An island south of Cape Hatteras, now known as Ocracoke, was reached on
June 26. The remainder of the month and most of July were spent in
exploring the coastal islands and the adjacent mainland. During one of
these expeditions, Grenville sought to strike terror into the hearts of
the Indians by burning the Indian village of Aquascogok in retaliation
for the theft of a silver cup stolen by one of the Indians. Not until
July 27 did Grenville anchor at Hatoraske, off the barrier island, a
short distance southeast of Roanoke Island. Here at a break in the
barrier reef, almost due east of the southern tip of Roanoke Island,
Simon Ferdinando discovered a port, named Port Ferdinando in his honor
and considered the best port along that stretch of coast.
A colony was established on the "North end" of Roanoke Island, and Ralph
Lane was made Governor. From Port Ferdinando, and later from Roanoke
Island, letters were written by Lane to Secretary Walsingham informing
him of the successful founding of the colony. Still another letter was
written to Sir Philip Sidney, son-in-law of Walsingham, who was
interested in western discovery. A letter to Richard Hakluyt, geographer
and historian, written by Lane from the settlement on Roanoke Island
indicated that the Governor of Virginia was impressed by the "huge and
unknowen greatnesse" of the American continent. He added that if
Virginia only had horses and cows in some reasonable proportion and were
inhabited by Englishmen, no realm in Christendom would be comparable to
it. The Indians, he said naively, were "courteous, and very desirous to
have clothes," but valued red copper above everything else. Wingina,
chief of the Roanoke Island Indians, had received the white men
hospitably and had cooperated with them in the initial phases of the
founding of the settlement. This is clear from Grenville's account as
well as Lane's.
Grenville lingered a short while after the founding of the settlement,
then returned to England for supplies. On the way home he captured a
richly laden Spanish ship, which must have repaid him handsomely for his
western trip. On his arrival in England, he too reported to Walsingham,
thus acknowledging the interest of the Queen and emphasizing the
seminational character of the Virginian enterprise.
Lane built a fort called "The new Fort in Virginia," where the present
Fort Raleigh National Historic Site is situated and where the remains of
a fort were still visible as late as 1896. The fort was located near the
shore on the east side of Roanoke Island between the "North Point" of
the north end of the Island and a "creek." The mouth of the so-called
creek was big enough to serve as the anchorage for small boats (Shallow
Bag Bay, known as late as 1716 as "Town Creek").
Lane's fort on Roanoke Island resembled in some noteworthy respects the
fort which he had built on St. Johns Island, Puerto Rico, in May 1585,
when he seized the salt supply. Both forts seem to have been roughly
shaped like a star built on a square with the bastions constructed on
the sides of the square instead of at the corners, as was common in
later fortifications. Copies of the plans of these forts may be seen in
the Fort Raleigh museum.
The dwelling houses of the early colonists were near the fort, which was
too small to enclose them. They were described by the colonists
themselves as "decent dwelling houses" or "cottages" and must have been
at least a story and a half or two stories high, because we have a
reference to the "neather roomes of them." The roofs were thatched, as
we learn from Ralph Lane's statement that the Indians by night "would
have beset my house, and put fire in the reedes that the same was
covered with." The chimneys and the foundations may have been of brick,
because Darby Glande later testified that "as soon as they had
disembarked Roanoke they began to make brick and fabric for a fort and
houses." Pieces of brick were reported found at the fort site as late as
1860, and recent archeological work at the fort turned up a few
brickbats, possibly of the Elizabethan period.
[Illustration: _Map made by John White in 1585-86. This map, the
original of which is in the British Museum, is of interest as
showing opposite the "R" in "Roanoke" a dot that may represent the
colonial settlement site. Note Dasamonquepeuc on the mainland west
of the north end of Roanoke Island and the barrier island of
Croatoan south of Cape Hatteras._]
Thomas Hariot remarked that though stone was not found on the island,
there was good clay for making bricks, and lime could be made from
nearby deposits of oyster shells in the same manner that lime was made
"in the Isles of Tenet and Shepy, and also in divers other places of
England." However, as no evidence of the extensive use of brick has yet
been found, it is perhaps safe to assume that the chief building
material was rough boards. It has already been noted that they had a
forge which they could set up to make nails. Richard Hakluyt, in his
_Discourse of Western Planting_, written at the request of Sir Walter
Raleigh in 1584, about 1 year before the colony sailed, had recommended
as "things to be prepared for the voyadge" that any colonial expedition
should include "men experte in the arte of fortification," "makers of
spades and shovells," "shipwrights," "millwrights, to make milles for
spedy and cheape sawing of timber and boardes for trade, and first
traficque of suertie," "millwrights, for corne milles," "Sawyers for
common use," "Carpinters, for buildinges," "Brick makers," "Tile
makers," "Lyme makers," "Bricklayers," "Tilers," "Thatchers with reedes,
rushes, broome, or strawe," "Rough Masons," "Carpinters," and
"Lathmakers." The presumption therefore is that typical English thatched
cottages and houses, such as were found in rural Elizabethan England,
were built at Roanoke. (The log cabin appears to have been introduced
into America about 50 years later by the Swedes and Finns on the
Delaware.) The Roanoke cottages were presumably well built. The skilled
labor of the expedition had been able to construct a seaworthy pinnace
at Puerto Rico in less than a month's time.