Hatteras Yielding Up Century Old Treasures

Roanoke Revisited

Click on the image to view full frame:

Native American artifacts and British pottery shards, estimated
to be between 100 and 600 years old, collected by the Lost
 Colony Research Group on Hatteras Island.
 (photo credit: Roberta Estes)

By Kerry Grens | January 1, 2012
 
In July 1587, a British colonist named John White accompanied 117 people to settle a small island sheltered within the barrier islands of what would become North Carolina’s Outer Banks. When conditions proved harsher than anticipated, White agreed to sail back to Britain to shore up the settlement’s supplies—a trip that should have lasted a few months. When White belatedly returned in 1590, the colonists had vanished—more than 100 men, women, and young children, their shelters and belongings, all gone. Archaeological digs, weather records, historical writings, genealogy—none have fully answered the question of what happened during White’s absence. But Roberta Estes, who owns DNAeXplain, a company that interprets the results of genetic heritage tests, is looking to DNA for help. Her hypothesis is that the Lost Colonists survived, and that evidence of their salvation is tucked away in the mitochondrial or Y chromosomal DNA of living descendants.

Read the full story.

This blog is © History Chasers
Click here to view all recent Lost Colony Research Group Blog posts

Dr. James Horn to lecture at Roanoke Island Festival Park Auditorium Oct 15

 Anyone who is able to attend these events would surely benefit. JC

Roanoke Colonies Archaeology and History Week

All of the following events are free and open to the public.

Wednesday, Oct. 12

9 a.m. to 4 p.m. archaeological fieldwork continues and can be publicly viewed at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site.

7 p.m. Roanoke Island Festival Park Auditorium, Roanoke After Raleigh: Resettlement of the Island in the 17th and 18th Centuries lecture by Phillip W. Evans.

Evans is president and co-founder of the First Colony Foundation. Now in his second career as an attorney in private practice concentrating on juvenile and mental health law in Durham, he focused on colonial and pre-colonial American history in his first career -- most of which was spent at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site where he served the National Park Service as a park ranger/historian for 17 years.

Thursday, Oct. 13:

9 a.m. to 4 p.m. archaeological fieldwork continues and can be publicly viewed at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site.

7 p.m. Roanoke Island Festival Park Auditorium, Raleigh's Other Lost Colonies lecture by Dr. Eric Klingelhofer

Klingelhofer is a First Colony Foundation Board member and research vice president. He has led archaeological research efforts at sites related to Sir Walter Ralegh in Ireland and the Caribbean, and since the 1990s, has worked numerous digs on Roanoke Island. In addition, he was senior archaeologist during the Colonial Williamsburg excavations under Ivor Noel Hume. Currently, Klingelhofer is a professor of history at Mercer University in Georgia

Friday, Oct. 14

9 a.m. to 4 p.m. archaeological fieldwork continues and can be publicly viewed at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site.

7 p.m. Roanoke Island Festival Park Auditorium, The Lost Colony -- New Theories lecture by Dr. James Horn.

Horn is a First Colony Foundation Board member and is vice president of research and historical interpretation, and Abby & George O'Neill Director of the Rockefeller Library at Colonial Williamsburg; author of A Land as God Made It; Jamestown and the Birth of America; and A Kingdom Strange -- The Brief and Tragic History of the Lost Colony of Roanoke.

Saturday, Oct. 15

9 a.m. to 4 p.m. archaeological fieldwork continues and can be publicly viewed at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site.

Sunday, Oct. 16

9 a.m. to 1 p.m. archaeological fieldwork continues and can be publicly viewed at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site.


This blog is © History Chasers
Click here to view all recent Lost Colony Research Group Blog posts

Back on the Road Again

by Roberta Estes

 For the past several years, the Lost Colony Research Group has sponsored and coordinated an archaeological dig on Hatteras Island.  This April marks our fourth dig in cooperation with the University of Bristol and we welcome you to blog along with us on our journey.

Today was arrival day for most of the crew.  Several from our group are present at this dig.  Not everyone is arriving at the same time.  Anne Poole has been here on the island for several days already setting up and getting ready, along with Cousin George.  Bless Cousin George, he cooks for us all for 2 weeks on the “gypsy wagon”.  Nancy Frey, our British genealogist who lives in Canada arrived yesterday as well.

Louisa, our graduate student from the University of Bristol has also been here for several days preparing as well.  She also worked last December on getting ready for this spring’s dig.  Coordinating an effort of this size is nothing trivial.  Yesterday evening through about 3AM this morning, the rest of the Bristol crew arrived on several flights.  Altogether, it was a 25 hour trip for them.  Canceled flights and other misadventures plagued them, but eventually they did all arrive safely.  This morning was the “things that go bite in the day” lecture.  We discovered last year that British students aren’t familiar with the wildlife here that Hatteras Islanders take for granted.  You know, things such as snakes, ticks and alligators.

And then, the dig began. 

But I hadn’t arrived yet.  I was still in the death grip of Old Man Winter – or at least still struggling to escape him.  I awoke this morning in Beckley, Va. to discover there was SNOW on the vehicles.  Now it was bad enough for me, but folks there believe that spring has already arrived, and there were couple on motorcycles.  They had a very cold ride.

I put off my departure by going to Tamarack to see what new and wonderful artisan creations they had, and I was not disappointed.  They had ample new goodies to keep me interested for a long time.  I’ll probably stop on the way back to purchase.  Unfortunately, it is Saturday, and their quilter in residence, Elaine Bliss was not in today.  I always enjoy visiting with Elaine.

By 10 AM, I had hoped the snow would have melted off, but it had not.  I decided I really needed to go ahead and leave as I had a 9 hour drive in front of me and I really did not want to navigate Highway 12 on Hatteras Island at night.  I don’t know….it’s just something about the sea covering the road that I find disconcerting…..

I headed South, after taking note of a very confused goose who was standing in the grassy area of the cloverleaf, wondering to himself where he took a wrong turn, as snow and sleet pelted him.  Not only had the snow not melted, it got WORSE and turned into a blizzard.  By the time I got to Flat Top, which seemed to be the highest elevation while crossing the Appalachian Mountains, there was a significant amount of snow covering everything.  Dawn, who lives on Hatteras Island, pleaded with me to pull over and make a snowball, put it in the cooler and bring it to her.  She tells me they don’t get snow on Hatteras.  Had I been able to find a place to pull off to take a photo, I would have also gotten her snowball….but that didn’t happen.

By the time I was descending the mountain on the other side of the two tunnels, the snow had stopped and I wondered where the smoke was coming from.  Shortly, I discovered it wasn’t smoke, but was fog, drifting through the valleys.  Fog was followed by very high winds that caused people to fight for control of their vehicles, then rain, then brilliant sunshine by Winston-Salem and 64 degrees, then overcast by Raleigh and raining off and on between there and Hatteras Island.  I have experienced a years worth of weather in just under 12 hours.

I have also discovered that the reason hotels are only open here in the spring, summer and fall is because they do not have heat.  Suffice it to say that I’m glad I have long underwear with me and two quilts from my car.  If I get any colder, I’ll also be sleeping in my down vest….but I digress.

North Carolina never disappoints me.  The beauty and diversity here found in nature and the nature of the people are truly unparalleled elsewhere.  One of today’s finds was a house on State road 98 near Rocky Mount that was almost complete covered by wisteria.  This reminded me of a forest type of ginger bread house found only fairy tales.  Wonderful fodder for a fertile imagination….

 

Then, in Manteo, I found the most remarkable pink pick-up truck.  I didn’t realize that trucks came in this color of pink.  I think this must be hibiscus pink.  It was parked outside another colorful feature of the island that I’ve talked about during every trip, Kitty Hawk Kites.  Truly a colorful scene, and one to be found only on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  

 Welcome home!

This blog is © History Chasers
Click here to view all recent Lost Colony Research Group Blog posts

Everything is Relative

Everything is Relative
By Jennifer Sheppard
Certificate in Genealogy
Professional Research Option
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT, USA

Grenville

and the

Lost Colony of Roanoke

By Andrew Thomas Powell

Mr. Powell is in the distinctive position to have written this book as he not only lives in England but is the retired Mayor of Bideford with access to never before published information regarding the voyages. He also possesses first hand knowledge of “Croatoan” having spent time where the colonists were said to have settled. This gives him a unique perspective on America’s greatest unsolved mystery.

I must confess, household chores and the like suffered greatly while I was reading this book because it was virtually impossible to put down! This work is concisely written, easy to read, brilliantly shared and exciting to say the least.

The introduction of the book sums it up beautifully, from which I quote: “The story of the first attempt to colonise America by the English nation is a story of extraordinary courage, despair, misfortune, joy and simple wonder……..prepare for an adventure no Hollywood producer could hope to conjure in their wild-est dreams, and remember, as you read, that this is a true story.”

Mr. Powell leads us step by step, through the entire sequence of events undertaken to plant a permanent English settlement in what was to become the USA. He begins his book with a short biography of Sir Ri-chard Grenville, the “unsung hero” that is “unsung” no more. Some may not be aware that Grenville made more than one voyage to what was to become America and also served as “onetime Lord of the Manor of Bideford and was almost exclusively known for being the subject of an Alfred, Lord Tennyson poem…..”

Next, Andrew Powell covers “The Voyage of Amadas and Barlowe 1584 and The Voyage of Grenville 1585.” He moves on to include The Military Colony of 1585, Parts One and Two. Then he covers the “Voyages of 1586, The “Planters’ Colony of 1587,” “The Voyages of 1588,” “The deposition of Pedro Diaz 1585-1589,” “Raleigh’s Assignment of 1589,” and ends the transcriptions with “The Voyage of 1590. Subsequently he includes information unknown to have been published on the “ships and captains of Eng-land” involved in these voyages, without whose participation this amazing adventure would not have been possible.

And last but not least, Mr. Powell shares his own thoughts and analysis on “The Colonists,” including the types of expertise the people considered for this exploration, would have had to possess in order to survive and to thrive in their new lives in an unknown wilderness.

In the next chapter “Questions, Answers; Answers, Questions, he summarizes the “If Only’s’” revealing the possible “near misses” and “close encounters” that may have designated Croatoan as the first permanent English settlement in America rather than Jamestown. Mr. Powell ends his work with “The Hunt for The Lost Colony” wherein he provides never before published information uncovered by The Lost Colony Re-search Group, the Croatoan Archaeological Society, Professor Mark Horton of Bristol University and the author himself, Andrew Powell.

The footnotes containing detailed explanations of unfamiliar terms and words, found in the transcription of the original documents, are invaluable and much appreciated by the reader. This enables the reader to understand obsolete terms/words found in the journals he meticulously transcribed. As a genealogist who insists on working with primary sources whenever possible, this is certainly a plus and the fact that it is a true and accurate account of what actually happened make it a terrific read.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the study of the so called “Lost Colony” and to those who truly enjoy reading a good non-fiction story which just happens to be some heretofore unknown history of what would one day become the United States of America!

The book is 302 pages, measures 8 X 5 inches, ISBN-10: 1848765967; ISBN-13: 978-1848765962 (Trou-bador Publishing Ltd © 2011, 5 Weir Road, Kibworth Beauchamp, Leicester, LE8 OLQ, WW.TROUBADOR.CO.UK). The book is also available at www.amazon.com for $16.78.



This blog is © History Chasers
Click here to view all recent Lost Colony Research Group Blog posts

Book examines Bideford’s role in American mystery

 

Bideford councillor and author Andy Powell

Wednesday, 19 January, 2011

13:37 PM

A STORY that started in Bideford’s council chambers four years ago has evolved to take former town mayor Andy Powell across the Atlantic four times and back more than four centuries - and has now resulted in a book which re-examines the founding of America.

Andy’s 75,000-word publication Grenville and The Lost Colony of Roanoke is due to be launched in Bideford on February 19 and in America in April. The book features one of the most popular mysteries of America, the fate of the Lost Colony of Roanoke. It also examines the pivotal role played by Bideford’s famous son Sir Richard Grenville and sets the question whether people from Bideford were among the first founders of America, more than 30 years before the Pilgrim Fathers set sail. There are also insights into Bideford’s role in the vanquishing of the Spanish Armada, the origin of the so called Armada Cannons in Victoria Park and a fascinating biography of Sir Richard Grenville. Andy’s interest was first sparked in the council chamber by a visitor from the North Carolina bearing gifts from a “twin” town, Manteo. Keen to re-establish a link apparently lost for 25 years, Andy went on to become instrumental in the completion of a formal “twinning” charter between the two towns. During his first visit to America in 2008 Andy was interested why two towns so widely divided should have such an affinity. That started three-and-a-half years of research, which finally led him to discover the extraordinary story of the Roanoke Colonies and the 119 men, women and children, who three years after landing on Roanoke in 1587, vanished to become one of America’s greatest mysteries. In his book, Andy has gone back to the earliest transcripts in his efforts to get to the bottom of the mystery and discovered that Sir Richard Grenville played a pivotal role in what was originally the enterprise of his cousin Sir Walter Raleigh. He also raises the possibility that many of these early settlers may have been in the employ of Grenville and thus from the Bideford area. He also provides evidence that they may not have been lost, but assimilated into the local Native American people. However, by including in his book modern transcriptions of the original accounts, he leaves his readers with the opportunity to make up their own minds cont. here: http://www.northdevongazette.co.uk/news/book_examines_bideford_s_role_inamerican_mystery_1_778424 This blog is © History Chasers Click here to view all recent Lost Colony Research Group Blog posts

Virginia Dare Faire: Happy Birthday Virginia!!!

Tomorrow is the big day!!!

Virginia Dare Faire

Celebrate Virginia Dare’s 423rd birthday at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site on Roanoke Island. Attend a full day of free activities for the family that include make and take crafts; games; entertainment; activities; free cake and ice cream. Reserve your seats early for the evening performance of The Lost Colony that cameos infant actors as baby Virginia—ticket charges apply.

We are very fortunate to have two representatives, Anne Poole and Dawn Taylor, who will be staffing a DNA testing booth. We expect to have photos soon.

This blog is © History Chasers
Click here to view all recent Lost Colony Research Group Blog posts

"A Kingdom Strange"

by Janet Crain
It is important to remember that this little band of would be settlers carried an enormous weigh on their backs. They were the forerunners of the English colonies that became the United States. Had they been discovered they would have been murdered by the Spanish as the French Huguenots were in Florida. Had John White not have made it back to Ireland and later made an ill fated trip to Roanoke nothing would be known of the colonists.

Fortunately we do know a great deal and after more than 400 years more is being discovered.

Rob Hardy: "A Kingdom Strange"
Rob Hardy (contact)
July 27, 2010 9:42:00 AM

The Lost Colony of Roanoke was a failed initial effort of England to colonize America. It may have been a failure, but it continues to fascinate people; there is a famous outdoor stage production with music that attempts to dramatize the settlement at its site and a reconstructed fort.

The fascination isn't so much because of historic significance, but because the 117 settlers vanished without a trace. That is, almost without a trace. In "A Kingdom Strange: The Brief and Tragic History of the Lost Colony of Roanoke" (Basic Books), historian James Horn finds all the traces we can ever expect to turn up, and speculates on answers as close as we are going to get. That ought to make it an attractive volume for anyone who has heard of the colony's mysterious disappearance.

The larger attraction of the book, however, is to put the colony into historic context. The colony was an attempted blow by Britain against Spain, and what's more, it became lost at least partially because of the larger war between Britain and Spain. The hapless colonists, who if things had gone differently would have been celebrated as the Jamestown settlers are now, were instead the victims of a global war.

Horn imagines that Walter Raleigh, having moved to London in 1575, looked at a map of the New World and saw an extensive New France, and an even greater New Spain, but a "New England" was nowhere to be seen. During the reign of the father of Queen Elizabeth, Henry VIII, there was maritime trading with Europe and the Mediterranean, but little interest in America. Spain, however, had been particularly active in colonizing, and King Philip II had papal authority to convert the indigenous people to Catholicism. He deliberately took action to destroy the French settlements on the coasts of what are now South Carolina and Georgia because he did not want the Protestant heretics to take hold. Philip would have felt the same way about the attempts by Elizabeth to settle her Protestant countrymen into the area, although the British settlers, of course, would feel compelled to convert the heathens to their true church.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://www.cdispatch.com/lifestyles/article.asp%3Faid%3D7114&ct=ga&cad=:s7:f1:v0:i1:ld:e1:p1:t1280280831:&cd=sRGXXiFYHTQ&usg=AFQjCNGSD-JSleC7jChHTnYk8yF2UupGoA


This blog is © History Chasers
Click here to view all recent Searching for the Lost Colony DNA Blog posts

Barrell Beach at Roanoke Island Scene of Intense Maritime Investigation

Institute for International Maritime Research, Inc:
Raleigh Colony Investigation Update 2010
By Bill Utley

Ray Hayes, Bill Utley, and Josh Daniel prepare to use the suction dredge.

The Institute for International Maritime Research, Inc (IIMR), working for the First Colony Foundation, and under the direction of Dr. Gordon Watts, assisted by Josh Daniel, Dr. Ray Hayes, and Bill Utley, conducted Part 1 of the 2010 continuing survey searching for the Lost Colony of 1587. The survey was conducted with the cooperation of the National Park Service. The work, which lasted from 16 to 22 May, consisted of sand lift operations testing a shallow area off the northeast end of Roanoke Island, NC.

Dr. Gordon Watts, Josh Daniel, and Ray Hayes at the barrel Well Site.

The area, known locally as “barrel beach”, is an area in National Park Service waters adjoining Fort Raleigh Park land. It was in the area in the 1990s that the remains of two barrel wells were found just off a small sand beach in very shallow water. Barrel wells were a common land feature, particularly in new settlements, but anywhere water was needed and not readily visible. It simply meant that wells were dug and barrels, or their equivalent (even a large hollwed tree could be used), were used to line the hole as it got deeper - in place of later bricks and stone in more settled areas. It was also in this area that an axe head was found dating back to the end of the 16th century.

Wind conditions plagued the first three days of the effort. Since the area is so shallow, relatively calm conditions were needed to position the support boat, which had to anchor just off a submerged anti-erosion barrier. The boat was needed to deploy and run the sand lift, and the water depth was just under 4 feet at the anchor spot.

Cont. here
http://www.uri.edu/artsci/his/mua/in_the_field/iimr2.shtml




This blog is © History Chasers

Click here to view all recent Searching for the Lost Colony DNA Blog posts

Searching For the Lost Colony Receives a Hand From English Mayor

Andy Powell wants to use DNA to prove his claims.
Photo: IAN SNELL/APEX

Andy Powell, mayor of Bideford, north Devon, wants to use DNA testing to prove residents from the port town settled in the US three decades before the Pilgrim Fathers sailed there.

Mr Powell is trying to raise money for the research, which he hopes will prove his town’s "pivotal" role in the history of modern America.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7690703/British-settlers-arrived-in-America-before-Pilgrim-Fathers.html

This blog is © History ChasersClick here to view all recent Searching for the Lost Colony DNA Blog posts

Searching for the Lost Colony DNA Blog Receives the Ancestor Approved Award!

The Searching for the Lost Colony DNA Blog has been selected to receive the Ancestor Approved Award! We are honored and excited.

This award is given to blogs that exhibit value by publishing well documented articles about ancestors. While the Lost Colony ancestors may not be our ancestors, we really don't know whether they are or not. In any case they are someone's ancestor's, provided they did survive after being left behind on Roanoke and with a few exceptions seemingly forgotten by civilization.

Paul Green's famous play, the Lost Colony, first presented in 1937, was responsible for the public's rediscovery of the Lost Colony of Roanoke. Since that time the fascination has grown. Many have written about this group and some have made great Archeological discoveries, but the Lost Colony of Roanoke DNA Project is the first effort to search for DNA evidence of these brave settlers having survived and passed on their genes to present day populations in North Carolina and other areas.

Part of our participation as a blog receiving this award is for us to publish ten things we discovered about our ancestors. In this case the ten will be represented by Lost Colony major players. One of whom, Walter Raleigh, never even set foot on Roanoke.

The first person of the ten will be Walter Raleigh because the settlement was his brainchild.

To be continued.........

This blog is © History Chasers

Click here to view all recent Searching for the Lost Colony DNA Blog posts

A KINGDOM STRANGE: The Brief and Tragic History of The Lost Colony of Roanoke: Book review

James Horn's book; "A Land as God Made It" about Jamestown was very good and I hope this one is also.

A KINGDOM STRANGE: The Brief and Tragic History of The Lost Colony of Roanoke
By James Horn
Basic Books
304 pages
$25.

Book Review by Michael L. Ramsey
MICHAEL L. RAMSEY is president of the Roanoke Public Library Foundation.

One day in the summer of my fifth year, my parents put on their town clothes (and I mine), and we left our cottage on Nags Head to cross the sound to Roanoke Island to see a play called “The Lost Colony.” That was the genesis of my interest in American history.
Now James Horn has published a description of the colony settled on Roanoke Island in 1587 — the colony whose inhabitants were never again seen by their English kin.

“A Kingdom Strange” offers many facets to the early history of British America. It offers a compelling account of the background for the founding of Jamestown in 1607 (so deftly described by Horn in “A Land As God Made It”).

It provides a plausible explanation of the fate of the Roanoke Island colonists based on recently discovered archival material. You may come away asking if there might be some gray-eyed Croatoan in your family tree.

Most important, perhaps, is that the book is likely to be as inspirational to today’s readers as “The Lost Colony” play was to me — a sort of hatchery for history fans.

Cont. here:

http://blogs.roanoke.com/rtblogs/backcover/2010/04/04/a-kingdom-strange-the-brief-and-tragic-history-of-the-lost-colony-of-roanoke-book-review/

This blog is © History Chasers

Click here to view all recent Searching for the Lost Colony DNA Blog posts

Roanoke Played a Very Important Part in the Birth of Our Nation

The new world was discovered by a Spanish Navigator, North America was colonized by the Vikings, Spain, Portugal and France, its rich Outer Banks fished by the Basque and other nations, but eventually it became a predominately English speaking continent. And 13 small colonies became the United States.

How did this come about? Who were the major players?

Almost four hundred years ago a group of families from England built the first permanent settlement on the shores of the New World. This town Jamestown, Virginia, named after James I, the King of England. Jamestown was not the first English colony in Virginia, but it had been the first one to be successful. Twenty years earlier, a colony had been started about one hundred miles south of Jamestown, on Roanoke Island that proved to be unsuccessful.

On March 25, 1584, Walter Raleigh obtained from Queen Elizabeth a patent to “discover, search, find out, and view” any lands “not actually possessed of any Christian prince, nor inhabited by Christian people.” The patent was approved to “go or travel thither to inhabited or remained, there to build and fortified” for a period of six years.

Within a month Walter Raleigh had dispatched a fleet of two ships commanded by Captains Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe. They sailed from London on April 27th through the West Indies and sighted land off our coast on the 4th of July 1584. Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe entered Pamlico Sound at Ocracoke Inlet and a few days later Barlowe and eight of his men reached Roanoke Island. From early July until mid September a small band of men explored the region as best they could, traded with the Indians, and observed such things as the plants, the soil, the animals, and recorded everything that they could possibly learn about Indians and their way of life.

http://www.blogaboutall.com/2009/11/jamestown-virginia/



© History Chasers

Click here to view all recent Searching for the Lost Colony DNA Blog posts

Stephen B. Weeks Article

THE LOST COLONY OF ROANOKE

ITS FATE AND SURVIVAL

BY
STEPHEN B. WEEKS, PH.D. (JOHNS HOPKINS)

[REPRINTED FROM PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
VOL. V., PP. 439-480]

NEW YORK
The Knickerbocker Press
1891
PRICE, FIFTY CENTS
read online here
copyright usage statement

© History Chasers

Click here to view all recent Searching for the Lost Colony DNA Blog posts