Mary Ormond (born c. 1702, died c. 1759) was supposedly the wife of the notorious

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

pirate

Blackbeard Edward Teach (or Thatch; – 22 November 1718), better known as Blackbeard, was an English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of Britain's North American colonies. Little is known about his early life, but he ma ...

History

Tradition holds that she was notable for her marriage to Edward Teach, better known as

. She was married by Royal Governor Charles Eden in

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

, at about the age of sixteen years. The wedding was attended by Tobias Knight, the Royal Secretary for North Carolina, who was Teach's neighbor. She was the daughter of William Ormond, a plantation owner from

Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...

. Her ultimate fate is undocumented. However, the only evidence naming "Mary Ormond" as his wife is a letter from a 20th century member of the Ormond family claiming the marriage to Blackbeard as a family tradition. No period sources including marriage certificates, wills, or other witness testimony list his wife's name. Governor Hamilton of the

Leeward Islands The Leeward Islands () are a group of islands situated where the northeastern Caribbean Sea meets the western Atlantic Ocean. Starting with the Virgin Islands east of Puerto Rico, they extend southeast to Guadeloupe and its dependencies. In Engl ...

mentioned a rumor that Blackbeard had a wife and children in London, while the Captains of ''Lyme'' and ''Pearl'', the two ships sent to apprehend him, both wrote that Blackbeard had supposedly married in North Carolina. None of them noted the theoretical wife's name. Historian Kevin Duffus affirms that Blackbeard participated in some sort of marriage, noting that the marriage "may have been an amusing ruse or party hoax, or it may have indeed occurred between the pirate and an acquaintance of the family from his early days of residency," adding, "But her name was not Mary Ormond."

References

1700s births Year of death unknown People from Bath, Somerset People from colonial North Carolina Blackbeard {{US-bio-stub