eventually Welland asked another captive for some help. The man brought Welland some water and then went to get Kencate, the ship’s doctor. Meanwhile, up on the deck, the pirates tortured other captives by burning them “with matches between their fingers,” according to one survivor, searing their flesh to the bone “to make them confess where their money was.” They cut and whipped a number of the other captives, and sank one of the ships. Low planned to force another member of Welland’s crew, twenty-two-year old Henry Barnes, who was from Barbados. But Barnes tried to get away the next day, when Low captured another ship and decided to release Welland and some of the other sailors in that newly captured vessel. Hearing this, the young Barnes tried to hide on the ship until it sailed away, but the pirates realized he was missing. When Low threatened to burn the entire ship, Barnes came out of hiding and went aboard one of the pirates’ sloops. -- from At the Point of a Cutlass: The Pirate Capture, Bold Escape, and Lonely Exile of Philip Ashton (www.gregflemming.com).

On April 26, 1717, the pirate ship Whydah, under the command of Samuel Bellamy, approached Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The Whydah was originally a slaving ship, captured by Bellamy in the Caribbean in February, with more than 130 men aboard and mounting 23 guns. On the morning of April 26, the pirates captured a pink, a large vessel with two or three masts and a distinctive narrow, rounded stern, which was on its way from Boston to New York. Bellamy sent seven of his men aboard the pink, the Mary Anne from Ireland, with orders to follow him. But those pirates “drank plentifully” of the wine they found aboard the pink, which meant their leadership of the vessel they had taken charge of was half-hearted, at best. Making matters worse, the weather deteriorated throughout the day. The men aboard the pink had been told to follow Bellamy, in the Whydah, but by about four o’clock that afternoon, there was almost no way for the vessels to see each other in the “very thick, foggy” weather. That night, sometime after 10 o’clock, a horrendous storm struck, bringing lightning and heavy rain. The storm pushed the pink Mary Anne close to an island that was, at the time, located just off what is today Nauset Light. The Whydah was about four miles north, off the coast of Marconi Beach not far from the Marconi Wireless Station. At some point during the night the Whydah was slammed into the shallow sand off the coast and sunk to the bottom of the sea floor. There are two notable epilogues to the Whydah sinking: 1) A team of divers led by Barry Clifford discovered the Whydah wreck on the ocean floor about three decades ago, and they continue to pull up gold, weapons, and artifacts -- many of which are on display at the Pirate Museum in Provincetown, MA (see http://www.nationalgeographic.com/whydah/story.html). 2) Only two of more than 130 men aboard the Whydah survived -- an “Englishman” named Thomas Davis and the other, according to newspaper reports and trial records, was an “Indian” named John Julian. Davis was tried in Boston, but acquitted because we was a forced captive. It is widely assumed (and written) that Julian is the same Julian the Indian who, as a runaway slave, was convicted of murder and executed on Boston Neck in a snowstorm sixteen years later. But there’s no conclusive proof that is true -- see my column in today’s Cape Cod Times on the anniversary of the Whydah sinking (http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20140426/OPINION/404260341)

Great stuff on salt pork, Mission. I enjoyed it a lot. I always knew salt pork taken aboard was salty, but that recipe is mind-blowing: four pounds of bay salt plus four pounds of white salt in four gallons of water...! Greg