I have added an introduction for this "Best of" episode., which was one of my favorites to make. This is the #4 listener favorite of the 443 (actually 447) 1001 Heroes episodes we have done over 9 years. This one was done in 2017. Part 2 contains an interview with Fred and Katherine Willard, directors of The Lost Colony Center For Science & Research, who are known for their tireless work to identify where the 115 men, women and children that made up "the lost colony" ended up and why they disappeared. Fred passed not long after our in=person interview in Chesapeake in 2017.

Here are the notes for part one: "The Lost Colony Part 1: The Dare Stones": In 1587, 115 men, women, and children were delivered to Roanoke Island on the Carolina coast with the hopes of beginning a new English colony in the New World. Storms and war with Spain prevented any supply ships from reaching them for three years, and when the ships arrived, they found the fort deserted, and the word "Croatoan" carved onto the fort's palisade walls. The 115 settlers were gone, leaving no trace, until 1937, when a traveler named Hammond found a large stone at the side of a North Carolina road containing what appeared to be a desperate chiseled message from Eleanor Dare. More stones were found, each containing a clue to the whereabouts of the surviving colonists. They came to be called The Dare Stones. The first stone contained this carved inscription, written in the Elizabethan dialect:  https://nativeheritageproject.com/2013/12/08/the-dare-stones-1-through-48/

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