THE CHINA MAIL OCTOBER 2, 1939.
TO-DAY'S STRANGE STORY OF REAL PEOPLE.
THE VIRGINIA DARE MYSTERY
BY VINCENT TOWNE A Black, Wall of mystery faced the Jamestown colonists when they land- ed in Virginia in 1607. Sir Walter 'Raleigh had charged them to seek Virginia Dare, the first native white American, and her fellow colonists, upon whom the forest primeval had so mysteriously closed some 20 years before. But only the pines and the hemlocks in the depths of that leafy wilderness could tell whither these lost ones had so strangely vanished, and, until Raleigh's head fell upon the block of the executioner it was troubled with wonder as to the fate of his "lost Roanoke colony."
These 150 men, women and chil-
spiritual redemption appeared to be assured.
the It soon became necessary for ships that had brought the colony to return to England for supplies and Governor White went along to hasten- their return. He left behind him 80 men, 17 women and 2 children, On his way home he stopped at Ireland, where he gave the populace some potatoes, the first of that kind ever seen in Europe, He started back with two ships laden with supplies, but after he had gotten out into the open sea his greed for gain Roanoke caused him to neglect his colony, so sorely in need of food. to pursue He diverted his course
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THE GOVERNOR BROUGHT HIS
dren he had sent to Virginia to found an agricultural State in 1587. In three ships they had sailed gaily out of Plymouth on a balmy morning of April, but they did not touch their restless feet to the sands of Roanoke Island until the sun of late July had scorched it. Their Governor, John White, brought with him his daughter, Eleanor, and her husband, Ananias Dare. The colonists had hardly hewn their cabins out of the woods when they had occasion to celebrate the birth of a daughter to Eleanor and Ananias, and the Governor christened his little granddaughter-the first child of English parents born in the new world-Virginia Dare, in honour of the new province and of Britain's Virgin Queen.
that White cultivate the
-Having upon his arrival found skeletons of an English colony had preceded him, Governor wisely determined to friendship of the Indians. So Chief Manteo, who lived some dis- tance away upon Croatan Island, was given the title of baron and Lord of Roanoke, thus receiving the first and last peerage ever created on our soll, At the same time Manteo ac-
of. cepted the rites
the Christian -baptism, and both his friendship and
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DAUGHTER WITH HIM
was
with
absolute desolation. His heart sank. Manteo massacred all of the colony, The entire colony had di appeared except four men, two boys and Vir- and even their houses had all been ginia Dare, who became the bride of removed.Carved upon a birch tree, one of his braves. According to an-
the one
word other story, the entire colony however, he found "Croatan." Apparently the Chris taken up the Cape Fear River, where tianized Manteo, Lord of Roanoke, the whites later inter-married had taken pity upon the starving co the Indians of central North Carolina. lonists and brought them to his Island Capt. John Smith, penetrating into stronghold, there to live with his the mainland, came upon an Indian to village, where he saw a half-breed people. The Governor prepared visit that home of his friend, the In- boy, with yellow hair, and he be- dian baron, but the superstitious leved the child to be that of one of red Certain blue-eyed Indian's crews of his ships, terror-stricken by colonists intermarried with, a
to embark in that found near Cape Hatteras, along the the sight of deserted wastes around man. them, refused
was descendants of those lost whites. direction. They forced him to return Cape Fear River, are alleged to be to England with them, and it his bitter fate to die in ignorance of
The fate of Virginia Dare, what had happened to his daughter first Colonial dame, remains a mys-
tery quite as dark as it was and grandchild. of
some Spanish ships in search of plun- der, but they so badly battered his little, fleet that he had to return to England, where the Spanish blockade of British waters bottled him up for nearly three years.
Landing upon Roanoke Island upon a hot day late in the 1500, he was appalled
Summer
to find. an
One tradition has it that Chief centuries ago.
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