Blackbeard artifacts exhibit opens at NC museum
Source: thesunnews.com
BEAUFORT, N.C. -- The largest exhibit ever of artifacts from what's believed to be the remains of Blackbeard's flagship is opening at the North Carolina Maritime Museum, with bells, cannon, lead shot and part of the hull among the items on display.
There won't, however, be any pirate treasure, says David Moore, the museum's nautical archaeologist. That's because the Queen Anne's Revenge didn't wreck, but ran aground, giving the crew time to remove most of the valuables.
"We weren't expecting to find a chest filled with silver, gold and jewelry," Moore said in a phone interview with The Associated Press as he readied for the exhibit, which opens Saturday at the museum in Beaufort. Instead, the treasures are weaponry and whatever high-dollar equipment the pirates couldn't take with them.
About 300 items from shipwreck in about 20 feet of water off North Carolina's coast will be displayed at the U-shaped exhibit, which begins with an introduction to the QAR project and to Blackbeard himself. Most of the artifacts have never been displayed for the public, Moore said.
The first large anchor recovered a couple of weeks ago from the shipwreck won't be displayed either. It will spend about five years in conservation before it's on public view.
"His history is better than fiction," says pirate enthusiast Pat Croce, who once owned part of the Philadelphia 76ers. The exhibit will be popular because Blackbeard "is the most outlandish pirate on the planet" even though he probably only ruled the seas for a few years.
He wore guns across his chest, a cutlass in his belt and a dagger in his boot. And then there was that beard, which covered much of his face. He would tie slow-burning matches or hemp to the ends and under his hat, making smoke billow around his face.
"He used psychological warfare," says Croce, who owns the St. Augustine Pirate and Treasure Museum in Florida and who wrote an illustrated children's book about Blackbeard. "He was learned, he read. He understood how people feared pirates."
Pirates from the Queen Anne's Revenge who were tried later in South Carolina testified that they believed Blackbeard ran the ship aground on purpose because he had too many crew members - a piracy form of forced layoffs, Moore said. At that point, he had 300 to 400 pirates on the four ships under his command and realized the Queen Anne's Revenge wouldn't work in and around North Carolina waters where he planned to base his operations near Ocracoke because the waters were too shallow for such a big ship.
"He took off with the smallest sloop and, along with 40 handpicked crew members, took everything of value with him," Moore said.
The Queen Anne's Revenge began its life as a French slave ship that Blackbeard captured renamed. Blackbeard, whose real name was widely believed to be Edward Teach or Thatch, received a governor's pardon. Although some reports say he settled in Bath, Moore believes Blackbeard built or bought a house, but stayed mostly in the Ocracoke area.
Despite his pardon from Gov. Charles Eden, Blackbeard ended up being killed and beheaded after Virginia Gov. Spotswood sent volunteers with the Royal Navy after him in November 1718. As a trophy, they took Blackbeard's head, which hung on a pole at the entrance to Hampton Harbor.
The exhibit has been in the works for more than a year, well before the state planned in mid-April to recover the first large anchor from the shipwreck and before Disney released the fourth installment of "Pirates of the Caribbean," which includes turns by both Blackbeard and his flagship, Moore said.
There's no admission for the exhibit, and no date for it to close because the museum plans to keep it on permanent display. The museum averages about 200,000 visitors a year, and Moore expects the exhibit to increase those numbers.
"This is a living, breathing entity," he said. "This is basically what you could call a baseline of material and artifacts that will continue to develop and grow as more and more material comes out of the conservation lab. ... It's not like people will come back in six months and see exactly the same thing. There will always be material added to this."
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