A drawing of the Whyda, the pirate ship that John King is believed to have been
sailing on when he died. (Expedition Whydah Sea-Lab & Learning Center)
Posted on 06/03/2006 12:25:26 PM PDT by Pharmboy
A drawing of the Whyda, the pirate ship that John King is believed to have been
sailing on when he died. (Expedition Whydah Sea-Lab & Learning Center)
The silk stocking, shoe and fibula believed to be John King's, found in the
wreckage off Wellfleet. (Expedition Whydah Sea-Lab & Learning Center)
He was a boy, no more than 11, when pirates captured the ship he and his mother were sailing on in the Caribbean. As he watched the pirates haul off the ship's cargo of sugar and tobacco, John King made a decision: He would leave his mother and join the pirate crew, led by Captain Sam Bellamy.
Now, 290 years later, King's remains -- his fibula, silk stocking, and shoe -- have been identified among the wreck of Bellamy's ship, the Whydah, 1,500 feet off the coast of Wellfleet. While teenage pirates were common in the 18th century, King is considered to be the youngest ever identified.
Researchers excavating the Whydah used 18th century Caribbean court records and modern forensics to make the determination.
Their find opened a window onto the strange and brief life of a young boy swept up in a lost world of ocean piracy.
``It's a whole touchstone to a period in history which is often misunderstood or it's been twisted around by all these novels," said Ken Kinkor, a historian at the Expedition Whydah Sea-Lab and Learning Center in Provincetown, which made the discovery. ``Even though we find treasures, the best treasures aren't always gold or silver. It's the knowledge we get from the past."
King's tale ranges through the Caribbean, to the coast of Venezuela, finally to his watery grave off Wellfleet. It involves high-seas plundering, an appearance by the Puritan clergyman Cotton Mather, and a public hanging in Boston.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
This is definitely fun! And today, I needed it. Thanks all!
Arrr... We be brothers then, me Hardy. I be Captain Davy Vane!!!!
I was having fun playing on the "talk like a pirate" web site...they even have pirate curses in German, like "Tod und Teufel", Death and the Devil.
I'd bet the screaming parrot on my shoulder that "the boy" in the article was NOT a volunteer, but was taken aboard to be a cabin boy and used as sexual booty.
Always at the bottom of my home page
My pirate name is:
Dirty Jenny Flint
You're the pirate everyone else wants to throw in the ocean -- not to get rid of you, you understand; just to get rid of the smell. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!
LOL, I got a new one
Calico Prudentilla Vane
I think I like that better.
| Name | Pirate name |
| John Doe | Captain Blade McSlain |
| Harry McPeters | Hook-Handed Harrison (ouch :) |
| Dingy Harry | Fancy Pants Pete |
| Lindsey Graham | Black Cloud (LOL!) |
| Nancy Pelosi | Cannibal Drake Ironman |
| John McCain | Dastardly Dick |
| Bill Frist | Crew-Killer Carson |
| William Clinton | Devil Dan |
| The Hildabeaste | Calico Jack McGurk |
| Barney Frank | Black Morty Rackham |
I'm very fierce. In a geeky sorta way. :)
SunkenCiv is too lazy to post stuff on his own! :-)
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Great thinkin' buddy! Wish I'd thought of it!
Teddy kennedy----Harpoon Harry The Horrible
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Shiver me timbers!
I'm Iron Mary Rackham. Are we related?
SunkenCiv lazy?? LOL! The guy posts all those GGG threads...he figgered the pirate one was more of a colonial history, so he threw it my way. (I know you were funnin' us...)
Pat Leahy - Musket Max
LOL!
I hear ya.
My tag line once said: Yes! I am weird. But in a dreadful, eerie, creepy, odd, horrific, warm, gentle, friendly kinda way.
J
Shouldn't someone start a pirate billiards game, so all these mad Rackhams can step up to the table and yell "Rack 'em" and see their vast matey cousins come out of the shivery timbers? Aaarrrr.
No, Waggs, is right, I'm lay-zee....
[singing] "Lazy.... lazy, and feelin', so lonely..."
Some people around here need to develop a sense of humor!!!
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