The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1883-08-19
SUSPICIOUS INQUIRIES.

''fPioiS INQiIRiES.
This revived the treasilre-secking. which
Is still kept up. Mr.. Wright states thai
about the time Of the Yorktown Centennia
strange man came 10 his place and slep
III an clubhouse one night. lie was misera
Dry clad, and had the appearance OF being
an ordinary tramp. But the shrewd ques'
lions which he put about the old stone
house and the knowledge OF Virginia his
tory displayed by him were utterly at VA
rance with the assumed character. He
disappeared as suddenly as he came. Sight
OF the excavations for his treasures recall.
some OF the history OF the pirate Black Beard
He was an Englishman by birth whose
proper name was John Theach, the name
OF Black Beard being given from his tire.
mendous beard Of that color. His haunfs
were the Chesapeake, its tributaries, and
the Carolina sounds, and more feroclous
scoudrel never robbed a ship or made its
crew walk the plank. During Governor
Spotswood's administration John Spots
wood, the Governors son, assisted by an
English war-yessel, discovered the pirate
in Albcmarlc Sound. A bloody fight en-
sued. and Black Beard. seeing escape i'm
possible, determined to blow up his vessel,
and destroy both friends and enemies, but
was killed while making the attempt. While
not probable. it is not beyond possibility
that the traditions connected with the old
stone house may have some foundation.
The water in the creek below is still
eighteen feet deep, and the present bar at
its mouth may have been smaller i'm
earlier days, in which ease il would not
have been very difficult TO warp q narrow
pirate vessel to the foot Of the bluff where
it was as secure from detection as the dead
trees in the forest around. To one DIS
posed to linger among the relics OF the
pioneer settlements, or in any way given
TO specializing over the unwrltten pages OF
our early history, the old stone house in
James City county is particularly interest
Ing. While one is sitting on it, looscncd
foundations the Imagination soon begins
to assert itself; everything i so melan-
choly and still, the very solitude seems Ia
he swellcd with some fearful secret. and
so oppressive is the silence that the shrill
chatter OF the kIngfiSher rs ne plunges
into the creek below and makes of with his
scaly mOrsel is absolutely startling.
sPECULATIONs.
Something extraordinary, either Of wild
rcyelry or deadly strife. must have hap
pcned there once. Possibly the fierce
Black Beard and his lawleSS crew once
used it as urking-place, and fresh from
murder on the high-scas. laden with the
wealth of some rich galleon, they made
merry over their bloOd-Stained spoils and
passed the time in maddened debauch.
Perhaps the bold pioneers, standing guard
around their wives and children, there
awaited the midnight attack, and rs the
waning moon sank behind the pines. the
painted warriors. tOmahawk i'm their teeth.
came clambering up the steep banks and
sent the curdling war-whOOp echOing
through the darkness; and then, amid the
shriekS OF women, deafening gIIn-sh0ts,
groanS. and all the sounds OF desperate re-
SiStancc, was enacted the horrors Of an In
dian massacre.
Long before the late war, in consequence
of its well-preserved condition. it was
more frequently visited than now, and
many names Of those visitors, with dates,
are to be seen cut i'm the stone. The only
clearly-defned date was 1919. and the frag-
ments brought away by the writer con-
tanned the initials II. II. b. and W. L. Il.
w.