Belhaven Memorial Museum

Belhaven, North Carolina

The Belhaven Memorial Museum is in many ways indistinguishable from its countless local museum brethren. It has no money. It has no air conditioning. It's staffed by a nice senior citizen lady who would like to retire, but can't find anyone to take her place.

What makes Belhaven remarkable is that it holds the collections of Mrs. Eva Blount Way, a seriously eccentric woman who simply couldn't throw anything away.

Mrs. Way died in 1962 at age 92, and all the stuff originally in her home was moved to the museum three years later. Her sprawling house, abandoned ever since, crumbles on the outskirts of town. Prospective buyers are probably terrified at the thought of what lies beneath its floorboards.

Exhibits of Note

• Three freak, prenatal babies in jars (given to Mrs. Way by the town doctor)
• Large, pickled tumors retrieved from the local hospital (the biggest weighs ten pounds and fills a ten-gallon aquarium)
• A one-eyed fetal pig, a two-headed kitten, a harelipped dog, and mummified squirrels
• Several snakes killed by Mrs. Way; one stuffed, swallowing a wooden egg, another made into a necktie
• A dress worn by a local 700-pound woman (she died in bed and had to be craned out the window)
• An unspent Civil War shell
• A ten-inch-wide ball of string (saved by Mrs. Way)
• A German W.W.I half-boot (looks like it was amputated along with the foot)
• 30,000 buttons (collected by Mrs. Way)
• A flea bride and groom (may be viewed with a magnifying glass)
• Hideous ingrown toenails and cataracts
• Jars of Mrs. Way's home canned products (now well over 30 years old), including one blob labeled "chicken fat." The museum sells souvenir cookbooks.