Legends and Lore of the Mississippi Golden Gulf Coast Read Online Free PDF

in the late 1700s and early 1800s. They were said to be very successful at pirating. Because of Captain Pitcher’s distrust of his pirate crew, he built a treehouse in one of the large oaks. Yes, a pirate treehouse.
    Of course, all good things must come to an end. While at their Pitcher Point hideaway, Captain Pitcher mistreated the Native American girlfriend of one of his crew members. This was the last straw for the crew, so they waited until Captain Pitcher had gone to sleep in his treehouse and quietly piled bush and wood under the huge oak and lit it. Soon the fire began to climb the tree, awakening Captain Pitcher. He realized there was no escape. As the flames licked at his boots, he cursed his crew and Pitcher Point, where his pirate treasure was buried. When investors tried to develop the property in the 1960s, they dismissed the curse as legend and said that no treasure has ever been found.
    While an entertaining legend, there is no evidence of a pirate named Captain John Pitcher, nor has his “lost” treasure ever been found at Pitcher Point.

CHAPTER 6
    T HE P IRATES ’ C AVE
    Legend of the Pirate House
    On the shores of Waveland once sat an unusual house built in the early 1800s. The house supposedly had many secret chambers. One of the most interesting features was its cellar, supposedly built with large cypress timbers and bricks. Before the 1900s, a tunnel extended from the cellar to the beach, below the bluff. The sandy soil of Mississippi’s Golden Gulf Coast would make it very difficult to dig a tunnel, but one could dig a deep trench using shoring techniques. First, one would have to shore up the sides with timbers. Then the trench could have been capped with, in this case, a brick arch and covered with soil.
    Of course, this raises the question of why one would need a tunnel from the beach to the house. With no historical documents stating its purpose, we have only the legends and rumors. Smugglers, pirates and privateers will come to most people’s imaginations, and so legends are born.
    In 1939, during the Mississippi Gulf Coast Spring Pilgrimage of historic homes and gardens, it was reported, “Jean Lafitte’s pirate band will turn host at the Pirate House in Waveland.” One of the places of interest on the tour would be “the secret passage [tunnel] from the house to the edge of Bay St. Louis.” The house was owned by Mrs. Edmund H. Singreen of New Orleans and Waveland, who reportedly purchased it in 1929. In 1940, the Times-Picayune reported that she would be hosting the pilgrimage breakfast at the Pirate House. According to the newspaper, the home was reportedly built in 1802 by a friend of Jean Lafitte.
    Mrs. Singreen eventually sold the home to William Thomas and Leonie Naudon Quinn of New Orleans. In 1947, Mrs. Quinn described the home as constructed of cypress, with the exception of the pine floors. The structure had a slate roof and was sitting on brick piers. The first floor of the home had high ceilings in each room. The rooms had great paneled doors that opened into a spacious hall. The original structure had an outside stairway that by 1947 was incorporated into the interior. The second floor had sloping ceilings with dormer-windowed rooms.

    The Pirate House at Waveland before 1969. Courtesy of the Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum .
    The legend of the Pirate House has many stories associated with it. One of the stories indicates that the plantation was the home of Jean Lafitte, the legendary pirate. Lafitte was considered by many to be the overlord of all 1800s pirates using the Gulf of Mexico. In another version of the legend, the plantation owner was simply an associate of pirates.
    While most of the written accounts of the legends appear in the 1900s, the New Orleans Times-Picayune recorded the earliest account in 1891. An article titled “The Pirates Cave: A Story of Bay St. Louis” was written by Reverend Nelson Ayres, an