In 1841, an Englishman and his American friend, John Gardiner,
decided to unearth the grave of James D’Wolf in Bristol, Rhode
Island. Having arrived that year in the country, the Englishman
learned about the deceased man after attending a lecture against
slavery given by a visiting abolitionist woman. There he learned that
D’Wolf had worked at a young age as mate onboard a vessel engaged
in the transatlantic slave trade and that, after becoming its captain, he
accumulated “property rapidly, until he became very rich and owned
. . . large plantations in the Island of Cuba.” According to legend, D’Wolf
later became associated with Charles Gibbs, a Rhode Island pirate who
captured a vessel leaving Spanish America for Europe with seven coffins
of silver. James D’Wolf was alleged to have been buried in one of these.