US History/US History (Bureau Development Inc.)(1991).ISO/dp/0032/00320.txt

Text File | 1990-12-23 | 13KB | 224 lines

$Unique_ID{USH00320}
$Pretitle{33}
$Title{Fort Raleigh
Chapter 3  Links With Jamestown and New England}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Porter, Charles W. III}
$Affiliation{National Park Service}
$Subject{fort
found
roanoke
raleigh
island
virginia
site
national
settlement
archeological}
$Volume{Handbook 130}
$Date{1985}
$Log{Fort Diagram*0032001.scf
}
Book:        Fort Raleigh
Author:      Porter, Charles W. III
Affiliation: National Park Service
Volume:      Handbook 130
Date:        1985

Chapter 3  Links With Jamestown and New England


     After the establishment of the Jamestown settlement in I 607, the
Virginia colonists constantly tried to learn from the Indians the whereabouts
of the Roanoke settlers.  However, the hearsay evidence they collected was
never sufficiently concrete to be of any real assistance in locating Raleigh's
people, and the answer to what happened to them remains a mystery to this day.

     Upon the accession of King James I in 1603, Raleigh again lost favor at
Court and in July of that year was imprisoned in the Tower of London on the
charge of having conspired to place Arabella Stuart on the throne instead of
James.  At the trial in November, Raleigh, along with Lords Cobham and Grey,
was convicted and condemned to death.  The lives of all three were
dramatically Spared at the last minute, but the conviction and sentence of
death against Raleigh were allowed to stand and he remained in prison in the
Tower until 1616.

     One consequence of the conviction of Raleigh was the loss of the sole
right under the patent of 1584 to colonize the vast territory called Virginia
The patent had obligated him to settle Virginia within 6 years and as long as
the mystery of the Lost Colony remained unsolved, Raleigh could maintain that
his colonists might be living somewhere in Virginia and that his rights under
the charter of Queen Elizabeth were still in force.  He made such assertions
as late as 1603.

     The abolition of his claims and his imprisonment prevented Raleigh from
participating in the movement among the merchants of London and he more
adventurous gentry that culminated in the settlement of Virginia in 1607.  The
Virginia Corporation and the movement to establish a settlement in North
Virginia (New England) had close ties with him.  Among the leading spirits
behind the successful Jamestown enterprise were Richard Hakluyt and Sir Thomas
Smythe, Mo of those to whom Raleigh ad deeded his interest in the Roanoke
Colony undertaking on March 7, 15 9.  Among the early leaders of the North
Virginia, or Plymouth, group we e Raleigh Gilbert and Sir John Gilbert, sons
of Raleigh's half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert.  Raleigh Gilbert participated
in the effort to plant a settlement on the Kennebec River in Maine in 1607 and
was a member of the Plymouth Company as late as 1620.

     According to a letter dated May 8, 1654, from Francis Yeardly to John
Farrar in Jamestown, a young trader and three companions went Roanoke Island
in September 1653.  An Indian chieftain "received them civilly and showed them
the ruins of Sir Walter Raleigh's fort. . . ."

     John Lawson wrote that the ruins of the fort could be seen in 1701 and
that old English coins, a brass gun, a powder horn, and a small quarter-deck
gun made of iron staves and hooped with iron had been found on the site.

     An act of 1723 regarding a proposed town on Roanoke Island speaks of "300
Acres of Land lying on the No. east side of the said Island, commonly called
Roanoke old plantation," thus suggesting that at that date the northeastern
part of the island was regarded as the scene of Raleigh's settlement.

Search for the "Cittie of Ralegh"

     The homesites of the colonists have never been found.  Although some of
the structures were a story and a half, and all were "substantial no evidence
such as nails, broken glass, or utensils have been found.  These were prized
by the Indians and probably were all carried away.  The house and outbuildings
constructed by Ralph Lane's men in 1585 were used again after rebuilding, by
the 1587 settlement.  Some 300 people lived in these semi-permanent structures
over a 3-year period.

     Where is some evidence of these structures today?  Were their dwellings n
the fort as would seem natural, or did the colonists move to a more favorable
location only using the fort in time of danger?  Could the Indians have erased
all signs of colonist habitation between the disappearance of the "Lost
Colony" and the rediscovery of the fort?  Archeological investigations have so
far left these questions unanswered.  Today, we know little more than is
outlined in the records left by the men and women who chose to leave England
for a new life.  They came to Roanoke Island, built homes and a fort, started
a new life, kept journals, and painted pictures.  But, the only evidence found
at the site so far, are the outline of the earthen "New Fort in Virginia (now
reconstructed) and a few related artifacts.

     The earliest known map to show Fort Raleigh, the Collet map of 1770
places it on the northeast side of the island near the shoreline at what
appears to be the present fort site.  It is marked simply "Fort."  A later
copyist ca Is it "Pain Fort," probably because he confused the notation of
Paine's residence on the Collet map (in different type from "Fort") as part of
the fort name.  Benson J. Lossing, the historian, wrote in 1850 that "slight
traces of Lane's fort" could then be seen "near the north end" of Roanoke
Island.  Edward C. Bruce reported in Harpers New Monthly Magazine in May 1860
that the trench of the fort was clearly traceable as a square of about 40
yards each way, with one corner thrown out in the form of a small bastion.  He
also mentions fragments of stone and brick.  Partial archeological excavation
of the fort was undertaken by Talcott Williams in 1895.

     From 1935 through 1946, National Park Service historians made intensive
studies of all available documentary and map data relating to the fort.  They
concluded that the fort surveyed for the Roanoke Colony Historical Association
in 1896 was Lane's fort and surmised that its shape was similar to that of
Lane's fort in Puerto Rico.  They could not be sure of this because unlike the
fort in Puerto Rico which is shown in a drawing by John White now in the
British Museum no picture or plan of the Roanoke fort has been found. National
Park Service archeological work carried on under the direction of J. C.
Harrington during the summers of 1947, 1948, and 1950 established the truth of
the historians' conjectures.  Enough of the fort moat, or ditch, was found
intact to justify the restoration of the fort, and valuable artifact materials
were recovered at the fort site and west of its entrance.

     The restoration work began in 1950.  Earthen fill which had accumulated
since 1586 was removed from the fort's moat and placed where the parapet had
been, thus restoring the parapet and the moat.  Except that the archeologists
worked slowly with painstaking care to follow the lines of the original ditch
and Lane's soldiers must have worked rapidly with shovels, the new and the old
processes of building the parapet were much the same.  The amount of earth in
the ditch, as disclosed through archeological methods, determined the height
of the parapet - which was shaped in accordance with data in such 16th-century
manuals as Paul Ive's, The Practise of Fortification.

     Lane's fort, as revealed and restored by the archeologists, is basically
a square, with pointed bastions built on two sides of the square and an
octagonal bastion built on a third side.  The octagonal bastion is suggestive
of the arrowhead bastion of Lane's Puerto Rico fort and of the octagonal
bastion shown on the plan of St. George's fort built in Maine by Popham in
1607.

     The parapet of the fort encloses an area approximately 50 feet square.
The interior had been dug into so many times and in so many places by Indians,
later settlers, soldiers of the Civil War period, and by Talcott Williams that
Harrington was unable to say for sure what structures had been inside the
fort.  Traces of what may have been one long structure or two short ones were
found near the center of the fort at right angles to the main entrance.
Presumably, there were a well and a powder magazine.  The few pieces of brick
found may relate to the footings or chimneys of the structure, or structures,
in the fort or to the magazine.  The one measurable side of one of the brick
fragments was of the proper gage to have been of the Elizabethan period, when
the sizes of bricks were regulated by law.

     Today, large dunes lie between the fort and Roanoke Sound and obstruct
the view of the water.  Archeological tests have determined that the dunes
were formed later than the settlement.  Thus, the fort originally commanded a
view of Roanoke Sound - a good defensive position.

     Though the site of the fort has been located, the "Cittie" has not.  The
search is continuing, for until the actual dwelling places of the colonists
are found, the story of English colonizing efforts on Roanoke Island will be
incomplete.  From written records, we know how they found food, dealt with the
Indians, and searched for gold and pearls.  We could learn much more about the
people and their daily lives if their habitation sites could be found.  Small
bits of evidence merely heighten the mystery and serve to accentuate the fact
that the fort was not the center of the settlement, but rather a defensive
structure used in time of emergency.

     Among the many objects brought to light by archeological excavation was a
wrought-iron sickle.  It was found at the bottom of the moat.  Undoubtedly, it
was one of the tools used when the fort was built, because archeological
evidence shows that the loose dirt of the fort's parapet began to wash back
into the ditch almost as soon as the fort was completed.  Even more
interesting, perhaps, are three latten (an alloy of copper, zinc, and lead)
counters which were found inside the fort.  Such devices were popular in
Europe for keeping arithmetical accounts during the 16th century.  The three
found at the fort carry the symbols of Tudor England and on one the name "Hans
Schultes Zu Nuremburg" is readable.  Schultes manufactured such counters
between 1550 and 1574, when Nuremberg was a center for the making of counters.
The Tudor symbol indicates he made this one for the English trade.

     Also of great interest are the fragments of large Spanish olive jars
found in the excavations.  Because the colonists of 1585-86 traded for
supplies in Puerto Rico and Haiti on their way to Roanoke Island, it was
expected that such objects would be found in the ruins.

     Fragments of the majolica which appear to be either Spanish or Hispano-
American, large iron spikes, buckles, a casement bar, and other materials were
found.  Indian pottery and traces of Indian campfires at various soil levels
show that the Indians returned to Roanoke Island and inhabited the fort area
after the last colonists left.

[See Fort Diagram: The Fort at the "Cittie of Ralegh," a reconstruction based
on archeological and historical studies.]

The National Historic Site

     On April 30, 1894, the Roanoke Colony Memorial Association purchased the
fort and 10 acres of surrounding land for memorial purposes.  In 1896 the
memorial area was extended to 16.45 acres and the Virginia Dare Monument was
erected.  To promote a more active program of interpretation at Fort Raleigh,
the Roanoke Island Historical Association was organized in 1932.  Fort Raleigh
was transferred in 1940 to the National Park Service, U.S. Department of
Interior.  On April 5, 1941, it was designated Fort Raleigh National Historic
Site, under provision of the Historic Sites Act, to commemorate Raleigh's
colonies and the birthplace of Virginia Dare.

     The area of the site in Federal ownership is 150 acres, embracing the
fort site of 1585 and part or perhaps all of the settlement sites of 1585 and
1587.  By a cooperative agreement between the Roanoke Island Historical
Association and the United States, the symphonic drama "The Lost Colony"
continues to be given each season in the Waterside Theater at Fort Raleigh.

Administration

     Fort Raleigh National Historic Site is administered by the National Park
Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.  Communications and inquiries should
be addressed to the Superintendent, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, P.O. Box
457, Manteo, NC 27954.