Historians recall presidential visit to Roanoke Island

Who was the first U.S. president to visit Roanoke Island, N.C., to mix a little business with pleasure? 

Historians tell us that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was honored to participate in a ceremony in Manteo on Aug. 18, 1937. The event marked the release of a new U.S. postal stamp to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the birth of Virginia Dare.

 

Virginia Dare, of course, was the first child born (in 1587) to English parents in the New World. They were Ananias Dare and Elinor White Dare, who were among the first group of settlers to inhabit Roanoke Island. (Virginia’s grandfather, John White, was the colonial governor.)

U.S. Postmaster General James Aloysius Farley presented the idea for the Virginia Dare stamp on April 10, 1937. Roosevelt remarked that “since our country cannot celebrate ‘thousand-year anniversaries’ as can be done in foreign lands, we should not overlook a ‘350th anniversary.’” 

Roosevelt immediately picked up a sheet of White House stationery and sketched out his idea for the stamp. “Something like this,” he told Farley, handing him a rough pencil rendering of “a father holding a musket with the mother seated beside him holding a baby.” 

Ruth Wetmore and Tony Crumbley of the North Carolina Postal Historical Society wrote an essay in 2011, offering greater detail about the 5-cent Virginia Dare stamp. 

“The Bureau of Engraving and Printing considered several designs, all based on a wash drawing made by William A. Roache of Philadelphia, created especially for use on this stamp,” the authors said. The border design was added by William Karl Schrage. The engravers on the project were Carl Theodore Arlt and Edward Mitchell Weeks.

 

It was also Roosevelt’s pleasure to attend an evening performance at Waterside Theatre on Roanoke Island. He experienced “The Lost Colony,” an outdoor symphonic drama that premiered in the summer of 1937, written by famous playwright Paul Green. 

The president applauded the production as a “hymn to the American Dream.” He said: “Those worthy hopes led the father and mother of Virginia Dare…and the fathers and mothers from many nations through many centuries…to seek new life in the New World.”

 

An avid theater goer as well as a stamp collector, Roosevelt did indeed enjoy a full day of pleasure on Roanoke Island. 

As for “business,” Roanoke Island “offered a perfect setting” for Roosevelt to tout the effectiveness of his federal “New Deal” programs. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was involved in five construction projects on the island during the 1930s, including the Waterside Theater. 

Additionally, the production of “The Lost Colony” was funded through the Federal Theatre Project (FTP). It was a unit of Roosevelt’s WPA (Works Progress Administration). 

The WPA oversaw several departments that were designed for national improvement…and the employment of workers who had been displaced by the Depression. 

A Library of Congress spokesperson said: “While the primary aim of the FTP was the reemployment of theater workers on public relief rolls, it was also hoped that the project would result in the establishment of theater so vital to community life that it would continue to function after the FTP program was completed.” 

Author Susan Quinn wrote: “One piece of live theatre survives from the days of the Federal Theatre Project. It is ‘The Lost Colony,’ which continues to draw large crowds to Roanoke Island in North Carolina every summer.”

 

“Otherwise, the FTP lives on only in the archives and in the stories of those who took part.”