24 IslandVibesIOP.com Local pirate history and lore Let your Jolly Roger flag fly By Laura Fogarty A Ghost Guide for East of the Cooper By Colin McCandless Every issue of Island Vibes travels by mail to selected households across the Southeast and beyond. For readers, it's a small piece of the island before visits. For businesses, it's a way to be part of their next trip. SPREADING POSITIVE IOP VIBES Bringing the Isle of Palms to people who love to visit. To learn more about how Island Vibes can help grow your business and services, email Publisher@IslandVibesIOP.com. Although there have not been any authenticated discoveries of pirate treasure on the Isle of Palms, myths and urban legends abound. While the island itself lacks sufficient piracy documentation, the surrounding waters in nearby Charleston are rich in actual pirate history. Edward Teach, also notoriously known as Blackbeard, led a blockade while commandeering Queen Anne’s Revenge in the Charleston Harbor for nearly a week in 1718. Blackbeard’s fleet held citizens of Charleston hostage in exchange for supplies and medicine. He briefly joined forces with local legend Stede Bonnet, known as the Gentleman Pirate, to plunder merchant ships along the East Coast. Bonnet’s crew eventually abandoned him to join Blackbeard aboard Queen Anne’s Revenge, where Bonnet remained, temporarily, as a guest. After running aground near Beaufort, North Carolina, Blackbeard abandoned Bonnet, leaving the marooned crew and stealing the bounty for himself. Bonnet attempted to resume his pillaging under an alias but was eventually captured, tried and hanged in Charleston for piracy – mere weeks after Blackbeard was killed in battle. There are, of course, prominent shipwrecks off the Isle of Palms, dating back to the American Civil War. Thus far, not a single shipwreck has been attributed to the Golden Age of Piracy (roughly spanning the period between 1650-1726). That doesn’t seem to – and shouldn’t – deter those so inclined from scouring the beaches with metal detectors, searching for that first discovery of hidden pirate treasure. Fly that Jolly Roger flag to your heart’s content, and who knows, perhaps a buried treasure is out there somewhere waiting to be found. When you get that creepy feeling that something about your home or workplace is paranormal, “Who you gonna call?” While one fourth of the original “Ghostbusters” team does reside in Mount Pleasant, if you don’t have access to proton pack-wielding apparition exterminators, maybe you just embrace it and make it part of your story. After all, a certain level of spookiness provides its own entertainment factor since many people enjoy the thrill of being scared, especially during Halloween. The following places located East of the Cooper have some type of eerie connection, and, in one case, there are even special ghost tours incorporating alleged hauntings into a special visitor experience. YORKTOWN Aboard the USS YorktownBulldog Tours hosts 90-minute haunted tours of the USS Yorktown every night at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Haunted Yorktown Tour head guide, Andrew Kuhn, said the tour focuses on the history of the ship and the various hauntings that have occurred there. “The thing that sets this ghost tour Continued on Page 25.
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