Pirate Hunters: Treasure, Obsession, and the Search for a Legendary Pirate Ship Read Online Free PDF Page B

Revenge
, which had run aground and sunk in 1718.
    Almost immediately, the governor of North Carolina publicly announced that the notorious pirate’s ship had been found. Just as fast, some experts cast doubt on the wreck’s identity. Among their objections: The artifacts could have come from any merchant ship of the time; the
Adventure
, a ship that sank with Blackbeard’s, was nowhere to be found; and one of the cannons discovered seemed marked with a date of 1730 or 1737, at least twelve years after the loss of
Queen Anne’s Revenge.
Debate raged, a technical back-and-forth that never settled the matter. In 2005, experts wrote in
The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology
, “The incontrovertible fact remains that no single piece of evidence, or trend of circumstantial evidence, indicates that this wrecked vessel is actually the
Queen Anne’s Revenge
.” They also addressed the issue of money, noting that the project had received nearly one million dollars in grant funding to date, and was seeking almost four million dollars more. “One may speculate,” the authors wrote, “that the investments already made, plus the possibility of future financial gains, may indeed be the reason for a continued emphasis on the identification of the wreck, and a refusal to consider that the identification could be flawed.”
    None of that deterred North Carolina officials and entrepreneursfrom opening exhibits, walking tours, historical reenactments—even Blackbeard’s Miniature Golf—and tourists flocked to the area.
    A second possible pirate ship was found in the Dominican Republic in 2007, when a team from Indiana University was led to a site they thought to be the
Quedagh Merchant
, the 1699 wreck of infamous pirate captain William Kidd. Media such as NPR, CNN, and
The Times
of London swarmed to the story, telling how the researchers had found the ship, exploring theories about Kidd’s possible innocence, and recounting how Kidd had been hanged by the British (the rope had broken on the first attempt; after the second did the job, his body was hung over the River Thames for three years as a warning to those who fancied the pirate life).
    Yet, even as plans were made with the Dominican government to turn the wreck site into an underwater national park, the Indiana University team didn’t seem willing to say it had definitive proof of the wreck’s identity. Charles Beeker, who led the expedition, said, “As an archaeologist, I cannot say conclusively that it’s Captain Kidd’s ship, but as a betting man, I am betting on the ship.”
    Four years later, Indiana University officials would be speaking in stronger terms about the identity of the wreck, though a smoking gun—proof-positive evidence—still hadn’t been found. Nonetheless, the discovery generated more than two million dollars in grants, a push by the Dominican government to promote the site for tourism, and a permanent exhibit, “
National Geographic
Treasures of the Earth,” at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.
    A few other pirate ship claims had been made over the years, all based on circumstantial evidence, not a smoking gun among them.
    But grants and exhibits and circumstantial evidence and miniature golf didn’t cut it for Chatterton and Mattera. Neither could imagine going through life thinking he’d probably found a pirate ship. Neither could imagine going to sleep at night wondering if he’d really done what he’d dreamed.
    But that was the rub with a pirate ship. No matter what anyone did,it was near certain he wouldn’t find proof of identity. Even if Chatterton and Mattera did find the
Golden Fleece
, even if historians wrote about them in books and curators gave them a museum exhibit of their own, without definitive proof there would always be doubt. And that was an outcome neither man could abide.
    —
    A S C HATTERTON AND M ATTERA hung up the phone with their significant others, Ehrenberg walked onto the veranda at the