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Outdoor Stage at the Lost Colony of Roanoke Theater. photo by Kala Ambrose

It’s summer time in North Carolina and for many people here it’s time to getaway to the beach. When I visit the beaches of NC, my thoughts always return to Virginia Dare and the Lost Colony of Roanoke. Their time spent here on the beach was far less relaxing as they braved hostile natives, endured heat, mosquitoes and disease and struggled to survive from day to day.

Here’s how their adventure began… In 1584, explorers were sent to Roanoke Island (a narrow island situated between the Outer Banks and the mainland of North Carolina) by Sir Walter Raleigh to determine if the area would be well suited to establishing a colony. Upon their return, they delivered a positive report of the location, which included a list of the abundant natural resources surrounding the area and findings that Roanoke was better protected from the elements than the Outer Banks. The island appeared all around to be a good choice for a settlement with live oaks and plenty of other trees to build cabins and a variety of wildlife to hunt for food. Sir Walter Raleigh delivered the information to Queen Elizabeth and she granted Raleigh a charter to all the lands that he could claim in the area.

The next year Sir Raleigh sent out a group of one hundred men, mostly soldiers and craftsmen to establish the colony under the guidance of Ralph Lane, a military captain. The group met with poor results from the beginning and departed the area.

Sir Raleigh responded to the news of Lane’s departure by gathering a party of one hundred and seventeen men, women and children who were willing to sail from England in order to establish a permanent settlement in the New World.   As the group sailed to the New World, their leader John White included in his party his pregnant daughter Eleanor Dare.  Upon their arrival, the situation was hostile on all fronts and the colonists asked John White to return to England to gather support and supplies.

Three years after Eleanor gave birth to her daughter Virginia Dare, her father John White returned to Roanoke Island to find everyone and everything missing. All traces of the settlement had disappeared. There was no sign of struggle nor were there any signs of where the group had gone.  His heart raced with terror, were his daughter and his granddaughter alive? Had someone taken them?  There had been no way to get a direct message to them for the past three years. The colonists had no news source and relied on ships that very infrequently stopped in the area. It’s highly likely that the colonists might not have known about the war that had kept White from traveling back to them. They may have presumed White to be dead or lost at sea.

Imagine how Eleanor must have felt, a new baby and practically defenseless, waiting each day in such dangerous territory, cradling her small daughter Virginia while everyone rationed the dwindling supplies.  John White understood this and more, realizing that his dream of starting the first settlement in the new world and bringing his daughter with him, had led to her destruction. Read the rest of this entry »

Window in the middle of the floor at the Winchester Mystery House. photo by Kala Ambrose

“The tender word forgotten, The letter you did not write, The flower you might have sent, dear, Are your haunting ghosts tonight” – Margaret Elizabeth Sangster

You’ve heard of haunted houses, but what about a house designed by the haunted to keep the ghosts at bay?

In San Jose, California, a house just of this nature exists. It all began back in 1862, when Sarah Pardee married William Wirt Winchester, the manufacturer of the infamous Winchester repeating rifle. Sarah gave birth to a daughter Annie, who soon died from marasmus at only 42 days old. This fact is intriguing, as marasmus is caused by a lack of nutrients, displayed as energy deficiency (wasting away). Could the haunting of Sarah by spirits, already been around her at this time, depleting her energy and resources while pregnant? Her husband William later died from tuberculosis. Alone and grief stricken after losing her only child and husband, Sarah journeyed to Boston to speak with a spiritualist medium, seeking advice on why her life had been filled with such great misfortune.

The spiritualist medium reportedly told Sarah that she was haunted by the spirits of hundreds of ghosts, the spirits of those who had been killed by a Winchester repeating rifle. These spirits included soldiers from the Civil War, Native Americans and cowboys in the Wild West.

The medium went on to explain that in order to escape the continued hauntings, Sarah would need to move out west and to build a house. The house would not be an normal type of house, rather the construction must never cease. According to the medium, as long as construction was ongoing in the home, it would keep the angry spirits disoriented, while providing a place for the good spirits to commune with Sarah and protect her from further danger. In addition, the architectural design was meant to be complicated and confusing in order to vex and confuse the angry spirits, which would distract them from finding and further haunting Sarah. Sarah took this advice to heart and moved from Connecticut to San Jose, California and bought over 160 acres of land, where she began and continued construction on a home, which is now referred to as the Winchester Mystery House.

After her husband’s death, Sarah received twenty million dollars along with shares of stock in the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. It is reported that the dividends that she received averaged about one thousand dollars a day, along with her millions in the bank. This was in the late 1800′s, into 1900′s, when there was no income tax and the average rate of pay was less than a dollar a day. Read the rest of this entry »