The area was founded by exiled followers of Napoleon Bonaparte in the early 1800's. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. Hansen stayed with his friends for a few days hiding under the floor when Union Soldiers would come by. The chief wanted him to marry his daughter. This story takes place around Florence, Alabama. Lewis concluded that the Brantley County Confederate gold legend was probably fabricated from a combination of the legend told in Snow White Sands and the actual gold shipments after the war. Ill Trade You a Fredericksburg for a Winchester and a Pea Ridge. But with 100 acres to cover and now metal detectors back then it was never found. Jean and his older brother Pierre stole a lot of loot over the years in and around the Gulf of Mexico in the early 1800s. They ended up in a large cavern and when they took the blindfold off of the trapper he saw that the cave was filled to the ceiling with gold and silver bars, coins, and jewels. One night two braves took the trapper, tied his hands and feet, and blindfolded him. Mystery of Lost Confederate Gold | History News Network The town of Louina lasted from 1834-1902. your Facebook account, or anywhere that someone would find this page valuable. Four years of research leads them to believe it's buried under Lake Michigan. That was some years ago but since then the guy has found out from several old timers that the story they heard about this boat was that it was a grain or cotton barge that began taking on water and was beached. From 1861 to 1862, it was a Confederate troop training base. So the gold could have been buried anywhere, or perhaps in different locations. The wreck is still there and its treasure is waiting to be recovered! General Lee advised Davis that he had until 8 p.m. to load the gold, valuables and cabinet members onto two trains which would travel southward on the only line still open between Richmond and Danville, Virginia. All the Confederate officials would board the first train, while the second train would hold special cargo. On March 7, 1896, he was in a general store in the town of Atmore, Alabama. The town of Louina grew to 2,500 residents with 30 homes, two churches, two schools, eight stores, and even a Masonic Lodge. In early 1865 when the Yankees under Gen. James H. Wilson were burning Selma, and it was pretty much a given that they were coming to Montgomery next, the local polititians and civic leaders had two steam barges loaded with all of Montgomery's (the Capital of Alabama) money, gold, valuables, and even silverware and jewelry from shops and . Many of these treasures are now on private land or owned by the federal or state government. They fought with the Indians and ended up taking their gold and jewels and then going onto Alabama. Henry refused to tell the soldiers where the treasure was and was beaten again. Morris started robbing trains because he was angry with the Louisville and Nashville railroad because a brakeman found him on a train ride that was headed for Mobile that he didnt pay for. Dreams of Confederate gold in Danville - Richmond Times-Dispatch Civil War gold: FBI told a judge it had to search a cave before Pa John Willismith was a rich businessman who lived in Fort Payne, Alabama. Visit here for more information on State laws regarding relic hunting, treasure hunting, and artifacts. Matthew Paulson / Flickr. It is said that some of those wine casks of gold and silver coins are stilled buried near his home. The "Lost Confederate Gold"; myth or reality??? - American Civil War Forums There are many lost treasures and legends of Alabama and I encourage you to visit this state and enjoy the rich history that Alabama presents. google037df74da6aab727.html The Confederate escort unit got away, but when they reported to whomever they were supposed to report to in the east and were asked about the gold shipment, they told him about running into some yankees and that it had been hidden to keep the yankees from getting it in case they were killed or captured. Some of the treasure had been retained by Brig. A battle took place on one of his plantations in central Alabama in October 1779 and the plantation was destroyed. Mr. Sharps would take a shovel and sack with him on these treks into the woods. "There's been a pattern of behavior by the FBI that's been very troubling," said Anne Weismann, who represents Finders Keepers. It may not display this or other websites correctly. . Captain Kelly's Buried Gold. Castleton got the fever (not a good thing in those days) and Connor took over for a while. However, their work created great doubt that any lost Confederate gold ever existed in the first place. The balance of the captured treasure was assembled and loaded into wagons for transport to Washington, D.C. Initially, with one-third of her estate, the will established the Sylvester Mumford Memorial Endowment at the Thornwell Orphanage in Clinton, South Carolina, which was founded in 1875 and is now known as the Thornwell Home and School for Children. there weren't many mints in the south east. But, the first story sounds very familiar with a post I put on Treasure Legends-"swamp gold." Union soldiers happened by and demanded that Hansen and his men unload the cargo in their wagons because they became suspicious that the cargo in the wagons might be guns and ammunition. This was not actually supposed to be an article. That's what an FBI agent was seeking to find out in 2018 when he applied for a search warrant to dig at the site in Elk County, northeast of Pittsburgh, according to a court filing unsealed on . . Here's how this gold war began, according to a Pittsburg Post-Gazette article about a 1983 story in Lost Treasure magazine. Probably. FBI on trail of $55M in gold missing since Civil War - al 's don't mention anything about the skirmish. Since the gold standard was abolished in the 1930s, gold coins, aside from their higher intrinsic value and demand as collectibles, no longer have any special worth as a standard of value in world trade. On March 15, 2018, two days after the dig began, a plane in Siberia lost 3.4 tons of its nine-ton cargo of gold and silver when the cargo door . According to the legend, none of Castletons group of eight cavalrymen and one guide named Connors knew about the gold. A rich man named Hansen was a Confederate sympathizer who wanted to financially help the Confederate economy that was falling apart at the end of the Civil War. Levi Colbert who lived from 1759 to1834 was the bench chief of the Chickasaw Nation. If you are ever in Muscle Shoals, Alabama along the Tennessee river you might want to take a look around for limestone caves although the Red Bone cave is more than likely underwater now and you will need to bring your scuba gear and do some underwater metal detecting. The Curse of Oak Island. Standing a discrete distance away and watching were Dennis and Kem Parada, owners of Finders Keepers, who still believe well, you known their name. Puckett claimed that when Miss Gertrude decided that the remainder of the Confederate gold should be returned to the people to whom it belonged, her personal lawyer, Judge J.P. Highsmith, suggested that an educational trust be established for the descendants of the Confederate soldiers. They reserved this land for hunting, as the . And some say its buried amongst the slaves in the graveyard on the property. However, despite searches conducted throughout the years, nothing of value has ever been found there. The King died in 1819, and was supposedly buried . There are many legends that surround the place, some saying it was blown up, hidden, or just forgotten deep in the hills. The Stolen Lost Confederate Gold: A Historical Analysis of Duluth, Minnesota's Development Abstract: This paper explores the historical claim that Duluth, Minnesota was built using stolen lost Confederate gold. Demopolis is an abandoned town on the Tombigbee River, near the intersection of rout 43, and 80. Others suggest he buried it underneath his home or by the cotton gin. A big oak tree stands where his house was. . The question that I pose. They are the rarest of any Civil War weapons. In fact, when she died in 1946 at age 99 in Washington, D.C., she bequeathed almost $600,000 to the children of Brantley County through an endowment and two scholarship funds. Henry knew he could make a fortune with his ferry because the Perdido River was a popular crossing spot for people going from Alabama to Florida and vice versa. Louina by all accounts was a wealthy Indian woman. He was specific about the state, but Bellview and Booneville are marked as being in Tennessee. While on the route to Columbia the wagons and horses started to get bogged down on the marshy ground 4 miles North of Athens, Alabama. That is a crazy amount of money even by todays standards. She questioned whether the agency is "acting in good faith.". The Sound and the Fury: William Faulkners Great-Grandfather. Alabama. Catahoula Creek is a thin and meandering waterway that . This means that certain products that you may see advertised on this site I get paid a small commission if that product is clicked on AND purchased by you. The story has it that Mr. Clemens buried $100,000 worth of gold on his property because he was worried about losing it. Because it was in a state park, they were told to stop looking. The Lost Confederate Gold of Jefferson Davis, the Outlaw President Near Athens, Alabama, in Limestone County Alabama, there may be a Confederate treasure. He also owned two plantations outside of what was called Savannah now central Alabama. Lewis graduated from Thornwell High School in 1958 and then from Clemson University in 1962 before serving on active duty in Germany and Vietnam with the U.S. Army. Sometime during the Civil War Confederate soldiers were being pursued by Union troops and they buried $20,000 in gold and silver coins close to a spot named Old Camp Place. The attack happened in March of 1865. A message was sent to the Justice Department seeking comment on the suit, which asks a judge to order the FBI to immediately turn over the records. William Pettits Buried Gold Coins: $80,000 worth of gold coins: A few miles from Lexington, Kentucky. A man by the name of C.E. In this Sept. 20, 2018 photo, Dennis Parada, right, and his son Kem Parada stand at the site of the FBI's dig for Civil War-era gold in Dents Run, Pennsylvania. circa 990-995. JavaScript is disabled. Paul Seaburn is the editor at Mysterious Universe and its most prolific writer. Having his ferry there solved this problem. Norfolk Southern train derails in Springfield, Ohio, At least 12 dead after winter storm slams South, Midwest, Trump speaks at CPAC after winning straw poll, Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant to "take some time away" from the team after allegedly brandishing a gun in a club, How Paul Murdaugh testified "from the grave" to help convict his father, Man charged for alleged involvement in 2 transformer explosions, Promising drug could provide alternative to statins, new study finds, Iran to allow more inspections at nuclear sites, U.N. says, NTSB to investigate in-flight turbulence that left 1 passenger dead. De Soto and his men fled and left the treasure they had stolen from the Cherokees behind. The Indians thought this request to be outrageous and attacked De Sotos camp. Some of the add-ons on this site are powered by. Through a critical analysis of primary and secondary sources, including the research of historian Peter S. Svenson, this paper argues that the city's development was aided []