11/16/2023 0 Comments Captain kidd long island![]() If you’ve ever taken a cruise around the Thimble Islands, you may have heard about Kidd’s treasure there as well. No one has ever located it, however, despite many efforts. Legend has it that Kidd buried a portion of his ill-gotten booty on Charles Island, just off the coast of Milford’s Silver Sands State Park. and left some things with Thomas Welch in Milford.” “He had claimed he’d hid $100,000 in treasure on various islands,” says Dooling. Dooling, author of An Historical Account of Charles Island, Milford, Connecticut, believes that Kidd hid riches in other locations besides Gardiner’s Island. In London, Kidd told authorities that if they gave him a ship under guard and allowed him to sail back to the Colonies, he would show them where he hid the remainder of the money and goods he had obtained through his endeavors, illegal or not. The passes would prove that the Dutch ship had been hired by the French. “He and his wife fought ’til the moment he was hanged that he did have French passes,” says Selinger. ![]() Wanting to prove his innocence-he had been, after all, commissioned by the King-Kidd sailed to New York, but not before leaving some of his fortune on Gardiner’s Island.Įventually, Kidd was captured and sent in 1699 for trial to England, where he was convicted. “When he landed in the West Indies, he found out he and his ship were considered pirates ,” says Selinger. While the Dutch were neutral, France was an enemy of England. When Kidd later spotted a Dutch ship carrying French passes and goods, he attacked it. “After months at sea, they didn’t find anybody and his crew mutinied.” “King Charles had invested in William Kidd’s, and he was supposed to go after pirates,” he says. Selinger believes that he was really a privateer, commissioned in 1696 to defend British shipping. Some returned to legitimate concerns, but unable to resist the lucrative opportunities of operating outside the system, many converted to piracy.Ĭaptain William Kidd-the legendary pirate believed to have buried treasure all along the Connecticut coast-may not have been as nefarious as popularly thought. Once war ended, the activities of “privateers,” as they were known, instantly became illegal, says Selinger. While some pirates were engaged in trade deemed illegal under British law, others actually had official governmental authorization to operate during wartime in the interest of a particular nation. There was profit to be made by merchants who would take these goods and then sell them in their stores.” “We basically ignored the British navigation acts and that included trade with anyone-even pirates. “England wouldn’t let us trade directly with other European nations,” says Richard Radune, author of Sound Rising, which chronicles the Sound’s early strategic importance. They went as far as outfitting them with ships. But the merchants did.”Ĭonnecticut merchants weren’t just buying from the pirates, says Selinger. “The governor at the time, John Winthrop, didn’t particularly like them. “What’s interesting is that every infamous pirate went up and down the Eastern Seaboard,” says pirate historian Gail Selinger, author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Pirates, of the era around the turn of the 18th century when Long Island Sound saw the majority of its pirate action.
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