Reconstructed earthen fort at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site is all that remains of the original settlement

As the park Ranger said, “Prepare to be underwhelmed.”

The Earthen Fort at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site is a 1950 reconstruction of a small structure believed to have been the protective wall around what once was the 1585 work area of metallurgist Joachim Gans. Archaeologists found tools and rock samples consistent with what metallurgists of the time would have been using. In order to finance future trips, Sir Walter Raleigh promised investors that riches from the New World would more than reward them for their support. Thus, scientists familiar with geology were an important part of the exploration team because they could analyze rock and soil samples to determine if there were any precious metals in the area. The work area, or “science lab,” may have existed before the Earthen Fort, for the fort would have been built only as a result of trouble with the local Indians.

The question could then be asked, “But does this fort have anything to do with the colonists who came in 1587?” The original plan for the 1587 voyage was to stop at the site and pick up fifteen men who had been left behind from the 1585 expedition (of whom no trace was found) and then travel farther north to the Chesapeake Bay. However, the captain of their ship—a pirate—refused to take them any farther due to the fact that he wanted to head south to where the Spanish treasure ships were sailing. As a result, the colonists got dumped off at this same location as the earlier voyagers. It would stand to reason that they certainly would have reused the buildings and other structures.

The logical assumption of the modern thinker would be that since the location of the Earthen Fort and science lab had been identified, the rest of the settlement structures should be in the same area. After all, the place only had to be big enough to house 600 men (size of the 1585 expedition), and they certainly wouldn’t have stretched the settlement over a large area and created separate districts. However, no archaeological evidence has ever been found to indicate that the actual living quarters of the colony was in the area surrounding the fort. Such evidence would include post holes where structures had been built and large concentrations of household garbage such as broken piece of pots, metal pans, bones, shells, etc. Truth be told, the settlement area has never been found—not near the fort, not within the boundaries of the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, not anywhere on Roanoke Island.

We know from journals and reports of the original explorers that they did live on the island, and plenty of 16th century European artifacts have been found. Nearly 20,000 square feet have been excavated within the park boundaries, but most of what has been found—nails and spikes and plenty of metallurgy related items—has been found in the vicinity of the fort. The conclusion of archaeologists dating back to Jean Harrington, who worked at Fort Raleigh in 1947, and as recent as those excavating the area in 1995, is that the only way for 100-plus settlers not to have left plenty of domestic artifacts in the area surrounding the Earthen Fort would be to have never lived there to begin with. They lived somewhere else, still close by, perhaps in an area that is now covered by modern subdivisions and businesses, or even in an area that is now underwater, an area of the island that has been eroded away by the waters surrounding it.

The current fort itself is nothing more than a small configuration of hills and trenches. An 1895 excavation had revealed faint outlines of the trenches that were dug in the 1580s. Earth that was removed would have been piled up to form a protective wall (all of which has long since eroded away). In 1950, the National Park Service re-dug the trenches and created the walls based on knowledge of similar forts constructed at the time.

The round trip walk from the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site Visitor Center to the Earthen Fort is .2 mile. With time to see the fort, figure about 15 minutes for the trip. You can walk inside the earthen walls and onto what is now a small field. Four wooden posts stick out of the ground to mark the original locations of post holes found during an excavation of the fort. These indicate that some sort of rectangular structure once stood at this spot.