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Pirate House
Bay community, Lafitte "picked a crew to man his favorite vessel, The Pride, and sailed away to the legendary realms from which he had come."
Following are excerpts from the work of recent Lafitte scholars, one of whom was convinced that the famous privateer bought property in Hancock County and spent his last days in the "Pirate House" on the beach of Bay St. Louis-Waveland, a house built expressly for him.
Another has produced evidence that Lafitte was born in Port-Au-Prince in 1782 of Sephardic Jewish parentage. Read them and decide for yourself. Edith B. Back
BAY HOUSEHOLDER? People investigating titles to land around Bay St. Louis have often pondered a name which appeared on a deed to property transferred on Dec. 6, 1825.
The deed for a hunk of land about two blocks up the bay from where U.S. 90 crosses it, was written in French and signed by Jean B. Nicaise and his wife, Genevieve, heavy land-holders of their day. It was made out to Sieur Jean Lafitto."
This was four years after the United States Navy had last seen and chased the ship of Jean Lafitte, the pirate, in the waters around Havana, Cuba.
This "Lafitto" (A Spanish spelling which Jean Lafitte frequently used in his peak privateer years) lived at Bay St. Louis in quiet retirement for about twenty five years according to more deeds made out to him, and was reported to have died around 1850.
The old-timers claimed that he had no visible occupation but seemed to live off what he already had. They also claimed he was known to be a famous "fighting man" in the Battle of New Orleans.
Was Jean Lafitte, retired from the no longer profitable
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