8John Halsey – $13 million
John Halsey was a colonial American privateer and private, active in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans during the early 18th century.
He is recorded in ‘A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates’, which states ‘He was brave in his Person, courteous to all his Prisoners, lived beloved, and died regretted by his own People. His Grave was made in a garden of watermelons, and fenced in with Palisades to prevent his being rooted up by wild Hogs‘.
His fortune of $13 million was insufficient to protect him from the ills of that time.
In 1708, a hurricane nearly wiped his ship, and the pirate contracted a fever and died shortly after.
Although much of his life and career is unknown, we can assume that he loved watermelons.
The 1724 book entitled ‘A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates’ described John Halsey as a lover of watermelons: ‘His grave was made in a garden of watermelons’.
