Lost Treasure

Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981) Join adventurer/archeologist Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) as he circles the globe in a race against Nazi agents to recover an ancient religious artifact with untold powers. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas' heart-racing tribute to the Saturday matinee serials co-stars Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, John Rhys-Davies, and Denholm Elliott. Indiana Jones: The Complete Adventure Collection Five-disc set includes "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," and "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" (Special Edition).

Often, there is potential value in a rare find. Lost treasure evokes images of pirates scouring the high seas for chests of gold … or explorers bravely conquering new lands in search of personal fortune. Although this may have been true a long time ago, today’s treasure hunters aren’t pirates or explorers.

Treasure stories have excited generations. The promise of an Indiana Jones-style adventure often inspires even the most armchair- bound person to trek into the field. Easy wealth is a strong motivator, especially if little effort is required to recover the treasure. The lure is even stronger if mysterious circumstances or unique events are part of a treasure's history.

Treasure tales were widespread in the US and Canada during the early years of the 19th century, occasionally erupting into fevers when large areas were excavated by excited residents. Events were triggered by rumors of wealth left behind by pirates, native tribes, armies or lost civilizations whose ruins were thought to lie below.

Pirates were most often found as protagonists in tales near the coast, where they were most likely to make landfall. Tribal gold mine stories were common across Vermont, upstate New York and Pennsylvania. Some persist even today, with individuals digging through old records in the hope of finding a clue that will lead them to treasures that have eluded others for centuries.

Often, rumors were started by people claiming to have a supernatural ability to locate buried treasure — for a fee. Some ended up in jail. Others managed to flee the wrath of their victims, only to pull off the same scam in another town. The con artists became rich, while their victims went home with empty hands and pockets.

Tales of Captain Kidd's gold and fortunes amassed by other pirates were common along the New England and Canadian coastline. Many areas were said to have been visited by groups of heavily armed men, who rowed ashore in isolated locations to bury treasure in hastily dug pits. For example, some accounts claim Dighton Rock, a massive boulder once located on the Taunton River near Berkeley, Massachusetts, held inscriptions cut by Kidd to mark the location of his hoard. Others believe they were left by Phoenician, Norse or other visitors prior to the arrival of European settlers and have no relationship to buried treasure.

Other locations cited as possible repositories for Kidd's treasure include Medford, Massachusetts, the Isles of Shoals, Oak Island in Nova Scotia and various locations in New York. Even places further inland are not immune. A folktale told in New York's Shawangunk Mountains claims Kidd's crew navigated his ship, the Quedah Merchant, up the Hudson, where it sank with a vast treasure aboard.

Pirate tales were accepted even far inland. In 1804, treasure mania broke out in Maine. Eyewitness accounts claim settlers were "digging in search of money, to the neglect of tilling their lands, and securing their crops. Days and nights are spent by many persons, in digging up old swamps and deserts, sixty, seventy, eighty miles from navigation". Forgers and con artists quickly took advantage of this situation.

An illiterate squatter named Daniel Lambert, who worked as a farmer in the village of Canaan, began wearing expensive clothing and riding fine horses. He bought drinks for friends while literally lighting cigars using bank notes. Rumors spread, possibly by Lambert himself, that he'd found pirate gold. He's said to have demonstrated his ability to find treasure by using a divining rod to recover a coin hidden in a field.

Lambert convinced the townsmen to invest in his treasure company, trading bank notes for his neighbors' livestock and other goods. Lambert suddenly disappeared and was nowhere to be found. The townspeople then discovered Lambert was involved in a counterfeit ring, that the bank notes were forgeries and he'd disappeared into Canada taking with him their money, livestock and other wealth.

Legends about local treasure were not confined to the US alone. In Nova Scotia, a group of satirical letters published in a local newspaper, known as "The Mephibosheth Stepsure Letters" mention an incident when a man paid a sheriff's debt by "pulling out the leg of an old stocking tied at both ends... as many doubloons as satisfied the sheriff". When asked, he "told us he had been turning up his fields and found it there". He then advised them "to follow his plan, and not do like the Chester [a nearby town] folks; who once dug for money, and at last got so deep that they arrived in the other world; and falling in with the devil, were glad to get away with the loss of their tools". Perhaps not coincidentally, Chester is close to the Oak Island "money pit".

Other forms of stories involving buried wealth were common in Vermont and New York. The Shawangunk and Catskill Mountains are sources of tales of Native American tribes said to guard hidden gold or silver mines. Folktales tell of settlers who, after gaining the confidence of natives, were blindfolded and led to fabulous mines in hidden caves. These men are often said to have spent the rest of their lives trying to rediscover the location, only to die penniless.

Other tales tell of treasure left by European groups that once traversed or settled an area. Dutch settlers, Spanish explorers, Revolutionary War armies and others were thought to have left wealth hidden in the hills. One tale claims Crown Point, Lake Champlain, is the site of a ruined fort erected atop an earlier French fortification. It was thought the French buried money and bullion in a well, "in the northwest corner of the bastion, ninety feet deep, in the full expectancy of regaining it", and half a century ago this belief had grown to such proportions that fifty men undertook to clear the well. No gold was ever found.

It was also commonly believed that North America was once the home of long-vanished ancient civilizations. Abandoned Pueblo cliff dwellings and other artifacts in the American Southwest probably reinforced this belief. Also, in the mid 1600s, some writers expressed the opinion that certain native tribes might be the "lost tribes of Israel". Thomas Thorowgood's Jewes in America, or, Probabilities that the Americans are of that race, published in 1650, probably played a part in fixing this idea in the collective consciousness. In 19th-century Vermont, groups such as the "New Israelites" revived the association. Some believed Biblical treasures were buried in North America, awaiting rediscovery by the faithful. This belief was also strongly linked to the use of divination. It was thought the ability to use supernatural forces to locate wealth was a gift from God.

Practitioners of divination and other mystical crafts were quick to seize upon local beliefs, as well as actual treasure discoveries. So- called seers or money diggers roamed the countryside, claiming mystical powers enabling them to literally see and uncover buried gold. When hired by a group of treasure hunters, they insisted on elaborate rituals to prevent loss of the goods due to supernatural interference. Failure to recover the gold was laid on the actions (or inaction) of others during the actual dig.

Seers followed a common pattern by claiming the ability to find treasure by looking through a stone or crystal known as a "peep-stone" or "seer stone." This was known as "scrying," and often involved the seer setting the stone in his hat. He then placed his face over the hat and peered through the stone This, it was said, allowed him to see nearby treasure. Other seers, known as rods-men, used divining rods or mineral rods, said to "draw toward" buried gold and other valuables.

Seers charged fees and warned that very specific conditions must be maintained while recovering the treasure. Diggers were instructed not to speak until a chest was fully removed from its resting place. The seer often created a "magic circle" around the excavation area by dripping blood or sprinkling salt. Seers issued warnings not to break the circle, for doing so would incur the wrath of supernatural beings guarding the treasure. Pirate treasure tales often spoke of one or more crew members who were killed and buried atop the hoard as guardians. Their spirits were said to rise in defense of the buried gold when intruders appeared.

An example is Monhegan Island, off the Maine coast, which is said to be the location of a treasure cave guarded by such spirits. According to an old account, searchers found a heavy chest, which they were about to lift when one of the party, contrary to orders, spoke. The spell broken, "the watchful spirits heard and snatched away the treasure". Later, the cave was enlarged by blasting in hopes of finding the chest. An old saying had been handed down among the people of the island — "dig six feet and you will find iron; dig six more and you will find money."

Surviving tales commonly involve failure to follow the seer's instructions. Someone in the party speaks when the chest becomes visible. A man trips over a root or tool, breaking the magic circle. The seer pronounces that the treasure has "moved" and is no longer in the area. Everyone trudges home, only to repeat the procedure in another location with the same result. Laying failure on external causes preserved the belief a treasure really did exist.

Seers or money diggers are often said to have been suspected of illegal activities. A 1799 account mentions a man named Winchell in Rutland County, New York, who "took up a secretive residence on an out-lying farm, where he was suspected of being a fugitive from a counterfeiting indictment in Orange County. Presently his money-making propensities appeared in a different form; he became a rodsman, one of those gifted frontier characters claiming an ability to discover hidden wealth by the use of a divining rod, usually a stick of witch hazel". Winchell is said to have duped many of his neighbors into contributing funds to finance his treasure hunts. In each case, some minor incident broke his spell, just as the cache was to be uncovered.

Arguably, the most famous seer was the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith, Jr. His father was known as a money digger when the family lived in upstate New York. An 1870 document notes that "the elder Smith while living there was a hunter for Captain Kidd's treasure, and that he also became implicated with one Jack Downing in counterfeiting money, but turned state's evidence and escaped the penalty".

Women also acted as seers. Charles Skinner mentions that, "In 1827, a woman who was under- stood to have the power of seer- ship published a vision to a couple of young blades, who had paid for it, to the effect that hidden under one of the grass-grown wharves was a box of dollars. By the aid of a crystal pebble she received this really valuable information, but the pebble was not clear enough to reveal the exact place of the box."

In another incident, a former minister named Abner Kneeland "was persuaded to believe that two little girls in New York could see, by looking into tumblers of water, any hidden treasure, or stolen property, whether buried in the earth, sunk in the sea, or above ground, wherever it might be. By their direction, therefore, he spent all the money he could obtain, to find hidden and lost property." Con artists know no gender, and belief knows few bounds.

The famous "Money Pit" located on Oak Island, Nova Scotia may be the most enduring example. Treasure hunting on the island is said to have commenced in 1795, when a man named Daniel McGinnis found a site he thought held treasure. McGinnis recruited two of his friends to help him dig. Since 1861, the pit has been dug to a depth of over 200 feet (they're still digging). No known contemporary evidence exists to confirm the excavations actually began in 1795. The first accounts of the early excavations were not published until the 1860s, when another treasure hunting company was re-excavating the same area.

Oak Island also involved divination. An 1893 treasure company prospectus stated a mineral rod was used and it "worked all right. It pulled right toward the middle" of the area to be excavated. This document also mentions the "Fanny Young" pit, (so called from a clairvoyant who had been consulted on the subject). That was in 1850 and the fact of the pit being named for her would indicate that it was dug at that time.

Divination is not uniquely American, having been imported by immigrants long before the Revolutionary era. Quakers and others used divination, and divining rods are known from ancient times. In 1729, Benjamin Franklin wrote an article describing such practices, deriding those "fed with a Vain Hope of suddenly growing rich" who "wander the Bushes by Day to discover the Marks and Signs". At midnight, they "repair to the hopeful spot with Spades and Pickaxes; full of Expectation", yet wary of encountering "malicious Demons".

Unlike tales of legendary gold abandoned by mythical creatures in a time long forgotten, American treasure tales often are rooted in familiar locations. The existence of hidden wealth is presented as historical fact, not as a "once upon a time" tale. Stories are tailored to specific locations — a hallmark of folklore, which often places events in a familiar context to increase believability. Few would ever accept accounts of a dragon's hoard under an unnamed hill far away, readily dismissing these as legends or fairy tales. Stories involving pots of money buried by British troops near the ruins of a local frontier fort were more plausible and, therefore, likely to set off a treasure hunt.

American treasure tales sounded plausible. Many assumed they were historically documented. Not so. While some had a basis in fact, details were often completely fabricated or altered as the result of oral transmission.

Even today, some who accept the authenticity of such tales often are willing to defend them to the point of fanaticism. Certain stories (Oak Island is a case in point) attract supporters who frequently deride efforts to separate fact from fiction. This isn't surprising, since some have spent a lifetime searching for such treasures. The obsessive few pursue them to the point of bankruptcy, convinced the recovery of vast riches requires only a little more effort. They're convinced another throw of the dice will reverse their sagging fortunes. Previous generations thought the same.

Richard Joltes. Tales, Trickery and the Temptation of Treasure. History Magazine. June/July 2009.

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