Queen Anne’s Revenge Conservation Lab and VOA Site C

AP photo from Rocky Mount Telegram
Image Source: AP photo from Rocky Mount Telegram, June 29, 1997, p. 3A.

In January 2004, the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources and ECU’s Program in Maritime Studies launched a conservation lab project to preserve over 10,000 artifacts already excavated plus a far larger quantity yet to be recovered from a shipwreck site near Beaufort, widely considered that of Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge. The site had been discovered by a private group, Intersal Inc., of Boca Raton, Florida, in 1996, but State of N.C. officials, cognizant that it was the most consequential since the 1973 USS Monitor discovery, quickly asserted rights to own, excavate, preserve, and curate it. The sheer magnitude of artifacts, from tiny beads to large cannons, easily outstripped the DCR’s ability to conserve them. For over a year, excavations stalled due to the state’s inability to process additional materials and its unwillingness to allocate sufficient funds to do so.

ECU’s Program in Maritime Studies, then led by Tim Runyan (1941 – ), stepped into the breach offering professional help along with expansive campus resources rather than allow the stalemate to result in treasure lost to the next hurricane and the shifting sands of Bogue Inlet. With backing from Chancellor Richard Eakin (1938 – ), Runyan volunteered some of the newly acquired 27,000 square foot facilities once used as a Voice of America relay station. The federal government deeded part of the facility to the State of North Carolina in 2000 for “educational purposes,” at no cost. Facilitating the deal with educational integrity, ECU had proposed a new partnership, the North Carolina Agromedicine Institute – including N.C. State and North Carolina A&T – to be based at the site. Still, the former VOA site had more than enough room for additional projects. Seeing the opportunity, Maritime Studies proposed use of part of the facility as a working conservation lab for processing existing and actively excavated artifacts.

DCR Deputy Lisbeth C. Evans (1952 – ) praised the partnership stating that the QAR Lab would “double” the space available for conservation work. Once approved by all, the ample ECU facilities included office space for project management, plus a 4,000 square foot warehouse where artifacts, including wooden hull planks and cannons, could be conserved safely in “water-filled holding tanks” akin to the environment from which they had been recovered. Preservation work involved, among other things, cleaning, measuring, photographing, and documenting myriad remains from the shipwreck. University support for such a partnership was manifest as early as March of 1999 when Runyan, with Chancellor Eakin’s blessing, orchestrated a display of artifacts from the Queen Anne’s Revenge in Joyner Library’s North Carolina Collection as part of ECU’s Founder’s Day celebration.

At the 2004 dedication ceremony for the conservation lab, Runyon noted that the VOA site, “with its steel vaults and encryption rooms,” was a Cold War relic of the past which would be repurposed as “a laboratory for the study and preservation of a ship of one of the bloodiest cold warriors of all time – Blackbeard the pirate.” Then chief conservator at the QAR Lab, Sarah Watson-Kenney added that “even without Blackbeard, this is a valuable historical project.” International press attention easily confirmed Watson-Kenney’s assessment. After being processed at the conservation lab, artifacts were transferred for display at the N.C. Maritime Museum in Beaufort, the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras, the N.C. Museum of History in Raleigh, the Museum of the Albemarle in Elizabeth City, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and other museums regionally and globally with maritime interests.

The Queen Anne’s Revenge Conservation Lab is the most widely known project underway at the former VOA site, now known as ECU’s West Research Campus, but it was not the first. The North Carolina Agromedicine Institute pioneered repurposing the facility for its base of operations, and not long after a biology field research project, led by Professor Carol E. Goodwillie (1958 – ), began studying ecological changes in wetlands plants there.

The West Research Campus site was actually one of three VOA locations surrounding Greenville and dating back to the early 1960s. Site A was just over the Pitt County line, in Beaufort County; Site B in Grimesland; and Site C – now ECU’s West Research Campus – was located near Falkland on a relatively isolated tract of land adjacent NC 33. Site C received VOA recordings from Washington, D.C., and then transmitted them to Sites A and B for shortwave broadcast internationally. Collectively, the facilities reflected the ideological struggles of the Cold War as the non-communist world, led by the U.S., sought to undermine communist power, especially that of Cuba and communist-leaning nations of Central and South America. As part of the VOA dedication ceremony on Feb. 8, 1963, President John F. Kennedy broadcast congratulations to the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) on its new facility in Greenville, praising its work in broadcasting the American message into homes globally via short-wave radio. The Greenville site was lauded in news reports as “the world’s largest and most powerful long-range radio facility … on the air.” In addition to Kennedy’s broadcast from the White House, USIA Director and North Carolina native, Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965), presided personally over the dedication. In 1968, the Greenville VOA sites were renamed the Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Stations.

In 1971, an agribusiness firm gained permission to bury toxic waste – from a fire at a chemical storage warehouse – on a portion of the Site C tract. Between 1988-1997, Site C served as a network training facility for new foreign service officers prior to being stationed overseas. After VOA operations there ceased in 1995, Site C was officially decommissioned in 1997. Two years later, in March of 1999, ECU working in conjunction with the State of North Carolina applied to the U.S. Department of Education for purchase of approximately 13 acres of Site C, then listed as federal surplus property, at 100% of the public benefit allowance, i.e., at no cost.

Brody School Medicine Professor Byron T. Burlingham (1940 – ) led the initiative as part his drive to establish a North Carolina Agromedicine Institute. The U.S. General Services Administration accepted the North Carolina (ECU) offer in a quitclaim deed dated February 17, 2000. Even before the first transfer was completed, North Carolina applied, in December 2000, to acquire 580 additional acres of Site C under the same arrangement. And on July 17, 2001, the federal government signed another quitclaim deed, transferring the property. Another tract, comprising approximately 50 acres and known as the “VOA Site C Repository Site,” presumably includes the buried toxic waste. It was not included in either quitclaim deed.

In acquiring and then repurposing VOA Site C, East Carolina’s role as an agent of regional transformation through education was clearly evident. In its ability to look beyond the propaganda-laden purposes of VOA Site C and envision, instead, a West Research Campus accommodating initiatives addressing the medical concerns of farm workers and the state’s agriculture industry, changes in the botanical environment of wetlands, and finally, the cultural and historic heritage of maritime life in eastern North Carolina, including that of infamous pirates from centuries past, the university well-served the region, the state, the nation, and the larger international arena still fascinated by multifaceted maritime dimensions of our history and culture.

Sources

  • Allegood, Jerry. “ECU lab houses wreck’s bounty: Possible pirate relics restored.” News and Observer. January 25, 2004. P. 1B, 5B.
  • Allegood, Jerry. “Blackbeard’s shipwreck project lacks money.” News and Observer. October 7, 2004. P. 4B.
  • Allegood, Jerry. “ECU tract’s history hidden.” News and Observer. March 7, 1999. Pp. 1B, 2B.
  • Allegood, Jerry. “Voice of America heard only abroad: Mystery to locals, government radio known worldwide.” News and Observer. March 18, 1997. P. 12A.
  • “Area Hosts ‘Voice of America:’ Murrow, Congressional Delegation Inspect, Formally Inaugurate Plant.” East Carolinian. February 8, 1963. P. 1.
  • Associated Press. “Artifacts taken from ship said to be Blackbeard’s.” Charlotte Observer. January 13, 2004. P. 2B.
  • Associated Press. “Blackbeard repository unveiled: Lab will help preserve items from ship believed to have been pirate’s.” Charlotte Observer. January 17, 2004. P. 4B.
  • Associated Press. “Eastern N.C. Station Beams News In Arabic.” Charlotte Observer. January 25, 1991. P. 5D.
  • Associated Press. “Professor: VOA Station was a spy communications post.” Rocky Mount Telegram. March 8, 1999. P. 7.
  • Daniel, Kristy. “University to occupy VOA site: Land slated for use as ‘millennium’ campus.” East Carolinian. March 11, 1999. Pp. 1, 4. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/58832
  • Dawyot, Peter. “Exhibit features artifacts from pirate ships: Team work brings bit of history to Joyner.” East Carolinian. March 9, 1999. P. 1. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/58831
  • Drye, Willie. “Blackbeard's Ship Confirmed off North Carolina.” National Geographic. August 29, 2011. Updated July 24, 2017. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/110829-blackbeard-shipwreck-pirates-archaeology-science
  • Harris, Holly. “Pirates aboard Queen Anne’s Revenge.” East Carolinian. December 4, 1997. P. 1. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/58746
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  • “Letter from Ramona M. Bartos to Marvin A. Brown, January 23, 2018.” North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. Re: Final Historic Structures Documentation Report for Voice of America Station Site A, Beaufort County, ER 15-2838. https://files.nc.gov/ncdcr/historic-preservation-office/PDFs/ER%2015-2838.pdf
  • Rhine, F. Wayne. "The Voice of America Greenville, North Carolina". IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Transactions on Broadcasting. BC-14 (2) June 1968: 48. DOI: 10.1109/TBC.1968.265954
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  • Quitclaim Deed. Grantor: USA. Grantee: NC. Date Filed: March 13, 2000. Book 1011, p. 538. Pitt County, North Carolina Register of Deeds. Parcel 61630. 22 pages. https://regdeeds.pittcountync.gov/External/LandRecords/protected/v4/SrchBookPage.aspx?bAutoSearch=true&bk=1011&pg=538
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  • Reflector Staff. “Former VOA site turned game land to open Aug. 1.” Daily Reflector. Jun 8, 2017 Updated Oct 2, 2019. https://www.reflector.com/news/local/former-voa-site-turned-game-land-to-open-aug-1/article_bd485ed6-a639-5950-ae13-6cfa4a8b5b18.html
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Related Material

Sound recording of President John F. Kennedy’s remarks at the dedication ceremony for the United States Information Agency (USIA) Transmitter Complex in Greenville, North Carolina, 8 February 1963.

Remarks for USIA Transmitter opening, Greenville, North Carolina, 8 February 1963). Image Source: Papers of John F. Kennedy. Presidential Papers. President's Office Files. Speech Files. Remarks for USIA Transmitter opening, Greenville, North Carolina, 8 February 1963.

Image Source: United States Information Agency, 1953-1983 (The Agency, 1983), p. 13.

Image Source: Image from F. Wayne Rhine. "The Voice of America Greenville, North Carolina". IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Transactions on Broadcasting. BC-14 (2) June 1968: 48. DOI: 10.1109/TBC.1968.265954

ECU Brody School of Medicine Professor Byron Burlingham at VOA Site A. Image Source: News & Observer, March 7, 1999. “ECU tract’s history hidden.” P. 2B.

Image Source: Image from F. Wayne Rhine. "The Voice of America Greenville, North Carolina". IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Transactions on Broadcasting. BC-14 (2) June 1968: 46. DOI: 10.1109/TBC.1968.265954

Citation Information

Title: Queen Anne's Revenge Conservation Lab and VOA Site C, 2004

Author: John A. Tucker, PhD

Date of Publication: 12/28/2021

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