RALEIGH – The official dedication of the N.C. State Historical Highway Marker for Stede Bonnet, “Gentleman Pirate” will be at noon on Friday, Sept. 26, on N.C. Highway 211 in Southport, under the direction of the N.C. Maritime Museum in Southport. N.C. Representative Bonner Stiller, Southport Mayor Sandra Spencer and others will mark the occasion on the anniversary date of Bonnet’s imminent downfall on Sept. 26, 1718. A costumed interpreter of Bonnet also will appear.
Bonnet was singular among pirates because he abandoned the life of a gentleman planter in Barbados to embrace the life of a buccaneer. Ansley Wegner, research historian with N.C. Office of Archives and History, will speak to Bonnet’s unusual path to pirating, including his purchase of a vessel and employment of a crew. Among Bonnet’s associates was none other than Blackbeard, who captured the ship he later named Queen Anne’s Revenge while commanding Bonnet’s vessel Revenge.
In August 1718 Bonnet established a safe base to repair his ship near modern-day Southport. South Carolina Governor Robert Johnson sent Col. William Rhett to the Cape Fear region in search of pirates. Rhett spotted Bonnet’s vessels at dusk on Sept. 26 and the largest and bloodiest of pirate conflicts in the colony’s waters commenced at dawn the next day. All but three of his crew was hanged, but Bonnet escaped only to be recaptured and hanged on Dec. 10, 1718. The “Golden Age of Piracy” had come to an end.
N.C. Maritime Museums Director Joseph Schwarzer also will give an overview of piracy in North Carolina. The program also is part of the 2008 N.C. Department of Cultural Resources theme “Telling Our Stories.”
For additional information call the N.C. Maritime Museum in Southport at (910) 457-0003. The N.C. Maritime Museums in the Division of State History Museums are part of the N. C. Department of Cultural Resources, a state agency dedicated to the promotion and protection of North Carolina’s arts, history and culture. Now podcasting 24/7 with information about the Department of Cultural Resources, all available at www.ncculture.com.