The Book of Buried Treasure. Ralph D. Paine
had devoted many years of his life to money-digging, and it was thought would have ultimately succeeded, had he not died recently of a brain fever in the almshouse."
A story built around the Kidd tradition but of a wholly different kind is that masterpiece of curious deductive analysis, "The Gold Bug," with its cryptogram and elaborate mystification. In making use of an historical character to serve the ends of fiction it is customary to make him move among the episodes of the story with some regard for the probabilities. For example, it would hardly do to have Napoleon win the Battle of Waterloo as the hero of a novel. What really happened and what the author imagines might have happened must be dovetailed with an eye to avoid contradicting the known facts. Like almost everyone else, however, Poe took the most reckless liberties with the career of poor Captain Kidd and his buried treasure and cared not a rap for historical evidence to the contrary. Although Stevenson is ready to admit that his "skeleton is conveyed from Poe," the author of "Treasure Island" is not wholly fair to himself. The tradition that secretive pirates were wont to knock a shipmate or two on the head as a feature of the program of burying treasure is as old as the hills. The purpose was either to get rid of the witnesses who had helped dig the hole, or to cause the spot to be properly haunted by ghosts as an additional precaution against the discovery of the hoard.
What Stevenson "conveyed" from Poe was the employment of a skeleton to indicate the bearings and location of the treasure, although, to be accurate, it was a skull that figured in "The Gold Bug." Otherwise, in the discovery of the remains of slain pirates, both were using a stock incident of buried treasure lore most generally fastened upon the unfortunate Captain Kidd.
Most of the treasure legends of the Atlantic coast are fable and moonshine, with no more foundation than what somebody heard from his grandfather who may have dreamed that Captain Kidd or Blackbeard once landed in a nearby cove. The treasure seeker needs no evidence, however, and with him "faith is the substance of things hoped for." There is a marsh of the Penobscot river, a few miles inland from the bay of that name, which has been indefatigably explored for more than a century. A native of a statistical turn of mind not long ago expressed himself in this common-sense manner:
"Thousands of tons of soil have been shovelled over time and again. I figure that these treasure hunters have handled enough earth in turning up Codlead Marsh to build embankments and fill cuts for a railroad grade twenty miles long. In other words, if these lunatics that have tried to find Kidd's money had hired out with railroad contractors, they could have earned thirty thousand dollars at regular day wages instead of the few battered old coins discovered in 1798 which started all this terrible waste of energy."
The most convincing evidence of the existence of a pirates' rendezvous and hoard has been found on Oak Island, Nova Scotia. In fact, this is the true treasure story, par excellence, of the whole Atlantic coast, with sufficient mystery to give it precisely the proper flavor. Local tradition has long credited Captain Kidd with having been responsible for the indubitable remains of piratical activity, but it has been proved that Kidd went nowhere near Nova Scotia after he came sailing home from the East Indies, and the industrious visitors to Oak Island are therefore unknown to history.
The island has a sheltered haven called Mahone Bay, snugly secluded from the Atlantic, with deep water, and a century ago the region was wild and unsettled. Near the head of the bay is a small cove which was visited in the year of 1795 by three young men named Smith, MacGinnis, and Vaughan who drew their canoes ashore and explored at random the noble groves of oaks. Soon they came to a spot whose peculiar appearance aroused their curiosity. The ground had been cleared many years before; this was indicated by the second growth of trees and the kind of vegetation which is foreign to the primeval condition of the soil. In the center of the little clearing was a huge oak whose bark was gashed with markings made by an axe. One of the stout lower branches had been sawn off at some distance from the trunk and to this natural derrick-arm had been attached a heavy block and tackle as shown by the furrowed scar in the bark. Directly beneath this was a perceptible circular depression of the turf, perhaps a dozen feet in diameter.
The three young men were curious, and made further investigation. The tide chanced to be uncommonly low, and while ranging along the beach of the cove they discovered a huge iron ring-bolt fastened to a rock which was invisible at ordinary low water. They reasonably surmised that this had been a mooring place in days gone by. Not far distant a boatswain's whistle of an ancient pattern and a copper coin bearing the date of 1713 were picked up.
The trio scented pirates' treasure and shortly returned to the cove to dig in the clearing hard by the great oak. It was soon found that they were excavating in a clearly defined shaft, the walls of which were of the solid, undisturbed earth in which the cleavage of other picks and shovels could be distinguished. The soil within the shaft was much looser and easily removed. Ten feet below the surface they came to a covering of heavy oak plank which was ripped out with much difficulty.
At a depth of twenty feet another layer of planking was uncovered, and digging ten feet deeper, a third horizontal bulkhead of timber was laid bare. The excavation was now thirty feet down, and the three men had done all they could without a larger force, hoisting machinery, and other equipment. The natives of Mahone Bay, however, were singularly reluctant to aid the enterprise. Hair-raising stories were afloat of ghostly guardians, of strange cries, of unearthly fires that flickered along the cove, and all that sort of thing. Superstition effectually fortified the place, and those bold spirits, Smith, MacGinnis, and Vaughan were forced to abandon their task for lack of reinforcements.
Half a dozen years later a young physician of Truro, Dr. Lynds, visited Oak Island, having got wind of the treasure story, and talked with the three men aforesaid. He took their report seriously, made an investigation of his own, and straightway organized a company backed by considerable capital. Prominent persons of Truro and the neighborhood were among the investors, including Colonel Robert Archibald, Captain David Archibald, and Sheriff Harris. A gang of laborers was mustered at the cove, and the dirt began to fly. The shaft was opened to a depth of ninety-five feet, and, as before, some kind of covering, or significant traces thereof, was disclosed every ten feet or so. One layer was of charcoal spread over a matting of a substance resembling cocoa fibre, while another was of putty, some of which was used in glazing the windows of a house then building on the nearby coast.
Ninety feet below the surface, the laborers found a large flat stone or quarried slab, three feet long and sixteen inches wide, upon which was chiselled the traces of an inscription. This stone was used in the jamb of a fireplace of a new house belonging to Smith, and was later taken to Halifax in the hope of having the mysterious inscription deciphered. One wise man declared that the letters read, "Ten feet below two million pounds lie buried," but this verdict was mostly guess-work. The stone is still in Halifax, where it was used for beating leather in a book-binder's shop until the inscription had been worn away.
When the workmen were down ninety-five feet, they came to a wooden platform covering the shaft. Until then the hole had been clear of water, but overnight it filled within twenty-five feet of the top. Persistent efforts were made to bail out the flood but with such poor success that the shaft was abandoned and another sunk nearby, the plan being to tunnel into the first pit and thereby drain it and get at the treasure. The second shaft was driven to a depth of a hundred and ten feet, but while the tunnel was in progress the water broke through and made the laborers flee for their lives. The company had spent all its money, and the results were so discouraging that the work was abandoned.
It was not until 1849 that another attempt was made to fathom the meaning of the extraordinary mystery of Oak Island. Dr. Lynds and Vaughan were still alive and their narratives inspired the organization of another treasure-seeking company. Vaughan easily found the old "Money Pit" as it was called, and the original shaft was opened and cleared to a depth of eighty-six feet when an inrush of water stopped the undertaking. Again the work ceased for lack of adequate pumping machinery, and it was decided to use a boring apparatus such as was employed in prospecting for coal. A platform was rigged in the old shaft, and the large auger bit its way in a manner described by the manager of the enterprise as follows:
"The platform was struck at ninety-eight feet, just as the old diggers found it. After going through this platform, which was five inches thick and proved to be of spruce, the auger dropped twelve inches