by Timothy Benford

Created on: March 19, 2007   Last Updated: May 08, 2007

[This article about Captain Kidd's treasure was previously published in Canadian Coin News under a different headline.]

WHERE IS CAPTAIN KIDD'S TREASURE BURIED?

A former New Jersey Congressman spent the later years of his life in a quest for the notorious pirate Captain Kidd's legendary treasure of folklore and myth in New Jersey. And Dr. Ellsworth Boyd, Professor Emeritus, College of Education, Towson University, Towson, MD, thinks the Hudson County Democrat might have been on to something.

Rep. Alan Benny was a member of Congress in the early 1900s. But it was in the years following, while practicing law in Bayonne, N.J. that he became fascinated with the myriad rumors of Captain Kidd's treasure perhaps being right here under our sandy feet at the Jersey Shore or, perhaps, along the shoreline in his hometown of Bayonne. During his decades of research he accumulated a long list of possible sites but using his own litmus test he whittled them down to a short list of eight possible locations. All are described here a bit later on.

In the last years of his infamous life the pirate boasted he had buried 40,000 British pounds sterling, mostly in gold coins. "To date hardly 10,000 pounds that can be associated with him have ever been found," notes Dr. Boyd.

"Commencing with Captain Kidd's death by hanging in London on May 23, 1701 rumors immediately began circulating that the bulk, if not all, of his treasure was buried somewhere along the coast of the Colony of New Jersey in the New World," he said.

Now, more than two centuries since the pirate had to be hung twice (because the rope broke the first time) Boyd is picking up the trail begun a half century ago by Congressman Benny.

The idea to prove, or debunk, all the treasure stories began with the unexpected discovery, by William J. Luzzu of Bayonne, of a long forgotten file containing an outline, partial manuscript, old newspaper clippings and resource material for an autobiography Benny was planning before his death in the 1940s. Luzzu's late sister, Marjorie, was a legal secretary to the Congressman, and the documents were among possessions she left when she died.

Before his own death a few years ago Luzzu shared the documents with Boyd. The Bayonne resident who was known to be a friend of President Richard Nixon when the future president was a Congressman, considered Benny's quest for Captain Kidd's treasure a flight of fancy, a caprice by an otherwise serious and level headed individual. He never thought of

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