By Colin S. Sargent

There’s a romantic story that a local fisherman defeated him in a duel in Machias. Others claim he was captured by privateers and sent to the gallows in Boston. And then there’s the wily whaler captain who boasted he outwitted him and hanged him from his yardarm. Seems like everyone wants to be the one who vanquished Sam Bellamy, the “Prince of Pirates,” the most notorious and glamorous brigand ever to prowl the Gulf of Maine.

Bellamy also earned the nickname “Black Sam” by wearing his long raven hair tied back rakishly with a bow. Tall and powerfully built, he was famous for his love affairs and for the four pistols he’d wear in a silk sash around his velvet coat.

Born in Devonshire, England, in 1689, Bellamy started out as a poor sailor. Fed up with the threat of the lash and barely edible rations on merchant ships, he embarked on a salvage expedition to recover gold from a sunken Spanish treasure galleon with his friend and backer, Paul Williams. When this venture failed, the two sought their fortune on the Mary Anne, one of many pirate ships led by Blackbeard. Yes, the Blackbeard, Edward Teach (1680-1718).

Irked that his pirate captain refused to attack English shipping, Bellamy–just 26–persuaded his shipmates to give command of the Mary Anne to him. Thus began an audacious and meteoric career on the high seas, where he quickly captured his new flagship Sultana and gave the speedy Mary Anne to Williams. As his fame grew and he attracted more flogged and hungry sailors and African ex-slaves to his crew, Bellamy’s ferocity in battle and generosity in victory earned him his ‘Prince’ moniker. This favorable reputation convinced the captain of the 300-ton slave ship Whydah to strike his colors when Bellamy–one of the few actually to fly the death’s head and crossed bones–hoisted his Jolly Roger.

Swapping ships with the defeated crew, Bellamy released them and used the 20,000 pounds sterling the Whydah had made in the slave trade to arm his new flagship as powerfully as a Navy frigate, with 28 cannon. Together in the Whydah ’s luxuriant salon, Bellamy and Williams hatched a plan to work their way up the Atlantic coast, seize the town of Machias, and build a pirate stronghold here so they and other corsairs could repair ships and gain safe harbor among the countless coves and inlets of the coast of Maine.

The Gulf of Maine was the richest of hunting grounds for Boston and Southampton merchantmen. By the spring of 1717, Bellamy and Williams had captured dozens of ships and looted their cargo, and Black Sam had become almost a Sir Walter Scott hero by freeing his captives, though more and more voluntarily joined his crew.

At the apex of Bellamy’s career, when fears in Boston of a raid by “Black Sam” and his fleet reached their highest pitch, a deadly late April storm–not unlike the one Mainers suffered this year–sank his flagship en route to a Maine rendezvous, drowning most of his crew and leaving only a handful to make it to Boston to be hanged amid the anti-pirate fervor whipped up by Cotton Mather.

The Whydah foundered in 300 feet of water, where it lay undiscovered for 267 years, until treasure hunter Barry Clifford used high-tech surveying equipment and perilous deep diving to locate her in 1984 with her riches, including much of the Crown silver, ivory, indigo, bullion, and evidence of sugar still aboard. He founded a museum using the recovered artifacts (visit www.whydah.com). To date, hers is the only undisputed discovery of a real pirate ship.

Bellamy, having cheated his many ‘hangmen,’ had lost only to the sea. Paul Williams would go on to secluded Damariscove Island to repair the Mary Anne, unable to pick up the pieces of Bellamy’s dream to create a Maine pirate haven–to this day opportunists and history buffs comb his suspected landfall for treasure and artifacts. Without Bellamy to lead them and build the outpost, piracy in the area was doomed–less than 10 years later, the Royal Navy had swept the Gulf of Maine and the rest of the Atlantic clear.

© 2007 Portland Magazine Colin Sargent, Editor & Publisher editor@portlandmonthly.com Click here to subscribe