Database: John Baldwin
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Born: 1666, England
Died: c.1716, West Indies
Born to a poor cobbler family in 17th Century London, John Baldwin's mediocrity in life was matched only by his desperation to escape it. Baldwin came of age in the squalor and sickness of the notoriously impoverished East End Docks. Resentful of his lot, he took on several apprenticeships with local tradesmen, but lacked the patience and tenacity needed to excel. His attempts at setting up his own business collapsed in similar fashion, and an embittered Baldwin turned his hand next towards piracy, going on the account with small-time crews seeking fortune in the Caribbean.
Although Baldwin was mean enough of spirit for piracy, he could not endure the harsh reality of life at sea. For a time, he wandered listlessly between the outposts and towns of the West Indies looking for work, until he met and married the daughter of a local planter, Elizabeth Braddock. For all his faults, Baldwin was adept at presenting an image of himself that he wanted others to see, and in the early years of their marriage Elizabeth and her father Theodore were taken in by the well-spoken, slightly rough gentleman who appeared to have risen courageously above the circumstances of his birth.
A beneficiary of his new family's prosperity, avarice soon began to eat away at him. John grew increasingly resentful of his wife's fortune. If he could secure it for himself, he could redeem his life's many failures. The passing years fostered contempt rather than affection for his new family. He grew volatile, and turned to heavy drinking. The alcoholic abuse he subjected his young daughter Lucy to only grew following the death of his wife, and Baldwin was finally evicted from the family manor by his father-in-law.
Murderously covetous of his late wife's inheritance—which would pass to his daughter rather than him—Baldwin slew Theodore Braddock with his own golden pistols. He then worked with Barrister Thomas Barehaire to alter Braddock's will and bequeath the entire fortune legally to himself. Finally, he sought to remove the last obstacle in his way by having Lucy framed for her grandfather's murder and imprisoned by the pirate hunter Robert Maynard.
Before he could secure the inheritance gold, Baldwin was caught at Black Island and confronted by his daughter, who shot him with the same pistols with which he killed her grandfather.
A letter later recovered from the barrister implicated Baldwin not only in the death of his father-in-law, but his wife as well.