Ocracoke Island will celebrate colonial life in the 1700s with a living history encampment and the Battle of Ocracoke during Blackbeard’s Pirate Jamboree Friday, Oct. 27, and Saturday, Oct. 28, on the Berkley Manor grounds and barn.
The festival will focus on history, colonial life and family fun.
Events will kick off Friday afternoon with a vendor fair, Brigands Bazaar, and at 6 p.m. in the barn with a pirate costume contest for kids and adults.
Are you the most authentic pirate/colonial kid, adult, family? Who will be the most authentic Blackbeard?
Saturday (Oct. 28) from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. will feature a colonial encampment on the grounds of the Berkley Manor highlighting daily life, navigation, cooking and medicine, games for kids, along with a dozen artisan vendors.
Among the living history re-enactors are The Cannon Crew out of Beaufort. Led by Capt. Carl Cannon, the 17-member group will set up a colonial-era encampment with shipboard medicine, navigation, weaving and cooking.
Cannon’s period sloop, “The Adventure,” and Horatio Sinbad’s brigantine, “Meka II,” will circle the harbor with cannons ablaze.
Also pitching their camps will be members of Leviathan Nautical Living History, a group dedicated to the accurate portrayal of a ship’s company in the age of sail, spanning the years 1680 to 1865. They also will demonstrate colonial era firearms.
The Sword Circle, which hails from Raleigh, will demonstrate sword fighting and will have a booth with candle making in which festival goers can try their hand. They also will have axe throwing and will set up an area for kids to learn sword fighting.
The Shadow Players will return this year to perform their Pirate Comedy Sword Fight and roving minstrels will sing sea chanteys and tavern songs throughout the day.
Saturday afternoon in the barn, historian Kevin Duffus will discus “Where is Blackbeard’s Treasure?”
The living history crews will also reenact on shore the sword fight in which Blackbeard met his demise at the hand of Royal Navy Lt. Robert Maynard.
The event will conclude with a memorial service honoring the fallen sailors for both Blackbeard and Lt. Robert Maynard.
A detailed schedule will be released later.
Stay tuned on Blackbeard’s Pirate Jamboree Facebook page, the OCBA Facebook page and http://www.ocracokeisland.net.
The event is produced by the Ocracoke Civic & Business Association and sponsored by the Ocracoke Occupancy Tax Board.
