And now I will tell you, as Master Hunt told me, the story of this lost colony of Roanoke, which the London Company had commanded Captain Newport to find.
You must know that English people had lived in this land of Virginia before we came here in 1606, and while it does not concern us of Jamestown, except as we are interested in knowing the fate of our countrymen, it should be set down, lest we so far forget as to say that those of us who have built this village are the first settlers in the land.
THE STORY OF ROANOKE
Twenty-one years before we sailed from London, Sir Walter Raleigh sent out a fleet of seven ships, carrying one hundred and seven persons, to Virginia, and Master Ralph Lane was named as the governor. They landed on Roanoke Island; but because the Indians threatened them, and because just at that time when they were most frightened, Sir Francis Drake came by with his fleet, they all went home, not daring to stay any longer.
Two years after that, which is to say nineteen years before we of Jamestown came here, Sir Walter Raleigh sent over one hundred and sixteen people, among whom were men, women and children, and they also began to build a town on Roanoke Island.
John White was their governor, and very shortly after they came to Roanoke, his daughter, Mistress Ananias Dare, had a little baby girl, the first white child to be born in the new world, so they named her Virginia.
Now these people, like ourselves, were soon sorely in need of food, and they coaxed Governor John White to go back to England, to get what would be needed until they could gather a harvest.
At the time he arrived at London, England was at war with the Spanish people, and it was two years before he found a chance to get back. When he finally arrived at Roanoke Island, there were no signs of any of his people to be found, except that on the tree was cut the word "Croatan," which is the name of an Indian village on the island nearby.
That was the last ever heard of all those hundred and sixteen people. Five different times Sir Walter Raleigh sent out men for the missing ones; but no traces could be found, not even at Croatan, and no one knows whether they were killed by the Indians, or wandered off into the wilderness where they were lost forever.