The Original Blackbeard Website
- On October 3, 1996 the website "Blackbeard - King of Pirates" was created as a heritage
resource for the community members of CoastalGuide.
The content consisted of approximately 12 web pages
of various stories and legends about Blackbeard. The site was established as part of the Ocracoke, NC
tourism website because of the historical and geographic references to Blackbeard on Ocracoke and
the Pamlico Sound, and the fact that he had met his defeat in a battle there.
The website was created because the communities kept referencing Blackbeard in their various
historical accounts in their own CoastalGuide websites. "We searched the internet extensively hoping to find
a site to link. When we kept coming up empty, we decided to create one using the information we had
gathered."
- On November 21, 1996, divers from the private research firm Intersal, Inc., reported several cannons
and a large anchor located along the western shoals of Beaufort Inlet. It was confirmed a large encrusted
cluster made up of numerous cannons, possibly as many as ten to fifteen. A sample of artifacts
collected at the site included lead sheets (identified as cannon touch hole aprons), a brass bell (inscribed
"IHS MARIA ANO DE 1709"), a blunderbuss barrel (English), a large sounding weight (21 pounds), several
curved iron bands (barrel hoops), and two cannon balls (4 pounder and 24 pounder).
- Various historians and archaeologists, along with the Intersal researchers, discussed details of this discovery at
an 11 a.m. press conference, Monday, March 3, 1997 at the Archives and History/State Library Building auditorium in
Raleigh. North Carolina Gov. Jim Hunt made the discovery announcement at the conference.
- From March 4th through March 6th, 1997 CoastalGuide
was beseiged with queries about Blackbeard via the internet. Finally, on March 6th, the
Museum of the Albemarle contacted the NC Dept of Archives & History (AH.DCR) on behalf of the CoastalGuide to request
help in handling the email. AH.DCR sent word of their newly created webpage, which had received less than 200
hits. A "joint web venture" was hastily approved, and the AH.DCR site was made an integral part of
the CoastalGuide original site.
Content from various other individuals and organizations was contributed to the CoastalGuide site in the 2nd
and 3rd quarters of 1997. During this period Ben Cherry joined the CoastalGuide Blackbeard team.
- The Hyde Co., NC Board of Commissioners
officially recognize --by county resolution-- this web site as "
The Original Blackbeard Website" on August 4, 1997.
- Hyde Co. Press Release
Blackbeard, "King of Pirates" is now widely linked as the source for Blackbeard on the web. At peak
periods he has hosted well over 1,000 individual visitors (6,000 hits) per day.
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