POSTCARDS

Ghost tours don't go to the Hammock House any more. It used to be a fixture during nightly rounds of Beaufort, North Carolina, amidst pilgrimages to the old burial ground (to visit the little girl buried in a rum keg, whose grave is covered in toys and mardis gras beads) and the waterfront (to hear the tale of Porpoise Sal and the unfortunate end of those who would not heed her warnings). The tours used to troop down the lane, which is only one car wide, and settle at the edge of the Hammock House lawn. If you take a tour now, the guide (in character as a pirate, or maybe a whaler from Diamond City) will probably take you a few blocks up and point between homes at the symmetrical three-story white house with its two wide front porches. While tourists peer through the neighborhood, the guide tells the house's story.

Each part of the Hammock House seems to have assigned lore — for starters, there's the window through which Captain Madison "Mad" Brothers spied his fiance dancing in the arms of a handsome young lieutenant. Enraged, the captain charged in and started a fight that ended with the lieutenant dead on the staircase and the awful revelation that he was the girl's brother. Many an owner has tried to scrub out the blood stains, to cover them with carpet — but they will always seep through, a reminder of the captain's brashness and guilt. Under the back porch, there were remains of Union soldiers who disappeared under mysterious circumstances during the Civil War. And the front porch! That was where Blackbeard would tether his boat on passing visits — the oak tree out back (or was it in the front?) was where it was rumored he hanged one of his wives after discovering that her affections had strayed. Legend has it that you can still hear the girl wailing on nights with a full moon. Maybe it's the idea of a ghost in perpetual fear, or maybe it's sunburn combined with the humid evening, but a shiver passes through the tour group as it moves on to the next site.

When Betty Cloutier and her husband, Gilles, first toured the Hammock House as potential buyers, plywood covered patches of vacant flooring in the front two rooms, and there was a lingering smell of dog. When Betty rested her hand on a mantelpiece, it was swarmed by termites. Three decades in the Chapel Hill Preservation Society imbued Betty with a love for old homes and a distinct Preservation Society authority (the best kind, charming but a force of nature, with lipstick that coordinates with her shoes). After several viewings, she was skeptical. There were fun renovations, she warned Gilles, and then there were total overhauls. The Cloutiers bought the house in 1994 and moved in the following year, after extensive renovations.

*Betty Cloutier and granddaughter Reid, in front of the Hammock House.*

"It's always something with an old wooden house," Betty said with a mix of affection and frustration reserved for homes, pets, and relatives. Although the house's date of origin is a matter of debate, it is old enough to have settled into the ground, leaving the home with not one single level surface. The floors are uneven underfoot, the ceilings are different heights, the plastered walls slope and bend gently, all working in established crooked harmony. Despite all the ghost stories, the house is noticeably bright with sunlight, light-colored walls, and a parrot motif.

Betty's chief concern about the staircase had nothing to do with the handsome young lieutenant.

"It's a difficult staircase," she explained. It's tight, steep, with a little landing and then tall steps into the bedrooms, plus a sharp turn. Betty was convinced that someday someone would miss a step and go tumbling. What does not ruffle her are the legendary stains on the second story landing; they dot a roughly three square foot area, and while they are not the usual blemishes one finds in pine flooring, she explains them away as possibly chicken blood. In the granddaughter's bedroom the flooring bears other scars, a sporadic clump of rounded cuts Betty attributes to an axe.

In the master bedroom, the Cloutiers have a collection of bones on the mantel, gathered mostly from decades of beach-combing. His best find is an enormous whale vertebrae, hers the skull of a small horse; tucked back in the collection is the male scapula (shoulder blade) that their contractor found under the house. In 1915, workmen digging around the back of the house uncovered the remains of three Union soldiers, including buttons and epaulettes (Betty was told these remains moved to the new cemetery off Ann Street, rather than the mantelpiece). She spoke easily about the mystery stains, bones, and ghost stories — after all, they are just a part of a house that has been good to the Cloutiers.

Betty has never seen an apparition — although a guest of hers claimed to have encountered a pretty girl with brown hair, blue eyes, and a blue dress on the third floor.

An aside: Maddie's sister Reid, a sprite of about ten years with hair the sun bleached bright blonde, said she had seen a ghost. One evening when she was about seven, she spotted a girl running across the front yard, a tall man chasing after her. What did she do after the sighting? "I went back inside, and I got back in bed, because I didn't want anything to do with them."

"This is my time," the spirit allegedly said. Betty's guest retreated downstairs and told Betty, who dashed upstairs, apparently too late to meet the Cloutier's extra visitor. The Cloutiers have stories of strange coincidence, doors that have been firmly shut mysteriously opening, and "The Jello Ghost", a spectre who left a previously unfindable box of Jello on the kitchen counter for them to discover after dinner at Clawson's. Betty's granddaughter, Maddie, said she has never seen a ghost and always felt safe in the house; after pausing to think, she adds that she has stubbed her toe, and that is the worst thing to have happened to her in the Hammock House.

On Betty and Gilles's first night alone in the Hammock House, there was a full moon and a total lunar eclipse. As they settled in for the night, Betty thought she heard the sound of a girl crying as if her heart would break. Gilles insisted that it was only a dog, but she did not know of any dog that made sounds like an agonized young woman. Betty went to bed, but she laid awake for hours, listening. The next evening, at dinner with guests, Gilles told the story of the sobbing girl like he believed every word.

We can't be sure Blackbeard ever set foot in Beaufort proper, or that the house wasn't built a century after his death, or when exactly Blackbeard's story got tethered to the place. Wherever the strands came from, they were tied in a firm knot in 1971, when a gaggle of 15 advertising people from Chicago ventured out to Beaufort. With help from the fire department, they filmed the house (and Sears Weatherbeater paint) withstanding simulated storm conditions. The nationwide "Great American Homes" campaign included historic houses gleaming in fresh Weatherbeater paint, homes associated with great writers, inventors, patriots, a president, and, in a stroke of Americana, a pirate. In print, the Hammock House sits in placid sunshine, neatly labeled "Blackbeard's House".

Maybe the label has a whisper of truth drowned out by a chorus of old yarns, maybe it's just good advertising — the distinction is not important to the slow, steady drip of curious tourists who cruise the house. Some stop and take photos, and a few are drawn across the yard, past the "private property" sign on the front steps, and up the porch. The Beaufort Historical Association's red double-decker bus rattles down the lane like clockwork. When grandchildren and nieces were younger, they heard the bus and went running, treating tourists to dance recitals and costumed fight reenactments from the Hammock House porch. While the Cloutiers have never had any trouble with the BHA, the ghost tours were another matter. They blocked traffic, and on busy nights, the dining room lit up like a lightning storm with the flash of cameras trying to catch footage of mysterious orbs, and Betty did not care for their Addams Family depiction of the home's current occupants. After a particularly busy Fourth of July, Betty went toe-to-toe with the tour, and the town found a compromise: Tours could still run, but they had to stay on the sidewalk.

[Note: Ghost walks have been under new management for years since this scuffle]

Blackbeard was at least part lore before he even had a chance to die. His own reputation was propped up by the misdeeds of other pirates, which could make a captain roll over and play dead when he heard the identity of his pursuer. Had the authorities caught Edward Thatch by surprise in his bed in Bath and quietly carted him off to Williamsburg for trial, he might have gone down in history as a footnote with a bit of flair, troublesome until caught. Instead, he was killed in a battle that spilled enough blood to make the incident notorious, his head wrested from a body peppered with wounds and claimed as a grotesque prize. As early as December 1718, muddled rumblings of a battle and a mission to capture Teach the ship-burner reached the Boston News-Letter, along with the unsettling report that despite a ￡100 reward for the captain, Teach and four of his men had escaped. Early 1719 brought more comforting news — Blackbeard had been captured, but 35 of Lieutenant Maynard's men were killed in the incident — no, 35 killed or wounded. By April 1719, accounts filtered into the London papers. Charles Johnson's General History of Pirates cemented Blackbeard in the pantheon of famous bandits, drawing from the haze of the true, false, and unconfirmable to create a cohesive narrative. It was Blackbeard's last and greatest escape — away from perception as a common enough seafaring thief, and into the public imagination.

And so this mixed bag of fact, feeling, and fiction settled in, stretching wide and overwhelming more legitimate pieces of North Carolina history like kudzu. Anywhere a brackish creek skulks inland, there are stories of a towering man with a black beard slipping in at odd hours, reclaiming treasure or visiting a sister, a mother, a lover. Teach's Lights supposedly dance just above the water in Beaufort, in Bath, in Ocracoke, to lead naive onlookers to his treasure. Thinking ahead, Blackbeard struck a bargain with the devil to keep the treasure safe (depending on the variation, he's either perched atop the treasure chest, or burying the chest in sand as fast as treasure hunters could dig, or driving them away with lightning). His severed head, according to legend with ties to Williamsburg, Bath, Ocracoke, Chapel Hill, and Philadelphia, was plated with silver, and used by a secret society to ceremonially imbibe strong drink after saying the password, "Death to Spotswood." Children in Bath grew up playing in the ruins of old houses, hearing stories of government corruption and secret smuggling tunnels. Across the state, old family stories have Blackbeard connections — the best usually involve the ancestors of locals outsmarting or outfighting the pirate and living to tell the tale, or having their treasure hunt foiled at every turn.

An aside: In 1967, the Pirates of the Caribbean ride opened in Disney Land. The narration and dialogue for the ride was written by Xavier Atencio. Although he had never written a script before (he had been a storyboard artist for Winnie the Pooh), he helped create a hit, and even wrote the pirate standard, "Yo ho, Yo ho, a Pirate's Life for Me". Footnote: "The Happiest Place on Earth"

In 1950, audiences were reintroduced to Jim Hawkins, Long John Silver, and Israel Hands (a name Robert Louis Stevenson presumably borrowed from Blackbeard's crew) through Disney's blockbuster production of Treasure Island. Pirates have always been a good frame for far-flung tales — there was Johnson's history, operas like The Pirates of Penzance, J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan with the villainous Captain Hook, and Errol Flynn giving speeches and attacking ships as a bandit with a cause — pirates even appear in Hamlet to provide a plot twist. Treasure Island established what pirates look like in the modern imagination — big buckles, tricorner or slouch hats, an unnatural tan that's probably meant to look weathered, and treasure caches with a gift shop gleam — and what pirates sound like. Robert Newton, who played Long John Silver and later went on to play Blackbeard, utilized the same West Country accent for both portrayals; the raspy, round vowels and shortened words stuck. Salty West Country lilt is still the accent of choice in portraying pirates for actors, writers, and free donut seekers on "Talk Like a Pirate Day."

The sixties brought new highways, regular ferry service, and a new boon to North Carolina: Tourists en masse. By 1964, the state drew 27 million visitors and a billion dollars per year. Governor Terry Sanford organized a conference to strategize how to keep these sightseers — and their dollars — coming to the Old North State. The conference's opening address included the memorable line,

"It's easier to pick a Yankee dollar than a pound of cotton."

In full-color booklets and a thirty-minute reel, the state branded itself "Variety Vacationland" with something for everyone in its mountains, lakes, universities, countryside, golf courses, and — of course — beaches. Historian Kevin Duffus traced the legend of Blackbeard's headless corpse swimming circles around his ship to a tourism pamphlet printed around this time, and in 1966 Judge Charles Whedbee published his first popular book with stories from the Outer Banks. The myth of Blackbeard acquired new layers, this time a little less homespun and with a little more advertising-friendly shellac.

Starting with a tattered billboard for Blackbeard Realty and Auction, as you drive into Bath, there are more references to Blackbeard the closer you get to town. You'll pass a neighborhood called Teach's Point, then the highschool (the Bath Pirates, of course), and the Quarterdeck Marina, which sells bait and burgers along with pirate-themed bumper stickers. Blackbeard was pulled to the forefront particularly during the town's 250th anniversary in the 1950s, when North Carolina Historic Sites employee AJ Drake said pirates acted as publicity, drawing eyes and funding for the first drive to restore the town's historic structures.

Bath historic site manager Laura Rogers said people still tend to wander in to the visitor's center looking for Blackbeard's house or fragments of history as seen on TV show Outlander. The historic site's programming and exhibits certainly yield to the public's interests, while trying to funnel guests from their point of entry towards the broader web of history. With a thousand versions of the Blackbeard story available, Rogers said,

"You can disclaimer a story to death. An important part that I think does exist about the story of Blackbeard, is that it can be what you want it to be. So people can identify with it in the way they want, it can be their story, their interpretation on the story. We have to put our little caveats on there, but you know, if someone really wants to believe that that little red house was Blackbeard's house, that can be their identification with that, it can be what they take away." Rogers added that although she hopes visitors don't walk away carrying a fictitious Blackbeard in their back pocket, but, "If it helps them learn more about history, if it brings them here, so they can discover other stories, that's really most important."

An aside: Having a museum in Florida means that there is a plan for hurricanes. When one is coming in, the team keeps a close eye on it; if the storm is coming their direction, they move all the items that are paper, cloth, or on loan up to the third floor (plus gift shop stock). Then they seal up the doors, hunker down, and wait.

In the museum world, philosophies vary on how to use the lure of piracy, and just how academic the results should be. At the Pirate Museum in Saint Augustine, Florida, education is smuggled under cover of production value. Originally opened as a way to display the owner's collection of pirate antiquities, the building is teeming with interactive exhibits, ambient surround-sound, and a few Disney-fied experiences. In the section of the museum styled as a main deck, there are hands-on activities in a space that's just a few feet shy of an average sloop, to give guests a feeling for cramped ship's quarters. Further on, Blackbeard's decapitated head speaks to guests, regaling them with stories that sneak in biographical details, and in a sound booth visitors can listen to a dramatic rendition of his last battle. In amongst the bright colors and lights, the museum displays their true gems — one of three Jolly Roger flags still in existence, an ornate chest associated with pirate Thomas Tew, and a 1684 copy of Exquemelin's Buccaneers of America, among other artifacts. Although the storytelling elements are allowed some creative license, curator Matt Frick said that he would like to work through the actual signage throughout the museum with an eye towards accurate history. In an irony unthinkable to the purist, corrections require funding gained from admissions and sales from the Treasure Shoppe.

Although commerce and academic pursuits often have competing interests, they struggle forward as an odd couple. In Beaufort, offerings are as frivolous as a tour for children in a souped-up pirate ship and as stodgy as meticulous museum plaques. At first, artifacts from the Queen Anne's Revenge only took up a corner of the Maritime Museum, albeit a greatly-celebrated corner. As concretions surrendered more artifacts into the patient hands of conservators, the exhibit morphed and expanded, claiming more square footage every couple of years (this to the mild chagrin of some on the science side of the museum). With the release of each Pirates of the Caribbean film, Dave Moore said that letters from all over the world filtered into the museum like clockwork — an uptick also reflected in more people cruising by the Hammock House and in the revitalized Pirate Invasion.

An aside: Okay, a word on Pirates of the Caribbean: These movies have about as much to do with real piracy as Star Wars does with NASA. That being said, they're fun! And fun should be allowed. I will take this opportunity to air a pet peeve: Who in the world thinks that there’s room for a colonial conference room aboard a ship?? Especially a small, fast moving pirate ship? There’s too much floor space and the ceilings are too high! Truthfully, it’s a relief to have that out there.

Carl Cannon (not a stage name) is a man with family ties in eastern North Carolina that stretch all the way back to the proprietorship, including a legendary grandfather who made and sold moonshine during Prohibition and allegedly won a contest of strength with a bear. When much-beloved reenactor Sinbad stepped back from event-planning duties, Cannon stepped in to oversee the Pirate Invasion, including oversees permits, interpreters, sponsors, community scuffles, and all. In his piratical pursuits, he learned how to use a bullwhip via YouTube (he said you learn the bullwhip the same way you learn how to fiddle — hours of practice). In pursuit of portraying Blackbeard, Cannon grew out his beard, dyed the grey strands black, and did his research. After seeing other interpreters clearly model themselves after the movie version of one pirate or another, he wanted to present his own version of Blackbeard, which is a man who grew up in Carolina, forced into piracy by circumstance, with a growly voice accompanied by the classic West Country accent. He does not tie slow-burning matches into his beard — he only tried it once, and got holes burnt into a brand new linen shirt for his trouble. Instead, he tucks the matches into the brim of his hat, which gives the desired smoky halo effect without burns.

At the heart of the invasion is the Cannon Crew, a group of pirate interpreters gathered over the years and led by Carl and his wife, Jo. They come to the crew from backgrounds in the military, the historical association, sign-spinning, and court counseling — they even have a doctor in their midst who they try to keep clear of the cannons (his hands are particularly valuable). What most of the interpreters have in common is that at some point they attended one pirate event and got hooked, eventually joining a crew for the fun of it, to help educate newcomers, to enjoy the comradery of pirate people, or some combination thereof.

Spanning downtown Beaufort, the two-day Pirate Invasion is a colorful, easy blend of entertainment, history, and commerce. Spanish forces invade from the waterfront one day, Blackbeard and his crew make their bid the next. In the yard of the old jail, the pirates set up a living history encampment where guests can fraternize with the pirates, watch them making food over a campfire, make rope, or mend nets. Along the boardwalk, shops and restaurants fly their pirate flags and fling open their doors, and vendors set up in an open market, rain or shine. According to Cannon, at least 15,000 visitors flood the small town during the event — in 2019, they filled almost all of the hotels and bed and breakfasts in town.

*The following photos taken at a pared-down version of the Pirate Invasion at the Humphrey Farm, because….2020.*

"You can't have polyester, 'cause it's got a sheen to it, people can tell from miles away that it's fake, you know?" an interpreter called Red Beard said (another seemingly secondary reason is that a stray spark from the cannons are all it takes to send your clothing bursting into flames, with the chance of the fabric getting stuck to your skin). Instead, interpreters lean towards linen or cotton in styles that suit the characters they portray — a more dandified cut and luxurious cloth for Stede Bonnet, plain sailor's clothes for Shortfinger. With their character decided, most pirates come prepared with a variety of stories to tell, to give adults a shock, or reassure wary children. Redbeard, proud wearer of a peg leg, either tells listeners that he lost his leg in a battle with Blackbeard, or that he fired it from a cannon when he was running low on ammunition.

An aside: "Either charm the people, or scare the people, whichever happens first," he said. What's the ratio of people charmed to people scared? "It depends on what story I tell them. I can either show 'em Jack the monkey," a stuffed monkey perched on his shoulder, "Or tell 'em the tragic story of Jack the monkey," he swept open his coat, revealing a dangling skull of a monkey.

The event is neither stringent history nor pirate theme park. They do their best, and when necessary or practical, pirate activities are updated by modern sensibilities — more women are on the crew, for instance, and the invasion no longer centers on throwing unwilling wenches over the pirate's shoulders. Perhaps a little in the spirit of Blackbeard himself, the Cannon Crew has found that offering potential sponsors and city officials the opportunity to fire a ceremonial shot from the cannons loosens up wallets and the permitting process. In their off-hours you can spot pirates in full garb eating Doritos, or in the coffee shop ordering a latte. The Invasion has something for everyone — for the curious bystander who just happened to be in town, for the attendees who are simply happy for an excuse to accessorize with dark makeup and big earrings, and dedicated pirate enthusiasts who come in full garb, like Michael Pridgeon (a regular attendee and dead ringer for Captain Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean). Pridgeon first connected with his fiance, Melissa Peck alias Marauding Melissa, at the Beaufort Pirate Invasion, and proposed when they visited Beaufort in garb last summer. As the crowd mills about, interpreters call out a cheery "Ahoy!" or issue a scowl, whichever the moment calls for. At the end of the day they gather for a parlay, a campfire gathering hosted by Carl Cannon where the pirate people pass around stories, songs, and a bit of rum.

Captain Barbossa and Marauding Melissa, taken in front of Duke and Duchess, a coffee shop in Bath. — *Captain Barbossa and Marauding Melissa, taken in front of* *Duke and Duchess, a coffee shop in Bath.*

*Carl and Jo Cannon, taking a few minutes to rest.*

The entrance to Springer's Point is easy to miss, a gap in green between houses. After finding the gate, a dirt path leads through a tunnel of scrubby beach trees, roots bumping at your feet for about a half mile, then you round a corner, the tunnel opens up to a view of water and sky, and you are very near the site where Blackbeard lost his head. Although Ocracoke arguably has the best pirate bragging rights in the state, Blackbeard is generally regarded as a neighbor who happens to be a celebrity. On an island that's about two and a half hours by ferry away from the mainland, so slender that there's nowhere to hide from a storm, to about 700 year-round inhabitants, there is too much else to tend to for Blackbeard to constantly dominate conversation. In terms of festivities, he ranks below the Fig Festival, which gets primetime summer billing.

*A now-closed exhibit/gift shop serves as extra parking.*

Chester Lynn (lifelong Ocracoker who claims two members of Blackbeard's crew as ancestors, man of many interests, dubbed local "fignitary" for his knack with the fruit) has a special talent for finding things. Since he was a boy, he has known where to find interesting old things and kept tabs on them — starting with a fork from the 18th century, and growing into more impressive items like the original key to the lighthouse and the kettle used to heat oil to keep it lit. He also had sharp ears for the stories grey-headed people wanted to tell. If the old timers are to be believed, the bodies of Blackbeard and his killed crew members were buried near Springer's Point, where countless pipes and four pewter plates have been found. The plates eventually made their way to Chester by way of a yard sale and a friend; despite no paper trail establishing their provenance, they are prized possessions — even after Hurricane Dorian flooded his home and shop, he never considered selling them.

"That's O'coke history," he said, disturbed at the very idea.

An aside: Chester said that when a vessel wrecked, the community would go out and mark the wood with their names, reclaiming whatever could be useful. "The only thing you ever saw on the beach ... was the ribs. Everybody seen them rounded ribs. You know why they're there? Because rooms aren't curved."

Blackbeard is not at the heart of Chester's most interesting stories — those involve a great-grandmother hiding a cow in the kitchen, boats tied together in a "Wedding Chain" transporting a young bride from nearby Portsmouth to Ocracoke, homes made of lumber scavenged from shipwrecks, a ham left in the oven as a hurricane bore down, and a storm so overwhelming islanders could go flounder gigging in their own front yard. The old stories roll off his tongue in hoi toider brogue, which is both an accent and a relic from the time when Bankers gave and received few visits.

"One of the things that I have found," he said, "through growing up here and listening to stories and all that, I find that in the stories, usually there's a little bit of truth to it. It may have got embellished, it may have changed, but some of it's true."

As the older generation passes on, Chester said the selection of stories changes (almost no one, for instance, talks about blackout curtains anymore, and how the island was prepared to go dark at a moment's notice during World War II). He has also watched Ocracoke itself change — a new, deepened harbor carved into the south end of the island, horses that used to roam free assigned a fenced-in parcel of land, fewer wild cats, a paved two-lane highway that stretches the entire length of the island. Portsmouth is Ocracoke's foil and cautionary tale; its people were standoffish, skittering indoors at the sight of tourists, and shutting the door behind them. They maintained the simplicity of an island with few visitors, but it eventually shriveled up into a ghost town. If Blackbeard and the stories around him are part of moving forward, so be it.

Before there was a full road or regular ferry service, Philip Howard and his family made regular trips from Pennsylvania, where his father had moved for work, back to Ocracoke. In the 1970s, the Howards of Howard Street moved back to Ocracoke and opened up a shop — at first in a teepee, then a building that eventually became Village Craftsmen, across a sandy lane from the graves of many of their ancestors. Philip knows that his ancestor is William Howard, who purchased Ocracoke in 1759. Was this the same William Howard who served as Blackbeard's quartermaster, quit while he was ahead, was re-arrested in Virginia, and escaped death with the last minute arrival of a renewed pardon? Philip readily admits that he does not know. There are ways it's a stretch: For one thing, there's no paper trail absolutely confirming that the two William Howards are the same person, and for another he would have been about 108 when he died. Given familial naming patterns and several other strong connections of island genealogy to Blackbeard's crew, it's still a decent chance — decent enough to have a tasteful section on the shop wall with an engraving of Blackbeard, an old family photo, and a family tree.

*Philip Howard seated outside Village Craftsmen.*

An aside: Philip’s take on the whole “secret ritual with Blackbeard’s skull story, courtesy of Judge Whedbee: "I know enough about Ocracoke and Ocracokers, that that never happened." While it’s not something Ocracokers are likely to partake in, Philip notes that it sounds like classic fraternity activity.

Despite being a skeptic who can talk logical fallacies at the drop of a hat, Philip leads ghost tours on some evenings (an office he shares with his daughter and Village Craftsmen manager, Amy, and one other). His skeptic's conscience is soothed by a quote from author Mary Roach: "The debunkers are probably correct, but they're no fun to visit a graveyard with." Philip noted that guests don't come for direct history, they come for ghost stories. As they walk the village, the Howards tell ghost stories woven with hearty helpings of island history. Even the lore Philip doesn't believe in turns out to have a kernel of credibility.

The Howards recall the ill fortune of the Godfreys, an always-bickering couple who managed the Island Inn after World War II. After Mrs. Godfrey died under mysterious circumstances on the mainland, she continued to appear to her husband in the inn, and for years she was said to wander the hallways and guest's quarters, jealously fiddling with jewelry and other possessions. Chester said he made the ghost up. He was friendly with two people who worked at the inn with the Godfreys who said that the husband's seemingly instantaneous recovery from his wife's death raised eyebrows — Chester added the piece about an envious spook, and the story took on a life of its own. Small town gossip and one false detail makes a tale that is told regularly, is written in books, and repeated when the tourists go home, gaining new flourishes with each telling. It's only a matter of years before the old-timers on the island will be swearing it must be true, because it's the story everyone grew up hearing.

Even if Philip Howard is not the great-great-great-great-great grandson of William Howard the quartermaster, he is still the great-great-great-great-great grandson of William Howard, Ocracoker. In a family tree he can find a life station keeper, a coast guardsman, a welder, and a prankster, a long line of resilient people with hardy roots in sandy soil. Through their stories, a part of the island stays alive. Contrary to every instinct of a straight-laced historian, we don't tell stories around a campfire because they're true, pure, or uphold particularly good morals — in fact, these are virtues that can absolutely ruin a yarn. And a story lacking absolute truth does not necessarily make a swindler out of the teller. Sometimes the use of a tale is not in its moral, but in how it helps us examine ourselves at a safe distance, brings the far-off near, and lends sense or significance to our surroundings — a parable of sorts, with recognizable names and locations. When it comes to folk tales, Philip Howard agrees with an old rogue who said, "It's a damn poor piece of cloth that can't take a little embroidery."

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NOTES

tether his boat: Davis, Maurice. "History of the Hammock House and Related Trivia." 1984, p. 12

In 1915, workmen digging: Ibid., p. 39

1971, when a gaggle: Ibid., p. 46

make a captain: Boston News-Letter #739, June 9-16, 1718. Quoted in Moore, David D. "Captain Edward Thatch: A Brief Analysis of the Primary Source Documents Concerning the Notorious Blackbeard." The North Carolina Historical Review, vol. XCV, Number 2, April 2018, p. 171

December 1718:

Teach and four of his men had escaped:

Early 1719 brought more comforting news:

accounts filtered into the London papers: Cooke, Arthur L. “British Newspaper Accounts of Blackbeard's Death.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 61, no. 3, 1953, pp. 304–307. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4245947. Accessed 8 June 2020

perched atop the treasure chest: Whedbee, Charles H. "Legends of the Outer Banks." John F. Blair, Winston-Salem, 1966. p. 56

burying the chest in sand: Ansell, Henry B. "Recollections of a Knotts Island Boyhood." North Carolina Folklore Journal, July 1959, p. 12

plated with silver, and once a year: Whedbee, Charles H. "Blackbeard's Cup and Stories of the Outer Banks" John F. Blair, Winston-Salem, 1989. p. 31-34.

Children in Bath grew up playing in the ruins of old houses: Mayhew, B.F. "Landmarks of the Old Town of Bath." UNC Magazine, February 1893, p. 151-156

by 1964, the state was bringing in 27 million visitors: Starnes, Richard D. "Tourism and North Carolina History." New Voyages to Carolina: Reinterpreting North Carolina History, edited by Larry E. Tise and Jeffrey J. Crow, University of North Carolina Press, 2017, p. 290

"It's easier to pick a Yankee dollar than a pound of cotton.": Ibid.

full-color booklets and a thirty-minute reel: Ibid., 296

traced the legend of Blackbeard's headless corpse: Duffus, Kevin. "The Last Days of Blackbeard the Pirate" 4th ed., Looking Glass Productions, Raleigh, 2014. p. 189

about 700:

Asides:

narration and dialogue for the ride: "The Happiest Place on Earth." The Imagineering Story, written by Mark Catelena, directed by Leslie Iwerks, Disney, 2019.

ISSUE № 7: POSTCARDS

POSTCARDS

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