Billy wouldn’t leave his gold

Jean Lafitte left New Orleans and the ruins of his Baratarian kingdom in 1818 to make a new start on Galveston Island, but not all of his band went with him.
One of those who stayed behind was known as Billy Bowlegs, and he became almost as notorious as a Gulf of Mexico raider as Lafitte himself. He was said to be worth millions of dollars when he died at the ripe old age of 93.
His real name was William Rogers. At least that was the name he was using when he showed up in New Orleans in 1810. He already had plenty of money then — enough to buy a plantation on the Mississippi River. Nobody knows where he came from or how he came by his early riches, and he tended to discourage people from asking.
He apparently wasn’t a planter. That life didn’t agree with him and he moved back to New Orleans just about the time Jean and Pierre Lafitte were building their base on Barataria Bay, as well as building a monopoly on the Louisiana smuggling trade. Billy Bowlegs became a part of the Lafitte band, and was presumably one of the men who fought in the Battle of New Orleans and received a pardon for past transgressions.
If he ever gave thought to actually reforming his life, it didn’t stick with him. Not long after Jean and Pierre were forced to leave Louisiana, Billy bought three little ships in New Orleans, recruited crews for them from Lafitte’s old hands, and set up a base on Santa Rosa Island, near Pensacola.
Like most of the Gulf pirates before him, he particularly preyed on Spanish ships carrying fortunes from Mexico, and he didn’t have to capture many of them to build a considerable horde of gold and silver. He was said to be incredibly wealthy when he disbanded his crew in 1838, came ashore, and began to lead a quiet, opulent life.
But he got restless again. He rounded up another crew in 1840, and, according to one biographer, “in a few short weeks the hold of his ship was bulging with chests of jewels and gold and silver coins and bars.”
But then he found trouble.
A heavy gale was battering his little schooner when he was spotted and chased by a British warship. He couldn’t outrun it. His only chance was to dash for shore and find some place where his ship could go, but the heavy warship couldn’t.
That almost worked. He found a shallow lagoon and even his small craft bumped the bottom as he sailed into it. He thought he was safe; there was no way the warship could follow.
But the British didn’t quit. Small boats were lowered from the big ship and armed marines rowed steadily toward Bowlegs and his booty.
Billy was out-manned and didn’t have many options. He decided to load his own longboat with as much loot as it would hold, scuttle his ship, and row for a wooded area on the shore.
The British did finally go away, but Billy and his crew no longer had a ship, and most of his treasure was at the bottom of the lagoon.
According to the old stories, he made several attempts to salvage the gold and silver, but didn’t have the manpower or equipment to do it. He finally quit trying to get it, but was determined that nobody else would get it either.
He still had his longboat and hands to row it, and he still had a fortune that would have allowed him to live out his life in fine style. But instead of rowing to civilization, according to the legend, he built a log cabin near the shore, buried the loot he’d been able to bring inland, and kept watch over his sunken ship and its treasure for the rest of his life.
He showed a friend where the loot was buried when he was in his 80s. The friend was supposed to get it when Billy died. But Billy lived another dozen years, and all of the landmarks had changed by the time the friend went back to dig it up.
Nobody took it while Billy was watching or, as far as we know, anytime since. His buried treasure is still hidden somewhere on the Gulf coast, and his schooner, said to be filled with millions in gold and silver, still lies at the bottom of a lagoon not far from where it is buried.
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.