A Series of Stones Were Discovered Across The Country, And The Inscriptions Allegedly Gave Answers As To What Happened To The Members of The Lost Roanoke Colony
Are you fascinated with the story of the lost Roanoke Colony, the colony of settlers who mysteriously vanished from North Carolina in the late 1500s?
While many people know the basics of that story, not everyone knows about the Dare Stones, the series of stones discovered across the country whose inscriptions allegedly gave answers as to what happened to the members of the lost colony.
In case you didn’t know, in 1587, English explorer John White sailed with 115 settlers from England to North Carolina and settled on Roanoke Island. A few months after their arrival, John returned to England to gather supplies for his colony. But when he returned to Roanoke Island in 1590, everyone on the island, including his daughter, Eleanor Dare, his son-in-law Ananias, and his granddaughter Virginia, had mysteriously disappeared and were never seen again.
The disappearance of the lost Roanoke Colony had stumped and mystified scholars for years and still does to this day. That is, until 1937 when a fascinating discovery was made.
In 1937, a California resident named Louis Hammond brought a slab of rock he had found with his wife in North Carolina to Emory University in Atlanta. The slab was covered in etchings and had some kind of message on it, which Louis hoped scholars at Emory could translate.
Using professors from various academic departments, the staff at Emory were finally about to decipher the message on the slab, which read, “Ananias Dare & Virginia went hence Unto Heaven 1591” on the front.
The front of the slab also instructed anyone who came across it to give that message to John White and was signed by ‘EWD,’ who scholars believed to be Eleanor White Dare.
On the back of this rock was more of an explanation as to what happened to the members of the lost colony. It explained that after John White had left for England, the settlers moved inland. Then, more than half of them died of disease, while the survivors were killed by Native Americans. It cited that the victims, including Ananias and Virginia, were buried four miles east of the river at a gravesite marked by a rock that listed everyone’s name.
As soon as the message on the slab had been translated, scholars immediately set out to figure out if this information was true and actually written by Eleanor White Dare. Unfortunately, their findings were inconclusive, as there wasn’t any distinguishing evidence to prove the inscription was legit, leading many to believe the stone was a hoax.
Heather – stock.adobe.com- illustrative purposes only
Once word of the stone got around, there was a lot of media surrounding it, and people became fascinated. It didn’t take long for others to start presenting more stones with more information on the colony.
One man from Georiga, Bill Eberhardt, came forward with four stones he had allegedly found near Greenville, South Carolina. One was dated in 1591 and had 17 names carved into it, including Ananias and Virginia. More people eventually came forward with stones. By 1940, 48 stones were collected from South Carolina and Georgia, 42 of which came from Bill.
Some of the stones acted as gravestones, while others gave more information on what happened to Eleanor after her family was killed and the colony died off. This was how the stones eventually became known as the ‘Dare Stones.’
In the fall of 1940, at a conference held at Brenau College, historians and scholars stated that the stones were legit.
However, after an investigative journalist did some research on Bill Eberhardt and the Dare Stones, it was revealed that Bill had a history of forging Native American and Mesoamerican artifacts. An article all about Bill’s past was published in newspapers just a few months after the conference.
Since the articles about Bill were published, the entire situation with the Dare stones was shrouded in debate and doubt. While some historians have continued to research Louis Hammond’s first stone and see it as legitimate, others still have their doubts.
Because of the constant back and forth and contradicting evidence of the stones, it is still a mystery whether or not the Dare stones are legitimate and tell the truth about what happened to the lost colony of Roanoke.
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