Peter Easton was born around 1570 in England, likely into a family of some social standing. By 1602 he held a letter of marque from Queen Elizabeth I, authorising him to protect the English fishing fleet off Newfoundland, then the busiest and richest fishery in the world, drawing hundreds of ships from England, France, Portugal, and the Basque country each season. Under his commission, Easton could press local fishermen into service and attack enemy vessels at will, particularly the Spanish. Marty Lagina has called Easton "a breed apart, an outlier" from the other pirates whose names have been connected to Oak Island, and the most likely pirate to have deposited treasure there.
From Privateer to Pirate
When James I came to the throne in 1603 and sued for peace with Spain, all privateering commissions were cancelled. Easton ignored the order and kept raiding. By 1610 he commanded a fleet of around 40 vessels stationed at the mouth of the River Avon, blockading the Bristol Channel and forcing merchants to pay protection fees to pass. The Lord Admiral, the Earl of Nottingham, dispatched a young captain named Henry Mainwaring to capture him. Mainwaring failed, and would himself turn to piracy not long after.
The Newfoundland Kingdom
Tipped off about the naval pursuit, Easton took his ten best ships and sailed for Newfoundland, arriving at Harbour Grace on Conception Bay in 1612. He built a fort, established his headquarters, and set about turning the colony into his personal base. He plundered 30 English vessels in the harbour of St. John's and raided French and Portuguese ships at Ferryland. His crews demanded tributes from fishing vessels on the Grand Banks. The total damage inflicted on the fishing fleets was estimated at over 20,000 pounds.
The scale of Easton's operation set him apart from every pirate who followed. He recruited aggressively, taking as many as 1,500 fishermen from the Newfoundland coast, some voluntarily, others by force. He fortified Harbour Grace, Kelly's Island on the far shore of Conception Bay, and Oderin Island in Placentia Bay. He dined with Sir Richard Whitbourne, the vice admiral at St. John's, aboard his 350-ton flagship Happy Adventure, holding him for eleven weeks while attempting to recruit him. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography records that Easton "controlled such seapower that no sovereign or state could afford to ignore him and he was never overtaken or captured by any fleet commissioned to hunt him down."
In 1612, while Easton was away on a Caribbean voyage, French Basque pirates captured his fort at Harbour Grace. When his fleet returned and entered Conception Bay, the Basques sailed out to intercept him. Easton defeated the Basque force, destroying their flagship and recapturing the fort. Forty-seven of his men died in the battle and are believed to be buried near Bear Cove at the mouth of Harbour Grace, where a mass grave consistent with the early 17th century was uncovered during construction work near the site of Easton's fort.
Spanish Silver
Easton's ambitions extended well beyond Newfoundland. While awaiting a royal pardon that never arrived, he led 14 ships and 500 men to the Azores, where he intercepted the Spanish silver fleet returning from West Indies mines. He captured the convoy and sailed the prize ships to Tunisia, where the Bey of Tunis welcomed him for the better part of a year. He also raided in the Caribbean, reportedly attacking El Morro Castle in Puerto Rico, though some historians regard this episode as embellished. Contemporary sources estimated his accumulated wealth at two million pounds in gold.
The Marquis of Savoy
A royal pardon had been issued by James I in February 1612, but through bureaucratic delays and Easton's constant movement, it never reached him. A second pardon was granted and again failed to arrive. By March 1613, Easton sailed to Villefranche in the Duchy of Savoy, a free port that served as a haven for pirates on the Mediterranean coast. The cash-strapped Duke of Savoy, hearing of Easton's wealth, welcomed him warmly. Easton bought a palace, set up a warehouse for his plunder, married a wealthy noblewoman, and was granted the title Marquis of Savoy.
He is one of the very few pirates in history who retired rich, unpunished, and in comfort. Unlike Kidd, who was hanged, or Blackbeard, who was killed in battle, Easton spent his final years as a nobleman on the French Riviera. He remained in the Duke's service until around 1620, when he disappears from the historical record. His treasure, or whatever remained of it, was never seized, never recovered at trial, and never accounted for.
Blackbeard, the Devil's Bargain→
The Oak Island Connection
Easton's candidacy for Oak Island rests on capability. The Money Pit's construction required dozens if not hundreds of workers, and Easton commanded fleets of 40 ships while recruiting over a thousand men from Newfoundland alone. He was a former naval officer who held a royal commission, an expert tactician and navigator who built and maintained fortifications at multiple locations. His crews included men pressed from fishing fleets and merchant vessels: sailors, carpenters, and tradesmen with practical construction skills.
Easton operated from Newfoundland between roughly 1611 and 1614, placing him in Canadian Atlantic waters for an extended period. Nova Scotia lies directly between Newfoundland and the Caribbean routes he frequented. No document places Easton in Mahone Bay specifically, but his known operating range encompassed the waters around it. Carbon dating of materials from the Money Pit has returned dates as early as the 1600s, and if the oldest construction on the island predates the Golden Age, Easton fits the window. His estimated two million pounds in gold is a contemporary figure that may not account for everything he accumulated over a decade of raiding. Unlike Kidd, whose Gardiners Island deposit was recovered and catalogued, or Blackbeard, whose ships were searched after his death, no inventory of Easton's total wealth was ever taken.
Captain Kidd and the Hidden Maps→
The Oderin Island Parallel
Oderin Island, a small horseshoe-shaped island in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, was one of Easton's known bases, fortified and visible to surveyors as late as 1713. On the north side of the island sits a pond measuring roughly 35 metres by 20 metres. According to local tradition passed down through generations of residents before the island was resettled in 1966, the bottom of the pond is lined with oak planks at a depth of 18 feet. No oak trees grow in Newfoundland. The pond sits below sea level, making it all but impossible to drain, and is said to connect to the ocean through an underwater channel. Marty Lagina and Matty Blake investigated Oderin for two episodes of Beyond Oak Island in 2022 and 2023, bringing in diver Tony Sampson to search for sunken treasure connected to Easton.
The parallels to Oak Island are obvious: oak at depth where it does not belong, water infiltration from the sea, and construction that defies easy explanation. Archaeologists have raised questions about the connection, however. No historical document places Easton on Oderin, which was in French-controlled territory at the time, and the oak-bottom pond has never been excavated or scientifically examined. The story rests on oral tradition rather than archival evidence.
What Remains
No artefact recovered from Oak Island has been directly attributed to Peter Easton. No ship's log, crew manifest, or archival document places him in Mahone Bay. The connection is circumstantial, built on capability rather than evidence. Easton had the ships, the men, the engineering background, and the time in the right waters. He built fortifications on at least three islands. He accumulated a fortune so large that a European duke offered him a title and a palace. And unlike every other pirate whose name has been linked to Oak Island, he was never caught, never searched, and never made to account for what he had taken.
