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.
Watts' West Indies and Virginia expedition
On August 18, 1590 he finally reached Roanoke Island, but he found his colony had been long deserted. The few clues about the colonists whereabouts included the letters "CRO" carved into a tree, and the word "CROATOAN" carved on a post of the fort. Croatoan was the name of a nearby island (likely modern-day Hatteras Island) and a local tribe of Native Americans. The colonists had agreed that a message would be carved into a tree if they had moved and would include an image of a Maltese Cross if the decision was made by force. With no sign of the colonists and the weather becoming worse White returned to Plymouth on October 24, 1590.