DARE, Virginia, the first child of English parents born in the New World was born on Roanoke Island on August 18, 1587 in present-day North Carolina.  Her mother, Eleanor, was the daughter of John White, governor of the colony sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh to found an agricultural state.  Her father, Ananias Dare, served as one of the Governor’s assistants.  The expedition set sail from Plymouth, England, April 26, 1587, and reached Roanoke Island in July.  Virginia Dare was born about a month after the arrival of the expedition.  On the Sunday after her birth, she was the second person baptized into Christianity in the New World; the first person to be baptized was Manteo, an Indian chief native to Roanoke Island and friend of the colonists.

When she was less than a month old, Governor White sailed back to England for supplies, and upon his  return to Roanoke Island several years later, all vestiges of the colony had disappeared. An inscription on the bark of a tree pointed to “Croatoan,” a place supposed to belong to a friendly tribe of Indians, but Croatoan was never found.  The fate of Roanoke Island’s “Lost Colony” remains a mystery.

--Thank you  Candice Boyd - Volunteer Editor