New find on Roanoke Island creates stir

Scott Dawson, a native of Hatteras Island and now a resident of Colington, has shared the location of a discovery he made on National Park Service property with that agency, which has now secured the area and posted surveillance to insure that intruders don't disturb the site.

Doug Stover, park historian of the Park Service, said that park officials think that the site may be the remains of Fort Blanchard, a Civil War fort.

But if proven correct in his beliefs, Dawson will be the envy of many archaeologists who have spent their careers in the search of the long-lost Ft. Raleigh, Ralph Lane's 1585 fort on Roanoke Island.

Dawson located the site on Feb. 6 and shared his findings with the Sentinel on the following day. To ensure the preservation of the site, it was agreed at that time to alert the National Park Service, and that the Outer Banks Sentinel would delay writing about it until officials had time to examine and secure the site.

A call was placed to Stover by this reporter to make arrangements for Dawson to take officials to the area. Since then, the site which includes earthworks, trenches and embankments, has been visited by several interested parties, including NPS officials, head of the Lost Colony Center for Science and Research, Fred Willard and Dawson. During one of those visits, Dawson, under a permit issued by the NPS, used a metal detector and, he said, there were numerous "hits," most of which indicated silver down under the layers of dirt.