The "Lost Colony" was Sir Walter Raleigh's third expedition to 'Verginia",( they spelled it that way).  Raleigh sent the expedition right after the return of Sir Richard Greenville and Governor Lane.  A part of Raleigh's expedition was to check on the 15 men left by them. 

Raleigh didn't want to land in Roanoke Island, he wanted to look farther north, to perhaps the Chesapeake Bay area.  He didn't think Roanoke Island would be good as a New England.  It didn't have enough farmland to feed a lot of people, the water around it was too shallow to anchor large ships, and Greenville's men mistreated the natives there.  They might attack the colony. 

On April 26, 1587, about 170 men, women and children left England to set up a colony in the Chesapeake Bay area.  Their first stop was to be Roanoke Island to check on the men left by Grenville.  Sir Walter Raleigh appointed John White as the colony's Governor, and Simon Fernando as the ship's captain.  Others on this voyage included John White's daughter and son-in-law, Eleanor and Ananias Dare. 

The trip to North Carolina was tension filled for White and Fernando were constantly fighting.  When the ship, The Red Lion, stopped at Roanoke Island to check on the 15 men, left by Greenville, Simon Fernando refused to go any farther.  Fernando was greatly trusted by Sir Walter Raleigh and no one knows the true reason of why he stopped.  He may have been worried about hurricane season, others say he was interested in pirating Spanish ships.

The stranded colonists did their best to rebuild the houses built by Greenville's men, and to learn to use the foods around them.   On August 18, 1587, Eleanor gave birth to her first child.  She was named Virginia after the queen and their new home.  Virginia Dare was the first English child born in America. 

After a while, the colonists started running out of supplies.  The colony wanted John White to go back for more supplies.  John White didn't want to leave the colony, especially his new granddaughter, Virginia.  But he agreed in the end.  The colony wanted more food, supplies, and people.  Around August 25th, John White set sail for England.  He had left instructions with the colonists to leave a sign of their whereabouts.  They were to write CROATAN on a tree if they went to live with the nearby friendly natives.  If they left in distress, a cross was to be carved into the tree.  That was the last anyone saw of that colony. 

Due to England's war with Spain, it took three years for John White to return to Roanoke to find the colony.  Much to his dismay, the place was deserted.  He looked around the log boundary of the fort.  On one of the post was the word "Croatoan".  White desperately  wanted to sail to Croatoan Island to find his daughter, but a storm was coming and the ship couldn't make it.

For years after the disappearance of this group, English explorers and travelers tried to locate the missing group.  Reports of settlers of Jamestown and later traveled south to Roanoke Island in an attempt to find clues.  Stories of  blue-eyed, English speaking natives were told, but no hard evidence of connection to this particular group was ever found.  To this day people are looking for reasons for the colony's disappearance.  Clues and theories have been created and tested, but no one knows for sure what happened.

If you count Lane and Grenville's troops, this group was not the first set of colonists lost in the North Carolina Outer Banks.  The tales of  a young Virginia Dare growing up among the natives and the sadness of John White as he tried to hurry back to his family, but couldn't, help to make this story more intriguing.