The Dare Stones: Hoax or history?

North Carolina, like all the states, has its share of historical mysteries. The Tar Heel State’s oldest mystery concerns the fate of what would become known as “The Lost Colony of Roanoke.”
Briefly the story goes like this:
About 400 years ago, Sir Walter Raleigh persuaded Queen Elizabeth I to allow him to plant a colony in the New World. Raleigh got things organized and  a group of 112 men, women and children were put ashore in 1587 on Roanoke Island, just inside North Carolina’s Outer Banks.
Raleigh, who stayed in England, called the whole area “Virginia,” in honor of the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth.
The colonists were supposed to be placed in the Chesapeake Bay where the water is deeper. Problems arise and the colonists plead with their Governor John White, to return to England, explain the situation to Raleigh, get more supplies, people, etc., and come back.
Before the governor departs, his daughter Eleanor and her husband, Ananias Dare, give birth (on Aug. 18, 1587) to a girl, whom they name “Virginia.” She is the first child of English parents born in what becomes the United States.
Governor White reluctantly goes back to England where he is detained and delayed due to the war with Spain. It is about three years before he returns to Roanoke.
He finds the site of the settlement abandoned, but a message carved in a tree hints that the settlers have gone to live with the friendly Hatteras Indians.
White has no time to search for them as a hurricane is approaching, and his damaged ship barely get back to England.
He dies years later, ever wondering what happened to his granddaughter, daughter, son-in-law and the other colonists.
What really happened to the colonists after Gov. White’s departure? Several theories have been advanced:
+ That the colonists despairing of White’s return built a ship and tried to make it back to England.
+ That the Spanish, at war with England, decided to conduct a raid on what they believed was their territory.
+ That local Native Americans, tired of having to feed the colonists, attacked them.
+ That a hurricane hit the island, killing most of the settlers.
+ That the settlers went to live with friendly Indians. This is the ending to the play that Paul Green, a Pulitzer Prize winner, used in his outdoor drama, “The Lost Colony.” Most likely it is also the ending that most people want to believe. Many of North Carolina’s Lumbees believe they are descended, in part, from the lost colonists. Recent breakthroughs in DNA research may one day verify or deny their claim.
Another variation of this is that the colonists moved northward toward the Chesapeake Bay (where they were supposed to have been instead of at Roanoke) and that they were slaughtered there during intertribal fighting. Some historians believe that some of the colonists went to live among what became the Lumbee and some may have gone to the Chesapeake.
+++
On the 350th anniversary of the colony, Green’s drama was slated to be performed at Manteo, on Roanoke Island, near the actual site of the colony.
The first “Dare Stone” turned up in August 1937, near the Chowan River, near Edenton, N.C., some 65 miles west of Roanoke Island. The discoverer was a Mr. L.E. Hammond, of California, who sold the stone for $1,500 — no small amount during the Great Depression — to Dr. Haywood Pearce of Emory University in Atlanta.
Needless to say, the stone’s discovery was a media sensation. Harvard’s Dr. Samuel Eliot Morrison, perhaps the most respected historian in America, authenticated the stone.
It seemed as if clues to the solution of the very mystery the drama was about had turned up.
“What a coincidence!” some thought. “Maybe way too much of a coincidence,” others thought. Was the stone authentic?
Then over the next three years about 40 more stones were “discovered.”
It strains credibility that such a number of authentic messages were found at such a convenience, and most historians have dismissed the stones as a hoax.
But could some, or even one, of the stones have been a message from the colonists?
Perhaps there are techniques available now that were not available in the 1930s and the authenticity of the Dare Stones can be determined.
The Dare Stones can still be seen; they are stored at Brenau University in Gainesville, Ga., about a four-hour drive from Statesville.