The Hanging of Black Sam Bellamy’s Crew

You are now at the sight of the Old Charlestown Ferry Landing, most famously known for where six members of Black Sam Bellamy’s crew were hanged for piracy in 1717.

On a cold April night in 1717 Sam Bellamy and his crew were sailing north along the East Coast of the then thirteen colonies when they ran into a Nor’easter. Facing unbeatable odds Bellamy’s ship, the Whydah, was off the coast of Wellfleet, Massachusetts when, “Bellamy dropped the anchor and the Whydah began a slow turn toward the wind, taking on thousands of tons of water over the gunwales as She was swept up by forty-foot waves.”[1] That was the end for Bellamy and most of his crew with only two surviving from the Whydah. Most of the crew from Bellamy’s other ship the Mary Anne survived, however, six members of the crew were captured, arrested, and subsequently taken to Boston.

Those six crew members, Simon Vanvoorst, John Brown, Thomas Baker, Henrick Quinter, Peter Cornelius Hooff, and John Shuan were “visited in their cells and delivered long-winded sermons about their impending, eternal damnation” by Cotton Mather, minister of the Boston Parish.[2] He used these “talks” as forms of interrogation, trying to get each one of the pirates to admit to the charges brought against them. A few of the survivors tried to claim that they were forced into piracy and that they should not have been jailed. Mather had a particular hatred for pirates, and when speaking of the Bellamy’s pirates who claimed to have been forced into piracy, “he insisted that they should have died a martyr by the cruel hands of their pirate brethren rather than become one of their brethren.”[3] Mather visited the pirates everyday before their trial, in hopes of getting them to repent of their pirate ways.

At their trial, each man was brought forth and asked by the ministers of Boston if their hearts had been changed by their discussions with Reverend Mather. A few tried to repent and receive a pardon, but it was too little too late. All six crew members were hanged for piracy. After the execution Mather used the time to build his power and the power of the church. It was normal for ministers to speak to the public, resembling what Mather said after the execution of Sam Bellamy’s crew, that they should “continue to entreat God “to do some remarkable thing for the destruction of pirates, by which our coast has been lately infested.”[4] The pirates actions and believes undermined everything that the church stood for. They challenged the authority of the church and weakened the church's control over seafaring folk. The church used terror, intimidation, and fear at executions as a way to build opposition against pirates and to restore faith in the church.

Sam Bellamy’s crew members were tried in the “Old State House, found guilty, and hung on the mudflats of the Charlestown Ferry Landing”.[2]

On this map from 1722 there is a thick line in the top half of the map, it is the "E&N. Mill Damm." Just to the right of the damn is the “Ferry to Charles-Town,” which was the site of the Charlestown Ferry Landing on the Boston side of the Charles River. Bellamy’s crew would have been hung just past the dock, just far enough into the water to warn visitors and residents of Boston of the crime of piracy.

Boston was known for a time as one of the largest pirating hubs along the East Coast. The number of unwanted pirate ships stationed just outside of the harbor was enormous throughout the 17th century. During the Golden Age of piracy, pirates would bring stolen silver and other valued goods to Boston aiding the economy, so Boston favored them. That opinion changed when Boston’s economy was stable enough to support trade, and pirates were then seen as an infringement upon the safety and security of international trade because they had started to sack both incoming and departing ships. When Sam Bellamy’s crew was captured and brought to Boston, they were executed and hanged off the old Charlestown Ferry Landing. With the execution taking place, at the “gateway” of the city, Boston officials wanted to send a message to those in the city and to those (pirates) outside of the city of the dire consequences that fell upon those who chose the life of a pirate.

—Michaela Hayes

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[1] Sara Schubert. “Piracy, Riches, and Social Equality: The Wreck of the Whydah off Cape Cod.” Historical Journal of Massachusetts 34, no. 1 (Winter 2006): 29.
[2] Colin Woodward. “Pirates In Boston.” Pirates in Boston -- The Republic of Pirates, 2008, 1 http://www.republicofpirates.net/BostonPirates.html.
[3] Cotton Mather. Instructions to the living, from the condition of the dead. A brief relation of remarkables in the shipwreck of above one hundred pirates, who were cast away in the ship Whido, on the coast of New-England, April 26. 1717. And in the death of six, who after a fair trial at Boston, were convicted & condemned, Octob. 22. And executed, Novemb. 15. 1717. : With some account of the discourse had with them on the way to their execution. And a sermon preached on their occasion. (Boston: Printed by John Allen, for Nicholas Boone, at the Sign of the Bible in Cornhill, 1717), 18. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans/N01600.0001.001?rgn=main;view.
​[4] Steven J. J. Pitt, "Cotton Mather and Boston's "Seafaring Tribe"." The New England Quarterly 85, no. 2 (2012): 26. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23251810.

Pictured: Detail of John Bonner's map "The town of Boston in New England," between 1723-33. The head of Spanish pirate Benevides, illustrating the sort of fate that awaited pirates (from The Pirates Own Book).

**To go to John Quelch’s Execution Site (Site 17), head northeast and turn right onto Commercial Street. Turn left onto Hull Street. The destination will be on the left.**