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THE SIX GHOSTS OF FEAR

“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve with a planned definite purpose and a positive mental attitude.” This statement is true. I attest to this, and you can take it to the bank. It’s the core of Napoleon Hill’s Science of Personal Achievement set out in seventeen principles nailed within his timeless book Think And Grow Rich. The only specters stopping you from achieving your biggest dreams and your deepest desires are the six ghosts of fear.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” As wise as President Roosevelt was, he failed to qualify his statement. FDR never said six ghosts are manifesting in different ways to create fear in your mind. Napoleon Hill did. Napoleon Hill also said these six ghosts are caused by indecision and doubt, blending in your subconscious to become fear.

Ghosts exist only in your mind. They’re not real entities. They have no physical presence. But, if you give ghosts merit and lodge them in your mind, then they might as well be real. The same goes with the top six things people—like you—mentally fear.

Before I list the six ghosts of fear and drill down as to why they psychologically exist to haunt your personal achievement, let me tell you a story about how I got hooked on Napoleon Hill’s success philosophy, busted the six ghosts, and what led to today’s Dyingwords post.

“Amway.”

“Am…way?”

“Yeah. Amway.”

I hear your gasp and I feel your shudder. I taste your bile and I can see your wide-open eyes. I can even smell gas passing from the shock that anything good comes from Amway.

“Amway is a cult!” you say. “Garry Rodgers can’t possibly be in a cult! A multi-level marketing scam! A pyramid scheme! The terror! The horrifying fear! Say it’s not so!”

Okay. Relax. Breathe easy. Thirty years ago some friends got involved in Amway. With interest, Rita (my wife) and I watched them change from mediocre, basic-get-by folks to this highly-energized and enthusiastic pair of newly-made entrepreneurs. It wasn’t long before they “showed us the plan”.

I was skeptical, like most cops are skeptics of anything perceived to be sneaky. Problem was… my friend showing Rita and I the plan was also a cop—a cop I respected and I knew was no kook. They must be onto something, I thought.

Rita and I initially signed up as customers—not as distributors, or business owners as Amway terms its distribution line people—certainly not before we thoroughly checked this thing out. We went to a few town hall Amway meetings and one large convention in Portland. I had never seen a group of people so pumped about selling soap. It was enlightening.

“How does this happen?” I asked my Amway-distributing police pal. “How do so many people get so supercharged by this soap-selling business?”

“Mindset,” he said. “It’s all about mindset and belief. That and they’ve made a decision to build their Amway business, have no doubt that it works, and they’ve exorcised the six ghosts of fear that prevent people from achieving their dreams.”

“The six ghosts of fear?”

“Yeah. The six ghosts of fear.” That’s when my law enforcement colleague and Amway recruiter handed me a copy of Think And Grow Rich. “Read this,” he said. “Then we’ll talk.”

I read Think And Grow Rich. I’ve read its sequel, The Master Key To Riches, and I’ve read pretty much everything ever published by Napoleon Hill and the Napoleon Hill Foundation. I’ve watched Napoleon Hill’s grainy old videos, and I’ve listened to original cassette recordings of the old man professing his seventeen principles that form the basis of all success—regardless where you find “success” or how you define it.

Soon, Rita and I signed as distributors, but we never did anything with our Amway business, although I still believe there is enormous potential for the few who do Amway right. Life got in the way to spend the time required to build a distributor chain—life being a very busy detective job and the priority of raising two little kids on a cop’s salary with a stay-at-home mom. Our friends did climb the Amway ladder and, from them, we continued to buy the best soap and consumable products available on this planet.

Slowly, we parted ways with Amway’s outer world. I was never comfortable with Amway as an organization. The products were great, but the Amway delivery system sucked and their recruitment model was less than open. Deep down, I had a fear of this thing—especially the fear of criticism or what “they” would think or say. My fear of criticism was greater than my fear of poverty which is what Amway’s business model promised to fix—building astounding wealth… if you worked their plan properly.

But what Amway did was change my inner world. I got hooked on Napoleon Hill’s science of personal achievement philosophy. Without any shred of a doubt, my mindset changed when exposed to Think And Grow Rich. It’s responsible for what I’ve become and for what I’m up to today.

That’s creating the new netstream video, audio, print, and ebook series of hardboiled detective fiction titled City Of Danger. I’m treating this project as a new business venture outside of my regular writing and publishing work. Right now, I’m finishing a business plan for the City Of Danger series based on Napoleon Hill’s seventeen principles that have proven so successful—time and time and time again.

Part of my business plan formulation was reading a recently released book titled Think and Grow Through Art and Music. It’s released by the Napoleon Hill Foundation and aimed at motivating artists like writers and musicians. I’ve read it with my red pen and yellow highlighter. When I came to the final chapter titled The Six Ghosts Of Fear, I realized that, long ago, I’d destroyed those demons. Being ghost-free gives me the courage and confidence to tackle a massive project like City Of Danger.

So what are the six ghosts of fear? Let’s let Napoleon Hill introduce you.

“Before you can put any portion of my seventeen principles into successful use, your mind must be prepared to receive it. The preparation is not difficult. It begins with study, analysis, and understanding of three enemies you have to clear out. These are indecision, doubt, and fear. Members of this unholy trio are closely related; where one is found, the other two are close at hand.

Indecision is the seedling of fear. Indecision crystallizes into doubt, the two blend and become fear. The blending process often is slow and makes the three enemies so dangerous because they germinate and grow without their presence being observed.

There are six main categories of fear. All six reside in the mind, and none have any more reality than a ghost. These six ghosts of fear, on their own or in some combination with each other, are non-realities every person suffers with at some time. Most people are fortunate if they do not suffer from the entire six.”

———

Fears are nothing more than states of mind. One’s mind state is subject to control and direction combined with one’s mental attitude and definite purpose. Here are the six ghosts of fear in order of their most common appearance.

The Fear of Poverty

Poverty bites. I relate to a quote from Vancouver billionaire Jimmy Pattison who said, “I’ve been rich. I’ve been poor. Rich is better.”

I think there are two people types. There are those with success consciousness and those with poverty consciousness. This consciousness resides in the mind and is influenced by three things:

  1. Who you associate with
  2. Your mind input
  3. The decisions you make

Poverty is the most destructive ghost and the most difficult fear to master. It’s amplified by indifference, indecision, doubt, worry, over-caution, procrastination, and plain laziness. Poverty is overcome by living within means, applying a definite purpose, having confidence, doing the hard work, associating with the right people, adopting a positive mental attitude, and making sensible decisions.

Poverty is the opposite of riches. It’s more than having money or having no money. Poverty and riches extend beyond financial means. They include your physical health, your mental state, and your spiritual well-being.

The Fear of Criticism

What “they” say or think. I was fearful of what they would think and say about my, and Rita’s, brush with Amway. This was all in my head. I never had one person say to me or anyone else (that I know of) that I was getting sucked into a cult.

Who are “they”? They are entirely imaginary beings—just like ghosts—but they’re surprisingly powerful. They stupefy enthusiasm. They cut down personal initiative. They destroy your imagination. And they make it practically impossible to achieve anything beyond mediocrity.

While poverty is the most entrapping ghost, the fear of criticism is the most common ghost that holds you back—the fear of how other people might judge your work, your creativity, and your ideas of how to wildly succeed as an entrepreneurial business person.

The criticism ghost browbeats you. It inseminates a lack of poise, undermines self-consciousness, quashes personalities, instills inferiority complexes, and dives home a void of ambition and initiative.

The Fear of Ill-Health

Disease. “Dis-Ease”. It’s the pill Big Pharma wants us to swallow, and those companies know people are motivated to buy their snake oil products because of health-fear motivation. Sickness is a multi-trillion dollar industry.

Many illnesses are not real. They’re figments of people’s imaginations—just like ghosts. But the fear of disease and the many imagined maladies that infect human minds can manifest as realistic, symptomatic presentations in their bodies. People think themselves into illness and when the symptoms illusionary appear, they’re convinced. And the circle continues.

I read a quote from entertainer Naomi Judd. She said, “Your body hears everything your mind says.” She’s right. Autosuggestion works both ways, and you can talk yourself out of ill health fear or what’s called hypochondria.

I respect people who meditate and do yoga. I also respect people who eat right, exercise, and get proper sleep. And I respect people who put their mind into a positive state where they don’t fear poverty or care about what “they” say.

The Fear of Loss of Love

This is the painful ghost. This specter is so excruciatingly cruel. It can cause it’s possessed one to take their own life. This ghost prevails misery and devastation and soulful destruction.

Jealousy doesn’t require a reason. It’s the most unreasonable emotion and sets up irrational fears where it’s a devastating ghost—devastating where there is, or is not, any basis. Real or unreal, the fear of loss of love is awful.

I experienced the loss of love a long time ago. I now call her “She Whose Name Shall Not Be Mentioned”. Losing her was the best thing that ever happened in my life because I wouldn’t have met Rita if I hadn’t lost her. Finding Rita was even better than discovering Napoleon Hill and smashing the six ghosts of fear.

They say if you have to convince someone to stay with you, then they’ve already left. In this case, I have to agree with they. Security in a relationship is a treasure without an appraised value, and I treasure my relationship with Rita above my own life. I don’t fear it. I love it.

The Fear of Old Age

Your fear of being alone in old age, or being debilitated through wear-out, is understandable. It’s especially understandable if you’ve lived a life filled with the fear of poverty, the fear of criticism, the fear of ill health, and the fear of the loss of love. The combination of these four ghosts—these non-real ghosts—are life-threatening.

Napoleon Hill said, “I don’t know why men and women should be so afraid that they’re gonna dry up and blow away when they get to that ripe old age of forty to fifty. The real achievements of the world were the results of men and women who had gone beyond sixty. The greatest achievement age is between sixty-five and seventy, so I don’t know why anyone should be afraid of old age. Yet they are.”

Fearing old age is a ghost. There is no reasonable reason to buy into this BS. Sure, as we age we slow down physically but we’re completely capable of being mentally active as long as we don’t allow the fear ghosts of poverty, criticism, ill-health, and love loss to cripple our mindset.

I turned sixty-five this year. I drank the Napoleon Hill Kool-Aid in my thirties, and it was the best thirst quencher ever. I’m just getting started in life, although it took me this long to get my act together.

The Fear of Death

“It’s the rarest thing in the world to find a person who hasn’t, at one time or another, been afraid of death.”  ~Napoleon Hill

“Matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed. They can only be changed from one form of reality to another.”  ~Albert Einstein

In my experience in the death business, I’ve been asked a lot of questions, done a lot of research, and soul searched. I believe there is a soul beyond physical matter and energetic action, and I believe it’s a non-physical combination of Infinite Intelligence, or The Creator, employing two functions called consciousness and entropy. But, that’s for another post.

I don’t fear becoming a ghost after death. I look at it like this. I was somewhere before I was born into consciousness as a lump of matter, and I’m living an energetic life constantly being broken down by entropy. When this consciousness I now have finally extinguishes—because entropy’s universal change ultimately conquers a rigid combination of matter and energy—I’ll go back to where I was before I was born, and I’m not afraid.

There are no specters. No illusions. There is only you.

Only in your mind live The Six Ghosts Of Fear.

Conquer them.

DR. DEATH—THE KILLER SURGEON

Dr. Death sounds like a horror story title. In the case of Christopher Daniel Duntsch, it’s a true horror story. Christopher Duntsch was an American doctor and specialized as a spinal surgeon—a deadly spinal surgeon—who killed three of his patients and maimed 31 others during a two-year span. Today, Duntsch is serving a life imprisonment term in a Texas prison, and he’s now the subject of an NBC Peacock netstreaming series featuring some big-name, A-List actors like Alex Baldwin, Christian Slater, and Kelsey Grammer. The series is rightly titled “Dr. Death.”

The story of this psychopath with a scalpel is shocking. But what’s equally shocking is how the “medical system” allowed this monstrous medical menace to operate on completely innocent and critically ill people. It was no secret in medical circles that Duntsch was a clear and present danger to patients. In fact, it was peers within the system who nicknamed him Dr. Death, but few did anything about it.

The Dr. Death tragic story is that of major systemic failure. It’s a common theme in true crime stories, and there’s nothing truer than the tragic damage done by Christopher Duntsch to unwitting patients. It’s a story of incompetence. It’s a story of cover-ups. And it’s a story of corporate greed within the medical business community.

To understand how Christopher Duntsch turned into Dr. Death, it’s necessary to know his background. Let’s first look at Duntsch’s upbringing and his training before examining the carnage created by turning Dr. Death—The Killer Surgeon—loose in the hospital O.R.

Christopher Duntsch was born in 1971 in Montana. He was raised in Memphis, Tennessee in a stable, middle-class, evangelical Christian home. Duntsch was an average student and sports player. However, Duntsch was driven in his football interest and, despite his lack of natural ability, he trained far harder than other players and made the college team when he enrolled at Colorado State University. One of his teammates later said, “Chris lacked talent but he worked harder than the rest of us.”

Duntsch carried this drive back to Memphis when he was accepted into medical school at Memphis State University. He completed the ambitious MD-PhD program then entered the neurosurgery residency program at the University of Tennessee. Following graduation as a doctor at U of T, Duntsch completed a spine fellowship at the Semmes-Murphy clinic in Memphis.

A later investigation determined Duntsch only juniored in around 100 minimal-invasive surgeries when the typical neurosurgeon completes 1,000 during their residency and before they’re considered competent to lead a surgery. Cracks were obvious during Duntsch’s training time which was plagued with drug use and a suspension period served in a rehab facility. One colleague later testified that Duntsch regularly used LSD and cocaine at night and then go to work performing spinal operations in the morning.

During his university years, Christopher Duntsch married Wendy Renee Young with whom he had two children. Duntsch also racked up a half-million in debt and a drug dependency. Then he formulated a fraudulent curriculum vitae. In a 12-page, single-spaced document, Christopher Duntsch looked eminently qualified as a neurosurgeon. One, of many, false claims was  stating he’d graduated magna cum laude from a prestigious doctorate in microbiology.

One of the reasons Duntsch focused on neurosurgery was its lucrative salary of approximately $600,000 per year. It’s also why so many medical facilities conveniently overlooked his background checks—neurosurgery was their most lucrative (ie profitable) division. Neurosurgeons were in short supply and corporate greed ultimately trumped patient safety while Christopher Duntsch preyed on poor people propped up by pools of money. A later investigation determined the average cost of a US spinal surgery exceeded $75,000 with much of that being profit for the hospital.

Duntsch’s first solo surgical employment was at Baylor Scott & White Medical Center in Plano, Texas. This was in 2011. He was under the watchful eye of a very experienced neurosurgeon, Dr. Randall Kirby, who was immediately suspicious of Duntsch’s surgical ability despite Duntsch’s boasting and alleged credentials. Dr. Kirby later testified that, “Dr. Duntsch had no business in the operating room, and he could not wield a scalpel.”

After five majorly botched operations, the hospital allowed Duntsch to resign rather than be fired. The later investigation learned the Baylor hospital administration feared Duntsch would win a wrongful dismissal lawsuit if forcibly dismissed that could cost the institution millions of dollars. This deal was devastating to future Duntsch patients at other facilities because the hospital could not report Dr. Duntsch to the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) which kept easy-access records of flagged problematic physicians.

Christopher Duntsch escaped what should have been mandatory NPDB registry for malpractice situations like:

  • Operating on the wrong part of the back leaving Kenneth Fennell in permanent chronic pain with debilitated mobility.
  • Cutting an unnecessary ligament in Lee Passmore as well as leaving stainless screws in incorrect positions and stripping the threads so they could not be removed.
  • Leaving bone fragments in Barry Morguloff that worked their way into his spinal cord leaving him paralyzed and in a wheelchair.
  • Causing Jerry Summers to suffer so much blood loss that he died from an infection from excessive transfusions.
  • Severing a major artery in Kelli Martin and causing her to bleed to death without adding blood during her surgery.

It was no secret at Baylor that Christopher Duntsch was dangerous. Many even wondered about his sanity. But that didn’t stop his medical career.

Dallas Medical Center hired Dr. Dirtsch as a temporary neurosurgeon in 2012. Almost immediately, hospital staff questioned Duntsch’s qualifications and suspected him of being under drug influence while operating. Some of Duntsch’s catastrophes in Dallas were:

  • Severing Floella Brown’s vertebral artery and allowing her to bleed to death without medical intervention.
  • Maiming a senior, Mary Efurd, and causing her excruciating pain—rated as ten-plus on a 1-10 scale.

Longtime neurosurgeon, Dr. Robert Henderson, performed a salvage surgery on Mary Efurd. Henderson realized what an awful job Duntsch did, and he began investigating Duntsch’s history which was now following him around. Dr. Henderson contacted Dr. Kirby of Plano. The two pacted to do their own investigation and put a stop to Dr. Death.

Because Duntsch was a temporary employee, he was immediately dismissed after these two incidents. And because Duntsch was a temporary employee, Dallas Medical Center was not required to report Dr. Duntsch to the NPDB. They didn’t, and Duntsch moved on to two more Texas medical facilities, the South Hampton Community Hospital in Dallas and the Legacy Surgery Center in Frisco.

By 2013, Christopher Duntsch’s behavior was getting bizarre. He caused a string of devastating surgeries and, thankfully, no one else died. However, many folks suffered significant and long-lasting trauma. University General Hospital in Dallas was Duntsch’s last operation. Here, he severed Jeff Glidewell’s esophagus and the neighboring artery. To stop the bleeding, Duntsch stuffed a surgical sponge down Glidewell’s throat and sewed him up with the sponge still inside. The poor man nearly choked before others intervened and removed it.

On June 26, 2013, the Texas Medical Board suspended Christopher Duntsch’s practitioner license. This was after appeals by Dr. Kirby and Dr. Henderson who told the board Duntsch was a sociopath and a clear and present danger to the citizens of Texas. The board slowly investigated with most of its members not believing that any medical doctor could be this bad and incompetent. They found out otherwise and revoked Duntsch’s license on December 6, 2013.

Meanwhile, Kirby and Henderson lobbied the Dallas DA to file charges against Duntsch. This investigation lumbered along at a tree’s pace. Duntsch then left town. He moved to Denver, declared bankruptcy for over $1 million in debt, got arrested for DUI and shoplifting, and was hospitalized for psychiatric evaluation.

Private lawsuits began against some of the medical facilities that allowed Duntsch to operate. Finally, in July 2015, the DA filed six felony counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, five counts of aggravated assault causing bodily harm, and one count of injuring an elderly person—Mary Efurd. Murder charges weren’t laid as the DA felt the state couldn’t prove Duntch’s clear intent to kill anyone. This was despite a piece of evidence turned over by Duntsch’s now ex-wife—an email to her from him stating, “I am ready to leave the love and kindness and goodness and patience that I mix with everything else that I am and become a cold-blooded killer.”

After a 15-day trial, a Texas jury found Christopher Duntsch guilty on all counts. The Appeals Court upheld Duntsch’s sentence of life imprisonment. Currently, he’s held in Huntsville and won’t be eligible to apply for parole until 2045 when he’ll be 74 years old.

Duntsch’s conviction was precedent-setting. It was the first time in United States history that a medical practitioner was convicted of criminally harming their patients. In Duntsch’s defense, his lawyer told the jury, “The only way this happens is that the entire system failed the patients.”

Primum non nocere is a Latin phrase that means “First, do no harm”. This is med-school 101 along with taking the Hippocratic Oath. The oath is as old as the ancient Greeks and the modern version goes:

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

  • I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.
  • I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.
  • I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.
  • I will not be ashamed to say “I know not”, nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery.
  • I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.
  • I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.
  • I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.
  • I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.
  • If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

Christopher Duntsch—Dr. Death, The Killer Surgeon—had blatant disdain for primum non nocere. He took a scalpel to his Hippocratic Oath.

WHAT REALLY BECAME OF CAPTAIN KIDD’S BURIED TREASURE?

Treasure. The very word is intriguing, invigorating, and—to some—even intoxifying. There’s something magical about lost treasure whether sunken, hidden, or buried beneath the earth in a clandestine location. Such is the lure of Captain Kidd, the infamous pirate, whose hoard of richness may still be out there, stashed in some secret site and silently awaiting discovery.

There’s no doubt Captain William Kidd buried some treasure. That’s an indisputable fact, as his chests containing gold, silver, and a few emeralds were dug up on Gardiners Island in now-New York State in 1699. Kidd’s treasure was inventoried, forfeited to the British Crown, and entered as evidence during his trial for murder and piracy. Captain Kidd was convicted and hung in 1701. Then, his body was garroted and suspended in public display as a warning to other pirates.

By all accounts, William Kidd was not your typical pirate. Kidd wasn’t a swashbuckling Johnny Depp—Jack Sparrow character, nor was he a homicidal psychopath like Blackbeard or Black Bart. No, Captain Kidd was a gentleman of high status who got sucked into the job by the British King and got screwed in the end. You could say Kidd got royally shafted.

Captain Kidd is long dead. But the legend of his remaining treasure lives on, and there may be some real truth to folklore that the bulk of Kidd’s bounty was never seized by authorities. Are Kidd’s real valuables—precious gems, coins, ivory, opium, and ornaments—buried somewhere and lost in time? Let’s look at who Captain Kidd truly was and the highly-suspicious circumstances that led to his easily-convertible, common commodities of gold and silver being found for the Crown while priceless pieces somehow disappeared.

——

William Kidd was a Scotsman. He was born in 1655 to a seafaring family. From the time Kidd was a kid and could put on boots and a slicker, he was onboard sailing ships that crossed the Atlantic. William Kidd received a Captain position within the British merchant marine. He was not a Navy man, but he was well-skilled with navigation and vessel armaments. This was the historical period when piracy ruled the Seven Seas, and civilian vessels needed all the protection they could get.

Captain Kidd relocated to New York City around 1690. He had given service to England’s King George III as a “privateer” commissioned to hunt down “buccaneers” and “pirates”. Kidd did an admirable job. He seemed to be in the King’s favor when he returned to normal life and married a wealthy American socialite.

Kidd temporarily boxed-up his sexton and settled into land-based businesses. However, King George III had different designs for William Kidd’s seagoing talents. Several events were going on where the King needed civilian help in the naval department. England was at war with France and Spain. As well, the age of piracy was at its peak, and the King wanted to take advantage of the situation.

Here’s where William Kidd came in. The British Lords decreed (with the King’s royal assent) that all goods aboard French, Spanish, and pirate vessels could be commandeered for the financial benefit of the Crown. It was a strategic way of paying for war costs and subduing the enemy at the same time.

One of the British Admiralty’s tactics was to commission or charter civilians like Kidd to “privateer” and profit-share spoils with the uppers. A privateer, by definition, is  “a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war”. Buccaneers are basically unsanctioned privateers, while pirates are common thieves on the water.

Through the King, a group of nobles enlisted Captain Kidd’s privateer services in a way he couldn’t say no. As a man with Kidd’s social status, it would appear disloyal to refuse a royal request. Kidd acquiesced his commander and returned to England in 1696 where he received a Letter of Marque authorizing him to set forth and prey on French, Spanish, and pirate property.

The deal was sealed. Kidd’s role was to collect and share spoils with his financiers—noble Whig Lords, Earls, and Knights before which 10 percent was skimmed by the King. The arrangement was still profitable for Kidd and his crew, provided they could locate plunderable targets. That proved problematic.

Things started bad and went worse for Captain Kidd. He weighed anchor in September 1696 in the Adventure Galley, a 284-ton hybrid ship equipped with sails and oars as well as 34 cannons. Kidd had hand-selected his crew of 150 and felt confident as he headed down the Thames for the Cape of Good Hope and hunting off the coast of Madagascar.

Still on the Thames, Kidd’s Adventure Galley passed a British Naval frigate whose commander knew not of Kidd’s mission. Kidd failed to offer a courtesy salute which offended the Naval Commander who heaved-to the Adventure Galley and summarily pressed one-third of Kidd’s men into naval service. Kidd changed course for America where, in New York, he hired replacements.

Kidd’s replacement crew was not from the cut-above. Rather, the available stock were criminals and societal rejects who the Governor of New York was glad to see go. Other fine sailors abandoned ship in New York because the Adventure Galley was a poorly and hastily-built piece of shit that leaked like a sieve and steered like a stone.

“Many flocked to Kidd from all parts. Men of desperate fortunes and necessities, in expectation of getting vast treasure. It is generally believed here that if he (Kidd) misses the design named in his commission, he will not be able to govern such a villainous herd.”  ~ Governor Fletcher of New York Colony.

But Captain Kidd was no quitter. He accepted a bag of rag tags and set forth on his chartered commission. Before Kidd reached the Cape, a cholera outbreak plagued the ship and another third of his compliment perished. Now Captain Kidd was at a distinct disadvantage at controlling the crew and murmurs of mutiny floated about.

Kidd had no luck at all. Not only was his crew a band of devious deviants, much like the cutthroats of lore, Kidd’s officers were also disloyal. William Kidd commanded his ship according to the rules of maritime law and legal engagement. Pirate hunting was poor in the Indian Ocean as was locating valid targets sailing under French and Spanish flags. Kidd refused to engage ships under Dutch registration or anything that resembled a British subject.

A year passed. Kidd’s charge had no income and little left to pay or outfit his men. Open revolt was on deck and led to violence on October 30, 1697, when Captain Kidd and gunner William Moore got into a fight. Kidd hit Moore on the head with an iron-strapped bucket, and Moore died the next day of a brain injury.

Word of Kidd’s poor performance got back to the Whig backers. They were displeased and began undermining Kidd’s credibility. Rumors that Kidd may have gone rogue and turned from privateer to pirate circulated through dispatches distributed through the British colonies and far-reaching colonial interests.

Kidd, however, knew or did anything of the sort. He was simply a victim of changing times when France and Spain were tiring of war and their interests in the Indian Ocean dried up. The pirates, once finding less and less loot, left the area and returned to plunder the Caribbean.

On January 30, 1698, Captain Kidd and the Adventure Galley finally found a victim. It was the 400-ton Quedagh Merchant which was Armenian registered and French flagged. The ship was bound from Bengal to Surat in India, and Kidd engaged it near Kochi on the southwest tip of the subcontinent.

The engagement was peaceful. The Quedagh Merchant’s captain was an Englishman employed by a Dutch firm and crew operating for India’s Grand Mughal. The ship had a written pass from the French East India Company and all was in good order. The Quedagh Merchant was also loaded with highly-prized valuables—silk bales, opium chests, satin fabrics, muslins, sugar, tobacco, and tea. In its hold was a mass of gold, silver, and gemstones along with jeweled and ornate artifacts fit for the Mughal.

Captain Kidd was in a quandary, for sure. On one hand, Kidd viewed the Quedagh Merchant as a non-viable engagement. It was not a pirate ship by any standards and belonged to an entity not in conflict with British rule. On the other hand, this was the first chance Kidd’s crew had at getting paid, and they threatened to cut Kidd adrift if he didn’t seize the ship and its contents.

Kidd succumbed to his crew. He justified that the Quedagh Merchant was French authorized under the pass and set forth to commandeer the vessel with a privateer claim for the British Crown. This pissed off the Indian Grand Mughal to no end. His goods were now gone, and he loudly complained to the British High Commission that, in turn, reported back to the King.

Captain Kidd was a practical man as well as a competent sailor. Rather than transfer goods to the leaky Adventure Galley, he made port in Kochi, dismissed the Dutch crew, and made off with their Quedagh Merchant. Kidd renamed it the Adventure Prize and set sail for the Caribbean’s West Indies.

Kidd and his converted merchant vessel stopped in Madagascar in April 1698. Here, more of Kidd’s crew jumped ship and joined a pirate venture captained by Robert Culliford who was a notorious man and a long foe of Captain Kidd. Port tensions rand high, so Kidd slipped away on the newly-named and treasure-laden Adventure Prize.

He arrived at Catalina Island off the south side of the Dominican Republic in late 1698. Here, Kidd anchored in a secluded lagoon and made arrangements for a smaller vessel, a sloop, to take him with a select small crew to New York to bargain with the British Crown. Captain Kidd was now well aware of the piracy accusations levied against him.

Massachusetts Governor Bellomont was Kidd’s long-time acquaintance who Kidd thought he could trust. T’wasn’t so. Kidd was a wary sort, so he took treasures from the Quedagh Merchant’s cargo that could be easily converted into negotiable currency—gold, silver, gems, and elaborate jewelry and ornaments. This was Kidd’s insurance policy—his bargaining chips—that he held for safekeeping.

Kidd cautiously approached the American Atlantic coast in June 1699. He was well-familiar with the region and many New York area inhabitants. That included the Lion Gardiner family and their private 3,318-acre island rightfully called Gardiners Island situated at the northeast tip of Long Island.

Here, Captain William Kidd arranged with the Gardiners to offload treasure and bury it on Gardiners Island. Exactly what was buried or how many burial spots Kidd used remain unknown. This is where the legend of Captain Kidd’s lost treasure began.

Captain Kidd sent a lawyer-delivered letter to Governor Bellomont in Boston stating he was back and ready to negotiate a pardon for piracy accusations against him. Throughout Kidd’s time on this three-year privateer voyage, he firmly believed he was acting according to his royal Commission and his noble backers would soundly support him.

Kidd was wrong. Politics changed during his absence, and the new Torrie powerbrokers in England planned to use Kidd as a pawn to help impeach his Whig patrons. Even the King turned on William Kidd. Governor Bellomont replied with a letter to Kidd stating:

“I have advised with His Majesty’s Council and showed them your letter, and they are of the opinion that, if you can be so clear as you said, then you may safely come hither. And I make no manner of doubt but to obtain the King’s pardon for you and those few men you have left who, I understand, have been faithful to you and have refused as well as you to dishonor the commission you have from England. I assure you on my word and honour, I will perform nicely what I have promised.”

It was a trap. Captain William Kidd fell for it, and he was arrested on July 6, 1699, as soon as he set foot on Massachusetts land. He was transported to London where he went to trial and lost. Captain Kidd was convicted in a sham of a trial where he was not allowed to testify on his own behalf nor cross-examine witnesses. On May 23, 1701, Kidd was hung by his neck and strung out to rot in a body cage for privateer and pirate viewing.

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So what became of Captain Kidd’s buried treasure? Some of this is well documented. Other portions—possibly the majority of his take—is not. Part of Kidd’s defense strategy was to offset his predicament by buying his way out. Somehow, through someone, the Gardiner family produced treasure from Captain Kidd and turned it over to Governor Bellomont.

This is perfectly documented, and the recorded inventory shows a tally of 1,111 ounces of gold, 2,549 ounces of silver, and a small bag of emeralds weighing 66 ounces. The value at that time, in July of 1699, put Kidd’s treasure at 5,453.6 British pounds. In today’s USD, his gold, silver, and emeralds would be worth about 2.1 million dollars.

Most people at the time, and most historians today, feel Captain Kidd’s total treasure taken from the Quedagh Merchant was far more than that. Far, far more. It’s somewhat safe to say that Kidd left the bulky treasure—silk and satin bales, barrels of tea, crates of coffee, and sacks of sugar—on the hidden ship in the Caribbean. Once Kidd was doomed, the remaining crew disbursed what was left and burned the ship. Salvagers discovered the wreckage in 2007 exactly where Kidd was suspected to have anchored it.

But what became of other valuables known to be on board the Quedagh Merchant when Kidd took it under full authority of the British Monarch? Riches like precious gems of sapphire, rubies, diamonds, topaz, and opals? What about jewelry such as pearl strings, tiaras, and clusters in brooches? Chalices? Porringers? Candlesticks? Crucifixes? And religious figurines? What became of the other stuff that was really worth something?

You probably don’t need to look further than those privy to Kidd’s treasure on Gardiners Island—the Lion Gardiner family.

This circles back to the central question—what really became of Captain Kidd’s buried treasure. It’s obvious what the Gardiners turned over to the British Crown was mainly gold and silver. These commodities were not proportionately worth in 1699 what they are in 2020. Gold and silver were strictly regulated in price, and there would be no disputing their market value by weight. That made gold and silver predictable in price and easy to exchange.

The same couldn’t be said for precious stones or man-made artifacts embedding their beauty in artwork. Some of the Kidd treasure, assuming it was there, would be most challenging to price. Rightfully, some of the pieces would be priceless, and it’s these treasured works that are gone.

Let’s look at who the Gardiner family was and where they are today. Lion Gardiner was a British immigrant to Connecticut. In 1639, he bought the island from the chief of the Montaukett tribe for (reportedly) “a large black dog, some powder and shot, and a few Dutch blankets”. Lion Gardiner moved his wife, children, and a few workers to the island and began subsistence farming.

It was fertile land, and Lion Gardiner was an enterprising farmer. He was also a shrewd operator. Gardiner senior sought a royal patent with the clause that he and his family had the “right to possess the land forever”. This “in-perpetuity” clause remains in effect and today Gardiners Island is the oldest single landholding in the United States. Old Gardiner even got the King to sign-off on foreshore rights with the interesting measure of owning all sea shore out from land “as far as a large ox can wade before his belly gets wet”.

The Gardiner family is one of the wealthiest groups of generational folks in America. “Old money” that is, and not quite to current standards of Gates, Buffet, Bezos, and Zuckerberg. No, the Gardiners are more in line with the names Forbes, Rockefeller, Astor, and DuPont. It’s clear how Gardiner counterparts got their dry-land start, but there’s murkiness in Gardiners Island waters.

Shortly after Captain Kidd died, the Gardiner family showed signs of unusual income. They spent more than could logically be earned by marketing apples and corn and eggs and milk in New York markets. Successive Gardiners got progressively richer. They acquired large land tracts and secured lucrative lending arrangements.

Robert Lion Gardiner, 16th Lord of the Manor, with a ring and artefact from the “Kidd Collection”.

Over the years, the heads of the Gardiner dynasty (who got a royal peerage “Lord of the Manor”) held lavish parties on Gardiners Island. The who’s who of society, old money and nouveau riche included, attended by invitation and hobnobbed in lavishly catered exclusivity. A Gardiner became an American First Lady and First Ladies like Jacqueline Kennedy were part of the Gardiners Island scene.

Robert David Lion Gardiner was the last Lord of the Manor at Gardiners Island. He was a colorful character, albeit eccentric, and all but confirmed where the family fortune arose. Robert Gardiner, the 16th Lord, showed many people artifacts from the “Kidd Collection” that remained in his family’s possession. He died in 2004 with no biological heirs.

Today, Gardiners Island (that once held colony status) is solely owned by a reclusive Gardiner relative, a removed niece named Alexandria Goelet. Estimators say the island property is worth several billion dollars, and no one publically knows the Gardiner family fortune’s mass. Maybe this wealth is what really became of Captain Kidd’s buried treasure.