North Carolina Maritime Museum – Beaufort, North Carolina
This museum showcasing the history of the maritime life in North Carolina has a wide array of different things for you to see and learn while visiting. There are full-sized watercrafts and models from sailing skiffs to commercial fishing boats are displayed along with decoys, hand tools, fossil and shell collections, salt water aquaria, and life-like dioramas that reflect the richness of the coast’s resources and history.
The museum also has the Watercraft Visitors Center where visitors can watch volunteers construct and restore wooden boats. There are students involved in this activity to learn boat building skills for later in life. The museum works on the perseverance of the history of boats and boat building through their research center.
Some of the annual programs and events hosted by the museum include the Summer Science School for Children, Junior Sailing program, Wooden Boat Show, and Family Day. There are over 300 public programs at the museum each year which include field trips to coastal habitats, lectures and workshops
The Museum actually began its life in the early 1900s when a small collection of a few fish mounts, jars of preserved crustaceans, fishing tackle, and bird skins were put together to represent North Carolina at the 1898 International Fisheries Exposition in Norway. From that humble beginning grew the present Museum.
In the museum auditorium there are temporary exhibits featuring maritime arts, crafts, photographs or other coastal themes. The ever changing displays offer a different look at what it took to live and work on the coastal areas of the state. Here there is also the Watson Shell Collection of over 5,000 shells from 100 countries. There is only a portion of the collection on display in the auditorium and/or the exhibit area.
The lobby of the museum displays large clam shell which holds other shells which are fee for the visitors to take as a souvenir. There is also the Copper Navigation Light that was attached to a buoy or tower as an aid to navigation in the early 1900s and powered by acetylene fuel. This is a display you may actually touch.
The Blackbeard and Queen Anne’s Revenge display highlights artifacts recovered from the shipwreck believed to be the former flagship of Blackbeard the pirate, the Queen Anne’s Revenge. The shipwreck was discovered in 1996. There is little known about the pirate Blackbeard but it is thought that he operated out of Jamaica as a privateer during Queen Anne’s War from 1702-1713. It is believed that Blackbeard’s real name was Thatch and that he captured over 50 vessels during his exploits.
Blackbeard was eventually tracked down in North Carolina by the Royal Navy and killed in a brief but bloody battle on November 22, 1718.
There is a ship’s telegraph that you are welcome to turn very carefully on display. It came from a WWI German destroyer that the US Navy captured and converted into a submarine support vessel. When it was stationed in the Atlantic it was rammed and sun off Morehead City by a fruit transport. The telegraph was retrieved by the Navy and a local merchant purchased it and donated it to the museum.
There are a number of other things on display in the lobby area so plan to spend a little time here.
Then take a tour of the exhibit hall where you will see fossils of all sorts from the waterways. There are examples of the first watercraft such as dugout canoes built by the Indians on display.
Three are models of sloops of the 1700′s, steamships of the mid-1800′s and early 1900′sand traditional small boats such as flat-bottom, V-bottom and round bottom boats here for you to see too.
There are displays about the world of whaling, oystering and Menhaden fishing for you to experience.
This is just a sample of the many, many things available for you to learn about while at the museum. Plan on spending quite some time here, there is so much to see and learn.
When you have completed your tour of the main museum you will want to go to the Southport branch to see a collection of memorabilia pertaining to the vast nautical history of the "Lower Cape Fear" area. Here you will be able to easily follow the self-guided tour throughout the twelve designated stations and on-site research library.
The Graveyard of the Atlantic, with one of the highest densities of shipwrecks in the world, holds some of America’s most important maritime history. More than just a collection of artifacts, the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum is a premier cultural attraction for the Atlantic Seaboard and one of the finest, most innovative maritime facilities in the nation.
The Graveyard hours are Monday – Friday 10 – 4.
Admission is free
Location: Hatteras, NC 27943-0191
Phone: 252-986-2995
email: museum@graveyardoftheatlantic.com
The main museum:
ADMISSION
FREE
MUSEUM HOURS
TUESDAY – SATURDAY
9:00 A.M. – 5:00 P.M.
North Carolina Maritime Museum at Southport
116 North Howe Street
Southport, NC 28461
Phone: (910) 457-0003
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