Elizabeth II, a 69-foot replica of an Elizabethan-era ship used by the first English colonists in America, at Roanoke Island Festival Park in Manteo, North Carolina. | Dennis Lennox
The site of the first English colony in America sits largely overshadowed by the famed beaches on the barrier islands that form North Carolinaâs Outer Banks.
In some ways this is fitting, given that the colony on Roanoke Island â explored in 1584 and later settled first in 1585 and then again in 1587 â is called the Lost Colony.
Behind Englandâs venture was Sir Walter Raleigh, who held letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I for a swath of âremote, heathen and barbarousâ land along the Atlantic called Virginia in todayâs North Carolina, Virginia and several other states.