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Barry Clifford Discovers Buried Treasure

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The basis of Clifford's claim that he had located the Whydah was a handful of small artifacts -- part of a pipe stem, several nails, and a piece of clay pottery, which Clifford believed were diagnostic and early 18th century in origin. Although legend held that early Cape Codders -- sometimes known as mooncussers, human vultures who watched the seas for shipwrecks and occasionally abetted nature by setting up lights to lure the unwary into rocks or sandbars -- had essentially stripped the Whydah of its valuable ironwork shortly before the ship broke apart, Clifford remained convinced the artifacts were legitimate. "We are absolutely sure this is the Whydah," he told the New York Times.

"There is no question. This is the most famous pirate ship in the world and we've hit it. When we tried to figure out how much it could be worth, the amount went right off the calculator."

But if the press was hungry to fashion Barry Clifford into a modern-day Sam "Black" Bellamy -- the colorful, romantic captain of the ill-fated Whydah, himself a treasure hunter -- not everyone else was. Beneath his cool exterior and his extravagant generosities to visitors, Clifford was at war. As early as November 1982, fearing "claim jumpers" would rob him of his prize, he had "arrested" the site under a broadly interpreted provision of admiralty law, which roughly states that any unsalvaged shipwreck and its possessions belong to the person who finds it -- who in effect stakes his claim on it and risks his skin to retrieve it. On November 22 Clifford filed a claim to the site in Federal District Court in Boston. Two days later; however, a court order was issued seizing the underwater wreck until the state could determine clear title to it.

Under a 1973 statute designed with the discovery of a valuable relic like the Whydah in mind, the Commonwealth had stated its entitlement to 25 percent of whatever was recovered. The statute also empowered the state, under the auspices of the Massachusetts Board of Underwater Archeological Resources, to oversee the marine salvage operation, to ensure that the archeological significance of whatever was unearthed was maintained.

Not long after Clifford told the world he had located the Whydah, members of the board as well as staff members of the state archeologist's office viewed the artifacts on which Clifford based his claim. They came to no particular conclusion except, as one member put it, to concur that "the pieces were not diagnostic, and it was generally agreed that the items were 19th century in origin." In sum, the evidence presented failed to convince board members that the Whydah had been located. As some on the board saw it, the artifacts could have come from literally thousands of ships that have gone down in that turbulent area of the Cape -- almost 1,000 alone in the specific locus Clifford was probing.

Clifford, however, characteristically remained steadfast in his belief that he had found the Whydah and argued that whatever he found should be his. The state, applying the 1973 statute for the first time, said that since the site was within the state's legal three-mile extended borders, all admiralty claims were nullified. The board unanimously agreed that Clifford would need to apply for a permit specific to the project. This would involve having the project completely mapped out on paper; having an on-site state-accepted archeologist to ensure that the physical integrity of whatever was found was maintained; and a step-by-step adherence to the rules laid down by the board. Clifford chafed. He dragged the state into court over the matter. The state won. Before he was allowed to disturb one more grain of sand on the bottom of the sea off Wellfleet, he was forced to apply for a permit.