In Episode 416 Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger explore Coates Island and the surrounding bay on Lake Champlain in Colchester, Vermont, searching for the lost treasure of the alleged pirate Pierre Mallett. In the 1760s, a strange man arrived at this bay and lived as a recluse the rest of his days. Many years after his death, a letter arrived from France opening a mystery of potentially millions in lost treasure still out there.
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Produced and hosted by: Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger
Edited by: Ray Auger
Theme Music by: John Judd
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
*A note on the text: Please forgive punctuation, spelling, and grammar mistakes. Like us, the transcripts ain’t perfect.
[DRIVING]
JEFF: Okay, we’re going to make a right coming here on to Coates Island Road.
[BLINKAH]
RAY: Okay, got it. It’s a gorgeous fall day to visit Lake Champlain, Jeff. The colors are peaking right now, the way they reflect off the lake looks incredible.
JEFF: I agree. So Coates Island is barely an island in the large bay in the Colchester section of Lake Champlain. It’s mostly connected to the mainland by that short bridge we just drove over covering the marshy waters below.
RAY: There are a lot of woods on the island and some pretty nice lake houses. I’m guessing there’s some pricey real estate out here.
JEFF: No question it takes some bucks to live on Coates Island.
RAY: So what’s a couple of Joe 12-packs like us doing out here?
JEFF: Well, if we’re to believe the legends, we may just strike it rich on this 80-acre island.
RAY: How would we do that?
JEFF: Because they say Coates Island on Lake Champlain is home to millions in buried pirate treasure.
[INTRO]
JEFF: Greetings legendarians, I’m Jeff Belanger. Welcome to Episode 416 of the New England Legends podcast.
RAY: And I’m Ray Auger. Thanks for joining us on our mission to chronicle every legend in New England one story at a time. We love tales of ghosts, monsters, UFOs, pirates, eccentrics, and anything else that bumps in the night. So many of our story leads come from you so please reach out to us anytime through our website with your story leads. We love hearing from you. Our website is also the place to see dates for Jeff’s fall story tour, dates to see my band the pub kings, and links to buy the new 2026 Haunted New England calendar, and Jeff’s latest book Wicked Strange New England.
JEFF: We’ll go digging for lost treasure right after this word from our sponsor.
SPONSOR
RAY: Okay, Jeff… here’s the thing about Vermont.
JEFF: Uh huh.
RAY: It’s land-locked. I don’t think of Lake Champlain when I think of pirates.
JEFF: I get that. It turns out it is possible to sail here from the ocean, but it wouldn’t have been easy. A ship could sail far north around New Brunswick and into the St. Lawrence River. You sail that about 200 miles near Montreal and then bang a left onto the Richelieu River. You follow that about 70 miles south and boom… You hit the northern section of Lake Champlain.
RAY: Okay, got it. Still, it’s a long way to go for a pirate to hide treasure. It’s not exactly convenient. We’ve covered a lot of stories of buried pirate treasure in New England. If a pirate is on the run, they want to bury their loot someplace where others won’t find it.
JEFF: Right.
RAY: But someplace easy enough to get it quick if they’re coming back for it.
JEFF: That’s usually the plan with buried pirate treasure, yes.
RAY: It wouldn’t be easy to sail back here for pirate treasure and then sail back through a narrow river to run off with it.
JEFF: Also, true. But this isn’t any normal pirate treasure story.
RAY: I can’t wait to explore this one. Here’s a little more information on Colchester. The town was chartered in 1763 and named for the Earl of Colchester. It’s located on the bay just north of Burlington here on Lake Champlain. The lake and the land provided most of the early industry here. Today over 17,000 people call Colchester home, making it the third largest municipality in Vermont.
JEFF: Coates Island is named for William and Adeline Coates who bought the 80-acre island farm here in 1872.
RAY: I guess if you own all the land it’s fair to name the island after yourself.
JEFF: True. In the coming decades the farm shrunk, land was sold off for camps, and then private lake homes, but it’s still a peaceful and quiet place. And if you believe the legend, you may just stick a shovel in the ground and find millions of dollars worth of treasure if you know where to dig. To find out how it got here, let’s head back to the year 1765.
[TRANSITION]
[OCEAN SAILING]
RAY: It’s September of 1765. King George III is on the throne in England, and the colonies here in the Americas are expanding. There are some grumblings of revolution, but most figure you’ll never make everyone happy. We’re currently sailing aboard a small ship with Captain Pierre Mallett, a man who hails from France.
JEFF: We don’t know a lot about Captain Mallett’s past, but he’s a surly fellow. He doesn’t like questions, nor strangers. He sailed his ship along the St. Lawrence River far in land, then traded it for a smaller vessel to finish heading south to a large lake he’s heard about throughout his life.
RAY: That would be Lake Champlain. Named after Samuel de Champlain who first sailed these waters back in 1609.
[LAKE WATER SOUNDS]
JEFF: Captain Mallett is going through the trouble of sailing hundreds of miles inland and selling his ship because he intends to retire. By the time Captain Mallett reaches the wide open waters of Lake Champlain, he believes he’s found his final home. Mallett aims his boat to a large bay on the eastern shore of the lake.
RAY: Once on land, Captain Mallett keeps looking over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t followed. Satisfied that this land on the bay is an isolated spot, he unloads his boat.
[AXE CUTTING A TREE]
RAY: Mallett soon builds himself a cabin by the lake.
[HAMMERING SAWING]
RAY: It’s not much, but it’s all he needs for space.
JEFF: There aren’t a lot of people living in this area, so Mallett mostly goes unnoticed. Boats sail by on the lake, some curious fisherman may make their way into the bay in front of the cabin, but Mallett’s home is set far enough back that it’s not obvious from the water.
RAY: Once in a while someone does venture too close, but Mallett’s gruff demeanor and rudeness usually sends them away.
JEFF: One other project occupies Malletts time in his early days in this region.
[DIG DIG DIG]
JEFF: He’s digging holes, and burying some of his chests and boxes in various places. Mallett only digs when no one is looking. He doesn’t like strangers anytime of the day or night, but especially while he’s digging. If he spots a boat sailing too close, he’ll stop what he’s doing and hide.
RAY: What a strange man.
JEFF: He is. And he’s a recluse. He wants no part of any community.
RAY: With no one around to say otherwise, this land is Malletts to do what he will.
JEFF: Years pass. It’s now 1774, and a good-sized ship is sailing into the bay in front of Malletts cabin. Mallett is getting on in his years, and more cranky than ever.
RAY: Oh wow… look who’s getting of the ship!
JEFF: Is that?
RAY: Yeah. That’s Ethan Allen! With his business partner. A man named Remember Baker.
JEFF: Mallett is hiding in his cabin.
[POUNDS ON DOOR]
[DOOR CREAKS OPEN]
JEFF: Ethan Allen is explaining to Mallett that he and Baker own all the land from the Winooski River all the way down to the Lamoille River. The two men want to know what Mallett is doing on their land.
RAY: After a short discussion, Allen and Baker can see that Mallet is old and reclusive. They see no harm in letting him stay in his cabin. Besides, they have no current plans for the land. So with that, Allen and Baker sail off once again, and Mallett goes back to his life of solitude.
(PAUSE)
RAY: More years pass. It’s now September of 1792 and another ship enters the bay. When they search the woods they find nothing but a cabin that’s clearly been unused and rotting in the woods for some time. It would seem Pierre Mallett is gone.
JEFF: Mallett is gone, but a mystery remains. A mystery that would remain in the dark for another 140 years…
(PAUSE)
JEFF: It’s now October of 1939. The bay by the old cabin is now formally called Malletts Bay based on its sole occupant for so many years. On day, Winooski Mayor Albert J. Gravel receives a letter in the mail.
[RIPS LETTER OPEN]
JEFF: The letter came all the way from France from an Elie Thibaud of Vendeesur-Mer, France. The letter asked what became of the vast land holdings once owned by Pierre Mallett. The letter included a map of the bay stating Elie believed his distant relative Piere Mallett owned most of the land around the bay. Mayor Gravel wrote back assuring Thibaud that the land in question was never Malletts, and that they can trace the ownership from Ethan Allen and Remember Baker through present day.
RAY: Several weeks pass, and another letter arrives for Mayor Gravel. This time offering more details. This letter explained how Pierre Mallett had been in charge of the French army’s funds to pay their soldiers. Mallett absconded with the gold, and sailed off for the Americas with a fortune, and a wanted man.
JEFF: Which would explain why he wanted to hide out somewhere remote.
RAY: Right.
JEFF: And explain why maybe he was burying the gold. If he got caught, they couldn’t take all of the money.
RAY: Exactly. So this letter from Mr. Thibaud claimed he had a map of where the treasure was buried. He even offered to cut Mayor Gravel in on the bounty if he could help facilitate the expedition. But that’s when the trail runs cold. Mayor Gravel didn’t buy the story, and the letters from France stopped coming. And that brings us back to today.
[TRANSITION]
JEFF: So this legend of buried treasure in and around Coates Island has been around since 1939. Most of the details we got from the May 25, 1951 Burlington Free Press newspapers that outlined the strange foreign correspondence.
RAY: But imagine if it were true? If Pierre Mallett drew a map where the treasure was buried, and mailed it home? Then the letter was passed down through generations until someone said, let me go get the gold. But obviously they didn’t have a lot of money, otherwise you’d think they would have paid their way over to the United States and followed the map and quietly dug for treasure.
JEFF: Good point. With so many unanswered questions we can’t help but wonder if there really is buried gold out here around the bay and on Coates Island. Most people refer to Mallett as a pirate, and while he did plunder some treasure, I think “thief” is a more accurate term to describe him. Still, yo ho, yo ho, if there’s buried treasure here… we may never know.
[OUTTRO]
RAY: I think we should dig just in case… And that takes us to After the Legend where we dig deeper into this week’s story and sometimes veer off course.
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To see some pictures related to this week’s story, click on the link in our episode description, or go to our website and click on Episode 416.
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Until next time… Stay legendary.