Press Releases

The “N.C. Digs!” traveling archaeological exhibit features artifacts from the Berry site in Burke County and other western North Carolina sites. The Western Office of the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources will host the exhibit April 16 to May 30. The exhibit features five different types of archaeological sites found across North Carolina: Native American, battlefield, plantation, trash pit and industrial. “N.C. Digs!” includes interpretive panels explaining each site type, and reviews techniques and methods used to excavate and analyze the materials discovered.

The North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources announces that six individual properties across the state have been added to the National Register of Historic Places. The following properties were reviewed by the North Carolina National Register Advisory Committee and were subsequently approved by the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Officer and forwarded to the Keeper of the National Register.

Visitors are invited to experience the ongoing conservation of the infamous pirate Blackbeard's flagship, Queen Anne's Revenge, at the fourth annual Queen Anne’s Revenge Conservation Lab Open House, Saturday, April 21, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is free for this fun and educational event, “Blackbeard: The Science of Pirates, 300th Edition.” 

Spring is here and often that means renewal, sorting and taking inventory. It’s the perfect time for the Somerset Yard and Market Sale Saturday, April 14, 10 a.m.to 2 p.m. Community members, civic clubs, local churches and organizations are invited to bring gently used household items, jewelry, baskets, food, pottery, artwork, crafts and baked goods to sell. The event is a great way to enjoy homemade goods and buy local, meet neighbors and support community creativity. Vendor spaces near the visitor center will rent for $15.

Due to potentially inclement weather, two of the four state historic sites planning Park Day for April 7 have rescheduled. Park Day will go on at Historic Edenton and Fort Fisher April 7 as planned. Park Day at Bennett Place is rescheduled to April 14; Park Day at Bentonville Battlefield is rescheduled to April 28. Thousands of volunteers across the country participate in the Civil War Trust organized event, and this year will be the largest ever involving more than 155 historic sites in 32 states.

Raleigh, N.C. - The North Carolina Historical Commission Confederate Monuments Study Committee has set a deadline for the acceptance of public comments on a petition to relocate three Confederate monuments from the State Capitol grounds in Raleigh to the Bentonville Battlefield State Historic Site in Four Oaks, N.C. The public comment period will close at midnight, Thursday, April 12 (Eastern Standard Time).

Parents, there are fun, interactive, educational activities waiting for your little ones at the CSS Neuse Civil War Interpretive Center this spring and summer. Every second Wednesday, April through August, the CSS Neuse will present “Storytime and Craft Morning,” with a different book and craft each month. The first program, Wednesday, April 11, 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., costs $1 per person and includes all materials.

The meeting of opposing generals inside the humble parlor of James and Nancy Bennett was a small part of making peace and ending the Civil War. Why did the negotiations take days longer than those at Appomattox? How did the ending impact black and white civilians, the free and enslaved? What role did the cavalry play? These are among questions to be explored Saturday and Sunday, April 21-22, at Bennett Place State Historic Site in Durham.

Ahoy, mateys! If ye be sailing for Ocracoke or Bath this year, be prepared to do so under the black flag of the dreaded pirate Blackbeard. The North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources has teamed up with the NCDOT’s Ferry Division to fly the flags in observance of the 300th anniversary of Blackbeard’s death in 1718. The flags will fly on the Hatteras-Ocracoke, Cedar Island-Ocracoke, and Swan Quarter-Ocracoke routes, as well as the Pamlico River route, which runs between Bayview and Aurora. Both areas have historic ties to the 18th-century scallywag.

A community of Jewish immigrants was recruited to settle in rural eastern North Carolina at one of six colonies envisioned and financed by Wilmington’s Hugh MacRae, beginning early in the 1900s. He hoped to recreate the close-knit rural communities of Europe. One of them was Van Eeden, first settled by Dutch immigrants and then by Jews escaping Hitler’s Germany in 1939. A N.C. Highway Historical Marker will be dedicated to commemorate that settlement Wednesday, April 18, at 2 p.m., at Mount Holly Baptist Church in Burgaw.