More than seven months after being enclosed in a temporary burial site, the 276-year-old remains of purported pirate Edward Salter are still without a marker or a permanent grave.

There is no sign the remains will be moved to a marked plot any time soon, though one known Salter heir is confident the bones won’t be removed to some far-flung location.

“I’m sure the remains will remain in Beaufort County; there’s no doubt about that,” said heir Suzy Dixon Bennett of Plainfield, Ind.

Salter, who died in 1735, was believed to have been buried at Bath’s Beasley Point on a plantation he owned and passed along to his children.

Raleigh author/researcher Kevin Duffus has theorized that Salter was one of perhaps half a dozen members of the pirate Blackbeard’s crew who received the king’s pardon for acts of piracy.

Blackbeard was killed in a November 1718 battle with Royal Navy forces off Ocracoke.

History holds that members of the pirate captain’s crew who survived the battle were taken to Virginia, tried, convicted and hanged.

Duffus contends some of the crew members were not killed, and that one č Salter č went on to lead a productive life as a prominent leader of his community.

The remains thought to be Salter’s were disinterred in the late 1980s as part of a state-led archaeological investigation of the Beasley Point area on Bath Creek. The investigation was intended to save artifacts and preserve history as the owner of the land, then Texasgulf Chemical Co., sought permitting to install a bulkhead.

Salter’s remains were kept in storage by the state until a group of his heirs asked a court to have the bones turned over to them and returned to Beaufort County.

The remains were handed over to the heirs then reinterred here.

The reburial took place in late October 2010. The location of the donated burial plot hasn’t been released to the general public.

The current owner of the land where Salter was thought to have lived and been buried is PotashCorp, a Canadian company which has a phosphate-mining operation near Aurora.

Potash agreed to allow the remains to be reinterred on company-owned land č where the heirs would be allowed to visit periodically č but not at the original burial site where they were unearthed in the 1980s.

The vestry of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, North Carolina’s oldest church, told the heirs Salter could be buried on church grounds, but not beneath a marker identifying the bones as Salter’s, reportedly because of uncertainty about the identity of the remains.

Salter was one of the church’s founders.

In a recent interview, Duffus, who has acted as a spokesman for the court-recognized Salter heirs, told the Washington Daily News it was hoped analysis of the bones by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., would erase some lingering doubts about the identity of the remains.

Duffus cited a document from the British archives showing the names of Blackbeard crew members who were arrested and convicted of piracy.

He also cited colonial records č deeds, wills, depositions č showing the same names as those of a handful of crewmen who were thought to have been hanged, among them Salter’s.

The pirate Edward Salter was identified on record as a cooper, Duffus pointed out. The Edward Salter who owned property at Bath also was known to be a cooper, or barrel-maker, he said. This, too, is a matter of record.

Duffus contends Salter might have been one of the six pirates left behind in Bath by Blackbeard before his fatal encounter with the royal navy.

Duffus has noted one of these pirates was Israel Hands, who had been Blackbeard’s second in command. Hands was pardoned and returned to England, Duffus said.

“The identity of those crew members who were either hanged in Williamsburg (Va.), according to traditional history, or who somehow survived, which is the theory that I am pushing forward, is I think the crux of this Blackbeard story,” he said.

Duffus, who spoke in Washington at the recent, inaugural Pirate Parley on the Pamlico symposium, was accompanied to his interview by English historian and fellow speaker E.T. Fox, curator of the Golden Hind museum ship.

Fox was asked about Duffus’ theory that the Edward Salter who lived at Bath was the same Edward Salter that had been one of Blackbeard’s men.

“I think it’s a very definite possibility that deserves more research and consideration,” Fox said. “I think it’s certainly possible, it’s certainly plausible. I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say it’s likely, but I wouldn’t say it’s unlikely.”

Fox isn’t swayed by the occurrence of Salter’s name on records tied to Bath and Blackbeard.

“It’s the cooper thing, actually, is the thing that makes me think maybe there’s some merit to this,” he said.

Fox added that while the same commonly held names of different people often appear in colonial records, it is more rare for two colonial men to have had the same name and occupation and to have been in the same place at one time.

For her part, Bennett, the heir from Indiana, said the heirs are waiting for a written report on forensic analysis from Douglas Owsley, a curator and division head at the Smithsonian, before pursuing more options for the permanent entombment of their ancestor.

She expects Owsley’s report will be released soon.

“There’s options on the table, but basically the next of kin all need to get together and discuss that,” she said, adding, “At this point, I just think that we have to unfortunately wait.”