With would be pirates about to descend on Eastport, the knots of fiction versus fact can be hard to untangle. There is a rich and documented history of smuggling around Passamaquoddy Bay, but real life pirates visiting the region are still a matter of stories of buried treasure, like that from Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. The treasure is said to be buried deep somewhere along the Machias River by a pirate known by many names: Robin Hood of the Sea, Prince of Pirates and "Black Sam" Bellamy. Because of his preference to ignore powdered wigs, Bellamy would tie his hair back with a large black bow. It is said he had good manners, was impeccably dressed and he always wore four ornate dueling pistols in his sash.
      Add to that story the discovery of a shipwreck off Cape Cod in 1984 that yielded human remains and a treasure. The Whydah, a slave ship with 28 guns, was captured by Bellamy in 1717. It is estimated that he and his crew, made up of slaves, sailors, indentured servants and wanderers, plundered 53 ships in less than 18 months.
      It is believed the Whydah was probably the 50th vessel that Bellamy captured. The ship had already traded its captives and was on its way back to England. The ship yielded a treasure that included thousands of silver pieces of eight, gold doubloons and pouches of gold dust and a ruby the size of a hen's egg.
      In addition to that ship's bounty, Bellamy also seized a dozen men from two of its companion ships. He then did something he was known for; he let the vanquished captain and his remaining crew take one of those ships and go on their way unharmed.

Downeast fact and fiction
      Machiasport Historical Society President Barbara Malloy says that in the Burnham Tavern in Machias there hangs a bicentennial quilt that harbors a square dedicated to Sam Bellamy. "The historical society knows of no documentation showing that Bellamy and his men ever landed here, but I and many others growing up have heard the story that indeed there is a treasure somewhere in Machiasport," she says.
      Chris Sprague, a member of the Revolutionary War Reenactors of Downeast Maine, is one of those who grew up hearing the story of Samuel Bellamy, mostly from his father John Sprague. "I have followed the story for a long time," says Sprague. "I have even dug a few holes from time to time looking for the supposed treasure." In his younger days Sprague even sported a "Whydah" license plate. Sprague says that, based on what he has heard and read, Bellamy came to this area looking for privacy so he could beach his ship, a process known as careening, to remove barnacles from the ship's hull. "To do that he would have had to unload the entire ship," says Sprague. "I believe that is when Bellamy realized how 'out of the way' this place was and that it might make a good place to settle down."
      Many people seem to have searched the area for Bellamy's buried treasure. Machiasport resident Maria LaBarbera relates, "When we purchased the property at Renshaw Point around 2012, I started doing some research to learn more about the area. Imagine my surprise when I hit on several articles detailing pirate captain 'Black Sam' Bellamy's alleged plans to build a retirement community for pirates and bury his treasure somewhere in the immediate land around our home."
      She notes, "From what I've heard from talking to people who grew up in the area, it seems that many of the local children over the decades have spent time here trying to find the treasure. To this day, we occasionally have pirate fans and treasure hunters who wander onto our property, taking photos and knocking on our door to ask what we know about the buried treasure and to offer their own theories -- and even an occasional treasure map -- about where exactly they think the loot is located."
      University of Maine at Machias Professor Marcus LiBrizzi, the author of a number of books about the Downeast area's local history, hauntings, folklore and lost settlements, says, "Locals attribute Pot Head, across from Renshaw Point, on the Machias River in Machiasport as the legendary location of Bellamy's encampment down here." He notes that the historical reference for Bellamy's encampment in Machiasport came from a book published in 1724, A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates by Captain Charles Johnson. The title has over time been shortened to General History of the Pyrates.
      LiBrizzi says, "It has been a while since I read that source, but I seem to remember that its reference for the pirate colony corresponded to the geographical location handed down in local lore. It is also a place that is easily defensible. A tiny island offshore Pot Head was called Money Island, perhaps a reference to Bellamy's treasure."

A case of mistaken identity twice?
      The authorship of General History of the Pyrates has been disputed, though. The consensus of many was that Daniel Defoe of Robinson Crusoe fame was its author, and Defoe was known to have used over 150 pseudonyms.
      However, Colin Woodard, a noted Maine-based historian, journalist and author of The Republic of Pirates, says that the General History book, though interesting, needs to be taken with a grain of salt. "It is where all of our received pirate mythology comes from and is an eclectic and intriguing mix of verbatim quotes from official documents and complete fantasy."
      "There was a theory that Daniel Defoe wrote it, which has been pretty thoroughly debunked," says Woodard. "It's clear that it was really written by a Jacobite sympathizer named Nathaniel Mist, a journalist, sailor and publisher of London's Weekly Journal, who lived around the corner from the shop where it was printed and registered the book with His Majesty's Stationary Office in his name."
      What is certain is that Bellamy did become a pirate, and he and his ship met their end in a northeaster off the coast of Cape Cod. What can also be said, according to Woodard, is that the pirate gang, one he has written extensively about, did include Bellamy and another pirate, Frenchman Olivier Levasseur, nicknamed La Buse or The Buzzard.
      Woodard does not believe Bellamy ever visited the Machias area with the Whydah. "This is because we can document all his movements from when he captured the Whydah in the Caribbean to his death. There is absolutely no window of time in which he could have gone to eastern Maine."
      Woodard does agree with LiBrizzi that the Machias/Bellamy story originated from the General History book. "That book contains a detailed account of Bellamy and his crew establishing a pirate republic just ahead of his death by shipwreck on outer Cape Cod in late April 1717," says Woodard. "However, the account has so many details of the area - then a completely obscure piece of geography in the contested borderlands between New England and New France - that it seems likely something must have happened there."
      According to Woodard, La Buse worked in consort with Bellamy for much of his early career, so often that his vessels were repeatedly mistaken for Bellamy's in witness accounts. "In the spring of 1717, La Buse was operating in New England in a large pirate ship very similar to the Whydah and, in fact, was seen sailing in the general direction of Machias that June," says Woodard. "He then vanishes from the historical record for several months before turning up off Brazil, giving him plenty of time to do many of the things erroneously ascribed to Bellamy, like setting up a base in Machias and raiding French shipping off Newfoundland." Woodard believes La Buse's being French would have made it easier for him to be drawn to "this then Francophone region" for his summer raids.
      "Whoever visited Machias did not set up a 'pirate republic' -- that's simply fanciful storytelling," says Woodard. "But there's an excellent circumstantial case that La Buse used the Machias area as a pirate nest, a place away from prying eyes where his crew could rest, reprovision, conduct repairs and generally enjoy themselves."
      In Yarmouth, Mass., there is a museum that displays the Whydah’s contents and tells its story, and there is a documentary revealing Bellamy's exploits and lost treasure. And lastly, Bellamy's pirate story will come and go like the tides and is certain to return on the back of another Downeast wave in a whisper of one more story to tell.