According to local lore, the pirate Blackbeard, a.k.a. Edward Teach, sometimes retreated with his crew to Smith’s Creek for a little rest and relaxation far from any threat of Royal Navy patrols, which avoided the thin waters inside NC’s outer-banks.

The local legend also has it that the Pirate secreted a treasure away beneath an oak tree that once stood here at the point between Smith’s and Green’s Creek.

Though the tree collapsed in 1958, and Dewey’s Point has seen some erosion, occasional groups of treasure hunters armed with various detecting equipment still come to try their luck.

The photo is from a circa 1910 postcard in the public domain postcard collection of UNC Chapel Hill, and bears a hand-written not on the back: “'Teach’s Oak,’ Oriental – N.C. Under this tree the Pirate is supposed to have buried some of his ill gotten booty.”

You can zoom in on the postcard at the UNC site