July 25th 1587. just off the coast of present-day North Carolina three ships carrying English settlers land on Roanoke Island about 115 men women and children along with John White the governor arrived off the coast of North Carolina their goal was to create the first permanent English settlement in the New World two years earlier the English sent a group of mostly soldiers to try and colonize Roanoke but it ends in disaster with severe food shortages attacks from the Hostile Native American population there many die and they barely Escape just getting back to England Governor white is
determined to do better this time and he has more than just his life on the line on this expedition was John White's very pregnant daughter Eleanor and her husband ananias dare among other colonists who are there who are also ready to start their families and settle in the New World on August 18 1587 Eleanor dare gives birth to her daughter Virginia the first English child born in North America unfortunately there's no time to celebrate because the colony is running dangerously low on supplies you'd think they would have learned from their last Expedition but as they
start to take inventory they realize they're not going to have enough Provisions last through the winter the plan had been start growing their own crops and farming livestock but there's just not enough time so someone has to go back to England and secure more provisions on August 27th barely a week after his granddaughter is born white volunteers to make the transatlantic Crossing himself it was quite a journey it took him two and a half months to get back when they finally arrived back on English soil it was November Governor white quickly loads five ships with
supplies they are pretty much ready to sail but the problem with this is there is a stay of all shipping commanded by Queen Elizabeth the first because the Spanish Armada are making the most untimely arrival England is on the brink of war with with Bane that means that Queen Elizabeth's hands are tied and her money is more focused on war effort than a failing colony white has no choice but to stay in England indefinitely meanwhile at the colony they expect white to return in six months and of course they don't know about the war news
but you can imagine their sinking feeling as six months go by and then a year and then two years ultimately takes white three full years to return to the coast of North Carolina when he does it's August 18 1590 the third birthday of his granddaughter Virginia Dare but Governor white doesn't return to his family he returns to a mystery they're gone the entire colony is just gone some point in the previous three years everything and everyone had just disappeared there's no evidence that there was any kind of battle there's no evidence of bones or bodies
that might indicate an altercation between the colonists and the indigenous people what's weird is that there's basically nothing left behind and the town isn't so much abandoned it's been dismantled all of the buildings have been carefully taken apart the tools the boats the provisions it's all been taken away the big mystery is where do they all go white and a few men spend hours searching the site they turn up only two Clues carved into a fence post White and the English see this word Croatoan and then carved into a tree three letters c-r-o for centuries
the search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke turns up nothing but tantalizing Clues and dead ends then in the late 1930s a treasure Trove of new evidence is Unearthed and if authentic it could rewrite history by the 20th century the leading theories as to what happened to the colonists were that number one they joined with the Croatoan to the South and number two they had gone North to the Chesapeake where they were murdered by powhatan's people another possibility is quite simple that they'd tried to sail back to England there's just so little evidence there's almost
nothing that has survived and we haven't even located the site of the colony Roanoke Island is about the size of Manhattan and we don't even know where they lived on that island the primary surviving written source for the bulk of the information that we have in the colony is from John White's diary and of course he wasn't there for The Disappearance but in 1937 a new written account is found and it's a bombshell November of 1937 near Edenton North Carolina about 60 miles west of Roanoke Island a man named Lewis Hammond is hunting for Hickory
nuts along the choan river when he finds a large Rock it's covered in strange inscriptions that appear to be old English Hammond brings the rock to Emory University in Atlanta to have a history Professor named Haywood J Pierce help him decipher what it says Pierce takes one look and he can't believe his eyes the carved Stone purports to be a message from Eleanor dare John White's daughter on one side of the stone dare dare Court ananiased air and their four-year-old daughter Virginia they apparently both die in the year 1591. below that dare instructs whoever finds
the stone to bring it to Governor white she wants her father to know what happened to her family and making the stone carving is the best way she knows how to do that on the reverse side there's an even longer message Eleanor describes the initial departure from Roanoke and the route they've taken so far they travel West about 50 miles and end up close to the spot where the stone is found next she writes that after a miserable period of illness starvation and violent attacks from local tribes the population of the colony which starts off
with just over 100 people it dwindles down to just seven Souls I've looked at this Stone in great detail it makes for a great story it makes for a very plausible Story the problem is there's no record of where they went but she does provide a hint of a clue after the seven colonists bury the remains of their peers dare writes that she's inscribed their names on a grave marker somewhere along with further details of recent events in other words there may be a second hand carved message with more answers after reviewing it Haywood J
pierce the history Professor knows exactly how important this rock is so he buys it from Lewis Hammond and launches this obsessive search for the second Stone Pierce believes finding the second Stone will authenticate the first stone actively solving the Roanoke mystery and earning himself a permanent spot in the history books as well Professor Pierce offers a 500 reward to anyone who can find the second dare Stone by today's inflation that's ten thousand dollars during that time the country was still in the Great Depression so we know the hunt was on soon enough Pierce's plan works
the next stone is found by Bill Eberhart a back Woodsman from Northern Georgia he brings a 21 pound Rock to Emory University that he claims he found in South Carolina sure enough it has the names of the Dead that Eleanor dare mentioned that she carved into it but eberhart's find doesn't end there in total within less than a year Everhart finds several dozen more Stones taken together they finally paint a clear picture of what happened to the Roanoke survivors it's an incredible tale they eventually make it to safety after a 500 Mile Journey to Georgia
together this evidence has become known as the Dare Stones according to the Dare Stones the colonists survived and they're in Georgia taken in by Natives and Eleanor's husband passes away eventually Eleanor dare is married to a Native American man in 1593. together they have a daughter named Agnes and Eleanor dies in 1599. after Eleanor's death Griffin Jones and Agnes dare leave behind obituaries for the other survivors as they die off but nobody knows what happens to Agnes or Griffin and it's easy to say Professor Pierce was very excited about these findings he hosts a scientific
Conference in October of 1940 inviting 34 academic experts to examine the stones a panel of these experts issues a press release supporting the Stone's authenticity Pierce submits an article of his findings to the Saturday evening post when the article comes out on April 26 1941 it's quite shocking but not for the reason Pierce expected because according to the article the fact Checkers find all kinds of problems with the story the Dare stones are a hoax it's the oldest missing person's case in America and yet today there are more people dedicated to solving it than ever
before they're searching land sea and even DNA to find the answer perhaps one day soon The Lost Colony of Roanoke will finally be found
