Earlier this month, salvors reported finding a 50 kg silver bar off the coast of Madagascar, which they believed to be part of Captain Kidd‘s treasure lost in the sinking of the Adventure Galley in 1698. The salvors are confident that they will find more silver in the wreck. Whether they will remains to be seen. In most historical accounts, after the ship became so rotten as to be unseaworthy, Captain Kidd stripped the Adventure Galley of anything worthwhile down to the hinges on the ship’s cabin door. Kidd and his crew then sailed away on the Adventure Prize. If Kidd stripped the ship, it seems unlikely that he would leave a large treasure of silver behind.
Captain William Kidd was a most unusual pirate, if he was a pirate at all. Before 1696, Captain Kidd was a successful merchant and privateer. Born in Dundee, Scotland in 1645, Kidd married a young English widow, Sarah Bradley Cox Oort, in 1691, who was also one of the wealthiest women in New York City at the time. They lived in a large house on Pearl Street with their two daughters. Kidd was a member and financial supporter of his church. Block and tackles from his ship are said to have been used to raise the spire on the Trinity Church in New York.
In 1696, Kidd was recruited to command an expedition to route out English pirates sailing off the East Coast of Africa. There Kidd allegedly turned pirate himself. Kidd was arrested and hanged as a pirate in 1701. Kid was literally hanged twice. The first time, the rope broke and he fell to the ground. The second attempt did the job. Some historians claim that Kidd was a scapegoat and innocent of all charges.
One of the reasons that Captain Kidd is so well remembered is because he is reported to have buried treasure at a myriad of locations in the Caribbean and along the East Coast of what is now the United States. Prior to his arrest, Kidd sailed several times up and down the US coast between New York and Maine. Kidd’s ship, Adventure Prize, ex-Quedah Merchant is said to have carried a vast amount of fabrics, spices, jewels, and gold worth Quedah Merchant carried a vast amount of fabrics, spices, jewels, and gold rumored to be worth £400,000.
Kidd reportedly buried a small cache of treasure on Gardener’s Island. Legend has it that Kidd also buried treasure on Plum Island, Money Pond, Fisher’s Island, and an undisclosed rocky place on the North Shore called Kidd’s Ledge on Long Island Sound. There is also a legend that Kidd buried his treasure on Clarke’s Island, in the Connecticut River in Northfield, Massachusetts. Similar claims have been made for Deer Island, Maine and the Isles of Shoals on the Maine-New Hampshire border. The so-called “Money Pit” on Oak Island, Nova Scotia is also claimed by some to be tied to Captain Kidd. Gold coins found in Cape May, NJ are said to be part of Captain Kidd’s hoard. One of the most colorful, if not necessarily plausible, stories asserts that the fortune of John Jacob Astor was founded on the discovery of Captain Kidd’s treasure.