Joachim Gans
Sir Richard Grenville, leader of Raleigh's expedition, founded the Roanoke Colony on Roanoke Island off the coast of modern North Carolina in 1585. Among the ruins at the Roanoke site, archaeologists have discovered lumps of smelted copper and a goldsmith’s crucible attributed to Gans's work at the colony. Because the royal mining company failed to resupply colonists who were also becoming increasingly fearful of conflicts with the Native Americans, they accepted an offer from Sir Francis Drake in June 1586 to sail them to England. Each of the colonists, including Gans, left North America.
Roanoke Colony
In 1998, East Carolina University organized "The Croatoan Project", an archaeological investigation into the events at Roanoke. The excavation team sent to Hatteras Island uncovered what they believed to be a 10 karat (42%) gold 16th-century English signet ring, gun flints, and two copper farthings (produced sometime in the 1670s) at the site of the ancient Croatan capital, 50 miles (80 km) from the old Roanoke Colony. Genealogists were able to trace the lion crest on the signet ring to the Kendall coat of arms, and concluded that the ring most likely belonged to one Master Kendall who is recorded as having lived in the Roanoke Colony from 1585 to 1586. If this is the case, the ring represents the first material connection between the Roanoke colonists and the Native Americans on Hatteras Island. However, archaeologist David Phelps did not have the ring tested, and Charles Ewen, who continued Phelps' work after Phelps retired, had the ring tested and found the ring was brass. Ewen announced his findings in April 2017. Mark Horton of the University of Bristol said he was not convinced that this news proved the ring did not date to the 16th century.