The Lost Colony

Waves, North Carolina 75 Low 64

We went to the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site. It is on Roanoke Island and is supposed to be the location of the Lost Colony. We watch a video about the events leading up to the establishment and subsequent disappearance of the Colony on Roanoke Island.

The Roanoke Colony on Roanoke Island in Dare County, present-day North Carolina, United States, was a late 16th-century attempt by Queen Elizabeth I to establish a permanent English settlement. The enterprise was financed and organized originally by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who drowned in 1583 during an aborted attempt to colonize St. John's, Newfoundland. Sir Humphrey Gilbert's half brother Sir Walter Raleigh later gained his brother's charter from Queen Elizabeth I and subsequently executed the details of the charter through his delegates Ralph Lane and Richard Grenville, Raleigh's distant cousin.

The final group of colonists disappeared during the Anglo-Spanish War, three years after the last shipment of supplies from England. Their disappearance gave rise to the nickname "the Lost Colony". To this day there has been no conclusive evidence as to what happened to the colonists.

These Earthen works are believed to be the site of Fort Raleigh.

In 1587, Raleigh dispatched a new group of 115 colonists to establish a colony on Chesapeake Bay. They were led by John White, an artist and friend of Raleigh who had accompanied the previous expeditions to Roanoke. White was later appointed Governor and Raleigh named 12 assistants to aid in Roanoke's settlement. They were ordered to travel to Roanoke first to gather Grenville's men, but when they arrived on July 22, 1587, they found nothing except a skeleton that may have been the remains of one of the English garrison.

They were counting on these men to help with the new colony, but when they could find no one, they gave up hope of ever seeing Grenville's men alive. The fleet's commander, Simon Fernandez, now refused to let the colonists return to the ships, insisting they establish the new colony on Roanoke.  His motive remains unclear.

White re-established relations with the Croatans and tried to establish friendly relations with the tribes Ralph Lane had battled the previous year. The hostile tribes refused to meet with him. Shortly thereafter, colonist George Howe was killed by an Indian while searching alone for crabs in Albemarle Sound.

Fearing for their lives, the colonists persuaded Governor White to return to England to explain the colony's desperate situation and ask for help.  Left behind were about 115 colonists – the remaining men and women who had made the Atlantic crossing plus White's newly born granddaughter Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the Americas.

White tried for 3 years to return with the promised help and in 1590 he was finally able to return, but found no one in the colony which looked like the houses had been dismantled. The British tried to find some trace of the colony until 1607, when Jamestown the first permanent settlement was finally established. In all that time no trace was ever found of the people that were left, hence the name Lost Colony.

One room in the Visitor Center has fancy wood paneling, probably made in 1585, and brought to America in 1926.

Thanks for visiting.