When was Roanoke Island discovered?
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.
Walter Raleigh
In 1587, Raleigh attempted a second expedition, again establishing a settlement on Roanoke Island. This time, a more diverse group of settlers was sent, including some entire families, under the governance of John White. After a short while in America, White returned to England to obtain more supplies for the colony, planning to return in a year. Unfortunately for the colonists at Roanoke, one year became three. The first delay came when Queen Elizabeth I ordered all vessels to remain at port for potential use against the Spanish Armada. After England's 1588 victory over the Spanish Armada, the ships were given permission to sail.
Croatan
It is possible that some of the survivors of the Lost Colony of Roanoke may have joined the Croatan. Governor White finally reached Roanoke Island on August 18, 1590, three years after he had last seen them in Virginia, but he found his colony had been long deserted. The buildings had collapsed and "the houses [were] taken down". The few clues about the colonists' whereabouts included the letters "CROATOAN" carved into a tree. Croatoan was the name of a nearby island (likely modern-day Hatteras Island) in addition to the local tribe of Native Americans. Roanoke Island was not originally the planned location for the colony and the idea of moving elsewhere had been discussed. Before the Governor's departure, he and 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. White found no such cross and was hopeful that his family was still alive.
Roanoke Island
After the failure of the English Roanoke Colony, Native peoples on the island endured for seventy more years. Archaeology from the Tilliet site indicates that the Roanoke population persisted until 1650. Written accounts indicate visible remnants of the final native presence survived long after the end of the island's native population. A large mound 200 feet tall and 600 feet wide was recorded to exist Wanchese in the early 1900s, now little evidence remains.
Roanoke Sound
In a historical context, this was also the name first given to the present-day body of water known as the Albemarle Sound. That body of water was initially named the Sea of Rawnocke (Roanoke), or Roanoke Sea, by European explorers and later appeared on maps as the Roanoke Sound and then the Carolina River before it was renamed for George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle. North Carolina’s earliest European settlements were established in this area.
Roanoke Island
Roanoke Island () is an island in Dare County on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, United States. It was named after the historical Roanoke Carolina Algonquian people who inhabited the area in the 16th century at the time of English exploration.
Roanoke Island
In 1587, the English now led by John White tried to settle in Roanoke Island again. At this time the Secotan Tribe and their Roanoke dependents were totally hostile to the English but the Croatoan remained allies. Manteo remained aligned with the English and attempted to bring the English and his Croatoan tribe together, even after the newcomers mistakenly killed his own mother- who was also the Croatoan chief. After the incident Manteo was baptized into the Anglican Church. Manteo was then assigned by the English to be representative of all of the native nations in the region, this title was mainly symbolic as only the Croatoan nation followed Manteo. John White, father of the colonist Eleanor Dare and grandfather to Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the New World, left the colony to return to England for supplies. He expected to return to Roanoke Island within three months.
SS Roanoke
The lead story in the July 20, 1898 edition of the "Post-Intelligencer" was the docking of the "Roanoke" in Seattle with four tons of gold from Alaska aboard. After the discovery of gold at Nome, Alaska in September 1898 precipitated the Nome Gold Rush, the "Roanoke"'s route was modified to end at Nome. The "Roanoke" remained serving the Alaska route until at least June 1904. In August 1904, the "Roanoke" was reported to be laid up for repairs.
Christmas Island
The first European to sight the island was Richard Rowe of the "Thomas" in 1615. Captain William Mynors of the "Royal Mary", an English East India Company vessel, named the island when he sailed past it on Christmas Day, in 1643. The island was included on English and Dutch navigation charts as early as the beginning of the 17th century, but it was not until 1666 that a map published by Dutch cartographer Pieter Goos included the island. Goos labelled the island "Mony" or "Moni", the meaning of which is unclear.
Roanoke Colony
The initial settlement was established in the summer of 1585, but a lack of supplies and bad relations with the local Native Americans caused many of its members to return to England with Sir Francis Drake a year later, leaving behind a small detachment. These men had all disappeared by the time a second expedition led by John White, who also served as the colony's governor, arrived in July 1587. White, whose granddaughter Virginia Dare was born there shortly thereafter (making her the first English child born in the New World), left for England in late 1587 to request assistance from the government, but was prevented from returning to Roanoke until August 1590 due to the Anglo-Spanish War. Upon his arrival, the entire colony was missing with only a single clue to indicate what happened to them: the word "CROATOAN" carved into a tree.
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.
Roanoke Colony
In 1993, Hurricane Emily caused numerous relics to appear, and David Phelps of East Carolina University later began digging in the area and found evidence the settlers lived with the native people.
Roanoke Island
Manteo and Wanchese had different reactions to the English, Manteo took great interest in Western Civilization. Manteo learned the English language and helped Harriot create a phonetic transcription for the Croatoan language, the Croatoan transcription was later destroyed in the Great Fire of London 1666. By contrast, Wanchese came to see the English as his captors; upon returning home in 1585 he incited his people to resist colonization at all costs. Despite the "Lost Colony" story line there is no documentation that Wanchese became a leader of his people. The legacy of the two Indians and their distinct roles of collaborators and antagonists to the English inspired the names of Roanoke's towns.
Roanoke Colony
Between their arrival in Roanoke in April 1585 and the July 1586 departure, Harriot and White both conducted detailed studies of the Roanoke area, with Harriot compiling his samples and notes into several notebooks that did not survive the colony's disappearance. Harriot also wrote descriptions of the surrounding flora and fauna of the area, which survive in his work "A Brief and True Report of the New Founde Land of Virginia," written as a report on the colony's progress to the English government on the request of Raleigh. Viewed by modern historians as propaganda for the colony, this work has become vastly important to Roanoke's history due to Harriot's observations on wildlife as well as his depictions of Indian activities at the time of the colony's disappearance.
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.
SS Roanoke
By 1916, the "Roanoke" was under charter for service to South America. The "Roanoke" left San Francisco bound for Valparaíso, Chile at midnight May 8/9, 1916 with a cargo of explosives, wheat, oil and gasoline. The ship foundered in heavy seas in the Pacific Ocean off Point Buchon, California at about 3 p.m. on May 9. 47 people died and three crew members were rescued from a lifeboat that beached near San Luis Obispo, California.
Roanoke Colony
In 1590, they found the remnants of the colony purely by accident, but assumed it was only an outlying base of the main settlement, which they believed was in the Chesapeake Bay area (John White's intended location). But just as the Anglo-Spanish War prevented White from returning in a timely manner, Spanish authorities in the New World could not muster enough support back home for such a venture.
Senkaku Islands
The name, "Pinnacle Isles" was first used by James Colnett, who charted them during his 1789-1791 voyage in the "Argonaut". William Robert Broughton sailed past them in November 1797 during his voyage of discovery to the North Pacific in HMS "Providence", and referred to Diaoyu Island/Uotsuri Island as "Peaks Island". Reference was made to the islands in Edward Belcher's 1848 account of the voyages of HMS "Sammarang". Captain Belcher observed that "the names assigned in this region have been too hastily admitted." Belcher reported anchoring off Pinnacle Island in March 1845.
Roanoke Island Festival Park
The "Elizabeth II" is a full-size representative 16th-century sailing ship that was designed and named after one of the seven ships used by Sir Walter Raleigh's fleet when he first brought colonists to Roanoke Island in 1587. The ship is a square-rigged bark with three masts, and 69 feet long, 17 feet wide and draws 8 feet of water. Guides dressed in period clothing portray the seamen and colonists who traveled to Roanoke with the fleet.
Freedmen's Colony of Roanoke Island
Long used for fishing camps by varying cultures of indigenous peoples, Roanoke Island was first colonized by an English explorer in 1584. Sir Walter Raleigh tried to settle people there, to found a colony on what is now American soil. Raleigh sent 100 men to Roanoke Island. The settlement was unsuccessful and abandoned within a year. In 1587, another 110 colonists were planted on the island. Captain John White, named governor by Raleigh, returned to England in August that year for more supplies. Delayed by warfare, when he returned three years later, he found the island utterly abandoned. A popular regional myth tells that the colonists were absorbed by an Algonquian-speaking tribe, but historians say there is no evidence for it. They believe the colonists died by starvation and Powhatan Indian attack.
Roanoke, Alabama
Initially called High Pine in the 1830s after a nearby creek, it was allegedly burned during an Indian uprising in 1836. Renamed Chulafinee in 1840, it was later renamed again for the hometown of one of the early settlers, Roanoke, Virginia. The city was officially incorporated in December 1890.
Wanchese, North Carolina
What is called the Tillett Site (after the last owners) had been occupied originally when it was still part of the mainland, during the entire Archaic Period (8000-1000 BC). After the sea levels rose and it became an island, the saline conditions of the Sound became established, giving rise to the later indigenous fishing culture, including that of the historic Roanoke tribe.
Wanchese, North Carolina
Wanchese is a census-designated place (CDP) on Roanoke Island in Dare County, North Carolina, United States. It was named after Wanchese, the last known ruler of the Roanoke Native American tribe encountered by English colonists in the sixteenth century. The population was 1,642 at the 2010 census.
Roanoke Colony
The researchers concluded that the settlers of the Lost Colony landed at Roanoke Island in the summer of the worst growing-season drought in 800 years. "This drought persisted for 3 years, from 1587 to 1589, and is the driest 3-year episode in the entire 800-year reconstruction," the team reported in the journal "Science". A map shows that "the Lost Colony drought affected the entire southeastern United States but was particularly severe in the Tidewater region near Roanoke [Island]." The authors suggested that the Croatan who were shot and killed by the colonists may have been scavenging the abandoned village for food as a result of the drought.
Mialoquo (Cherokee town)
Rose Island was being used by hunter-gatherers on a seasonal basis by 6000 BC, and possibly as early as 7500 BC (the Icehouse Bottom site, which yielded material dating to 7500 BC, was located just over north of Rose Island). These early inhabitants probably made use of the chert outcroppings found in the surrounding hills. Rose Island also saw a period of significant occupation from approximately 350 BC through 100 AD, during the Woodland period.
Roanoke Island
The Town of Manteo grew as the center of business in Dare County, though it was not even the largest community in the county at the time. Buffalo City on the mainland had over 3,000 on the mainland but the community faded after the 1930s. Manteo while technically a new town was a combination of estates of landowners who had already resided on the island for two centuries. The organization of the town did spur new growth, as it became a central hub for the area. The waterfront become a bustling port with a network to Buffalo City, Edenton and Elizabeth City. Local fisherman, boat builders and landowners built fortunes whose wealth was later redistributed into new development.
Roanoke Island
Both Manteo, in the north and Wanchese in the south were transformed by the construction of the first Nags Head Bridge. Manteo which had previously been a small port reliant on trade with Elizabeth City and Edenton were connected to wider transportation network of North Carolina and the Virginian Tidewater region. The docks of Downtown Manteo began to decline as the bridge road became the center of commerce.Roanoke Island became industrialized for the first time in Wanchese. In 1936 the Wanchese Fish Cooperation was incorporated by the Daniels Family as a processing and packing plant for fish, scallops and shrimp.
Wanchese, North Carolina
Archeological evidence shows that Wanchese was the site of the first fishing village on Roanoke Island. Indigenous people inhabited the area 1500 years ago, and their various cultures used this site for fishing for 1100 years. They also collected oysters and shellfish from nearby beds in the Sound.
Roanoke Colony
In her 2000 book "Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony," historian Lee Miller postulated that some of the Lost Colony survivors sought shelter with the Chowanoke, who were attacked by another tribe, identified by the Jamestown Colony as the ""Mandoag"" (an Algonquian name commonly given to enemy nations). The Mandoag are believed to be either the Tuscarora, an Iroquois-speaking tribe, or the Eno, also known as the Wainoke.
Roanoke Colony
Twelve years went by before Raleigh decided to find out what happened to his colony. Led by Samuel Mace, this 1602 expedition differed from previous voyages in that Raleigh bought his own ship and guaranteed the sailors' wages so that they would not be distracted by privateering. However, Raleigh still hoped to make money from the trip, and Mace's ship landed in the Outer Banks to gather aromatic woods or plants such as sassafras that would generate a decent profit back in England. By the time they could turn their attention to the colonists, the weather had turned bad and they were forced to return without even making it to Roanoke Island. By this time, having been arrested for treason, Raleigh was unable to send any further missions.
Roanoke, Indiana
Roanoke had its start in about 1848, soon after the building of the Wabash and Erie Canal through that territory. The completion of the canal through Jackson Township enticed European-American settlers to the area. In the wake of the canal's completion, the town became an important shipping point in the region and a source of supplies for neighboring towns in Allen, Huntington, and Whitley counties. One of the earliest settlers in the area was Jarred Darrow who arrived in 1837. Between 1840 and 1847 the area's population swelled and included a large number of persons belonging to the United Brethren Church, the Methodist Church, and the Lutheran Church. Roanoke was incorporated as a town in 1874. The town was named after Roanoke, Virginia.
John White (colonist and artist)
Governor White finally reached Roanoke Island on 18 August 1590, his granddaughter's third birthday, but he found his colony had been long deserted. The buildings had collapsed and "the houses [were] taken downe." 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 of a local tribe of Native Americans. Roanoke Island was not the original planned location for the colony and the idea of moving elsewhere had been discussed. Before the Governor's departure, he and 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. White found no such cross and was hopeful that his family were still alive.
Penikese Island
Penikese Island enters the historical record in 1602 AD when the English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold and some of his crew visited the island. Their visit frightened four visiting Wampanoag Indians into hiding, and the explorers stole their canoe.
Roanoke Island
The communities of Roanoke were transformed by the construction of the first bridge connecting the island eastwards to Nags Head in 1924. For the first time automobiles were introduced where travel by water, or horse had been more common previously. The Baum bridge marked the first time that higher level infrastructure had been brought to the island. The 1924 Bridge would be the only road connection to Roanoke Island for over thirty years. Around the same time NC 345, Roanoke Island's first paved road for automobiles that covered the entire extent of the land from the marshes of Wanchese to the Northend. The north edge of 345 corresponded with a ferry that went to Manns Harbor on the mainland. The North Carolina department of transportation subsidized the Roanoke Island ferry in 1934 to lower ticket costs, this was origin of the modern N.C ferry system.
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.
Freedmen's Colony of Roanoke Island
When North Carolina seceded from the Union in 1861, the Confederacy made plans to fortify Roanoke Island to protect the bay and inland waterways. By that winter, the army had built three forts, although they were relatively weak and too small for the number of occupying troops. On February 8, 1862, the Union general Ambrose E. Burnside easily captured Roanoke Island from Confederate general Henry A. Wise (former governor of the state of Virginia (1856–1860)). The Union maintained control of the island through the end of the war.
Fort Raleigh National Historic Site
Fort Raleigh National Historic Site preserves the location of Roanoke Colony, the first English settlement in the present-day United States. The site was preserved for its national significance in relation to the founding of the first English settlement in North America in 1587. The colony, which was promoted and backed by entrepreneurs led by Englishman Sir Walter Raleigh ("ca." 1554–1618), failed sometime between 1587 and 1590 when supply ships failed to arrive on time. When next visited, the settlement was abandoned with no survivors found. The fate of the "Lost Colony" remains a mystery.
SS Roanoke
SS "Roanoke" (1882–1916) was a passenger and cargo ship built by John Roach & Sons in Chester, Pennsylvania. The "Roanoke" was built for the Old Dominion Steamship Company's service from New York to Norfolk Virginia. In 1898 the ship was sold to the North American Transportation and Trading Company to take miners, supplies and gold between Seattle and ports in Alaska. Later the "Roanoke" was sold to the Oregon-based North Pacific Steamship Company. In 1907, the "Roanoke" helped to rescue the survivors of her former running mate "Columbia". On May 9, 1916, the "Roanoke" sank in heavy seas off the California coast near San Luis Obispo with the loss of 47 lives. There were only three survivors.
Freedmen's Colony of Roanoke Island
By the mid-1600s, English settlers colonized the island and established a permanent settlement. They gradually tried to develop plantations, using imported African slaves as labor, but the soil was rather poor. The island produced some commodity crops.
Battle of Roanoke Island
The Army classified the slaves on Roanoke Island as contraband and by late 1862, hundreds more escaped slaves had joined them. While Foster was commander of the Department of North Carolina, in 1863 he appointed Horace James, a Congregational chaplain, as "Superintendent of Negro Affairs for the North Carolina District", encouraging him to support the former slaves in becoming educated, growing their own food, and working. Based in New Bern, James supervised the Trent River contraband camp there, but decided to make Roanoke Island a self-sustaining colony. The Freedmen's Colony of Roanoke Island was an important model that lasted four years; it had a sawmill, established a fisheries, and by 1864 it had 2200 residents. It was overcrowded when residents reached 3900 at its peak, in part because poor soil on the island limited productivity of agriculture. Many of its people worked for the Army for wages, and more than 150 men enlisted in the United States Colored Troops. Missionary teachers recruited by the American Missionary Association taught reading and writing to classes of both children and adults. It was an important step toward citizenship for the freedmen.Abbreviations used in these notes:
Wanchese, North Carolina
During the first two periods, the Tillett site was a seasonal settlement. The Roanoke came to it from the mainland to fish and collect shellfish. At the time of English exploration, the Algonquian-speaking Roanoke tribe used the site for seasonal fishing. Their main town was on the western shore of Croatan Sound.
USS Roanoke (1855)
"Roanoke", named after the Roanoke River, was laid down at the Norfolk Navy Yard in May 1854 and launched on 13 December 1855. The ship sank when launched and had to be refloated before she could be completed. She was commissioned on 4 May 1857 with Captain John B. Montgomery in command.
Roanoke Island
Another colony, more populous than that of Raleigh, was developed at the island during the American Civil War. After Union forces took over the island in 1862, slaves migrated there for relative freedom, as they were considered contraband by the military, who would not return them to the Confederates. The Army established the Roanoke Island Freedmen's Colony in 1863, an important social experiment as part of the US government's developing policies related to the future of the slaves in freedom. The Congregational chaplain Horace James was appointed superintendent of the colony and of other contraband camps in North Carolina. With a view to making it self-sustaining, he had a sawmill built, and freedmen were allotted lands to cultivate. Those who worked for the Army were paid wages. When the United States Colored Troops were founded, many men from the colony enlisted. A corps of Northern teachers was sponsored by the American Missionary Association, and they taught hundreds of students of all ages at the colony.
SS Roanoke
There were two primary routes from Seattle to the Yukon gold fields. One was by ship to the south-east Alaskan towns of Dyea and Skagway, and then via land for 30 miles over high mountain passes from where the miners could travel down the tributaries of the Yukon River. The other route was longer and more costly but faster and less grueling: Miners would take a coastal steamer to the Yukon delta port of St. Michael, from where they could transfer to a river steamer to head up the Yukon River. The "Roanoke" was brought to Seattle specifically by the North American Transportation and Trading Company to serve the long coastal route to St. Michael, sometime calling at intermediate ports such as Dutch Harbor. The NATTC began advertising the "Roanoke"'s service in March 1898.
Dare County Board of Commissioners
Roanoke Island
USCGC Roanoke Island (WPB-1346)
The USCGC "Roanoke Island" is the 46th Island class cutter to be commissioned.
She was commissioned in Homer, Alaska, on February 7, 1992.
Five other Island Class cutters are based in Alaska.
Her primary missions include ""search and rescue, fisheries enforcement and homeland security.""
Eleanor Dare
Eleanor Dare (née White; c.1568 – after August 18, 1587) of Westminster, London, England, was a member of the Roanoke Colony and the daughter of John White, the colony's governor. While little is known about her life, more is known about her than most of the sixteen other women who left England in 1587 as part of the Roanoke expedition. She married Ananias Dare, a London tiler and bricklayer. It is known that she gave birth to Virginia Dare, the first child of English parents born in North America, on August 18, 1587, shortly after their arrival, and that, along with everyone else in the "Lost Colony", she disappeared while her father went to get supplies back in England.
Roanoke Island
Thirty years later during the War of 1812 the British Royal Navy planned for an Invasion of North Carolina's Outer Banks, the invasion was aborted on Hattaras Island because there was nothing worthwhile for the British to occupy or pillage. The Invasion force then moved northward to attack Chesapeake Bay communities in Virginia. Roanoke Island continued its isolation until authorities of the Confederate States of America hastily prepared Roanoke Island to defend Coastal North Carolina from the invading Unionist Navy and Army. After passing by Cape Hatteras Union forces attacked Roanoke Island in 1862.
Walter Raleigh
When the supply ship arrived in Roanoke, three years later than planned, the colonists had disappeared. The only clue to their fate was the word "CROATOAN" and letters "CRO" carved into tree trunks. White had arranged with the settlers that if they should move, the name of their destination be carved into a tree or corner post. This suggested the possibilities that they had moved to Croatoan Island, but a hurricane prevented John White from investigating the island for survivors. Other speculation includes their having starved, or been swept away or lost at sea during the stormy weather of 1588. No further attempts at contact were recorded for some years. Whatever the fate of the settlers, the settlement is now remembered as the "Lost Colony of Roanoke Island".
Roanoke Island
The North Carolinian Coast began to shape into its present form as the Outer Banks Barrier Islands. Previously the North Carolina Coast had extended 50 miles eastward to the edge of the continental shelf. The melting of Northern Hemisphere Glaciers at least 14,000 years ago caused sea levels to rise. The Outer Banks and by extension the land of Roanoke Island began to stabilize around 6,000 B.C. Roanoke Island was originally a large dune ridge facing the Atlantic coastline.
Outer Banks
The English Roanoke Colony—where Virginia Dare was born—vanished from Roanoke Island in 1587. "The Lost Colony," written and performed to commemorate the original colonists, is the second longest running outdoor drama in the United States and its theater acts as a cultural focal point for much of the Outer Banks.
Ralph Lane
Lane is best remembered for his attempt to establish a settlement on Roanoke Island at the request of Sir Walter Raleigh. Queen Elizabeth was looking for places to colonise and the Americas appeared ripe for English expansion. The voyage began on 9 April 1585, when Lane set sail from Plymouth with Raleigh's cousin, Sir Richard Grenville, a sailor who upon return to England wrote a book about his findings in the Chesapeake. The fleet comprised the "Tiger" (Grenville's), the "Roebuck", the "Red Lion", the "Elizabeth", and the "Dorothy". The voyage on the "Tiger" proved difficult, as Lane quarrelled with the aggressive leadership of Grenville, whom he found a person of " intolerable pride and insatiable ambition". Unfortunately, during a severe storm off the coast of Portugal, the "Tiger" was separated from the rest of the fleet. " The Tiger" arrived on 11 May to Baye's Muskito (Guayanilla, Puerto Rico). While waiting for the other ships, Grenville established relations with the Spanish (whilst at the same time participating in privateering against their ships) and also built a small fortress. The "Elizabeth" arrived shortly after construction of the fortress.
Roanoke Island
Archaeological discoveries at the Tillett site of Wanchese, North Carolina have dated the human occupation of Roanoke Island's land at 8,000 B.C. At the time Native Americans across North America were developing in the Archaic Period. Archaeologists discovered that the land of Roanoke Island was part of the Mainland when it was first inhabited by the first Native Americans. For thousands of years the development of Native Cultures on Roanoke Island corresponded with cultures occurring in the Coastal Plain of North Carolina.
Roanoke Island
With Roanoke Island open for settlement, English Virginians moved from Tidewater Virginia to settle in Northeast North Carolina's Albremarle Region. In 1665 The Carolina Charter established the colony of Carolina under rule of landowners called the Lord Proprietors. Carolina under its original name "Carolana "included the territory of modern North and South Carolina. Early organized English towns in North Carolina include Elizabeth City and Edenton. Pioneers crossed southwards across the Albremarle Sound to settle in Roanoke Island. They came primarily to establish fishing communities but also practiced forms of subsistence agriculture on the Northern parts of Roanoke Island. Most of the Pioneers had originally immigrated to the American Colonies from Southern English Paraishes such as Kent, Middlesex and Westcountry.Upon the creation of the Royal British Province of North Carolina in 1729 Roanoke Island became part of Currituck County. During the rule of the Lord Proprietors Roanoke Island had been a part of the earlier Currituck Parish. It was during this time that historical families arrived including the Basnights, Daniels, Ehteridge, Owens Tillets,and others.
Roanoke Island Festival Park
Roanoke Island Festival Park is a North Carolina state historic site located at the end of NC 400 in Manteo, North Carolina on Roanoke Island. The park includes a recreated 16th-century sailing ship, living history demonstrators, a museum, and a variety of performing and visual arts. Admission includes the main attractions and is valid for two days.
History of Virginia
The Roanoke Colony was the first English colony in the New World. It was founded at Roanoke Island in what was then Virginia, now part of Dare County, North Carolina. Between 1584 and 1587, there were two major groups of settlers sponsored by Sir Walter Raleigh who attempted to establish a permanent settlement at Roanoke Island, and each failed. The final group disappeared completely after supplies from England were delayed three years by a war with Spain. Because they disappeared, they were called "The Lost Colony."
Territorial evolution of North America prior to 1763
Under the supervision of Sir Walter Raleigh in 1585, a colonizing expedition composed solely of men, many of them veteran soldiers who had fought to establish the British rule in Ireland, was sent to establish a colony in Virginia. With about 75 men, Raleigh decided to establish the English colony at the northern end of Roanoke Island. The British ships disembarked on August 17, 1585, leaving the isolated men to form a colony.
Eleanor Dare
In her 2000 book "Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony", anthropologist Lee Miller speculates that Eleanor and the other members of the Roanoke Colony were religious Separatists who left England at a time when the political climate in England was dangerous for such religious dissidents. She suggests that this might be why the colonists, two of whom were pregnant women and several of whom were parents with young children, were willing to undertake the dangerous journey to Roanoke Island with low supplies and at a time England was on the verge of war with Spain. The colonists, including the women, signed a petition urging White to return to England for supplies, even though he was reluctant to leave his daughter and granddaughter. Miller suggests that this democratic action would have been typical of a religious Separatist group.
Roanoke Island Festival Park
The Roanoke Adventure Museum is an interactive museum about the history of Roanoke Island and the Outer Banks. Exhibits include the colonial-era English settlers and Native Americans, ships and maritime history, Civil War history including the local Freedmen's Colony, and a 1900s era general store display. Many displays include hands-on activities for children.
Roanoke station (Virginia)
The Shenandoah Valley Railroad was completed to the town (newly renamed Roanoke) from Hagerstown, Maryland in 1882, and acquired by the N&W in 1890. Its unbuilt southern section was eventually completed as the Roanoke and Southern Railroad (the 'Punkin Vine') in 1892 and immediately leased to the N&W.
Roanoke Region
Roanoke County was formed from Botetourt in 1838, taking its name from the Roanoke River. The county eventually annexed additional territory in 1845 from Montgomery County, and historic Salem continues to serve as the county seat. The town of Salem, established in 1802, served travelers on the Great Wagon Road and was located on two stagecoach lines. It was the major center of activity in the Roanoke area until the mid-1880s. In 1847, the Virginia Institute, a boy's preparatory school, moved to Salem from Staunton and was renamed Roanoke College. Salem became an independent city in 1968.
Coney Island
Giovanni da Verrazzano was the first European explorer to discover the island of Narrioch during his expeditions to the area in 1527 and 1529. He was subsequently followed by Henry Hudson. The Dutch established the colony of New Amsterdam in present-day Coney Island in the early 17th century. The Native American population in the area dwindled as the Dutch settlement grew and the entire southwest section of present-day Brooklyn was purchased in 1645 from the Native Americans in exchange for a gun, a blanket, and a kettle.
Roanoke Colony
The Roanoke Colony (), also known as the Lost Colony, was the first attempt at founding a permanent English settlement in North America. It was established in 1585 on Roanoke Island in what is today's Dare County, North Carolina. The colony was sponsored by Sir Walter Raleigh, although he himself never set foot in it.
Roanoke (ship)
"Roanoke" left New York City on her final voyage in June 1904 and was involved in a serious collision with the British steamship "Llangibby" off the coast of South America in August 1904, requiring repairs for three months in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. After delivering cargo to Australia, "Roanoke" was loading chromium ore near Nouméa, New Caledonia, when she was destroyed by fire on the night of August 10, 1905.
Manteo (Native American leader)
Very little is known of Manteo's early life. He was born into the Croatan tribe, a small Native American group living in the coastal areas of what is now North Carolina. They may have been a branch of the larger Roanoke people or allied with them. The Croatan lived in current Dare County, an area encompassing the Alligator River, Croatan Sound, Roanoke Island, and parts of the Outer Banks, including Hatteras Island. Manteo first entered the historical record through his encounter with English explorers in 1584, when Sir Walter Raleigh dispatched the first of a number of expeditions to Roanoke Island to explore and eventually settle the New World.
Philip Amadas
Philip Amadas (1550–1618) was a naval commander and explorer in Elizabethan England. Little is known from his early life, but he grew up within a wealthy merchant family in southwestern England. Amadas was instrumental in the early years of English North American colonialism. He served alongside Arthur Barlowe in the 1584 exploratory voyage to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Leaving on April 27, 1584, he captained the "Bark Ralegh" with Simon Fernandez as his master and pilot on the voyage. Fernandez is best known for his controversial decision to maroon the colonists of the infamous "Lost Colony" on Roanoke Island in 1587. The voyage of 1584 determined Roanoke Island as the location for the future colonies under the leadership of Sir Walter Raleigh. For his role in the Roanoke voyages of 1584 and 1585, Amadas was nominated Admiral of Virginia by Raleigh in 1585. When he returned to England to report their findings, the Queen named the country after herself, Virginia.
Manteo (Native American leader)
Manteo was a Native American Croatan Indian, the chief of a local tribe that befriended the English explorers who landed at Roanoke Island in 1584. In 1585 the English returned to Roanoke, arriving too late in the year to plant crops and harvest food, and Manteo helped the colonists make it through the harsh winter. He traveled to England on two occasions, in 1584 and 1585. After staying there, he was among those who sailed for the New World in 1587 along with Governor John White and his colonists, who founded the failed settlement later known as "The Lost Colony". On Sunday, August 13, 1587, Manteo was christened on Roanoke Island, making him the first Native American to be baptized into the Church of England.
Ananias Dare
However, in her 2000 book "Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony," Miller postulated that some of the Lost Colony survivors sought shelter with a neighboring Indian tribe, the Chowanoc, that was attacked by another tribe, identified by the Jamestown Colony as the "Mandoag," but whom Miller thinks were actually the Eno, also known as the Wainoke. Survivors were eventually sold into slavery and held captive by differing bands of the Eno tribe, who, Miller wrote, were known slave traders. Miller wrote that English settlers with the Jamestown Colony heard reports in 1609 of the captive Englishmen, but the reports were suppressed because they had no way to rescue the captives and didn't want to panic the Jamestown colonists. William Strachey, a secretary of the Jamestown Colony, wrote in his "The History of Travel Into Virginia Britania" in 1612 that, at the Indian settlements of Peccarecanick and Ochanahoen, there were reportedly two story houses with stone walls. The Indians supposedly learned how to build them from the Roanoake settlers. There were also reported sightings of European captives at various Indian settlements during the same time period. Strachey wrote in 1612 that four English men, two boys, and one girl had been sighted at the Eno settlement of Ritanoc, under the protection of a chief called Eyanoco. The captives were forced to beat copper. The captives, he reported, had escaped the attack on the other colonists and fled up the Chaonoke river, the present-day Chowan River in Bertie County, North Carolina.
Rhodes
The name of the US state of Rhode Island is based on a reference to Rhodes by Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano. In a 1524 letter detailing his excursion into the waters around either Block Island or Aquidneck Island Verrazano wrote that he "discovered an Ilande in the form of a triangle, distant from the maine lande 3 leagues, about the bignesse of the Ilande of the Rodes".
Abraham Wood
Several exploration parties were dispatched from Fort Henry by Wood during these years, including one undertaken by Wood himself in 1650, which explored the upper reaches of the James River and Roanoke River. In August 1650, Abraham Wood and Edward Bland used the Great Indian Warpath, penetrating the Carolina region southwest of the Roanoke River and discovering westward flowing rivers. Daniel Coxe mentions that "Parts of this Country were discovered by the English long before the French had the least knowledge... Colonel Wood of Virginia... from the years 1654 to 1664 discovered at several times several branches of the great rivers Ohio and Mesechaceba."
Kahal Kadosh Beth Shalome
On August 17, 1585, Ralph Lane, along with 107 men, built a fort on Roanoke Island as Grenville sailed back to England for supplies. By April 1586 conditions on Roanoke Island had decayed; the expedition had destroyed a nearby village occupied by indigenous people resulting in retribution against the fortifications on Roanoke Island. As luck would have it, Sir Francis Drake visited the Roanoke Colony on his way back to England in April 1586. Recognizing the dire conditions of the expedition he rescued the remaining members of the Roanoke Island expedition. One of the men in this expedition was named Joachim Gans, a Jew from Prague who was the best metallurgist in all of Europe at that time and the first Jew to set foot in the New World under the British Flag.
Downtown Roanoke
By 1881 the Shenandoah Valley Railroad announced that Big Lick would be the southern terminus of its line resulting in the rapid growth and development of the community. With the arrival of the railroad, Big Lick would incorporate as the city of Roanoke in 1882. The rapid growth resulted in the citizens passing a $90,000 bond in 1886 to provide for the infrastructure to support the growing community. With the adequate infrastructure in place, downtown would see a rapid expansion from the area around the present-day Campbell Avenue/Jefferson Street intersection outward.
Roanoke Island
The first attempted settlement was headed by Ralph Lane in 1585. Sir Richard Grenville had transported the colonists to Virginia and returned to England for supplies as planned. The colonists were desperately in need of supplies and Grenville's return was delayed. While awaiting his return, the colonists relied heavily upon a local Algonquian tribe. In an effort to gain more food supplies, Lane led an unprovoked attack, killing the Secotan tribe's chieftain Wingina and effectively cutting off the colony's primary food source.
Roanoke College
Roanoke College was founded in 1842, as a boys' preparatory school by Lutheran pastors David F. Bittle and Christopher C. Baughmann. Originally located in Augusta County near Staunton, the school was named Virginia Institute until chartered on January 30, 1845, as Virginia Collegiate Institute. In 1847, the institute moved to Salem which was developing into a center of commerce and transportation in the region; the school moved all of its possessions in a single covered wagon. The Virginia General Assembly granted a college charter on March 14, 1853 and approved the name Roanoke College, chosen in honor of the Roanoke Valley. Bittle then served as the college's first president.
Chesapeake Bay
The arrival of English colonists under Sir Walter Raleigh and Humphrey Gilbert in the late 16th century to found a colony, later settled at Roanoke Island (off the present-day coast of North Carolina) for the Virginia Company, marked the first time that the English approached the gates to the Chesapeake Bay between the capes of Cape Charles and Cape Henry. Three decades later, in 1607, Europeans again entered the Bay. Captain John Smith of England explored and mapped the Bay between 1607 and 1609, resulting in the publication in 1612 back in the British Isles of ""A Map of Virginia"". Smith wrote in his journal: "Heaven and earth have never agreed better to frame a place for man's habitation." The new laying out of the "Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail", the United States' first designated "all-water" National Historic Trail, was created in July 2006, by the National Park Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior following the route of Smith's historic 17th-century voyage. Because of economic hardships and civil strife in the "Mother Land", there was a mass migration of southern English Cavaliers and their servants to the Chesapeake Bay region between 1640 and 1675, to both of the new colonies of the Province of Virginia and the Province of Maryland.
Roanoke Colony
Once the Jamestown settlement was established in 1607, efforts were undertaken by the English to acquire information from the Powhatan tribe about Roanoke. The first definitive information concerning the fate of the Lost Colony came from Captain John Smith, leader of the Jamestown Colony from 1608 to 1609. According to chronicler Samuel Purchas, Smith learned from Chief Powhatan that he had personally conducted the slaughter of the Roanoke colonists just prior to the arrival of the Jamestown settlers because they were living with the Chesepians, a tribe living in the eastern portion of the present-day South Hampton Roads sub-region who were related to the Pamlico tribe in Carolina and who refused to merge with the Powhatans. This shocking information was reported to England and by the spring of 1609, King James and the Royal Council were convinced that Chief Powhatan was responsible for the slaughter of the Lost Colony.
Roanoke Colony
On April 27, 1584, Raleigh dispatched an expedition led by Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe to explore the eastern coast of North America. They arrived on Roanoke Island on July 4 and soon established relations with the local natives, the Secotans and Croatans. Barlowe returned to England with two Croatans named Manteo and Wanchese, who were able to describe the politics and geography of the area to Raleigh. Based on the information given, Raleigh organized a second expedition, to be led by Sir Richard Grenville.
Roanoke (ship)
"Roanoke" was a four-masted barque built by Messrs. A. Sewall and Co. in 1892 on the Kennebec River at Bath, Maine, in the United States. With the exception of "Great Republic" and the six-masted wooden schooner "Wyoming" (3,730.54 GRT, 450 ft length over all) she was the largest wooden ship ever built in an American yard. Her gross register tonnage was 3,347, but on a draft of 27 feet (8.2 meters) she could stow away 2,000 additional tons. Her length was 311 feet (94.8 meters), her beam 49 feet (14.9 meters), and her hold depth 29 feet (8.8 meters). Her lower yards were 95 feet (29 meters) long, and her foremast truck was 180 feet (54.9 meters) from the deck. The keel was in two tiers of 16-inch (40.6- cm) white oak, her garboards were eight inches (20.3 cm) thick, and her ceiling in the lower hold was 14 inches (35.6 cm). Into her construction went 1,250,000 board feet of yellow pine, 14,000 cubic feet (396.4 cubic meters) of oak, 98,000 treenails, and 550 hackmatack knees.
Roanoke Island
Located along U.S. Highway 64, a major highway from mainland North Carolina to the Outer Banks, Roanoke Island combines recreational and water features with historical sites and an outdoor theater to form one of the major tourist attractions of Dare County.
Fort Raleigh National Historic Site
The Union Army occupied the island in 1862 and soon established a contraband camp for slave refugees. It founded the Roanoke Island Freedmen's Colony in 1863 to be self-sustaining. The free residents of the colony were allocated plots of land by household, paid by the Army for work, and educated with the help of Northern teachers. By 1864 the colony had more than 2200 freedpeople as residents. It had a sawmill, fisheries and 600 cabins. More than 150 freedmen from the colony were among the nearly 4000 freedmen from North Carolina who served with the United States Colored Troops. The colony is commemorated with a marble monument erected at the fort site in 2001 by Dare County.
Manteo, North Carolina
The town is named for an American Indian named Manteo, who was of the Croatans tribe of American Indians. Manteo had been "civilized" by the English during a trip to London in 1584 where he and another Indian, Wanchese, learned to become the liaisons between the Roanoke Colony settlers and the Indians, and had favorable interaction with British colonist John White. In fact, Manteo was christened and given the name Lord of Roanoke, making him the first American Indian to receive a title of nobility. Eventually, John White's daughter Eleanor married Ananias Dare, and they had the first American-born English child, Virginia Dare. In 1587, Manteo was friendly to White when he returned to find what the final stage of the Roanoke Colony became. When the colonists disappeared after supplies from England were delayed for three years, the ongoing mystery of "The Lost Colony" began.
Ananias Dare
In her 2000 book "Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony", anthropologist Lee Miller speculates that Ananias Dare and the other members of the Roanoke Colony were religious Separatists who left England at a time when the polite in England was dangerous for such religious dissidents. She suggests that this might be why the colonists, two of whom were pregnant women and several of whom were parents with young children, were willing to undertake the dangerous journey to Roanoke Island, Virginia with low supplies and at a time England was on the verge of war with Spain. The colonists, including the women, signed a petition urging White to return to England for supplies, even though he was reluctant to leave his daughter and granddaughter. Miller suggests that this democratic action would have been typical of a religious Separatist group.
John G. Foster
After President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing all slaves in rebel territory, in April 1863 Foster appointed Horace James, an experienced Congregational chaplain, as "Superintendent of Negro Affairs for the North Carolina District." To support the transition to freedom for former slaves, he was to develop a colony from the contraband camp that had developed on Roanoke Island. It became known as the Roanoke Island Freedmen's Colony (1863–1867). James also managed other camps for freedmen in the state, such as one at Trent River near his base at New Bern. Foster directed James to settle the people, give them farming tools and prepare them for a "free and independent community."
By 1864, 2200 freedmen lived on Roanoke Island, settled on individual household plots, and working for pay for the Army. James recruited teachers and founded several schools. A sawmill was built and a fisheries started. More than 150 freedmen from the island joined the nearly 4,000 from North Carolina who joined the United States Colored Troops. After the war, the Army dismantled the forts. Due to President Andrew Johnson's returning lands to Confederate landowners, the colony was abandoned. Most of the freedmen chose to be transported to the mainland, where they looked for work. By 1870, only 300 remained on the island.
Place names considered unusual
Roanoke, Virginia was first established as the town of Big Lick in 1852 and was named for a large outcropping of salt that drew wildlife to the site near the Roanoke River. (The deer used to lick up the salt, hence the name Big Lick).
Eleanor Dare
However, in her 2000 book "Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony," Miller postulated that some of the Lost Colony survivors sought shelter with a neighboring Indian tribe, the Chowanoc, that was attacked by another tribe, identified by the Jamestown Colony as the "Mandoag," but who Miller thinks were actually the Eno, also known as the Wainoke. Survivors were eventually sold into slavery and held captive by differing bands of the Eno tribe, who, Miller wrote, were known slave traders. Miller wrote that English settlers with the Jamestown Colony heard reports in 1609 of the captive Englishmen, but the reports were suppressed because they had no way to rescue the captives and didn't want to panic the Jamestown colonists. William Strachey, a secretary of the Jamestown Colony, wrote in his "The History of Travel Into Virginia Britania" in 1612 that, at the Indian settlements of Peccarecanick and Ochanahoen, there were reportedly two story houses with stone walls. The Indians supposedly learned how to build them from the Roanoke settlers. There were also reported sightings of European captives at various Indian settlements during the same time period. Strachey wrote in 1612 that four English men, two boys, and one girl had been sighted at the Eno settlement of Ritanoc, under the protection of a chief called Eyanoco. The captives were forced to beat copper. The captives, he reported, had escaped the attack on the other colonists and fled up the Choanoke river, the present-day Chowan River in Bertie County, North Carolina.
Dare County Board of Commissioners
Roanoke Island
Aquascogoc
Sir Richard Grenville was the leader of the 1585 expedition which first attempted to land English settlers on Roanoke island. Guided by Chief Manteo, Grenville arrived at the village but the inhabitants showed little inclination to meet with him, and the Englishmen soon returned to their boats. However, a silver drinking cup was found to be missing, and was believed to have been stolen by the Aquascogoc, leading to a furious reaction from Grenville. During the angry exchanges which followed, the village of Aquascogoc was torched by the English.
Roanoke Island
During the Revolutionary War there were eight recorded encounters fought in nearby Hatteras, Ocracoke and the High Seas. These battles were between local privateers from Edenton against the British Royal Navy. Patrolling Royal Navy often had little to place to rest during their coastal patrol duty. On August 15, 1776 a British patrol sent foragers to the now extinct "Roanoke Inlet" in modern-day Nags Head to steal cattle. The Outer Banks Independent Company who was guarding Roanoke Island killed or captured the entire party. This battle while not on Roanoke Island itself was less than three miles away. Skirmishes involving ships continued until 1780 but no large land battles occurred in the area, Roanoke Island itself was largely spared from war violence. Independence for the United States had little effect on local residents.
Roanoke Island Festival Park
The ship was commissioned to be part of the 400th anniversary celebration of founding of Roanoke and America. Launched in 1983, she presented to the state as a State Historic Site on July 13, 1984 during ceremonies to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first English ships to the North Carolina Outer Banks.
Roanoke Colony
The enterprise was originally financed and organized by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who drowned in 1583 returning from a voyage to the fishing settlement at St. John's, Newfoundland. His half-brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, later gained Gilbert's charter from the Queen and subsequently executed its details through his delegates Ralph Lane and Richard Grenville, Raleigh's distant cousin.
Thor Heyerdahl
In "Easter Island: The Mystery Solved" (Random House, 1989), Heyerdahl offered a more detailed theory of the island's history. Based on native testimony and archaeological research, he claimed the island was originally colonized by Hanau eepe ("Long Ears"), from South America, and that Polynesian Hanau momoko ("Short Ears") arrived only in the mid-16th century; they may have come independently or perhaps were imported as workers. According to Heyerdahl, something happened between Admiral Roggeveen's discovery of the island in 1722 and James Cook's visit in 1774; while Roggeveen encountered white, Indian, and Polynesian people living in relative harmony and prosperity, Cook encountered a much smaller population consisting mainly of Polynesians and living in privation.
History of North Carolina
The earliest English attempt at colonization in North America was Roanoke Colony of 1585–1587, the famed "Lost Colony" of Sir Walter Raleigh. The colony was established at Roanoke Island in the Croatan Sound on the leeward side of the Outer Banks. The first attempt at a settlement consisted of 100 or so men led by Ralph Lane. They built a fort, and waited for supplies from a second voyage. While waiting for supplies to return, Lane and his men antagonized the local Croatan peoples, killing several of them in armed skirmishes. The interactions were not all negative, as the local people did teach the colonists some survival skills, such as the construction of dugout canoes.
Fort Raleigh National Historic Site
The historic site is off U.S. Highway 64 on the north end of Roanoke Island, North Carolina, about north of the town of Manteo. The visitor center's museum contains exhibits about the history of the English expeditions and colonies, the Roanoke Colony, and the island's Civil War history and Freedmen's Colony (1863-1867).
Robinson Crusoe Island
Robinson Crusoe Island lies to the west of the boundary between the Nazca Plate and the South American Plate, and rose from the ocean 3.8 – 4.2 million years ago. A volcanic eruption on the island was reported in 1743 from El Yunque, but this event is uncertain. On 20 February 1835, a day-long eruption began from a submarine vent north of Punta Bacalao. The event was quite minor—only a Volcanic Explosivity Index 1 eruption—but it produced explosions and flames that lit up the island, along with tsunamis.
21st Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry
Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan had ordered Burnside to make Roanoke Island his first target. Capture of the island would allow control of both Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds, opening up a possible southern invasion route to Richmond. Coordinating with a naval flotilla commanded by Admiral Louis M. Goldsborough, Burnside launched an amphibious assault (one of the first of the Civil War) resulting in the Battle of Roanoke Island on February 7 and 8, 1862. After landing, the 21st spent a cold, wet night on picket duty. On February 8, it joined in the assault on the Confederate fort at the center of the island. Moving through swamps and knee-deep water, Reno's brigade, including the 21st, advanced around the Union left flank on the west side of the fort. After firing steadily on the fort for some time and taking moderate casualties, the 21st was ordered by Brig. Gen. Reno to storm the fort. According to the regimental historian, the 21st Massachusetts was the first regiment to mount the earthworks of the fort; however, the honor was also claimed by the 9th New York. The Union forces were victorious in capturing the Confederate fort on Roanoke Island and took approximately 2,500 Confederate soldiers prisoner. The 21st suffered 13 killed and 44 wounded, or eight percent casualties, during the engagement.
Arthur Barlowe
The discovery of Roanoke Island and the coast of North Carolina led to the establishment of the Roanoke Colony. This colony at Roanoke Island would later be known as the "Lost Colony," whose members are presumed to have either starved to death or been incorporated into one of the local native American Indian populations.
Roanoke Island
In the book "A New Voyage to Carolina" (1709), the explorer John Lawson wrote the following, stating the ruins of lost colony were still visible:
Dasamongueponke
Sir Richard Grenville was the leader of the 1585 expedition which first attempted to land English settlers on Roanoke island. When Grenville left Roanoke, he left behind fifteen men, battle-hardened soldiers. When Governor John White returned in 1587 he searched for the fifteen, but found only bones. White quickly made contact with friendly natives led by Chief Manteo, who explained to him that the lost fifteen had been killed by hostile Secotan, Aquascogoc and Dasamongueponke warriors, choosing a time and place of attack "of great advantage to the savages".
Roanoke, Illinois
Roanoke was one of these settlements. On December 17, 1872, Roanoke was mapped out and lots were offered for sale. The plat of Roanoke was composed of 15 blocks and was bounded by Main, Front, Ann and Pleasant Streets. Two years later in 1874, Roanoke officially became a "Village" in the State of Illinois. Building began immediately in Roanoke and by the time the railroad was complete the population had increased to three hundred. Henry Frantz put up the first building after the village was laid out, and John Frantz and Jacob Engle also opened pancake stores.
Native American tribes in Virginia
English attempts to settle the Roanoke Colony in 1585–87 failed. Although the island site is located in present-day North Carolina, the English considered it part of the Virginia territory. The English collected ethnological information about the local Croatan tribe, as well as related coastal tribes extending as far north as the Chesapeake.
Freedmen's Colony of Roanoke Island
The Roanoke Island Freedmen's Colony was a safe haven for slaves seeking refuge with the Union Army during the Civil War. Most freedmen on Roanoke Island assisted the Union Army: others joined the army as soldiers when the United States Colored Troops were founded, and some men worked as spies, scouts and guides, since they knew the area and its waterways well. They completed dangerous and crucial missions for the Union cause. Freedmen recruited from Roanoke Island formed the "first company of the North Carolina Colored Volunteers".