'Black Sam' Bellamy and the Wydah

[TalesOfTheSevenSeas]

Here is an ironic side note in the history of the Wydah, Black Sam Bellamy's ship-

When the Wydah wrecked on the reef, booty began washing up along the shoreline. The locals gathered it up, essentially, plundering the plunder of the plunderer!!

One of my ancestors (cousin relationship) was a man named Samuel Doggett. He was hired by the 'rightful owners' of the booty bounty, to sail from Boston and recover the plundered plunder. Samuel sailed in his sloop to the site of the wreck, and went 'round the town, trying to find out whom had plundered what. But the locals weren't saying a peep about it.

Finally Samuel gave up, returned to his sloop and sailed towards Boston, prepared to face the 'rightful owners' empty handed.

On the voyage homeward... you guessed it... Samuel's sloop was captured by pirates!!! *gasp!* The pirates quickly discovered that poor Samuel didn't have anything much worth plundering. So they took what they could, which amounted to about L200 in supplies and let Samuel go.

:) Now how's that for irony? Plundered fer yer plunder, trying to recover the plundered plunder of the plunderer's plunderers!!!!!!!!!!!

[Stynky Tudor]

That be a great story!

[TalesOfTheSevenSeas]

Thanks, I found that info entirely by accident. My family had no record of it on our branch. It is in the book "The Pirates of the New England Coast 1630 -1730" by George Francis Dow and John Henry Edmonds. My ancestors had lived in Boston, Dorchester and Medford MA at that time, (and did right up until my grandmother) so on a whim, I looked in the index and recognized Samuel's name. I double checked the dates to make sure, and sure enough... it was cousin Sam!

[Zephyr]

That's a fantastic story! I think..... I read a bit somewhere about the "salvager" showing up and the towns people interfering until he gave up and left ...may have been the Wydah site. It went down in realtively shallow water didn't it? There is story about a group of pirates stealing the treasure the Spaniards were retreiving from a wreck off Flordia (?), mentions the Spaniard using "diving" equipment .....what did they have as "diving" equipment in the 1700's?

[TalesOfTheSevenSeas]

The wreck off Florida that you are thinking of was the wreck of the 1715 Spanish Plate Fleet. There were 12 ships wrecked in a hurricane in a single night along the Florida coastline. Florida was uninhabited except by native people and the survivors of the wreck were stuck there for weeks.

During the wreck, treasure was dumped alllllllll over the place. Lots of silver, gold, mercury, spices etc. So much so, that even today, cobs (crudely fashioned, odd-shaped coins, manufactured by weight rather than shape, aka Spanish reales) will wash up on the beaches after a storm and can be found with metal detectors. I have one that was recovered on Wobasso beach and mounted into a gold setting.

The Spanish sent out a salvage operation to recover what they could of the treasure. They used native people as divers to go down to the wrecks and recover what they could. They kept the recovered treasure secured in crudely made huts on the beaches.

In 1715, Captain Henry Jennings was working the seas as a pirate hunter for the government of Jamaica aboard the "Bathsheba" (or Barsheba) along with his partner, John Wills, captain of the "Eagle". When he heard about the massive treasure wreck, he and his partner, John Wills captain of the "Eagle" both turned pirate themselves and led by Jennings, they raided the salvors on the beach with a hoarde of 300 pirates, escaping with plenty of looted goods!

...And here's the best part of the story. Jennings was so successful with his raid, that being the bold and brazen pirate that he was, he came back and raided them a second time!!! ARRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!

There is an excellent book on this subject called "Gold, Galeons & Archaeology" about the wreck and the team that salvaged the remaining treasure a few years back. It's a well-written easy read.

[Special Jimmy]

yarrr the prince of pirates finnally reconized!!!!!

I dedicate a page on my website about him, his life story I say, there will be more coming real soon!!!

[Special Jimmy]

forgot a part, when his ship sank, there were 8 survivors, they all swam to shore, 6 were hung for piracy, and the last two pleaded that they were sam's prisoners. yarr betrayed sam in a way!!!

[beachbum]

In the interest of authenticity, you should change the name of this thread to "Black Sam" Bellamy and the Whydah. (note the H!) At least that's what the folks that found her say the name is - they found the bell inscribed as such when the found the shipwreck...When they started their search they thought the spelling was Whidah - so there may have been several spellings....but the bell seems to settle it once and for all...being from the northeast coast - can't help but drop my two cents in on that one....can find more about her on http://www.whydah.com

[Special Jimmy]

I just visited that site a couple of dys b4 you said it.

[corsair2k3]

Greetings,

There's a new timeline of Bellamy's career at:

http://www.whydah.com/page.php?id=exp044

Regards,

Corsair

[Swashbuckler 1700]

I found something interesting (I think)

From here http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=oldmankew&id=I8306

A rather superficial thing but related to Bellamy's persona and his appearance. However I don't feel that the text is really realistic.

However, where is this section based on? Is it completely made up has it even some evidence to support it?

"He [bellamy] made a dashing figure in his long deep-cuffed velvet coat, knee breeches, silk stockings, and silver-buckled shoes; with a sword slung on his left hip and four pistols in his sash. Unlike some of his fellows, Bellamy never wore the fashionable powdered wig, but grew his dark hair long and tied it back with a black satin bow."

[GregF]

I have never seen a source document for that quote and don't know where it might have come from. It's not in General History of Pyrates, or in Cotton Mather's 1717 description of the pirates.

Somewhat related to this, did you see recently that even more of Bellamy’s gold may still be buried on the ocean floor off Marconi Beach on Cape Cod? Barry Clifford, the diver and explorer who discovered Bellamy’s shipwrecked vessel, the Whydah, is in the news again this week. Clifford’s team of divers has continued to explore the shipwreck site since its discovery in 1984, and based on work conducted late this summer, Clifford believes there may be far more gold coins and other artifacts still hidden under the sand on the ocean floor.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/dive-reveals-buried-treasure-site-mass-pirate-ship/story?id=20189657