NC: Beaufort - Historic Homes and Museums

Day 336
No Boat Travel

With the weather predicted to be unfavorable for outdoor activities later in the day, we targeted walking around town for before lunch and the maritime museum for after lunch. Our stroll of the streets brought us to an historic home with a sign out front that said "Open - Please Come In", so we decided to just poke our heads in and see what was inside.

Next thing I knew we were sucked into a house tour. A volunteer met us at the door and immediately launched into an in-depth discussion on the history of the owners of the home complete with who married who and what property they acquired as a result. After her presentation of the family history that took several minutes to complete, she asked for our "cards" so she could check her house off the list. Hmmm - we had no cards.

This particular weekend all the historic homes in Beaufort maintained by the historical society are open to the public for a fee. Obviously we had not paid the fee. She said she wouldn't tell anyone and invited us to tour the remainder of the house. We took her up on the gracious offer and viewed both the first (parlor) and second (bedrooms) floors. The third floor (children's quarters) was closed off.

Historic Home in Beaufort NC
Air conditioning vents in the chimneys keeps the home cool.

As we left the home the volunteer / hostess suggested that if we enjoyed the home, we should step across the street to buy tickets to see the rest of the houses on the tour.

We did cross the street but walked past the ticket booth to see what else was in the area. We found a home dated c. 1732 that is now an art museum.

as well as an apothecary, a smoke house, the old jail, and the old courthouse.

Old Jail c. 1829

"Locks" outside old jail

Court House c. 1831

I wanted more than a peak in the door of the jail and the courthouse, but I did not feel a need for any more presentations on who married whom in the early 1800s. We decided to pass on buying house tour tickets. We saw the exterior of many restored homes and found one example of a pre-restoration home that was in desperate need of repair.

Having completed our walk around town, we stopped by the corner deli to buy some cold meat for sandwiches and headed back to the boat for lunch. After lunch, we headed out to go to the maritime museum as planned. However, when we walked by the Fleming next door, we ended up in a lengthy conversation with the boat owner who told us about cruisersnet.net  As we talked we started to hear the noises of a small plane overhead.

The continual buzzing made us look to see what was going on. Wow! We got our own, free air show as the small plane swooped and climbed, did back flips and spins, demonstrated wing rotations, flew straight up in the air, and dropped free fall rapidly towards the ground. What faith the pilot must have in the condition of that plane to put his (or her) life on the line like that. Truly amazing show and totally unplanned and unpaid for!

Upside down stunt plane over the marina

When the plane finished its antics, and Clark concluded his conversation about cruisersnet.net, we continued on our way to the maritime museum.

Beaufort Maratime Museum

 For a free museum it had a lot to offer. Flash photography was strictly prohibited, so we did not take any pictures inside. We watched a PBS produced movie on the finding of Blackbeard the Pirate's wrecked Queen Anne's Revenge.  The museum displayed a lot of artifacts recovered from the wreck. In addition to the Blackbeard exhibits, the museum had an assortment of displays including one on rescues at sea and the coast guard and another showing a collection of historic outboard motors. Clark was excited to show me an Elgin that looked the same as one that we had in our basement until just a couple of short years ago.

After we left the museum we crossed the street where Clark saw that the shipwright museum was also open, so he rushed in to see what they had there. Interestingly they too had a display of old outboard motors.

Antique Outboards

The  boat building museum offers wooden boat building classes on weekends throughout the year. They had several boats being built or restored in the "shop".

11.5' Rocket Wooden Boat

After we left there we wandered the local area some more looking at the sights before heading back to the boat.

Front Street Beaufort, NC

The boardwalk at the Beaufort Municipal Marina

After a day spent exploring history, we decided to spend a leisurely night on the boat reading, working on the blog, and watching an old dance movie called "Tap".