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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (June 3, 1906)
8 THE OMAJIA SUNDAY BEE: JUNE 3, 1906. r,.-ih. 1 rJ' J - I 1 Onst dimmer In settlement of this coun ter was br the procurement of Blr Walter Raleigh In conjun-tlun with torn public eplr Ited gentleiueu of that a-e, auilar tbe protec tion of (Jueeu. Eillsauetib, fur watch reason tt waa then named Virginia. being begun on that part called Huanoke UlaDd, WUere the rain f a fort ara to be seen tfcta da?, as well aa acme old Bnsilah eotna Wales hare been lately found,' and a brass (tin, a powfar bora aad one anaall quarter run, made of Iron stavses and hooped with the mu aietal. A fur ther confirmation of tbts we have from the Hatteraa ludlaua, who either oben lived oB Roanoke liland or much frequented lfr. Tfceae tell 11s Ihnt several of their ancestors were white people and eouM talk In a book aa we a; the truili of wiiies Is connruved by irrajr eyes beiag lound frequently a niuug these Indiana and ruanr utlmrs. It la probable that thla ctt lenient nriwarrled for want of timet? sup plies from Enrland.or tlwoug-h the treachery of tlie natlvrea Lawaou's Travela Among Cavro Ilna InJIii us. 17U0. An expedition under Sir Richard Oreovllle, Sir Ralph Lane. Governor, and 108 ettaera, lamW In Koanoke Island In July. IMS. The ahla left the colonists In August aud returned to Kngland. This colony governed by Lane achieved no permanent location, and after the maiden of a year returned with Blr KrancU Irake to England. A few daya after ahlp despatched by Sir Waller Raleltfb ar rived loaded with every essential of comfort, and soon after Blr Richard Grenvllle and thitve ships aaarched In vain for Lame. Sir Rlohard left fift com men at Roanoke Island and re JuSJTto togland. Wolta, aa Governor and a Jbf l. d female, who arrived In July U87). Tns aoloniau left by Orenvllle were not to be '"wmte returned to Bugland, leaving a colony of eighty-nine man, aeveuteen women a iri two ehlMssnT Among these were bla daughter. Ktaaoor Dare, wife of one of the Matalanta, wwSTcMld was th. flrat offspring f KW" mwU In thla western world. On KTnrtoT. of White, England was at war with itoaln. a Blr Walter Raleigh, Ores t2 end Lin. were In the aervlce. It waa two years before White eouM return, and on Undine at Roanoke not a single man waa iZl it bad been agreed on leaving the otonr that at any accident ahould overcome STXlonWt. they were to leave the name of the Sacs where they might be found, and If In dbtreas to designate It by a croaa. Gov ernor White found on a tree or post the word OsoaUn. bnt without the sign of dlatreaa. Mo trace of these oolonlaU hat ever been dla eoversd ess lwson. the earlleit blto tUa of' Carolina, believe that the Bngl!h. dsapalrtng of all relief from toe long abeence of their frlende. amalgamated with the In dlana. In coonrmatlon of which he learned from the Hatteraa Indiana that aeveral of fhetr aneeatore wwre white people and could talk In a book, the truth of which la confirmed fey gray eyes being among tht-ee Indiana aud no othera. Wheeler a History of North Oaroiloa. Had the emigrants perished or escaped with their Uvea to Oroatan, and through the friend ship of Manteo become familiar with Indians, the eonjei-ture baa bcn hsssnli-d that the de serted colony, nglwtwl by their own country men, were hospitably adopted Into the tribe f Hatteraa Indiana and tHaiue amalgamated with the sons of the forest. This waa the belief of the natives at a later day. and waa thought to be contlrmed by the physical chsr tcter of the tribe, in which the Btiallsh and Indian rsi e aeeined to have been blended Bancroft s Hlstcry of the l ulled Stati s, vol. 1. s ii ins suinoruv m an uie n... ... ,v, .11. ,,,.111,11, of air Walter innv i Ijiw- nnlelgh's tiiisliig co at has served ion. It is a K"s th ne'hlng jnt for if mors J up to this time, since som must be hasarded to account tHM ciiiirii.tu n la i tiftearn nee or mora th.n nn hnn,lr,l nn' It would sarva i.L?..hi.r:?h.nlIl - . 1 1 1 . . . . , ,. leal conditions were not really against It. Noborly t?i nn to have taken the trouble, - w. to consider all the facts nnd circumstances of the period very closely ln order to de termine the most likely fate of the colo nists. It Is only the purncse of this story to' tell of "heaps" of white men's bones that reached a certainty ln their own minds were lying In the cliffs In the country far tnat a slaughter of human beings had away beyond the Cumberland Mountains, taken place here, and so the creek and Its lying where white men had been slain !fan got tneir name. The view from many, many years before the first known above to the falls and the creek bottoms white explorer had set foot ln that wl. wlld and .urprislng-aurprlslng because tlemess It might be said that these whlts'lt u 0 unllke .t of the country, men who had been slain where their bones ,cn well oover.d by th and were found, proof of which will be sub- nt tlnlb very llttl. rock expoBure mltted. were a stray party from the col- aboVe the creek, while here these perpen ony of North Carolina or Virginia any !dlcular cllttM, rising to a height of three : . . ., V. V u . s""w tury. It m ght be so. but the evidence Is to the contrary. It nvght be said with ri. 11 in n i o .am w in more reason that Lawson's assumption that the Hatteras Indians absorbed the Roanoke colonists was gratuitous when based solely on the tradition of the In diana that they had several white ances tors and that the tribe had gray eyes. The Infusion of white bio hI might be ac- flnnnlal fur In manv . . , l r n . m country of Roanoke was visited by an of- ... tic. al party from Virginia eighty years be-': fore Uweuii waa tture. Commerce to and, from the mother country and with the Northern colonies of New York and New Kngland had been going on for a great many years. And while the Roanoke coun try was not occupied until about the mid dle of the seventeenth century, venturous voyagers niiKiii uu urt-u wieie any time J - - v-iiii, au siu-1 after the settlement of Jamestown In l0T,mlrDle compartment, rock floor, celling. ana tnsi was omy seveiiiesm years later I " iia. oiko hi ironi, Elusive suuiement when one considers that than the colony was lost, It admits plenty of light and air. Pro- the last colony only antedated the settle- A CrMuioiiK TaU ,tected by opposite cliffs. It has little ex- meat of Virginia by sixteeu or seventeen , . , . , Var to storms and blasts. Sometimes years, and that Ikfteen or twenty years . T!J m ' "f,dedm!u It the rock above the opening Juts out. giv- later coast trips Wure not uncommon, tnd Is hard to te 1 at this time wi,oe bones lng shade and shelter before the entrance, most any time before the advent of Law they were, but there are a good many c.!r- Such a rock house is this at Bloody Creek, son white parties might have vlMted Koa cumstanoes that uiake it appear that they where the first white victims of savages oke Island from hlps from abroad or might have been ti e bones uf the lost co.- west of the Cumberland range were laid, from tha colonies in the East. It was 1700 ?ny,K,t Kunuk,e IiU"d' r1u,ld thouaand but not to rest. I when Lawson travelled through that coun- terrlble miles f roan Boanoke Island, terri- When the present Mr Chll.ier. wj. a try. and when he did aet to KomioU- it was w . w',U1 ntW' i.v,. . -ou iu vurn-5w oia ivsi unver. and so did the Tanl- Tor more than fifty years, and it had been beiiand Mountains Is still like a dark space, bees. Also the mountain boy, for m. les pi ospectei by an exploring party seventy behiud a wall to all people outside of Its sroun 1, becaua; even mountain mil-s are eight years before, ln ltU2. W heeler's hls contlnes. it is u hilly country, one hllf "oth ng to mountain boys. They io.m tory of North Carolina says: "July 1W3 following another with uarrow creek 6ot-over their whole country, whole county ' Hodtrer Greene's colony from Virginia set toms lying between land adjoining counties, so that thry krow tied on the banks of the Koanoke. Be lt is beyond both those mountain chsins "VtfT creek ani every hill and everything fre thla North Carolina had Leen the that these white men s bones used to lie. ! peculiar or unusual about eiiher. as a city refuge of Quakers fleeing from religious The place Is Wolfe county, Ky.. west of the man knows land marks In the streets of ueraecutioin k'.hi'iAkv HIV,-- a .nil- Tk. - . ,1 -Itv V hen C hllderj ). t h rockhouae in the clllts of Bloody t'ree-k heops" or bones in th s roik houne a: d lust below the Kails of Bloodv Cr.w Th ' on the na" Pth about It. When "Walk creek was naned by tlie tirst settle. OUv,r wx ,y C! 5U djwrl th .v.. i... . v.. .T.... aeuiers ...I)e anU Mt bone. Thera ua and was named beoau.e of th 1 the evidences All these, observations . !t, are susceptible of analysis. ,welaTedrr,hel'r..rl,11UU,,'lnJ I I V In the scale, against doubt to and dlsbchef, .1,. . . iv,. nv. .j it!..a . , - vi.-r -j. me ill i wn a al- faVh.p rrf -Walk" (jliv-r 11 lha SSAner Or V SI UllVWr. WHO Btll llvua intr.o a.u '"""rl nu Kindly face will be seen ln an aiceompanylag portrait, bout a uU treat him J. U. ChUdara, wte n' i"'t u"o iiuiiiivu years s it : "i' s Hi i'SSrV -4? J ? 14. 4 t. V : nam I X.1 tV-rs Pootof tbi CltPC. 1 rum a moving sawmill In the) county, haa I his homestead farm. Buth of these men 'dwell In the same kind of modest caljlns oa those their fathers lived in the beat part of a century ago. They have not changed 'their manners or mode of living. I It Is a good and kindly manner these honest old veople Ivave. It la well to ibear 'that In mind, for what they say they mean,; land they never say anything they do not: ! mean nor anything they do not believe. Another one of the oldest residents here Is ,. . . t,,,, tw.-. r.r three n11 north over the mountain or round the """ . " V . bottoms on Devil's Cree-k. His family wi ,aid t0 be tne oldt,!t ln tnl particular neck of tn wood- NuW- Wr- Oliver, Mr. (.'nil-. d"r "" Mr- Taulbte a11 hav about ... . . . , a . . ... ruA.i Unt ah nf tha UHPIM 1 IT HUir ' " .r wrre iimiia mere. lie answerer .? hdh"od that cam. to them'.irnp that al, he remen.ber was rAm tha i falkasa Ku 1 : fit I II laT I MM fxiiiiiisaa -- - --aw which took place long before their fatner time. . It was from physical svidence ot tragedy that these nri settlers, men 01 the wilderness before they came here, hav-lna- an eve aulck to detect unusual mark- 'lna-a ln rock or earth or Umber, had hundred feet on eaoh side of the falls and creek burat .a.y upon the eye of the . .,., iii,w t. th rivt.r ,,un, .in,, ,h hll.w. t the rlvtr ,rk. ... 1 . a,i , there are no roads In the mountains, runs up to the edge of the cliff, and by Its very edge small dogwood and scrub oaks and even the gentle myrtle are growing, as 1f to deceive. Expecting that the land might continue on from the roadway through this thickness of shrubbery one might easily I tiUsi this aln That svt 1 W hu hi laitt fus a I - . fAiu faokl r A. W vs. , -J I as vKa art ao e f 'l II t trio ," '" ." - , east clllT. Twenty-five feet below the must deceptive spot edging the roadway the Jut ting cliff forms what the natives of the country call a rock house. While not com prehensive to others, It Is well named, for It is neither cave, cavern nor grotto. Indians who declared they had white anctal la a cavity In the face of the cliff, an ad-tors and because he found gray eyesamom. r0' usuJ to 1lay t this roc-k house, :a) ud to be sauus inere. too. jne or the menianu uiuiuer iy me wnne. who veJ up the creeW neVil's Creek. Bancroft's history shows that the flrat kept one of these skulls, and he has moved ind TnoTdVsVu'rb the bones. Nelthtr did they think much about away. None of these early settlers were y think much about .k... Tl.u. wrA 1,,.. tinuj thu.t. -.'I "" J--- - Akd t0 " ,nor ' by telling about! U . n. n. u .k Mritn. Iknmrhi uaru In and about the rock house during Ms childhood, or la his father's lime, Mr Chulders aaiawered with tbat wooderf ol .1 1 o3irLe ei ,13 IK .f- t t 5 it- 1V IS. 7e T r- j a. brevity- and reservation of al! Kentucky mounti n men-"l don't know." Un wtm. a mountain imin does not know you mlRli, aa will givi up trying to commit him. 11- will not venture an opinion and will omy entile tolerantly at any att nip: to make h torm one. He ot not know. Tm.t ettlt U- U not fuf to deal U, - Too Mdny Murders. Mr. Oliver wati asked how many men he thought were killed there. He said he couiri mt tell- h nnlit nut rpmtmtr ever having heard. 1 asked him If he could not strain his memory a little to the time that , was very young and remember some of; the things that his father told him ubout the killings on Bloody Creek and the bones I - - - h., J . . . . . . , ..saa,. ssasv iumcr IU IVs 11(111 tlltTl 3 tt iUl of ne, ther8 and tnat a ,ot of pe0,,l8 U a. kl aa.L. a . i . . . . . had boon killed there some time bv In- !clian. One of the teachers once employed ln this rougih country, a man of some parts, called j Professor Gough, made some Investiga tional regarding the Bloody Creek tragedy, j but did not report them. It is many years; since he lived in the country and he la j now a travelling salesman ln Die Black 1 Hills. He tr.ld me it had been proved by the usual science of the anatomist that the! skulls taken from Bloody Creek were white men's skulls. He also said that he had' got trace of skulls that had been tarried' away, some of which were covered with light hair. That there were many com-j plote skeletons there not long ago he did not doubt. He said that in the earliest1 days of the white settlers there was some light hair picked up at the scene. Thee: bones, almost to the last of them, had been carried away by strangers passing through1 and hearing snatches of the story. Relic' hunters and representatives of museums! have also been there and gut the spoils, so1 that whatever number of ptople died there n r tt Vki-ki it lh asao. i . . I fc. a. rled to the four winds. Professor Oough anna U ,. a i l i vl.wv wicii (Junes naive ieen car time in tne county th' . . . I v . v 1 1 - " on me ciins about the rock hour uoe n ana oeiow It, gave unmistakable i evidence of a massacre Mr. Lawson concludes that Sir Walterl Kaleigh's lost colony was assimilated i.v! the Indiana Im-iim hum ri. t. ti.. .. i-ors anu oecause ne round gray eyesainonij I Hatteras Indians. It Is not a very con- quite thickly peopled and had been settled' iii.ic iiiuiij' icnuiii wiijr me iui- .ony shoulJ not appeal for succor to the inoians. 1 ne trust ana anection or me Indians had been alienated by treachery ; expedition of Kalelgh took back to Kng-jbeen 'land two natives of the wilderness. Man - too aim inn", i' raycu.i.oi bad been entertained at Kounoae by the llra,.i'ulii,iiH.i fullii.r .if A" i .. i .. .. "'" ' .... . . ........... the King, "with the refinements of Area-j K...l.ulltw" A ri. om , . r t I,-- .. it Is learned that Uovernor 1-ane. who managed the colony brought out by Sir Richard Orsoavliie, tuuxdared Uaa kingly rioiTiixofi a! of Sir IfaJt jJfts1WVr ft s A SaS vC , r.: jjt- vw . - ivsthjkikjr . f o Opposite toe ocKJooUt3j 4 - "I tvr Walter Rlev son and his people ln a treacherous man ner. Bays Bancroft: "Ueaiiing an audience of WinRina, the inoBt active among the native chiefs, luie und his utlemlanls were quickly admitted to his presence. No hostile Intentions were displayed by the Indians; their reception of the Knglish was proof of their confi dence. Immediately a preconceived watch word was given und the Christiana full Ing upon the unhappy King ami his fol lowers, put him without mercy to death." Nor was this all the pertldy toward the Indians which caused them to hate their white brothers. Manteo w.ls a friend of the whites because he had been pampered I by them aud had been baptized a Chris tian and mad . I.r.l of H',nki. hv the B i aie 01 ssir Soulier, rie iiukiii nave om-ii satisfied with the pale faces, but his people j." . "''T, " tu"' ,lr 7, , may no, have had so much ground I, ip-, f'r JrllV preciatlon. for after Weh ninlne; the K,k- ui1,, anJ returned to Kngland. Now comes llfh to the island of C roatan, the Knglish. the colony that subsouueiitly disappeared discovering a company of natives. "Ml ai it ,n earn, had sal,owcl it. n '- upon ll.eiii by niKl,t us fhe luuml.-ss men wuli Uovernor Wi.lu. and had for Its were silting by their llres and a havoc j trod n il,m to the Ind ana and soli. iJ a t or. was begun before It was perceived that 'of friendly regaidall the a.'ts of d. spolia these were friendly Indians." Again, "utltion and Infamy luat had been loin.nii t -d one of the Indian towns a silver cup hud uainst the Indians by previous expedi- BtoUn WtM ,a,y trUelty Uieliville on -r.l its restoration was deluved: the' village burned and the standing corn d- .,,lVl.,i . - . urenv e left I.5ne In eharira nf tha col,jny ut Roanoke and re'orn.d with :,i - I . ...... , . . . R. ani.Ue with hla next exiiedition l.;m.. and his people were not there. They had,finiong mem nis own uaug-nei. r-ieaia.r set Bail tor home a few da.ja before la the j Dare, aud hi grandoUUd, Vlrg.m Jjare. tn.e 03T ' Soro first jr - .BsawVaSa e 4 v " ytw?, " la.- - - -.-.j 4rK ' . f sV-v i ' ,'-"" 'ft -f' r.as,l s If: is ssbj-.- m of the. fle "bloocav Creels. . of Sir Francis traite. who h U'p -neu Pass that way. By tnat t:me n s.deu j jtj tlons. "The expedition under Wh'te se-re!ie I for the men loft by (Jrenvllle as a garrison. 'Tin. furl waa in ruins. The ni.nerable nu-n ' . ... ..... t- , i . , j ..... whom urenvuie nao ien n in ueen mar- 'der, - d by lndlans'-lUnerof t. ,.- i... 1.., 1, i . .1 u'ul. .. i men. seventeen women ami '.wo vhildien. 1 1 . ;J 12ocihc7lJe. where "Mtrpcerk?cC ,'''wwi,i f , 1 ! ' . 1 Hi 0'- - - 3i a: i of ! nrt onspriinf 01 Anglian paje." III -Vi.iei.a, on Koinoko Island, and went back to England himsulf with his ships. in ii he fc-ot :hei- l.ugl ind was at war witn Spain, Hlr W'ulter ltaleigli and Sir K'ciiaid Orenvllle were both in tnu sr- :'e, ani it was mon than two years be- ' ,re While wis aMe, to return to the It was as the succ. ssois t a t..ur.l..r.i 1 garrison tnat the last colony :,t Koanoke arrived. And it was, aceorl.ni; to the i.iu ' lortalis. ' sled by "no,,.,, ui-in-voieniiy assinul the Indians that they dipait'd I, ii W hat seems more reasonable la that the colonists left Koanoke Island In terror of the Indians, and with only on.- i I, l.i th, j, min is, an I th it to n as far awav fron. Iio-in u possible. All the Indians thev h id known had lived on the coast. All the oourury they knew had been the coaa e wniie wis a.' ie to return to thej "" r, ,, , colony on Roanoke Island. When he- finally ,ghin!ng with Boone mvar reach. .J there the lolony was gone. I the country of the ( umbel country itself. It would be wise to Infer that if they pot to the interior, back of the mountains, the shadows of which they may have seen, they would be safe, and having once started there would be no going back, because (ruing back would be going to cer tain death. There would be nothing to do but pitch onward, forever on, because no matter how far they might go they might still encounter Indians. It would be rea sonable for them to expect that somewhere they would) reach the end of the Indian country. In Mdny Bittles. Unhappily thore was no end, for the an cestors of the Cherokees were ell over the Carolina country; six nations were south to the Oulf, the mountain Cherukees claimed the country as theirs beyond the Cumber land Mountains, and the place that is now Kentucky was a hunting ground at all the Southern Indians and of the Northwest tribes about the Oldo River As doubt is here expressed that Tjawson'g discovery of white blood in the Hatteraa Indians was the white blood of the Roan oke colony rather than the white blood of the adventurers of the beginning of the seventeenth century, so by reflection tha suggestion may be discarded that the vio tinis of the massacre of Bloody Creek, Wolfe county, Ky., may have been the colony from Roanoke Island In favor of the suggestion that the unfortunate people were a party of much later date from the Colonies of North Carolina or Virginia. Utile fragments of history aid the de cision. In 1707 "the country beyond tha Cuinberlnnds was to the people of Vir ginia as doubtful and obscure as America Itself to the people of Europe before the voyage of Columbus. a a Whether In habited by men or beasts or both or neither they knew not. If Inhabited by men they were supposed to be Indians, for such al ways Inflated the frontiers, and this had been a powerful reason for nbt exploring the legions west of the great mountains which concealed Kentucky from her aide. The country was known only on the English maps as filling ip certain de grees of latitude and longitude." Mar shall, History of Kentucky. John Flnlay and a few wandering white men, It Is learned, entered this country from the British colony of North Carolina in the year 17iii. Long before this time, according to the physical ovldenoe and tra dition of Bloody Creek, the "heapa" of white men's bones were there. Kinlay's account of what he had seen raised no enthusiasm for Immediate ad ventures, for the pathless wilderness and dark forests and mountains overshadow ing the promised lands." It was two years later that Daniel Boone entered the country and began the mak ing of his thrilling personal history, which Is also the history of the early settlements of Kentucky, but not of its mountain fastnesses. It took leaders of men to organize and load parties Into the wilder ness In those days, and took the best woodsman of th day. It Is impossible to believe that any party of men tra,V t h there from the colonies of Virginia nd North Carolina, or that any party of men could havo departed for that suprnieedly aoyssmai country, without note h'"1 been taken of their departure and I heir failure to return. The fact Is that Hu e papers and local historians have made close' tabs on these expeditions. Their go tnss and comings, successes and failures .,.wj i,f record. until mo tnat me "rumor ftt the recently uwiuioreu icai"" -tur-kv reached Virginia. Then a party of frty "stout hunters" led by Colonel James i- r.t irn- Knox reai.'nea rveumeny, ..... ... them entering the unknown land, the others having been killed by the way or having turned back before they entered the country, overcome by fatigue or over whelmed by the Increasing dangers. The records of this party were kept. The par ty that full on Bloody Creek had turned to whitened bones by tills time. The first surveying parties of the country of the Ohio, sent In to survey the boun dary lines ot the British ground, did not ge-t In there until 1773 ln 1775. varloua small parties were passing Into Kentucky and returning home to Virginia, kiight or ten years later It was not a very uncom mon tiling for an Intrepid traveller to make his way back to Virginia by way of the wilderness, which meant by way of the mountains and their black forests. All the parties and all the travellers, he- lovarlahly enlerea rland through Cumberland rtap. which ;s nearly luu nnles south of Bloody Creek. It was the nutiirul course from the east where the txinotns or tne nui i""" n. aw-. ,i w."- . crossing and recrosslng of the heights which a Uaring to the north would have ini.-oscd. Colonists frori Roanoke Island would have made directly as poss'ble for the mountain elevations and bell to them in the ho'ie of Ion rig the ivugcs sad tfieat- 1 selves In the land beyond. a J