The Lady Blessington cannon near the intersection of Middle Street and Pollock Street is a survey point, a mystery, and one of the things visitors of the Colonial Capital shouldn’t leave town without dropping by to see.
The story goes that the British “Ship-of-War Lady Blessington” was accosted at sea off the North Carolina coast during the American Revolution by a privateer of stalwart New Bern citizen John Wright Stanly. The cannon from the British vessel was brought home as a prize by Stanly’s crew and later buried business-end down at the corner of the yard of Christ Church. It’s been there, some say, for more than 200 years.
The local Richard Dobbs Spaight Chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution installed a fine commemorative marker at its base to perpetuate the tale.
The glossy black cannon at the center of town has seen use as a handy benchmark for surveys and its rounded end has been brushed by thousands of hands.
So, what’s the mystery? Well, we’re left to wonder whether or not the whole affair ever happened.
New Bern history connoisseur Nelson McDaniel, who among many other things led the city’s 300th anniversary celebration in 2010, casts a little shade on the legend in a YouTube video saying, “Research has failed to find any record of a British warship called the Lady Blessington.”
Then there are the annoying facts that the American Revolution ended in 1783, six years before Marguerite Gardiner, the wife of the First Earl of Blessington, was born. And that Charles John Gardiner wasn’t created the first earl until 1816.
None of that means that J.W. Stanley and crew didn’t seize a British warship. It’s quite likely that by the time folks got around to installing the world’s coolest fence post memories of the ship’s name had simply faded.
In any event, McDaniel said, after all this time, the cannon has become a symbol of both our local and national freedoms, and encouraged visitors to “pat the cannon and be grateful.”
by Edward Ellis, Special Correspondent
Eddie Ellis is the author of New Bern History 101 and other works about Craven County’s rich heritage. He can be reached at flexspace2@aol.com.