This marker overlooks the Ocracoke South Terminal. There is a large parking lot nearby and it is easy to stop and read the marker. The same text on both sides, it reads, "Lt. Robert Maynard. Of the Royal Navy. Sent by Gov. Spotswood of Virginia, in the sloop "Ranger," killed the pirate Blackbeard off shore, 1718." In the fall of 1718, the notorious pirate Edward Teach--better known as Blackbeard--was killed in North Carolina waters by British Royal Navy Lieutenant Robert Maynard, marking one of the most legendary episodes of the Golden Age of Piracy. Blackbeard had used the shallow inlets of North Carolina's coast for refuge, prompting Virginia's Governor Alexander Spotswood to send two sloops, Ranger and Jane, manned by Royal Navy crews, to hunt him down. On November 22, Maynard's forces engaged Blackbeard's sloop, the Adventure, near Ocracoke Inlet, leading to a brutal hand-to-hand battle in which Maynard personally shot the pirate captain. It is marker number B-43 and it was erected in 1955 by the Archives and Highway Departments. [Review 849 of 2025 - 4279 in North Carolina - 24406 overall] [7/20] read more