The Project Gutenberg eBook of Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, North Carolina, by III Charles W. Porter

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Title: Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, North Carolina

Author: III Charles W. Porter

Release Date: January 4, 2019 [EBook #58610]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Stephen Hutcheson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

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UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

Stewart L. Udall, Secretary

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

Conrad L. Wirth, Director

HISTORICAL HANDBOOK NUMBER SIXTEEN

This publication is one of a series of handbooks describing the historical and archeological areas in the National Park System administered by the National Park Service of the United States Department of the Interior. It is printed by the Government Printing Office and may be purchased from the Superintendent of Documents, Washington 25, D. C. Price 35 cents.

Fort Raleigh

NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE

North Carolina

by Charles W. Porter, III

RALEIGH

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE HISTORICAL HANDBOOK SERIES NO. 16

Washington, D. C., 1952

(Revised 1965)

The National Park System, of which Fort Raleigh National Historic Site is a unit, is dedicated to conserving the scenic, scientific, and historic heritage of the United States for the benefit and inspiration of its people.

Contents

Page

GILBERT AND RALEIGH 3

EXPLORATION OF ROANOKE ISLAND, 1584 4

RALEIGH’S FIRST COLONY, 1585-86 6

The Voyage 7

The Establishment of the Colony 10

Life in the Colony 14

Abandonment of the Colony 15

Grenville’s Fifteen Men 18

THE LOST COLONY OF 1587 18

The Second Colony Established at Roanoke 21

Governor White’s Return to England 22

Attempts To Find the Lost Colony 25

CONNECTING LINKS WITH JAMESTOWN AND NEW ENGLAND 27

LATER HISTORICAL INFORMATION ON FORT RALEIGH 28

RECENT HISTORY OF FORT RALEIGH 30

GUIDE TO THE AREA 30

THE NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE 38

HOW TO REACH THE SITE 38

ADMINISTRATION 38

RELATED AREAS 38

ABOUT YOUR VISIT 39

SUGGESTED READINGS 40

Sir Walter Raleigh. This portrait was engraved shortly before his last voyage and is the only one published during his lifetime.

The true and lively portraiture

of the honourable and learned Knight

Sr. Walter Raleigh.

Fort Raleigh National Historic Site directly connects the American people with the Court of Queen Elizabeth and the golden age of English art, literature, and adventure. The figures who play the chief roles in the story of the exploration and attempted settlement of the island are the epic figures of English history: Queen Elizabeth, after whom the new land was named “Virginia,” is easily the premier sovereign of England; Sir Walter Raleigh, poet, soldier, and statesman, and the inspiration and financial mainstay of the Roanoke Island project, is the best remembered of gallant English courtiers; Sir Richard Grenville, of the Revenge, who brought the first colony to America in 1585 and left another small group there in 1586, is the Elizabethan hero who in 1592 taught English sailors how to dare and die in the face of overwhelming odds; Sir Frances Drake, who rescued the first colony from starvation, is famous as the first English circumnavigator of the globe and as the preeminent seadog and explorer of English history.

As Plymouth and other early New England sites connect the United States with the great European movement known as the Reformation, so the scene of Raleigh’s settlements connects the American people with the powerful activating force known as the Renaissance. When energized by the Renaissance movement, the human spirit knew no earthly bounds nor recognized any limits to intellectual or physical endeavor. Thus, Raleigh, who was born a gentleman of only moderate estate, willed to be the favorite of a Queen, aspired to found an empire across the seas in the teeth of Imperial Spain and undertook in prison to write the history of the world! For the glory and enrichment of England, Sir Francis Drake pillaged the cities and mighty galleons of Spain and dared to sail around the globe. Sir Richard Grenville, shortly after his memorable voyages to Roanoke Island, gave the British Navy an immortal tradition by duelling for a day and a night with one small ship against a Spanish fleet of 53.

Queen Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen after whom the whole territory in America covered by Raleigh’s patent was named “Virginia.” From an engraving of 1596 which refers to Elizabeth as “Queen of England, France, Ireland and Virginia.”

Truly heroic was the Roanoke Island colonial venture. Here, despite the hostility of Spain and Spanish Florida, the greatest naval and colonial power of that day, the agents of Sir Walter Raleigh and the subjects of Queen Elizabeth suffered, or died, in the first serious effort to begin the conquest of the larger part of the North American continent by the slow process of agriculture, industry, trade, and natural increase. The hardships of the first colony under Governor Lane, 1585-86, and the disappearance of the “Lost Colony” of 1587 taught the English the practical difficulties that would be attendant upon the conquest of the continent and enabled them to grow in colonial wisdom. Thus, the birth of Virginia Dare, in the “Citie of Raleigh in Virginia,” August 18, 1587, first child of English parentage to be born in the New World, was a prophetic symbol of the future rise of a new English-speaking nation beyond the seas.

Jamestown, Va., commemorates the successful settlement of English America growing out of the dreams of Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Humphrey Gilbert, his elder half-brother. Fort Raleigh, because of the tragic mystery of the “Lost Colony,” memorializes better than any other site the cost of early English colonial effort. To a certain degree it also commemorates a forgotten part of the price that England paid for English liberty. The colonists at Fort Raleigh were, in a sense, sacrificed that England might employ all her fighting strength against the juggernaut of Spain in the battle against the Armada. To relieve the Roanoke colony in 1588, in the place of Grenville’s warships, only two small pinnaces could be spared, and these did not reach Roanoke. For the glorious victory over the Armada and for the gradual emergence of British sea power after 1588, England gave her infant colony in America.

Gilbert and Raleigh

The statesmen, merchants, and ship captains of Elizabethan England shared the adventurous and speculative spirit of the Spaniards and Portuguese who had established empires in the West after 1492. Religious zeal and both personal and national interests impelled Englishmen to compete with Spain and Portugal for a share in the exploration and development of the New World. Englishmen wondered if they could not find a northwest passage through the American continent which would divert the wealth of the Indies to England, or if they could not translate the mineral and agricultural wealth of North America into English fortunes as Spaniards had grown rich from the gold of Mexico and Peru.

On June 11, 1578, Sir Humphrey Gilbert obtained from Queen Elizabeth a charter to discover and colonize “remote heathen and barbarous lands” not actually possessed by any Christian prince. In 1583, he ventured almost his entire fortune, as well as that of his wife, Anne Aucher, in an attempt to explore the northern part of North America and found a colony in the New World. The Queen herself displayed interest in the enterprise by giving Raleigh a good-luck token to send to Gilbert just before the expedition sailed. Gilbert landed at St. John’s, Newfoundland, which he claimed for England, but on coasting southward he met with repeated misfortunes, turned away, and was himself drowned on the return voyage to England. He had insisted on sailing in one of his smaller ships. “I will not forsake my little company going homeward, with whom I have passed so many stormes and perils.” Among his last recorded words was the famous cry to his men in the larger boat, “We are as neere to heaven by sea as by land.” His last will and testament, dated July 8, 1582, makes clear that his ultimate purpose had been to found an English empire beyond the seas to be colonized by English people.

Sir Francis Walsingham. Courtesy National Portrait Gallery, London.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert.

Gilbert’s heroic death must have deeply moved his half-brother, Sir Walter Raleigh. The latter had voyaged with Sir Humphrey Gilbert in an expedition of 1578 and had fitted out a ship intended to participate in the great voyage of 1583 to Newfoundland. In 1584, when the Gilbert patent was to expire, Raleigh stood high in the favor of the Queen and received from her a charter which confirmed to him the powers formerly enjoyed by Sir Humphrey Gilbert.

Exploration of Roanoke Island, 1584

On April 27, 1584, Captains Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe left the west of England in two barks “well furnished with men and victuals,” to explore the North American coast for Sir Walter Raleigh. Among the company of explorers was the enigmatical Simon Ferdinando, formerly the master of the ship Falcon under the captaincy of Raleigh, but also known as the “man” of the Queen’s Secretary of State, Sir Francis Walsingham. Ferdinando had sailed to the coast of America and back in 3 months’ time in 1579. His knowledge of navigation was to make him a key figure in many of the Roanoke Island enterprises.

The party of explorers landed on July 13, 1584, on the North Carolina coast, about 7 leagues above Roanoke Island, and took possession of the country for Queen Elizabeth “as rightfull Queene” with the further proviso that the land was to be for the use of Sir Walter Raleigh, according to the Queen’s charter. Despite the passing of more than 350 years, Barlowe’s description of the country is still basically true, if pardonably exuberant. They found it “very sandie and low toward the waters side, but so full of grapes [scuppernongs] as the very beating and surge of the Sea overflowed them, of which we found such plentie, as well there as in all places else, both on the sand and on the greene soil on the hils, as in the plaines, as well on every little shrubbe, as also climing towards the tops of high Cedars, that I thinke in all the world the like abundance is not to be found.”

The shore line of Roanoke Island as it looks today.

From their landing place they proceeded along the seashore toward the “toppes of those hilles next adjoining” (perhaps the big Nags Head Dunes or hills in the Nags Head woods), from the summit of which they beheld the sea on both sides and came to realize that they were on a barrier island. After admiring the scene, they discharged an arquebus shot, whereupon “a flocke of Cranes (the most part white) arose ... with such a cry redoubled by many ecchoes, as if an armie of men had showted all together.” On the fourth day they were visited by Granganimeo, brother of Wingina, chief of the Roanoke Island Indians. After a short period of trading, Barlowe and seven others went by boat to Roanoke Island at the north end of which they found a palisaded Indian village. Here they were entertained with primitive but hospitable Indian ceremony. The Indians appeared “gentle, loving, and faithfull.” The explorers described Roanoke Island as “a most pleasant and fertile ground, replenished with goodly Cedars, and divers other sweete woods, full of Corrants [grapes], flaxe, and many other notable commodities.” Game and fish were to be had in abundance.

The picture that Amadas and Barlowe took back to Sir Walter Raleigh was a rosy one, for they had seen Roanoke Island in midsummer. The Indians were generous, because at this season of the year they had plenty of everything in contrast to the scarcity of their winter fare; and the white man was new to them, though they had heard of others wrecked on the coast years before. Two Indians, Wanchese and Manteo, were brought back to England by Amadas and Barlowe that Raleigh might learn, first hand, the character of the coastal Indians. Queen Elizabeth appears to have been pleased by the western exploit, for she called the new possession Virginia, perhaps at the suggestion of Raleigh, chief lord of the new territory, whose poetic gift and courtly tact would prompt him thus to memorialize the virgin queen.

The Ark Royal or Ark Raleigh. Somewhat smaller ships of this general appearance brought the colonists to Roanoke Island.

Raleigh’s First Colony, 1585-86

The next Spring, Raleigh sent a colony of 108 persons to Roanoke Island. The expedition, commanded by Raleigh’s cousin, Sir Richard Grenville, sailed from Plymouth, England, on April 9, 1585, in seven ships, the largest of which was of 140 tons’ burthen. Included in the group of ship captains and colonists were Philip Amadas and Simon Ferdinando of the expedition of the previous year; Thomas Cavendish, then on his first great voyage but destined to be the third circumnavigator of the globe; Grenville’s half-brother, John Arundell, and brother-in-law, John Stukeley; and other Raleigh cousins and connections, among them Richard Gilbert, a Courtenay, a Prideaux, Ralph Lane, and Anthony Rowse, a friend of Drake’s. There were an artist, or illustrator, John White; a scientist, named Thomas Hariot; and, among the humbler folk, an Irishman, Darby Glande or Glaven. The two Indians, Wanchese and Manteo, returned to America on this voyage.

A pinnace used in the funeral of Sir Philip Sidney, 1587. Small boats such as this were used to transport men and supplies from the harbor at Hatoraske through the inland waters to Roanoke Island.

THE VOYAGE.

The route chosen lay via the Canaries and the Spanish West Indies. They anchored at “Moskito Bay” in the Island of “St. Johns” (Puerto Rico), May 12, where they constructed a fort, set up a forge to make nails, and built a pinnace to replace one lost in a storm. They left Puerto Rico toward the end of May after burning the fort and surrounding woods and after seizing two Spanish frigates. Just before departing, Ralph Lane raided “Roxo bay” in one of the captured frigates, built a fort, and seized a supply of salt.

John White’s water-color drawing of the fort which Ralph Lane built in Puerto Rico in May 1585 while the first group of colonists were en route to Roanoke Island.

These bellicose activities of the English in Puerto Rico illustrate the fact that England and Spain were virtually at war at that time. Indeed, the war was to become an actuality within 3 years. In the meantime, the English were engaged in what would be called today a “cold war”—pin-pricking the Spaniard in the West Indies and about to settle on the American mainland at a spot sufficiently close to Spanish Florida to constitute both an economic and a military threat to Spain. Growth of the English colony would circumscribe Spain’s own colonial effort; at the same time, the location chosen for the English colony was close enough to serve as a base of operations against Spanish new world shipping. That both possibilities were uppermost in the minds of Raleigh and Grenville and their supporters at court is obvious. One of the weaknesses of their colonial program was their persistent thought the privateering operations against Spanish shipping should, or could, be made to pay the cost of English colonial effort.

“The Arrival of the Englishmen in Virginia,” engraved by Theodore de Bry from one of John White’s drawings. The view is toward the west, and Dasamonquepeuc is shown on the mainland west of the north end of Roanoke Island.

The first part of June found the English banqueting the uneasy Spanish Governor at Isabella on the Island of Hispaniola (Haiti). To impress the Governor, Grenville treated him to a sumptuous meal served “all in plate” to the “sound of trumpets and consort of musicke.” The Governor entertained in turn and, subsequently, the English traded with the Spaniards for commodities that would be needed in their colonial settlement: “horses, mares, kine, buls, goates, swine, sheepe, bull-hides, sugar, ginger,” etc. From the Spanish accounts of Grenville’s actions in Puerto Rico and Haiti are gained some interesting personal glimpses. The officers and persons of distinction in the expedition were served upon silver plate which was chased and gilt. Wanchese and Manteo had learned to speak English, and the illustrator, John White, was already engaged in drawing pictures of strange plants and objects.

Sir Philip Sidney, from a portrait painted about 1577. Courtesy National Portrait Gallery, London.

Sir Richard Grenville in 1571. Courtesy National Portrait Gallery, London.

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COLONY.

An island south of Cape Hatteras, now known as Ocracoke, was reached on June 26. The remainder of the month and most of July were spent in exploring the coastal islands and the adjacent mainland. During one of these expeditions, Grenville sought to strike terror into the hearts of the Indians by burning the Indian village of Aquascogok in retaliation for the theft of a silver cup stolen by one of the Indians. Not until July 27 did Grenville anchor at Hatoraske, off the barrier island, a short distance southeast of Roanoke Island. Here at a break in the barrier reef, almost due east of the southern tip of Roanoke Island, Simon Ferdinando discovered a port, named Port Ferdinando in his honor and considered the best port along that stretch of coast.

A colony was established on the “North end” of Roanoke Island, and Ralph Lane was made Governor. From Port Ferdinando, and later from Roanoke Island, letters were written by Lane to Secretary Walsingham informing him of the successful founding of the colony. Still another letter was written to Sir Philip Sidney, son-in-law of Walsingham, who was interested in western discovery. A letter to Richard Hakluyt, geographer and historian, written by Lane from the settlement on Roanoke Island indicated that the Governor of Virginia was impressed by the “huge and unknowen greatnesse” of the American continent. He added that if Virginia only had horses and cows in some reasonable proportion and were inhabited by Englishmen, no realm in Christendom would be comparable to it. The Indians, he said naively, were “courteous, and very desirous to have clothes,” but valued red copper above everything else. Wingina, chief of the Roanoke Island Indians, had received the white men hospitably and had cooperated with them in the initial phases of the founding of the settlement. This is clear from Grenville’s account as well as Lane’s.

Grenville lingered a short while after the founding of the settlement, then returned to England for supplies. On the way home he captured a richly laden Spanish ship, which must have repaid him handsomely for his western trip. On his arrival in England, he too reported to Walsingham, thus acknowledging the interest of the Queen and emphasizing the seminational character of the Virginian enterprise.

Lane built a fort called “The new Fort in Virginia,” where the present Fort Raleigh National Historic Site is situated and where the remains of a fort were still visible as late as 1896. The fort was located near the shore on the east side of Roanoke Island between the “North Point” of the north end of the Island and a “creek.” The mouth of the so-called creek was big enough to serve as the anchorage for small boats (Shallow Bag Bay, known as late as 1716 as “Town Creek”).

Lane’s fort on Roanoke Island resembled in some noteworthy respects the fort which he had built on St. Johns Island, Puerto Rico, in May 1585, when he seized the salt supply. Both forts seem to have been roughly shaped like a star built on a square with the bastions constructed on the sides of the square instead of at the corners, as was common in later fortifications. Copies of the plans of these forts may be seen in the Fort Raleigh museum.

The dwelling houses of the early colonists were near the fort, which was too small to enclose them. They were described by the colonists themselves as “decent dwelling houses” or “cottages” and must have been at least a story and a half or two stories high, because we have a reference to the “neather roomes of them.” The roofs were thatched, as we learn from Ralph Lane’s statement that the Indians by night “would have beset my house, and put fire in the reedes that the same was covered with.” The chimneys and the foundations may have been of brick, because Darby Glande later testified that “as soon as they had disembarked Roanoke they began to make brick and fabric for a fort and houses.” Pieces of brick were reported found at the fort site as late as 1860, and recent archeological work at the fort turned up a few brickbats, possibly of the Elizabethan period.

Map made by John White in 1585-86. This map, the original of which is in the British Museum, is of interest as showing opposite the “R” in “Roanoke” a dot that may represent the colonial settlement site. Note Dasamonquepeuc on the mainland west of the north end of Roanoke Island and the barrier island of Croatoan south of Cape Hatteras.

Thomas Hariot remarked that though stone was not found on the island, there was good clay for making bricks, and lime could be made from nearby deposits of oyster shells in the same manner that lime was made “in the Isles of Tenet and Shepy, and also in divers other places of England.” However, as no evidence of the extensive use of brick has yet been found, it is perhaps safe to assume that the chief building material was rough boards. It has already been noted that they had a forge which they could set up to make nails. Richard Hakluyt, in his Discourse of Western Planting, written at the request of Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584, about 1 year before the colony sailed, had recommended as “things to be prepared for the voyadge” that any colonial expedition should include “men experte in the arte of fortification,” “makers of spades and shovells,” “shipwrights,” “millwrights, to make milles for spedy and cheape sawing of timber and boardes for trade, and first traficque of suertie,” “millwrights, for corne milles,” “Sawyers for common use,” “Carpinters, for buildinges,” “Brick makers,” “Tile makers,” “Lyme makers,” “Bricklayers,” “Tilers,” “Thatchers with reedes, rushes, broome, or strawe,” “Rough Masons,” “Carpinters,” and “Lathmakers.” The presumption therefore is that typical English thatched cottages and houses, such as were found in rural Elizabethan England, were built at Roanoke. (The log cabin appears to have been introduced into America about 50 years later by the Swedes and Finns on the Delaware.) The Roanoke cottages were presumably well built. The skilled labor of the expedition had been able to construct a seaworthy pinnace at Puerto Rico in less than a month’s time.

LIFE IN THE COLONY.

At first, relations with the Indians continued friendly, though the Englishmen had their detractors in the Council of the Indian Chief. The aborigines planted crops and made fish traps for the Englishmen. With rare foresight, the colonists also induced Chief Wingina (who had changed his name to Pemisapan) to put into simultaneous cultivation his lands both on Roanoke Island and on the mainland at Dasamonquepeuc in order that the Indians might have no excuse for not being able to supply the colony if need arose. The coast was explored by the English as far south as Secotan (about 80 miles) and as far north as the Chesapeake (about 130 miles). Thomas Hariot collected data on plants, animals, and minerals for his New Found Land of Virginia. John White made the inimitable water-color drawings of the Indians, the animal and plant life of Roanoke Island, and the coast, which have been engraved many times. The much rarer facsimile reproductions of these drawings in color may be seen in the Fort Raleigh museum. These paintings are the first artistic productions of Englishmen in America. The colonists also learned to smoke tobacco, using for this purpose Indian pipes or other pipes of their own modeled on the Indian pipes.

Drawing of an Indian made by John White, 1585-86.

How closely the personnel of the first colony conformed to the standard suggested by Hakluyt in 1584 is not known; but historical documents indicate that there were men expert in fortification and that there were brickmakers, carpenters, and thatchers. Also the names of all of the colonists are known, if not their trades. Some were gentlemen, cousins of Raleigh and Grenville, as the names indicate. Hariot says that some were city dwellers “of a nice bringing up” who soon became miserable without their soft beds and dainty food. Others were excellent soldiers, as Lane testified of Captain Stafford; and there were the humbler folk, of whom Darby Glande was perhaps representative, though he was Irish and appears to have been forced to accompany the expedition. On the whole, they gave the appearance more of a military expedition than a colony. They were dependent upon the Indians and upon England for both food and supplies. Many of their basic commodities, such as salt, horses, and cattle, had been obtained in the first instance by trade, or by force, from the Spaniards in the West Indies. There appear to have been no women among them to give permanence to the settlement.

Grenville’s deplorable action in burning the village of Aquascogok was indicative of the fact that the high-spirited Englishmen of that day could not live on even terms with the natives. In the lean period between the planting of crops in the spring and the expected summer harvest, English relations with the Indians grew strained and finally reached the point at which no further supplies could be had from them. Once the colonists and Indians were at odds, the fish traps began to be robbed or destroyed. Food became scarce, and Lane was forced to send groups of settlers to the barrier islands along the coast to live on oysters and other shell fish and to look for passing ships. Master Prideaux and 10 men were sent to Hatoraske Island for this purpose, while Captain Stafford and 20 men went to Croatoan Island, south of Cape Hatteras. (Croatoan Island is a sixteenth-century name, not to be confused with modern Croatan Sound area.) Sixteen or twenty others were sent at intervals to the mainland to live on oysters and native foods.

By June 1, 1586, the colonists were at open war with the Indians, and many of the latter were slain in the struggles that ensued both on Roanoke Island and on the mainland at Dasamonquepeuc. Pemisapan was among those who were killed in the fighting.

ABANDONMENT OF THE COLONY.

Meanwhile, Grenville was delayed in leaving England for the supply of the Roanoke colony. This placed the colonists in a desperate predicament. Such was the state of affairs at Roanoke Island when, on June 9, 1586, Captain Stafford brought news of the fact that Sir Francis Drake was off the coast with a mighty fleet of 23 ships. Richly laden with booty from his attack on the Spanish West Indies and Florida, Drake’s fleet anchored next day partly in the port near Roanoke Island (probably Port Ferdinando) and partly in a “wilde roade” at sea 2 miles from the shore. Second in command to Drake on this expedition was Capt. Christopher Carleill, Secretary Walsingham’s stepson and son-in-law, who had been interested in American exploration since 1574. Lane and some of his company went on board Drake’s flagship, and Drake made them a generous offer. He would give them a ship, one or two pinnaces, a number of smaller boats, and sufficient ship masters, sailors, and supplies to afford another month’s stay at Roanoke and a return voyage to England, or he would give them all immediate return passage to England with his fleet.

Christopher Carleill.

To Lane’s credit it must be said that he was loath to give up the Roanoke Island project. He accepted the first offer, and the ship was turned over to him; but before the supplies could be made ready, a storm arose and the ship was blown out to sea and did not return. The fleet suffered other losses in this storm, but Drake remained open handed. He offered Lane supplies as before and another ship, but since this vessel was much too large to be kept in Lane’s only harbor, its acceptance, and dependence on it, involved a great risk.

Sir Francis Drake. From the painting in Trinity House, London.

This fact, the troubled state of Europe and America, making war with Spain now practically inevitable, and the unaccountable delay in the arrival of Grenville’s supply fleet caused Lane to ask for passage to England. When Drake sailed, on June 18, he carried the colonists home with him.

GRENVILLE’S FIFTEEN MEN.

Shortly after Drake and the colonists had sailed, a supply ship sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh arrived at Hatoraske and after searching in vain for the colonists returned to England. About a fortnight after Raleigh’s ship had left, Grenville arrived with three ships and likewise searched in vain for the colonists. Grenville found the places of colonial settlement desolate, but being “unwilling to loose the possession of the country which Englishmen had so long held,” he left 15 men on Roanoke Island, fully provisioned for 2 years, to hold the country for the Queen while he returned to England.

The Lost Colony of 1587

In the year 1587, Sir Walter Raleigh organized another colonial expedition consisting of 150 persons. Its truer colonizing character was evidenced by the significant facts that, unlike the expedition of 1585, this one included women and children, and the men were called “planters.” Its government was also less military, since the direction of the enterprise in Virginia was to be in the hands of a syndicate of sub-patentees—a governor and 12 assistants whom Raleigh incorporated as the “Governor and Assistants of the Citie of Ralegh in Virginia.”

The new arrangement indicated that colonization was becoming less of a one-man venture and more of a corporate or business enterprise, anticipating in a certain degree the later English companies that were to found successful colonies in Virginia and New England. Exactly what inducements Raleigh offered to the planters are not known. His terms were probably liberal, however, because Hariot, writing in February 1587, paid tribute to Raleigh’s generosity, saying that the least that he had granted had been 500 acres of land to each man willing to go to America. Those contributing money or supplies, as well as their person, probably stood to receive more. From the list of names that has come down to us, it would appear that at least 10 of the planters took their wives with them. Ambrose Viccars and Arnold Archard brought not only their wives but one child each, Ambrose Viccars and Thomas Archard. Altogether there were at least 17 women and 9 children in the group that arrived safely in Virginia.

In still another respect, this second colonial expedition seemed to anticipate the later Jamestown settlement. Raleigh had directed, in writing, that the fort and colony be established in the Chesapeake Bay area where a better port could be had and where conditions for settlement were considered to be more favorable.

The Indian Village of Pomeiooc, engraved by De Bry from a drawing by John White.

The Virginia Dare marker at Fort Raleigh

The fleet, consisting of three ships, sailed from Plymouth for Virginia on May 8. Continuity with the previous expeditions was afforded in the persons of the Governor, John White, who was to make in all five trips to Virginia, Simon Ferdinando, Captain Stafford, Darby Glande, the Irishman, and perhaps others. The route, as in 1585, lay via “Moskito Bay” in Puerto Rico. Here Darby Glande was left behind, or escaped, and lived to testify regarding the first Roanoke Island colony before the Spanish authorities at St. Augustine some years later. The expedition sailed along the coast of Haiti, even passing by “Isabella” where Grenville had traded with the Spaniards for cattle and other necessities in 1585, but this time there was no trading, possibly because of the precarious relations between England and Spain, now on the eve of open war. Whatever the reason for this failure to take in supplies in Haiti, it constituted a certain handicap for the colony of 1587.

THE SECOND COLONY ESTABLISHED AT ROANOKE.

The two leading ships of the expedition reached Hatoraske on July 22, 1587, and the third ship on July 25. Meanwhile, on the 22d, Governor White and a small group of planters had gone to Roanoke Island with the intention of conferring with the 15 men left there by Grenville the preceding year. On reaching the place where the men had been left, they found only the bones of one of them who had been killed by the Indians. There was no sign of the others.

The next day Governor White and his party “walked to the North end of the island, where Master Ralfe Lane had his forte, with sundry necessary and decent dwelling houses made by his men about it the yeere before.” Here it was hoped some sign of Grenville’s men would be discovered. They found the fort razed “but all the houses standing unhurt, saving that the neather rooms of them, and also of the forte, were overgrown with Melons of divers sortes, and Deere within them, feeding on those Melons.” All hope of finding Grenville’s men then vanished.

For reasons which are obscure, but perhaps because the season was late, it was decided to settle again at Roanoke Island rather than go on to the Chesapeake Bay country. Those houses found Standing were repaired and “newe cottages” were built. The Indians proved to be more hostile than formerly, and George Howe, one of the assistants, was killed by the Indians soon after the landing. Through the intercession of the Indian Manteo, who had relatives on the barrier island of Croatoan, friendly relations with the Croatoan Indians were reestablished, but the others remained aloof. The remnants of the Roanoke Island Indians dwelling at Dasamonquepeuc were accused by the Croatoan Indians of killing Grenville’s men as well as George Howe. Hence, on August 8, Governor White, with Captain Stafford and 24 men, suddenly attacked the town of Dasamonquepeuc with fire and sword. It was a blunder. The Roanoke Indians had already fled. In their place were the friendly Croatoan Indians who had heard of the flight of the other Indians and had come over to take whatever corn and fruit might have been left behind. Thanks to Manteo, the Croatoan Indians forgave the Englishmen, or pretended to do so.

On August 13, complying with Raleigh’s instructions, Manteo was christened and declared Lord of Roanoke and Dasamonquepeuc as a reward for his many services. Five days later, Governor White’s daughter, Eleanor, wife of Ananias Dare, gave birth to a daughter, who was named Virginia because she was the first child of English parentage to be born in the New World. Another child was born to Dyonis and Margery Harvie shortly afterwards. On the 27th, Governor White, at the earnest entreaty of the “planters in Virginia,” sailed homeward with the fleet to obtain supplies for the colony.

GOVERNOR WHITE’S RETURN TO ENGLAND.

With Governor White’s departure on the 27th, the history of events in the colony becomes a tragic mystery which one can only seek to explain. There had been talk of moving the colony 50 miles inland, and White had arranged for appropriate indications of their whereabouts if they removed from Roanoke Island before his return. However, White could not return as soon as expected because of the outbreak of war with Spain. The year 1588 was the Armada year. Sir Richard Grenville, who was preparing a new fleet to go to Virginia, was ordered to make his ships available to the English Navy for service against the Armada. Both Raleigh and Grenville were assigned tasks connected with the national defense and could give little thought to Virginian enterprises. At length, the Queen’s Privy Council gave Grenville permission to use on the intended Virginian voyage two small ships not required for service against Spain. White sailed with these on April 28, but they were small, poorly equipped, and poorly provisioned. Partly because of these circumstances and perhaps partly because of their own folly in running after Spanish treasure ships, they were unable to reach Virginia in the war-torn sea. Thus, while Grenville’s large warships contributed to the defeat of the Armada, the Roanoke Island colony was doomed for the lack of them.

Although the Armada was defeated in the summer of 1588, the Anglo-Spanish battle of the Atlantic continued for several years. It was the intention of Spain to carry on the war not only against England by means of the Armada but also to seek out the English colony in the New World and destroy it at about the same time. In the latter part of June 1588, the Spanish Governor at St. Augustine sent a packet boat northward to locate the English colony preparatory to an early attack on it. After reconnoitering Chesapeake Bay, the packet boat, with the pilot Vincente Gonzalez in command and with Juan Menéndez Marqués nephew of the Governor on board, came somewhat by chance to Port Ferdinando. Here they found evidence of a harbor and of English occupation. They departed hurriedly to St. Augustine to report their discovery. They clearly thought the harbor still in use at the time of their visit; but the projected attack, at first postponed and later thought to be unnecessary because of the weakness of the fort and settlement, seems never to have been made. At least that is the conclusion to be drawn from available Spanish documents.

On March 7, 1589, Raleigh deeded his interest in the Virginian enterprise, except a fifth part of all gold and silver ore, to a group of London merchants and adventurers and to Governor White and nine other gentlemen, “Late of London.” At least seven of them were planters whom White had left in Virginia, such as Ananias Dare, his son-in-law and father of Virginia Dare. Others included in the group were Richard Hakluyt and Thomas Smythe, later known as Sir Thomas Smythe.

The Indian village of Secotan, engraved by De Bry from John White’s drawing.

Map made by John White, 1585-86, showing the relationship of Roanoke Island, Dasamonquepeuc, Port Ferdinando, Croatoan, and Hatoraske.

The months slipped by, but Governor White and the London merchants seemed to have been unable to get a fleet organized for the relief and strengthening of the colony. In March 1590, Raleigh endeavored to assist White, through influence at court, when the latter learned that Master John Wattes, of London, was being hampered by a governmental staying order in his effort to clear a fleet of privateers for the West Indies. The scheme appears to have been that Raleigh, acting as middleman, would gain clearance for the ships and, in return, colonists and their furniture would be transported to Virginia. The plan went awry. Governor White sailed on March 20, 1590, for America, but without the accompanying planters and supplies. Indeed, his status was not much better than that of a passenger on one of Wattes’ ships, who had limited court influence at home.

After operating for months in the West Indies, the Wattes expedition anchored on the night of August 12 at the northeast end of the island of Croatoan. If White had only known then the clue to the colonists’ whereabouts that he was to learn 6 days later, he would have asked for a search of that island! But he had no way of knowing the promise that “Croatoan” held. After taking soundings, the fleet weighed anchor on August 13 and arrived at Hatoraske toward the evening of the 15th.

ATTEMPTS TO FIND THE LOST COLONY.

As the ships anchored at Hatoraske, smoke was seen rising on Roanoke Island, giving hope that the colonists were still alive. On the morning of the 16th, Governor White, Captain Cooke, Captain Spicer, and a small company set forth in two boats for Roanoke Island. En route they saw another column of smoke rising southwest of “Kindrikers mountes.” There are no mountains on this coast, except the great sand dunes. Perhaps the smoke was coming from the general area occupied today by the Nags Head dunes. They decided to investigate this latter smoke column first. It was a wearisome task that consumed the whole day and led to nothing, since no human beings were at the scene of the woods fire.

The next day, August 17, they prepared to go to Roanoke Island. Captain Spicer and six other men were drowned in the treacherous inlet when their boat capsized. Despite this unfortunate occurrence, White was able to proceed with the search. They put off again in two boats, but before they could reach the place of settlement it was so dark that they overshot their mark by a quarter of a mile. On the north end of the island they saw a light and rowed toward it. Anchoring opposite it in the darkness, they blew a trumpet and sang familiar English tunes and songs, but received no answer. In the morning they landed on the north end of the island and found only the grass and sundry rotten trees burning. From this point they went through the woods to that part of the island directly opposite Dasamonquepeuc on the mainland, west of the north end of Roanoke Island, and from there they returned by the water’s edge round about the north point of the island until they came to the place where the colony had been left by Governor White. From the description just given of White’s itinerary, this place must have been near the shore on the north end of the island on the east side, i. e., at or near the present Fort Raleigh National Historic Site. In the course of the long walk along the shore, nothing of interest was seen except footprints which two or three natives had made in the sand during the night.

As they climbed the sandy bank toward the settlement area, they found CRO carved in Roman letters on a tree at the brow of the hill. Going from there to the site of the dwelling houses, they found all of the houses taken down and the area strongly enclosed with a palisade of tree trunks, with curtains and flankers “very Fort-like.” One of the chief trees, or posts, had the bark peeled off, and carved on it in capital letters was the word CROATOAN, but without the maltese cross or sign of distress that White had asked the settlers to use in such messages in the event of enforced departure from Roanoke Island. On entering the palisade, they found iron and other heavy objects thrown about and almost overgrown with grass, signifying that the place had been abandoned for some time.

From the fort and settlement area, White proceeded again along the shore southward to the “point of the creek” (i. e., the point of Shallow Bag Bay or, as it was called in 1716, “Town Creek”), which had been fortified with “Falkons and small Ordinance” and where the small boats of the colony were habitually kept, but could find no sign of any of these things. Then, on returning to the fort and settlement area, White searched for certain chests and personal effects which he had secretly buried in 1587. The Indians had discovered the hiding place, had rifled the chests, torn the covers off the books, and left the pictures and maps to be spoiled by rain. Considering that Gov. John White was probably John White the artist and illustrator of the expedition of 1585-86, one can imagine his feelings on seeing his maps and pictures irretrievably ruined. However, according to his own words he was cheered at the thought that, as indicated by the word CROATOAN on the palisade post, “a certaine token,” his daughter, granddaughter Virginia Dare, and the colonists would be found at Croatoan Island, where Manteo was born and where the Indians had been friendly to the English.

As stormy weather was brewing, White and his little group returned in haste to the harbor where their ships were at anchor. Next day they agreed to go to Croatoan Island to look for the colonists but the weather would not permit. They planned to go to the West Indies instead, where they would have taken on fresh water and ultimately have returned to Croatoan. However, the elements willed otherwise and they were blown toward the Azores. From Flores in this group, they made their way to England.

Governor White could not finance another expedition to America himself, and Raleigh, although enjoying a large income at times, spent lavishly. Some of the money and energy that might have gone into the Virginian enterprise, Raleigh expended, during 1587-1602, in colonizing estates which he had received in Ireland. The Virginian enterprise would have required a prince’s purse, but Raleigh was not a prince. Walsingham died in 1590, a blow to Raleigh. In July 1592, Raleigh was disgraced and imprisoned for marrying Elizabeth Throckmorton without the Queen’s knowledge or consent. White, therefore, accepted the facts with resignation. His last recorded words, dated February 4, 1593, are: “And wanting my wishes, I leave off from prosecuting that whereunto I would to God my wealth were answerable to my will.”

As late as 1602, Raleigh was still seeking in vain for his lost colony. In that year he sent out an expedition under Samuel Mace, who reached land some “40 leagues to the so-westward of Hatarask,” presumably at or near Croatoan Island. Here they engaged in trading with the Indians along the coast. They probably did not look as diligently as they should have for the lost colonists, because they alleged that the weather made their intended search unsafe. On August 21, 1602, in a letter to Sir Robert Cecil, Raleigh expressed his undying faith in the overseas English Empire which he had attempted to establish, saying, “... I shall yet live to see it an English Nation.” The memory of the Lost Roanoke Colony by that time had become an imperishable English tradition. After the establishment of the Jamestown settlement in Virginia in 1607, the Virginia colonists evidenced an almost constant interest in trying to learn from the Indians the whereabouts of the Roanoke settlers. However, the hearsay data they collected were never sufficiently concrete to be of any real assistance in locating Raleigh’s men, and the answer remains a mystery to this day.

Connecting Links with Jamestown and New England

Following his marriage to Elizabeth Throckmorton, which displeased the Queen, Raleigh remained out of favor until after the capture of Cadiz, in 1596, in which he had participated. Upon the accession of King James I, in 1603, he again lost favor at Court and on July 16, 1603, was imprisoned in the Tower of London on the charge of having conspired to place Arabella Stuart on the throne instead of James. At the trial in November, Raleigh, along with Lords Cobham and Grey, was convicted and condemned to death. The lives of all three were dramatically spared at the last minute, but the conviction and sentence of death against Raleigh were allowed to stand and he remained in prison in the Tower until 1616.

One consequence of the conviction of Raleigh was the loss of any rights that he might still have had under the patent of 1584 giving him the sole right to colonize the vast territory called Virginia. The patent had obligated him to settle Virginia within 6 years but so long as the mystery of the Lost Colonists remained unsolved, Raleigh could allege that his colonists might be living somewhere in Virginia and that in consequence his rights under the Charter of Queen Elizabeth were still in force. These claims he asserted as late as 1603. In fact, the abolition of Raleigh’s claims appears to have been one of the outstanding consequences of the Cobham plot trails. Because his patent was now clearly lost and because of his imprisonment, Raleigh was unable to participate in the movement that culminated in the settlement of Virginia in 1607. Yet this movement, and the movement to settle New England, had close ties with him. Among the leading spirits behind the later successful Virginian enterprise were Richard Hakluyt and Sir Thomas Smythe, two of those to whom Raleigh had deeded his interest in the Lost Colony undertaking on March 7, 1589. Likewise, among the early leaders of the North Virginia, or Plymouth, group were Raleigh Gilbert and Sir John Gilbert, sons of Raleigh’s half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert. Raleigh Gilbert participated in the effort to plant a settlement on the Kennebec River in Maine in 1607 and was a member of the Plymouth Company as late as 1620.

Later Historical Information on Fort Raleigh

According to a letter, dated May 8, 1654, from Francis Yeardley, of Virginia, to John Farrar, a young trader and three companions went to Roanoke Island in September 1653. An Indian Chieftain “received them civilly and showed them the ruins of Sir Walter Raleigh’s fort.” They brought back a sure token of their having been there, which they gave to Yeardley.

John Lawson wrote that the ruins of the fort could be seen in 1709 and that old English coins, a brass gun, a powder horn and a small quarter-deck gun made of iron staves and hooped with iron had been found on the site.

An act of 1723 regarding a proposed town on Roanoke Island speaks of “300 Acres of Land lying on the No. E’t side of the said Island, commonly called Roanoke old plantation,” thus suggesting that at that date the northeastern part of the island was regarded as the scene of Raleigh’s settlements.

The earliest known map to show Fort Raleigh is the Collet map of 1770, which indicates a fort on the northeast side of the island near the shore line at what appears to be the present Fort Raleigh site. It is marked simply “Fort,” without name. A later copyist calls it “Pain Fort,” probably because he confused the notation of Paine’s residence on the Collet map (in different type from “Fort”) as part of the fort name. Benson J. Lossing, the historian, wrote in 1850 that “slight traces of Lane’s fort” could then be seen “near the north end” of Roanoke Island. Edward C. Bruce reported in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, May 1860, that the trench of the fort was clearly traceable as a square of about 40 yards each way, with one corner thrown out in the form of a small bastion. He also mentions fragments of stone and brick. Partial archeological excavation of the fort was undertaken by Talcott Williams in 1895. Additional archeological excavations by the National Park Service were undertaken in 1947, 1948, and 1950.

FORT RALEIGH NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE

NORTH CAROLINA

ROANOKE SOUND

WATERSIDE THEATER OF ‘THE LOST COLONY’ PRODUCTION

SOUVENIR SHOP

VISITOR CENTER

THOMAS HARIOT TRAIL

RESTORED FORT

STOCKADE

ENTRANCE

PARKING

345 TO MANTEO. 3 MILES

JULY 1960       NHS-RAL-7003

Recent History of Fort Raleigh

On April 30, 1894, the Roanoke Colony Memorial Association purchased the fort and 10 acres of surrounding land for memorial purposes. In 1896, the memorial area was extended to 16.45 acres, and the Virginia Dare monument was erected. In order to promote a more active program of interpretation at Fort Raleigh, the Roanoke Island Historical Association was organized in 1932. With Federal aid a series of buildings, constituting a symbolical restoration and an open-air theater, were constructed. In 1935, the area became a State historical park under the administration of the North Carolina Historical Commission. Two years later, the production of Paul Green’s Lost Colony pageant-drama attracted Nation-wide attention to Fort Raleigh. The immediate success of the play caused it to be repeated each season, and the performance is now recognized as America’s outstanding folk play.

Guide to the Area

THE BOUNDARY STOCKADE.

You enter Fort Raleigh National Historic Site between two small block houses built of logs, constituting a part of the boundary stockade. This stockade is of modern construction, and originally it marked the boundary of the 16.45 acre tract of the Roanoke Island Historical Association which was administered as a North Carolina State historical park between 1935-41. In 1951, one side of the stockade was relocated and the area of the national historic site was increased to 18.50 acres. Although quite modern and located along a modern boundary, it recalls that Governor White on returning to the site of the colony in 1590 found it fortified by a palisade of tree trunks (location still unknown) and hence creates a sense of stepping upon hallowed ground upon entering the gateway. The feeling is certainly justified, because the 18.50 acres lie on the entrance side of the fort and even if the fort had held only Grenville’s 15 men they would have trod this ground many times. As there were 108 persons in the first colony under Lane, who built the fort, and 150 in the “Lost Colony,” the use of the area near the entrance to this fort must have been considerable.

SYMBOLIC LOG HOUSES.

Inside the boundary stockade you will pass a number of log houses, all of modern construction, serving various utilitarian purposes. As the true location and physical appearances of the settlers’ houses of 1585-87 are unknown, the National Park Service plans to remove these log structures when their present uses have been served.

RESTORED FORT.

The historic object of chief interest at Fort Raleigh is the fort built by Ralph Lane during 1585-86 and called by him “the new Fort in Virginia.” As the settlers of the Lost Colony of 1587 are known to have rebuilt for their own use the houses which Lane’s men constructed about the fort, it may be safely assumed that this same fort served them also for a time, at least until they found it necessary to erect the great stockade made of tree trunks that Governor White found enclosing their settlement area in 1590.

Aerial view of the restored fort.

In an earlier part of this book, the history of the fort between 1586 and 1896 has been traced. During 1935-46, National Park Service historians made intensive historical studies of all available documentary and map data relating to the fort. They concluded that the fort surveyed for the Roanoke Colony Historical Association, in 1896, was Lane’s fort and surmised that its shape was similar to that of the fort built by Lane in Puerto Rico in 1585. They could only surmise this because, unlike Lane’s fort in Puerto Rico which is shown in a drawing by John White now in the British Museum, no picture or plan of Lane’s fort on Roanoke Island has survived. National Park Service archeological work carried on under the direction of Archeologist J. C. Harrington during the summers of 1947, 1948, and 1950 established the truth of the conjectures of the historians. The true shape of the fort was made known. Enough of the fort moat, or ditch, was found intact to justify the restoration of the fort, and valuable artifact materials were recovered at the fort site and west of the fort entrance.

The fort during the work of restoration.

As the fort stands today, the greater part of the ditch is the original moat of 1585-86, but the parapet has been restored. In the interval between 1586 and 1947, wind, rain, and snow had washed the parapet of the fort into the fort ditch. Leaf mold had also accumulated there. Archeological studies of these materials indicated that the fort was of great age. After careful archeological work at the fort and its environs in 1947 and 1948, it was decided in 1950 to restore the fort which had been shown to be the remains of an Elizabethan work. The earthen fill was removed from the ditch, or moat, of the fort and was placed where the parapet had been and the parapet built up once more. Except for the fact that the archeologists worked slowly with painstaking care to follow the lines of the original ditch, and Lane’s soldiers must have worked rapidly with shovels, the new and the old process of building the parapet of the fort must have been much the same. The amount of earth in the original ditch, as disclosed through archeological methods, determined the height of the parapet, which was shaped in accordance with normal angles of repose and data from contemporary manuals on fortification such as Paul Ive’s, The Practice of Fortification, (London, 1589).

Lane’s fort, as revealed and restored by the archeologist, is basically a square, with pointed bastions built on two sides of the square and an octagonal bastion built on the third side of the square. This last-mentioned bastion is suggestive of the arrowhead bastion of Lane’s Puerto Rican fort as pictured by John White. It is also suggestive of the octagonal bastion shown on the plan of St. George’s fort built in Maine by Popham in 1607. As the fort carries the distinctive features of Lane’s Puerto Rican fort, the pointed bastions built on the sides of the square instead of at the corners as in later fortification technique (a system either peculiar to Lane or at least quite rare), the conclusion is irresistible that Lane was the original builder.

The parapet of the fort encloses an area approximately 50 feet square. The interior had been dug into so many times and in so many places by Indians, later settlers, soldiers of the Civil War period, and by Talcort Williams that the National Park Service archeologist was unable to say for sure what structures had been inside of the fort. Traces of what may have been one long structure or two short ones were found near the center of the fort at right angles to the main entrance. Presumably, there were a well and a powder magazine. The few brickbats found may relate to the footings or chimneys of the structure, or structures, in the fort or to the magazine. The one measurable side of one of the brick fragments found was of the proper gauge to have been of the Elizabethan period, when the sizes of bricks were regulated by law.

Typical section through the original fort ditch and the reconstructed parapet.

The location of the fort, not far from the water’s edge, commanding a channel of Roanoke Sound in use for small boats even in later colonial times, bespeaks its purpose of defending the colonists not only against the Indians but also against an always probable attack from Spain. An enemy ship approaching from Port Ferdinando (Hatoraske) or Trinety Harbor, north of Hatoraske, would have come under the guns of the fort, consisting of some brass cannon and at least “four iron fowlers” (light cannon). Some of the cannon fired “iron saker shot,” which would be iron balls weighing about 6 pounds. Today, large dunes lie between the fort and the sound and obstruct the view. However, as archeological tests show that the dunes are later than the period of settlement, it is clear that the fort originally commanded a view of Roanoke Sound.

PRESUMED LOCATION OF THE SETTLEMENT.

As has been indicated, the house sites of the colonists have never been found. They are described as having been decent dwelling houses near the fort and “about” the fort. They were probably built on the ground without basements or firm footings. This would explain the difficulty of finding traces of them. The location of the fort entrance on the west side would suggest that the main settlement lay west of that point, toward the upper end of the island. A more precise statement than this cannot be made at the present time.

FORT RALEIGH

AS RECONSTRUCTED

GUN EMBRASURE

RAMP

DITCH

FIRING STEP

GUN PLATFORM

STOCKADE

TOP OF EMBANKMENT

APRIL 1952       NMS-RAL-7003

Comparisons of the fort on Roanoke Island with other forts of the period. (a) The fort on Roanoke Island; (b) the fort built in Puerto Rico by Ralph Lane; (c) a conventional fort with corner bastions.

THE TEMPORARY MUSEUM.

Not far from the fort is a modern log structure used as a temporary museum. Besides housing such objects of historical interest as documents relating to Raleigh’s family, pieces of armor, and the rare facsimile reproductions in color of the remarkable water-color drawings made in America by John White during 1585-86, the museum contains objects which were recovered at the fort site and elsewhere on the grounds of the national historic site during the archeological excavations of 1947, 1948, and 1950.

Drawings of one of the Hans Schultes counters, or jettons, found at the fort. The obverse side reads “Glick Kumt Von Got Ist War” (True good fortune comes from God).

On the reverse side is “Hans Schultez Zu Nurenberg.”

Among the many objects brought to light is a wrought-iron sickle found in the very bottom of the fort ditch. Undoubtedly, it was one of the tools used at the time of the building of the fort, because archeological evidence shows that the loose dirt of the parapet of the fort began to wash back into the ditch almost as soon as the fort was completed. Even more interesting, perhaps, are three copper, or brass, counters, popular in Europe for keeping arithmetical accounts during the sixteenth century, which were found inside the fort. They carry the symbols of Tudor England and on one the name Hans Schultes Zu Nuremberg is readable. Schultes is known to have manufactured such counters in Nuremberg between 1550 and 1574, at which time Nuremberg was a center for the making of counters. He undoubtedly made this one for the English trade, as the Tudor symbols indicate. Likewise, of great interest are the fragments of large Spanish olive jars found in the excavations. As the colonists of 1585-86 traded in Puerto Rico and Haiti, in the Spanish West Indies, for goods and supplies on their way to Roanoke Island, it was to be expected that objects of this type would be found.

Iron sickle found during the excavations.

Indian pipe of red clay found at the bottom of the fort ditch.

Fragments of maiolica were also found, which appear to be either Spanish or Hispano-American. In addition, large iron spikes, buckles, a casement bar and other materials of interest came to light. Indian pottery and traces of Indian campfires found at various soil levels show that the Indians returned to Roanoke Island and inhabited the fort area after the last colonists had left.

Top of a Spanish olive jar found at the bottom of the fort ditch.

THE WATERSIDE THEATER.

At the water’s edge is the theater of the Roanoke Island Historical Association, in which Paul Green’s Lost Colony symphonic drama is given annually during the summer season through the cooperation of the State of North Carolina and the National Park Service.

Three clay pots restored from fragments found in the remains of Indian campfires at various levels in the fort ditch.

The National Historic Site

Fort Raleigh was transferred to the National Park Service of the United States Department of the Interior in 1940. On April 5, 1941, it was designated Fort Raleigh National Historic Site under provision of the act of Congress commonly referred to as the Historic Sites Act, approved August 21, 1935 (49 Stat. 666), to commemorate Sir Walter Raleigh’s colonies and the birthplace of Virginia Dare, first child of English parentage to be born in the New World. The area of the site in Federal ownership is 18.50 acres and embraces part of the settlement sites of 1585 and 1587 and the fort site. By a cooperative agreement between the Roanoke Island Historical Association and the United States, the play, the Lost Colony, continues to be given each season in the Waterside Theater at Fort Raleigh. This arrangement provides for the unhampered production of the play with all of its creative folk qualities. The income from the play is dedicated to the maintenance of the theater, the next season’s production, and the expansion and development of the historic Site.

How to Reach the Site

Fort Raleigh National Historic Site is 3 miles north of Manteo, N. C. on State Route 345. It is 92 miles southeast of Norfolk, Va., and 67 miles southeast of Elizabeth City, N. C. From Norfolk, Va., take Virginia and North Carolina Routes 170 and 34 to junction of U. S. 158, then over U. S. 158 to Manteo. Manteo may be reached also from Elizabeth City, N. C., over U. S. 158.

Traffic from the south and west can reach the site by the route from Elizabeth City, or from Washington, N. C., over U. S. 264, or from Williamston, N. C., over U. S. 64.

Administration

Fort Raleigh National Historic Site is administered by the National Park Service of the United States Department of the Interior. Communications and inquiries should be addressed to the Superintendent, Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, Manteo, N. C.

Related Areas

Other historical areas in the East associated with early colonization of America, which are administered by the National Park Service, are Castillo de San Marcos National Monument, Fla.; De Soto National Memorial, Fla.; Fort Matanzas National Monument, Fla.; San Juan National Historic Site, Puerto Rico; Ackia Battleground National Monument, Miss.; Colonial National Historical Park (Jamestown, Yorktown, and Cape Henry Memorial), Va.; Fort Frederica National Monument, Ga.; and Fort Caroline National Memorial, Fla.

The audience at one of the performances of Paul Green’s play “The Lost Colony.”

About Your Visit

Fort Raleigh National Historic Site is open the entire year. Information and literature may be obtained in the museum. Organizations and groups are given special service if arrangements are made in advance with the superintendent. The Lost Colony, pageant-drama, is produced in the Waterside Theater between June and September at night according to hours and dates fixed by the sponsoring Roanoke Island Historical Association.

Suggested Readings

HAKLUYT, RICHARD. The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation. Vol. VIII. Glasgow, Scotland. 1904.

HARIOT, THOMAS. A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia. (A reproduction of the edition printed at Frankfort, in 1590, by Theodore de Bry, edited by W. H. Rylands for the Holbein Society) Manchester, England. 1888.

HARRINGTON, J. C. Archeological Explorations at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, in North Carolina Historical Review, Vol. XXVI, No. 2, April 1949.

IVE, PAUL. The Practise of Fortification. London, 1589.

ORÉ, LUIS GERONIMO DE. The Martyrs of Florida, 1513-1616. Translated by Maynard Geiger Franciscan Studios No. 18. New York. 1936.

PORTER, CHARLES W. III. Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, North Carolina, in North Carolina Historical Review. Vol. XX, No. 1. 1943.

QUINN, DAVID B. Raleigh and the British Empire. New York. 1949.

.... The Roanoke Voyages 1584-1590. (Documents to illustrate the Voyages to North America under the Patent Granted to Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584.) 2 vols. The Hakluyt Society. London, England. 1955.

REDING, KATHERINE. Letter of Gonzalo Mendez de Canzo to Philip II, in Georgia Historical Quarterly. Vol. VIII. 1924.

ROWSE, A. L. Sir Richard Granville of the Revenge. Boston and New York. 1937.

WILLIAMS, TALCOTT. The Surroundings and Site of Raleigh’s Colony, in Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1895. Washington, D. C. 1896.

U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1965 OF-775-458

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

HISTORICAL HANDBOOK SERIES

(Price lists of National Park Service publications may be obtained from the Superintendent of Documents, Washington 25, D.C.)

Antietam

Bandelier

Chalmette

Chickamauga and Chattanooga Battlefields

Custer Battlefield

Custis-Lee Mansion, the Robert E. Lee Memorial

Fort Laramie

Fort McHenry

Fort Necessity

Fort Pulaski

Fort Raleigh

Fort Sumter

George Washington Birthplace

Gettysburg

Guilford Courthouse

Hopewell Village

Independence

Jamestown, Virginia

Kings Mountain

The Lincoln Museum and the House Where Lincoln Died

Manassas (Bull Run)

Montezuma Castle

Morristown, a Military Capital of the Revolution

Ocmulgee

Petersburg Battlefields

Saratoga

Scotts Bluff

Shiloh

Statue of Liberty

Vanderbilt Mansion

Vicksburg

Yorktown

Transcriber’s Notes

- Silently corrected a few typos.

- Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook is public-domain in the country of publication.

- In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by _underscores_.

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Table of Contents

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, North Carolina, by III Charles W. Porter

Fort Raleigh NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE North Carolina

Contents

Gilbert and Raleigh

Exploration of Roanoke Island, 1584

Raleigh’s First Colony, 1585-86

THE VOYAGE.

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COLONY.

LIFE IN THE COLONY.

ABANDONMENT OF THE COLONY.

GRENVILLE’S FIFTEEN MEN.

The Lost Colony of 1587

THE SECOND COLONY ESTABLISHED AT ROANOKE.

GOVERNOR WHITE’S RETURN TO ENGLAND.

ATTEMPTS TO FIND THE LOST COLONY.

Connecting Links with Jamestown and New England

Later Historical Information on Fort Raleigh

Recent History of Fort Raleigh

Guide to the Area

THE BOUNDARY STOCKADE.

SYMBOLIC LOG HOUSES.

RESTORED FORT.

PRESUMED LOCATION OF THE SETTLEMENT.

THE TEMPORARY MUSEUM.

THE WATERSIDE THEATER.

The National Historic Site

How to Reach the Site

Administration

Related Areas

About Your Visit

Suggested Readings

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE HISTORICAL HANDBOOK SERIES

Transcriber’s Notes

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE