Natural history is defined as the study of natural objects and organisms and their origins, evolution, interrelationships, and description. Maritime means of, relating to, or near the sea. For example, exhibits with fish mounts, aquaria, shell collections, and dioramas interpret coastal natural history. Exhibits of boats and their development, commercial and sport fishing history, and lifesaving interpret coastal livelihoods.

Use this as a guide to the exhibits. If you wish to get more details about the museum, an exhibit, or an object, email the museum at maritime@ncmail.net. A staff person will respond as soon as possible.

Museum exhibits and artifacts are special to all North Carolinians and are usually protected with glass and barriers. However, some exhibit items can be touched. This is noted on the exhibit or in the text of the guide. Visitors can handle natural specimens and nautical artifacts interpreted by volunteers located at the Discovery Carts.

MUSEUM AUDITORIUM

Here temporary exhibits feature maritime arts, crafts, photographs or other coastal themes.

The entire collection contains over 5,000 shells from 100 countries. Only a portion of the collection is on display in the auditorium and/or the exhibit area. A great variety of species, as well as a variety of color variations within a species exist within the different families of mollusks. These shells were collected from many parts of the world.

MUSEUM LOBBY

LARGE CLAM SHELL--Shells in the large clamshell by the stairs are free to visitors.

COPPER NAVIGATION LIGHT

The light was attached to a buoy or tower as an aid to navigation in the early 1900s and powered by acetylene fuel. You may touch it.

FISH ON THE WALL

The fish models are fiberglass casts made from molds of real fish caught in the coastal waters of North Carolina.

The model of the front half of a Great White Shark Carcharodon carcharias is molded from the actual shark that was caught by commercial fishermen in the Gulf Stream, 40 miles off Cape Lookout. Its total length was 15 1/2 feet. The shark meat from the rear half of the shark was sold to recover costs of damaged gear.

BLACKBEARD AND QUEEN ANNE'S REVENGE

This exhibit highlights artifacts recovered from the shipwreck believed to be the former flagship of Blackbeard the pirate, the Queen Anne's Revenge. A shipwreck salvage company, called Intersal, Inc., discovered the shipwreck in 1996 and gave the rights of excavation to the State of North Carolina. Artifacts are recovered from 25 feet of water by state underwater archaeologists with the aid of the museum, non-profit private companies, and educational institutions. After the artifacts are conserved by archaeologists, the NC Maritime Museum will house the conserved artifacts and prepare them for exhibit. A visit to Blackbeard and the QAR Project will provide more information.

EQUIPMENT USED ABOARD SHIP

A ship's telegraph was used for shipboard communication. One telegraph, on the bridge of a ship, was connected by a cable to another telegraph in the ship's engine room. The captain on the bridge gave a command for ship speed by moving the handle to ring bells that alerted the engine room below. The captain then moved the lever to the labeled command and the cable moved an arrow to the same command in the engine room. The engineer indicated the order was received by moving the engine room lever to the labeled command on the telegraph. This caused the arrow on the bridge telegraph to point to the captain's order and a bell to ring. The engineer then set the speed of the ship.

This ship's telegraph came from a WWI German destroyer that the U.S. Navy had captured in the Pacific and converted into a submarine support vessel. When stationed in the Atlantic, the vessel was rammed and sunk off Morehead City by a fruit transport. Navy divers retrieved the telegraph, and a local merchant purchased it and donated it to the museum.

The ship's wheel was found in Atlantic, NC, and may have come from a trading vessel about 60 feet long which sailed in North Carolina's sounds and rivers in the late 1800s and early 1900s. You may turn the wheel gently.

LOGGERHEAD SEA TURTLE

The cast of the loggerhead sea turtle was made from the carcass of a female turtle that washed up on a North Carolina beach. Only females return to the land. Each spring and summer female loggerheads, at least 15 years old, mate offshore, then they climb up on the beaches of barrier islands to lay their eggs in pits they create at the base of the dunes. After laying 80-150 eggs, the female returns to the sea. About two months later, the eggs hatch and three-inch-long baby turtles crawl to the water.

SWEEP OARS

The oars hanging under the staircase landing were used on a surfboat or double-ender, or a mullet fishing boat.

EXHIBIT HALL

FOSSILS AND GEOLOGY

Fossils are the remains, impressions, or traces of animals and plants that lived during past geologic times. Most of these fossils were collected at marl (limestone) and phosphate mines in eastern North Carolina. Ancient deposits in these mines contain the fossilized remains of marine life and prehistoric land animals deposited when seas rose and fell over the coastal plain millions of years ago. The fossilized walrus jaw found by fishermen trawling off Core Banks (part of Cape Lookout National Seashore) is evidence of the animals that lived along the coast during the last 100,000 years.

NORTH CAROLINA'S WORKING WATERCRAFT

The first of North Carolina's historic watercraft were dugout canoes built by the Indians. Settlers made dugouts but used boatbuilding tools. Woods used for boat building included cypress, white cedar, white oak, and heart pine. Examples are shown here and can be touched.

Dugout canoe: This canoe is a replica of a canoe made from a cypress log on Crusoe Island near Lake Waccamaw, NC.

From sloops to steamships to sharpies: The models represent the sloops of the 1700s, steamships of the mid-1800s, and the sharpies of the late 1800s and early 1900s used in North Carolina's rivers, sounds, and coastal waters for trade and transportation.

Flat-bottom skiff: This boat was rowed or poled in the shallow rivers and sounds of coastal North Carolina in the late 1800s and early 1900s. A skiff is still a popular means of transportation for fishing or short distance travel in the creeks and estuaries. You may touch this full-sized boat.

Spritsail skiff: This full-sized sailing skiff, built in 1910, was restored by the museum in the 1970s. Without paint, it is easier to see the traditional juniper (Atlantic white cedar) planking, oak frames, and other construction details. This boat type is pictured in the museum logo. You can feel the old wood gunwales, stern, and rudder.

Three basic types of North Carolina traditional small boats are flat-bottom, V-bottom, and round-bottom. Models of these hull shapes are mounted here where you can feel the differences.

• The flat bottom is more useful in the shallowest waters.
• The V-bottom or "deadrise" is better than the flat bottom in deeper water where there is more exposure to heavy weather and seas.
• Round bottom hulls are the ultimate in seaworthiness and comfort, but become very expensive to build because they require more time, skill, and specialized materials than the other types.

The spritsail rig for sailing is typical for all three types. The basic rig consists of a mainsail, which is supported by the sprit (pronounced "spreet"), and a foresail or jib. There is no boom to get in the way of a working fisherman and the whole sailing rig stores easily against the mast. A unique feature of the sprit rig in North Carolina is its ability to carry a topsail, independent of the main rig, which can be used when working in light winds, near a tree-lined shore, or while racing.

The shad boat model represents North Carolina's State Boat. Developed in North Carolina, the boat was a sturdy craft designed for practicality and dependability in the state's northern sounds.

COMMERCIAL FISHING - AMERICA'S FIRST INDUSTRY

Whales and Whaling

Shackleford Banks, just 2 miles southeast of this museum, was the center of whaling activities in North Carolina. Whales migrating along the coast were just one of the many types of animals preyed upon by coastal fishermen. The people on the Outer Banks harpooned whales from small boats that they also used for mullet fishing, or they waited for whales to beach themselves. The whale fishery was sporadic, and while it continued into the 20th century, it was seasonal and only one of the many activities that helped the "Bankers" make a living. The small whaleboat model with lines, harpoons, and oars to scale is a design similar to the small rowing vessels used for whaling on Shackleford Banks.

Some New England whalers who came in large whaling ships settled on the North Carolina's barrier islands in the 1700s. The Wanderer model is typical of the New England whaling vessels that visited North Carolina during the whaling season in the 1800s. Whale blubber was rendered (tried or melted) into oil, stored in barrels and sold. Baleen (also called whale bone) was cut from the whale's mouth and sold for use as corset stays and umbrella ribs. Knives, lances, and flensing irons are examples of tools used to prepare whale parts for processing.

The whale rib bones, vertebra, shoulder blade, jaw bone part, and ear bone found on North Carolina beaches are evidence that large whales frequent North Carolina's ocean waters and occasionally are stranded and die there. There are two main types of whales: toothed and baleen. The toothed whales use teeth to catch, bite, or tear the flesh of animals they eat. The baleen whales have a row of plates that hang along the edge of the upper jaw. Mouthfuls of water are strained through the baleen plates to catch schooling fish and shrimp or shrimp-like creatures called krill that drift in large populations in the cold ocean waters.

International law provides for the protection of marine mammals. In the U.S., the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service oversees the law.

Oystering

The oyster schooner model represents a typical oyster dredge boat shown in the photographs taken in the late 1800s. The boat hauled the dredge--a large collecting cage pictured on the ship's deck--along the river or sound bottom. When the dredge was full of oysters, it was drawn up on deck and dumped into the hold or on the deck. Boats took their catch to canneries on the waterfronts of many coastal towns.

Menhaden Fishing

The menhaden fishery is one of the nation's most economically important fishing industries. Millions of fish, caught in large schools, are brought to the factory and cooked to separate the fish oil from the meat. The oil is used for paints and European margarines. The dehydrated fish, or "meal," is used for fertilizer, chicken feed, cat food, and aquaculture fish food. The large model of a fishing vessel was built from 1947-1949 at Harvey W. Smith's shipyard in Beaufort when weather or other conditions stopped work on the full-sized fishing vessels. The model is built to an approximate scale of one inch to the foot and is 125 inches long. Most menhaden fishing boats today have steel hulls and are converted WWII minesweepers or submarine chasers.

What's the Catch?

Touch the computer screen to learn more about commercial and sport fisheries and the "strange" seafoods we can eat in North Carolina.

WATERFOWL HUNTING AND DECOYS

Waterfowl decoys, made of wood, cloth, or other materials, are used by hunters to attract live ducks, geese, and swans. All the hand-carved wood decoys in the James Lewis collection are at least 50 years old, except as noted in individual descriptions. Hunt clubs were located throughout the sound region and on the Outer Banks. Caretakers of the hunt clubs and their clientele and waterfowl hunting guides were important livelihoods of coastal people in the first half of the 20th century.

Observation Bell

The observation bell was used in the late 1900s to investigate wrecks and underwater structures like offshore oil derricks and was lowered and raised with cables from the deck of a ship. Windows all around the bell enable those inside to conduct their survey. On special occasions, with the aid of a stationed volunteer, visitors are allowed to enter the bell where scenes of NC's underwater wrecks may be viewed through the portholes.

VENOMOUS SNAKES OF NORTH CAROLINA

Over 30 species of snakes inhabit the coastal plain of North Carolina. All six species of poisonous snakes in North Carolina are displayed here in the dioramas. The Copperhead, Cottonmouth, Timber Rattlesnake, Pigmy Rattlesnake, and Coral Snake are real snakes that have been preserved by a freeze-drying method. The Diamondback Rattlesnake is a cast from a mold of the real snake, and the articulated skeleton is that of a Diamondback Rattlesnake. The very large mount of the Diamondback Rattlesnake sitting in the museum rafters is a stuffed skin from a snake killed about five miles north of Beaufort more than thirty years ago.

Reptiles are highly beneficial to man, as they feed on insects, mice, and other rodents that can be harmful to crops. It is important to appreciate their value in nature's balance and that you should not kill snakes indiscriminately. Coral Snakes and all three rattlesnakes have been added to the endangered species list.

Learn to recognize the poisonous from the non-poisonous snakes. Study these displays. Although Coral Snakes are very poisonous (they are related to the cobras), they are also rare and secretive. To help remember the Coral Snake coloration: red touch black, friend of Jack, red touch yellow, kill a fellow! (Some non-poisonous snakes are colored like poisonous ones. This mimicry may deter predators from attacking.)

LIBRARY

This is a research--not lending--library offering over 1,500 volumes plus magazines on natural history and maritime history. The Crystal Coast Quilters Guild made the quilt displayed over the mantle.

The portrait is of North Carolina's famous privateer, Otway Burns. A privateer refers both to a captain or a privately owned vessel licensed (given a Letter of Marque) by the government to raid enemy ships. Captain Otway Burns sailed his ship, Snap Dragon, against the British in the War of 1812. Otway Burns' desk and a model of the Snap Dragon are also here. Burns is buried in the Old Burying Grounds behind the Ann Street Methodist Church here in Beaufort. A ship's cannon is mounted on top of the grave.

COASTAL MARINE LIFE

• Saltwater Aquarium Gallery: The museum has had great success with small aquariums that give the visitor an eye-to-eye, or eye-to-tentacle, experience with a variety of fishes and invertebrates, and this will be continued in the new exhibit. Adjacent exhibit space is also being redesigned and will feature environmental and conservation issues.
• BEACH SWEEP - It's your beach, is this your trash? The photographs and illustrations are examples of the effects of plastics thrown into the ocean. Trash piled here was collected in 45 minutes on a barrier island beach.
• Adaptations: The backlit photographs illustrate several examples where adaptive coloration can act to camouflage predator or prey, advertise a beneficial service, or warn of toxicity.
• Fouling Community: The diorama shows the plants and animals found attached to or associated with animals and plants that attach to hard surfaces. The copy describes detrimental and beneficial effects of these organisms on man and nature. These plants and animals have been assaulted by a variety of methods in the attempt to prevent them from settling and growing on the bottom of ships, on docks and pilings, and on water-intake pipes and engines. However, when these same organisms settle and grow on wrecks and artificial reef material, they provide food and shelter for animals sought by fishermen, and are appreciated for their beauty by SCUBA enthusiasts.
• Mollusca: Samples of the various types of egg cases of marine gastropods are shown here. Note the moon snail's egg case is like a collar.
• North Carolina Mollusks: Collected in North Carolina over about 25 years, the Emmett and Lucy Piper shell exhibit contains most of the beautiful marine mollusks of North Carolina. Examples of how mollusk predators influence the evolution of shell shape and function are described and shown here.

... AND THROW AWAY THE OARS

Marine engines

Steam-powered boats were first used in North Carolina in 1818. Outboard engines were developed in the early 1900s. A single cylinder "make-and-break" engine was a type used on boats after the turn of the century. Gasoline engines began to replace steam and sail power by the 1920s. The large silver four cylinder two-cycle engine was one-of-a-kind, built for a racing boat in New Bern in 1931. The outboard engine repair shop depicts a 1950s business.

THE SILVER CLIPPER

Known as a runabout this recreational boat was built by the Barbour Boat Works in New Bern, NC in 1958. The boat works has been noted for a wide range of marine construction, from little racing runabouts to large naval and commercial ships. They built Navy minesweepers during WWII and until the 1990s still did major repairs on government and private vessels. Runabouts like this were powered with outboard motors, usually in the 35 to 45 horsepower range. Today, boats with engines of that size would be considered underpowered. Most of the wood used in this boat is mahogany. The construction is a combination of lapstrake sides and plywood bottom.

The Simmons Sea Skiff is a model of the 18' - 20' skiffs designed and built in Wilmington, NC, beginning in the 1940s. The skiff was popular for sport fishing and recreational use and has been modified over the years for offshore use.

THE SEA SHALL NOT HAVE THEM

This exhibit illustrates a part of the history of the United States Lighthouse Service, Life-Saving Service, Revenue Cutter Service, Steamboat Inspection Service, and Coast Guard in North Carolina. Each panel contains a general summary of each service's duties and responsibilities as well as a map of their former and remaining structures in North Carolina. Artifacts and photographs represent each service and the lives of the people that served.

Fresnel (fra-nel') Lighthouse Lens

Augustin Jean Fresnel (1788-1827), a French physicist and engineer, designed the lens so that the refracted light from each section of angled glass bent a light beam to align with all others to produce one powerful beam. This lens, a size similar to those used in inshore waters of sounds and bays, could be seen from about 15 miles away. Larger lights can be seen at least 18 miles out to sea. The Cape Lookout Lighthouse, located 10 miles east southeast of the museum, had a Fresnel lens that was nearly three times this size. It was replaced in the early 1970s by a more powerful electric light. The new light is visible for 25 miles. In some lighthouses, the light or the lens rotates, and the light appears to flash at a time interval that identifies the lighthouse.

Soldiers of Surf and Storm

The Life-Saving Service diorama, specific tools, equipment, and artifacts help explain methods of operation and rescue procedures practiced along the Outer Banks in the 1800s and 1900s. These services, their economic value, and their cultural and historical impacts on the maritime and coastal communities of eastern North Carolina were tremendous. Many coastal people today are the descendants of the lifesavers and lighthouse keepers of the Outer Banks.

"... AND A STAR TO STEER HER BY"

This exhibit features the evolution of navigational instruments used to determine a ship's location and to chart a course for the ship's destination. Sextants measure the angle between the sun, moon, or bright star and the sea's horizon or other stars to determine the ship's longitude and latitude.

BOAT SHED (outside - near the museum parking lot)

This boat shed houses part of the museum's collection of traditional working watercraft. The boats can be viewed easily and still be protected from the damaging effects of the weather. Some of the boats are in good repair and are painted in the traditional "workboat white." Those unpainted boats reflect their use to the museum as artifacts for which painting and repair would mask valuable information. These boats can be touched.

HARVEY W. SMITH WATERCRAFT CENTER (on the waterfront across from the museum)

Here visitors may observe on-going projects as museum volunteers conserve, preserve, construct, and restore wooden boats. Past projects include construction of the ship's boat Silver Chalice for the state's historic replica vessel Elizabeth II and a 30-foot recreation of a 1730 periauger for the Newbold-White House historic site, and restoration of the George Washington Creef shadboat Foul Play for Roanoke Island Festival Park and a 26-foot Type SL surf boat for the US Coast Guard Museum.

The John S. MacCormack Model Shop is staffed by volunteers who demonstrate the art of ship model making. Lt. Commander John MacCormack was the first museum volunteer to build models for public viewing. He donated most of his model building supplies and equipment to the museum for a permanent model shop.

The Watercraft Center also offers a very extensive range of boatbuilding classes throughout the year. These include boatbuilding carpentry, lofting, lift half-model carving, oar and spar construction, and plane making. There also are classes in diesel engine maintenance and 12-volt electrical system trouble-shooting, sail making, and marlinespike seamanship. During regular one-week classes students construct individual skiffs, while our Boat-in-a-Day program is an opportunity for parents and children to join together in building a small flat-bottomed rowboat.