DATE: Sunday, September 28, 1997            TAG: 9709270137

SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS     PAGE: 18   EDITION: FINAL 

COLUMN: OLDE TOWNE JOURNAL 

SOURCE: Alan Flanders 

                                            LENGTH:   97 lines

EXHIBIT AT MARINERS' MUSEUM CAPTURES LOTS OF LOCAL PIRATE LORE

AHHRRR MATEY! There's a Jolly Roger flying over the Mariners' Museum in Newport News.

Avast me hearties! Just before you enter the museum's newest exhibit, ``Under the Black Flag: Life Among the Pirates,'' there's the pirate ship Loot N'Plunder anchored alongside. The replica immediately puts you in mind of that arch villain Capture Hook and his ship as it lay riding at anchor in Peter Pan's NeverLand.

But once you've entered the exhibit, which runs from September through January 1998, be prepared to meet some real pirate legends up close and personal.

Delving into just how deep pirate lore has entered popular culture, the exhibit begins with a retrospective of these seafaring scoundrels in literature and film.

Very rare first-edition copies of 18th and 19th century pirate histories, 40 watercolors by marine artist William Gilkerson and classic illustrations by the likes of N.C. Wyeth and Howard Pyle provide a colorful backdrop to real pirate weapons, booty, maps, artifacts, navigation instruments, scrimshaw, ship models and even a late 17th century treasure chest.

First bowing to Hollywood's longstanding fascination with pirates, curators provided visitors with an assortment of film posters, costumes and other cinematic memorabilia that recall movies like ``Captain Blood,'' ``The Sea Hawk'' and the more recent ``Hook.'' Standing before a monitor that shows brief segments from these films and other favorites, you can argue who was the best pirate of them all among silver screen legends like Errol Flynn, Lionel Barrymore, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Claude Rains and Basil Rathbone.

Also featured is the late British actor Robert Newton, who many feel is the ultimate Long John Silver. His obvious paternal affection toward cabin boy Jim Hawkins and his ability to switch sides from bad to good as quick as he could utter ``Ahhrrr, matey'' and his shoulder-bound parrot could pipe ``Pieces of Eight'' leaves him in a category all his own. Experts agree that it is this blurring of villain and heroes that makes pirates so fascinating today.

The exhibit does not hide the fact that some of history's more illustrious sailors served as ``pirates'' with official permission. One of Queen Elizabeth I's favorites, Sir Francis Drake, from time to time carried a ``Letter of Marque'' or official permission from his government to attack unarmed merchant and treasure ships. History includes John Paul Jones in this category as well. The story of Sir Henry Morgan's sacking of Panama for personal gain and the glory of England also is portrayed.

Organized by the South Seaport Museum of New York City as the first cooperative venture of this kind with the Mariners' Museum, the lives of such notorious marauders of the high seas like Edward Teach (Blackbeard), Captain Kidd and Jean Lafitte are revealed by the superb curatorship of internationally renown pirate expert David Cordingly. Former head of exhibits at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England, Cordingly wrote the very well-received ``Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates,'' from which the exhibit gets its name and theme.

Local pirate buffs can reflect on stories of the most notorious pirate of them all - Blackbeard - as they visit the exhibit and learn about his association with Hampton Roads.

Virginia Royal Gov. Alexander Spotswood ordered a flotilla under the command of Lt. Robert Maynard to assemble in Hampton Roads in November 1718 and capture Blackbeard dead or alive. Sailing to Ocracoke on the North Carolina Outer Banks they met in a ferocious battle on Nov. 22 of that year.

In hand-to-hand combat, Maynard and his crew killed Blackbeard and captured a number of his crew.

As a warning to the captured pirates, Maynard cut off the head of Blackbeard and hung it from his sloop's bowsprit and sailed for Bath, N.C., to confiscate the rest of Blackbeard's booty, which had been hidden in a barn.

With enough evidence to convict several other pirates captured on shore, Maynard headed back to Hampton Roads with his grisly bow figure still there for all to see. After anchoring in local waters, Maynard sailed up the James River and presented a grateful governor with a number of prisoners. They were incarcerated at Williamsburg just below the present site of the House of Burgesses. Not far from there, following trial, 13 of the original 15 were hung that year.

The skull, which now rests as a grisly centerpiece to the exhibit has its own interesting history. According to legend, it was placed on a pole at the entrance of Hampton Roads as a warning to other pirates. Shrouded in mystery for centuries, the skull is said to have been silver-plated following its retrieval by Blackbeard's associates. From there it made its way to Alexandria, Va., and subsequently passed from one collector to another.

Whether it is really Blackbeard's is a matter of conjecture. But then so much of pirate history is based on legend, and that is at the core of why there is so much fascination with pirates in the first place.

This exhibit has it all - the very popular and all too real Blackbeard interpreter Ben Cherry, books, films, paintings, artifacts and most of all, it provides time for the imagination to roam the ocean once more with those legendary buccaneers whose only limits were set by a boundless mane. ILLUSTRATION: Mariners' Museum photo

Interpreter Ben Cherry portrays Blackbeard in ``Under the Black

Flag.''

A flintlock pistol, above, was the type used by bands of pirates

such as the one depectied below in ``Kidd on the Deck of the

Adventure Galley'' by Howard Pyle.

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