It's official: Boat bears Blackbeard's booty
Published: Fri, Mar. 02, 2007 04:48PM
Modified Fri, Mar. 02, 2007 05:02PM
E-Mail
Print
tool name
closeTen years of research has led to the "inescapable conclusion" that a shipwreck near Beaufort is the pirate Blackbeard's flagship, a state historian said today.
Lindley Butler, historian for the Queen Anne's Revenge project, said the size of the sunken ship, the number of guns it carried and the artifacts recovered from the site strengthen the connection to the pirate. Historical records indicate that the pirate sank the Queen Anne's Revenge off the North Carolina coast in 1718.
Thousands of artifacts have been recovered since a private company, Intersal Inc., discovered the wreck in November 1996. But some scientists have questioned the state's claim that the wreck can be conclusively linked to the pirate, whose real name was believed to be Edward Thatch or Teach.
Related Content
More Local & State
State officials reviewed the research during a conference today at the N.C. Museum of History. Butler said a coin weight recovered last October was particularly compelling evidence. The small copper disc, an item used to determine the weight of coins and gold, bears a likeness of Britain's Queen Anne, who reigned in 1702-1714.
"This is the most exciting artifact to me," Butler told the audience of about three dozen people.
"You can't get any better than putting Queen Anne on the Queen Anne's Revenge."
Get it all with convenient home delivery of The News & Observer.
The News & Observer is pleased to be able to offer its users the opportunity to make comments and hold conversations online. However, the interactive nature of the internet makes it impracticable for our staff to monitor each and every posting.
Since The News & Observer does not control user submitted statements, we cannot promise that readers will not occasionally find offensive or inaccurate comments posted on our website. In addition, we remind anyone interested in making an online comment that responsibility for statements posted lies with the person submitting the comment, not The News and Observer.
If you find a comment offensive, clicking on the exclamation icon will flag the comment for review by the administrators, we are counting on the good judgment of all our readers to help us.
