Show A FLORIDA GOLD BUG TALE > = r i Allegred Discovery of a Chart Jj os cribinsr the Location ota Treasure If Somewhere about the year JStO a piratical craft which had been cruising along the Spanish main having met with considerable success among the Spanish merchantmen and obtaining S some rich hauls of specie was running up along the lower Florida coast when she was caught in a sudden gale just below Hillsboro inlet and wrecked on a coral island says the Fernan dina Fla Mirror Nearly all the crew got ashoresafely and before the ship broke up lacy succeeded in getting outTeighteeq of the twenty caskS of the gold they had captured The casks being too heavy to carry easily the captain ordered aSs men to tUlike bags out of the sails and in these the I gold waocarried to a spot in the centra of the island i and there buried the cap tain making a roughchart of the location loca-tion after which all hands went to the lower end of the island and camped The same night they were discovered 1 by the Indians andall were killed excepting ex-cepting one personthe steward a young fellow who happened to belittle a be-little apart from the others when the raid was made and thus escaped the fate of his companions But even he was discovered the next day and was kept in captivity for several weeL when he escaped and wandering alon the coast finally arrived in St Augustine Augus-tine The steward of all sailingcraft at that time also acted as the captains clerk and kept all of the ships papers etc and he among other papery kept the chart which the captain had made of the hiding place of that gold He continued to reside in St Augustine and for a long time intended to take some good opportunity to go and take up the treasure but circumstances preventedthe Indians wore troublesome trouble-some the Spanish settlement was in a turmoil and the chart became mislaid S or lost and then came the war uf the Confederacy In the nieinviiilu the steward was getting to be an old injn and having accumulated considerable wealth he gave up all idea of going after this treasure till a few months ago while he was showing some old documents docu-ments which hehad concerning some portion of St Augustine he unrolled the lost chart from inside another ancient an-cient parchment but he is now about 95 years old with no near relatives rela-tives to benefit by this money and himself him-self not needing it he calls on an old friend who baa once done him a great favor and tells pim as the sole survivor of that affair all the particulars and gives him the chart and promises to go with him on an expedition to find it ifS if-S his health will admit The friend has rigged up a small sloop and with provisions and several companions is now on his way to the location The old man was too feeble to go with them but the chart is so clear in its description and theinforma tion given by the old man and corroborative cor-roborative evidence oflocatibn has been found by one of the party who at various times found gold coin on the beach at the precise locality of the wreck presumably from the several j casks that the pirates failed to remove from the ship gives the assurance that their trip will be a successful one The amount estimated by the steward near a million of Spanish dollars and the principal party the man who befriended the old steward and who hashis chart and information is a wellknown popular citizen of Ercnandma thcit fore we wish him all success < |