Captain William Kidd’s East Hampton Buried Treasure

It’s the stuff of East End legend. The search for the treasure of notorious Captain Kidd still goes on. The Scottish-born “privateer” roamed the seas but once actually found refuge and friendship at the home of Jonathon Gardiner, the grandson of David Lion Gardiner, who was the island’s founder back in 1639. Mr. Jonathon Gardiner, in the 1690s, was the Lord on Gardiner’s Island. Years before that time, William Kidd was hired by the crown to plunder and legally seize enemy French ships. Then, some legal bad fortune came his way.

The facts state that in June 1699, Kidd was sailing from New York to Boston. He was leaving his wife Sarah behind in order to answer charges of piracy. Believe it or not, at the time, William Kidd actively supported the construction of the famous Trinity Church down at Wall Street. Although Born in Scotland, Kidd was once based around the Caribbean Island of Nevis, the island Alexander Hamilton would be born some decades later. Kidd became a New Yorker, and on May 16, 1691, he married the widowed NY social scion Sarah Bradley Cox Oort. Kidd was then 37 years old, while Ms. Cox Oort was still in her early twenties and was one of the wealthiest women in New York. Her wealth was based on an inheritance from her first husband. Kidd was her third husband. Trivia, the Trinity Church that Kidd and his wife helped build, is where Alexander Hamilton and his wife, Elizabeth (Liza) Schuyler Hamilton, are buried.

Jonathon Gardiner gave Kidd permission to bury a chest that contained things, including a box of gold and two boxes of silver. Kidd buried this treasure in a ravine between Bostwick’s Point (opposite Plum Island) and the then Manor House. A small snippet of the length of gold cloth that Kidd said he captured from a Moorish Ship off the coast of Africa can still be seen in the East Hampton Village Library in the Long Island Collection room. Kidd told Mrs. Gardiner that the buried treasure was intended for the Earl of Bellomont, who was then Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. To thank her for her kindness in this matter, Kidd gave Mrs. Gardiner a “length” of the gold threaded cloth and a sack of sugar.

There is no definitive proof of the tale that Kidd calmly told Mrs. Gardiner that if the treasure was not there when he returned, he would kill all the Gardiners. After arriving in Boston, Kidd was put on trial there in July 1699, and even Johnathon Gardiner testified. Gardiner was ordered by Earl of Bellomont, who was then actually the combined Governor of New York, Massachusetts Bay, and New Hampshire,
to dig up and deliver Kidd’s treasure as evidence. The reported contents presented to the court contained gold dust, bars of silver, rubies, diamonds, Spanish currency, porringers, and elaborate candlesticks. It was later recorded that there was a specific diamond that Gardiner secretly kept and gave to his daughter. To this day, there is a marker on Gardiner’s Island located at the burial spot where the treasure was dug up.

Here is how Kidd’s fate changed from “privateer to pirate.” In 1698, Kidd became embroiled in a sticky wicket after he captured his greatest prize, a ship hired by Armenians. The ship was
the 400-ton, “Quedagh Merchant.”

Although leased to Armenian merchants, the vessel was captained by an Englishman. Due to some powerful political enemies, Kidd was denounced as a pirate. The Earl of Bellomont ordered Kidd
to Boston and, after a trial, had him sent to London, where he was hanged on May 24, 1701, after being found guilty.

In the trial discussions and accusations of Kidd, additional buried treasures were brought up in testimony with no tangible proof they actually existed. If they did exist, Kidd’s wife supposedly kept their final resting place a secret because the caches were never” reportedly” found. She died 40 years after Kidd was hung.

However, the speculation of the existence of Captain William Kidd’s buried treasure still has East End folks with their metal detectors busy all around Gardiner’s Island and Block Island Sound. Nelson DeMille in his novel, “Plum Island,” uses the actual finding of Kidd’s Treasure in the plot.

Is there a treasure still buried out there? No one really knows. What is known is that one Captain, William Kidd, did bury at least one chest of treasure on Gardiner’s Island. What is speculated is that there are others.