Come home, Dare Stones, all is forgiven

Sorting through some of the late Noel Yancey’s terrific “As I Recall It” columns in the Spectator weekly, I happened onto this passage in a recap of the Dare Stones episode (Miscellany, Aug. 19):

“In 1973, Brenau [College] sought to give the stones to the state of North Carolina. Dr. H. G. Jones, then director of Archives and History [was asked] ‘if your department would be interested in having them, or if there is a museum in conjunction with the Lost Colony which would find these stones of interest’…

“Jones wrote the superintendent of the Fort Raleigh Historic Site suggesting that the stones would make  an interesting exhibit and that both he and William S. Powell felt  that ‘even though the stones appear to be apocryphal, they might well be preserved to illustrate the nuances of history.’  However, the Brenau offer fell though…”

Might it be time to reconsider repatriating the Dare Stones? The very dubiousness of their origin continues to intrigue. As Yancey quoted Paul Green: “If it is a fraud, it is a magnificent fraud. Whoever did it, they should build a monument to him.”

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