These pirates stand out as unusal and unlikely but they deserve to be mentioned.
Captain Thomas Jones - Was he the captain of the Mayflower? Actually, Captain Christopher Jones, who wasn't a pirate, may have captained the Mayflower that brought the Pilgrims to America. But many historians believe that Thomas Jones, a former pirate, was the man. Mayflower records do not reveal her Captain Jones's first name. Thomas Jones, however, seems the logical choice, for he pirated under the protection of Robert Rich, the second Earl of Warwick, who owned stock in the Virginia Company and arranged the Pilgrims voyage to the New World. Pirate Captain Thomas Jones had twice been released from jail and saved from the gallows by the influence of Lord Warwick. He gained his release the second time just weeks before the Mayflower set sail. It seems likely that he was hired by Warwick as the Mayflower's master, and he did a good job. Later, he went back to piracy and died of a fever he contracted while seizing a Spanish vessel.
John Paul Jones - Although no one would call the American naval hero a pirate today, the British termed him such for years after the Revolution because he raided their coasts like a privateer.
John Fillmore - Forced into piracy by buccaneers who captured him, this Massachusetts cod fisherman became the only pirate with a descendant who became a U.S. President, Millard Fillmore being his great-grandson.
Captain Flood - The pirate captain of the Shark, about whom little is known, and his black first mate Caesar, an escaped slave, hid three chests of treasure on Catalina Island, off Hispaniola. Flood pushed Caesar off a high cliff into the sea after they buried the loot and told his crew that Caesar had died accidentally. But when Flood returned to the island months later, the treasure was gone, and he was surprised by Caesar, who had survived by catching on to a bush far down the cliff when Flood pushed him. Caesar killed Flood and left the island, but when he returned, the treasure was gone; no one has ever discovered who took it.
Pierre Ie Grand - Often called "the father of piracy" in the West Indies, he was one of the few pirates, if not the only one, to successfully capture a Spanish galleon. Taking the huge warship as a prize while her crew slept, he and his men divided the silver in her hold, sailed off and retired from the sea, Pierre Ie Grand living to a venerable age.
Captain Kennedy - Kennedy, his first name unknown, was a luckless pirate. First a pickpocket, he often practiced his old calling on his shipmates. Apparently he didn't practice enough, for when he retired from the sea, he was caught pickpocketing a man in London and hanged for his crime.
Lancelot Blackburne - who became the Archbishop of York in 1700, had sailed with pirates in the West Indies 20 years before. In later years he was embarrassed by old pirate friends who paid social calls on him.
Montbars the Exterminator - A French corsair swore vengeance against the Spanish for blowing up his uncle's ship, he joined the Brethren of the coast in the Caribbean to prey upon Spanish shipping.
Major Stede Bonnet - A legendary gentleman pirate who ran away to sea because he couldn't stand the nagging of his shrewish wife. This American pirate met his end on the gallows in 1718.
Billy Bowlegs - An American pirate who was part Creek Indian. He sailed with Jean Lafitte's Baratarians and then went out on his own with an all Indian crew, menaced white men on land and sea probably buried much treasure that has never been found.
Caesar - Not to be confused with Black Caesar was also a black man but served as Blackbeards trusted aide. Caesar got himself hanged after trying to blow up Blackbeard's ship following the pirates defeat by Lieutenant Maynard.
Barbarossa Brothers - Sixteenth century pirates employed by the Turks to terrorize the Mediterranean, they sold captured Christians for slaves and were renowned for their bravery and cruelty.
Eustace the Monk - This renegade Flemish priest was at first a privateer plundering French ships for England. After he took to preying upon English ships in 1212, the English captured him and cut his head off.
William Fly - An ex-prizefighter whose brains addled by too many punches, Fly's pirate lasted only a month. After leading a mutiny aboard the merchantman Elizabeth and killing the captain with his fists, he terrorized shipping off the Carolina coast. Captured and hanged in Boston in 1726,stood on the gallows in his last moments holding a bouquet of flowers and bowing, laughing and smirking at the spectators.
George Lowther - A cowardly captain who once got so scared that he sailed his ship away from a battle, ran her aground, and led his men into the Carolina woods where he hid for a year. He killed himself with his own pistol to escape the hangman. Israel Hands - Blackbeard's sailing master turned king's evidence against his captain. Pardoned, he wound up a street beggar in London.
Dr. John Hincher - Forced against his will to become Captain Edward Low's ship's surgeon, he was tried for piracy in a famous Rhode Island case in1723 and acquitted.
William Dampier - A buccaneer and natural scientist who made three voyages around the world and published a number of books. Dampier plundered Spanish towns on the Pacific coast with Bartholomew Sharp and sailed as pilot on Woodes Roger's privateering expedition. Dampier is the captain who quarreled with Alexander Selkirk, a master of one of his ships and left the prototype for Defoe's Robinson Crusoe stranded on the island of Juan Fernandez.
Klein Henzlein - It took a fleet of ships to capture this German pirate in 1572. He and 33 of his crew and even those pirates killed resisting capture were beheaded for their crimes by an executioner, who was soon "standing in blood so deep that it well into his shoes did creep. "
John Hawkins - An English privateer and slave smuggler whose father William had followed the same calling. John Hawkins raided Barbarotta (now near Puerto Cabello, Venezuela) and other Spanish towns in America. On his third voyage to the New World, he was sailing home loaded with loot when a Spanish fleet captured four of his ships and all his treasure, the pirate barely escaping with his life.
Red Legs Greaves - A Scottish pirate captain so named because he wore a kilt and his bare legs often got red with cold. Said to be the kindest of pirates, he never hurt or stole from women and treated his captives with great respect.
Edward England - Another "kindly pirate" who sailed the Caribbean in about 1718 and was over thrown by his crew because he freed a captured merchant captain. Captain England died a beggar in Madagascar.
Charles Vane - Becoming mellow in his later years, he was voted out of command by his crew because of cowardice when he retreated instead of attacking a more heavily armed ship. Later he was caught and hanged.
Thomas Veale - Veale retired from the sea and became a shoemaker in Lynn, Massachusetts. He hid his treasure in a forest cave and never spent any of it, becoming a notorious miser. During an earthquake in 1658, he was buried in his cave by a landslide of rocks, and the treasure disappeared with him.
Captain Daniel - A religious pirate who once shot a fellow pirate in the head when he failed to kneel during church services aboard ship. "Do not be troubled, father, " he told the frightened priest. "He was a rascal lacking in his duty, and I have punished him to teach him better. "
Charles Bellamy - One night in 1726, Bellamy and all his men got blind drunk from a shipload of fine wine he had taken from a French ship. He proceeded to wreck his entire fleet of pirate ships on the Cape Cod shore. Only he and six other pirates survived; they were hanged.
