First in Flight - North Carolina History Quiz

Answer: The settlers had simply vanished

The fate of the settlers of Roanoke Island remains a mystery. The word "Croatoan" was carved into a tree, leading some to believe that the colonists voluntarily abandoned the settlement to join a friendly tribe of Native Americans. Others speculate that the unfortunate folks were either captured and murdered or simply starved to death.

One local theory is the possibility that the residents relocated to nearby Cedar Island or that John White simply returned to the wrong area and that the settlers were alive and well a few miles away.

The story of the Lost Colony lives on in an outdoor drama that is produced every summer on Roanoke Island.

Answer: The Communist Workers' Party

Attempts by the CWP to organize area workers led to months of acrimony between the party and the Klan and its allies. On November 3, a rally was interrupted by the arrival of several Klansmen. The subsequent gun battle led to the deaths and the arrests of sixteen participants, all who were later acquitted.

A civil lawsuit in 1985 awarded $350,000 to the surviving victims.

Answer: Virginia Dare

The child of Eleanor and Ananias Dare was among the settlers who disappeared from Roanoke Colony. Her grandfather, John White, returned from England to find the small colony abandoned.

"Dare" was popular for baby girls born in the area during the early twentieth century, and Dare County in North Carolina's Outer Banks was named for her.

Answer: Hurricane Hazel

After killing approximately 1,000 people in Haiti, Hurricane Hazel made landfall as a Category Four storm near the North and South Carolina state line on October 15. The deadly system cut a path through eastern and central North Carolina before storming up the coast, leaving destruction in its wake and eventually causing over 80 deaths in Canada.

Answer: New Bern

The town of New Bern was founded in 1710 by Swiss and German settlers. Due to its close proximity to the Neuse and Trent Rivers, the town thrived and was, for a time, the largest city in North Carolina. Tryon Palace was completed in 1770 and served as headquarters to both the Crown governor and the first seven state governors after the colonies declared independence from British rule.

The capital was relocated in 1794 to its current site in Raleigh.

Answer: He was the only white chief of the Cherokee people

William Holland Thomas was born in 1805 near what is now Waynesville. As a young man, he befriended the local Cherokee and was eventually adopted by Chief Yonaguska. Thomas negotiated with the US Government on behalf of his tribe, and because federal law prohibited Native Americans from owning land, he purchased back a portion of the land the government had taken. That land is now a part of the Qualla Boundary, the modern day home of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

Little Will, as he was known to his people, became chief when his father died in 1839.

Answer: North Carolina voters elected the state's first female governor

After a twenty year career in state politics, Bev Perdue was elected North Carolina's first female governor in the 2008 election. During her term in office, she successfully introduced several laws to benefit the state's public education system.

Governor Perdue chose not to seek reelection in 2012 and was succeeded by her 2008 opponent, former Charlotte mayor Pat McCrory.

Answer: Edward Teach

Edward Teach, more commonly known as Blackbeard, was born around 1680. Sometime during the early years of the 1700's, Teach captured a French ship, renamed it "Queen Anne's Revenge", and spent the next few years traveling from the West Indies to the North Carolina coast, robbing merchant ships along the way. He eventually settled in Bath and received a royal pardon in 1718.

His time away from crime was brief, and in November of 1718, Blackbeard was killed on Ocracoke Island during a skirmish with English sailors.

Work began in 2013 to recover artifacts from the Queen Anne's Revenge.

Answer: The first documented discovery of gold in the United States

Fifty years before the California Gold Rush, the son of Cabarrus County farmer John Reed found a seventeen pound yellow rock in a stream on the family farm. After using it as a doorstop for three years, Reed took it to a jeweler and, unaware of the nugget's worth, accepted a whopping $3.50 for it. He did, however, enter into a venture with a few of his neighbors and the Reed Gold Mine was born.

Mining efforts declined (and eventually ended) after the start of the Civil War, but the Reed Gold Mine is now a state historic landmark and is open to the public.

Answer: Lumbee

The ancestral origin of the Lumbee has been the subject of some debate over the years; in fact, the tribe was called "Croatan" at the time it received state recognition. (Some believed the Lumber River area residents to be the direct descendants of the "lost" settlers of Roanoke and the Croatan tribe of Hatteras Island.) After several name changes, the name "Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina" was adopted by the tribe in 1952.