John Quelch: the Pirate Captain Killed by His Fortune

Boston’s Old State House was built in 1713 to be where the Massachusetts General Court met, and as Boston’s oldest surviving public building, it has a lot of history behind it. It is most famous for being the site of the Boston Massacre, an event that eventually led to the American Revolution, yet few people know that it has a lot of rich piratical history behind it as well. For example, it is the place where seven pirates—the surviving crew of the famous and most wealthy pirate captain, Black Sam Bellamy—were tried and condemned. However, Boston had been holding the trials of pirates almost a decade before the Old State House was built. The first of these was for John Quelch, who was tried in a townhouse and hanged by the Boston Court of Admiralty in 1704. But John Quelch and some of his crew weren’t only the first pirates tried in Boston, they were also the first pirates tried outside of London.

Until July 1703, John Quelch was just the lieutenant-commander of a ship under Britain’s rule called the Charles. The Captain of the eighty-ton brigantine, Daniel Plowman, anchored in Marblehead and was awaiting orders from the Queen when he fell ill. When news of his sickness reached the owners of the ship, they became concerned that Plowman wouldn’t be able to perform his duties as captain and instructed Captain Plowman to stay anchored in Marblehead. To avoid the threat of a new captain being assigned, however Plowman and his crew set sail anyway. It was at this point that, for unknown reasons, his crew committed mutiny against him and locked him in his quarters. The mutiny was led by none other than the lieutenant-commander of the ship, John Quelch, whom the crew elected as their new captain. Not long after, former Captain Plowman was thrown overboard, either dead or alive. (He may have died of his illness, as he was locked in his quarters without proper care or resources, or he may have been thrown overboard alive to complete the mutiny.)

Although John Quelch is a famous pirate, his time of piracy was short-lived. Although there had been a treaty alliance signed between Great Britain and Portugal on May 16, 1703, Quelch and his crew captured nine vessels under Portugal’s rule off the coast of Brazil, and from them looted goods, guns, money, and at least two enslaved blacks.[1] It’s possible, and likely, that Quelch did know about the treaty but attacked the ships anyways as an act of piracy and defiance. Though capturing nine vessels in such a short time is impressive, they were not his most valuable prize. Sometime between November 1703 and May 1704, John Quelch came across a shipwreck in the West Indies where he found what all pirates hope for—gold. This gold is what made John Quelch’s name go down in history, as it eventually led to his trial and then death.

In May 1704, John Quelch and his crew anchored the Charles back in Marblehead. Soon thereafter, rumors of Captain Quelch’s successful adventures spread, and the Boston News-Letter published an article about the gold on May 22. This intrigued the Charles’s previous owners as it brought up questions about what had happened—the ship left with one captain but came back with another and much illicit loot. On May 24, the Lieutenant-Governor of Boston, who had also caught on, declared that John Quelch and his crew were “violently suspected to have gotten and obtained [the gold] by felony and piracy.”[2] This announcement led Quelch’s crew to scatter throughout the New England coast.

Still, the authorities were hard to escape. Soon after Lieutenant-Governor Povey’s statement, Captain John Quelch and five of his men were arrested for multiple accounts of piracy, robbery, and murder. The trial against them took place in June 1704, and was the first piracy trial held outside of London. Captain Quelch and the other imprisoned men were not granted a jury during their trial, but were instead convicted by judges of the Boston Court of Admiralty. Even with a noose around his neck, Quelch maintained his innocence: “I am condemned only upon circumstances.”[3] News of Quelch’s trial and hanging, along with his eerie last words, made it across the Atlantic Ocean, to London, where an account of his arraignment, trial, and condemnation was published. Captain John Quelch was hanged on June 30, 1704.

— Emma Donald

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[1] “The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation, of Capt. John Quelch, and Others of His Company.” Ben Bragg: Avemary Lane, London, 1704.
[2] “John Quelch and His Crew who were Hanged in Boston and Their Gold Distributed.” The Pirates of the New England Coast, 1630-1730, by George Francis Dow and John Henry Edmonds, Dover Publications, 1996, pp. 99-115.
[3] “John Quelch and His Crew who were Hanged in Boston and Their Gold Distributed.” The Pirates of the New England Coast, 1630-1730, by George Francis Dow and John Henry Edmonds, Dover Publications, 1996, pp. 99-115.
[4] Chand, Rakashi. “The Beehive. The Official Blog of the MHS.” The End of Piracy: Pirates Hanged in Boston 300 Years Ago | Beehive, 15 Nov. 2017, www.masshist.org/beehiveblog/2017/11/the-end-of-piracy-pirates-hanged-in-boston-300-years-ago/.
[5] Fiorentino, Welsey. “The Beehive. The Official Blog of the MHS.” Pirates in Boston: The Trial and Execution of John Quelch | Beehive, 28 Jan. 2015, www.masshist.org/beehiveblog/2015/01/pirates-in-boston-the-trial-and-execution-of-john-quelch/.
[6] Hershey, Peter. “Regulating Jolly Roger: The Existing and Developing Law Governing the Classification of Underwater Cultural Heritage as ‘Pirate-Flagged.’” University of Massachusetts Law Review, vol. 10, no. 1, Jan. 2015, pp. 133–135., scholarship.law.umassd.edu.
[7] Klein, Christopher. “The Surprising History of American Pirates - The Boston Globe.” BostonGlobe.com, The Boston Globe, 15 Sept. 2018, www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2018/09/15/the-surprising-history-american-pirates/fvXiyZWVT5bwU730FxUxlL/story.html.

Pictured: The Arraingment, Tryal, and Comdemnation of Capt. John Quelch (London, 1705).

**To go to James Franklin’s Print House (Site 7), head west on State St. towards Washington St. Continue onto Court St. where the destination will be on the right.**