The Whydah Gally is the world’s only certified pirate shipwreck. Discovered off Wellfleet, Mass., in 1984, the ship is said to have belonged to legendary Capt. Samuel “Black Sam” Bellamy, who captured the ship in 1717, just months before it sank in a storm off Cape Cod.
The ship had once transported slaves. After Bellamy took it over — he sailed it for less than a year before the sinking — it transported pirated booty from more than 50 ships along the New England coast. The Whydah was Bellamy’s “bank,” in which he stored a varied treasure from those conquered. The more than 15,000 coins recovered thus far represent the most diverse group of shipwreck treasure coins ever found.
Barry Clifford, who found the wreck, and his team of archeologists have recently discovered what they say are the skeletal remains of six of Bellamy’s crew, encased in mineral concretions that have grown over them over the centuries. The museum is X-raying and analyzing them now, and hope to get DNA samples and locate living relatives. But it may take some time: A concretion worked on for 23 years only recently revealed the pirate inside.
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