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

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,

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<v Speaker 1>Lauren Vogelbaum. Here an unsolved mystery can drive people crazy

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

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

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<v Speaker 1>puzzle that will probably never be entirely solved, but it

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<v Speaker 1>doesn't keep people from trying. In July 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 a

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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's much excitement when Eleanor Dare,

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

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<v Speaker 1>first English baby born in the New World, and named

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<v Speaker 1>her Virginia. After a time, John White left the settlers

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<v Speaker 1>to return to England, telling them he'd be back within

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

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<v Speaker 1>load the process considerably and nobody was able to check

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<v Speaker 1>on the settlement again until fifteen nine, when White returned

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<v Speaker 1>his daughter, granddaughter, and everyone else was gone. They had

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<v Speaker 1>dismantled the buildings, carved the word Croatoan into a tree,

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

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<v Speaker 1>nearby island, and vanished. There was no sign of the

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<v Speaker 1>cross White had told them to carve on a tree

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<v Speaker 1>if they had left under duress. Frankly, White didn't look

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<v Speaker 1>very hard for his daughter and granddaughter before heading back

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<v Speaker 1>to England. For centuries, the story of the lost Colony

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<v Speaker 1>of Roanoke seemed pretty cut and dried to most historians.

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<v Speaker 1>The settlers went to live with a Crowatoan tribe. Whether

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<v Speaker 1>they stayed there or not, nobody could say. The thing

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<v Speaker 1>they could say is that no definitive sign of any

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<v Speaker 1>of the one and eighteen colonists was ever found, despite

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<v Speaker 1>rumors in the later established Jamestown colony of massacres and

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<v Speaker 1>men wearing European clothes deep in the wilderness. No definitive sign,

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<v Speaker 1>that is until more than three centuries later, when in

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<v Speaker 1>nine then a produced dealer from California named L. E.

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<v Speaker 1>Hammond showed up at Emory University in Atlanta with a

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<v Speaker 1>stone he found while hunting hickory nuts in a recently

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<v Speaker 1>cleared North Carolina swamp some fifty miles or eight kilometers

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<v Speaker 1>inland of Roanoke Island. It was inscribed with a message

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<v Speaker 1>he wanted the experts at Emory to decipher. It turns

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<v Speaker 1>out the carved stone told a story allegedly written by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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<v Speaker 1>According to the stone, only six men and one woman escaped.

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<v Speaker 1>The stone was found to be authentic by the Emory

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<v Speaker 1>experts at the time, it seemed legitimate, and better still,

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<v Speaker 1>it satisfied everyone's thirst foreclosure around this dusty old riddle.

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<v Speaker 1>The story captured the imagination of the entire country, and

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<v Speaker 1>Emery Professor Heywood J. Pierce Jr. Published a paper describing

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<v Speaker 1>the stone in the Reputable Journal of Southern History in

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<v Speaker 1>eight but soon the plausibility of the stone came into question.

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<v Speaker 1>We spoke with John Bentz, archivists at the Rose Library

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<v Speaker 1>at Emory University. He said Emery became suspicious of Hammond

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<v Speaker 1>after some professors and administrators traveled with him to Edenton,

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<v Speaker 1>North Carolina, where he found the stone. The search for

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<v Speaker 1>the original location of the stone was fruitless. This added

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<v Speaker 1>to the growing list of details about Hammond's discovery that

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<v Speaker 1>we're hard to corroborate. Emery had someone in California look

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<v Speaker 1>into Hammond, but couldn't find much more than an address.

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<v Speaker 1>After Pierce and his father, another academic paid Hammond for

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<v Speaker 1>the first stone and offered a five hundred dollar reward

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<v Speaker 1>for any additional stones people might find. You can imagine

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<v Speaker 1>how many dare stones came out of the woodwork. The

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<v Speaker 1>pierces paid a man named Bill Eberhart, a stone cutter

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<v Speaker 1>from Fulton County, Georgia, two thousand dollars for forty two

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<v Speaker 1>forgeries he brought them. These stones had Eleanor marrying a

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<v Speaker 1>Cherokee chief, giving birth to another daughter named Agnes, and

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<v Speaker 1>eventually dying in a cave in Georgia in April of

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<v Speaker 1>nineteen forty one. The Saturday Evening Post ran an expos

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<v Speaker 1>a on the Dare stones, 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 Dare stones were stuffed in a basement at the

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<v Speaker 1>father's university, an embarrassment to everyone involved. But every so

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<v Speaker 1>often academic interest turns again to the Chowan River Stone,

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<v Speaker 1>the original Dare stone found by Hammond in that North

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<v Speaker 1>Carolina swamp. It's made of different rock than the others,

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<v Speaker 1>a bright white quartzite interior and dark exterior that would

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<v Speaker 1>have made a good choice for Eleanor Dare's missive to

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<v Speaker 1>her father, and in the nineteen thirties, the patina on

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<v Speaker 1>the stone would have been difficult to chemically replicate. In addition,

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<v Speaker 1>it doesn't contain the anachronistic language of the other stones.

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<v Speaker 1>Some experts have determined the only problem might be in

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<v Speaker 1>Eleanor Dare's sign off the initials E W D, which

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<v Speaker 1>would not have been a typical signature in the sixteenth century.

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<v Speaker 1>Many experts still dismissed the Tawan River stone as an

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<v Speaker 1>obvious phony but it's possible that new research into Elizabethan epigraphy,

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<v Speaker 1>chemical analysis, and other rock inscriptions of the time period

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

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<v Speaker 1>episode was written by Jesselyn Shields and produced by Tyler Clang.

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<v Speaker 1>For more on this and lots of other mysterious topics,

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<v Speaker 1>visit our home planet, how stuff works dot com.