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Nix's Mate in Boston Harbor was once 12 acres in size. The island was used a pasture, and as a place
for ships to load ballast. Pirates were hanged at Nix's Mate, with their bodies
displayed there for a while to deter other buccaneers.
One convicted pirate protested his
innocence until the very end. He stated that the island would be
washed away someday, and this would be proof of his innocence. Within a century, the high cliffs
of Nix's Mate had eroded away, with just a rocky shoal remaining today.
King's Handbook of Boston Harbor, by M.F. Sweetser (1883), describes the
legend (edited):
"Nix's Mate is a large, gravelly shoal
between Long Island and Gallop's Island, partly bare at low tide, and
crowned by a singular and ominous-looking beacon. It is a massive piece of
copper-riveted masonry, 40 feet square and 12 feet high, with stairs on one
side, upon whose top stands a black wooden pyramid [replaced by concrete in
World War II] that is 20 feet high.
As early as 1636 this locality was
known as Nixes Island, when it was granted to John Gallop; and at a later
day, it divided with Bird Island the dishonor of being the place of execution
for pirates, where the bones of these luckless sea-dogs were exposed in
chains and on gibbets [t-shaped piers].
Murderers and burglars were executed on Boston Common or on Boston Neck; but the people whose crimes were
perpetrated on the high seas suffered the penalties of the law in sight of its
accusing waters.
The most popular legend associated
with Nix's Mate states that Captain Nix was killed at sea, and that his mate
was charged with the crime, and executed on this island. He protested his
innocence, and prophesized that the place that witnessed his judicial
murder would be washed away by the angry sea. This is certainly not
historical, for the present name was applied to the place in the 1630s, at a
time when no man had yet been executed in Massachusetts for murder or
piracy.
Another form of the legend states
that Nix was a pirate, who sailed into Boston in 1680, his ship well laden
with treasures ravished from unarmed ships. Anchoring down the harbor, he
and his mate went ashore on the island, on a dark night, and buried several
bags of coin; after which, to keep the secret as close as possible, Nix
murdered his companion, and buried him also. The continuation of the story is
crowded with ghastly circumstances, not described here.
For upwards of a century
Massachusetts Bay was infested with pirates or freebooters, who
plundered passing vessels at will, and were sure of a short, swift and stern
retribution when caught.
The most famous sufferer on Nix's
Mate was William Fly, who headed the crew of the Elizabeth in a
mutiny, while on a voyage from Jamaica to Guinea, and threw overboard the
captain and mate. Afterwards they changed the name of their vessel to
Fame's Revenge, and embarked on a piratical cruise along the American
coast.
But their prisoners rose upon them,
placed Fly and three of his men in irons, and ran the Fame's Revenge
into Boston, where the unfortunate buccaneers were executed. Fly was hung in
irons, on Nix's Mate, over the graves of his confederates; and here his
bones shook and rattled in the sea-air for many months, as a grim warning to
all mariners. The Boston News-Letter reported that Fly "advised
Masters of Vessels not to be Severe and Barbarous to their Men, which might
be a reason why so many turn'd Pirates; the other Two seem'd Penitent, beg'd
that others might be warned by 'em."
An alternative to the origin of the name
Nix's Mate was presented by Edward Rowe Snow. In The Romance of
Boston Bay (1944), Snow quotes a letter written in 1700. A vessel was
anchored off Nix's Mate, and the passengers could hear the strange sound of
the waves striking the cliffs on part of the island. A Dutch passenger called the
noise Nixie Scmalt, which purportedly translated in old Dutch to old English
as
"The wail of the water spirits."
The bones of pirates were long washed away
at Nix's Mate, but do their restless sprits remain in the harbor?
Please note that Nix's Mate is federal
property, and is not opened to the public. No trespassing is allowed. |
