EDENTON, NC — Sir Walter Raleigh’s Lost Colony on Dare County’s Roanoke Island is not as lost as it once was thanks to archaeological discoveries in Bertie County, North Carolina.
The excavation of ceramic ware known as “border ware,” and tobacco pipe stems from an area along the Chowan River have led archaeologists to believe it’s the site where the first English settlers in the Americas — including the first English-born child, Virginia Dare — relocated after leaving Roanoke Island.
“The only people that this can be attributed to, in our opinion, are the Roanoke colonists,” First Colony Foundation archeologist Nicholas Luccketti told a large crowd at Wednesday’s “History for Lunch” program at Museum of the Albemarle in Elizabeth City.
What happened to the colonists and why they left their settlement on Roanoke Island remains a mystery. But the discovery in Bertie is the first solid evidence that an estimated 115 people not only survived, but also found a home in the wilds of a region now known as the Albemarle.
Luccketti says while the four-centuries-old mystery is closer to a solution following the excavation of a site at the confluence of the Chowan River and Salmon Creek, the colonists are “still lost.” And while archeologists believe it’s extremely likely that the colonists moved to the Bertie site, more work is needed to confirm it.
Known as Sites X and Y, the Bertie sites were discovered thanks to a North Carolina law protecting potential historic sites, particularly in the northeastern region of the state where English settlement in North America originated. A developer with plans to break ground near the river contacted Luccketti about conducting a survey that could potentially show the area was not historically significant. A routine survey, however, uncovered evidence showing exactly the opposite — that the early European settlers had made the area their home, at least for a period.
“Something is going on here,” Luccketti said. “People are living here.”
Site X was the first of the two sites to show signs of potential early English activity. The pottery pieces and pipe stems, Luccketti said, were specific to late 16th and early 17th century settlements, but the find was not enough to declare it was a settlement.
Then came Site Y. In that dig, the team of archeologists began to unearth large deposits of pottery and pipe stems. It was the pipe stems, Luccketti said, that began to help paint a picture of a potential Lost Colony settlement.
Tobacco pipes at that time were made from clay. During the late 16th and early 17th centuries, the stems had a specific design and diameter that would not be repeated in later designs. So the fact that the stem design was found in Bertie was significant.
Luccketti explained that following the founding of the Jamestown settlement during the early 17th century, the total of number of first settlements in the Virginia colony that then also included North Carolina was 70. Archeologists were able to compare the artifact findings at the Bertie County site to findings at other first settlement sites and conclude that the Chowan River site likely was inhabited by members of the Lost Colony.
Luccketti says there is more to the story, however.
“We’re not the first people to think that the colonists relocated to Bertie County,” he said.
The first person to suggest the missing colonists had moved to Bertie was the colony’s first governor and Virginia Dare’s grandfather, John White.
When the colony was established on the north end of Roanoke Island in 1587, White was governor. He and a crew would sail back to England for supplies but upon their return, they found the colony had been abandoned and the only clue to its whereabouts was the word “Croatan” carved into a tree.
The Croatan people were native to the region, so it was believed for many years that the colonists left with them because of conflicts with rival native peoples. White, however, had reason to believe his colony had gone “50 miles into the Maine,” a reference to instructions for the colonists to head 50 miles inland if there was trouble.
The Bertie County site, Luccketti said, is roughly 50 miles inland from Roanoke Island.
White is also famous for the accurate depictions of the region on maps. Luccketti says that one such map, housed in England, had a patch indicating that something had been covered or corrected on the map. His team asked that the map be examined for clues.
The results of that examination showed that the patch covered nothing of interest, but that there was another patch on the map that had previously gone unnoticed. That patch, it turns out, suggested the location of a fort that is possibly located near where Site Y is in Bertie County.
Excavation work at Site Y will continue, Luccketti said. However, archeologists and historians are now confident that they have, after 400 years, caught up with the first English settlers on their journey through North Carolina’s wilderness.
“We think we have absolutely found evidence of Roanoke colonists in Bertie County,” he said. “But they’re still lost.”
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