Post by Zadkiel on Jan 12, 2016 23:26:45 GMT
On 8 May 1398, Earl Henry 1 of the Orkneys set out on an expedition along with the Venetian admiral Antonio Zeno, with twelve ships and 300 men, including Knights Templar, monks and shipbuilders. They first took the usual route from Edinburgh via the Orkneys, Shetland, the Faeroe Islands and Iceland to Greenland, but then, they continued west until they made landfall in Canada. There is much to suggest that Henry established colonies in Guysborough and Louisbourg in Nova Scotia before the expedition was divided and Antonio went home with some of the ships in the fall, while Henry continued south along the coast and did not return until the following year. We find several traces of his expedition in Maine and many researchers now support the theory that it was the Earl of the Orkneys that erected the mysterious round tower in Newport, Rhode Island, which served both as a church and a lighthouse at the entrance to the third of his American colonies.
