It goes without saying that for a major endeavor, such as the Queen Anne's Revenge Shipwreck Project, many people are hard at work. The foundation of the project, however, rests on the shoulders of our office administrators, who insure that reasonable budgets are formulated, supplies and equipment are ordered, bills are paid, all the i's dotted and t's crossed on contracts and all the other little things. Attention to detail and a large measure of patience are imperative. Our "behind the scenes" person doing all this and much more is Barbara Brooks. Thank you Barbara for keeping us on a steady and successful course!

TRUELOVE FABRICATIONS

      Truelove Fabrications is not the easiest place to find in Wilmington, N.C. The address is simple enough, tucked away at 1319 South 4th Street next to the railroad and just a few blocks from downtown. The problem is you can't get there from downtown going south on 4th because the street dead-ends on a main thoroughfare so you have to double back through residential sections and one way streets to find some other way.

And once you get there, it doesn't look very auspicious: a huge trash container with odd looking items sticking out the top sits beside a nondescript building with a single front entrance door. Inside, the spaces look cramped with a small lobby and a couple of offices in front, and, in the back, one large workroom with several workstations. What appears to be a storage building is behind all that.

But these unassuming surroundings produce some of the most ingenuous and artistic yet practical efforts on display around the state and the nation. Truelove Fabrications, Incorporated, founded in 1988, is actually in show business, that is, they build underwater or dry exhibits and other related services for public aquariums, zoological parks, museums, and other educational facilities, and they provide architectural elements for the construction industry.

Truelove made most of the exhibits at the Fort Fisher Aquarium at Kure Beach, the fancy adornments on the new parking deck at Duke University, the mobile aquarium for the N.C. Wildlife Commission, and is currently working on extensive additions and renovations to the N.C. Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores. Recently, they have been building a scaled down model of German submarine U-352, sunk off the coast of North Carolina during World War II. When the aquarium re-opens sometime in 2005, (it has been closed for months for remodeling) the submarine will be displayed in their big fish tank. Another exhibit will be a replication of the wreck of the Queen Anne's Revenge as it now lies at the bottom of Beaufort Inlet.

The brains behind all these efforts are Owner Butch Truelove and Project Director Peter Gillman-Bryan. They will tell you, however, that much of the work is a collaboration among them, 15 employees, and numerous sub-contractors. Qualifications for employment seem to be a creative mind and a willingness to learn, and from there on, Peter says, it is OJT (On-the-Job-Training). He and Butch once worked with sets and props in the movie business, and, as further indication of their diversity, soon after the QAR shipwreck was discovered, Peter did a biological survey of the flora and fauna at the underwater site.

A unique feature of their work is that, in order to get a clearer vision of what a job entails, they always make a model of what they plan to build. Most of their work is with plastic, epoxy, and fiberglass, but, in fact, when talking with them, one gets the impression that they think they could build most anything if they set their minds to it.

For more information and to see pictures of some of their work, go to their website at: http://www.truelovefab.com

MICHAEL MANERCHIA

A few months ago, the QAR Shipwreck Project received a call from Michael Manerchia who lives in Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania, a "three street wide town" on the southernmost point of the state. He said his wife, Pat, owns a plank house in sight of the Delaware River that has been in her family for 80 years and dates back to the early 1700's. It sits between two oil refineries, and its deed was originally part of a larger parcel of land from William Penn in 1683.

The evidence he was uncovering suggested that the house was once owned by a woman who was Blackbeard's mistress and that she may have regularly entertained and cooked for pirates. He had already uncovered a small cannon ball, assorted small artifacts, an 1812 Indian head penny (obviously left there by someone at least 100 years after Blackbeard), a hidden fireplace with ashes still in it, a beehive oven, and a room that might have been used as a counting room or a meeting place for pirate activity.

Blackbeard's presence in that area in the early 1700's can be documented.Our readers may recall that in our last newsletter we told the story of a poem 13 year-old Benjamin Franklin wrote about Blackbeard's death, and in 2003 we quoted the Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania who had issued a warrant against Edward Teach (Blackbeard) for being the worst of the pirates that plagued Pennsylvania waters.

Over the past three months Michael has periodically sent us pictures and reports about their excavation of the house. He works full time as a heavy equipment mechanic and operator, but, in his spare time, with advice from Dr. Heather Wholey, an archaeologist at West Chester State University, he is fast becoming an accomplished amateur archaeologist. Dr. Wholey taught Michael how to make a sifting screen, and he has cleaned, bagged, and numbered several artifacts. Another archaeologist told him he had never been on a dig with so much stuff in one place.

Their original idea, until they began discovering so many artifacts, was to remodel the house and live in it. Michael tells us that the borough would prefer that he and Pat tear it down in favor of more development in the area. Here, in his own words, is the last report he sent us. "Many experts have seen the house in the past two months. We have been told that this house is very rare. The PA Historic Museum people say it's the most significant house in the state of PA. Regretfully, the archaeologists have stopped me from any further digging until they can come up with a team to help us. We have formed a non-profit company, the Marcus Hook Plank Log Cabin Association. We now plan to restore the house and make it a museum. Oh, something you should like: we even have a picture of a ghost, and this is no joke."

The house's tie to Blackbeard may need to be verified, and, as for the ghost, we couldn't make it out from the picture Michael sent, but who are we to quarrel with a ghost?

UNIQUE SHELL FOUND

During the week of October 3-8, 2004, QAR divers and archaeologists excavated artifacts at the Queen Anne’s Revenge site to, among other things, evaluate the accuracy of 1999 and 2001 gradiometer surveys. (See November 2004 Fall Field Report) Staff Computer Technician and Photographer, Karen Browning was assisting on deck with the examination of sediment that divers pumped from the ocean floor. When her eye caught sight of an unusual shell, she asked volunteer Jim Martin, retired marine biologist from Cape Fear Community College, what it was. He identified it as an angulate wentletrap (epitonium angulatum).

Later Karen asked Hugh Porter, Curator of the Mollusk Collection, at UNC Institute of Marine Sciences, for more information. He reported that the shell, one of about 24 kinds of wentletraps that have been recorded in North Carolina waters, is a carnivore that forages in sand for sea anemones and tears tissue with its jaws. It secrets a substance that turns purple and may anesthetize the anemones. Females lay strings of sand-covered egg capsules. It was common on beaches at Fort Macon following the Civil War but is now considered a rare find.

Nice eye, Karen.

DIRECTOR'S REPORT

With project funding from winding down from the federally funded Save America's Treasures, we are pleased to announce two new grants for the QAR project. The grant from the NC General Assembly will help continue the exciting work at the project conservation lab in Greenville, while the second is through the Golden LEAF Foundation and will permit new explorations, research and recovery operations. We thank the many people in the community and throughout the state that helped in these efforts. The grant proposal states:

The purpose of this Golden LEAF grant is to support renewed explorations and recovery of artifacts from the Queen Anne's Revenge shipwreck (QAR) as a means to generate public awareness and heritage tourism related to the protection, development and public interpretation of this high-profile historic site. Funds from this grant will be used to support major artifact recovery and conservation, which will draw visitors to the state through public forums, a project website, and museum exhibits and outreach programs. Training opportunities will be offered through East Carolina University and Carteret Community College in high tech work skills essential to the development and public interpretation of underwater historic resources.

What this means for the coming year is an array of project related events beginning with the completion and transfer of cannons and many small artifacts to the NC Maritime Museum in Beaufort for display and interpretation. On April 8th in Greenville an academic symposium is planned when project personnel and associates will present the results of investigations at the shipwreck and discuss them with a nationally recognized panel of archaeologists and resource managers. During the month of May, major excavations and recovery will take place at the site. On June 11th, in commemoration of the 287th anniversary of the sinking of QAR, the NC Maritime Museum will host researchers to discuss newly recovered artifacts, discuss the latest findings, and review evidence that supports the shipwreck's identity. In the fall plans are being finalized for an innovative outreach program, Dive Down, a two-day, diver awareness course that culminates in a controlled dive on the QAR site. Our hope is that we can again offer our successful Dive Live program in conjunction with our long-term study of the condition of large artifacts (cannons and anchors) still resting on the seabed. Throughout the year project personnel will continue to provide the latest findings to you through website updates, programming through the NC Maritime Museum, and educational posters and other materials at shops in the Morehead City/Beaufort area. It is a busy and exciting time ahead as we move forward. I hope you will join the voyage.