Real Pirates Salem
Charlotte Forten Park, 285 Derby St #5, Salem, MA 01970, United States
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Charlotte Forten Park, 285 Derby St #5, Salem, MA 01970, United States
Get Help
/ person
Real Pirates Salem Ticket
In 1717 the Whydah went down in a storm off Cape Cod with its pirate crew aboard. It stayed lost for two and a half centuries, and remains the only pirate shipwreck ever authenticated — which makes everything in this exhibition real in a way no other pirate attraction can claim.
More than two hundred objects raised from the seabed are on display: gold, coins struck across three continents, cannon, pistols, navigational instruments and the ship's bell that finally proved her identity. Full-scale recreations of the deck and the cramped lower hold surround them.
The story is told through the crew as individuals — Samuel ""Black Sam"" Bellamy, who captained her; an eleven-year-old sailor; formerly enslaved men who joined the company as equals. It is a harder, stranger and more interesting history than the mythology suggests.