CLUE #5

For almost 400 years, the mystery of the what happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke captured the imagination of many Americans. 1937, the fever reached an all-time high when a college Professor named Haywood Pearce received a large stone at his office door. A tourist who had been boating up river from where the Roanoke settlers disappeared, supposedly found a large stone with the words Eleanor Dare clearly visible on it. Eleanor Dare was the daughter of Gov. John White and the mother of Virginia Dare, the first English person born here in America. The stone mentioned many things including how the settlers were forced to move up river with a native tribe and later how many of them had been killed in a battle with Native Americans. Dare's supposed carving on the stone was written to her father, John White, and also mentioned how there were only 7 survivors who pleaded to be found. She mentioned how here husband and daughter Virginia were also killed in the battle. The carving also mention how they were buried under a nearby stone that had an second carving on it from Eleanor Dare.

Professor Pearce immediately set out to find the other stones. He even offered a $$ reward for anyone who could find and produce the other "grave" stone. Within weeks, a man surfaced who said he had found up to 39 additional stones that had carvings on them and were supposedly written by Eleanor Dare. Had the mystery of the Lost Colony finally been solved? Not exactly!

It was found that the man with the 39 other stones was a fraud! Tests were done that proved that the carvings on the stones were done by a drill, and not a metal chisel which Eleanor Dare would have used. The stones come to find out were fakes......All except one!

Historians brought in an expert on early English writing and literature who looked at all the stones and concluded that the language used on 40 of the 41 stones did not match the language Eleanor Dare would have used in the late 1580's. One stone, the original found on the river bank by the tourist, had language on it that would have definitely been used by Dare. In fact, the scholar who analyzed it stated that there was no way someone from the 20th century would have know about some of the letters and words used on by Dare on the stone, therefore, it couldn't have been a forgery.

Archaeologists immediately set out to look for evidence of a Native American/Roanoke colonist settlement upriver and inland from the site of the original colony. Some English and native pottery has been unearthed suggesting that perhaps there were Natives living along side English settlers. Were they from the lost colonists from Roanoke or any survivors who moved inland? That is still left to be determined.

Check out this link for the actual text carved into the stone: http://ncpedia.org/dare-stones