Tag Archives: Pirates

The Legend of Captain Kidd’s Treasure – New England Legend

Nationality: American
Age: 49
Occupation: Owner of a Metal Decking Supplier
Residence: Danville, CA
Performance Date: April 19, 2021
Primary Language: English

Description of Informant

NM (49) is a Massachusetts native living in California. He commits to a regular exercise routine and owns/operates a metal decking supply firm. NM enjoys strategy games, world news/current events, and participates in a weekly chess match with friends. From 1970-1980 (his birth through elementary school), NM lived at 118 Andover Street, Wilmington, MA (the address is significant given the legend). Wilmington was a bit further inland, about 20 miles west of the Atlantic Ocean.

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Context of Interview

The informant, NM, is met in his garden by the collector, BK, his nephew. They speak poolside.

Interview

NM: Ah, there was a pirate legend when we lived in Wilmington. In the back of that house, there was a huge rock wall, and a cave at the bottom of it, and, uhh… the legend… and we would have people come and knock on our door, in Wilmington, to take their little metal detectors and walk around the backyard. Because the legend was that Bluebeard or Blackbeard or some old pirate was seen coming down the street with a chest and a couple slaves. And then he left that street with just the cart. With no slave, and no chest. So the legend was that he buried his treasure, killed the slaves to protect it, buried them with it, and that there’s treasure somewhere in that backyard. And the cave is called Devil’s Den. So we would have people looking for that treasure in our backyard every once in a while with their metal detectors. But obviously *laughing* none was ever found!

BK: Was there a ghost story associated with this legend?

NM: No. Just that story. That the slaves were killed to protect it. But yeah, we were never, as kids, nervous about being back there. I climbed pretty far into that cave but it had a dead-end. There was no treasure down at the bottom of it. It was just a dead-end, and extremely claustrophobic. You start getting really nervous when you’re surrounded by that much stone.

I wouldn’t be surprised— I’ve got to ask my mom if I’ve got the pirate’s name right… I think it was like Blackbeard or Bluebeard.

BK: Was your house in Wilmington close to the sea?

NM: *thinking* No! Yeah, what the heck was he [the pirate] doing in that area? Yeah like I said, we were a good 15-minute bike ride, 20-minute, hmm, maybe 15-minute car ride. So I don’t know what he would be doing that deep into, uh, suburban. Yeah, that raises a flag on that legend. Why he would go that far into suburbia to bury his treasure.

BK: When you say this was in your backyard… could you give me some sense of scale?

NM: That property was like an acre-and-a-half, I guess, and I think our property line probably ended above this rock wall. Y’know it was an old, 1800s type of house. Sort of victorian. Mainly people would go from just, near the cave, and wander within a 50 meters circle. Wandering around to see what they could— the trouble was there was a lot of magnetic rock in the area so *laughing* they got a lot of false… probably made them give up pretty quickly when they realized how much magnetic rock was around there and not finding anything worthwhile.

NM: If you were looking out the backdoor or the back window, you could’ve easily seen everything. It was probably about 100-feet from the backdoor to the face of the rock wall. And you could see the cave and… uhh… everything was pretty open.

BK: Would people ever come dig up your yard? Would your mom get upset about it?

NM: I don’t remember anybody doing any digging. I feel like they— they’re thing would go off. They might go a few inches deep and realize it was a rock. I’d have to ask them [my parents] if anybody ever got really serious about digging a hole. But I don’t remember ever going back there and seeing a big hole that somebody dug. I mean, by the time you were really looking where they were looking, it was woodsy. It wasn’t like our lawn. So, maybe they didn’t care, and maybe that’s why we didn’t know. Maybe they were digging holes, filling them in, covering them with leaves, and we just didn’t know.

BK: If you could figure out who the pirate was, that would be really helpful.

NM: I’ll ask them. I don’t know why I think they had a beard in it… but I’ll ask my mom.

Collector’s Reflection

It seems the pirate did not have “a beard in it” after all; Captain William Kidd is the legendary swashbuckler said to have hidden his treasure in Wilmington’s Devil’s Den cave. According to local legend, Kidd would frequent Harden Tavern. Today, the tavern is a preserved, victorian style home. NM’s mother used to volunteer there as a guide for tourists, and he has visited several times. Given Kidd’s seeming regular presence in the town, the idea of him burying his treasure there does not seem so far-fetched.

Contrary to NM, versions of this legend do account for a ghostly aspect. It is said that the slave Kidd murdered remained there in spirit; his ghost would move the treasure should anyone try to find it. 

I find the legend dubious, as (1) the supposed treasure has yet to be found, (2) I find it dubious that such an infamous seafarer would move his treasure so far inland, and (3) the original legend is based on an eyewitness account from children, who claimed to have seen Kidd’s oxcart move down the lane. Regardless, it’s a fun tale and an exciting piece of Wilmington, MA culture.

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For another account of Captain Kidd’s legend, please see:

Neilson, Larz F. “Buried Treasure in Wilmington?: A Look Back at Wilmington of Yesteryear….” Wilmington Town Crier, 22 Dec. 2008. 

LINK: http://homenewshere.com/wilmington_town_crier/article_a807bfb2-2228-5cc0-b2de-647c2e04f97d.html 

Blackbeard’s Treasure

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Charleston, South Carolina
Performance Date: 10 April 2020
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

So, Sullivan’s Island, where I’m from, is supposedly the home of Blackbeard’s treasures. It’s like an actual written document, Blackbeard at one point visited Charleston and held the city hostage for a few days in exchange of medical support on his crew. Charleston also was like a famous port hub for a whole lotta pirates, privateers, and whatnot during the Golden Age of Piracy, all this is factual. But supposedly, Blackbeard, before he died, he buried a good amount of his gold somewhere around the island during his visit to Charleston. The legend is that him seeking medical attention was just a distraction, and he just needed to securely hide his treasures in a remote enough location where no one else could find it. There have been actual treasure hunters who tried to find this, but I don’t think anyone has actually been able to. What’s crazy is that once in a while they fish up old Spanish gold or wreckage or something from that era neat Charleston in the ocean, because there have been a lot of ships that sunk near the city I guess. So these things keep adding validity to the supposed hidden treasure, it’s like teasing everyone for the actual, unbelievable fortune that’s hidden.

Background:

My informant is a 21 year old student, currently going to Duke University in North Carolina. She was born and raised in South Carolina, and is well versed with the local history of the city. Charleston is famously known for being a hub of trade during the Age of Discovery, and there have been famous pirates who made appearance at the city regularly, including Edward ‘Blackbeard’ Teach. My informant has stated that she learned about this legend through her friends when she was 10 years old.

Context:

The conversation took place over the phone, 3:30 pm for myself (PST) and 3:30pm for my informant (EST). My informant was alone in her room during the conversation.

My thoughts:

The myth behind pirate’s gold is so common and often seen as a complete hoax. Realistically, hiding one’s treasures underground doesn’t sound like the safest or smartest way to keep your valuables for anyone. But the reason why I think this story is so commonly told because of people’s built fantasy around pirates as story archetypes. Pirates have been romanticized through popular culture for decades, and I think by trying to find the hidden treasures people are actively trying to insert themselves into this mythos, becoming part of the fantasy pirates by obtaining what was left behind by them.

A Pirate’s Favorite Letter

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Cambridge, MA
Performance Date: March 15
Primary Language: English

Context: The informant told this joke in passing, and I asked to hear it again because of the play on words.

Piece:

Informant: “What’s a pirate’s favorite letter?”

Collector: “I don’t know… what is it? Is it R?”

Informant: “Arr you’d think so but me first love be the C”

Background: The informant, a 20 year old college student at Harvard, says is one of his favorite jokes and he tells it often to entertain his friends. He says that he found this joke on Reddit.

Analysis: In order to understand this joke, you have to have the preconceived notion that pirates a stereotypically shown to say “arr.” Therefore, this joke shows how as a society there is a unified understanding of the pirate stereotype and that there can be these jokes on it. This joke catches on because of its spin on the more obvious stereotypical saying by pirates. It demonstrates also how phonetic similarity can function as a joke when recited with another meaning/spelling.

 

 

 

Pirate’s Cave

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Occupation: Student, Part time facilities attendant at on campus gym
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/27/13
Primary Language: English

Here my informant recounts a tradition among the local youth he knew in Point Loma to visit a place they called the “Pirate Cave” he describes the historical basis for the tradition, and the reasons people are still drawn there.

“Alright, well I grew up in Point Loma San Diego, and there’s this thing called sunset cliffs, and it’s a bunch of like 40 or 60 foot cliffs, big and really pretty, and, um, in the 1920’s during prohibition, it was like a major smuggling destination for alcohol, and there’s a really cool cave that’s connected to where boats could land at the cliffs, and has like access at low tide only, and then it goes up to the top of the cliff like through and under and um its really cool cause like you can go in and explore and um people have like found bones in there, and there’s like notches in the wall where they used to put candles to light the passage ways, and what’s really sketchy is like, its been known about for a while by locals, and they [the smugglers] tried to catch them, so they have like pitfalls in the path like inside the cliffs  like, that were traps for police forces which were set up, um, yeah, pretty awesome. We just call it pirate’s cave because of people who pirated the alcohol brought it in that way and, now they stopped using it. And there’s like carved steps, yeah it’s really cool.”

The informant enumerates undeniable draws to explore this former bootlegging hideout. From rotting bones to booby traps, many of these rumors are so adventurous  they seem likely to be fabricated. However, regardless of their accuracy, there must be some foundation for rumors, and my informants’ description of “Pirate Cave” shows how tradition can develop from a desire for adventure.

Pirate Bay

Nationality: American
Age: 70s
Residence: NC
Performance Date: 2000
Primary Language: English

The informant for this piece of folklore was my friend’s grandfather.  As a boy, he would tell me stories and I would listen intently as they were like adventures I could later relive as I played with my friends in the backyard.  One story I remember in particular was how a North Carolina beach came to be called Nag’s Head.  My friend’s grandfather would go into great detail about how pirates would tie a lantern to a horse’s neck and walk it up and down the beach.  Boats and ships out at sea would think there was a harbor there because of the light.  Ships would then try to dock, only to find that it was a trick and the pirates would rob them clean.

When I asked my informant about the story, he said that the town was named Nag’s Head because “Nag” was a name for a horse.  It could also be that wild horses still roam the beaches of the Outer Banks of North Carolina so they were probably there when the town was founded as well.  My informant also said that the term “Nag” could have to do with how the pirates tricked the people at sea to come to them and then they snagged their goods and gold.  As I child, I appreciated the fun story and enjoyed hearing it over and over again.  As an adult, I’m intrigued in the piece of local history and folklore.