Captain Black Sam Bellamy - The Whydah Galley

Captain Black Sam Bellamy was the highest-earning pirate of all time. In February 1717 he captured the Whydah and made it his flagship. It is said that when the Whydah was wrecked in a storm on 26 April 1717, Bellamy, 28, had been heading for Boston with a vast fortune on board. It sank off Cape Cod. Researchers believe a mass pirate burial ground has been discovered and it contains the remains of the crew of Captain Black Sam Bellamy, the “Robin Hood of the sea”. The site on the shores of Cape Cod may contain the bodies of as many as 102 men whose corpses were washed ashore after the Whydah sank. The Whydah was found buried beneath 18 feet of sand in 25 feet of water 1,500 feet from the shore in 1984.

Investigators discovered what they think are the remains of Bellamy himself. A leg bone was found among sand and debris, next to a pistol said by the researchers to have unique features and symbols that prove it was one of Bellamy’s flintlocks.