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The Keeper's Times
The Old Baldy Foundation Community Newsletter
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COVID-19 Reopening Details
Old Baldy continues to follow the regulations of phase two in the reopening of the state. Phase two mandates that historic sites and museums must remain closed. While we are eager to reopen Old Baldy for our visitors, it is essential to follow all directives to ensure the safety of our guests and staff's safety. Phase two does allow retail stores to be open in a limited capacity, so our gift shop is operating. Please review the following details about our gift shop operations and safety protocol.
Gift Shop Hours:
Monday- Saturday 10-4 pm
Sunday 11-4 pm
**Hours will extend when the lighthouse is allowed to reopen**
Only two shoppers allowed at one time in the shop
No cash will be accepted- only card transactions.
Face coverings will be required.
The bathroom facilities will remain closed.
Hand sanitizer will be available for all shoppers.
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Virtual Historic
Happy Hour
Wednesday at 5pm!
Join Old Baldy for a virtual historic happy hour on Wednesday, July 15th, at 5 pm!
Guest Speaker: Christine Brin, Group & Volunteer Coordinator, NC Maritime Museum at Beaufort
Mary Read & Anne Bonney- These two women pirates, who disguised themselves as men and often surpassed the abilities of their male counterparts, have always been a topic of public interest. Brin will share intriguing information regarding their lives before piracy! Could their choice of piracy have a connection to their early childhood?
Use promo code VirtualHappyHour to sign up at no cost, but donations or paying admission will greatly help Old Baldy weather the finical hardships of COVID-19.
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Old Baldy Receives Grant from United States Lighthouse Society!
The United States Lighthouse Society is a nonprofit organization that promotes and educates our countries' lighthouses- past and present. They have awarded funds to many lighthouses over the years to assist with preservation and maintenance projects.
This year in light of COVID-19, they debuted a special grant emergency relief program designed to assist lighthouses struggling due to closures.
Over fifty lighthouse preservation organizations applied for this funding, and only twenty-four were accepted to receive funds. We are thrilled to announce that the Old Baldy Foundation has been selected as a recipient of this program.
Please join us in thanking the United States Lighthouse Society for creating this program and including Old Baldy in the group of recipients. Having our doors shut in the summer season has created a significant financial strain on all lighthouse, including Old Baldy, and this program helps ease that stress. The United States Lighthouse Society is a membership
organization. The many member's of their organization are what make grant programs like this possible. Please consider becoming a member of the United States Lighthouse Society to help them with their mission to support lighthouses across the country. You can learn more about becoming a member through the link below.
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National Lighthouse Day Weekend
August 8th-9th
The Old Baldy Foundation is pleased to be moving forward with plans to celebrate National Lighthouse Day Weekend over August 8th-9th. With many summertime festivities canceled due to COVID-19, we are thrilled to be able to move forward with these nautical celebrations! We understand some of these plans may still be required to change due to the fluidity of the situation. The Old Baldy Foundation is prepared to make any changes needed for our guests and staff's safety and will publish all updates in future Keeper's Times and on our website.
**In a previous edition of "The Keeper's Time," we teased a possible Happy Hour under the stars of Old Baldy on Friday, August 7th. With the amount of rising COVID-19 cases in our area, we felt it was best to postpone this part of the weekend. While the event would have been in open air, it would have encouraged socializing, and we determined it was best to put on hold. We are hopeful to reschedule over Labor Day Weekend!**
Saturday, August 8th- 2 pm
The annual duck race kicks off!
All summer, we have been selling ducks on the Old Baldy web store for $10! Each person who bought a duck will have an entry in the race. Whoever owns the duck that crosses the finish line first will win $500! You do not need to be present at the race to win. However, we invite all to watch the ducks race down the Bald Head Creek.
Sunday, August 9th- 12-3pm
North Carolina Market Place
Join us on Sunday afternoon to shop from a selected group of local food purveyors and artisans who will be set up on the lighthouse grounds. Take home some freshly caught seafood and local produce to enjoy in your BHI home. Enjoy shopping in the open air and a safe, socially distant environment. There is no cost to attend the event, and it is open to the public.
Interested in being a vendor for the market place?
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Run for the Light- Sunday, August 9th
The Run for the Light course is a scenic run near coastal dunes and through the maritime forest on Bald Head Island, NC. The whole course features an all-asphalt surface, with splits and water at the 1-, 3- and 5-mile marks. This event is perfect to showcase some of North Carolina’s most beautiful beaches and beach cities – it will be one to mark off your bucket list!
Run a 10K, 5K, or 1-mile fun and take home some excellent race swag, including a tee-shirt, headlamp, free beer, signature medal, and more!
Jules BBQ will be available during the race along with cold beer, water, and sodas!
Social Distancing but want to join the fun? Not on the island August 9th but want to dust off your running shoes? Join us for the race virtually. Race swag can be picked up or mailed to you!
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Sum
mer long family friendly contest announced!
There is still time to join our Spirit of Bald Head contest!
Join Old Baldy for a festive competition this summer! Create or decorate a face mask inspired by BHI for a chance to win a weekend getaway on BHI this fall!
You can enter the contest as soon as today, or take your time as the deadline for entries is Sunday, August 2nd and the winners will be announced at our annual Lighthouse Day festival on Sunday, August 9th!
Contest judges will be announced in the next edition of the Keeper's Times!
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History Moment
Thanks to the endeavors of Confederate engineer Benjamin Lewis Blackford, historians understand the topography and landscape of Bald Head Island during the American Civil War. The engineer Blackford assisted in the creation of two hand-drawn and colored maps depicting Bald Head Island in early 1864. One map, entitled "Map of Bald-Head and Cape Fear," illustrates, with minute details, the southernmost barrier island within the Smith Island Complex, often known today as Bald Head Island. Blackford's second map, entitled "Smith Island," is larger in scale. This map depicts the entire Smith Island Complex, compromising the islands Bluff, Middle, and Bald Head, in addition to the salt-water marsh between the islands. These two maps are an invaluable resource when understanding Bald Head Island's landscape during the Civil War and how the Confederate military altered that landscape in attempting to defend the Cape Fear River.
While completing these maps, Blackford wrote letters to family members in Virginia. These letters are preserved within the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina. Blackford described Bald Head as "the most desolate point I suppose on the Atlantic Coast." Yet, Blackford admitted the island was "of great importance in the defense of this town [Wilmington]." While mapping the Cape Fear, Blackford maintained a camp at modern-day Wrightsville Beach. A camp at Wrightsville was certainly healthier than other Confederate posts in the Wilmington region, and the city itself was hollowed out a year earlier when a yellow fever epidemic claimed hundreds of lives. Wrightsville Beach's sea breezes kept the mosquitos at bay, and even the region's Confederate commander, General William Henry Chase Whiting, sought relief by camping at Wrightsville for a period of time. Blackford described his camp as "buried in splendid groves of Cypress, pines, and live oaks." The young officer sought companionship with the Kidder Family, one of the "nabobs of Wilmington" who occupied "about 20 old fashioned roomy sea-side cottages occupying about a mile of the beach," described Blackford.
Other than the Kidder Family and Wrightsville Beach, Blackford did not enjoy his time in the Cape Fear Region. "The more I see of North Carolina, and the North Carolinians, the less I see to admire," Blackford noted. He described the river pilots as "ignorant, stupid, and disloyal." Blackford commented that river pilots "always earned as easy living by pilotage, and they are rebels against any government which interferes with it." To Blackford, Smithville, now Southport, was "the most foreign looking place I ever saw." In Smithville, Blackford observed, "every thing looks dead or asleep; the houses are tumbling to pieces, the enclosures torn away" and the streets were "merely grass-grow lawns, dotted with many curious and beautiful trees."
Within Blackford's maps of Bald Head, the most intriguing detail was the number of residences on Bald Head during the Civil War. Several dwellings are depicted in the maps, including "T. M. Thompson," which one may conclude is Thomas Mann Thompson, the keeper of Old Baldy Lighthouse before the Civil War. Thompson's homestead is located along West Beach, and not within the lighthouse complex. In fact, no keeper cottage is depicted near Old Baldy Lighthouse. Other residences are labeled "Todd," "Bowers," and "Spencer." A majority of the homesteads are within patches of cleared forest, yet, no depictions of agricultural activity are present in the maps. Additional research must be completed to illuminate details about these individual's occupations and activities on Bald Head.
Additionally, the maps depict the early formation of Fort Holmes. The maps reveal that Fort Holmes' curtain, or wall, developed from individual sections that were eventually connected into a congruent wall over one and one half miles in length. Finally, military roads traverse the Bald Head Island on the map. Some roads were already completed, while others are labeled as "proposed." These roads were likely used by Confederate troops to transport mobile artillery pieces across the island in order to defend the island's various beaches against a Union assault. Interestingly, one of these roads traverses the path of modern-day Federal Road. Historians today are fortunate that Benjamin Lewis Blackford utilized his topographical talents in producing two details maps of Bald Head Island during the Civil War. To view these maps yourself, please visit the Old Baldy Foundation Subject Files at
oldbaldy.org
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Thank you to our 2020 Annual Sponsors!
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Fitz-Hugh Family
John & Kim Gottshall
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