Roanoke Island
Roanoke Island was the site of the Roanoke Colony, an English settlement initially established in 1585 by Sir Walter Raleigh. A group of about 120 men, women and children arrived in 1587. Shortly after arriving in this New World, colonist Eleanor Dare, daughter of Governor John White, gave birth to Virginia Dare. She was the first English child born in North America. Governor White returned to England later that year for supplies. Due to impending war with Spain, White was unable to return to Roanoke Island until 1590. When he arrived, the colony had vanished. The fate of those first colonists remains a mystery to this day and is one of America's most intriguing unsolved mysteries. Archaeologists, historians, and other researchers continue to work to resolve the mystery. Visitors to the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site can watch "The Lost Colony", the second-longest-running outdoor theatre production in the United States, which presents a conjecture of the fate of Roanoke Colony.
Rising Shore Roanoke
The Rising Shore - Roanoke is a novel about The Lost Colony of Roanoke Island by Deborah Homsher. The novel tells the story of two women who sailed from London to the shore of the Virginia wilderness in 1587. Elenor White Dare is daughter of the expedition's leader and mother of Virginia Dare, the first English child born on the American continent. Freshly married and newly pregnant when she boards the ship, Elenor longs to explore and paint pictures of the New World, as her father has done, but her dreams are frustrated by her status as John White's daughter - not his son. Margaret Lawrence, her bold young servant, blazes her own path to independence as a member of the struggling colony that settles on Roanoke Island.