Life and Legends of Lafitte the Pirate
[The pirate legends of Texas are all so bound up with the name of Lafitte that they may well be prefaced by a sketch of that remarkable personage. Perhaps there is as much legend about the man as about his treasure. Even his name seems to be in dispute, for, whereas he is generally known in this country as Jean Lafitte, the Nouveau Larousse Illustré Dictionnaire Encyclopédique denominates him, the “corsaire français,” Nicolas Lafitte. A historian can hardly write of him without arousing controversy. Dr. J. O. Dyer, of Galveston, in a letter to the editor says: “Lafitte was no pirate, but the head of two noted buccaneer or privateer camps.… He never went to sea; he was a poor sailor because he suffered from sea-sickness; he never was in any fight on the sea.”—Editor.]
I
Jean Lafitte: Man and Pirate
The European wars of the early part of the nineteenth century, the consequent passage of the Embargo Act by the Congress of the United States, and the act prohibiting the importation of slaves after the year 1808, all conspired to bring about a great volume of clandestine trade at the ports of the United States. This trade was especially active along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Here resorted the privateer and the smuggler, the one to dispose of his booty, the other to receive it and to distribute it.
The labyrinthine waters of lower Louisiana were the smugglers’ paradise. Here they could carry on their business almost without fear of detection. Just prior to the War of 1812, a flourishing establishment of this kind sprang up on the island of Grand Terre, some sixty miles west of the mouth of the Mississippi, under the management of the two brothers Lafitte, Jean and Pierre, former blacksmiths of New Orleans. At first, the brothers were mere agents and distributors for the privateers who resorted to Grand Terre, but they soon got vessels for themselves, and began privateering on their own account. Letters of marque and reprisal were granted to them by the Republic of Cartagena, erstwhile a colony of Spain, and with this authority they went forth with other Robin Hoods of the sea to ravage and to plunder. They soon grew immensely wealthy and their business became so extensive as to almost paralyze the legitimate trade of New Orleans.
The governor of Louisiana, on being appealed to by the merchants of the city, issued several proclamations against “pirates and smugglers,” who were bringing disgrace and ignominy upon the state, ordering them to disperse and threatening dire punishment in case of their refusal to do so. When his fulminations went unheeded, he offered a reward of five hundred dollars for the capture of Jean Lafitte, now become the leader of the smugglers. Lafitte promptly responded by offering fifteen thousand dollars for the capture of the governor. The merchants then appealed to the United States government for protection, and Commodore Patterson was sent with a fleet to break up the Grand Terre establishment. This he succeeded in doing, taking a number of prisoners and much valuable merchandise. The brothers Lafitte, with the greater number of their followers, fled to the woods and so escaped capture.
Shortly after this event, when the battle of New Orleans was impending, we find Jean Lafitte, who seems to have cherished no animosity for his summary ejectment from Grand Terre, informing the United States authorities of the plans and movements of the British fleet, and offering his aid in defending the city. At first declined, the proffered assistance was later accepted by General Jackson, and Lafitte with several of his lieutenants fought with conspicuous bravery in the memorable battle of January 8, 1815. In his report of the battle, General Jackson spoke in the highest terms of these “gentlemen,” and recommended that they be pardoned for any offences they might have committed against the laws of the United States. This recommendation was promptly acted upon by President Madison, who issued a full and free pardon to Jean Lafitte and such of his men as participated in the battle.
With the close of the war, Othello’s occupation was gone, and Lafitte returned to his old practices of privateering and smuggling. This time he established his headquarters on Galveston Island, then uninhabited, where he built a fort and a town which he called Campeachy. His followers at one time numbered fully one thousand men, and these he ruled with a rod of iron. He became very wealthy and lived in lordly style. The “Red House,” Lafitte’s residence, so called on account of its color, was the scene of many princely entertainments given in honor of distinguished visitors. Colonel James Gaines, who was on the island in 1819, states that while he was there several rich prizes were brought into port, and that Spanish doubloons were as “plentiful as biscuits.”
Though Lafitte claimed to make war only on Spanish commerce, he showed little squeamishness in attacking vessels of other nations when no Spaniard was in sight. In 1820 an American vessel was captured and plundered and then sunk in Matagorda Bay. This act spelled the ruin of Campeachy. Early the next year the United States Government dispatched a man-of-war to break up the establishment. Lafitte went out to meet the captain, conducted him to Red House, and entertained him in a magnificent manner, in the meantime trying to persuade him from executing his orders. But the captain was not to be influenced by blandishments or money. His orders were peremptory. Lafitte must leave the island. Bowing to the inevitable, Lafitte convoked his followers, supplied them with money, and dismissed them from his service. Then, with a chosen few, in his favorite vessel, the Pride, he sailed away from Galveston forever.
II
Credence in the Lafitte Legend
As Captain Kidd, according to legend, left more wealth on Long Island than the vaults of Wall Street have measured, so Lafitte is reputed to have secreted immense treasures on Galveston Island and the adjacent mainland. Early inhabitants of Galveston can tell of many a midnight quest for the hidden hoards of pirates; and in sundry places certain mounds, with accompanying depressions on one side, were but recently pointed out as “where they have been digging for Lafitte’s treasure.” Unlike Captain Kidd, however, Lafitte left no screeching Hannahs to guard his treasures. No such dog-in-the-manger spirit was his. On the contrary, he seems to have desired that they should be found and put to some useful service. I have an old letter purporting to reveal the hiding place of this treasure. It was written in the late fifties by a strong-headed old lawyer, who at one time held high office in the Republic of Texas, to a scientist of considerable reputation in that day. The letter is too long to quote, but it recounts in detail Lafitte’s attempt through a medium at a “sitting” of spiritualists to reveal the whereabouts of a ship-load of concealed treasure. According to the lawyer, the Lafitte “influence” yearned to have the directions corroborated so that the investigators might be filled with sufficient faith to go after the waiting treasure.
III
The Horror Guarded Treasure of the Neches
This story, under the title of “Seeking for Buried Treasure,” appeared many years ago in the Houston Post. It was said to have been related by a Mr. Marion Meredith of Port Neches.
Said Mr. Meredith: “It was before the Civil War that a neighbor of mine got hold of a chart from an old Mexican woman purporting to locate a vast treasure hidden by pirates in the marsh near the mouth of the Neches River.
“It was said that the vessel bearing this treasure was so closely pursued by a Spanish craft that the crew cut their cable and left their anchor. The man who got the chart felt so sure of finding the treasure that he concluded to go alone to seek it in order that he might not have to divide it. He located the spot where the vessel was reported to have left her chain and found the chain there without any trouble. He soon found where the treasure should be and began to dig. After he had dug a few feet, some unseen power seemed to seize him and he fled from the place. A few days later he died without having been able to speak.”
Mr. Meredith subsequently obtained the chart and, knowing the circumstances of the former effort, he associated with a man noted for his bravery, an old Texan who had roughed it for years. We will call this man Clawson. After making all necessary preparations, he and Clawson proceeded to investigate. They found the old rusty chain, whence, a certain direction and distance, the chart called for a tree with a heart cut in the bark. They located the tree. The heart was there; then in a certain direction and at a certain distance they found the spot sought for. It was located on a small island, a mere shell bank in the marsh. The tools of the former treasure hunter were there, and the hole he had dug. They began digging and soon found a human skeleton, which they carefully removed from the hole and laid upon the bank. Meredith dug till he was tired, when Clawson relieved him. He was resting on the edge of the hole, expecting every turn of the spade to uncover the treasure, when suddenly Clawson clambered from the hole, his face drawn and pale. Clutching Meredith’s arm, he said in a husky voice, “Come, for God’s sake, let’s get away from here.”
“What’s the matter? What have you seen?” asked Meredith.
“I have seen hell and its horrors. Come away from here,” and he pulled Meredith to their boat. They left so hurriedly that they forgot to take their tools. No other explanation could be got from Clawson, but he begged Meredith, if he valued his life, not to dig there again. Years afterwards Meredith met Clawson in Beaumont and begged him to tell what had frightened him. “For God’s sake,” he answered, “don’t ask me about that; it has haunted me all these years.”
After a time Meredith returned to the spot, recovered his tools, and buried the skeleton in the hole, but he had so much confidence in Clawson that he could not dig again. Since then he has several times visited the spot. Once a party of young men volunteered to go with him and dig up the ghost and the treasure. His reply to them was: “I will take you there and stay with you, boys, but there is not enough money in Texas to get me to dig in that hole.”
IV
Pirates and Their Sacks of Gold
This story appeared many years ago in the Galveston Daily News as a “special” from Corpus Christi.
“One morning far back in the receding past, just as the sun was casting his first golden beams of light over the lovely prairie, then robed in the sublimity of wild solitude, Lafitte and ten or fifteen of his buccaneers called at the humble home of an old lady and her husband who then lived on Kellar, or Cox, Creek in what is now embraced in Jackson County. Here these pirates got their breakfast and then handed the old people $1000, in which sum were found coins from the then leading commercial governments of the world. During their stay at this house the pirates made frequent references to the hot pursuit of English or American war vessels. After they had dispatched the morning meal, they shouldered what purported to be sacks of gold and departed, going toward the head of Cox Creek, presumably to bury or secrete their ill-gotten treasure. After a few hours they passed back by this house, going in the direction of Cox Bay. They were never seen or heard of again by the old people who supplied them with breakfast.”
In the article from which the above excerpt is made, it is stated that some years ago certain respectable citizens of Corpus Christi who had enlisted the services of a lad with an “affinity” for gold made an extensive search for the supposed hidden treasure. The expedition was a failure, but the leader was confident that somewhere between Cox Bay and the mouth of the Lavaca River large sums of the pirates’ coins would some day be found, and intimated that they would be fished out of Swan Lake.
V
Lafitte’s Treasure Vault
Legends of Lafitte’s treasure in Louisiana often come down the Texas coast and become Texan by adoption. In the Abbeville country, Louisiana, there is a legend, handed down from the last century, to the effect that Lafitte and his pirate crew, having run a schooner up into White Lake (Louisiana coast) through a bayou which has long since been filled and grown over with marsh grass, at some spot along the shore built a brick vault in which they stored a vast amount of their ill-gotten treasure.
About the year 1908 a man named C—— claimed to have stumbled upon the vault while hunting alligators. He further claimed to have torn away, though with much difficulty, portions of the brick work, revealing untold wealth in gold coin, the hidden treasure of Lafitte.
Numbers of persons to whom this story was told became interested in making a search for the treasure. Owing to the swampy condition of the country and the inaccessibility of the spot where the vault was located, C—— advised the digging of a small canal as the best means of reaching it. This idea was adopted, money was advanced for the purpose, some five or six thousand dollars, and the digging of the canal was begun. After weeks of toil, of chopping through dense canebrakes, and of floundering through the swamp mud, the party reached a lone cypress tree that was supposed to stand sentinel over the crypt. The treasure could not be found.
Disappointed in their quest and disgusted at their own credulity, the treasure seekers caused the arrest of C—— on the charge of having taken their money under false pretenses; C—— claimed as the reason for their failure that he had lost his bearings. Who knows?—Adapted from a story in the Galveston News, October 27, 1908.