Diggers unearth a silver coin. And then another. And another. Does this solve an old mystery about a pirate? Historian Jim Bailey says yes.
Once upon a time—on September 7, 1695, to be exact—an English pirate named Henry Every robbed a ship. Captain Every and his crew killed people on board. They also stole tens of millions of dollars’ worth of gold and silver before escaping. Officials tried to catch the criminals. But no one ever found Captain Every. The case went cold.
The case warmed up again more than 300 years later. In 2014, Mr. Bailey took his metal detector to Sweet Berry Farm in Middletown, Rhode Island. He found a dime-sized coin. Peering closer, he spotted Arabic script. The coin was oooold . . . from the 17th century.
Indeed, the coin was minted in 1693 in the Middle Eastern country of Yemen. Mr. Bailey says there’s no evidence that American colonists traveled in the Middle East to trade until decades later. So who left the coins? Maybe pirates. Maybe Captain Every.
Now people have found 26 of these coins. Some were as far north as Maine. Some were as far south as the Carolinas. Mr. Bailey says the coins show that the pirate made his way to the American colonies. He thinks the captain and his crew spent the stolen treasure there while on the run.
Detectorists also unearthed a gold nugget. (A detectorist is a person who searches for buried objects using a metal detector.) It’s slightly heavier than a U.S. penny. The little hunk of gold was hidden in a Rhode Island potato field. Arabic coins were buried nearby. Did this gold come from Captain Every’s raids in Africa?
Mr. Bailey has paper evidence too. Records show that a ship called Sea Flower arrived in 1696 in Rhode Island. Captain Every and his men used that ship. Other papers show that three Rhode Islanders may have worked with Captain Every in exchange for stolen treasure.
People love Captain Every’s story. They write books, make movies, and even design video games about it! But much remains mysterious. Mr. Bailey wants to find out what happened to Captain Every. We know he ended up in Ireland in 1696. But what then? He disappeared. “We’re chasing down the lost history behind one of the greatest crimes of the 17th century,” says Mr. Bailey.
Be sure your sin will find you out. — Numbers 32:23
