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 ...
I thought it was pretty funny, but I really am lazy too. :') It's so much easier to prepare some online article for hard drive archiving, and then plaster it into a FReepmail message to you, or PB, or Blam...
...and get this... here's my saved link for posting a new GGG topic, it's as easy as can beeee...
http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/post_article?forum=chat;keywords=GodsGravesGlyphs;topics=history,%20science,%20travel
ARRRGGHHHHH!!....from Bloodstained Bartholomew!
OMG...Now you owe me a new keyboard and monitor....
So, there is the other half of the picture you posted last week! Well, now I know what Jack Sprat and his wife look like.
I see you found Jack Sprat.
Now that name belongs in a romance novel.
I am "Iron Anne Flint", pirate's work is tough.
I recall Mark Twain said, that when he was a boy, he and his playmates prayed every day that God would let them grow up to be pirates. River pilot was definitely a distant second choice.
Note: this topic is from . Thanks Pharmboy.
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