1 00:00:01,840 --> 00:00:07,240 Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey. 2 00:00:07,080 --> 00:00:09,799 Speaker 2: Brain Stuff, I'm Lauren Wogbomb in today's episode is another 3 00:00:09,840 --> 00:00:13,160 Speaker 2: classic from our archives. In this one, we dip into 4 00:00:13,200 --> 00:00:17,040 Speaker 2: the enduring mystery of the lost colony at Roanoke and 5 00:00:17,280 --> 00:00:20,119 Speaker 2: the further mystery of the Dare Stones, which may be 6 00:00:20,280 --> 00:00:26,720 Speaker 2: forgeries or may explain what happened, Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbomb. 7 00:00:26,760 --> 00:00:30,600 Speaker 1: Here an unsolved mystery can drive people crazy and the 8 00:00:30,600 --> 00:00:33,159 Speaker 1: fate of the first English settlers ever to establish a 9 00:00:33,159 --> 00:00:35,880 Speaker 1: colony in the New World. Roanoke is a puzzle that 10 00:00:35,920 --> 00:00:39,200 Speaker 1: will probably never be entirely solved, but it doesn't keep 11 00:00:39,240 --> 00:00:43,080 Speaker 1: people from trying. In July fifteen eighty seven, a ship 12 00:00:43,120 --> 00:00:46,519 Speaker 1: carrying ninety men, seventeen women, and eleven children landed on 13 00:00:46,600 --> 00:00:49,720 Speaker 1: Roanoke Island on the outer banks of modern day North Carolina. 14 00:00:50,360 --> 00:00:53,040 Speaker 1: A year before, when the site was discovered, fifteen men 15 00:00:53,080 --> 00:00:55,760 Speaker 1: had volunteered to stay and hold down the proverbial fort, 16 00:00:56,040 --> 00:00:58,000 Speaker 1: but they were nowhere to be found, so the one 17 00:00:58,080 --> 00:01:01,280 Speaker 1: hundred and eighteen colonists disembarked and set about carving a 18 00:01:01,320 --> 00:01:04,240 Speaker 1: colony out of the wilderness. There was much excitement when 19 00:01:04,240 --> 00:01:07,280 Speaker 1: eleanor Dare, the daughter of leader John White, gave birth 20 00:01:07,280 --> 00:01:09,440 Speaker 1: to the first English baby born in the New World 21 00:01:09,520 --> 00:01:13,119 Speaker 1: and named her Virginia. After a time, John White left 22 00:01:13,120 --> 00:01:15,560 Speaker 1: the settlers to return to England, telling them he'd be 23 00:01:15,640 --> 00:01:19,119 Speaker 1: back within the year with fresh supplies. However, England's war 24 00:01:19,160 --> 00:01:22,280 Speaker 1: with Spain slowed the process considerably, and nobody was able 25 00:01:22,280 --> 00:01:25,600 Speaker 1: to check on the settlement again until fifteen ninety, when 26 00:01:25,600 --> 00:01:29,279 Speaker 1: White returned, his daughter, granddaughter, and everyone else was gone. 27 00:01:29,800 --> 00:01:33,000 Speaker 1: They had dismantled the buildings, carved the word Croatoan into 28 00:01:33,040 --> 00:01:35,880 Speaker 1: a tree, the name of the friendly Native American tribe 29 00:01:35,880 --> 00:01:39,360 Speaker 1: on a nearby island, and vanished. There was no sign 30 00:01:39,400 --> 00:01:41,000 Speaker 1: of the cross White had told them to carve on 31 00:01:41,040 --> 00:01:45,119 Speaker 1: a tree if they had left under duress. Frankly, White 32 00:01:45,120 --> 00:01:47,680 Speaker 1: didn't look very hard for his daughter and granddaughter before 33 00:01:47,680 --> 00:01:50,560 Speaker 1: heading back to England. For centuries, the story of the 34 00:01:50,560 --> 00:01:53,040 Speaker 1: lost colony of Roanokes seemed pretty cut and dried to 35 00:01:53,040 --> 00:01:56,480 Speaker 1: most historians. The settlers went to live with a Crowatoin tribe, 36 00:01:56,560 --> 00:01:58,840 Speaker 1: but whether they stayed there or not, nobody could say. 37 00:01:59,680 --> 00:02:02,080 Speaker 1: The thing they could say is that no definitive sign 38 00:02:02,160 --> 00:02:04,720 Speaker 1: of any of the one hundred and eighteen colonists was 39 00:02:04,760 --> 00:02:08,560 Speaker 1: ever found, despite rumours in the later established Jamestown colony 40 00:02:08,720 --> 00:02:12,519 Speaker 1: of massacres and men wearing European clothes deep in the wilderness. 41 00:02:13,600 --> 00:02:17,160 Speaker 1: No definitive sign, that is until more than three centuries later, 42 00:02:17,480 --> 00:02:20,840 Speaker 1: when in nineteen thirty seven, a produce dealer from California 43 00:02:20,960 --> 00:02:23,480 Speaker 1: named L. E. Hammond showed up at Emory University in 44 00:02:23,480 --> 00:02:26,680 Speaker 1: Atlanta with a stone he found while hunting hickory nuts 45 00:02:26,720 --> 00:02:30,200 Speaker 1: in a recently cleared North Carolina swamp some fifty miles 46 00:02:30,320 --> 00:02:34,160 Speaker 1: or eighty kilometers inland of Roanoke Island. It was inscribed 47 00:02:34,160 --> 00:02:36,679 Speaker 1: with a message he wanted the experts at Emory to decipher. 48 00:02:37,240 --> 00:02:40,560 Speaker 1: It turns out the carved stone told a story allegedly 49 00:02:40,560 --> 00:02:44,840 Speaker 1: written by White's daughter Eleanor. The colonists endured two years 50 00:02:44,880 --> 00:02:48,280 Speaker 1: of only misery and war after her father left for England, 51 00:02:48,639 --> 00:02:51,520 Speaker 1: ending with half the settlers killed in armed combat and 52 00:02:51,600 --> 00:02:54,760 Speaker 1: many of the others, including Eleanor's husband and daughter, slaughtered. 53 00:02:54,800 --> 00:02:56,880 Speaker 1: When a spiritual leader of the tribe they lived with 54 00:02:57,160 --> 00:02:59,600 Speaker 1: warned that the presence of the English settlers was angering 55 00:02:59,600 --> 00:03:02,600 Speaker 1: the spear. According to the stone, only six men and 56 00:03:02,639 --> 00:03:06,359 Speaker 1: one woman escaped. The stone was found to be authentic 57 00:03:06,400 --> 00:03:09,320 Speaker 1: by the Emery experts. At the time, it seemed legitimate, 58 00:03:09,360 --> 00:03:13,000 Speaker 1: and better still, it satisfied everyone's thirst foreclosure around this 59 00:03:13,160 --> 00:03:16,359 Speaker 1: dusty old riddle. The story captured the imagination of the 60 00:03:16,520 --> 00:03:20,440 Speaker 1: entire country, and Emory professor Heywood J. Pierce Junior published 61 00:03:20,440 --> 00:03:23,000 Speaker 1: a paper describing the stone in the Reputable Journal of 62 00:03:23,040 --> 00:03:26,799 Speaker 1: Southern History in nineteen thirty eight. But soon the plausibility 63 00:03:26,800 --> 00:03:30,680 Speaker 1: of the stone came into question. We spoke with John Bentz, 64 00:03:30,919 --> 00:03:34,680 Speaker 1: archivist at the Rose Library at Emory University. He said 65 00:03:35,040 --> 00:03:38,520 Speaker 1: Emory became suspicious of Hammond after some professors and administrators 66 00:03:38,560 --> 00:03:41,400 Speaker 1: traveled with him to Edenton, North Carolina, where he found 67 00:03:41,440 --> 00:03:44,320 Speaker 1: the stone. The search for the original location of the 68 00:03:44,320 --> 00:03:47,520 Speaker 1: stone was fruitless. This added to the growing list of 69 00:03:47,560 --> 00:03:51,080 Speaker 1: details about Hammond's discovery that were hard to corroborate. Emory 70 00:03:51,120 --> 00:03:53,760 Speaker 1: had someone in California look into Hammond, but couldn't find 71 00:03:53,840 --> 00:03:57,200 Speaker 1: much more than an address. After Pierce and his father, 72 00:03:57,400 --> 00:04:00,440 Speaker 1: another academic, paid Hammond for the first stone and offered 73 00:04:00,480 --> 00:04:03,000 Speaker 1: a five hundred dollars reward for any additional stones people 74 00:04:03,080 --> 00:04:06,320 Speaker 1: might find. You can imagine how many dair stones came 75 00:04:06,360 --> 00:04:09,119 Speaker 1: out of the woodwork. The Pierces paid a man named 76 00:04:09,160 --> 00:04:12,720 Speaker 1: Bill Eberhardt, a stonecutter from Fulton County, Georgia, two thousand 77 00:04:12,800 --> 00:04:16,280 Speaker 1: dollars for forty two forgeries he brought them. These stones 78 00:04:16,320 --> 00:04:19,120 Speaker 1: had Eleanor marrying a Cherokee chief, giving birth to another 79 00:04:19,160 --> 00:04:22,279 Speaker 1: daughter named Agnes, and eventually dying in a cave in Georgia. 80 00:04:23,520 --> 00:04:26,120 Speaker 1: In April of nineteen forty one, the Saturday Evening Post 81 00:04:26,240 --> 00:04:29,719 Speaker 1: ran an expos on the Dairstones, dismissing them all as forgeries, 82 00:04:29,960 --> 00:04:33,040 Speaker 1: citing anachronistic language and a consistency of spelling that was 83 00:04:33,080 --> 00:04:36,279 Speaker 1: unheard of at the time. The Pierce's career suffered, and 84 00:04:36,400 --> 00:04:39,600 Speaker 1: the daarstones were stuffed in a basement at the father's university, 85 00:04:39,839 --> 00:04:43,960 Speaker 1: an embarrassment to everyone involved. But every so often academic 86 00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:47,680 Speaker 1: interest turns again to the Chowan riverstone, the original dairstone 87 00:04:47,720 --> 00:04:51,040 Speaker 1: found by Hammond in that North Carolina swamp. It's made 88 00:04:51,080 --> 00:04:53,880 Speaker 1: of different rock than the others, a bright white quartzite 89 00:04:53,880 --> 00:04:56,520 Speaker 1: interior and dark exterior that would have made a good 90 00:04:56,600 --> 00:04:59,479 Speaker 1: choice for Eleanor Dare's missive to her father, and in 91 00:04:59,480 --> 00:05:01,880 Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, the patina on the stone would have 92 00:05:01,880 --> 00:05:05,920 Speaker 1: been difficult to chemically replicate. In addition, it doesn't contain 93 00:05:05,960 --> 00:05:09,279 Speaker 1: the anachronistic language of the other stones. Some experts have 94 00:05:09,320 --> 00:05:12,520 Speaker 1: determined the only problem might be in eleanor Dare's sign 95 00:05:12,560 --> 00:05:15,400 Speaker 1: off the initials E W D, which would not have 96 00:05:15,440 --> 00:05:20,239 Speaker 1: been a typical signature in the sixteenth century. Many experts 97 00:05:20,279 --> 00:05:23,279 Speaker 1: still dismiss the Toowan riverstone as an obvious phony, but 98 00:05:23,400 --> 00:05:27,800 Speaker 1: it's possible that new research into Elizabethan epigraphy, chemical analysis, 99 00:05:27,800 --> 00:05:30,560 Speaker 1: and other rock inscriptions of the time period will yet 100 00:05:30,600 --> 00:05:40,159 Speaker 1: shed light on this still unsolved mystery. Today's episode is 101 00:05:40,160 --> 00:05:43,240 Speaker 1: based on the article the Dare Stones Forgery or Key 102 00:05:43,320 --> 00:05:46,000 Speaker 1: to the Lost Colony of Roanoke Mystery on hostiff works 103 00:05:46,040 --> 00:05:49,320 Speaker 1: dot com, written by Jesslyn Shields. Brainstuff is production of 104 00:05:49,320 --> 00:05:51,880 Speaker 1: iHeartRadio in partnership with houstuff works dot com and is 105 00:05:51,880 --> 00:05:55,080 Speaker 1: produced by Tyler Clay. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, 106 00:05:55,320 --> 00:05:58,359 Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen 107 00:05:58,400 --> 00:06:05,160 Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.