Dare Stones

The Dare Stones are a series of inscribed messages supposedly written by English colonists, members of the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island off North Carolina. The colonists were last seen in 1587, when John White, the colony's governor, returned to England for supplies. White's return was delayed until 1590, when he found that all the settlers had gone. A single-word message indicated that they had moved to another place, but poor weather meant that White had to abandon the search. No subsequent trace of the settlers was ever found.

The stones purport to give accounts of what happened to the colonists. They are mainly supposed to have been written by Eleanor White Dare, who was the daughter of John White and the mother of Virginia Dare, the first child of English descent to be born in North America.

L.E. Hammond, a Californian tourist, claimed in 1937 to have found a stone inscribed by Eleanor Dare. He took it to Emory University, Atlanta, where it was examined by Dr Haywood Jefferson Pearce, Jr., professor of American history. It stated on one side that Eleanor's husband and daughter were dead, and asked the finder to communicate this to her father:

On the other side it explained that all but seven of the colonists had been killed by savages, and was signed 'EWD'.

Pearce did not immediately declare the stone to be authentic, but argued that the content was not incompatible with the known historical facts, that the spelling conformed to expectations of Elizabethan orthography, and that the necessary tools for such an inscription were likely to have been in the possession of the colonists.

By 1940, forty-seven more stones allegedly had been found by a local farmer, William Eberhardt. They told a complicated tale of the fate of the Lost Colony. The stones were addressed to John White and called for revenge against the "savages" or told Eleanor's father the direction taken by the survivors. A stone dated 1592 indicated that the survivors had reached a sanctuary in the Nacoochee Valley area and lived there in "primeval splendor." A stone dated 1598 indicated that Eleanor had married the "king" of the tribe, while another said that she bore the chief a daughter, that the tribe was furious, and asked for White to send the infant girl to England. A stone dated 1599 announced Eleanor Dare's death and said that she had left behind a daughter named Agnes.

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