Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1926-08-28
Virginia Dare Made Symbol
OF Earliest i. S. WOmanhood

the Journal, Undoubtedly entered
North Carolina waters by an inlet
long ago closed by storm and tide.
Had there been no inlet near Roanoke
Island, the first Anglo Saxon child
would not have been born in North
Carolina"
"Virginia Dare left but a name, re-
marks the New York Times. "yet it
is suggestive of the spirit of the wom-
anhood of this new land. What man
dare, dare these mothers of Amer
lea said. It was their patient,
heroic spirit, daring to face any hard
ship, that bred in the pioneer de-
scendants an individualistic quality OF
purpose that quails at nothing, that
is ready to make experiment of new
ways and is not servile to environ
ment. The name Of Virginia Dare
is q generic name with which to
christen American pioneer mother
hood and the spirit we call American"
The Norfolk Ledger Dispatch adds
that "these splendid American pioneers
doubtless went down to death as they
lived, intrepidly."
I'm all these more than 800 years"
AYERS the Providence Bulletin, lit has
been a name to conjure with-a
symbol Of the earliest American wom-
anhood. The distinction of Virginia
Dare is not merely that she was the
first white child born on American
soil. but that she was the first Amer
ican-born girl, the pioneer OF a great
race of American women. One may
easily imagine that there was some
thing grimly in keeping with an in
scrutable destiny in her mysterious
fate. The ancient Greeks would
doubtless have regarded her untimely
taking off as an ordained sacrifice to
the gods"
While 1t Is assumed that Virginia
Dare left no descendants, the New
York Sun recalls the stories that have
been told. "One tradition says the
colony was captured by Indians, their
town destroyed and they themselves
murdered. Another tradition was that
the colonists, abandoning hope of
white relief, reverted to savagery and
became the progenitors of gray eyed,
fair haired Indian tribe, that at the
beginning of the eighteenth century
lived along the Cape Hatteras coast.
If this was the case, there may be
somewhere today a man or woman in
whose veins flows the blood of Vir-
ginia Dare" The WATERFOWL Times,
however, while noting the existence
of this legend. finds that mo family
traces its lineage back to the first
child to be born in America"
What became Of Virginia Dare. or
the colonists of whom she was one"
states the Charleston Daily Mail, mo
research has been able to discover.
They just simply disappeared from
history. But other Englishmen came
to America, at jamestown and at
Plymouth Rock. and to Pennsylvania
and Maryland and other places, and
these stayed. Also came Swedes and
Dutch and French Huguenots, then
Germans and others, while in other
parts of America that have since been
Joined with these original Is colonies
French Catholics and Spaniards, who
settled South and West. These diff
ferent elements, not always without
friction, have been able to live to-
gether in comparative harmony and
to cooperate in making a new coun-
try" And the Nashville Banner re-
marks that "a great continent has
been conquered. taken over, built into
richness that the Old World. with
all its grandeurs and glories of Greece
and Rome, never knew"