By By BETTY MITCHELL GRAY
Staff writer
Heirs of a man believed to be a member of Blackbeard’s pirate crew are coming forward as a result of court-ordered advertising by the state’s archeologist in the Washington Daily News.
At least one of them said he hopes this will be the end of a two-year quest to have his ancestor’s remains returned to Beaufort County for burial in the graveyard at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Bath.
“All we want to do is have his bones buried and have a headstone placed on his grave,” said Brian Blount, one of those who have identified themselves as heirs of Edward Salter, whose remains are believed to be the subject of the advertisements.
“I don’t really understand why that has been so hard,” Blount said.
The final of four advertisements seeking information by State Archeologist Stephen R. Claggett about the identity or heirs of skeletal remains unearthed near Bath Creek in 1986 appeared in Thursday’s edition of the Daily News.
On Friday, Claggett declined to give a specific number of heirs who have come forward as result of the advertisement, but he said the number was “less than 10.”
Blount, of Rogersville, Mo., said in a telephone interview last week that Waxhaw lawyer J. Erik Groves had written Claggett on behalf of him and his aunt, Joan Blount Bass, and identified them as Salter’s heirs. A telephone call to Groves requesting confirmation of that information was not returned Friday.
Blount, an employee with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Missouri, has said that he and his aunt are lineal descendants of Salter through Salter’s granddaughter, Abigail Salter, who married Jesse Blount.
Blount has researched his family’s history for a number of years and made several trips to North Carolina, in part, to research his family’s history. Blount said his great-great-grandfather moved to the Rogersville area, near Springfield, Mo., after the Civil War.
Claggett said he would wait “a reasonable period of time” for additional heirs to contact him following the final advertisement and report his findings, as ordered by Beaufort County Superior Court Judge Wayland J. Sermons following a January hearing on the matter.
“It won’t drag on forever,” Claggett said.
Blount said he expects to be given the opportunity as part of this process to say what he and his aunt would like to happen with the remains.
In his three-page ruling last month, Sermons stayed an appeal by Raleigh researcher and author Kevin P. Duffus and ordered the state to comply with its own procedures, which require it to publish notice of the excavation of human remains in order to determine the identify or next of kin, or both, of the deceased. As part of his ruling, Sermons ordered that the state and Duffus report on the ultimate disposition of the skeletal remains within 60 days.
Duffus believes that this same Edward Salter, a barrel-maker who died in 1735, may have been a member of Blackbeard’s pirate crew who escaped the noose and returned to settle in Bath. Salter went on to become a warden of St. Thomas Paris and an assemblyman representing Beaufort County in 1731.
Blount said he was “at first concerned about being a descendant of a pirate,” but as he learned about Salter’s contributions and those of Salter’s descendants to Beaufort County, his attitude changed.
“I’m proud of being part of that family,” he said.