Origin of the Name
The name "Roanoke" is of Indian origin. In a
vocabulary of Indian words and phrases prepared
by Captain John Smith, the real founder of the Virginia
Colony, he gives "Rawrenock," which signifies
white beads. Hugh Jones, author of "The Present
State of Virginia," says the name "Roenoak" was applied
to the "white shells with holes which the Indians
wore on strings about their arms and necks."
These shells also passed as "current coin" among
the natives. The name given the new county was
an historic one. It was first applied to an island on
the coast of North Carolina, on which Sir Walter
Raleigh attempted to found the first English settlement
in America. The name will go down in American
history as one of the most noted and widely
known of all the names familiar to students of American
history. It was later applied to the river which
rises in the Alleghany Mountains and flows eastwardly,
dividing the county, and which empties into
Albemarle Sound, near Roanoke Island. The name
was also adopted by Roanoke City, the marvelous
development of which has excited the wonder and
admiration of the whole country, growing in less
than a third of a century from a hamlet of a few
hundred people to more than thirty-five thousand
population. The name will be perpetuated in modern
history as the synonym of progress and industrial
enterprise.
