Bertie County NcArchives History .....The Lost Avoca Company 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Gerald Thomas gerald_thomas00@comcast.net February 19, 2017, 6:10 am

THE “LOST COLONY” AND AVOCA CONNECTION:  
SOME PEOPLE’S THEORY OF MORE THAN A CENTURY AGO
by
Gerald W. Thomas

In early May 2012 news sources reported that researchers may have found a “key”
to North Carolina’s “Lost Colony.” Touted as perhaps the best clue in more than
four centuries related to the mystery of the disappearance of the English
colonists from Roanoke Island in the late 1580s, British researchers in London
had found a symbol hidden on an old map that might show the location where at
least some of the colonies moved. That location is the Avoca area of eastern
Bertie County at the head of Albemarle Sound. 
	On Thursday, May 3, 2012, representatives of the First Colony Foundation and
scholars at the British Museum in London, in cooperation with the University of
North Carolina, announced during a video webcast that British researchers had
found a symbol hidden on a map created between1584 and 1590 by members of Sir
Walter Raleigh’s Roanoke colony expeditions. Raleigh’s colony was the first
attempt by the English to establish a colony in the “New World.” The map,
prepared by John White, leader of the 1587 expedition, is reported as highly
accurate for its time and depicts the coastal area of southeastern Virginia and
northeastern North Carolina. The map also indicates the locations of several
native American villages. Most importantly, two pieces of paper are pasted over
different parts of the map. One of the patches is attached to a spot on the map
that depicts an area where settlers had explored prior to the establishment of
the English colony on Roanoke Island. Certain historians theorized that the
area, eastern Bertie County, may have been the location to where Raleigh’s
colonists moved.
	British Museum officials had never tried to determine “what” was obscured by
the patch. Close scrutiny of the map placed on a light table revealed that the
patch covered a symbol, apparently denoting the location of a fort. The relevant
site is situated on the present-day Scotch Hall Preserve, a golf course and
residential community at Avoca, near Merry Hill, across the Albemarle Sound from
Edenton. The discovery prompted researchers to conduct archaeological
excavations and research to attempt to gain additional evidence regarding the
Bertie site. Researchers have reported that their efforts to match pottery
recovered from the area to the correct period (sixteenth century) have produced
some positive results. However, the researchers have yet to absolutely confirm
that based on the evidence obtained and the analyses conducted, that members of
Raleigh’s Roanoke Island colony were present at the Avoca location.
North Carolina historians have long been intrigued and tantalized concerning the
fate of Raleigh’s colony. The most publicized theory renders that the colonists
travelled south from Roanoke Island, possibly to Hatteras Island. The theory is
based on the discovery of the word, “Croatoan,” carved into a fence post, and
the letters “CRO” on a tree – cryptic clues leading some individuals to believe
that Hatteras Island, about fifty miles distant from Roanoke Island, was the
colonists’ intended destination.
	It is interesting to note that more than a century ago, some North Carolinians
believed that Raleigh’s colonists had gone to Avoca, on the shores of Albemarle
Sound in eastern Bertie County. Specifically, The Robesonian (Lumberton), July
6, 1908, contained an article, “One Argument as to Raleigh’s Colonists,” that
conveyed the belief. An excerpt from the article follows.

The argument has been advanced by some that Raleigh's colonists when they left
Roanoke Island, did not go to the southward, but that they went to the
northwest, and that they fixed themselves about the point where Avoca now is, in
Bertie county, and that they there built themselves substantial houses; that the
Indians fell upon them, under the leadership of Wanchese or some of his friends,
and massacred almost all, great rivers [Roanoke and Chowan] being on either
side, which the colonists could not cross, but that the Indians spared a few,
including "a young mayde [maid],” that those captured were taken further up the
country and that the Englishmen of their number were made to build houses,
partly at least of stone, for their Indian masters, and that it was these houses
and these captives of whom Captain John Smith heard and whom he made note, the
information concerning them having been brought by Indian runners to him and his
colonists at Jamestown. Those who hold this view that the colonists after
leaving Roanoke Island went towards the northwest and settled as above stated,
say that Governor White and other leaders had been up in that part of the
country and had fixed on this as a place better for a settlement than Roanoke
Island, which was and is extremely isolated and in a section subject to storms,
there being entirely open water all about. To get to Avoca the colonists had a
very good boat, of sufficient size to carry them. Those who hold this view
believe further that the Indians with blue eyes and fair hair and ruddy
complexions who were seen by later explorers on the North Carolina coast were
not the descendants of the Lost Colony at all but of Indian women and of the
first party of Englishmen put ashore, the latter not being on Roanoke Island,
but on one of the long sand-banks between that island and the sea.

In August 2015 officials associated with the excavation at the Avoca site
revealed that pottery shards uncovered “could be pertinent pieces to a puzzle
that has mystified North Carolinians for centuries.” The sifters uncovered a
concentration of Border ware, most likely from northern England, and other
colonial artifacts, such as a food-storage jar, a hook used to stretch fabric or
animal hides, pieces of early gun flintlocks and other signs of early colonists.
The earthenware fragments, historians and archaeologists conveyed, “might hold”
the most modern clues to the centuries-old mystery of the disappearance of the
“lost colonists.”
Archaeologists and researchers continue to seek more clues and evidence, and
conduct further analyses of the artifacts that they have uncovered at the Avoca
site. No definitive proclamations have yet been issued indicating with absolute
certainty that Raleigh’s colonists came to, and for some time, resided in,
eastern Bertie County. Historians, Bertie County officials and many people in
the general population await the release of further elaborating information.
Until that time, longstanding mysteries will continue to surround the ultimate
fates of the members of Raleigh’s Roanoke Island colony. In the words of one
official: “There’s a lot more unknown to be discovered.”
________
Author’s note: I recently discovered the article from The Robesonian while
researching digitized newspapers of North Carolina available from a couple of
institutions’ Internet websites. I provided a copy of my excerpt from the
article to Mayor Jim Hoggard of Windsor, who relayed it to an official
associated with the excavation and research of the Avoca site.


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