Chip Chick
Once word of the stone got around, there was a lot of media surrounding it, and people became fascinated. It didn’t take long for others to start presenting more stones with more information on the colony.
One man from Georiga, Bill Eberhardt, came forward with four stones he had allegedly found near Greenville, South Carolina. One was dated in 1591 and had 17 names carved into it, including Ananias and Virginia. More people eventually came forward with stones. By 1940, 48 stones were collected from South Carolina and Georgia, 42 of which came from Bill.
Some of the stones acted as gravestones, while others gave more information on what happened to Eleanor after her family was killed and the colony died off. This was how the stones eventually became known as the ‘Dare Stones.’
In the fall of 1940, at a conference held at Brenau College, historians and scholars stated that the stones were legit.
However, after an investigative journalist did some research on Bill Eberhardt and the Dare Stones, it was revealed that Bill had a history of forging Native American and Mesoamerican artifacts. An article all about Bill’s past was published in newspapers just a few months after the conference.
Since the articles about Bill were published, the entire situation with the Dare stones was shrouded in debate and doubt. While some historians have continued to research Louis Hammond’s first stone and see it as legitimate, others still have their doubts.
Because of the constant back and forth and contradicting evidence of the stones, it is still a mystery whether or not the Dare stones are legitimate and tell the truth about what happened to the lost colony of Roanoke.
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