THE BOUNDARY STOCKADE.
You enter Fort Raleigh National Historic Site between two small block houses built of logs, constituting a part of the boundary stockade. This stockade is of modern construction, and originally it marked the boundary of the 16.45 acre tract of the Roanoke Island Historical Association which was administered as a North Carolina State historical park between 1935-41. In 1951, one side of the stockade was relocated and the area of the national historic site was increased to 18.50 acres. Although quite modern and located along a modern boundary, it recalls that Governor White on returning to the site of the colony in 1590 found it fortified by a palisade of tree trunks (location still unknown) and hence creates a sense of stepping upon hallowed ground upon entering the gateway. The feeling is certainly justified, because the 18.50 acres lie on the entrance side of the fort and even if the fort had held only Grenville’s 15 men they would have trod this ground many times. As there were 108 persons in the first colony under Lane, who built the fort, and 150 in the “Lost Colony,” the use of the area near the entrance to this fort must have been considerable.