Curious workers had opened the crates and, seeing that the contents were two cannons, sealed them back up.
Then, William Richards, editor of the Republican, a Peekskill newspaper, wrote in February 1845 that the two antique cannons brought up from the wreck were initially delivered to the Verplanck dock. Some historians suggested that the cannons recovered might be from a galley sunk by the HMS Vulture during the Revolutionary War. (1846)įrom the very beginning, there were skeptics. Unused stock certificate from the Captain Kidd Salvage Company William S. It was visible from across the river in Peekskill, and riverboat captains would slow down so that their passengers could see the spectacle.
Soon 50 men were employed building a cofferdam around the location, with water pumped out by steam engines. When test borings revealed traces of silver, the company had no trouble raising money. In 1845 the Captain Kidd Salvage Company was formed with $100,000 of shares offered in $100 increments and were sold in the U.S. In June 1844, he published a pamphlet titled “An Account of Some of the Traditions and Experiences Respecting Captain Kidd’s Piratical Vessel,” a prospectus that described the background of the wreck. He acquired 100 acres at the foot of Dunderbergh and the water rights off Caldwell’s to look for the wreck. The thought of pirate treasure in the Hudson River Valley, so close to Kidd’s New York City home, was irresistible to Abraham G. Kidd had left treasure on Gardiner’s Island, which the British had recovered, but was that all of it? There must have been more! “With the Buccaneers”īy the time the 1840s rolled around, Kidd had been dead for almost 140 years, and there were plenty of rumors about a burning treasure ship going down off Caldwell’s (now Jones) Point. Stories of his hidden spoils place it at dozens of locations on the Eastern seaboard from North Carolina to Long Island. His exploits inspired Edgar Allen Poe, Herman Melville, and Robert Louis Stevenson. There has always been a fascination with Captain Kidd and his treasure. He was sent to England, tried, and hanged in 1701. So the legend goes, with Kidd and his crew escaping overland and ending up in Boston, where Kidd is arrested. William Kidd and his crew take what they can, but the bulk of the treasure goes down with the ship.
As they approach this deadly spot, his crew panics at the thought of running the Race on a stormy night and scuttle her. Chased by British warships, Kidd is wanted for piracy and murder. This part of the river is the beginning of the Race, the treacherous Southern Entrance to the Hudson Highlands. The night is dark and stormy as Captain William Kidd’s treasure ship, the Quedah Merchant, approaches Caldwell’s Point at the base of Dunderbergh Mountain. Yet when looking at the curious markings on an 1854 Peekskill area map, it describes the site and story of one of the greatest scams of the 1800’s – Kidd’s Humbug. When we think of the term “humbug” today, usually Ebenezer Scrooge, that miserly old curmudgeon from Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” comes to mind.
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