Great Great Uncle Phineas J. Peg and the crew of Marie Laveau's Revenge were the scourge of the Mississippi River between Vicksburg and New Orleans for over a decade. Phineas was reputed to be a smuggler of raw sugar cane, fresh medical cadavers and Pomeranian accessory canines.
After losing a leg to a cannon blast on Lake Pontchartrain, Phineas stole a table leg from a Gonzales Tavern to fashion into a peg leg. He coated the new appendage with carpet nails and fish hooks. He was known to remove the leg and brandish it at approaching vessels on the water.
New Orleans court records show that Phineas J. Peg was sentenced to death by hanging along with the rest of the Marie Laveau's Revenge crew in 1891. The official charge was piracy. Escape was unlikely, but strangely there are no records of the actual hanging, and a marriage certificate circa 1893 from San Antonio Texas shows a Phineas J Peg and a Maggie Ruth Goldhirsch tying the knot.
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