NC Maritime Museum - Southport Branch

Plentiful sunshine, miles of sandy beaches and pounding Atlantic surf combine for a fantastic family vacation on North Carolina's coastal shores. This Neptune's Kingdom of sun and fun is also awash in nautical nostalgia and lore ready for educational exploration at the North Carolina Maritime Museum branch in Southport. This seaside haven is located on the southeast coast of North Carolina at the mouth of the Cape Fear River just a little over an hour northeast of Myrtle Beach and about 40 minutes southeast of Wilmington. Treelined streets frame the picturesque Victorian homes as you make your way to the waterfront to visit the museum and open the door to the region's rich past.

Pirates a'plenty roamed the coastal region pillaging and plundering as they will, but not all pirates were rowdy ruffians as is the case with "Gentleman" Stede Bonnet. A well-read Englishman born in Barbados, he carried plenty of rum and gunpowder on on board his ship, but he also carried his library of books along as his ship and crew disrupted shipping off the coastal waters of North Carolina. Unusual for a pirate. Bonnet was eventually captured at the mouth of the Cape Fear River and hanged in 1718 in Charleston. Prior to the noose tightening around his neck he wrote an impassioned plea for clemency to the governor of the Carolinas, but it was rejected. A copy of that letter is on display in the museum proving once and for all that pirate crime does not pay!

During the Civil War, Southport, or Smithville as it was called at the time, was an important smuggling port and used to keep the Conferate Army supplied with the goods of war. Many persons in the area acted as blockade runners getting supplies past the Union ships anchored offshore up to staging areas in Wilmington. The Union blockade not only included ships but also mines (they were called "torpedo's" at the time) that were placed in the harbor waters. One of the Civil War artifacts on display in the museum is a 200 pound "torpedo" that was salvaged from the river.

Who can resist the remants of an actual shipwreck and all the adventure it conjures up in the imagination. The shipwreck "City of Houston" with 33 passengers aboard heading for Galveston from NYC sunk in a storm in late fall of 1878 in 90 feet of water and lies just off Frying Pan Shoals. Amazingly, all aboard were rescued and but the ship wasn't salvaged until the 1970's and many of the artifacts recovered are on display in the musuem. You can take a charter boat for a diving tour of the underwater wreck itself aboard The Scuba South (inquire at the museum) or view the recovered salvage in the museum. Local historians refer to this as the "Christmas Ship" as it was heading to Texas loaded with toys and other Christmas gifts for the holiday season. On display are various porcelain dolls and other toys that locals regard as a time capsule of the era showing what children were playing with and what was being given as gifts in the later part of the 19th Century. The doll collection is set up so you can see the various stages of preservation they underwent after being taken from Davy Jones locker to completion of the project.