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CAPTAIN KIDD

CAPTAIN KIDD is inspired by an illustration from Howard Pyle (1853-1911). Kidd was kind of a hard luck pirate, and had more misadventures than adventures. I am interested in him because I once sailed the same waters he did (Long Island Sound). Treasure hunters and enthusiasts are always (still) descending on the Norwalk Islands (off Norwalk, CT) and the "Thimbles" (off New Haven) looking for his reputed treasures...And once, I was told a
delightful little anecdote (below) about Kidd by a third person who had been involved (not published anywhere else).

Kidd frequented Gardiners Island - as is well-known. Once, this third person informant happened to put in at Gardiners years ago to get water for his sailboat. The Gardiners did not take kindly to unwanted visitors (for a really interesting account of Feudalism in America - read any good account on the Gardiners of Gardiners’ Island ... ).  Anyhow, this day they made an exception - and even asked my friend to remain for dinner that night. He did, and
during the course of the meal, he noted - or was told about - a flashy diamond ring on old Mrs. Gardiners’ hand.  It was a family heirloom and had been found by a former caretaker while working in the garden.  It seems that back in the 1600’s when Kidd sailed these waters, he was in love with a young Gardiner lass - and used to sneak ashore and visit her in her boudoir. 

One night, surprised by Papa Gardiner, he fled out the window, across the garden, scaled the wall -and from the top flung something back towards his Love - it glittered in the moonlight but nothing was ever found... Till the lucky caretaker turned up a diamond ring while working on the grounds! So much for the little legend. 

Connecticut coastal history abounds with references to Kidd. Shortly before his unhappy seizure at Boston, he had, indeed, been visiting on Gardiners, and had then sailed west to Oyster Bay to lay low. Oyster Bay was a favorite haunt of mine and my sailor-pals in my early "post-veteran" days when we all lay around on our "52-20" checks, drinking beer and swapping war stories. It was on the old Black Gull, my onetime centerboard sloop, in which we whiled away many pleasant days...There was Coopers’ Bluff (I still recall: 185 feet high) up the Bay and Sewanaka Corinthian Yacht Club away off over to the West. Outside, to the East and into Huntington was Price’s Bend, "Sand Diggers" and other beloved gunk holes... Many times, barefoot, buzzed with beer and lack of sleep, I’ve stood in the darnp, nightime dew on Gull’s decks - the red and green running lights in the shrouds fading as another beautiful dawn broke over the Sound, and conned my own boat into the Bay - perhaps even as Kidd had done centuries before me..."Let’s hear it, lads - a rousing three-times-three for the Company of Freebooters wherever they be: heaven or hell - past or present! "

(Addendum) Sometime later I have recalled an incident that I may as well record here as it seems related... I had once read that "...in early days...", freshwater springs boiled to the surface of the Sound some distance offshore of Lloyd’s Point." (This is in the Western Sound, and within the area said to have been frequented by Kidd). My information is
that pirates and others (including the British men-of-war in Lord Howe's blockade of the Revolution) knew of these Springs, and would replenish their water supplies here without having to go ashore... (Geologists say artesian wells on Long Island flow from a hydraulic "head" supplied by the uplands in CT so it is entirely feasible under-Sound "blow outs" might exist). I have no way of knowing or not. I have sailed through this area many times, but never "tasted" any freshwater. However, once, back in WWII days in my very first open boat (Kittiwake) I was sailing through here with a friend when we saw off about 100 yards or so on the port side, a great mass of bubbles and foaming in the water.  We knew of the legend of the "Springs" and wondered if this might be them - fortuitously seen now perhaps at a lower tide for once... However, during War years this area was marked on the Coast and Geodetic charts as "Area Y" in large purple letters and boundary lines. Charts carried the further info that undersea craft, munitions disposal and other activities could be anticipated within "Area Y" - so we generally avoided it. We wondered if afterward maybe we had seen a U-boat (ours? German? They came into Sound in the war years!) blowing its tanks perhaps ... ??? We never saw this "boiling spot" again. It must have been at least two or more miles offshore from the Long Island side...

BWP
 

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