‘Lost Colony’ is essentially North Carolina’s starting place

For the cover story in September’s issue of Our State magazine, editors make the statement:

“North Carolina’s story lives in objects made here, used here, treasured here….They carry the marks of work and worship, progress and protest, music and memory. Some built industries; others built traditions. A few changed the nation. Together, they tell us who we are, who we’ve been and what we carry forward.”

 

A good number of those “objects” selected have coastal connections. The coast is where it all started…with the legend and lore arising from the “Lost Colony.”

 

Contributing writer Katherine Snow Smith tell readers about the ornate theater costumes of England’s Queen Elizabeth I, who has graced the stage is the cast of The Lost Colony outdoor drama. 

The production has been performed continuously in Manteo in Dare County since 1937. Each of the queen’s gowns in the troupe’s wardrobe weighs a hefty 37 pounds or so.

 

It was Queen Elizabeth I who endorsed the expedition organized in London, England, by Sir Walter Raleigh to attempt to build a British military compound on Roanoke Island as early as 1585. 

Due to hardships encountered, the men threw in the towel and sailed back to England in 1586.

Raleigh sent out a second group of colonists in 1587, intent on establishing a settlement on Roanoke Island, led by John White. This is the collection of families who became the “Lost Colony,” never to be found.

 

What became of them remains an unsolved mystery, but there are clues to indicate that the original settlement simply dissolved, as the English families were assimilated into the villages of Native Americans.

Some research suggests that several bands of lost colonists may have found their way to Cedar Island and Hog Island within Carteret County. Also, consider the possibility that local historians may have been correct when they tossed out the notion:

“The ‘Lost Colony’ wasn’t lost at all. It was the people who came looking for it who were lost.”

Equally mystifying to music lovers in North Carolina is the precise origin of “Carolina Beach Music” and shag dancing. 

Some say the craze started at Carolina Beach in New Hanover County. Others vote for Atlantic Beach, here in Carteret County.

 

No matter. What’s important is that a pair of “shaggin’ shoes” qualifies as another of the top 50 “defining objects” in the Our State write-up…shining the light once again on coastal North Carolina.

 

Rebecca Woltz, an Our State staff writer, said: “The Carolina shag’s six-count steps were shaped by the rhythm and blues and swing music that filled coastal juke joints and oceanfront dance halls.”

Dancers preferred flat shoes with smooth leather soles, perfect for gliding across wooden dance floors, she said.

 

Kurt Lichtmann, who taught dance at Ithaca (N.Y.) College, explained that the shag “doesn’t bounce or hop – it glides. The shag is smooth….”

Stewart Tick of Bluefield, W.Va., a noted musicologist, said beach music, with “a mid-tempo shuffle rhythm and a prominent light backbeat were ideally suited for doing the shag, a style of swing dance, characterized by smooth, fluid movements and often somewhat elaborate footwork.”

 

“Upper-body motion was held to minimum, and the turns and spins were slowed to an appropriate pace.”

College kids in the Carolinas liked to shag, reported journalist Allison Hussey of Brooklyn, N.Y., because it’s relatively “easy to keep a drink in one hand while spinning your dance partner with the other.”

 

One of the favorite shagging venues in all of eastern North Carolina was “The Williams Lake Dance Club” in rural Sampson County, near Spivey’s Corner and not too far from Clinton, Dunn and Newton Grove.