Core Sound Stop 1: North Carolina Maritime Museum
North Carolina Maritime Museum 315 Front Street, Beaufort 252-728-7317
The North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort is a great place to learn about coastal culture as you begin your tour of Down East.
The museum occupies two buildings on the Beaufort waterfront. The main building, at 315 Front Street, displays extensive exhibits that tell the cultural and natural history of the coast and Outer Banks -- with special emphasis on the region’s integral art of boatbuilding. The museum’s collection includes more than 50 traditional boats, from an 1850s dugout canoe to mid-20th-century craft.
In the main building, exhibits on North Carolina’s historical commercial fishing industry display many of the boats and tools of working the water. You’ll learn about oyster dredging, and the economically vital menhaden industry. (Today, some of the craft used for fishing menhaden are steel-hulled minesweepers and submarine chasers left over from World War II.)
Whaling is perhaps not an industry frequently associated with North Carolina, but many of the first settlers of the Outer Banks were drawn by the migration routes that brought whales close to the shore on their way north in the early spring. Shackleford Banks, just across Beaufort Sound on the ocean side of the banks, was North Carolina’s most successful whaling community. Whalers rendered blubber for lamp oil, and extracted baleen (dental plates), which were sold for corset stays. During the rest of the year, the whalers made their living catching mullet, porpoises, sea turtles, and other marine animals. Models of some of the craft used by these early watermen are on display at the museum, including a small craft of the sort used for pursuing and harpooning whales, and a larger New England whaling vessel, the Wanderer. Also displayed are harpoons and many other tools of the whaling trade.
Because of the amount of maritime activity off of North Carolina’s coast, there was a significant need for rescue operations. This need was filled throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries by companies of lifesavers. Renowned for their bravery, many of these men lost their lives in the line of duty. A museum exhibit chronicles the lives and heroism of North Carolina’s lifesaving brigades.
Across the street is the Harvey W. Smith Watercraft Center, a dockside workshop where traditional builders teach the craft of boatbuilding “by the rack of the eye” – that is, with experience and instinct, rather than high-tech tools. The classes, which are available to the general public, range from a week-long intensive workshop in which students build their own flat-bottom skiffs or round-bottom boats, to workshops on such specialized skills as spar and sail making, and the maintenance of diesel engines and 12-volt marine electrical systems. There are one-day boatbuilding classes for families with children. Check the Maritime Museum’s website for details on course availability and fees. The Watercraft Center is also the home of the museum’s restoration activities.
The North Carolina Maritime Museum’s hours are Monday-Friday, 9:00a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; Saturday, 10:00a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; Sunday, 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. It is closed during the first two weeks of the year, and on Christmas and Thanksgiving. Phone (252) 728-7317.
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Photo credits: Divine Guthrie beside a whaling boat; photo in the collection of the North Carolina Maritime Museum.Boat under construction, and model boat maker at work, at the Harvey W. Smith Watercraft Center; photos by Sarah Bryan.