LAFITTE LORE
By J. O. Webb
John Smith and W. C. Callihan of the old town of Liverpool, Brazoria County, are each eighty-four years old; each is sound in mind and body; and each has spent practically his entire life in the vicinity of Liverpool. These men speak familiarly of Warren D. C. Hall, of Lamar, and of Lafitte’s lieutenants. The legendary material here given is based on their separate statements. However, the stories told by them coincide to a remarkable degree. Liverpool is situated on Chocolate Bayou, and is so near Galveston Island that the early history of the two places is closely related. Consequently Smith and Callihan are familiar with the lore bearing on Lafitte’s life. What they have to say is not based so much on legends in general circulation as on the stories told them by Lafitte’s associates. One of these followers of Lafitte was Jim Campbell, who, after the departure of his chief [[190]]from Galveston Island in 1821, settled on what became known as Campbell’s Bayou. The other was an odd character called Captain Snyder.
No story of Lafitte proceeds very far without referring in some way to buried treasure. The lives led by the two strange characters just mentioned caused many to believe that they had stored away some of their chief’s wealth. According to Smith and Callihan, these ex-associates of Lafitte never lacked money, although they were engaged in no profitable business. Long after the death of Jim Campbell, it was generally believed that his widow knew where money was buried but was unwilling to reveal the place.
Captain Snyder was likewise known to have plenty of money. He was engaged in carrying some kind of trade from the Brazos to Liverpool, for which he used a one-eyed mule, but he got little income from this occupation. His actions at times, too, were rather strange. Smith was often on the boat with him, and when they would approach Galveston Island, Snyder would frequently get off and go ashore. There he would go to a clump of bushes, and apparently try to get his bearings for some point.
Some of the buried treasure stories, however, are based on more direct information. In the fifties, according to the authorities already quoted, there appeared at the mouth of Chocolate Bayou a small vessel, which remained in that vicinity for several days. During the daytime it would go to the opposite side of the bay, and at night it would return to the near shore. This odd procedure aroused a little curiosity, but would doubtless have been soon forgotten had not an important discovery followed. A few days after the vessel had gone, Smith and Callihan paid a visit to the mouth of the Bayou and, to their surprise, found that excavations had been made. Beginning at the shore, a long trench had been opened, and at the end of this a large hole had been dug. Apparently, a chest of some kind had been taken out, for the imprint of the box—even to the handles—was plainly visible. As further evidence, there was lying to one side a broken earthen jar that had been sealed with sealing wax, and upon its fragments were imprints of coins.
A less realistic story is told of the region around what was called Dick’s Camp, on Chocolate Bayou. A Mrs. Adams who lived in the vicinity had had a persistent dream of buried treasure. For three successive nights she had the same dream, and in these dreams she was told that $100,000 in gold was buried near [[191]]Dick’s Camp. The exact spot was to be found by sighting with three stakes due east from a certain point. Mrs. Adams was so impressed with the repetition of this dream that the third morning she and her son set out in search of the hidden treasure. On the way they were joined by Smith, who at first was not told the purpose of the excursion. On reaching the spot they did not find any stake set up, but they did find three china trees in a line running due east. The son, whose name was Brunner, began sighting and measuring, and finally he said, “Here it is.”
“What?” asked Smith.
“$100,000 in gold,” replied Brunner.
Excavation was begun at once, but had not proceeded far when the treasure hunters dug into an oyster bed. Thinking there was little hope of finding treasure in that medium, the search was abandoned and, so far as is known, it has not been renewed.
Captain Snyder, who has already been mentioned, was a strange character. Those who knew him declare that he slept with one eye open, and that often he would cry out in his sleep, “Boys, the Spaniards are coming.” He told many Lafitte stories. He had seen service with his chief on voyages against the Spanish. According to his description, these encounters with the Spaniards were bloody affairs. Blood ran off the decks like water, and when the fight was over, the enemy dead were thrown into the sea. One of the most remarkable incidents related by Snyder, however, pertained to the storm of 1819. Lafitte, with his four ships, was in the bay when the hurricane arose. The storm became so intense that he decided to go with his vessels to the high seas and take his chances there. He headed toward the channel, but, as the wind was blowing from the east, he was unable to get out that way. He therefore came back and drove his vessels straight across the island in six or seven feet of water.
THE PIRATE SHIP OF THE SAN BERNARD
A LEGEND OF THEODOSIA BURR ALLSTON
By J. W. Morris
Rumor of a pirate ship wrecked at the mouth of the San Bernard River, Brazoria County, has persisted for more than a century. Colonel Hunnington, who is seventy-eight years old, and [[192]]who has lived near the mouth of the San Bernard for sixty years, heard of the wrecked privateer from the McNeill family, which established itself on the Bernard in 1822. Colonel Hunnington says that the ship was wrecked about 1816. It had put into the river to escape a great hurricane. The crew buried their golden pillage, some say ten million dollars, before the water rose to their destruction. When the storm passed, only one pirate remained alive. Colonel Hunnington says that the buried money has never been found, and he believes that it still lies where pirate hands placed it more than a hundred years ago. Captain William Sterling, who died a few years ago at the age of eighty, gave me corroborative evidence concerning the pirate ship. He said that during his boyhood he knew a solitary fisherman on Matagorda Peninsula who claimed to be the sole survivor of the wrecked privateer. He often showed the boy gold coins, which he called Spanish doubloons.
A wild and fascinating legend of the storm-wrecked ship was told me many years ago by Doctor Sid Williams, who was then a practicing physician near the mouth of Old Caney in Matagorda County. Mr. Jacob Smith told the same story. It is ascribed to a chief of the Carancaguas Indians, who spoke broken English and often visited the white settlers. He said that his tribe had always lived along the coast—a fact substantiated by history. A small band, of which he was chief, lived in the timber a few miles from the San Bernard River, along which clear to its mouth grew live oak trees and tough salt cedars. One day a great storm came out of the Gulf; the wind blew with fury that increased as the darkness came, and the waters rose upon the land. The chief and his people climbed into the salt cedars, which bent with the wind but did not break. After two days the storm passed and the tidal waters fell back. Many of the huge live oaks were destroyed utterly, and the remainder were so twisted and broken that they soon died. Since that time there has been no forest along the lowest reaches of the San Bernard.
As soon as the storm abated, the chief went from his camp to the bank of the river, where a pale-face lived alone. He found the hermit’s body tied with a rope to the splintered stump of a tree. There the waves had overwhelmed him. The chief also saw, partly in the water and partly on the land, the wreckage of a great ship. As he looked, he heard a faint voice. He followed the sound to what had been a cabin, and saw the ghost-like form of a white woman chained to the side. She stood with [[193]]difficulty, and presently fainted, perhaps from weariness, perhaps from fright at seeing an Indian savage, for the chief made a habit of wearing deer antlers on his head. He broke the chain from the wall and carried her to the shore and laid her on the sand. He bathed her face in cold water, and she revived. She told him that her father had been a great chief away back somewhere, but that he had been misunderstood and had had to leave his country. Her husband was governor, she said, of a great state. She had been in a ship on the ocean when pirates destroyed the ship and killed all aboard it except herself. She was put on the pirate ship, which, returning to its Gulf headquarters, had been encountered by the storm and driven inland. There was, she said, a chest of gold on the wrecked ship, but the Indian could not find it. He did find the captain and some of the crew lashed to parts of the wreckage, dead. The chief made every effort to revive the woman, but she grew steadily weaker. She took from her neck a chain and locket and gave them to him. She began to sing, very faintly and beautifully. The Great Spirit spread a white wigwam around her so that the Indian could not see her. The voice sang on into the night, more and more faintly. When the morning star rose, the voice was still. At daylight the white wigwam was gone, and the woman lay dead. The Indian dug a grave with broken pieces of the wrecked ship, laid her there, and covered the grave with a broken door from the wreck. No man knows where that grave lies.
The Indian took the locket and chain to some white men, who read on the locket the word Theodosia and found within pictures of a fine-looking man and a little boy. Long afterward coast dwellers told this story in explanation of the mysterious fate of Theodosia Burr Allston.[1] [[195]]
[1] Theodosia Burr Allston, daughter of Aaron Burr and wife of Joseph Allston, Governor of South Carolina, 1812–1814, set sail from Charleston in December of 1813 on the Patriot bound for New York. The vessel was never heard of again, and it is supposed to have been wrecked off the coast of Hatteras. “Some forty years afterward, however,” according to Lamb’s Biographical Dictionary of the United States, Vol. I, pp. 76–77, “a romantic story found credence and went the rounds of the press, to the effect that a dying sailor in Detroit had confessed that he had been one of a crew of mutineers who, in January, 1813, took possession of the ‘Patriot’ … and compelled the crew and passengers to walk the plank.” The New International Encyclopedia says that “a tradition of uncertain origin” has the Patriot to have been taken by pirates.—Editor. [↑]