Newspaper article 28 August 1937

VIRGINIA DARE

Virginia Dare’s parents were Ananias Dare and Eleanor, daughter of John White whom Raleigh had sent out as Governor of Roanoke Island.

When John White’s party arrived in June 1587, nothing but a burnt fort met their eyes to tell of the dangers they had arrived to face.
Nothing daunted, Governor White set to work to rebuild the fort, to make habitable those houses which were yet standing, and to build new ones which, says the record, were to be necessary and decent houses. One of these was reserved for public worship, and init on August 13 was held the first recorded religious service in the Protestant faith on American soil.

Five days later Eleanor, the Governor’s daughter, gave birth to her little girl, and two days later this baby, the first white child to be born in the New World (the British Empire), was christened Virginia in the new church

Meanwhile endeavours were made to establish friendly relations with the Red Indians on the neighbouring island of Croatan, now called Hatteras, and the mainland across a narrow strait, the district of the State of North Carolina which now bears the name of Dare. These advances did not meet with much success.

The week that followed the birth of Virginia was one of many conferences and much excitement. It was obvious to the colonists that the supplies and equi8ment they had brought with them were far from sufficient, and that more must be obtained from England. The little colony was indeed growing, another baby having quickly followed Virginia to join the adventurous band; he was a boy, the son of two other colonists, the first white boy to be born in America.

Suddenly it was decided that Governor White must return to England without delay, so he kissed the two babies and set sail on August 27, waving farewell to subjects and friends over whom he had ruled for only a few weeks, and whom he was destined never to set eyes on again. Indeed, never was a white man to set eyes on them again.

Before he went the Governor arranged that should the colonists leave Roanoke they should mark the name of their new destination on the trunk of a tree, placing a cross, the symbol of suffering, above the name if the departure had been made because of danger.

It was late autumn when White reached Southampton to find England preparing for war. It was not until 1590 that he was able to sale back to the New World. When White landed there was no-one to be found. On one of the posts was engraved the name Croatan, without any cross. White then had to leave as a storm arose and the ship sailed away back to England.

During the next few years, Raleigh sent other ships to England but they came back without news of Virginia and the other colonists.

They remained the Lost Colony until a few before 1937, when an Englishman named Cunningham Terry, travelling in the Alleghany Mountains, which form the western boundary of Virginia and North Carolina found himself at nightfall outside a log-house in the woods and was invited in by a tall, blue-eyed Indian who said with a Devon burr, “I could see you were one of our people by your sin, and your eyes, and your hair.”

Careful research into the tribal history of the Croatans by Mr Hamilton Macmillan, seems to confirm the possibility that the colonists survived within the Croatans. Many had names that corresponded to those borne by the men and women who disappeared from Roanoke Island and their English speech, with its pronounced Devon accent, points to the influence of a large body of English Ancestors, as if only a few had survived their language would have been lost.