The skeleton of a renowned sea robber dead for more than three centuries may have been divulge . This calendar week , researchers in Massachusettsannouncedthey’d found a human frame near the crash of a ship that went down off the coast of Cape Cod in 1717 — and they think it just might be the stiff of New England ’s greatest pirate , Samuel " Black Sam " Bellamy .
It’ssaidthat Bellamy fell in love with a local stunner advert Maria Hallett , whose parents did n’t desire their daughter marrying a lowly sailor . This bit of folklore might be unwarranted — although historians do live that a young woman with that name did live in Eastham , Mass. at the time . But in any case , Bellamy soon impart the dependency to prosecute a get - robust scheme .
He and a protagonist had learned that atreasure - laden Spanish fleethad recently sunk near the Florida Keys , so the duo pronto headed to the south . After failing to salvage any scratch , Bellamy turn to a life of plagiarism , garner a crew , acquiring a couplet of sailing canoe , and heading out into the undetermined seas . He had a real knack for the study : He captured more than 50 ships from 1716 to 1717.Forbesmagazine has calculated that all the dinero Bellamy seized would be worth$120 millionin modern U.S. dollars .
Despite the glum nickname confer by others — and his considerable net Charles Frederick Worth — Bellamy hate flush elites with a passion and wish to call himself the " Robin Hood of the Sea " .
Theflagshipof Bellamy ’s fleet was the 300 - tonWhydah , a former British hard worker vessel . In 1717 , the pirate take the ship up to New England . Then , on April 26 , 1717 , a wicked tempest drop theWhydahoff the coast of Wellfleet . Most of the crowd — include Bellamy — went down with it .
In 1984 , marine explorer Barry Clifford and his diving team found the ship ’s wreckage . More than 200,000 artifacts from the web site have since been taken ashore . To give them a right abode , Clifford established the Whydah Pirate Museum in West Yarmouth in 2016 .
This past November , researchers at the museum observe part of a human skeletal system inside a hardened block of deposit they ’d take from the Whydah ’s general area a few eld ago . The slab also contained a bash , some cufflinks , and — most interestingly — a pistol . According to anAssociated Pressreport , this gun isbelievedto have been Bellamy ’s .
Forensic scientist at the University of New Haven plan to liken deoxyribonucleic acid from the osseous tissue against that of a living Bellamy descendant in England . Whether the skeletal system twist out to be the famous captain ’s or somebody else ’s , though , it ’ll most likely be interred — eventually . On February 19 , the off-white will be on display during a imperativeness conference .
