WEBVTT - BrainStuff Classics: Are the Dare Stones Forgeries or the Key to the Roanoke Mystery?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey.

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<v Speaker 2>Brain Stuff, I'm Lauren Wogbomb in today's episode is another

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<v Speaker 2>classic from our archives. In this one, we dip into

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<v Speaker 2>the enduring mystery of the lost colony at Roanoke and

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<v Speaker 2>the further mystery of the Dare Stones, which may be

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<v Speaker 2>forgeries or may explain what happened, Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbomb.

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<v Speaker 1>Here an unsolved mystery can drive people crazy and the

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<v Speaker 1>fate of the first English settlers ever to establish a

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<v Speaker 1>colony in the New World. Roanoke is a puzzle that

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<v Speaker 1>will probably never be entirely solved, but it doesn't keep

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<v Speaker 1>people from trying. In July fifteen eighty seven, a ship

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<v Speaker 1>carrying ninety men, seventeen women, and eleven children landed on

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<v Speaker 1>Roanoke Island on the outer banks of modern day North Carolina.

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<v Speaker 1>A year before, when the site was discovered, fifteen men

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<v Speaker 1>had volunteered to stay and hold down the proverbial fort,

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<v Speaker 1>but they were nowhere to be found, so the one

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<v Speaker 1>hundred and eighteen colonists disembarked and set about carving a

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<v Speaker 1>colony out of the wilderness. There was much excitement when

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<v Speaker 1>eleanor Dare, the daughter of leader John White, gave birth

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<v Speaker 1>to the first English baby born in the New World

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<v Speaker 1>and named her Virginia. After a time, John White left

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<v Speaker 1>the settlers to return to England, telling them he'd be

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<v Speaker 1>back within the year with fresh supplies. However, England's war

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<v Speaker 1>with Spain slowed the process considerably, and nobody was able

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<v Speaker 1>to check on the settlement again until fifteen ninety, when

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<v Speaker 1>White returned, his daughter, granddaughter, and everyone else was gone.

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<v Speaker 1>They had dismantled the buildings, carved the word Croatoan into

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<v Speaker 1>a tree, the name of the friendly Native American tribe

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<v Speaker 1>on a nearby island, and vanished. There was no sign

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<v Speaker 1>of the cross White had told them to carve on

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<v Speaker 1>a tree if they had left under duress. Frankly, White

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<v Speaker 1>didn't look very hard for his daughter and granddaughter before

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<v Speaker 1>heading back to England. For centuries, the story of the

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<v Speaker 1>lost colony of Roanokes seemed pretty cut and dried to

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<v Speaker 1>most historians. The settlers went to live with a Crowatoin tribe,

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<v Speaker 1>but whether they stayed there or not, nobody could say.

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<v Speaker 1>The thing they could say is that no definitive sign

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<v Speaker 1>of any of the one hundred and eighteen colonists was

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<v Speaker 1>ever found, despite rumours in the later established Jamestown colony

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<v Speaker 1>of massacres and men wearing European clothes deep in the wilderness.

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<v Speaker 1>No definitive sign, that is until more than three centuries later,

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<v Speaker 1>when in nineteen thirty seven, a produce dealer from California

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<v Speaker 1>named L. E. Hammond showed up at Emory University in

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<v Speaker 1>Atlanta with a stone he found while hunting hickory nuts

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<v Speaker 1>in a recently cleared North Carolina swamp some fifty miles

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<v Speaker 1>or eighty kilometers inland of Roanoke Island. It was inscribed

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<v Speaker 1>with a message he wanted the experts at Emory to decipher.

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<v Speaker 1>It turns out the carved stone told a story allegedly

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<v Speaker 1>written by White's daughter Eleanor. The colonists endured two years

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<v Speaker 1>of only misery and war after her father left for England,

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<v Speaker 1>ending with half the settlers killed in armed combat and

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<v Speaker 1>many of the others, including Eleanor's husband and daughter, slaughtered.

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<v Speaker 1>When a spiritual leader of the tribe they lived with

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<v Speaker 1>warned that the presence of the English settlers was angering

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<v Speaker 1>the spear. According to the stone, only six men and

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<v Speaker 1>one woman escaped. The stone was found to be authentic

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<v Speaker 1>by the Emery experts. At the time, it seemed legitimate,

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<v Speaker 1>and better still, it satisfied everyone's thirst foreclosure around this

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<v Speaker 1>dusty old riddle. The story captured the imagination of the

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<v Speaker 1>entire country, and Emory professor Heywood J. Pierce Junior published

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<v Speaker 1>a paper describing the stone in the Reputable Journal of

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<v Speaker 1>Southern History in nineteen thirty eight. But soon the plausibility

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<v Speaker 1>of the stone came into question. We spoke with John Bentz,

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<v Speaker 1>archivist at the Rose Library at Emory University. He said

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<v Speaker 1>Emory became suspicious of Hammond after some professors and administrators

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<v Speaker 1>traveled with him to Edenton, North Carolina, where he found

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<v Speaker 1>the stone. The search for the original location of the

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<v Speaker 1>stone was fruitless. This added to the growing list of

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<v Speaker 1>details about Hammond's discovery that were hard to corroborate. Emory

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<v Speaker 1>had someone in California look into Hammond, but couldn't find

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<v Speaker 1>much more than an address. After Pierce and his father,

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<v Speaker 1>another academic, paid Hammond for the first stone and offered

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<v Speaker 1>a five hundred dollars reward for any additional stones people

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<v Speaker 1>might find. You can imagine how many dair stones came

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<v Speaker 1>out of the woodwork. The Pierces paid a man named

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<v Speaker 1>Bill Eberhardt, a stonecutter from Fulton County, Georgia, two thousand

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<v Speaker 1>dollars for forty two forgeries he brought them. These stones

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<v Speaker 1>had Eleanor marrying a Cherokee chief, giving birth to another

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<v Speaker 1>daughter named Agnes, and eventually dying in a cave in Georgia.

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<v Speaker 1>In April of nineteen forty one, the Saturday Evening Post

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<v Speaker 1>ran an expos on the Dairstones, dismissing them all as forgeries,

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<v Speaker 1>citing anachronistic language and a consistency of spelling that was

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<v Speaker 1>unheard of at the time. The Pierce's career suffered, and

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<v Speaker 1>the daarstones were stuffed in a basement at the father's university,

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<v Speaker 1>an embarrassment to everyone involved. But every so often academic

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<v Speaker 1>interest turns again to the Chowan riverstone, the original dairstone

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<v Speaker 1>found by Hammond in that North Carolina swamp. It's made

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<v Speaker 1>of different rock than the others, a bright white quartzite

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<v Speaker 1>interior and dark exterior that would have made a good

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<v Speaker 1>choice for Eleanor Dare's missive to her father, and in

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<v Speaker 1>the nineteen thirties, the patina on the stone would have

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<v Speaker 1>been difficult to chemically replicate. In addition, it doesn't contain

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<v Speaker 1>the anachronistic language of the other stones. Some experts have

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<v Speaker 1>determined the only problem might be in eleanor Dare's sign

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<v Speaker 1>off the initials E W D, which would not have

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<v Speaker 1>been a typical signature in the sixteenth century. Many experts

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<v Speaker 1>still dismiss the Toowan riverstone as an obvious phony, but

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<v Speaker 1>it's possible that new research into Elizabethan epigraphy, chemical analysis,

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<v Speaker 1>and other rock inscriptions of the time period will yet

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<v Speaker 1>shed light on this still unsolved mystery. Today's episode is

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<v Speaker 1>based on the article the Dare Stones Forgery or Key

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<v Speaker 1>to the Lost Colony of Roanoke Mystery on hostiff works

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<v Speaker 1>dot com, written by Jesslyn Shields. Brainstuff is production of

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<v Speaker 1>iHeartRadio in partnership with houstuff works dot com and is

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