In the past there had been hints as to where the settlers might have gone - White himself made an oblique reference to a destination 50 miles inland - but no solid evidence had surfaced.Įven White’s map, which was included in a 2007 British Museum exhibition, appeared to hold no clues. A vampire killer loosely fashioned around her story appears in a horror series. A flavor extract company based in Brooklyn bears her name. Time magazine included her among “top 10 famous disappearances,” along with the Lindbergh baby and Amelia Earhart. A 1937 Postal Service stamp featured her image as a baby. Over time, the colony has spawned endless speculation and mythology, with Virginia Dare as its face. When he did return, the settlers had vanished. White returned to England for supplies, but an attack by the Spanish Armada delayed his return for three years. It was the second English settlement on North Carolina’s coast, but it was the first to include civilians, among them wives, sons and - within weeks of their arrival in 1587 - White’s newborn granddaughter, Virginia Dare. Folklore has flourished over the colonists’ fate, including that of the first child of English descent born in the Americas, Virginia Dare. The findings, announced Thursday morning, bring into focus a puzzle that has long fed the feverish curiosity of historians, archaeologists and amateur sleuths. The British Museum’s re-examination of a 16th-century coastal map using 21st-century imaging techniques has revealed hidden markings that show an inland fort where the colonists could have resettled after abandoning the coast. The shroud of mystery may finally be lifting. The wild-eyed fringe hints at cannibalism and even alien abduction. Other explanations point to darker fates, like disease, an attack by Spaniards or violence at the hands of Indians.

Some historians believe that the colonists might have been absorbed into American Indian tribes. Theories abound about what happened to the so-called Lost Colony, ranging from sober scholarship to science fiction. For centuries, the Tidewater coast of North Carolina has held one of early America’s oldest secrets: the fate of more than 100 English colonists who vanished from their island outpost in the late 1500s.

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