shore.

A few miles down the Pasquotank from Elizabeth City, North Carolina,
there stands near the river shore a quaint old building known as "The
Old Brick House," which is said to have been one of the many widely
scattered haunts of Blackbeard. A small slab of granite, circular in
shape, possibly an old mill wheel, is sunken in the ground at the foot
of the steps and bears the date of 1709, and the initials "E.T."

The ends of the house are of mingled brick and stone, the main body of
wood. The wide entrance hall, paneled to the ceiling, opens into a large
room, also paneled, in which is a wide fire-place with a richly carved
mantel reaching to the ceiling. On each side of this mantel there is a
closet let into the wall, one of which communicates by a secret door
with the large basement room below. Tradition says that from this room a
secret passage led to the river; that here the pirate confined his
captives, and that certain ineffaceable stains upon the floor in the
room above, hint of dark deeds, whose secret was known only to the
underground tunnel and the unrevealing waters below.

Standing on a low cliff overlooking the Pasquotank, whose amber waters
come winding down from the great Dismal Swamp some ten miles away, the
old house commands a good view of the river, which makes a wide bend
just where the ancient edifice stands. And a better spot the pirate
could not have found to keep a lookout for the avenging ship that should
track him to his hiding place. And should a strange sail heave in sight,
or one which he might have cause to fear was bringing an enemy to his
door, quickly to the secret closet near the great mantel in the banquet
hall would Blackbeard slip, drop quietly down to the basement room
beneath, bending low, rush swiftly through the underground tunnel, slip
into the waiting sloop and be off and away up the river or down,
whichever was safest, out of reach of the enemy.

But though many of the streams and towns in the Albemarle region retain
these traditions of Blackbeard, in little Bath, the oldest town in North
Carolina, can the greatest number of these tales be heard; and with good
reason, for here in this historic village, the freebooter made his home
for a month or so after he had availed himself of the king's offer of
pardon to the pirates who would surrender themselves and promise to give
over their evil mode of life.

This ancient village, founded in 1705, is situated on Bath Creek, by