Edward Teach, commonly known as the ruthless pirate Blackbeard, was killed on November 22, 1718 after he and his fellow brigands were ambushed by British ships at Ocracoke Inlet, North Carolina. They made sure he was good and dead; Teach received at least 25 sword wounds and five gunshots at the hands of his killer, Lt. Robert Maynard, who had been secretly commissioned by Virginia’s governor, Alexander Spotswood, to locate and kill the notorious villain. The famous pirate’s head was cut off and displayed in the bowsprit of Maynard’s man-of-war. Upon return, it was delivered to Gov. Spotswood as proof.
During the preceding two years, Teach terrorized vessels along the coasts of the Carolinas and Virginia, conducting murderous raids on poorly defended merchant ships. Teach cultivated a Mephistophelean appear- ance with a thick black beard and a long waxed mustache. To make his devil-like appurtenance complete, Teach shoved canon fuses into his beard and beneath his hat and lighted them before going into battle. His face ablaze, Blackbeard frightened many sailors into immediate surrender. Teach was estimated to have captured some 40 ships containing tons of merchandise, rum, and treasure.
To Spotswood’s disgust, Teach was given safe harbor in the colony of North Carolina by Gov. Charles Eden. Some believe that Eden chose to ignore the pirate’s larcenous activities because they generated income for merchants in the state who resold his stolen goods for handsome profits. More likely, Eden himself directly profited from the relationship. What- ever his reason for settling in North Carolina, it is known for certain that Teach had residences at one time or another in Edenton, Elizabeth City, Ocracoke, and Bath.
Not long before his brutal death, Teach is believed to have ditched
some of his loot in North Carolina. Evidently, Blackbeard refused to even tell his wife the location, reputedly saying only, “Nobody knows but miself and the Devil, and may the longest liver take all!”
One legend has it that Blackbeard buried a huge wooden treasure chest at the foot of a tree on Ocracoke Island in 1717. Teach was said to have marked the tree’s trunk with his sword so he could find the treasure later, dubbing it “The Money Tree.” Some people believe that the tree was found during the 20th century. The tree was supposedly spotted by a couple of treasure hunters who then sought the assistance of a local fisherman to help dig it up. The three men determined the area around the tree was too dense with roots and the tree would have to be pulled up with heavy equip- ment. According to the story, when the two treasure hunters returned later to unearth their treasure, they found the enormous tree yanked out of the ground and no treasure in sight. Meanwhile, the fisherman who had “helped” them had vanished. Something about this tale seems just too poetic to be true. So if you visit Ocracoke, keep a sharp eye out for massive 300-year-old oaks and cypress trees with peculiar markings on them.
Perhaps the most intriguing possible cache is in the Pamlico River near Blackbeard’s former home in Bath. According to published stories, during the 1930s, two fishermen became entangled in an underwater ob- struction that turned out to be the wooden roof of a crudely made brick vault. (It has been reported that Teach kept such a vault lashed to the deck of his pirate ship, Queen Anne’s Revenge. Speculation is that Teach tossed the vault overboard to keep his pursuers from finding it.) Inside the vault, which lay in shallow water, were three iron kettles. Each kettle was said to contain 200 gold coins dating to the early 1700s.
According to the 1956 guide Shipwrecks, Skin Divers, and Sunken Gold by treasure hunter Dave Horner, the fishermen emptied the pots and bur- ied the coins at a “small landing place where there was a sandy beach surrounded with bleached cypress knees.” The burial spot was indicated to be “twenty or thirty yards from the bank of the river.” The two men evi- dently agreed to come back and get it sometime later. Legend has it that after one of the fishermen died or went to prison, the other sought to reclaim the booty. Unfortunately for the hapless fellow, floodwaters had uprooted trees and destroyed landmarks, making it impossible to locate the burial spot.
Provided the story is true, the treasure is probably still there. If you want to take a crack at finding it, get yourself a metal detector and search the area near Bath where the Pamlico Inlet meets the Pamlico River chan- nel. Your search should extend well inland, as the river may have changed
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course significantly over the past 70 years. The cypress trees may or may not have been washed away. If you go in the summer, be sure to take along super-strength insect repellent; the mosquitoes are so large they have their own airstrips.
If you don’t have any luck with a metal detector, the supernatural may be of assistance. According to W. C. Jameson’s book, Buried Treasures of
the South, the headless ghost of Blackbeard has been spotted carrying a
lantern on the beaches of Ocracoke Island. It is said that the spot where he sets down the lantern illuminates the location of buried treasure.