Story

Treasure on the island: Pirate and Smuggling Museum opens By Mike Baird Caller Times July 9, 2006 http://www.caller.com/ccct/local_news/arti...4832466,00.html Tales of smuggler and pirate peril and their booty have fascinated generations, but the real stuff now is stowed on Padre Island. "Me father was a smuggler of gold wedding rings and bicycle tires," said John Dowling, 62-year-old curator of the new Pirate and Smuggling Museum. "Couldn't get wedding rings in France at the end of WWII," the England native said. "And bicycle tires were in such demand in England after the war that me dad would strap one on each shoulder under his Royal Navy uniform and slip them under the noses of customs officials. He did it for beer money." The booty What: About 300 pirate artifacts, smuggled objects and mannequin displays When: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily Where: 14330-B S. Padre Island Dr. Cost: Adults $5; senior citizens $4; children (7-16) $2; children younger than 7 free Source: Pirate and Smuggling Museum His magician father, Ron Francis William Dowling, founded the museum 32 years ago on the Isle of Wight in England. But after his death in 2003 and learning legends of French pirate Jean Lafitte and his scalawags invading Corpus Christi Bay in 1821 to stash gold along the Gulf Coast, it seemed Padre Island was a good site for the museum, Dowling said. About a dozen life-sized rogues and rascals, including a likeness of Lafitte, show the bitter side of life on the scurry. One mannequin pirate dangles from a noose, the fate of most if caught, and another is getting a left hand lopped off - common practice for high seas' thieves before they were shipped to an American penal colony in Georgia prior to the end of the Revolutionary War. Also featured is the Queen of the South China Seas, Cheng I Sao, a famous female pirate who commanded more than 70,000 men aboard about 400 oceangoing Chinese junks. Silver-inlaid swords from the early 1800s, grappling hooks used to shore up a treasure ship for boarding, and flintlock pistols with gunpowder flasks are displayed alongside cannonballs and chunks of tobacco smuggled in lumps of clay to look like potatoes. The museum itself is becoming less of a hidden treasure. Margaret Dowling, 55, said most "tykes have a jolly," noting a very strong turnout Friday. Visitors can read British officer manuals, 250-year-old newspapers with references to captured smugglers and pirates, and a 400-year-old Queen's deed sealed with wax allegedly smuggled from Poland. Contact Mike Baird at 886-3774

DEPP BRANDED A CANNIBAL Movie & Entertainment News provided by World Entertainment News Network (www.wenn.com) 2006-07-02 17:27:20 - JOHNNY DEPP has been branded a "cannibal" by tribesmen on the Dominica island, where the Hollywood actor is currently filming the third PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN movie. Members of the Garifuna tribe are furious with a scene in which Depp's character CAPTAIN JACK SPARROW is being roasted alive. Chief CHARLES WILLIAMS says, "The film's depiction of our natives as flesh-craving savages is grossly untrue and very politically incorrect. "Of course, there was violence and bloodshed in the past. But to stigmatise us today is very wrong. We will continue our fight when Hollywood returns." The island's natives are also threatening to boycott future sequels because of a scene which depicts Depp munching on a severed toe. Depp says, "People were like, 'You can't do that in the movie.' But it's played for laughs and gets them. The last thing we want to do is offend anyone. But it's fantasy and I think people realise that."

Va. governor exonerates convicted witch By SONJA BARISIC, Associated Press Writer 12 minutes ago VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - The Witch of Pungo is no longer a witch. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine on Monday exonerated Grace Sherwood, who 300 years ago became Virginia's only woman convicted as a witch tried by water. ADVERTISEMENT "I am pleased to officially restore the good name of Grace Sherwood," Kaine wrote in a letter Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf read aloud before a re-enactment of Sherwood's being dropped into the river. "With 300 years of hindsight, we all certainly can agree that trial by water is an injustice," Kaine wrote. "We also can celebrate the fact that a woman's equality is constitutionally protected today, and women have the freedom to pursue their hopes and dreams." http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060710/ap_on_...itch_of_pungo_2

Well, the monkey was undead so he's in possession of the coin and now with the Voodoo priestest. I predict we'll see both play integral parts in the Third movie.

Lesson for everyone - dehydration can sneak up on you. Proper hydration starts before[/color=red] an event, and a body-at-rest *should* have a GALLON of water PER DAY. Obviously, most folks don't hydrate themselves enough. Soda and caffeine/sugar-filled fruit drinks are not a proper substitution.

Ask and ye shall receive... http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rbear/walton/index.html

Saw the midnight showing. Not the same as the first one, but still good. Go see it.

That's known as Dehydration, dear. Drink water. Then drink some more water. And no, there are no substitutes for the water. And how does one train to be a Jack? Are there some formalized classes on Keith Richards stage technique?

http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/virgi...dlines-virginia Woman tries to clear Virginia witch convicted 300 years ago By SONJA BARISIC Associated Press Writer July 3 2006 VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- Grace Sherwood was a healer, a midwife and a widowed mother of three sons. Her neighbors thought she also was a witch who ruined crops, killed livestock and conjured storms. On July 10, 1706, the 46-year-old woman was tied up and "ducked"--dropped into a river--in what is now Virginia Beach. The theory behind the test was that if she sank, she was innocent, although she'd also likely drown. She floated--proof she was guilty because the pure water cast out her evil spirit. Three hundred years later, a modern-day resident of this resort city has asked the governor to exonerate Sherwood, Virginia's only convicted witch tried by water. Belinda Nash, 59, also is raising money to erect a bronze statue of Sherwood and trying to find a place to put it. "I would like to see her name cleared because I don't believe she was a witch," said Nash, who has an affinity for Sherwood in part because Nash's reputation for having things she wishes for come true earned her the nickname "Samantha the Witch." "Otherwise, I'd be ducked (too)," she added with a smile in an interview at the Ferry Plantation House, a historic home where she volunteers as director and, dressed in costume, tells visitors about "poor Grace." The courthouse where part of Sherwood's witchcraft trial took place was located on the old Ferry farm property, Nash said. Nearby is the Western Branch of the Lynnhaven River, where Sherwood was ducked at a site now known as Witchduck Point. Nash hopes Gov. Timothy M. Kaine will decide whether to vindicate Sherwood's name by the 300th anniversary of the ducking, which Nash and a small group will commemorate with a re-enactment, as they do yearly, her daughter playing Sherwood. Nash's request was being reviewed, said Kaine's spokesman, Kevin Hall. "I must say it is odd to be considering a request like this for an individual who's been dead almost 300 years," Hall said. Virginia never had a witch craze like that in Massachusetts, where 19 colonists were hanged for witchcraft in Salem Town in 1692. Records survive of 15 witchcraft cases in the Virginia colony in the 1600s, with most ending in acquittals, said Frances Pollard, director of library services at the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond. A copy of the transcript of Sherwood's trial was among the first items donated to the society, founded in 1831. No one was executed for witchcraft in Virginia, although Katherine Grady was hanged in 1654 aboard an English ship bound for Virginia when passengers blamed her for causing a storm, Pollard said. The latest Virginia witchcraft case was in 1802 in Brooke County, now part of West Virginia. A couple accused a woman of being a witch and the court ruled that was slander. That was a frequent result in such cases, with people fined for bringing false charges, Pollard said. "It was pretty clear that Virginia early on tried to discourage these charges being brought of witchcraft because they were so troublesome," Pollard said. Sherwood seems to be the only accused witch tried by water in Virginia, let alone convicted, Pollard said. Sherwood lived in what today is the rural Pungo neighborhood and she's known as "The Witch of Pungo," the name of a children's book by Louisa Venable Kyle. Her story also is told in "Cry Witch," a courtroom drama at Colonial Williamsburg, the recreated 18th-century capital of Virginia. Nash has been researching Sherwood for more than 20 years, since she moved from Canada to Virginia Beach and wanted to find out the story behind the name of Witchduck Road, near her home. She also goes to schools and portrays Sherwood. Sherwood was a tall, good-looking and unconventional woman who grew herbs for medicine, owned prime waterfront property and wore trousers--taboo for women at that time--when she planted crops. Nash thinks her neighbors were jealous and made up witchcraft tales to get rid of Sherwood, perhaps to take her land. "Grace just knew too much," she said. Sherwood actually went to court a dozen times, either to fight witchcraft charges or to sue her accusers for slander, Nash said. In her final case, she was tried for causing a woman to miscarry. The court had "ancient and knowing women" search Sherwood's body for marks of the devil, Nash said. They found two suspicious moles. Sherwood then consented to be tried by water. She was led from jail and taken by boat 200 yards out in the river. A crowd gathered, chanting "Duck the witch!" The skies were clear, but Sherwood warned the onlookers, "Before this day be through, you will all get a worse ducking than I," Nash said. Sherwood was tied crossbound--her right thumb to her left big toe and her left thumb to her right big toe--and tossed into the water at 10 a.m. She untied herself and swam to the surface. As she was pulled out of the water, a downpour started, Nash said. What happened next to Sherwood is unclear. Some court records may have been lost to fire. Records do show that in 1714 she paid back taxes on her property. She may have languished in jail until then and been freed when excitement about witches had passed, Nash said. She moved back to her home and lived quietly until she died at about 80. Nash had hoped to dedicate the statue on the 300th anniversary, but it won't be ready in time. She has raised about a third of the $92,000 cost, and is waiting to hear whether the city will permit her to put the statue by a school near where the old courthouse stood. The statue will be of a woman with a raccoon by her feet to represent Sherwood's love of animals, Nash said. The woman also carries a basket of rosemary. Legend has it that she sailed to England in an eggshell to gather rosemary and introduce it back home. P> On the Net: Information about Grace Sherwood: http://carolshouse.com/witch/ Ferry Plantation House: http://www.virginiabeachhistory.org/ferryfarm.html Virginia Historical Society: http://www.vahistorical.org/ Salem witch trials: http://www.salemweb.com/guide/witches.shtml

Keith Richards to be in 'Pirates' movie By SARAH BALL, Associated Press Writer Tue Jul 4, 12:15 PM ET LONDON - Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards is lined up to play the swashbuckling father of a pirate in the third installment of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series, star Johnny Depp said Tuesday. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer said Richards would have a cameo role as the father of the flamboyant Captain Jack Sparrow, played by Depp, in the third "Pirates" movie, which is due to resume filming next month in California. Depp, 43, has said he adopted the body language and mannerisms of the veteran guitarist to create Captain Jack's character. "We're all looking forward to the idea of Keith coming in and doing a cameo," Depp told a London news conference to promote "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," which opens in Britain on Thursday. "You never say it's definite until the guy steps on the set and the camera is rolling. But it's looking very, very good," he said. Co-star Orlando Bloom said he was similarly enthusiastic about working with Richards — provided the rocker is in good health. "I can't wait to see him — well, if he doesn't kill himself falling out of coconut trees," Bloom said. "Very rock and roll." Richards, 62, suffered a head injury in late April, when he reportedly fell out of a palm tree while vacationing in Fiji. Having made a full recovery, Richards will join the Stones for their rescheduled European tour, beginning Tuesday in Milan.

Originally presented as "true, from a friend", submitted here for general amusement. YMMV. * After an appropriate period of deliberation, I have come to the decision to tender my resignation from XYZ Telecom, effective two weeks from the date you receive this letter. Please know that I still maintain a high level of respect for you as a manager and colleague, and I thank you sincerely for the support and assistance you have offered me in each of those roles. I have been proud to work for XYZ Telecom over the past four years; it has been a journey that has provided me an unparalleled foundation to move forward to new and exciting opportunities. As such, I have decided to become a professional pirate. It has always been a dream of mine to live the life of a swashbuckling corsair, beholden to none and master of all I survey. Once my crew of unabashed rogues is assembled, we shall take to the capacious expanse of the high seas to pursue fortune, fame, and hair-raising adventure. Our path may not be filled with the porcine comforts or technological marvels that XYZ Telecom provides, but we shall nonetheless move forward to carve a name for ourselves in the annals of bold insurgency and death-defying derring-do. Once I have a keen blade at my hip and the Jolly Roger is flapping high above me, I believe I will find my true calling. Please note that I am currently accepting applications for First Officer, if you are at all interested in applying. I will provide a full medical and dental plan, which will offer immediate coverage of all maladies other than scurvy and the occasional bout of rickets. Sincerely,

Only if Hook's cove is on Io. Who told you it wasn't?

Stumbled upon this sunset photo and thought it might appeal to others - http://valkyrieart.com/Pictures/Digital/La...es/Landsc54.jpg Sort of looks like Captain Hook's cove Root page for the artist can be found at http://www.valkyrieart.com/home.html

Race to find flagship of first US naval hero - in North Sea Teams from both sides of the Atlantic to search for wreck of John Paul Jones's frigate off Yorkshire coast By David Keys and Martin Hodgson Published: 28 May 2006 http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americ...ticle620705.ece Every US schoolchild knows that John Paul Jones, their country's first naval hero, rejected a call to surrender with the immortal words: "I have not yet begun to fight." What is less well known is that he was within sight of the Yorkshire coast when he uttered them. Whether Jones ever said what was attributed to him is not certain. But it is true that one of the bloodiest naval battles of the American Revolution was fought in the North Sea on 23 September 1779, and that the American commander, despite having to abandon his sinking flagship, won the day. He captured the British warship attacking him and sailed off into legend. This summer, 227 years after that encounter, British and American crews will again contend with each other off the coast of Yorkshire. This time they are in a race to discover the final resting place of the Bonhomme Richard, the 42-gun frigate commanded by the "Father of the American Navy". Jones's heirs in the US military are planning an underwater search, but they face competition from two other teams. The adventure novelist Clive Cussler is backing a separate expedition by the National Underwater and Marine Agency (Numa), and a third team of local divers from Yorkshire will investigate a wreck in Filey Bay. The Bonhomme Richard has long been a holy grail of marine archaeology, thanks to its association with Jones, said the naval historian Peter Reavely. "Britain has Nelson, and John Paul Jones plays the same role in the US. He is the greatest naval hero of the American Revolutionary War." Despite repeated searches, the location of the wreck has remained a mystery. British divers believe the wreck of a wooden ship found in Filey Bay is that of the Bonhomme Richard, said team member Tony Green. "We think the wreck in Filey Bay is the most likely candidate - but we're still some way off proving it. There are three teams looking, so someone's got to find something." Recent research by marine historians has cast doubt on the British divers' theory, and the US teams will focus their efforts further offshore. The race to find the vessel will start in earnest this July, with the arrival of a joint team from the Naval Historical Centre in Washington and the Connecticut-based Ocean Technology Foundation. Later this year, Mr Cussler, who has already led unsuccessful expeditions in search of the wreck, is expected to launch a third mission. Using hi-tech underwater scanning systems, the US naval team plans to survey large swathes of seabed off Flamborough Head. "We're going to have to survey at least 20 square miles of seabed to stand any chance of finding her," said Robert Neyland of the US Naval Historical Centre. Originally named the Duc de Duras, the ship was built in 1765, then bought by the French government, which refitted her as a warship and lent her to the fledgling US Navy. John Paul Jones re-named her the Bonhomme Richard - after a magazine published by the US ambassador to France, Benjamin Franklin. A Scotsman who started his seafaring career at the tender age of 13, Jones was considered a pirate by the British, but a hero by America's rebellious colonists. In 1779 he took the Richard and three other vessels on a raiding expedition around the British coast, hoping to draw the Royal Navy away from its blockade of American ports. The squadron captured 13 ships before attacking a Royal Navy warship, the Serapis, which was escorting 41 British merchant vessels en route from the Baltic. After a savage four-hour battle, Jones captured the Serapis, but his ship was so badly damaged that it was abandoned. Safely aboard the British flagship, his crew escaped to Holland and eventually returned to America. The rediscovery of Jones's flagship would be more significant than that of the Titanic in 1985, said Melissa Ryan, project manager at the Ocean Technology Foundation. "The Bonhomme Richard was lost in a battle of national importance: the first naval victory for America during the Revolutionary War." The battle provided an early victory for the Americans, and convinced France to bankroll the rebel army, she said. "It was a turning point in our history."

Careful - every answer tends to breed at least three more questions.

Always On the Move How 17th-century migration led to our multicultural society. By David Espey MIGRATION AND THE ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH ATLANTIC WORLD By Alison Games Gr’92. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999. 322 pp., $45.00. For the non-specialist in early American history, one surprise in the book is Puritan settlement in the Caribbean. The island of Barbados—not New England or Virginia—was England’s most valuable colony in the 17th century, enriched by sugar cultivation. A map of Barbados, created around 1650 to entice settlers from other destinations, pictured Europeans on horseback to convey privilege, black and Indian figures as reminders of the slave population, and even camels to suggest the exotic. The Caribbean competed with New England both for settlers and for the intensity with which Puritans battled each other in church fights over doctrinal matters. (It is amazing, given the effort it must have taken merely to survive in America, that the Puritans had so much energy for religious debate. Games quotes with approval one scholar’s observation that a "Puritan who minds his own business is a contradiction in terms.") Puritan quarrels in New England led to the expulsion of figures like Thomas Hooker to Connecticut or Anne Hutchinson to Rhode Island. But in the Caribbean, the Puritan dissenters were banished to other islands, some inhospitable. As Games notes, the Puritan nature of islands like Bermuda or Providence has been overshadowed by "the historical interest accorded the New England colonies." Puritans seem as if they belong only in cold, stony New England. It is odd to think of them in what are now vacation paradises like Bermuda or the Bahamas. One Caribbean Puritan spoke of "the desire to have religion … planted among us." The metaphor of plantation suggests that the Puritans grew some rather exotic religious notions. "One place’s heresy was another’s orthodoxy." Islands like Bermuda "provided laboratories for Puritan experiments that could then be reexported, like tobacco or sugar, back to England." Indeed, Puritan conflicts in the Atlantic colonies foreshadowed Cromwell and the religious war in England. http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0100/0100books.html

The little bastichs attempted the same ruse with me, but I blew their scurvy bottoms out of the water! MODERATOR - SUGGEST YOU PUT THIS WARNING AS A STICKY IN ALL FORUMS! [/color=red]

You may wish to read up on Santeria, the combination of 17th century Roman Catholicism and African paganism that more or less started in Cuba.

Office of Naval Intelligence open source compilations of pirate attacks can be found at http://www.nga.mil/portal/site/maritime/?e...ec24fd73927a759 They update once a week, the latest (10 May) can be found at http://www.nga.mil/MSISiteContent/StaticFi...60510100000.txt An empty barge can simply be renumbered and sold to someone else, it's low profile and has some cash value.

More info - Tue 16 May 2006 U.S. researchers find sunken British warships By Richard C. Lewis NEWPORT, Rhode Island (Reuters) - Four ships from a British fleet used during the U.S. Revolutionary War have been found off Rhode Island, and one may be the vessel 18th century explorer Captain James Cook sailed on his epic voyage to Australia, archaeologists said on Tuesday. Researchers with the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project said they believe the four ships, and two others previously discovered, are part of a 13-vessel transport fleet intentionally sunk by the British in Newport Harbor in 1778 to keep French ships from landing to aid the Americans' drive for independence. Using historical materials and sonar, the archaeologists discovered the ships in Narragansett Bay, within a mile (km) of Newport, Rhode Island's shoreline. Divers found ballast piles about 30 feet (9 to 11 metres) underwater, with the ship's keel and other parts embedded in the sea floor. They also found at least one cannon, an anchor with a 16-foot (4.9-metre) shank and a cream-coloured fragment of an 18th-century British ceramic teapot. According to the team of archaeologists, one of the 13 ships in the sunken British fleet was the "Lord Sandwich," which records show was once the Endeavour, the vessel Cook used to sail the Pacific Ocean, map New Zealand and survey the eastern coast of Australia in 1768-1771. Cook, acknowledged by historians as one of the greatest navigators of all time, is credited with surveying Australia's east coast on the Endeavour expedition. '47 PERCENT CHANCE' Archaeologists said it was unclear which ship could be the Endeavour. Seven of the ships in the British fleet have not been found. But they said the latest find raises the chances that one of the discovered ships is the Endeavour. "There is a 47 percent chance that we have our hands on the Endeavour," said D.K. Abbass, executive director of the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project, a nonprofit organisation devoted to studying the state's maritime history. She added it was unlikely anything on the ships would provide a direct link to Cook. "Quite frankly, we could be working on her right now and never be able to prove it," Abbass said. It may take years to fully investigate the shipwrecks found so far, Abbass said. Historically, the finding is significant because it helps tell the story of the siege of Newport, marking France's first attempt to aid the American insurrection against the British. Though the effort failed, leaders from each side, George Washington representing the Americans and Comte de Rochambeau for America's French allies, met in Newport two years later, to formalise their cooperation for subsequent battles. The French ultimately helped the Americans entrap British forces on a peninsula at Yorktown, Virginia. "So, what you have here is the British are geared up for the colonial rebellion and now they're looking at an international conflict," said Rod Mather, a British citizen and associate professor of maritime history and underwater archaeology at the University of Rhode Island. The shipwrecks are Rhode Island property, Abbass said. There are no plans to raise them. Officials estimate more than two dozen ships from the Revolutionary War period lie beneath Rhode Island's waters. They include British Royal Navy frigates, vessels from the Continental Navy and a French ship.

Lady B, Check yer PMs.

Philly Icon Croce Open Pirate Museum in Key West (05.13.06-AP) — Pat Croce's passion for pirates is written all over him. The former president of the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team has a Jolly Roger tattooed on his left hand and a ship on his left forearm. A parrot tattoo sits on his shoulder, and he even wears a silver hoop earring. It's when he pulls back the corner of his mouth, however, revealing a molar cap etched with a skull and crossbones, that it's clear this is no ordinary obsession. For the past 16 years, Croce, 51, has also been collecting pirate artifacts, indulging a childhood fascination with the swashbucklers and amassing a treasure trove of objects: the journal from Capt. Kidd's last voyage; one of only two known authentic Jolly Roger flags; and a treasure chest once owned by Capt. Thomas Tew, said to be the only one in existence directly traceable to a pirate. For years, he hid the loot in his home. Last year, however, Croce began sharing the booty with the public, opening a $10 million museum called Pirate Soul in downtown Key West. In February, Croce opened a pirate-themed restaurant called Pat Croce's Rum Barrel, next to the museum. The two ventures are only some of the latest for Croce, a physical therapist who made his fortune with a string of sports medicine clinics. Once employed by the 76ers as a conditioning coach, he eventually became the franchise's president and saw it climb from last place to first in the NBA's Eastern Conference, reaching the finals in 2001. Since leaving the team, Croce has been a martial arts commentator for the Summer Olympic games, hosted a TV show and become a motivational speaker and author. Croce says a pirate spirit has infused all of his undertakings. "It's that bold and adventurous nature, where they just go for their goal, throw caution to the wind, set their sail and go. I love that. I love that whole philosophy," he said recently while in Key West, where he has a home. Croce's daughter, Kelly Croce Sorg, lives on the island and is the museum's CEO. Opening a museum in Key West, which was built on the spoils of shipwrecks and where buccaneer street performers now rove the streets, just made sense, Sorg said. At the museum, visitors start their tour in a recreated marketplace of Port Royal, Jamaica, peering in the windows of the gun shop, the mapmaker's, the bookmaker and the physician's office to see artifacts. In the next room, a tavern, guests can sit down amid centuries-old wine bottles and a plate recovered from the pirate Blackbeard's sunken ship and browse an interactive book of pirate biographies on touch-screens. Then it is on to the deck of a pirate ship, where sound effects and video bring a ship takeover to life. Near the end of the tour, visitors encounter a talking anamatronic head of the pirate Blackbeard and can step into small, dark rooms simulating a ship's hold and listen as pirates give chase. "It's kind of like something you'd see at Disney World," said Bert Knisely of Thomasville, Ga., who visited the museum recently on his honeymoon. Theatrics aside, the real gems of the collection are the approximately 500 artifacts that are on display — pieces of eight, maps, navigation instruments, cannon balls, weapons, and even a rare pirate wanted poster. Most of the objects are Croce's but there are also pieces on loan from the North Carolina Maritime Museum and the Delaware Art Museum. Trevor Huggins, 18, who toured the museum while visiting from Augusta, Ga., said he was surprised at the number and quality of the artifacts as well as what he learned about daily life on a pirate ship. "I learned how brutal it actually was," Huggins said. "I didn't realize that at first." Posted signs also tell visitors that walking the plank is likely a bit of fiction. Pirates usually just pushed any scurvy fellows overboard or used them for target practice. The difference between a privateer and buccaneer is explained. (Privateers were authorized to plunder by the government.) Visitors even learn about two lady pirates: Anne Bonny and Mary Read. Croce says he is not done adding to the collection, and his daughter said he is not done tinkering with the museum, either. "His title is captain," Sorg said. "He's the captain of the ship. If he says, 'We're going north,' we're going north, and we're just along for the ride."

I come old friend from hell tonight Across the rotting sea Nor the nails of the cross Nor the blood of christ Can bring you help this eve The dead have come to claim a debt from thee They stand outside your door Four score and three Did you keep a watch for the dead man’s wind Did you see the woman with the comb in her hand Wailing away on the wall on the strand As you danced to the turkish song of the damned

Things Go Bump In Seaport Buildings Too TheDay.com ^ | April 22, 2006 | Joe Wojtas Mystic — Mystic Seaport interpreter Juanita Babcock was teaching a hearth cooking class in the Buckingham House on the museum grounds about 15 years ago when she held up a glass of mulled wine and made a toast. “I wonder what Mrs. Buckingham would think about us drinking wine in here,” she said, referring to the matriarch of the Congregationalist family that lived in the house and likely would not have allowed liquor. As soon as Babcock uttered those words, she felt something slap the back of her hand. The wine glass went flying into a wall 4 feet away and shattered on the floor in front of a group of people. Babcock said she was being very careful with the glass and is sure she did not drop it. “I actually felt a hard slap against my hand. It was so weird,” she said. “I don't know if it could have been Mrs. Buckingham. Maybe it was someone before her.” Babcock's experience is not unique at Mystic Seaport, where other staff members have their own stories about strange occurrences in the historic buildings of the recreated 19th-century whaling village. In addition to strange sightings aboard the Charles W. Morgan whaling ship, there were reports of unexplained screaming from the Buckingham House in 1997 during the filming of the movie “Amistad.” A member of the film crew told of being tapped on the shoulder and turning around to find no one there. Then there are the workers in the membership building who describe a number of strange happenings that they attribute to the work of the late Mildred Mallory, who began the museum's membership program. Mallory's portrait hangs on the wall over a fireplace. Dawn Johnson, whose desk is just to the side of Mallory's portrait, said that when she started working in the membership building three years ago, staffers told her that sometimes the clock would ring at 2:20 p.m. One day not long after, it happened. She said the museum worker who looks after the clocks was at a loss to explain why the clock would sound at 2:20 p.m. and then return to its usual pattern of ringing on the hour. Johnson said that several times the phone in the building has rung, although it seemed no one had placed a call to it. When Johnson picked up the receiver on such occasions, a person whom she knew picked up the phone on the other end at precisely the same moment. The other person said “hello” just as Johnson did. Sometimes the other person was someone Johnson hadn't talked to in a while. “They'll say, 'You called me,' and I'll say, 'No, you called me,' ” Johnson said. “It's like someone wanted to connect us.” At other times, Johnson has opened the door to the building in the morning to find that such items as flowers and candlesticks on the mantle under Mallory's portrait have moved overnight. “Mildred doesn't like things out of place,” she said. “We have a running joke when it happens. We say 'Mildred is acting up again.' ” Babcock said staffers say they sometimes hear footsteps in the small room above the circa-1695 kitchen in the Buckingham House. She said she hopes the investigators from the Rhode Island Paranormal Research Group check it out. “When I go up there now I say, 'Is anyone here? Don't bother me,” she said. “It's not spooky up there, it's actually tranquil. But there's something about that room.”

Researchers Investigate Ghost Sightings on Ship AP MYSTIC, Conn. (April 23) - Specialists in paranormal research are investigating whether a historic whaling ship might be home to the ghost of a long-ago seafarer. A five-member team from the Rhode Island Paranormal Research group visited Mystic Seaport on Friday night to spend time on the Charles W. Morgan, a wooden whaling ship where several visitors have reported seeing the apparition. The 165-year-old craft made 37 ocean voyages in search of whales during the 60 years it was in use. About 1,000 men worked on the Morgan over those decades. The ship, due for a $3.5 million restoration next year, one of the main attractions at the Mystic Seaport maritime museum. The Rhode Island Paranormal Research Group became interested in the Morgan after receiving reports from three different groups of people about the apparition. The visitors said that while touring the ship last summer, they saw a man in what appeared to be 19th-century clothing working below deck. They said the man, who had a pipe in his mouth, nodded at them but did not speak. When they went returned to the main deck and asked a museum interpreter what the man was doing, they were told that no one was down below and that no one was assigned to be on the boat that day. "I automatically questioned it, but they insisted they saw something down there," Andrew Laird, founder of the paranormal research group, told The Day of New London. He said that when he asked the three groups for more details, they responded with the same accounts. The three groups were from Massachusetts, Arizona and New York and did not know each other. They visited within a week's time of each other. "The fact that we had three reports that were the same made everyone's eyebrows go up," Laird said. He said that he also received about 40 other reports of possible paranormal activity before those groups related their experiences. Museum officials gave the group permission to conduct the investigation. "We're interested in what they find out," said museum publicist Mike O'Farrell, who attended Friday night's investigation. "It's not so much we believe in ghosts and spirits, but it's a chance to do something fun." Laird and the other investigators said their few hours on the ship convinced them that there was enough evidence of paranormal activity in certain areas to warrant a return visit with more sophisticated equipment. Renee Blais, who described herself as a "sensitive" who uses touch and smell to connect with a place's energy, said she felt the presence of a seaman named Gerald. She also described a sense of "sickness, death and despair" among about 15 men as they rode out a large storm in their cramped sleeping quarters. Some museum employees might not be surprised by the speculation that the whaling ship is haunted. Dawn Johnson, a longtime museum interpreter who used to be assigned to the Morgan, said she used to hate to go down below and close up for the night. "It was creepy down there at night," she said. "It's cold and clammy. You hear moans and creaking, and you wonder what it is." Laird said that 90 percent of the time, his group finds a natural explanation for what people are experiencing, whether it's an animal making noise, something structural in the house or a hoax. "We mainly go in to investigate. We're not saying a place is haunted. We go in with an open mind," he said. The group also recently investigated reports at Ledge Light in New London Harbor, and believes the brick lighthouse is haunted by a woman and group of children. They plan to return there on June 3. 04/23/06 06:49 EDT