Daphne Palmer Geanacopoulos - The Pirates Wife - The Remarkable True Story of Sarah Kidd

PRAISE FOR THE PIRATES WIFE

Well-researched and absorbing.

Judy Batalion, New York Times bestselling author of The Light of Days

A beautifully researched consideration of the marriage between Captain Kidd and his remarkable wife, Sarah. It is always a thrill when a writer shows us a world we think we already know in a new light, and Daphne Palmer Geanacopoulos has done just that.

Madeleine Blais, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle

A rollicking yarn replete with romance, buried treasure and revenge, The Pirates Wife enthralls!

Heath Hardage Lee, award-winning author of The League of Wives

This compelling portrait of Sarah Kidds turbulent life, and her indomitable spirit, is full of dramatic twists and turns that will leave you wondering if there is any truth to the legend of Captain Kidds hidden treasure.

Eric Jay Dolin, author of Black Flags, Blue Waters

The Pirates Wife falls under the category of narrative nonfiction but reads like a lively historical novel. I sailed right along with this saga. A jolly good ride.

Sally Cabot Gunning, author of The Widows War

Geanacopoulos has achieved something historical scholars dream of: bringing to light a fascinating story that is as entertaining as it is factual.

Tracey Enerson Wood, internationally bestselling author of The Engineers Wife

A lively tale of the remarkable Sarah Kidd. Pirate lovers worldwide will rejoice!

Marcus Rediker, author of Villains of All Nations

A deeply researched and richly imagined exploration.

Pamela D. Toler, PhD, author of Women Warriors

The Pirates Wife

The Remarkable True Story of Sarah Kidd

Daphne Palmer Geanacopoulos

Dr. Daphne Palmer Geanacopoulos is a historian, journalist and author of The Pirate Next Door: The Untold Story of Eighteenth Century Pirates Wives, Families and Communities. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Southern Living, Virginia Business and other outlets. She lives in South Yarmouth, Massachusetts, with her husband, David.

To the memory of my grandmother, Juliette Marie Wehrmann Palmer

Contents

Sarah Kidd lay in a weakened state in the bedroom of her Manhattan mansion. A highly contagious lethal disease raged through the colony striking young and old, rich or poor, Black or white. It was September 12, 1744, and the seventy-four-year-old Sarah had first taken to her bed to get warm under her soft quilts and to rest her head on the goose down pillows. Then the chills, fever, and fatigue set in. She was nearly certain she had contracted the deadly disease everyone called diphtheria. As a precaution, she asked her family and friends to stay at a safe distance. She arranged for soft foods and a soothing drink made from the medicinal herbs in her garden to be left outside her bedroom door.

Her mind wandered in a fever-induced haze. She closed her eyes and remembered herself in another time and place. She was a young woman with her husband, Captain William Kidd, on his pirate ship, the Saint Antonio , a vessel laden with gold, silver, and jewels. As his closest confidant, she learned that hed buried some of his stolen treasure for safekeeping, and he described to her where it was hidden. She was not to tell a soul. For more than forty years, since his death in 1701, Sarah, the pirates wife, kept his secret safe. Not even her five children knew. She alluded to it in her will, noting that she had assets in the City of New York and elsewhere. She did not identify elsewhere. Sarah worried about the consequences if her children were caught with stolen pirate loot. Her strong instincts told her it was best to leave well enough alone.

As she thought back over her life, not all of her memories were fond ones, especially the time when she was a pirates wife. But now the memory of the hardships and heartbreak had softened and Sarah wouldnt have traded it for anything. She felt proud, very proud, to have been a pirates wife and she wore the title as a badge of honor.

Sarah repeated a prayer as her condition worsened: Almighty God, have mercy on my soul and pardon and forgive me all my sins & offences so that I may after this Miserable Life arise with our savior Jesus Christ. She became delirious from the fever and shook uncontrollably. The sheets were soaked with her perspiration. Still, the thought of that secret weighed on her, as well-kept secrets do.

As she prayed for forgiveness she may have thought it was time to identify elsewhere to her three children who paced downstairs in the sitting room.

It wasnt long before Sarah developed a sore throat that felt like a razor when she swallowed. She tried to speak, but it hurt so much she could only whisper. Her daughter, Elizabeth Kidd Troup, peeked through the keyhole to check on Sarah. The once vigorous woman now appeared very small among the many furnishings and tasseled curtains. She looked pale in her white cotton bedclothes and so frail lying on her side facing the door. Elizabeth saw her mothers lips moving, mouthing words, but she could not hear her. She strained through the keyhole to hear what she might be whispering. Elizabeth called for her brothers, William and Henry, who had stepped outside on the front stoop that faced the harbor. The cry of the seagulls seemed to signal the alarm. Elizabeth told them to hurry. Each took a turn at the keyhole looking and listening. Sarahs breathing was loud and strained as she gasped for air. The three of them looked at each other with tears in their eyes when the room fell quiet. There was not a sound, not even a whisper.

For over three hundred years treasure hunters have scoured the North American eastern seaboard trying to find where elsewhere is. That secret is with Sarah, buried in the churchyard of Trinity Church Wall Street in Manhattan.

Sarahs New World

The lookout on the ship carrying passengers from England in 1684 spotted the bustling seaport at the tip of Manhattan first. On board was fourteen-year-old Sarah Bradley, her father, Captain Samuel Bradley, and her two younger brothers, Samuel Jr. and Henry. Sarah was weary from the voyage, an arduous weeks-long journey across the Atlantic. She had packed her bags with her most treasured possessions and left her home in England at the insistence of her father. were overwhelming.

Captain Bradley, a mariner and owner of transatlantic vessels, His seafaring mates touted New York as the land of opportunitya place where great riches could be had. Sarah knew trade was just one of the reasons her father brought their family to New York. They had lost their mother and the loss had been devastating. Now a single father, Captain Bradley wanted to leave the difficult past behind and make a fresh start. The New World held the promise of a better life for all of them.

Soon after arriving in Manhattan, Bradley met William Cox, a well-dressed, wealthy merchant who specialized in flour, the colonys most important trade good. A generous man with a paternal nature, he was an older bachelor in his midthirties. The two men quickly struck up a mutually beneficial relationship: Cox had money to invest in transatlantic voyages; Bradley had the connections to assist Cox in his business interests overseas. He also had a lovely daughter. Cox filed for a marriage license with Sarah Bradley in February 1685 and paid the governor a mandatory fee of half a guinea for his approval.