In the late 1700s Jeremiah Smith began to become the man the world would eventually know as Fire Island's most notorious land pirate.
The broadside published in 1881 characterized the family as "money-mongerers, userers, and land pirates."
He was nicknamed Chieftain because he looked more like a Viking warrior than a captain of land pirates.
His burden is made all the heavier by the difficulty of keeping the charming outlaw Macheath, at this point a roving land pirate, confined in Newgate Prison long enough to be hanged
These successive biographies provide a capsule history of popular views of criminals, for they manifest an increasing sympathy with the land pirate.