"Mooncussing" Topic

Seems likely a spot as any, and as fine a day as you like to discuss that lowest of piratical practices, mooncussing.

Unlike proper piracy, a mooncusser needs only two things:

1. A lantern or lanterns.
2. An night with poor visibility.

The practice is simple. You rig said lanterns up in such a ways as they resemble the stern and rig lighting of a sailing ship. You do so near a dangerous bit of shoaling—preferably something strong enough to break up a ship quickly, but not so pounding as to break up the cargo.

Unsuspecting ship approaches your lanterns, and given that 2. is true (and if it isn't, you're standing ashore cussing at the moon), unsuspecting ship beaches herself on the shoals, and you salvage the wreck. This is a low, cowardly practice, not proper piracy at all.

It turns out it's almost legal, too. Now, suppose you own a bit of shoreline. That which washes up upon your shores is yours by right of salvage. It's the practice of hanging lamps in trees that's illegal. Maybe. Certainly it's a hard crime to prove, unless you're caught red-handed, but moreover, the erstwhile mooncusser can always claim that the Admiralty (or Navy, or Federal) Court has no standing over him. I have been led to believe the issue has not been resolved legally. So if you manage to get your case moved to the County, and the County has no law against mooncussing (sometimes called Fraudulent Aids to Navigation or Intent to Disrupt Free Passage), then you could get off free.

That doesn't change that you, Mr. Mooncusser, are the lowest, most wretched form of pirate.

Ain't never heard it called that before. Must be some new-fangled Yankee way of talking.

But Cornwall has always had wreckers, and possibly still has.

What do you want to be when you grow up, Johnnie?

I remember reading about this practice but if I knew what it was called, I had forgotten it.

Those rascally pirates!! Always looking for the easy dabloon!!

Dave

I remember that Walt Disney had a film called "The Mooncussers" that they played on their television show in the 1960s. It was about this very topic. A decent film, if I recall correctly. They rerun it at times on the Disney Channel cable.

I doubt that Luzerne County has any laws against it, but you never know. They may have signed on to the Omnibus Local Laws package that was so popular in 1894.
Since the Susquehanna is only navigable to canal boats past Harrisburg, and we are 120 miles from the nearest ocean shoreline, I don't think that the subject ever came up.

Seriously, if you think about this, this is ineffective piracy for the lazy. You have to go out, night after night, in the pounding rain or damp fog, tend the wicks, and hope that the watch on some boat is sufficiently drunk or gullible as to fall for your ploy, because it's not like your shoals aren't marked on the charts.

Then, suppose you do get somebody up on the rocks. What's to say it's full of the wealth of the Indies? Likely as not you'll get a collier, or a Dutch herring bus. And what do you suppose the resale value on that stuff is?

I'm bitter because all the shoreline in the Bay is unapproachbly priced, and the Chesapeake is all wrong for mooncussing. You'd get someone stuck on a flat up by Havre de Grace, maybe. And the Coast Guard is too vigilant by twice around here, the Auxiliary too well manned, and the Maryland State Troopers have a helo that spends half its life flying over the Bay. It'd never work. Damnit.

I agree, Pete. When's the last time the Moghul emperor sent a ship with his daughter and her dowry up the Chesapeake Bay? By the time she got that far, those Fancy Dans with real ships would have nabbed her.

I think the Cornish Wreckers "moonlighted" as smugglers when they weren't wrecking. You have to diversify, you see.

Smuggling is slightly more reputable than mooncussing (which is a far more picturesque turn of phrase than the blunt "wrecking"—even if the latter is more accurate). Do they still smuggle in Cornwall? National Geo said that Clown Ears is turning it into his own Tolkienesque Shire, busy throwing down Saurman's towers and planting new hedges and disbanding the Shiriffs and what have you. Seems like you could get some sort of Cultural Grant to explore the traditional English Wrecker's trade.

I remember the wrecker's museum in Key West, they definitely hung some fellows for this nefarious practice. I think part of the advantage of this type of piracy is that you avoid taking a stray musket ball or pike in the midsection… and the loot of a taken ship could be just as useless at what washes up on shore.

As far as the Pirates/Mooncussers of the Susquehanna, its never too late to start, John and Pete! Although the booty would consist mostly of fishing rods and coolers of Coors light… maybe some Yuengling once in a while.

I'll be looking for the Jolly Rodger next time I drive over the river.

Hmmm… my first line seems to imply something incorrectly… they hung people for deliberately causing wrecks (by rigging lights near reefs and the like), they did not hang the "wreckers", as that was a legitimate enterprise to salvage goods.

Alte Fritz jogged some memory loose, back in some dusty room in my brain's attic. Didn't that movie have a theme song whose verses ended in something like:
"…..THE MOONCUSSERS! (mooncussers)"
It was sung by the usual Disney Manly Chorus, as I remember it.

Yep, the "Ballad of the Mooncussers". I had the Gold Key comic version of the story, too. They were all . The TV movie was a standout piece of , even among the y collection of Disney's Kevin Corcoran movies.

Allen

Disney movies made for TV will never go down as great movies, but for an 8 to 10 year old kid, they were fun and wonderful. It was often a round about way of learning some history, or at least enough to want to know more about it. The ballad is stuck in my head, but of course, I can't convey the tune in words on TMP.

On the other hand:

"Young Texas John Slaughter, made 'em do what they oughter, cause if they didn't they died."

Or the ballad of the Scarecrow of Romney Marsh.

The theme from "Swamp Fox" is there as shards, with vast lacunae also.

And, who can forget Johnny Tremaine?:
"It's the tall oak tree, and the strong oak tree.
And we are the sons, yes we are the sons,
The Sons of Liberty."
At least, that's how I remember it.
I have it on VHS, and it is still a pretty neat movie.