A Lost Colony Hoax

On November 8, 1937, a tourist from California named L. E. Hammond walked onto the campus of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, carrying a 21-pound rock he had accidentally stumbled upon in North Carolina. The barely-legible inscription on the rock appeared to be a lengthy message from Eleanor Dare, mother of Virginia Dare, and it was dated 1591. The inscription told of the trials and tribulations endured by the English colonists after their departure from Roanoke Island in 1587. The authenti