He was on his way to Boston, where he hoped to prove his innocence of the crime of piracy. Kidd stopped at Gardiner's Island for three days. While there, he buried treasure worth about $30,000. at Cherry Harbor, a ravine between Bostwick's (Point) and the Manor House. He asked Mrs. Gardiner to have a pig roasted for him. It was done so well that he presented her with a piece of gold cloth [...]. When Kidd left the island, he promised to return for the buried treasure, and threatened John Gardiner: "If I call for it and it is gone, I will take your head, or your son's."
By that time there was no doubt in Lord Gardiner's mind that his visitor was a pirate. But there was nothing he could do about it except what he subsequently did. After Kidd's arrest, Gardiner was called upon by Lord Bellomont to deliver up the buried treasure. He took it to Boston. The inventory of those bags of gold dust, bars of silver, pieces of eight, rubies great and small, diamonds, candlesticks, porringers, and so forth is still preserved; a duplicate is in the East Hampton Library. One bit of booty, they say, remained with the Gardiners. A diamond was found, accidentally left in John Gardiner's traveling bag after his return from Boston. Mrs. Gardiner gave it to their daughter Elizabeth who married the Gardiner's Island chaplain, a Mr. Green.
Thirty years later, [...] Gardiner's Island was overrun by a pirate band."
-Excerpted from, "East Hampton History," by Jeannette Edwards Rattroy,
copyright 1953; Printed by Country Life Press, Garden City, NY
 |
| A mysterious chart most likely drawn by William Kidd himself that hangs on my own wall. |
No comments:
Post a Comment