Fox Nation Series Traces Captain Kidd's 40-Pound Treasure to New York Island

Q: What became of New York’s 'power couple' after Captain Kidd was hanged for piracy?

After Captain Kidd’s arrest and eventual hanging in 1701, New York’s so-called “power couple” was effectively destroyed. Kidd was sent from Boston to England, convicted of piracy and murder in a trial many historians have since questioned, and hanged at Execution Dock. His body was then displayed for years as a warning. His wife, Sarah Bradley Cox Oort Kidd, also fell with him. The available historical accounts cited in the Fox Nation reporting say she was arrested and imprisoned after Kidd’s 1699 arrest. The couple was separated at that point, and she never saw him again before his execution. What happened to Sarah after Kidd’s death is less clearly documented in the material tied to the series. The reporting does not provide a detailed account of her later life, but it makes clear that the couple’s privileged standing in New York society ended with Kidd’s downfall, prosecution and execution.

Q: Was Captain Kidd a victim of political betrayal or a pirate hiding behind a socialite’s mask?

Captain Kidd was both: a privateer who crossed legal and moral lines, and a man likely undone by political betrayal when his usefulness ended. The historical record does not support the simple image of Kidd as a pirate merely posing as a gentleman. He was a real New York socialite and landowner, married into wealth, moved among colonial elites, and sailed under a royal commission to hunt pirates and French shipping. That gave him legitimate status at the start of his voyage. But the evidence also shows he committed acts that exposed him to piracy charges. He killed crewman William Moore, apparently during a dispute at sea, and his capture of the Quedagh Merchant became the turning point. Kidd argued the ship was a lawful prize because it carried French passes, but it was not a straightforward case, and his conduct had already become deeply suspect. Where the “betrayal” argument gains force is in what followed. Governor Bellomont, once an ally, had Kidd arrested after luring him to Boston. At his London trial, key French passes that might have strengthened his defense were missing, and many historians have long viewed the proceedings as unfair. His powerful backers distanced themselves rather than protect him. So Kidd was not simply an innocent victim, nor just a fraud in fine clothes. He appears to have been a respectable privateer who slid into piracy under pressure, then was abandoned and made an example of when politics and reputation demanded it.

1 articles · Updated · Fox News · Jul 2

Gardiner’s Island in New York’s Hamptons is presented as the site where Captain Kidd buried part of a 40-pound cache of gold, silver, silk and precious stones in 1699.
Fox Nation’s new "Crazy American History with Eric Shawn" explores that claim through historians and author Samuel Marquis, who says Kidd hid treasure on the privately owned island and may have stashed valuables in Connecticut and Rhode Island as well.
The series also recasts Kidd as more than a pirate legend, portraying him as a wealthy New York landowner, husband and father before his downfall.
Gardiner’s Island remains in the hands of the same family that owned it when Kidd allegedly buried the loot, underscoring why the mystery still draws treasure hunters and historians.