OCRACOKE — The graves of Sam Jones and his horse Ikie D lie beneath the ancient oaks near Old Slough.

But that's not what'll draw you to this twisting tidal creek off the Pamlico Sound. Sure, Jones was a flamboyant industrialist. And yeah, he did bury his horse standing up. But there's a much better lure.

It's a tale as enduring as anything on this side of the Atlantic. A pistol-toting pirate who stuck burning cannon wicks beneath his hat spent his last days right here on the southern end of Ocracoke.

Of course, that's Edward Teach. Blackbeard. This was his spot.

In October 1718, Teach invited other infamous pirate captains to his tree-shaded headquarters and hosted what historians call the world's largest pirate gathering ever recorded.

A month later, Teach lost his head. Literally. Lt. Robert Maynard of the British Royal Navy battled Teach within shouting distance of these ancient oaks and watched as one of his men cut off Teach's head.

Since then, this channel has been called Teach's Hole; the land, Teach's Plantation.

Stand there long enough, near the banks of Old Slough, and you can imagine the partying pirates, the battle offshore and Teach's headless body swimming around Maynard's sloop as many as seven times.

At least, that's how the legend goes.

We all love a good story. But we also need to appreciate this pristine spot near Ocracoke Village. It's a sweet example of Old Ocracoke, a place I thought you could revisit only through photos and memories.

But there I was last week with my family, thanks to a good friend's advice and my kids' current fascination with Blackbeard.

We walked barefoot along a narrow slice of white sand ringed by a gnarled canopy of laurel oak and coastal red cedar, and other than the occasional foghorn bellow from a passing ferry, the only thing else we heard was ... silence.

Beautiful.

"It's a wonderful little oasis, in the midst of what some days is bedlam," Julie Howard, a member of the Ocracoke Preservation Society, told me Monday. "The ferries are bringing over more and more people here, and often; it's hard to find peace. But you can at Springer's."

That's Springer's Point, also known as Teach's Plantation, a tract of land Jones bought in 1941 from a guy named John Wallace Springer.

In 2002, after a decade of work and wishes, the N.C. Coastal Land Trust bought the 31-acre Springer's Point. Two years later, the nonprofit snagged a 91-acre tract beside Springer's Point.

Total cost: $4.2 million, well below market value, all covered by two grants from the N.C. Clean Water Management Trust Fund.

The purchase helped the nonprofit create the largest undeveloped tract of property in Ocracoke. And during this era of build-build-build, that's saying something.

Over the past decade, North Carolina has lost 100,000 acres a year to a bulldozer's spade. And there's no better example of our vanishing open space than the North Carolina coast.

Talk to an Ocracoker about that, and they'll tell you they fear condos more than terrorists. They worry about losing the island's quaint fishing village charm to buck-chasing "dingbatters," island slang for outsiders.

So, it's no surprise that 20 percent of all Ocracoke homeowners contributed to the capital campaign for Springer's Point Nature Preserve. Final tally: more than $100,000.

That's a good chunk of change. Usually, during a bulk-mail capital campaign, the cold call of snail mail, you can expect, maybe, a 1 percent return. The nonprofit received a 10 percent return, with checks coming as far away as London.

Ocracokers arrived in droves during the preserve's dedication in May 2006. They talked about their connection to the land, of climbing trees, playing pirates, catching crabs and hearing some strange sounds late at night.

At least someone wondered aloud whether those sounds really were Blackbeard's ghost. You know, walking around, circling those ancient oaks, looking for his lost head.

We all love a good story.

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jrowe@news-record.com