uring the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, some colorful characters inhabited the island including Blackbeard the Pirate, aka Edward Teach, who anchored in Teach’s Hole, a calm lair from where his crew could spy and then ransack merchant ships sailing just offshore. Blackbeard met his fate in the same water during a gruesome battle with a British naval ship in 1718.  

As the mainland population grew in the eighteenth century, the wide inlet between Ocracoke and neighboring Portsmouth Island became the primary commerce route for North Carolina. Harbor pilots were employed to guide ships through the rough inlet and across the shallow Pamlico Sound. During the Revolutionary War, these hardy souls played the strategic role of helping supply ships safely reach George Washington’s troops.

<< PREVIOUS | HISTORY | NEXT >>