Salty Dogs

Stay a bit shipmates, stay a bit if its pirates you'll be wanting to speak on.  S'pose you was to pass me that bottle that stands by you, for tellin' what these very deadlights have seen is thirsty work for a seafaring man.  Arr, here's luck then, and may yer bottom never foul nor never fetch hard on a lee shore!

Aye, there's a sight o' poor seamen sent down Davy Jones by the likes of o' that rum crew, and what the devils afloat don't scupper the mooncussers ashore have done.  Beachcombing they calls it; grave-robbing's nearer the mark - blast their eyes - a'picking through the bones of castaways like sandfleas.  'Ware the light on a dark shore, shipmate, or its shoal water and breakers for you sure.

Not quite the style, says you.  Not the fine figure of a freebooter put to canvas by the likes of  Pyle or Wyeth? Aye, but when all's said and done, a pirate's no gentleman, d'ysee.  No matter the cut of his cloth or the coin in his pocket, even fresh water's naught but bilge in the orlop.

Now these two scalawags are Cap'n "Black Dog" Emily and 1st Mate Elias, "the Red Hand Man". Now  I'll tell you true, I've seen Sam Bellamy in the Whydah and Edward Teach with the slow matches burning, and never yet have seen the like of these salty dogs.  I reckon you take them for landsmen, and their home port be Connecticut "the land of steady habits."  But they're collateral kin, d'ysee, to a Nutmegger privateer; Cap'n Gideon Olmsted, and the codlin don't fall far from the capstan if yer fool enough to set it there when the wind is up.  And their great, great, great grandpappy, John Thomas Martin, was Master of  the Great Lakes schooner "Walrus", which every tar and landsman knows from Stevenson was the name of old Flint's barky.  There was even one came back from Davy Jones - Archibald Gracie, he were -  went down with the Titanic and back again and plucked alive from the sea in the morning.  Aye, there are mariners in their line - pitch and oakum - and loot from the China Trade in every house and hall you can be sure.

Here's as scurvy a crew as ever fouled coils in a cable tier.  Why, they sailed by the wind to Stellwagen and back without so much as dry heave, and laughed when the whalefish broke water and set to blowin' off the starboard bow.  If ever you see Cap'n Emily and the Red Hand Man hull up and to windward, you're bound to strike or miss stays.

And what manner of man am I, then, to know these dread pirates so uncommon well, says you.  Are you a magistrate, then, yer honor?  I needn't sign articles with the likes of them to know their quality.  I sired them!   And what's more, shipmate, dead men tell no tales. Arr!

32 days until International Talk Like a Pirate Day

Comments

[Viv LaBerge]

Harrr, Matey - them's what went off sailin' 'round the Cape and broke the heart of their ole Mum fer missin' 'em, they did. An' 's a good thin' you had 'em trussed as sich when the whalefish done blowed or I'da hadda truss you! (Ye ole Codfish!) An' speakin' o' sich, that there Red-hand Man done tole me he ain't wantin' to be titled so no more; he's jes plain Elias . . .

[GreenmanTim]

"Aye, Little Buttercup - and well called - for your're the rosiest, the roundest, and the reddest beauty in all Spithead!" By the great hornspoon, yer no bumboat woman, lass, nor Bloody Anne Bonney in seaboots when the claret's runnin', but for all the finest fishwife what ever spliced her mainbrace to a lapstraked schooner such as I be. Blisterin' barnacles, certain as a hogbacked cargo fluyt ain't a ship o' the line, ye'v stood by this old wharf rat in fair weather 'n foul and there's none other swab I'd want beside me when the gale gets to blowin'. Ye ken tell Master Elias for me that if its his pleasure to pass for an honest seaman ashore, why, his secret's safe as the Manilla galleon in my keepin', may my pump chains rust solid else! Arr!

[Charlottesvillain]

First class work, that be, and I'd sooner risk the lee shore than try to get into this game (says I). You've two fine scalawags, that's for sure.

[GreenmanTim]

Having crossed yards with the likes of your crew whilst in Charlottes Town, I reckon you've been round the Horn yourself with such as would give my young scalawags an even run on a close hauled reach. And dare I say it, there are those at the Sign of the Tigerhawk who would be right at home on a quarterdeck with the guns run out and the prize in sight, so they would.

[Kailani]

What great costumes and pictures! Very creative!

Here via Carnival of Family Life.

[Janet Patel]

Hi,
I guess we are distant cousins. I come through the Margaret Currie Walker line, through Isaac instead of William, as I think you do. I teach a student named Potts, and so I think we might be distant cousins too. Do you have any research to connect us with Isaac Potts, whose home Washington stayed in during the fighting around Valley Forge?
Jan from Maryland
jannylou44@hotmail.com

[GreenmanTim]

Janet, I shall reply via e-mail as well, but what fun to find 1st cousins 5 or so times removed in the blogosphere! Your ancestor Isaac Walker (b. August 14th, 1804 d. 1887, m. Elizabeth Beildler would be my Gr-gr-gr-gr-great Uncle. I have a copy of Lewis Walker of Chester Valley and his descendants 1686-1896 that might be helpful to you in your genealogical search.

Through the wonders of Sitemeter, I gather you were looking up Richard Currie's pedigree. He is buried along with his wife Hannah Potts in Old St. David's Churchyard in Radnor, PA, right agains the chapel wall next to his mother Margaret Ross Currie and Father William Currie and collatoral relation, Gen. "Mad Anthony" Wayne.

Richard Currie's wife Hannah Potts was the daughter of Ezekial Potts and Barbara Vodges. Ezekial Potts was the son of David Potts, a Welsh Quaker who immigrated to Pennsylvania prior to July 4, 1692 when his name first appears in the records of the Commonwealth. He settled in Germantown, but some of his descendants certainly ended up in Chester Valley.

There were other Potts ancestors who settled in Germantown, and also Pottstown. He had two brothers, Thomas and Jonas, who also were in Pennsylvania during the later 17th century. Their father was Thomas Pott. The source for his origins in Great Britain is The Potts Family in Great Britain and America, 1901 Thomas Maxwell Potts, though I do not have a copy in my files.

If I can be of further service, drop me a line and we'll see where your research and mine may converge.

[Cathy Bates]

I've been doing research on my husband's family. His Aunt had a copy of the Priscilla Street book, which she photocopied for us. The line goes, Lewis Walker(entry #1), Isaac Walker(entry #8),Joseph Walker (entry #46), Isaac Walker (entry #106),Jane Walker Richards(entry #255),Isaac Walker Richards (entry #694), Emma Richards Sherman (Entry # 1433),John W.E. Sherman (Entry # 2192), Father of Eleanor Blanche Sherman Bates, Mother of my husband John Sherman Bates. We live near the Valley Meeting Burial grounds, and have taken pictures of the headstones. There are some which will need to be rubbed to garner information. I'd be happy to e-mail any to you or anyone else interested in the Walker line.