William Norwood Still, Jr.

William N. Still, Jr. Image Source: News & Observer, Aug. 20, 1989, p. 3D

In January 2004, the Queen Anne’s Revenge Conservation Lab located on ECU’s West Research Campus and co-sponsored by the N. C. Department of Cultural Resources held its dedication ceremony featuring selected artifacts from among the 11,000 – at that point – recovered from the shipwreck, purportedly, of Blackbeard’s last major vessel, the Queen Anne’s Revenge. While the fit between a school identified with pirates and an early eighteenth-century shipwreck, found near Blackbeard’s one-time home, Beaufort, might seem logical, the professional dimension of the match was made possible by ECU’s internationally-recognized graduate program in maritime history and underwater archaeology. The latter was the legacy of William N. Still, Jr., professor of history and founding co-director of the program.

Although Still retired in 1994, two years before the discovery of the Queen Anne’s Revenge shipwreck, his research focus on mid-nineteenth-century Civil War maritime history had early on led to the establishment of an ECU summer field school in underwater archaeology and an impressive graduate curriculum in maritime studies. ECU’s maritime program enabled it to claim with high academic integrity that it was the professional site for essential conservation work on artifacts from the shipwreck. Decades earlier, Still had established close ties with the N. C. Department of Cultural Resources’ Underwater Archaeology division, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration based in Washington, D.C., and numerous other governmental and academic agencies and divisions, enhancing ECU’s credibility as the major player in conservation work on the QAR. The worldwide attention elicited by the QAR was not, for either Still or the ECU Program in Maritime Studies, unprecedented. Earlier, Still’s participation in the recovery of artifacts from the USS Monitor, a Civil War ironclad, had brought ECU international attention and led the way in establishing the high standing of its maritime program.

A native of Columbus, Mississippi, Still completed his B.S. at Mississippi College and then served in the U.S. Navy between 1954 and 1956. It was following his stint in the Navy that Still took up Civil War maritime history, writing his M.A. thesis in 1958 on the Confederate ironclad, the CSS Alabama. He continued the same line of research as a doctoral student, completing his Ph.D. in history in 1964 at the University of Alabama. Prior to joining the ECU faculty in 1968, Still taught history at Mississippi Women’s University. From 1968 until his retirement in 1994, Still served, along with one of his students, Gordon P. Watts, Jr., as the founding co-director of the Program in Maritime History and Underwater Archaeology. During his thirty-year career as a university professor, Still wrote, edited, and contributed to dozens of books on naval and maritime history.

In 1983, ECU Maritime History researchers recovered the 1,350-pound anchor from the remains of the USS Monitor, a Civil War ironclad, which sank off the coast of Cape Hatteras over a century before. ECU researchers, led by Still and Watts, then did extensive conservation work before turning the anchor over to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Today, the anchor is on display at the Mariner’s Museum in Newport News, Virginia. Still noted that recovery of the anchor provided valuable data for scholarly research on Civil War ironclads and a big boost for the ECU program which garnered global note as international news teams reported on the recovery. Still observed that the attention ECU received with the Monitor anchor retrieval was “unparalleled.” While the anchor was eventually moved to the University of South Carolina for “finishing touches,” it returned to ECU on July 24, 1986, for a formal unveiling and public presentation in Hendrix Theatre in Mendenhall Student Center. More than 250 attended, including State Representative Walter B. Jones, Jr., Chancellor John Howell, and Nancy Foster of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In the fall of 1989, Still was appointed as the Secretary of the Navy’s Research Chair in Naval History at the Naval Historical Center in Washington, D.C. In August of 1989, the News and Observer named Still “Tar Heel of the Week.” Since his retirement in 1994, Still has continued to publish widely on American maritime history, adding further to the prestige of ECU’s Program in Maritime Studies as emeritus professor and director. His legacy continues today not simply in the QAR Conservation Lab, but in the thriving ECU Program in Maritime Studies and its increasingly globally-oriented efforts toward expanding knowledge of maritime history through a combination of archival research and underwater archaeology.

Sources:

• Allegood, Jerry. “Maritime expert credits literary sea legs to love of history.” News and Observer. August 20, 1989. P. 3D.
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• Garner, Bob. “American Historian: Dr. William N. Still.” Greenville: Life in the East. Winter 2019. Pp. 5-8. https://issuu.com/cookecommunicationsnc/docs/ggmg-112919
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• Records of the College of Arts and Sciences: Records of the Maritime Studies Program, 1975-1996. University Archives #UA25-20. J. Y. Joyner Library. East Carolina University. Greenville, N.C. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/special/ead/findingaids/UA25-20
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• “Stan Riggs.” 1998. University Archives # UA55.01.2764. J. Y. Joyner Library. East Carolina University. Greenville, N.C. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/23308
• Still, William N., Jr. Confederate Shipbuilding. University of Georgia Press, 1969.
• Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Vanderbilt University Press, 1971.
• Still, William N., Jr. North Carolina's Revolutionary War Navy. N. C. Dept. of Cultural Resources, 1976.
• Still, William N., Jr. American Sea Power in the Old World: The United States Navy in European and Near Eastern Waters, 1865-1917. Greenwood Press, 1980.
• Still, William N., Jr. Why the South Lost the Civil War. University of Georgia Press, 1985.
• Still, William N., Jr., Taylor, John M., and Delaney, Norman. Raiders and Blockaders: The American Civil War Afloat. Brassey’s, 1998.
• Still, William N., Jr. Monitor Builders: A Historical Study of the Principal Firms and Individuals Involved in the Construction of USS Monitor. National Maritime Initiative, 1988.
• Still, William N., Jr. Confederate Shipbuilding. University of South Carolina Press, 2003.
• Still, William N., Jr. Crisis at Sea: The United States Navy in European Waters in World War I. University Press of Florida, 2007.
• Still, William N., Jr. and Stephenson, Richard A. Shipbuilding in North Carolina, 1688-1918. N. C. Office of Archives and History, 2021.
• “Students Searching Artifacts In Historic State Waterways.” Rocky Mount Telegram. Aug. 20, 1981. P. 5.
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• Thompson, Dave. “Monitor-raising operations halt for consideration.” East Carolinian. Nov. 17, 1977. P. 3.
• “USS Monitor Anchor.” September 02, 1983. University Archives # UA55.01.5632. J. Y. Joyner Library. East Carolina University. Greenville, N.C. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/23482
• “Video recording of Maritime Studies archaeology expedition- CSS Chattahoochee Project Tape #6.” 1984. University Archives # UA25.20.03.01.25. J. Y. Joyner Library. East Carolina University. Greenville, N.C. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/61828; Tape # 7. University Archives # UA25.20.03.01.26. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/61829; Tape # 8. UA25.20.03.01.27. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/61830; Tape # 10. University Archives # UA25.20.03.01.29. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/61831.
• “Video recording of Maritime Studies archaeology expedition- Warm Mineral Springs Project, Tape 2.” University Archives # UA25.20.03.01.17. J. Y. Joyner Library. East Carolina University. Greenville, N.C. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/62147
• William N. Still Jr. Papers. East Carolina Manuscript Collection #139. J. Y. Joyner Library. East Carolina University. Greenville, N.C. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/special/ead/findingaids/0139
• “YO88 Yorktown, VA.” Video recording. October 14, 1987. University Archives # UA25.20.03.01.13. J. Y. Joyner Library. East Carolina University. Greenville, N.C. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/50627

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