The Beaufort Historical Association offers guided tours and provides information for self-guided tours to thousands of visitors each year. Many school teachers in Carteret and surrounding counties bring their classes to the cemetery, using it as a valuable history teaching tool. Visiting the Old Burying Ground is similar to visiting a museum. The fences are the walls, the gravestones are the art. Some stones are like old masters and others more modern.
Interpretation is left to the viewer.
Even the folklore is considered a literary art form. Reading the markers reveals a lot about the kind of people who lived in Beaufort. Sea captains, soldiers, privateers, ministers, doctors, young mothers and babies all tell their story, visible for all to see. Some of the stories about life in Beaufort have been written down, some have been passed down from generation to generation and others are folklore. Many tend to think only of the entertaining folk tales, but there were many hardships that befell the people such as yellow fever epidemics, death from childbirth, tetanus, etc.