<P> Kidd was born in Dundee, Scotland, c. 1654, his father, Captain John Kyd, being lost at sea . Kidd gave Greenock as his place of birth and his age as 41 in testimony under oath at the High Court of the Admiralty in October 1694 or 1695 . A local society supported the Kyd family financially after the death of the father . Kidd's origins in Greenock have been dismissed by David Dobson, who found neither the name Kidd nor Kyd in baptismal records; the myth that his "father was thought to have been a Church of Scotland minister" has been discounted, insofar as there is no mention of the name in comprehensive Church of Scotland records for the period . Others still hold the contrary view . </P> <P> Kidd later settled in the newly anglicized New York City, where he befriended many prominent colonial citizens, including three governors . Some published information suggests that he was a seaman's apprentice on a pirate ship during this time, before partaking in his more famous seagoing exploits . </P> <P> By 1689, Kidd was a member of a French - English pirate crew sailing the Caribbean under Captain Jean Fantin, during a voyage of which, Kidd and other crew members mutinied, ousting the captain and sailing to the British colony of Nevis . There they renamed the ship Blessed William, and Kidd became captain either as a result of election by the ship's crew, or by appointment of Christopher Codrington, governor of the island of Nevis . In any case, Captain Kidd, an experienced leader and sailor by that time and the Blessed William, became part of Codrington's small fleet assembled to defend Nevis from the French, with whom the English were at war . The governor did not pay the sailors for their defensive services, telling them instead to take their pay from the French . Kidd and his men attacked the French island of Marie - Galante, destroying its only town and looting the area, and gathering for themselves something around 2,000 pounds sterling . Later, during the War of the Grand Alliance, on commissions from the provinces of New York and Massachusetts Bay, Kidd captured an enemy privateer off of the New England coast . Shortly thereafter, he was awarded £ 150 for successful privateering in the Caribbean, and one year later, Captain Robert Culliford, a notorious pirate, stole Kidd's ship while he was ashore at Antigua in the West Indies . In 1695, William III of England appointed Richard Coote, 1st Earl of Bellomont, governor in place of the corrupt Benjamin Fletcher, who was known for accepting bribes to allow illegal trading of pirate loot . In New York City, Kidd was active in the building of Trinity Church, New York . </P> <P> On 16 May 1691, Kidd married Sarah Bradley Cox Oort, an English woman in her early twenties, who had already been twice widowed and was one of the wealthiest women in New York, largely because of her inheritance from her first husband . </P>

Pirate who said that he hid his treasure