Program of exercises for North Carolina Day

              ' PROGRAM OF EXERCISES
FOR
NORTH CAROLINA DAY
RALEIGH, N. C.
Kdwards & Broughton, and E. M. Uzzrxl,, State Printers
Prkssks of Edwards & Broughtok
I 901
State of North Carolina
Office of
Superintendent of Public Instruction
• Raleigh
«. «.
^7"* II IS pamphlet is sent out to the public schools with the hope that
Vi^ it will inspire and assist in a fitting celebration of North Carolina
Day in the public schools of the State
I desire to thank the North Carolina Historical and Literary Society.
the North Carolina Society of the Daughters of the Revolution, and
Col. Fred. 'A Olds, for valuable aid and material in the preparation of
the program. •
T. F." TOON,
Supt. Public Instruction.
Raleigh, N. C, Sept. 23, 1901.-
UM?
North Carolina Day
SUBJECT: FIRST ANQLO-SAXON SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA.
PROGRAM OF EXERCISES
1. SONG—Our Fathers' God, bo Thee.
2. Reading—Sketch of Sir Walter Raleigh, the Father of Anglo-Saxon
Colonization in America.
3. Declamation—Sir Walter Raleigh and Virginia Dare-
By Jos. W. Holden.
4. Reading—Sketch of the Landing.
From Hawks' History.
5., SONG—" Ho! for Carolina."—W. B. Harrell.
6.. Sketch of the Settlement op Roanoke Island—
By Graham Dave?.
From N. C. Booklet.
7. Recitation or (Reading).
(a) The Mystery of Croatan
—
By Margaret J. Preston.
(b) Roanoke Island
—
ByFred.A.Olds.
8. Address by Local Orator.
9. Recitation—Poem, " My Native State"—By H. J. Stockard.
10. General Discussion.
Topics—(a) Are the Croatan Indians the Lost Colony?
(b) Why Did the Attempt to Colonize North Carolina
Fail?
11. Song—In Conclusion—" The Old North State"—By Gaston.
Sir Walter Raleigh—By Henry Jerome Stockard.
OUR FATHERS' GOD, TO THEE.
M.aj. Graham Davos suggests as opening hymn the follow-ing,
in place of "My Country, 'Tis of Thee":
J
Our fathers' God, to Thee,
Author of Liberty,
To Thee we sing:
Long may our land be bright
With freedom's holy light,
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God our King.
(2)
Bless Thou our native land,
Firm may she ever stand,
Through storm and nighI ;
When the wild tempests rave;
Ruler of wind and wave,
Do Thou our country save,
Great God our King.
(3)
For her our prayer shall -rise
To God, above the skies
;
On Him we wait
;
Thou who art ever nigh,
Guarding with watchful eye,
To Thee aloud we cry,
God save the State.
SKETCH OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
A great English "poet (the contemporary and friend of Ra
leigh) has said that " 'tis not in mortals to command success,
but they do more who deserve it." Sir Walter Raleigh de-served
success, and therefore all North Carolinians should
know the story of his life.
He was born in the year 1552, and came of a good family.
There were as many as thirteen different ways of spelling
his surname. The form most commonly used is "Raleigh,"
but Sir Walter himself wrote it "Ralegh." The place of hib
birth was the parish of Budleigh, in the county of Devon.
This county is famous as the home of many other great ex-plorers
who lived in the days of Queen Elizabeth, among
whom were Sir Francis Drake, Sir Humphrey Gilbert (Ra-leigh's
half-brother) and Sir John Hawkins. Another great
navigator, Sir Richard Grenville, was born in the adjoining
county of Cornwall. It was the last-mentioned who gave the
name of "the Cape of Eeare" to a dangerous point on our
coast, now called Cape Fear, where he came near being ship-wrecked
in 1585.
Sir Walter Raleigh received his education both at home
and abroad. In 1568 he was a student at the English Uni-versity
of Oxford; and in the year following attended the
University of France. Before completing his studies in the
last-named institution, he left it and began his military life
as a volunteer in aid of the French Protestants (called Hugue-nots),
who were then engaged in a religious war with the
Roman Catholics. He later served under the Prince of
Orange against the Spaniards. On his return to England
he found that the Queen had given leave to Sir Humphrey
Gilbert to establish a settlement in America. Raleigh be
came a promoter of this plan, and the little fleet set sail in
1579, but met with ill-fortune. One of the ships was
wrecked, and the others were crippled in a fight with the
Spaniards, so they had to return without having found land.
A little later, Raleigh aided in quelling an insurrection in
Ireland, and won great fame by his bravery.
There is a very pretty story (whether true or not we do not
know) about an adventure of Sir Walter after his return
from Ireland. It is said that one day he saw Queen Eliza
beth coming for a walk with some of the lords and ladies of
her court, when a small puddle of water lay directly in front
of her. Seeing this, Raleigh immediately took off a hand
some cloak which he wore and lay it over the puddle ; or, as
an old rhyme says
—
'* Threw his cloak before the Queen
To keep her dainty slippers clean."
Whether this piece of gallantry was the secret of his suc-cess
we can not tell, but he soon rose to high favor with Eliza
beth, who employed him in many matters of importance.
He soon used his influence to start another expedition to
America, in 1583, and intended going with it, but sickness
prevented, so it Avas intrusted to Sir Humphrey Gilbert.
Though Gilbert's fleet reached what is now a part of Canada
(which he took forcible possession of by expelling other
Europeans), he never lived to enjoy his triumph, for his ship,
the Squirrel, foundered on the return trip and he was
drowned. Though greatly attached to his brother, Raleigh
was not discouraged by Gilbert's death. In 1584 he fitted
up two vessels for further discovery. These were commanded
by Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlow, and were the first to
explore the coast of ]STorth Carolina, which they reached in
July. They carried back to England such glowing accounts
of the 4 new country that the "Virgin Queen," as Elizabeth
was styled, -called it Virginia, after herself, and made Raleigh
8
a knight. He was also made "Governor of Virginia." In
later years, when America was divided into colonies, "Vir-ginia"
was the name given to the colony just north of the
place of the first settlement. In 1585 another fleet went
forth on an errand of discovery. In this expedition were
Sir Richard Grenville and Sir Ralph Lane. These captains
having quarreled, Grenville returned after landing the colo-nists,
and Lane remained to form a settlement. Grenville
promised to return with supplies, but was prevented from
so doing, and the colonists abandoned America and returned
to England in 1586, in one of Sir Francis Drake's ships.
Scarcely had the colonists left Roanoke when Grenville and
his supply ships landed at the abandoned settlement. Leav-ing
fifteen men on the island, Grenville went back to Eng-land.
Still another expedition was sent out by Raleigh, in
1587, commanded by John White. The settlers having se-lected
their place of abode on the Island of Roanoke, White
went back to England for supplies, but could not at once bring
them as all English ships were needed to fight the Spanish
Armada. In 1590, however, White got back to Roanoke,
only to find that the colony had disappeared. Among the
persons thus lost was Eleanor Dare (wife of a colonist and a
daughter of White) and her little daughter Virginia Dare,
the first English child born in the new world.
With the disastrous end of his colonies on Roanoke Island,
Raleigh's ventures in JSTorth America ended. Upon the
Spanish possessions in South America, however, he made sev-eral
descents, and on one occasion sailed up the Orinoco and
laid the town of St. Thomas in ashes. On this occasion Ra-leigh
accompanied the expedition, and his son was killed. As
St. Thomas was destroyed in time of peace, Raleigh was
committed to the Tower on his return to England. Having
been convicted, he was beheaded on the 29th of October, 1618.
As a poet and historian, Raleigh takes high rank, and he
held mauy important civil posts. He was also Captain of one
of the vessels which fought the Spanish Armada in 1588.
Two articles, before unknown in Europe, were introduced
into Great Britain by Raleigh, viz., tobacco and potatoes.
The first potatoes planted wTere set out on his estate in Ire-land,
and the climate was so favorable that they are called
Irish potatoes. More than once they have saved that country
from famine, and this alone should place the name of Sir
Walter Raleigh high on the roll of the benefactors of man-kind.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND VIRGINIA
DARE.
The name of the city of Raleigh awakens a long train of
far-reaching associations. It summons from the placid deeps
of the past the memory of a grand and gallant hero, the
towering shade and central figure of England's golden Eliza-bethan
age ; it evokes, in quiet majesty, the form of Sir
Walter Raleigh, the statesman and soldier, the sailor and
courtier, the poet and philosopher, the chemist and historian,
and the martyr in the cause of human freedom. On him, it
was once said, the Old World gazed as a star ; while from the
New, where crystal cliffs of Mt. Raleigh, amid the solitudes
of arctic seas, shimmer beneath the aurora's rays, the reflection
of his fame flashed back! flashed over old ocean's wrinkled
wastes three centuries ago, when the keels of his intrepid fleet
first cleft the inland waters of the hemisphere which we now
inhabit.
Here, too, on the soil of North Carolina, he built a monu-ment
of enduring fame, for here he planted the new home ~-£
the Anglo-Saxon race ; and here, among the vines and flowers
of our Eastern shore, where the breath of spring is filled as
of old with the perfume of blossoms, and the cool forests are
still made harmonious with the carols of innumerable birds,
in a land whose loveliness fires the imagination and enchants
the heart, he laid the foundation of a colony destined by lofty
fate to imperishable renown, and gave to it, the island city of
his hopes in those distant years, the glorious name which has
been so often uttered here, the name of the City of Raleigh.
Let us, then, for a moment, roll back the chilling tide of
the fast-flowing decades, and listen, amid the rising notes of
triumph over toils forgotten and sufferings ended, to the
11
weird story of the fate of our scarce-remembered mother city.
Et was a lonely settlement on a wild and stormy coast, the sole
habitation of civilized man from the circle of the Hesperidcs
to the Pole. One hundred and fifty persons made up its de-voted
band of pioneers, who had faced the terrors of ocean, the
invisible fevers of the land, the starvation of the wilderness
and the implacable malice of treacherous foes ; and who,
finally, faced an unknown and mysterious doom, whence no
record has been rescued from the tombs of eternity. By the
spell of this story the words of the historian have ever thrilled
into tender and mournful harmony, for into the midst of that
unhappy city there came one whose name has grown into a
household word—a babe, the first sweet lily infant of our
English mother born on American soil, a heavenly gift, a
merciful memory from the skies ! Virginia Dare, the first-born
citizen of the first city of Raleigh, the first free-born
citizen of a land consecrated to freedom forevermore
!
Joseph W. Holden.
VIRGINIA DARE.
On the eastern shore of North Carolina, in the shallow
sounds enclosed by long sand-hanks which bound the coast,
lies a little island twelve miles long and three miles broad.
This is Roanoke—the scene of the first English settlement
in this country, and the birth-place of Virginia Dare, the first
English child born in America.
How much of romance, and yet more of history—"a ro-mance
of the real"—clusters around the sad story of this
young girl ! Out of the unfortunate expeditions, of which
she, in some sense, may be said to have been the first fruits,
grew the schemes of colonization at Jamestown and at Ply-mouth
a score of years later. The seed were sown at Roan-oke,
were fertilized by the sacrifice of the settlers there,
but took enduring root first at Jamestown.
Associated with the humble and almost unknown colonists
of Roanoke are the names : Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen
;
Raleigh, the preux chevalier, soldier, statesman, poet, histo-rian
; Sir Richard Grenville, sailor, soldier and martyr; Sir
Francis Drake, Admiral and circumnavigator of the globe.
Truly our little Virginia Dare was in goodly company.
Of chroniclers, too, she, her companions and their acts had
no lack.
There were Arthur Barlowe, who commanded a ship in the
first expedition ; Lane, the governor of the first colonists
John White, governor of the second colonists, the grandfather
of Virginia Dare, whom she was destined to seek in sorrow
and never find. Their accounts, and those of others also, are
full and their stories well told. They are still on record,
and have been published by the Hakluyt Society. It is a
noteworthy fact that the history of these colonies which came
13
to naught, and of a locality now so little known, should be so
fully recorded and preserved in every detail-1-much more so
khan that of other localities of far greater importance, now
of much prominence, whose origin and early history arc often
obscure and uncertain—sometimes almost unknown.
It was in a stirring era, too, in the history of the world,
and one of romantic incident and adventure, that the little
waif, Virginia Dare, first saw its light. The dreaded Span-ish
Armada—foiled in part by Drake and Raleigh, so in-timately
connected with the colonists of Roanoke—was pre-paring
for its descent upon the coasts of Britain ; the ap-peals
and groans of the Christian martyrs wl\o twenty years
before perished for their faith at the stake at Smithfield,
Oxford and elsewhere, still echoed through the land ; Bacon
and Shakespeare, all unconscious of their future fame, were
in their lusty youth ;
aThe Faery Queen" was taking shape
in the prolific brain of Spencer ; Sir Philip Sidney was
soon to die at Zutphen; Frobisher had returned from his
Arctic discoveries, and Drake from his voyage around the
world ; the horrible butcheries of the Duke of Alva in the
Low Countries, and the massacres of St. Bartholomew at
Paris, had heightened religious enmity to the fiercest inten-sity,
to which the good Prince of Orange was soon to for-feit
his life, a murdered victim ; and the lovely Queen of
Scots was ere long to lay her beautiful head upon the block
in expiation of the plottings and sins of others, of whom
she was the tool—perhaps the willing tool.
The Anglo-Saxon and the Spaniard were entering upon
the long struggle for supremacy at sea and upon the conti-nent,
which may be said to have been ended by ourselves
but a short time ago, after more than three hundred years,
by the expulsion of the latter from Cuba and other West
Indies. Surely little Virginia was born in troublous times,
and her sad fate was not the least pathetic incident of th^fe
stormy period.
There were two expeditions to Roanoke before the birth
14
there in 1587 of Virginia Dare, some account of which may
be of interest. The first was one of discovery and explora-tion
only. It consisted of two small ships, the "Tyger" and
the "Admiral!/' commanded by Captains Philip Amadas
and Arthur Barlowe, to the latter of whom we owe the ac-count
of the voyage and of its results. He says to Sir Wal-ter
Raleigh
:
*'The 27th of April, in the yere of our redemption 1584,
we departed the West of England with two barkes well fur-nished
with men and victuals. * * * The 10th of June
we were fallen with the Islands of the West Indies. * * *
The 2d of July we found shole water, wher we smelt so
sweet and so strong a smel, as if we had been in the midst
of some delicate garden abounding with odoriferous flowers,
by which we were assured that the land could not be fane
distant."
•x- * * /'The 4th of July we arrived upon the coast,
which we supposed to be a continent, and we sayled along the
same 120 miles before we could find any entrance, or river
issuing into the sea. The first that appeared unto us we en-tered,
and cast anker about three harquebuz-shot within the
haven's mouth: and after thanks given to God for our safe
arrivall thither, we manned our boats, and went to view the
land next adjoining and to take possession of the same in
right of the Queen's most excellent Majestie. * * * Wee
came to an island which they call Roanoke, distant seven
leagues from the harbor by which we entered: and at the
north end thereof was a village of nine houses, built of Cedar
and fortified round about with sharp trees. * * * We were
entertained with all love and kindness, and with as much
bounty as they could possibly devise. We found the people
most gentle, loving and faithful, voide of all guile and trea-son,
and such as live after the manner of the golden age."
A handsome tribute to our Hatteras Indians, who after-wards,
probably, had not much cause to return the compli-ment.
15
These Indians differed in no way from the other natives of
America, except tjiat they had a few iron implements, and
that among them were noticed children with auburn and
chestnut-colored hair. It was learned later that twenty-six
years before this time, a ship manned by white men had been
cast away at Secotan, and that some of the crew had been
saved. After a time these men attempted to escape in a small
boat, and were drowned. These were the only whites ever seen
before the arrival of the English—but some six years after
this time another vessel had been wrecked on this coast, and
sill the crew perished. From parts of this wreck driven ashore
the natives had obtained nails, spikes and edged tools. But
for this explanation, this presence of iron would have per-plexed
the archaeologist. The account of the natives, their
kindness and hospitality, of their easy life, and of the abun-dance
of fruit and grain, fish and game in these inland
waters is familiar to us all. Like all natives, they longed
to purchase the swords and knives of the white men, but above
all, thev desired to obtain the kettles and pans to use as shields
in battle. The King's brother was most kind, repaying the
English liberally in melons and fruit, and each day he sent
to the new-comers presents of "fat-backs," conies, hares and
fish.
They visited the Indian village on Hoanoke. aWhen we
came towards it/' the record runs, "standing near unto the
water's side the wife of Granganimeo, the King's brother,
came running out to meet us very cheerfully and friendly
—
her husband was not then in the village. Some of her peo-ple
she commanded to draw our boat on shore for the beating
of the billow: others she commanded to carry us on their
hacks to dry ground ; and others to bring our oars to the
house for fear of stealing. When we were come to the outer
room, having five rooms to her house, she caused us to sit
down by a great fire, and after took our clothes and washed
them, and dried them again, some of the women washed our
16
feet in warm water, and she herself took great pains to see
all things ordered in the best manner she could."
The adventurers remained in that region about two months
and made many explorations. In September they returned to
England, taking with them two of the Indian Chiefs, Manteo,
who ever remained the faithful friend of the English, and
Wanchese. Their names are retained as the names of two
villages on Roanoke Island to-day. Their arrival home,
and the glowing account the adventurers gave of their dis-coveries
aroused the utmost interest. The new-found coun-try
was called Virginia, in honor of the "Virgin Queen," and
the Atlantic Coast of North America was divided into three
regions, with boundaries very ill-defined, claimed by France,
England and Spain, and called Canada, Virginia and Flor-ida.
A large part of Virginia, which included Roanoke
Island, was afterwards, by the patent of Charles I. to Sir
Robert Heath in 1629, and by the charters of Charles II. in
1663 and 1665 to the "Lords Proprietors," set of! as Caro-lina,
so named from the Latin name, Carolus, of the two
Kings. The name, therefore, Virgina, first applied to Roau-oke
Island and the parts adjacent, originated in what is now
North Carolina, and if Virginia be, as she is often called, the
"Mother of States," North Carolina may be said to be her
own grandmother
!
The next year (1585). a large expedition, under command
of Sir Richard Grenville, a cousin of Raleigh's, was fitted
out. There were seven "ships" in the fleet—if the small
crafts composing it can be so called, the largest of them be-ing
of "seven score tunnes" burden—which carried 108 men
who were to be settled in a permanent colony on Roanoke
Island. The fleet sailed from Plymouth on the 9th of April,
1585, and on July 3d Wingina, the Indian Chief, was noti-fied
of its arrival at Roanoke. Manteo and Wanchese re-turned
with this fleet.
On August 25th Sir Richard Grenville, "Our Generall,
weyed anker, and set sails for England." On his return the
IT
colony was left in charge of "Master Ralph Lane/' and with
him was "Master Philip Amadas, Admiral of the Country,"
who had commanded one of the ships in the first expedition.
The Dames of the colonists are all known, a list of which may
be seen in Vol. I of llawkes' History of North Carolina.
These colonists founded a village near the north end of the
island, and constructed a fort, principally an earthwork,
called by Lane "The new fort in Virginia." The outlines,
ditch and parapet of this fort are still perfectly distinct, and
its angles and sally-port are now marked with granite blocks.
It is now, and has been for a long time, appropriately called
"Fort Raleigh."
Lane has left a most interesting account of the doings of
his colonists during their stay on Roanoke Island, and of his
own explorations. They remained there but one year, hav-ing
become home-sick, discouraged and disheartened, and
sailed in June, 1586, on the fleet of Sir Francis Drake for
England, where they arrived on the 27th of July. They had
scarcely gotten out of sight of the island when a ship dis-patched
by Raleigh, freighted with provisions and supplies
of all kinds, arrived there, and, finding no one, wTent back to
England. About a fortnight later Sir Richard Grenville ar-rived
with three ships similarly equipped. Finding the
Island abandoned, "yet unwilling to lose the possession of
the countrey," he "determined to leave some men behind to
reteine it : whereupon he landed fifteen men in the Isle of
Roanoke, furnished plentifully with all manner of provisions
for two years, and so departed for England."
Nothing daunted by the failure—a very costly one—of
this first attempt at colonization, Sir Walter equipped an-other
expedition in the year following, which, however, he
in tended to settle on the waters of the Chesapeake instead of
at Roanoke. This expedition was intrusted to the guidance
of John White, the grand f (her of Virginia Dare, who we
will let tell his own story:
North Carolina State Library
Raleigh
18
"In the yeere of our Lord 1587, Sir Walter Raleigh in-tended
to persevere in the planting of this Countrey of Vir-ginia,
prepared a newe Colonie of 150 men to be sent thither,
under the charge of John White, whom he appointed Gov
ernour, and also appointed unto him twelve Assistants, unto
whom he gave a Charter, and incorporated them by the name
of Governour and Assistants of the Citie of Raleigh in Vir-ginia.
Our Fleete being in number three saile, the Admirall
a shippe of 120 Tunnes, a Flieboat and a Pinnesse, departed
the 26th of April from Portsmouth. * * * About the 16 of
July we fel with the maine of Virginia, and bare along the
coast, where in the night, had not Captaine Stafford bene
carefull, we had all bene castaway upon the beach called the
Caps of Fere. The 22 of July we arrived at Hatorask: the
Governour went aboard the pinesse with forty of his best men,
intending to pass up to Roanok forthwith, hoping there to
finde those fifteene men which Sir Richard Grenville had
left there the yeere before. * * * The same night at sunne-sei
he went aland, and the next day walked to the north ends
of the island, where Master Ralfe Lane had his forte, with
sundry dwellings made by his men about it the yeere before,
where we hoped to find some signes of our fifteene men. We
found the forte rased downe, but all the houses standing
unhurt, saving that the nether roomes of them, and also of
the forte, were overgrown with melons, and Deere within
them feeding : so wee returned to our company, without hope
of ever seeing any of the fifteene men living." The fifteene
men, as was afterwards learned, had been massacred by the
Indians.
The colonists having landed upon the island went actively
to work to rebuild Fort Raleigh and to make homes for them-selves.
They consisted of ninety-one men, seventeen women
and nine children, the names of all of whom are preserved.
In the former colony there had been neither women nor chil-dren,
and they gave to this one a character of stability and
l
lJ
permanence that had been Jacking in the first. From a simi
larity of their names with those of the men, it would appear
that at least ten of the women were married, and for a like
reason that six of the children were with their parents.
Shortly after the arrival of the settlers there occurred two
events, or perhaps more properly three, of interest and im-portance
not merely to the little community, but in their rela-tion
to the history of this country. These events are thus
related in Hakluyt's Voyages, Vol. Ill
:
"The 13 of August our Savage Manteo was christened in
Roanoke, and called Lord thereof and -of Dasamonguepeuk,
in reward of his faithfnll service. The 18, Eleanor, daugh-ter
to the Governour, and wife to Ananias Dare, one of the
Assistants, was delivered of a daughter in Roanoke, and the
same was christened there the Sunday following, and because
this child was the first Christian born in Virginia, she was
named Virginia."
These baptisms were, so far as is known to this writer, the
first celebrations of record of a Christian Sacrament within
the territory of the thirteen original United States. The
baptism of Manteo, and his being made Lord of Roanoke,
were by order of Sir Walter Raleigh, and the latter, it is
believed, is the only instance of the conferring of a title of
nobility upon a native American. By the Indians "Elenor
Dare/' the first mother of the white race known to them, is
said to have been called, in their figurative and descriptive
way, "The White Doe," and her baby, the little Virginia,
the first white infant they had ever seen, "The White Fawn" ;
and there is a pretty tradition that "after her death her spirit
assumed that form—an elfin Fawn—which, clad in immortal
beauty, would at times be seen haunting like a tender mem-ory
the place of her birth, or gazing wistfully over the sea,
as with pathetic yearning for the far-away mother-land."
Another tradition is that in that sweet form she was slain by
her lover, a young Indian Chief, who had been told that if
2<
he shot her from ambush with a certain enchanted arrow it
would restore her to him in human form.
Soon after the birth of Virginia, her grandfather Gov-ernor
White, returned to England to obtain supplies for the
colonists
:
"The 22 of August the whole colony came to the Gov-ernour,
and with one voice requested him to return himselfe
into England, for the obtaining of supplies and other neces-saries
for them ; but he refused it, and allged many sufficient
causes why he would not. * * * At the last, through their ex-treame
intreating constrayned to return, he departed from
Roanoke the 27 of August.'7
On the 16th of October he arrived on the Irish coast, and
coining to England straightway made efforts to carry succor
to his people, but never again did he look upon the faces of
his daughter, or his granddaughter, or of any of their com-panions.
England was in the midst of her bitter contest with
Spain and the Invincible Armada, and had sore need at
home for every man and ship. There was neither time nor
means to be devoted to an obscure little company thousands
of leagues away in an unknown land beyond the stormy
Atlantic. Three years elapsed before White returned to
Roanoke, and when he came he found it deserted, and the set-tlers
gone—whither ? No one was left to tell, and their fate
was enshrouded, and will ever remain, in mystery pathetic.
The dead past will not give up its dead. Let White himself
tell the sad story:
"The 20 of March the three shippes, the Hopewell, the
John Evangelist, and the Little John, put to sea from Ply-mouth.
* * * The 15 of August we came to an anker at
Hatorask, and saw a great smoke rise in the He Roanoke
neere the place where I left our Colony in the yeere 1587.
* * * The next morning our two boats went ashore and
we saw another great smoke ; but when we came to it we
found no man nor signe that any had been there lately."
21
When White left Roanoke to return to England for sup-plies,
it had been agreed that in case the colonists left the
island in his absence, they should leave some sign to indicate
whither they had gone, and if their leaving was under duress,
or in distress, the sign of the cross should also be affixed,
thus X.
White continues : "'The 17 of August our boats were pre-pared
againe to go up to Roanoke. * * * Toward the north
ende of the island we espied the light of a great fire thorovv
the woods : When we came right over against it we sounded
with a trumpet a Call, and afterwards many familiar Eng-lish
tunes and Songs, and called to them friendly ; but we
had no answer ; we therefore landed and coming to the fire
we found the grasse and sundrv rotten trees burning about
the place. * * * As we entered up the sandy banke, upon
a tree in the very browe thereof were curiously carved these
faire Roman letters, C. R. O., which letters we knew to sig-nifie
the place where I should find the planters seated, ac-cording
to a secret token agreed upon betweene them and
me, at my last departure from them, which was that they
should not faile to write or carve on the trees, or postes of the
dores, the name of the place where they should be seated ; and
if they should be distressed, that then they should carve over
the letters a Cross in this form X, but we found no such sign
of distresse. We found the houses taken downe and the
place strongly enclosed with a high palisado of great trees,
with cortynes and flankers very Fortlike, and one of the chief
trees at the right side of the entrance had the barke taken off,
and. five foot from the ground, in fayre Capitall letters, was
graven CROATOAN, without any crosse or sign of distress."
The colonists had evidently gone to Croatan, as we now
have the word, the home of Manteo, the friendly Chief, the
banks and islands of our coast, extending from Hatteras to
Beaufort harbor; but none of them was ever seen of white
men again. They "died and made no sign ;" though it Is
22
believed by many, and with considerable reason, that their
descendants may still be found among the Croatan, or, more
properly, Hatteras, Indians of Robeson County. White does
not explain satisfactorily why he did not seek his daughter
at Croatan, which was not very far away. He says
:
"The season was so unfit, and weather so foule, that we
were constrayned of ^force to forsake that coast, having not
seene any of our planters, with losse of one of our ship-boats,
and seven of our chiefest men. * * * The 24 of October we
came in safetie, God be thanked, to an anker at Plymouth.
* * * Thus committing the reliefe of my discomfortable
company, the planters in Virginia, to the merciful help of
the Almighty, whom I most humbly beseech to helpe and
comfort them, according to His most holy will and their good
desire, I take my leave."
Raleigh himself had never visited our shores, where in
failure and disaster had ended all his efforts at settlement
in this land, and where his unfortunate colonists passed from
the domain of history into the .domain of the unknown.
And little Virginia Dare, what of her ? Did she die -n
infancy, and does her dust, mingled with the soil of her birth-place,
blossom there into flowers that blush unseen ? Did
her little feet join in the wandering of the settlers from Roan-oke
to Croatan ? Did she grow to womanhood in their sec-ond
home, and did her life end in tragedy amid the darkness
which enshrouds the fate of the colony ? From the deep
abysm of the past comes no answer. Yet a faint echo, a
possible trace of the lost White Fawn, comes to us which may
have reference to her, and with it the record closes forever.
In his first volume of "The History of Travaile," William
Strachey, Secretary of the Jamestown Colony, writing in
1612 of the events that occurred in Virginia in 1608-'10,
says:
"At Peccarecemmek and Ochanahoen, by the relation of
Machamps, the people have howses built with stone walles,
'23
and one story above another, so taught them by those Eng-lish
who escaped the slaughter at Roanoke, at what tyme this
our Colony under the conduct of Captain Newport landed
within the Chesapeake Bay, where the people breed up tame
turkies about their howses and take apes in the mountains,
and where, at Bitanoe, the Weroance Eyanoco preserved
seven of the English alive, fower men, two boys and one
young mayde, who escaped the massacre, and fled up the river
Chanoke." (Chowan.)
This "young mayde" may well have been Virginia Dare,
who, at the time mentioned, would have been about twenty-one
years of age. The extract is of interest, also, as show-ing
that the existence, and even the location, of certain of
Raleigh's colonists were well known to the Jamestown set-tlers.
Indeed, both John Smith and Strachey make men-tion
of scattered parties of those colonists several times, and
the Virginia Company writes of some of them as "yet alive,
within fifty miles of our fort, * * * as is testified by two of
our colony sent out to searche them, who, (though denied by
the savages speech with them) found crosses * * * and assured
Testimonies of Christians newly cut in the barks of trees."
Here the veil of mystery falls around the White Fawn and
her companions, probably never to be raised.
JL
THE LANDING.
(From W. F. Payson's ,; John Vytal.")
"The landing and unlading the fly-boat was a task requir-ing
much exertion. But now that the dangers of the ocean
were past, every man, woman and child of the little colony
lent aid with a hearty will. They were in high spirits.
The mid-day sun shone down in summer warmth, the skies
were blue and cloudless. The island of Roanoke, emerald
green in all its summer verdure, seemed a veritable land of
promise. A number of the most youthful colonists ran along
the shore to prove their freedom from the confines of the
deck—ran calling to one another, and sang for sheer hap-piness.
Others, more devout, gathered about the preacher,
who offered a prayer of thanksgiving. Some, with whom
labor was at all times paramount, went busily to and fro
in the small boats and the pinnace, which had again been
manned, conveying the cargo from ship to shore. The main
body of colonists, who had arrived earlier on the Admiral,
came down with tears of joy in welcome, and a babble of
questions concerning the fly-boat's voyage. The scene was
varied. Here stood Hugh Rouse, with a great bag of salt
on his broad shoulders ; here Roger Pratt, arm in arm with
his newly-regained friend, the bear, and pointing at Rousq
with some remark to King Lud of raillery ; here Marlowe,
the poet, surveying with eager eyes the luxuriant foliage
farther inland and listening with enthrallment to the songs
of forest birds ; there Gyll Croyden running towads him joy-ously,
with a fresh-plucked nosegay of unknown, fragrant
flowers in her hand ; here Ananias Dare, overlooking a couple
of sailors who rolled a cask of wine across the beach; there
25
Simon Ferdinahdo, important with a hundred directions,
and furtive as he glanced towards Vytal ; here Governor
Wlii to, for a moment leaving the management to his Assist-ants,
and here, too, beside him his daughter Eleanor, her face
pale as if with illness. She was clasping his arm with both
hands, as though to make sure of no renewed separation.
'Father, I thank God we are once more together. The days
were very long and almost unendurable. 7 "
HO! FOR CAROLINA!
Let no heart in sorrow weep for other days
;
Let no idle dreamer tell in melting lays
Of the merry meetings in the rosy bowers
;
For there is no land on earth like this fair land of ours.
Ho! for Carolina, that's the land for me;
In her happy borders roam the brave and free
;
And her bright-eyed daughters, none can fairer be
;
Oh, it is the land of love and sweet liberty.
Down in Carolina grows the lofty pine,
And her groves and forests bear the scented vine
;
Here are peaceful homes, too, nestling 'mid the flowers
;
Oh, there is no land on earth like this fair land of ours.
Come to Carolina in the summer time,
When the luscious fruits are hanging in their prime,
And the maidens singing in their leafy bowers ;
Ob, there is no land on earth like this fair land of ours.
And her sons, so true in warp and woof and grain,
First to shed their blood on Freedom's battle-plain,
And the first to hail, from sea to mountain bowers,
Strangers from all other lands to this fair land of ours.
Then for Carolina, brave and free and strong,
Sound the meed of praises in story and in song,
From her fertile vales and lofty granite towers
:
()!i. there is no land on earth like this fair land of ours.
WlT/LTAM B. HATCRET.L
it
THE MYSTERY OF CROATAN.
(The little colony sent to Roanoke Island by Sir Walter Raleigh being
in great need of supplies, sent the Governor, John White, to England
for them. Before he sailed it was agreed that if the colony found it
necessarjr to seek another location, the name of the place to which
they had gone should be carved on a tree at the fort ; and, if they had
left in distress, a cross should be cut above the word. Governor White's
daughter, Eleanor Dare, and her little babe, Virginia Dare, recently
born to her in that wild American home, were left with the colonists
to await the return of the Governor from England. He was absent
three years. His vessel came to anchor off Roanoke Island in March,
1590, and the Governor hastened to find his child and her companions ;
but the fort was deserted, and not a trace of the colonists has ever
been discovered to this day save the single word Croatan carved on a
pine post near the fort.)
The breath of spring was on the sea
:
Anon the governor stepped
His good ship's deck right merrily
;
His promise had been kept.
"See, see ! the coast-line comes in view !"
He heard the mariners shout,
—
"'We'll drop our anchors in the sound
Before a star is out !"
"Xow, God be praised," he inly breathed,
aWho saves from all that harms
:
To-morrow morn my pretty ones
Will rest within my arms !"
At dawn of day they moored their ships,
And dared the breaker's roar.
What meant it? Not a man was there
To welcome them ashore
!
0.7
28
They sprang to find the cabins rude
;
The quick green sedge had thrown
Its knotted web o'er every door
And climbed each chimney-stone.
The spring was choked with winter's leaves,
And feebly gurgled on
;
And from the pathway strewn with wrack
All trace of feet was gone.
Their fingers thrid the matted grass,
If there perchance a mound
Unseen might heave the broken turf
;
But not a grave was found.
They beat the tangled cypress swamp,
If haply in despair
They might have strayed into its glade,
But found no vestige there.
"The pine ! the pine !" the governor groaned
;
And there each staring man
Read, in a maze, one single word
Deep carven—CRO - A - TAN !
But cut above, no cross, no sign,
No symbol of distress
;
Naught else beside that mystic line,
Within the wilderness
!
And where and what was "Cro-a-tan" ?
But not an answer came,
And none of all who read it there
Had ever heard the name
!
"Oh, daughter! daughter! with the thought
My harrowed brain is wild !
—
Up with the anchors ! I must find
The mother and the child !"
They scoured the mainland near and far
;
The search no tidings brought,
Till, 'mid a forest's dusky tribe,
They heard the name they sought.
The kindly natives came with gifts
Of corn and slaughtered deer ;
What room for savage treachery
Or foul suspicion here ?
They searched the wigwams through,
But neither lance, nor helm, nor spear.
Nor shred of child's nor woman's gear,
Could furnish forth a clew.
How could a hundred souls be caught
Straight out of life, nor find
Device through which to mark their fate,
Or leave some hint behind ?
Had winter's ocean inland rolled
An eagre's deadly spray
That overwhelmed the island's breadth
And swept them all away ?
In vain, in vain, their heart-sick search :
No tidings reached them more,
^No record save that silent word
Upon that silent shore.
The mvstery rests a mystery still,
Unsolved of mortal man
:
Sphinx-like, untold, the ages hold
The tale of ORO - A - TAN.
Margaret J. Preston.
ROANOKE ISLAND.
No spot in all this country is so full of the romance of his-tory
as Roanoke Island, on the east coast of North Carolina,
where the first English settlement within what is now the
United Stats j was made, under the auspices of knightly Sir
Walter Raleigh, and around which cluster some of the sad-dest
memories of the "Lost. Colony of Roanoke."
The centre of attraction is Fort Raleigh. Along roads
of white sand, beneath pines with which the bright green
of the holly is mingled, the way lies to the fort. To the
right, after going a little distance, rise in Ions: lines the
sand dunes, vast mounds, the creation and sport of the winds.
Looking from the top of these, one sees to the eastward the
sea, green and heaving, and the curl of its breakers, and
borne by the soft wind comes the thunder of the surf, almost
like an echo. At one's feet lies the sound, yellow as gold,
three miles in width, and so shallow that nearly the entire
distance can be waded. Looking westward, the island seems
at one's feet.
Descending from the height, the ride is resumed. Past
houses, some modern, others gray with age, the road winds.
Presently there appears a guiding hand, bearing the words
"Port Raleigh." It points eastward, and there, 100 yards
away, is the fort.
Surrounded by a fence of pine rails, with a rustic gate-way
of little, upright poles, is the ruin. In its centre stands
a severely simple marble monument, and low posts of granite,
a foot high, mark the venerable earthwork. The outlines are
perfectly plain. The greatest height of the parapet above
the ditch is some two feet. Almost an acre is enclosed by
31
the fence, and the fort covers little more than a fourth of
this area. The colonists' log lints surrounded the fort, which
was their refuge. Within the limits of the enclosure are
live-oak, pine, holly, dogwood, sassafras, water-oak and cherry
trees. Up one live-oak clambers a grape vine, and at its
foot is an English ivy. The monument, or memorial stone,
faces westward and bears this insccription
:
uOn this site in July-August, 1585, colonists sent out by
Sir Walter Raleigh built a fort called by them 'The new fort
of Virginia.' These colonists were the first settlers of the
English race in America. They returned to England in
July, 1586, with Sir Francis Drake.
"Near this place was born, on the 18th day of August,
1587, Virginia, the first child of English parents born in
America, daughter of Ananias Dare and Eleanor White,
his wife, members of another band of colonists sent out by
Sir Walter Raleigh, in 1587. On Sunday, August 20, 1587,
Virginia Dare was baptized. Manteo, the friendly chief
of the Hatteras Indians, had been baptized on the Sunday
previous. These baptisms were the first known celebrations
of the sacrament in the territories of the thirteen original
States."
The land has never been in cultivation, and to this fact is
due the marvellous preservation of the ancient earthwork.
In America 316 years seem a very great lapse of time, yet
so old is this little earthwork, which, thanks to the care of
the "'Roanoke Colony Memorial Association," is at last
marked. It is evident that the fort was made of two rows
<>f upright palisades, or logs, between which there was earth.
The palisades soon decayed, but the earth retains its outline
perfectly.
It is well to turn back the hand of time's dial-plate and
see the first impressions of this island. Amadas and Bar-lowe
were the pioneers, and Barlowe tells the story in his
quaint old English:
32
"Ye 27th day of Aprile, in ye yere of our Redemption^
1584, departed ye west of England with two barks well fur-nished
with men and victuals. Ye 10th of June we were
fallen with ye islands of ye West Indies. On ye 12th day
of July wee found shole water, where we smelt so sweet and
strong a smel as if we had been in ye midst of some delicate
garden abounding with oderiferous flowers, by which we were
assured ye land could not be farre distant. Keeping good
watch, and bearing but slacke sail, ye 4th of July we arrived
upon ye coast which wee supposed to be a continent, and we
sailed along ye same 120 miles before we could find any en-trance
or river issuing into ye sea. Ye first that appeared
unto us wee entered and cast anchor about three harquebus
shots within ye haven's mouth, and, after thanks given to
God for onr safe arrival thither, wee manned our boats and
went to view ye land next adjoining, and take possession of
ye same in right of ye Queen's most excellent majestic
Wee viewed the land about us, being whereas we first landed
very sandie and low toward ye water side, but so full of
grapes as ye very beating and surge of ye sea overflowed
them, we found such plenty, both on ye sand and on ye green
soil of ye hills, as well as on every shrubbe and ye tops of
ye high cedars, that I think in all ye world ye like abundance
is not to bee found."
The colony, planted in 1585, was not revisited until 1590.
Governor White tells the pitiful story of the "Lost Colony
of Roanoke." His expedition, when it came near the island,
"sounded with a trumpet a call, and, afterward, many famil-iar
English tunes and songs, and called to them friendly, but
we had no answer." On a tree on the very brow of the sandy
bank were the letters, "CRO." "At the fort," says White,
"we found the houses were taken down, and the place strongly
inclosed with a high palisade of great trees, with cortynes
and flankers, very fort-like, and one of the chief trees at the
richt side of the entrance had the bark taken off and five
33
foote from the ground in fayre capital letters was graven
'CROATAN,' without any cross or sign of distress." White
returned to England, leaving the great mystery unsolved.
Time seems to have solved it. Croatan was on the main-land,
in what is now Tyrrell County. There the colonists
seem to have gone with, or to have been taken by, the Indians.
Thence, after the lapse of many years, they appear to have
gone to what is now Robeson County. There are many
names among the Croatan Indians of Robeson which are on
the roll of White's colonists, and the Croatans use daily
many old English words, long obsolete in the mother country.
Fred. A. Olds.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
(Read by the author before the State Literary and Historical Associa-tion.
October 22. 1901.)
He is not the greatest who with pick and spade
Makes excavations for some splendid fane,
Nor he who lays with trowel, plumb, and line
Upon the eternal rock its base of stone:
Nor is he greatest who lifts slow its walls,
Flutes its white pillars, runs its architrave
And frieze and cornice, sets its pictured panes,
And points its airy minarets with gold:
Nor he who peoples angle, niche, and aisle
With sculptured angels, and with symbol graves
Column and arch and nave and gallery:
—
These are but delvers, masons, artisans,
Each working out his part of that vast plan
Projected in the master-builder's brain.
And he who wakes the organ's soulful tones,
Faint, far away, like those that haply steal
—
The first notes of the song of the redeemed
—
From out the spirit world to dying ears;
Or rouses it in lamentations wild
Of Calvary, or moves its inmost deeps
With sobs and cryings unassuaged that touch
The heart to tears for unforgiven sin,
—
He voices but the echo of that hymn
Whose surges shook the great composer's souL
Bold admirals of the vast high-seas of dream
With neither chart nor azimuth nor star,
That push your prows into the mighty trades
35
And ocean-streams toward continents unknown ;
Brave pioneers that slowly blaze your way
And set your cairns, for peoples yet unborn,
Upon imagination's dim frontiers,
—
Ye are the makers, rulers of the world
!
And so this splendid land to sunward laid,
With opulent fields and many a winding stream
And virgin wood ; with stores of gems and veins
Of richest ore ; with mills and thronging marts,
The domain of the freest of the free,
—
'Tis but the substance of his dream,—the pure
The true, the generous knight who marked its bounds
With liberal hand by interfusing seas.
What though no sage may read the riddle dark
Of Croatan, diffused through marsh and waste
And solitude ? Their valor did not die,
But is incorporate in our civic life.
They were of those who fought at Bannockburn
;
Their vital spirits spake at Mecklenburg
;
They rose at Alamance, at Bethel led,
And at Cardenas steered through blinding shells.
They live to-day and shall forever live,
Lifting mankind toward freedom and toward God !
And he still lives, the courteous and the brave,
Whose life went out in seeming dark defeat.
The Tower held not his princely spirit immured
:
Within those narrow dungeon walls he trod
Kingdoms unlimited by earthly zones.
Nor does the dismal grave hold him in thrall,
But through its portals passed he unafraid
To an inheritance beyond decay
Stored in the love and gratitude of man.
He lives in our fair city, noble state,
3tf
Puissant land,—in all each hopes to be.
He was the impulse to these later deeds.
He lives in fateful words and splendid dreams,
In strenuous actions and in high careers.
An inspiration unto loftier things.
Upon the scheme of ages man shall find
Success oft failure, failure oft success,
When he shall read the record of the years
!
Henry Jerome Stockard.
Raleioh, K 0., October 11, 1901.
MY NATIVE STATE.
I love thee, fairest of all lands, my home,
From lonely Hatteras where the breakers comb
To where in heaven stands thy sombre Dome,
North Carolina!
The world is loath to give thee what is just
;
Upon thy bosom sleeps, nnmourned, the dust
That should be held a nation's sacred trust,
North Carolina!
When others faltered, yearning to be free,
Who then first dared to strike, for liberty,
A foe whose empire stretched o'er every sea V
North Carolina
!
Were I as loud-voiced as Euroclydon,
I'd tell to earth's far ends in thunder tone
That others wear the laurels thou hast won.
North Carolina
For men to mock thee sets my soul on fire
!
Who would deride thee would deride the sire
That gives him food and shelter and attire,
North Carolina!
Till wizened Time shall pen his latest dates,
Long as the sea chafes at thy morning gates,
Thy valiant deeds shall live, thou State of States,
North Carolina
!
Henry Jerome Stockard.
THE OLD NORTH STATE FOREVER.
Carolina! Carolina! Heaven's blessings attend her!
While we live we will cherish, protect and defend her,
Though the scorner may sneer at and witlings defame her,
Onr hearts swell with gladness whenever we name her.
Hurrah ! Hurrah ! the Old North State forever!
Hurrah! Hurrah! the good Old North State!
Though she envies not others their merited glory,
Yet her name stands the foremost in liberty's story
!
Though too true to herself e'er to crouch to oppression,
None e'er yields to just rule more loyal submission.
Hurrah ! Hurrah ! the Old North State forever
!
Hurrah ! Hurrah ! the good Old North State
!
Plain and artless her sons, but whose doors open faster
To the knock of the stranger or the tale of disaster?
How like to the rudeness of their dear native mountains,
With rich ore in their bosoms and life in their fountains.
Hurrah! Hurrah! the Old North State forever!
Hurrah ! Hurrah ! the good Old North State
!
And her daughters, the queen of our forest resembling,
So graceful, so constant, to gentlest breath trembling,
So true at their hearts when the test is applied them,
How blessed each day as we spend it beside them ! :
Hurrah! Hurrah ! the Old North State forever!
Hurrah! Hurrah! the good Old North State!
39
Then let all who love us love the land that we live in,
(As happy a region as this side of heaven),
Where Plenty and Freedom,Love and Peace smile before us-
Raise aloud, raise together, the heart-thrilling chorus
!
Hurrah ! Hurrah ! the Old North State forever
!
Hurrah! Hurrah! the good Old North State!
William Gaston.