elanya

I went to the library just when I said I would! More or less. Anyway, I am done with the Calendar of State papers. It just wasn't producing enough stuff to be wirth the time, so I selected a couple of key years and looked just at them. It isn't what I wanted to do, and I *will* have to go through all of it for my thesis later, but I just don't have time now. While I was there, I ran into Don, who is one of the other people in my class. He was in Carl's class last term too. He is a teacher, possibly a sub teacher, I'm not clear, from North Carolina, and is probabaly about my dad's age. He is very nice and kind of old school gentlemanly, with the insisting on ladies going through doors first and such. Anyway, he was finishing up he research at the same tme as me, so we went to dinner at a Chinese place, and chatted about school and history and so on. It was fun :) Then we both came back to the library for more -_-

I went through a bunch of really random stuff after than... I started by looking at the bath County Deed Book, since I shoudl have looked at it for class (ahh well). It has some medium crazy things to say about Black Beard. Yes, I *am* spelling it like that for a reason! But first, I will put up a disclaimer that the following stuff is not My idea! It all comes from Beaufort County, North Carolina Deed Book I, 1696-1729 by Allen Hart Norris. the facts really are facts. It is just the way Norris strings them together that smacks of conspiracy theory.

Fact: In 1711, the plantation land across from the town of Bath was owned by three men: Tobias Knight (Colonial Secretary), Charles Eden (Governor), and Captain James Beard (sea captain). James Beard died in 1711, and left the property to his son (name unknown), and wife.

Fact: His daughter, Susannah, married a guy named Frank M. (I can't remember the last name -_-)

Fact: In 1718, a pirate, Alias Blackbeard (or Black Beard, in some texts), Alias Edward Teach, Thach, Thache, Thack (and Hatch! ;), etc blockaded the harbour at Charles Town and demanded a chest of medecines. He was offered, but decline, the king's pardon by the Governor there.

Fact: Blackbeard came to Bath to accept the same royal pardon, offered by Eden.

Fact: In 1718, Teach (as he is commonly called) was killed by Ltn. Maynard after he and his crew pirated a French vessel.

Fact: By 1721, it is Mr. M who owned the old Beard property.

Fact: James Bonner, a later (early 19th C) town leader of Bath, recorded that ruins on the property that once belonged to Eden included a secret tunnel that lead down to the creek.
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Legend: Blackbeard had a sister named Suzie Whitfield who lived in the area.

Legend: Blackbeard set up shop adjacent to Eden's property, in what would have been the Beard property

Legend: Blackbeard was in league with Eden, and used the secret tunnel to smuggle stolen goods to the Governor's house.
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Conspiracy! "Black Beard" was actually Edward Beard, the son of Captain James Beard, who chose his alias last name pretty much at random. He left Bath after his father died, and fell in with pirates. He would have been about 16. He was educated by his father, and knew something of the ways of the sea, plus had access to his dead dad's charts (and contacts) of/in the area. His Blackbeard alias is the heigh of his irony, because though he did actually have a black bead, his last name really *was* Beard, like a man with a red beard bmight be called Red Diuglas, or something. How clever, ha ha! He came *home* to acept the governor's pardon. This is why he didn't accept at Charleston. likewise, the medecine chest may have been for Bath, as Norris speculates that it would have been hard to get medecine there. His mythical sister Suzie is actually Suzannah M, whose daguter married into the Whitefield family, and over time the generations have gotten confused. The fact that they were neighbours and knew each other before is part of the reason that Eden (and Knight!) was so complicit with the smuggling and piracy. After Blackbeard died, the property was inherited by his sister, Suzie, and her husband.

Like all conspiracies, this has just enough of a whiff of plausibility for people to jump right on it. There are a bunch of flaws that *I* can point out with it, because I have extra knowledge, and have actually read the original 'conspiracy' text (i have done my best to put the gist of it down here, but the original is fairly long, and includes deed and charts and maps and such o_o), but I am curious to see what kind of holes other people poke in it. So, get poking! :D

I will toss out my own Blackbeard conspiracy, though. After he was killed, and Knight was called to trial for being an accomplice to piracy, a couple of prominent North Carolinians held the town records hostage for 24 hours. They were night pissdd and didn't seem to find what they were looking for. I think that someone had destroyed all mentions of blackbeard in the records. My reasoning for this is that *nothing* is said about him at all in the official records until Knight's trial, something that came about only because of outside pressure form the governor of Virginia. And of course, nothing came of it. The man who was in charge of holding the records hostage was fined and kept out of public office for a year for slandering Eden, basically saying that he was in league with the pirates, and for accusing him of denying access to public records.


Okay, now I am dead tired, and I am going to bed! Maybe I will go back and link to some of my old posts about Knight from last term first though...