
DATE: Friday, March 7, 1997                 TAG: 9703070665

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY                    LENGTH:   92 lines

FANTASY OVERWHELMS THE BLACKBEARD TALE ONE LEGEND: AN EXISTING BRICK HOME IN PASQUOTANK WAS THE PIRATE'S.

Blackbeard's ship isn't the only thing that has resurfaced this week.

Some locals have gone loco about the infamous pirate's presence in the Albemarle since the apparent discovery of Queen Anne's Revenge off Beaufort.

One story concerns ``The Old Brick House'' along Brickhouse Road in Pasquotank County.

Legend has it that in his three-year reign of terror, Blackbeard lived in the large 1 1/2-story dwelling with a number of women whom he bludgeoned and buried beneath the house after ``having his way with them.''

An underground tunnel served as an escape hatch to Blackbeard's ships moored on the Pasquotank River.

Fascinating stuff, but there is one problem - none of it is true, said Don Pendergraft, a curator and exhibit designer at Museum of the Albemarle.

``The house was built after Blackbeard was killed in 1718,'' Pendergraft said Thursday. ``It would be hard for Blackbeard to live in that house unless he came back in spirit.''

It seems even harder for the ``Old Brick House'' story to die.

``People like to romanticize (about) old houses, and that house, with its early history and the stone with E.T. engraved in it, probably gave people the opportunity to make it up,'' Pendergraft said.

The ``E.T.,'' some believe, stood for Edward Teach - probably the name of the notorious plunderer before he decided Blackbeard sounded more fearsome.

The suspicious block of granite sunken into the ground at the foot of steps reportedly bears the date 1709, according to ``In Ancient Albemarle,'' a book published in 1914 and included in a volume prepared by the Pasquotank Historical Society.

The house wasn't erected until the 1750s.

Despite the date dilemma, people have played up the possibility that the house was the pirate's private playhouse.

Fueling rumors in the early part of this century was the flamboyant newspaper editor W.O. Saunders, who tried to promote the area by having several women pose as Blackbeard's wives in front of the Brick House.

The picture from 1927 is now part of the Museum of the Albemarle's collection.

``Ancient Albemarle'' author Catherine Albertson wrote that the house had ``certain ineffaceable stains upon the floor in the room'' that ``give hints of dark deeds whose secrets were known only to the underground tunnel and the unrevealing water below.''

Family members of the house's current owner confirmed that such a stain exists.

When John and Eleanor Stuart first moved into the house in the 1940s, they asked about the dark 2-foot-wide splotch on the master bedroom floor. A carpenter told them it must be ``murder blood because murder blood never comes off,'' said Julia Stuart Peters, who now lives in Nags Head but grew up in the house where her father still lives.

And did the family buy that explanation?

``Sure!'' Peters said. ``We always thought it was Blackbeard, but you never know.''

Peters, whose brother is Albemarle School Headmaster JEB Stuart, related just how her family came to own the home, which originally belonged to a wealthy Colonial planter.

``When my mother was a little girl, she paid 50 cents to come in and see the house, and she came home that day and told my parents someday she was going to live there.''

Ten days after the former Eleanor Foreman married John Stuart, her parents bought the house for the couple as a wedding gift. Eleanor has since died.

``We have a lot of people come up and look at the house,'' said Peters, a school teacher. ``Sometimes they'll come into the driveway. Sometimes we'll let them walk in the yard. But we don't allow anyone in the house.''

``This Blackbeard thing has gotten so crazy that everybody's latched on to it,'' Pendergraft said.

Those interested in Blackbeard can check out a Web site at www.ocracokenc.com/blackbeard.

``If people are looking for more tales of Blackbeard, and they can log onto the Internet, that is where they can turn for all the tales they want,'' Pendergraft said. ILLUSTRATION: MUSEUM OF THE ALBEMARLE PHOTO

Newspaper editor W.O. Saunders had women pose as Blackbeard's wives

in front of the ``The Old Brick House'' in 1927.

RUMORS CONTINUE

Fascinating stuff, but there is one problem - none of it is true,

said Don Pendergraft, a curator and exhibit designer at Museum of

the Albemarle.

``The house was built after Blackbeard was killed in 1718,''

Pendergraft said. ``It would be hard for Blackbeard to live in that

house unless he came back in spirit.''

It seems even harder for the ``Old Brick House'' story to die.

``People like to romanticize (about) old houses, and that house,

with its early history and the stone with E.T. engraved in it,