Jodi & Scott :: The legend of Goody Hallett – Cape Cod Wedding Photographers

Jodi and Scott chose to be wed in the presence of only their children, siblings, and parents in a very significant place, and they wanted black and white images of their day to add to the timelessness of their love & this story…

Scott, being a fisherman is out to sea for long stretches, identified with this Wellfleet location, high in the dunes,

where, the tale of Goody Hallett, Captain Bellamy, and his ship, The Wydah began…

The tale goes something like this: Maria was her name, and she was a young, beautiful, local girl… She met Captain Bellamy when he visited Eastham some years before he, and his ship were done in by a northeaster. While he stayed the warm months at the Crosby Tavern, Bellamy met and sweet-talked the 16 year old Maria. The handsome pirate’s tales of wealth and adventure impressed the wide-eyed Cape lass and there was talk of love. He convinced her that he would return with Gold and Silver, and marry her once he cleared up some business in the Caribbean. As September brought its chilly evenings, he sailed away without her.

While Captain Bellamy was at sea, he became known as Black Bellamy, attacking over 50 ships for their treasures… His greed taking hold, all the while, the young Maria gave birth to a child… a child that died that same night. The event caused such a scandal in the small town, that they locked her in the jail, where she became so distraught that she lost her mind. She escaped frequently, wandering the dunes of the Atlantic shore looking seaward for her lost lover. After some time, The town of Eastham gave up their attempts to confine the girl, and she was cast out of town with the stipulation that she never return. She was reduced to scratching out a living doing menial jobs, and lived in a lonely shack near the shore in South Wellfleet.

As years passed, Maria became a shell of her once beautiful self, and residents began to refer to her as a witch who sold her soul to the Devil. They called her “Goody” and told stories of seeing her in the dunes on cold windy nights screaming curses into the storm on the head of Captain Sam Bellamy, the man who betrayed her.

As for Captain Bellamy, he had long forgotten Maria and his pleasant summer in Eastham. He developed quite a reputation for himself and, with his band of brigands, continued to terrorize ships in the Caribbean. But it may have been the memory of warm Eastham nights that caused him to bring his ship back to New England. Or perhaps it was because the price on his head was high enough for him to decide to seek plunder in different waters. At any rate, he arrived off the coast of Cape Cod in the winter of 1717 only to fall victim to a massive storm. Despite all the efforts of the crew, the Whidah struck the bar off South Wellfleet and went to pieces. As men screamed their last in the raging surf, people along the beach saw “Goody” Hallett standing on the high bluffs shrieking her thanks to the Devil for vengeance.

In the aftermath of the wreck, the story grew that “Goody” Hallett somehow managed to retrieve and conceal a chest of pirate gold from the ship. Because Sam Bellamy’s body was never recovered it was also rumored that he escaped the sinking ship and was ashore in search of his lost treasure.

The legend developed that the buried gold is still somewhere in Wellfleet because “Goody” Hallett forgot where she buried it, taking the secret to her grave. For many years after the Whidah wreck, local residents reported picking up gold coins along the Atlantic beach after great storms.

Was there a buried treasure?

In 1984, I was a Freshman at Nauset Regional High School, as was Jodi, and another friend of ours, Bryant.

It was that year, rumors began on the Outer Cape that the treasures of Captain Bellamy had been found… At school we talked about it, and it’s possibilities – We SO wanted it to be true….

and it was…

Our friend Bryant’s father – a known dreamer and underwater treasure hunter, Barry Clifford had indeed discovered the treasure in Wellfleet proving the legend to be true…

He then began his project that would become the Expedition Whydah Sea-Lab & Learning Center at The Wydah Pirate Museum in Provincetown… and the rest is history

Works Sited: Expedition.net, Wikipedia, National Geographic