Part 64

“Why, you see,” said the pilot, resting a moment, to shift his quid of tobacco, “you see, Mike drank so much whiskey that he destroyed the coating of his stomach, and the doctor told him that before he could get well, he would need a new coat for it. Mike thought the thing over, and said, when he had a new coat for his stomach, he would have one that would stand the whiskey; and he made up his mind that a buffalo robe with the hair on it was just the thing, and so he sat down, and swallowed it. He could drink any amount of whiskey after that, and never so much as wink. Fact, now, as true as you are standing here.”

The clergyman turned away, satisfied.

Besides such adventures as fighting with each other, and with the inhabitants along the river, these men had conflicts with robbers. There were many gangs of robbers living along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and they had places of resort known only to themselves. Some of the limestone cliffs abound in caves, and here the robbers generally had their concealment. They watched for the boats ascending and descending the river, sometimes fired upon them from the bank, and sometimes came out in skiffs to capture them. Many a boat, while quietly anchored for the night, has thus been attacked, and its crew murdered, and thrown into the river. The boat would then be drawn to the spot most convenient for the robbers, plundered of its contents, and set on fire; or it might be manned by a portion of the gang, taken to New Orleans, and sold.

Such an occurrence was not unfrequent, as a rapid passage down the river would enable them to sell the boat, and return again to their place of concealment, before the officers of the law could go in pursuit.

[Sidenote: THE DAYS OF THE FLAT-BOATMEN.]

There are many interesting stories in the robber history of the great valley. One was told to me, some years ago, by an old steamboat-man, who had worked in his younger days on board of keel-boats and “broad-horns,” as the flat-boats were generally termed, and are now to the present day. I give the story, as nearly as I can remember it, in his own words.

“There used to be a famous place for robbers on the lower part of the Ohio, down below Paducah. Many a boat has been captured there, and the men on board of it were never heard of afterwards. They were a desperate lot of fellows. These robbers did not mind killing a man any more than you would mind killing a rat. I shipped on board a broad-horn once, from Louisville, going to New Orleans. We had a load of pork and corn, and the captain of the broad-horn owned about half the boat and her cargo. We got along very well without any trouble until we got down to the place where these robbers were, and just there we ran on a sand-bar. It was a ticklish place. There we were stuck; the river was falling, and if it left us on the bar, we would have to stay there until the next rise—that is, if we did not die in the mean time. We worked away all the afternoon, and all night, but to no purpose. One after another, we had dropped off, and gone to sleep.

[Sidenote: FIGHT WITH RIVER PIRATES.]

“We were about a quarter of a mile from the shore, but the current was not very strong. Towards morning, when I was on watch, I heard some men on shore. A little while afterwards, I heard the sound of oars, and saw a boat coming out of a little creek just above us. By the sound of their oars I knew that the boat was coming towards us, and I waked everybody. The captain got out his own rifle and every rifle and pistol that was in the float, and prepared to make fight. When the boat got within fifty or sixty yards, and we could just see it through the mist, our captain yelled out to them to stop.

“‘Want to come aboard,’ said a voice from the boat. ‘We want to buy some pork and corn. We are camped here, and have got short of provisions.’

“‘Haven’t anything,’ said the captain; ‘not a thing. We have not a pound of pork or corn on board.’

“‘What have you, then?’ came from the boat.

“‘We are taking a load of stone down to New Orleans, to sell—limestone, first-rate limestone; you don’t want any of it.’

“The boat kept coming on, and somebody in it said, ‘Come to think of it, now, we do want some limestone, and we will come and see how it looks.’

“The captain saw that we were in for a fight, as the fellows were determined to rob us. He brought his rifle up to his shoulder, but before he fired, he said once more,—

“‘Now, I tell you, STOP!’

“The boat did not stop, but kept straight in our direction. The current swung it a little down stream, or they would have been on board of us before we could have done much against them; but luckily their stern swung around, and they had to turn a little against the current. The captain fired, and brought down one of the fellows in the boat. There were six or eight of them, and only five of us. I had a rifle, and I fired, and brought down another.

“The captain’s man fell into the bottom of the boat, but the one I shot threw up his hands, and tumbled backward, so that he went overboard. They began firing, but did not hit any of us—except one ball, which clipped a corner of the captain’s ear.

“By this time they appeared to have had enough of it, and, besides, our shooting deranged their rowing. We were reloading, and before they could get up to the boat, we would have another round of shots for them. They turned down stream, and that was the last we saw of them.

“In the morning we carried a line ashore, and tied it to a tree; and with this line we managed to pull ourselves off. It was tough work, that, and it was noon before we got away. We floated on down the river, and got to New Orleans all right. We sold out our load, and came home.

[Sidenote: ANOTHER BATTLE.]

“The next year I went down again with the same captain, on another broad-horn. When we got to this place where we had been aground, we gave the sand-bar a wide berth, and avoided it; but we had another fight with the robbers one night, when we were anchored. They came upon us suddenly, when all but two of us were asleep. They got possession of the boat. They killed the captain, and sent me overboard. What they did with the other men I never knew, but I suppose they killed them.

“The whole fight did not last three minutes, from the time they first sprang aboard until I was in the river, and floating away on the water. I must have gone down the stream three or four miles, keeping my head above water; and at last I came to the shore, right under a rocky cliff.

“I climbed up, and squeezed the water out of my clothes. By this time it was morning. I looked around, and saw, a little way off, a curious looking hole in the rock, and something like a path leading up to it. I went up this path and into the rock.

“A fire was burning close by the entrance, and I thought somebody must live there. It never occurred to me that the place might be a robbers’ cave. I shouted, and nobody came out. Then I picked up a brand out of the fire, and waved it until it blazed, so as to light me into the rock.

[Sidenote: IN A ROBBERS’ CAVE.]

“After going about twenty feet along a narrow passage, I found myself in a sort of room, thirty or forty feet square. It looked partly natural and partly as if it had been dug out of a rock. There were piles of stuff where the men slept, and there were goods of various sorts lying around; but nobody was there. There was a bag of silver dollars which my eye happened to rest upon, and I picked it up. I then thought that I had got into the cave of the robbers, and that it was the same crew that was in the boat. I went out of that place quick, and it was well I did so.

“When I got outside, I could see the boat coming, not half a mile away, and those fellows on board. If I had staid fifteen minutes more, they would have caught me.

“There was no way of escaping up the face of the cliff without their seeing me, so I crawled down to the water, and slipped in again. I could swim well, and thought the best thing to do would be to float down the river a few miles farther, and then get ashore wherever I saw a house or a boat.

“I tried to keep the dollars, but they were too heavy—they weighted me down, and I very soon dropped them, consoling myself with the recollection that the robbers never would get them again. I floated half a dozen miles down the stream, saw a house, and went ashore. Next day a flat-boat came along with one hand short, and I shipped on her to New Orleans. After that I had two or three fights with the river pirates, but they never bothered me much.”

LXI.

BURIED TREASURES.

CAPTAIN KIDD.—HIS HISTORY.—HOW HE MADE HIS FORTUNE.—HIS MELANCHOLY FATE.—JOINT STOCK IN THE ADVENTURE GALLEY.—SEARCHING FOR TREASURES.—STORIES OF THE SEA-COAST.—TRADITIONS.—ADVENTURES OF A TREASURE-HUNTER.—BILL SANBORN, AND WHAT HE DID.—JIM FOLLETT’S DOG.—A PRACTICAL JOKER.—A MESSAGE FROM THE SANDS OF THE SEA.—BILL SANBORN’S DREAM.—FINDING THE CHEST.—A SUPERNATURAL VISITOR.

A nautical ballad, with which many persons are familiar, narrates the adventures of the celebrated Captain Kidd. It is composed in the autobiographical form, and its first line runs as follows:—

“My name was Robert Kidd, as I sailed, as I sailed.”

[Sidenote: THE STORY OF CAPTAIN KIDD.]

Evidently the distinguished pirate travelled, like many other robbers, under an alias; and it is interesting to know that his name was Robert Kidd _as he sailed_, for he certainly was not Robert, but William, Kidd when on shore and away from his marine wanderings. It is to be noted that he draws particular attention to his alias, by repeating the words _as I sailed_; obviously wishing to state his case plainly, and guard against any imputation that he called himself _Robert_ when on shore, or when his ship was at anchor or becalmed. It must have been very inconvenient for the man of tender conscience to change his name from William to Robert whenever his ship was in motion, and from Robert to William again when from any cause she stopped. It made things lively for him if he ever got into one of those peculiar squalls of the Mozambique Channel, where for two or three days you have a puff of wind one minute and a dead calm the next, so that your sails are alternately filling and flapping, and flapping and filling, about as fast as you can count. But, throwing speculation aside, it is sufficient to say that William Kidd was born about the middle of the seventeenth century, and followed the seas from his youth. About 1695 he was known as one of the boldest ship-masters sailing out of New York, and he became so famous that he attracted the favorable attention of the colonial government.

About the close of the century in which our hero was born, the depredations of pirates upon British commerce were so extensive that it was determined to send out privateers to attack the freebooters. The owners of these privateers were reimbursed for their outlay by the sale of the goods and ships captured from the pirates, and they calculated that they could make a great deal of money, provided they had a fair catch. One company, in which several noblemen were shareholders, asked the governor of New York to recommend a suitable person to command a privateer; and in consequence of his recommendation, Kidd received a commission, signed by the king, and addressed to “the trusty and well-beloved Captain Kidd, commander of the ship Adventure Galley.”

The vessel thus put in charge of the enterprising William (not Robert) carried thirty guns, was a fast sailer, and had a plentiful supply of provisions, and a crew of about one hundred men. She sailed from Plymouth, England, in April, 1696, and cruised off the American coast for several months. She occasionally entered New York and Boston, where the crew was recruited until it included more than a hundred and fifty men. With this increased force Kidd finally sailed for the East Indies and the east coast of Africa. While on the voyage, he concluded that it would be much more profitable to turn pirate—at least so the story goes; and finding that his crew were not averse to the project, he became a freebooter of the most enterprising character. He captured many ships, and after filling the Adventure Galley with gold and diamonds, and all that kind of portable property, he returned, in 1698, to New York. According to tradition, he buried a large part of his treasure on various parts of Long Island, Staten Island, and the banks of the Hudson River, and then boldly sailed into Boston harbor, under the impression that his royal commission would save him from any charge of piracy. But, unluckily for him, the Earl of Bellamont, governor of Massachusetts and New York, was a stockholder in the Adventure Galley, and was disappointed at the failure to declare a dividend. He had heard of Kidd’s indiscretions, and this knowledge, added to the chagrin naturally attending the failure of the enterprise as a financial speculation, caused him to arrest the gallant captain, and send him to London for trial.

[Sidenote: HE MURDERED WILLIAM MOORE.]

At this day there are many persons who believe Kidd was innocent of the charge of piracy, and they unhesitatingly say that he did nothing more than carry out his orders. On his trial, which was most unfairly conducted, the charge of piracy was abandoned, as it was found impossible to prove it, and he was arraigned for killing one of his crew,—William Moore,—in consequence of the mutinous conduct of the latter. It was shown on the trial that Moore addressed insulting language to his commander, and was knocked down by Kidd. The blow which was delivered with a bucket, proved fatal, and the decision of the court was against the prisoner, on the ground that a bucket was not a proper weapon with which the commander of a ship should enforce discipline. Had he prodded him with a sword, or perforated him with a pistol, he might have been acquitted; but this assault with a bucket was too much. Times have changed since then. At the present day we have the spectacle of the successful defence of murderers, on the ground that the weapons they used were not murderous. I may instance the case of Foster, a conductor on a street railway in New York, who killed Mr. Putnam with a “car-hook.” One of the strongest points made in his favor was, that a car-hook is not a murderous weapon. Had Kidd been tried in New York subsequent to 1870, he would have escaped the notoriety he obtained.

There was an interesting performance at Execution Dock, in London, on the 24th day of May, 1701. William Kidd and the executioner performed a duet, which resulted in the death of the former, after an acrobatic exercise of some fifteen or twenty minutes at the end of a rope. As a warning to the rising generation, and for the amusement of the elders, the ruins of the ex-pirate were left in chains at the end of a gibbet, where they swung in the wind for several years. Pious fathers used to take their sons to look at the pleasing spectacle, and counsel them never to turn pirate, and come to such a rope’s end as befell the once well-beloved Kidd. Evidently the warning was effectual, as none of the London youths of that period were able to secure the command of an Adventure Galley, and sail to the Indian Seas. The suppression of piracy as a joint stock operation became unpopular, as it was not found to be profitable.

[Sidenote: AS HE SAILED.]

Many of the incidents narrated in the touching poem, “My name was Robert Kidd, as I sailed, as I sailed,” are altogether apocryphal. According to history, Kidd left seven hundred and thirty-eight ounces of gold, eight hundred and forty-seven ounces of silver, and several bags of silver ornaments and precious stones. These were secured by the Earl of Bellamont, but whether they were ever handled by the unfortunate shareholders of the enterprise is not known. The probability is, however, that they were all required for the expenses of the arrest and trial of the pirate.

According to popular belief, the quantity above named was only a small fraction of the wealth acquired by Kidd; and down to the present time people have been searching localities on the New England coast and along the Hudson River, in the hope of finding some of Kidd’s abandoned wealth. Tradition has been exhausted, and the chief reliance has been, especially of late years, upon dreams and the revelations of spirits. Almost every year somebody dreams of a locality where Kidd’s treasures have been found, and he frequently gets wrought up to such a degree that he sets about digging for a fortune. Thousands of dollars have been expended in these researches, and they have invariably resulted in nothing. It is safe to say that nobody has yet found a dollar buried by Captain Kidd, and it is equally safe to predict that nobody ever will find one. The writer of this knew, in his boyhood days, of several enterprises of this sort, and though he never dug for Kidd’s treasures, he was acquainted with several persons who had been in the business. Some had abandoned it in disgust, and some still clung to the hope that they would one day be successful. They were waiting for dreams and revelations that should indicate the precise spot where they could dig for the iron-bound chest, which invariably contained the wealth they sought. An oaken chest, with hoops of iron, was somewhere concealed, that should one day be theirs.

One garrulous old fellow used to be full of mystery about the matter. His stories were a little incoherent, but I am confident that he firmly believed them, and thought he was telling the truth. He was as superstitious as an Arab, and believed in all sorts of ghosts, hobgoblins, and disembodied spirits in general. One day I happened to see him when he was bewailing his ill luck a night or two before. He had a violent cold, and had swallowed a prodigious quantity of rum and molasses to drive it away. When I asked how he caught it, he became very solemn, took another “dram,” as he called it, and then proceeded to a confidential talk.

“Now, boy,” said he, “I will tell you all about it; but you must first promise not to reveal my secret.”

Of course I made the required promise.

“This was the way of it,” he continued.

[Sidenote: DIGGING FOR KIDD’S MONEY.]

“One night last week, I dreamed that a spirit with a bright light in its hand came to me, and told me to follow. I followed, and it led me to a place about a hundred yards from the river, where it set down the light, and told me to dig. There was nothing to dig with, but as I looked at the ground, I saw a pick and shovel. I went to work with them, and when I struck the first blow, the spirit went away. I dug and dug, but without getting tired. It seemed that after I had been digging two or three hours, I struck a chest. I could hear the pick hitting on it; and by and by the point of it went through the oak, and I could hear the money rattling. Just then I waked, and found it was daylight.

“Next night I dreamed the same thing again, and then I knew there was something in it. The second time I dreamed it, I tried hard to remember where the place was; and the next day I went up and down the banks of the river, in hopes of seeing it. But I couldn’t find it, and what to do I didn’t know. It was a revelation, sure, but the revelation wasn’t clear enough, and I knew that something else was coming. Night before last it came.”

He spoke the last sentence very solemnly, and as he did so, he moved his hand towards a box that stood near his arm-chair. I thought he was about to open it, and show me some of the wealth of the great pirate; but he only produced a fresh bottle of rum, and took another drink. Smacking his lips, he continued.

“Night before last it came. I was out by the swamp after dark. I had been looking for the place, and was just then going home, and thinking I would try it again next morning. I was walking along, thinking, and had my head down, when, all at once, I stumbled over something that made me look up again. And there, not twenty feet away, was the light—just such as the spirit carried in my dream, only it wasn’t so bright.”

I was about to say, “Will o’ the wisp;” but I knew that if I did so, I should put an end to the story, and so I kept silence.

[Sidenote: GUIDED BY A SPIRIT.]

“I couldn’t see any spirit, but of course that didn’t make any difference, as I knew the light would take me to the spot. I didn’t say a word, you may believe, but I looked at the light; and it hung there, looking at me. It didn’t move for a minute, and then it began dancing along— not dancing, but sort of waving, like—and moving away from me. I followed it over bushes and logs, and through water up to my knees, and sometimes nearly to my waist, and never once took my eyes off of it. I must have gone half a mile or more, when I stepped into a hole, and fell flat in the water, down among the brambles. The pain was so sharp that I said something, and when I got to my feet again, the light was gone. And that is how I got this cold.”

I tried to explain that the light which he saw was nothing supernatural, but he would not listen to my “boy foolishness,” as he called it; and after a slight attempt to enlighten him, I gave it up. He recovered from his cold, but kept his dream of fortune constantly in mind. I believe he tried again to follow the mysterious light, and with the same result as before. But his faith was not shaken, and to his dying day he believed he should yet find the buried wealth of Captain Kidd.

[Sidenote: THE MYSTERIOUS CHEST.]

According to my recollection, every story told by this man, or any of his associates and neighbors, about seeking for buried treasures, was full of supernatural occurrences; and the failure to obtain the hidden wealth was always attributed to a failure to maintain silence. In this instance my friend attributed the disappearance of the light to his exclamation when he fell; had he remained speechless, the light, in his opinion, would have led him to fortune. Repeatedly I was told of instances where the coveted chest had been reached, and only a few more blows were required to open it. The air was full of unearthly noises, and the diggers were tossed and struck by invisible hands; but they heeded them not, and worked their best. But a blow heavier than the rest, or a sight of the chest, caused an exclamation; when, instantly, the chest disappeared, and the hole which had been dug by human agency, was filled by a supernatural one.

Along the coast of New England, from the end of Long Island to Portsmouth and Portland, there are numerous traditions and other stories of Kidd’s treasures. There are those who believe that some of the pirate’s wealth is hidden near Lynn and Salem; others locate it near Newburyport; and others, again, near Hampton, Portsmouth, and Kittery. On three occasions I have made summer cruises near these places, and whenever I sought one of these traditions, I generally found it. Places have been shown me where credulous persons have dug for gold and silver enough to make them the envy of all their neighbors; and there is one spot, near Lynn, where a man expended thousands of dollars, trying to make an entrance into a cave, where, as the spirits told him, treasure of an enormous value was concealed. His money gave out before the treasure was reached; and if it was there then, it remains there now, ready for any one who has money and inclination to prosecute the search.