The Dare Stones are a series of stones inscribed with messages supposedly written by members of the lost Roanoke Colony, allegedly discovered in various places across the Southeastern United States in the late 1930s. The colonists were last seen on Roanoke Island, off the coast of what is now North Carolina, in August 1587, and the mystery of their disappearance has since become a part of American folklore. The stones created a media circus in the United States, as the public became fascinated with the possible resolution of the Lost Colony's fate.
A total of 48 Dare Stones are catalogued at Brenau University in Gainesville, Georgia, although additional stones were also reported. Nearly all of the inscriptions in the Brenau collection purport to be messages from Lost Colonist Eleanor Dare to her father, the colony's governor John White, who had left for England in 1587 and returned three years later to discover all of the colonists missing. Taken together, the messages compose a narrative describing the fate of the missing colonists between 1591 and 1603, in which they are said to have migrated from Roanoke to the Chattahoochee River Valley near present-day Atlanta, Georgia in September 1587.
The first stone was reported in 1937 by Louis E. Hammond, who claimed to have found it near the Chowan River. The inscription referred to another stone marking a mass grave, prompting an intense search. The other 47 stones at Brenau, presented in response to a reward offer, were of a markedly different style; all of these were eventually connected to Georgia stonecutter Bill Eberhardt and discredited. By 1941 scholars and the press had dismissed all of the Dare Stones as hoaxes, although the authenticity of Hammond's stone has not been conclusively proven or disproven.
Background
The settlement now known as "The Lost Colony" was England's second attempt to colonize the Virginia territory in North America, following the failure of Ralph Lane's 1585 Roanoke settlement. The colonists arrived at Roanoke in July 1587, with John White as the appointed governor. Their intended destination was the Chesapeake Bay, but the crew of the expedition refused to take them farther than Roanoke. Hostilities between Lane's colony and the mainland Secotan tribe made Roanoke a dangerous choice for a new colony, although White's group was able to renew friendly relations with the Croatan on nearby Croatoan Island.
According to White, the settlers had already discussed plans to relocate "50 miles further up into the maine," referring to Albemarle Sound, which would place the new location near the mouth of the Chowan River. When the fleet prepared to leave in August, the colonists persuaded White to accompany it back to England, to arrange a resupply mission in 1588. They expected White to return the following year, but the Anglo–Spanish War delayed his return until 1590, by which time he found the Roanoke settlement dismantled, abandoned, and surrounded by fortifications. White discovered the word "CROATOAN" carved into a post of the village palisade, but was unable to follow this lead, as poor weather forced a search of the island to be hastily abandoned. Subsequent investigations into the area were limited, and frustrated by storms and the dangerous waters of the Outer Banks.
In 1612, William Strachey wrote that the Lost Colonists and the Chesepians were slaughtered by the Powhatan tribe shortly before the founding of Jamestown in 1607. According to this account, the Powhatan leader Wahunsenacawh was warned by his priests about a nation that would one day arise from the Chesapeake Bay to threaten his tribe, and therefore the massacre was carried out to avert the prophecy. Strachey reported that seven surviving colonists – four men, two boys, and a young woman – fled up the Chowan River, where they were captured by another tribe and kept in a place called "Ritanoe" to beat copper. Strachey's theory was widely accepted in the mid-to-late 20th century, although historians have since questioned the objectivity of his sources and his agenda against Wahunsenacawh. In any event, the details of Strachey's account would not have been easily familiar to most Americans in the 1930s.
The story of the Lost Colony became popular in the United States following several dramatic accounts published in the 1830s. Eleanor Dare's daughter, Virginia Dare, who was the first child born in an English colony in the New World, became an iconic figure, and celebrations of her birthday became a major North Carolina tourist attraction. In 1937, a Paul Green play, The Lost Colony, debuted on Roanoke Island. President Franklin D. Roosevelt attended a performance on Virginia Dare's 350th birthday.