Dixie Bull: New England's First Pirate

By Bill Millarrrrgh.

Rocky and windswept, Damariscove Island sits like a sentinel in the ocean guarding the approaches into Boothbay Harbor. Rugged, like most of its kind, it possesses a fair harbor and long history. It is here, that the pirate, Dixie Bull, was said to have buried his treasure.
As a child, our family would pack the cooler, fill the thermos bottle and load into the old Chevy for an annual trip up the coast to Pemaquid, where, having our fill of the beach, we would make the short drive over to Ft. William Henry and climb around the stone walls and tower. Visitor signs and artifacts in the museum told how, in 1632, the pirate, Dixie Bull, had sailed into the harbor and laid waste to the place. In my young imagination, I pictured a fleet of tall vessels, their cannon belching smoke and flame, disgorging a horde of black, bearded ruffians, who took plunder and no prisoners. And, I often wondered who this Dixie Bull, known as New England’s first pirate and the reason for the first large man hunt in the area, really was.
The early 17th century brought an end to the period of exploration along the east coast and ushered in the age of settlements. Both the English and the French began settling and building trading posts along the shore of New England, in some cases in competing areas. This was the New England into which Dixie Bull arrived.
Born in Huntingdonshire in England, sometime in the early 1600’s, he was apprenticed to his older brother, Seth, a skinner and tanner in London. Skinners, at that time, ranked among the wealthiest trade guilds in that they regulated the fur trade. Bull became a “trader for bever,” and, in fact may have used his apprenticeship as a form of indenture to finance his passage to America.
His name first appears in New England along with his elder brother and nephew in a patent for land from Sir Fernando Gorges “east of the Aquamentiquos River (Now the York River)” Since Bull’s name does not carry with it the title of “gentlemen” or “esquire,” he was probably not considered wealthy. There is also no indication that he settled the land granted to him.
Setting himself up as a trader, he purchased a shallop, the pick-up truck of early colonial shipping. Small, open, sometimes half decked, these boats were fitted with sails, oars, or both, and were designed for operating in shallow waters. Sailing up and down the Maine coast, Bull traded for beaver pelts, a staple in the economy of the time.
While beginning a life he hoped would be prosperous, international events overtook Dixie Bull. By the Treaty of St. Germain en Laye in March of 1632, the English had returned to France, Quebec and Acadia. Interpreting the treaty to include those lands in what is now eastern Maine, French Lt. Governor Isaac de Razilly warned the English not to expand east of Pemaquid and sent an expedition to the trading post at the Penobscot Plantation. A French vessel, piloted by a “treacherous Scotsman,” robbed the trading post there, taking away everything of value, taunting the English as they left. In this one instance, Bull lost everything, including his boat. The up and coming businessman was left destitute.
To be continued