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Show LOST TREASURES I - OF AMERICA I Gold and Jewels Still Waiting to be jj I Found by Some Modern Adventurer. 1 BY 1 I BUFFINGTON PHILLIPS 4 (Copy rig-h '.' ' by' the' 'h idinyCo.') lOFe a treasure is to bury Jt, it seems. Tie earth in some mysterious way spreads a mantle of oblivion which can not be pierced by the memory of man and takes back to her bosom the treasure that was wrested from her. The other area is In the east, be-ginnig be-ginnig at about Camden, N. J., and extending ex-tending north to Albany and thence to Portland. Maine. Tu that field lived the rich Royalist and Tory families. The sudden turning of the tide found the Tories in possession of a great quantity of gold coin, gold and silver plate and jewels, and fearing they would lose these, they buried them and then fled. Comparatively little of It was ever exhumed and the area is dotted thickly with localities where a search would be highly profitable. Of them I can mention a few only. At Sound Beach, Conn., lives Mrs. Jane Louden, 101 years of age. Her husband, knowing that on the home farm a wealthy Tory family had burled gold, hunted until he found several pots containing several thousand dollars dol-lars each. A neighbor also acquired sudden wealth which he did not explain. ex-plain. Every one knew there was a great Joint family cache somewhere near. It was known for many years that on Lord Edmeston's estate near West Edmeston, N. Y., his personal representative, repre-sentative, Perdifer Carr, had buried a treasure. The property known as the Burdlck Farm, having been bought by Henry F. Burdick in 1850, was the site. In 1904 a tenant named Cheese-borough Cheese-borough plowed Into a case of china and glass, breaking half of It before he realized what the obstruction was. By reason of design and quality the remainder, re-mainder, however, was worth a small fortune to dealers in antiques. It was the Edmeston ware. The law suit that followed for possession made the case famous. Where is the remainder of the treasure? Joel Coryell, sexton at Romulus, N. Y., digging a grave on what was a Tory estate in 1776, found a large quantity of money in an old pot. The grave belonged to Thomas Mann, but Coryell kept the gold. Walter Butler, the notorious Mohawk Mo-hawk Valley Tory, returned to the valley val-ley at the end of the war with a force of Tories and Indians to dig up the treasures he had buried and those that had been buried by other wealthy Tories who had told him where to recover re-cover It In their behalf. When he had finished his work and was returning, the pursuing Colonials under Colonel Marinus Willet, overtook the treasure squad beyond Johnson's Hall on the bank of the West Canada in northern Herkimer county; i The treasure wras too heavy for the THE greatest treasure in the United States, a vast sum that awaits some one's flnd;ng, is -one concerning which I have sought the exact truth for the several years that I have followed this fad of collecting col-lecting treasure-trove data. The publication pub-lication of the story or stories about it may bring to light the men who can say definitely what is what. However any man who cares to set out after it in a business-like manner may turn himself into a multi-millionaire between be-tween Christmas and Fourth of July. This much is certain: somewhere on the upper reaches of the Missouri river lie four large barges, lost In 1866, laoded to their utmost capacity with gold estimated in amount from $7,000,000 to $25,000,000. Just at the close of the civil war some rumors of the finding of gold in the Black Hills of Dakota and Montana Mon-tana drifted into the towns on the border of civilization In the northwest. It seems odd to think that fifty years ago that region was a frontier, but there are hundreds of old Indians now living on the reservations who then were fighting braves and fifty years ago they had never seen a white man's face. In the spring of 1866 some old prospectors pros-pectors in the back drift from California Califor-nia found gold in one of the tributaries of the Missouri, said now to be the north fork of the Cheyenne. Why it Is no more certain will appear. Others of thier ilk "smelled" the discovery and a band of no more than forty drew into the region, making a wonderful won-derful strike, jthe richest that has ever been made on America soil according to all accounts. The strike was made in , what is now called Deadmen's Gulch, named to suit the story, but called in the old records Federation, Desperation and Starvation Gulches. The gold was alluvial, washed down from the northern ledges, now being worked by the rich Caledonia Qaurtz Mine Company near Deadwood. The gravel banks and flats were inexpres- ork City. Certain British laws must be repealed before it can be recovered however. It is in one of the out-of-way places of the world and very little lit-tle is known by , the general public about it. The superstitious French fishermen, unchanged in a hundred and fifty years, still await the return of the llerce pilot to claim his own. The Rock of Perce, named for the adjacent fishing village, is one of the true natural wonders of our continent. When some convulsion of nature rent the coast this rock was split from the nearby mountain and left standing, a grim monument to the caprice of the gods of sea and land. Several hundred hun-dred foet high, with a comparatively flat top, its sides are beetling and one side is about two hundred feet higher than the other. Once it was pierced by three arches through any one of which a small ship might sail, but now one of these has collapsed, leaving only the two huge galleries. Captain Duval was a French privateer priva-teer who returned only a small portion por-tion of his loot from English and other oth-er ships to . the French authorities, and after the declaration of peace he became an out-and-out pirate. He protected the French fishermen and was generous with them. They, in their turn, protected him as the English Eng-lish peasant protected Dick Turpin. At last he was hard pressed by the English, and having in his service a Micmac Indian who knew a secret trail to- the supposedly inaccessible Rock of Perce, he collected all his caches of treasure In the maritime provinces and brought them to Perce. The Indian carried a line to the top of the rock and hauled up a block and fall. Then two prisoners were hauled up, and next Duval himself. Boats containing the great treasure chests stood by below. The tradition is that they were a day ana a moonlight night getting it all up. Then the Indian was sent down and Duval himself was lowered away. - His rapier was dripping with of It could be reached with comport, tive ease now. Just above Pine Bluff, Arkansas, a steamboat said to have been the Car-lyle Car-lyle J. Harrison, with several hundred thousand dollars in gold to pay for cotton, was sunk in 1869. None or it has ever been recovered There is a fascinating story about an old barge that is buried in the Missouri Mis-souri sand-flats near Fort Rice, North Dakota. With it is buried silver worth more than half a million dollars At the time when the unsuccessful prospectors pros-pectors were tolling, empty handed, back from the gold fields of California, a little band of men struck a rich find near what is now Virginia City, Mon-tana. Mon-tana. ' The built a rude camp and, with the poor implements that they had, work-ed work-ed feverishly for many months until they' had taken out all that their packs could carry across the miles of uncivilized country they must cross to the navigable rivers of the upper Missouri. Mis-souri. Tolling across the mountains, always in danger of massacre, facing starvation and privations, breaking roads in the frozen flats and blazing trails through the forests, they finally reached the river near Painted Woods, and there built a rude barge and loaded load-ed it to the water's edge w'itb. the rich silver ore. Traveling by night, in constant fear of Indian outbreaks, they wended slowly slow-ly down the partly frozen river, know- j ing that soon ' they would reach the frontier town and safety. It was in '64 and the few scattered settlements had been deserted. No Indians had ' been seen for days and, taking courage, cour-age, they traveled faster and with less caution. When they were near Fort Rice they were attacked by the Indians In-dians and all of the little band were killed with the exception of one man, Pierre Laselle. Ignorant of the wealth aboard, the Redskins sunk the float, and Pierre Laselle escaped to Fort Rice leaving behind him no trace of the expedition; the secret of the hardships and toil and wealth were with the river and with him. He told no one anything about it for some time not until he had enlisted in the army and maneuvered maneu-vered so as to get back to be near bis treasure. Then he took an old Quaker, Quak-er, named Richard Pope, Into his confidence con-fidence and at the urgent request of the Quaker his son was also told the secret. Three months later the litle party, well armed and well provisioned, went quietly to the spot that Laselle remembered remem-bered so well, only to find that the river course had changed and a bar of sand had formed over the barge. Not dismayed, however, they dug until un-til they found the prow of the old scow and on the very eve of success they too were attacked by the Indians and Laselle was killed! Pope and his son, too badly frightened to work again within the year, went back with the secret to the town and while there young Pope died. After many years the old Quaker took another man, named Emerson, and with the drawings that Laselle and he had' made they went back to the place of trove and found that the sand bar had grown and that the river ran many hundreds of feet away from the spot where the fortune lay buried In glistening sands. Where Pope said the old diggings would be found a young cottonwood tree was flourishing. flourish-ing. They spent weeks digging for many feet around the place, but found nothing. Some mistake had evidently . been made in following out the former instructions, but the barge was there, because Pope and Laselle found it on their first visit. Pope is dead, but Emerson is still alive and has the old drawings, letters and records. Maybe he can be induced to part with it, and maybe not. but somewhere in the flats near Fort Rice is a snug little fortune-awaiting fortune-awaiting some finder. Behind the city of St. Augustine, in some likely spot, another rich treasure is located. When it was a rich Spanish Span-ish town, a favorite putting-in port for the heavily laden Spanish galleons, that were coming through the Straits of Florida to avoid sailing the waters made dangerous by Peter the Terrible and Sir Henry Morgan, its wealth attracted at-tracted the attention of the free-boot-ers and word of their preparations to-attack to-attack and loot the city was carried to the raptain-general. For weeks the city was In a state of great ierturbation and when some English ships, probably privateers, appeared ap-peared off the coast, the public treasure, treas-ure, the church treasure and the valuables valu-ables of the wealthy citizens were assembled, as-sembled, removed inland and hidden. For months the state of suspense continued con-tinued until the Spanish Admiral Quin-tana Quin-tana appeared with his fleet. Then the St. ,Augustinians thought they could safely bring back their wealth. To their horror the three prominent men entrusted with the secreting or it. either could not And It or pretended pretend-ed they could not. One (led to Spain before the anger of his fellow-citizens and his flight cost the lives of 'ho o'h-er o'h-er two. They were assassinated as soon as the flight became known. The archives of the Spanish admiralty admir-alty have full record of the affair and the true key to the treasure trove can best be found by searching the family papers of the man who lied. He never returned, but without doubt he left the valuable Information to his heirs. Where millions await, the Under in wilder and more uncertain spots Is far more interesting ground than the localities where thousands lie under the very noses of the townspeople, or where the plow passes every year over the buried trove. All through the west are rich mines which have been found and lost. sibly rich with It and all summer the forty men toiled feverishly, extracting as much as they could before the winter win-ter 'should descend upon them, shut off their fish, game and vegetable food supply and drive them to civilization, where the knowledge of 'the vast1 wealth of .the Black Hills and the. remainder re-mainder of the auriferous region would become public property. When the ground froze and they could work no longer they cut timber and made four large barges of shallow draft and on them laoded the gold in provision boxes, and mule and deer skins made into rawhide sacks. Even then they were compelled to leave some of it beliind because the barges would not carry it. The hostile Indians who had not dared attack so large a party in the mining camp with its excellent defenses de-fenses and those who were apparently on friendly terms with the miners now took a hand in the game. After the hardy forty had reached the Missouri and had negotiated a portion of its distance they tied up one night, not long before Christmas. They were attacked at-tacked by a large band of Indians, who massacred every living soul, sank the barges and took all their belong-" ings except the gold, of which they did not know the value. Some accounts hold the Blackfeet responsible, others the Ogalala. How the news ever got to the world I cannot say, save as the Indians told of It and friends of the dead men traced them into the country from which they never came out. Gradually Gradual-ly the story took form and it set the prospectors wild. They ranged the region from the Bad Lands to the Big Horn river for twenty-seven years and then came the great discovery in the Black Hills. The gold left behind at the point of embarkation was finally found. Old workings which showed the vast quantities taken out by the forty prospectors pros-pectors were discovered and for a few years a torrent of alluvial gold poured out of the Black Hills. Then the whole thing settled down to the staid and regular quartz proposition. The Kansas City Star some years ago printed a circumstantial story stating that a young Indian student at Haskell had told a professor that his father was one of the braves in the massacre, knew where the barges were sunk and was still living on the reservation. reser-vation. It may be that the river has changed its course and left the harges under a thin layer of gravel, easily ar-lessible ar-lessible on dry land. The way to 1'iM the treasure is to trace down the stories, sto-ries, locate some of the old Indians and Induce them to locate the spot and point it out from memory. It should not be difficult. In 1759 there was lost in the Bay of Islands, at the mouth of the St. Lawrence Law-rence river, the good ship Primrose, with a store of gold and silver and Jewels aboard her. The exact amount of her treasure is unknown, but it must be vast. Full of wild romance is the story of the "Devil Duval's Horde" on the top of the Rocks of Perce on the I Gaspe peninsula, only about twenty-j twenty-j four hours ride by train from New blood and when he reached the boat he stood up, and with a harquebus shot at the tackle till it was cut clean, too high up the rocks for any one to reach. "Devil Duval" sailed away and never returned. For years the winds battered and the sun and rains rotted the ropes on the walls of the rock till at last they disappeared. So many lives were lost in attempts to scale the rocks and recover re-cover the treasure that a law was passed forbidding any one to make the attempt without, the necessary legalized le-galized concession from the governor o1 the province of Quebec. Only the wild sea-birds, making their nests in the top of the' rock, know the story of the two prisoners and the chests of treasure treas-ure on the bleak heights. But an airship air-ship could learn it. Carleton Island, in the St. Lawrence river, was an outfitting place for Tory raiding parties and an arsenal was es-tablishec' es-tablishec' there. A pay chest was sent to the post with a large sum of money. The chest disappeared and its loss was reported to General Haldimand at Montreal. In 1879, Colonel Horr of Cape St. Vincent; received a visit from a strarger, who requested the use of a boat and, being granted it, he rowed to Carleton Island and returned in a short time with a heavy iron chest covered with clinging wet clay. Colonel Col-onel Horr, thinking nothing wrong, helped the man row to the steamboat landing and he was never heard from again. In a few days William Majo. one ol the owners of the island, sent a lioy into the pine thicket for straying stray-ing noises and there the lad found the llat-stone-lined hole where the chest had rested. There are two extensive areas of buried treasure in the thickly populated popu-lated parts of the United States. One. the lesser, is on the general lines of Sherman's march to the sea. North and south of it, plantation after plantation, plan-tation, town after town, have their stories of treasures ranging from a few hundreds of dollars to hundreds of thousands which were buried for fear the Union army would get them. Many were never recovered because of the failure of the owners to locate tho burial places. The surest way to fleeing party so it was dumped in the shallows and horses were ridden through the water to make it muddy. Butler was killed, the raiders driven away and the spoils await present-day seekers. While there is some doubt as to authenticity, au-thenticity, there is said to be a $16,-000,000 $16,-000,000 cache of Spanish doublons, buried by Captain Kidd, on Esopus Island In the Hudson river, not far from New York City, while at the very gate of New York is a forgotten treasure treas-ure of many hundreds of thousands. This famous treasure was lost when the British frigate Hesarar, a pay ship sent in for the British soldiers during the revolutionary war. went down in the East river. It will be easy to look up the old Admiralty records and get the full information that may lead to the finding of the treasure. The facts pertaining to Klopper Smith's horde are as follows: "Der Klopper" was a very brutal and much feared knight of the road on the west shores of the Hudson from Nyack to the Catskills and he robbed the wealthy Dutch in an unmerciful manner. man-ner. He had no opportunities for spending his ill-gotten wealth and hoarded it somewhere. At last he was captured and before his execution at Newburg confided to a keeper who had been kind to him that he had sacks of gold and silver and Jewels burled in a spot on Storm King Mountain, Just north of Cornw-all-on-tbe-j ludson. some thirty-five miles north of New York City. No search has ever been made. In the hey-day of Mississippi river steamboat trafilc, a great deal of sunken sun-ken treasure accumulated in the Ohio. Cumberland, Tennessee. Missouri, Red and Arkansas rivers. A pay boat on its way to Grant's army at Vicksburg with more than two million dollars aboard was tired by some of her crew who meant to rob her. The paymaster's paymas-ter's men defended the money lill the boat sank. James B. Eads, who built the Eads bridge at St. Louis and the Eads jetties at the mouth of the Mississippi, Mis-sissippi, invented an apparatus by use of which he could reach some of the treasure-wrecks in shallow water and recovered several million dollars. All |