NEW HAMPSHIRES LOST SILVER MADONNA

[jeff of pa]

NEW HAMPSHIRE'S LOST SILVER MADONNA

.

 

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[nhbenz]

Re: NEW HAMPSHIRE'S LOST SILVER MADONNA

Hmmm, that a would be a heck of find. Thanks for posting that one Jeff.

 

[jeff of pa]

Re: NEW HAMPSHIRE'S LOST SILVER MADONNA

here is another.
Sorry this book is Very old & Crumbling.
This is the Only way to Save what's in it.

Maby Being From the area you should be able to
Figure out the Words that are Partially Missing

 

[nhbenz]

Re: NEW HAMPSHIRE'S LOST SILVER MADONNA

Yes, thanks. I'm only 10 minutes from Portsmouth (and know where Smith's pond is too) so I'll have to look into that. Unfortunately there is a LOT of Portsmouth and the surrounding area that are either off limits over over-developed. I'm a couple of hours from the locale in the first article. How old is this book you've been going through? You've been doing quite a rash of posts from it tonight... I hope others appreciate it too.

 

[jeff of pa]

Re: NEW HAMPSHIRE'S LOST SILVER MADONNA

How old is this book you've been going through? You've been doing quite a rash of posts from it tonight... I hope others appreciate it too.

I dont know.
it's got pages & cover missing.

most are shuffeled around (out of order) from from breaking
loose from the spine.

it appears it was a small paperback

 

[Ed-NH]

Re: NEW HAMPSHIRE'S LOST SILVER MADONNA

Jeff that whole story was on TV about a year ago on the learning channel. I was glued to it. What a great story it is. I'd love to detect the White Mountains but a lot of it is state park property and they won't let detectors in there. I'd love to go for a weekend out there and do some serious detecting. Thanks for posting all the NH history. I should check this forum more often

 

[jnut4]

Re: NEW HAMPSHIRE'S LOST SILVER MADONNA

awesome...never heard that before..i'll get busy hunting..

Although..from what i'm told, not aloud to take anything out of a national forest..i imagine which is mostly what that area is.. I'll look into it.

 

[jadewhiskey]

Re: NEW HAMPSHIRE'S LOST SILVER MADONNA

Hi Everyone,

I just emailed the NH Division of Parks and Recreation - so, we shall see if we get a response regarding metal detecting in state parks... When (or if) I get a response I will post it here...

I'm curious - most of the state of NH is a state park in one form or another... I have heard this story before - but, I thought it was southern NH - not in the northern section.

I can't wait to get out hunting...

Talk soon.

Crystal

 

[jadewhiskey]

Re: NEW HAMPSHIRE'S LOST SILVER MADONNA

Hi Everyone,

I got a response from the NH State Parks and Recreation. Here is what they said regarding metal detecting in State Parks:
____________________________________________

Good Morning,

Thank you for your inquiry. You may contact Bill Roy, Manager,
Franconia Notch State Park at 603-823-8800 x750 to get permission to
metal detect in Franconia Notch State Parks.

RES 7301.19 Metal Detectors

(a) Metal detectors shall only be used in state parks after
notification is given to a park manager.

(b) Metal detectors shall not be permitted at historic sites.

(c) Digging shall only be allowed on sand beaches with all resulting
holes completely filled in.

(d) Money or items found which value is in excess of $5.00 shall be
reported to the park manager.

Sincerely,

Sandra LePage, Bureau Secretary
NH State Parks and Recreation
Dept. of Resources and Economic Development
172 Pembroke Rd
Concord NH 03301
603-271-3556
_______________________________________

I was surprised to receive such a prompt response...

Thanks... Talk soon.

Crystal

 

[COUNTRY GIRL]

Re: NEW HAMPSHIRE'S LOST SILVER MADONNA

The second story speaks of the Isle of shoals, I have a facinating story about the treasures there. I will post it the best I can in the next day or so.

I stumble across a book about New England Shipwrecks and treasures just last weekend. I'll get you folks the info on it!

 

[COUNTRY GIRL]

Re: NEW HAMPSHIRE'S LOST SILVER MADONNA

New Hampshire's Isles of Shoals

The improbable names of Appledore, Smuttynose, Lunging, Cedar, White, Star, and Duck make up the small windswept islands, known as the Isle of Shoals, located ten miles off the coast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

The Isle of Shoals of today are as explorer Capt. John Smith found them in 1614, "heaped together with none others near them, and many a barren rock, the most overgrown with shrubs, but without either grass or wood." Smith did mention in his diary that he saw, "three short shrubby old cedars," and one man tried to start an apple orchard there in the 19th century, but today there are just a few shrubby trees on the Isle.

Many pirate ships visited the Isles in the late 17th and throughout the 18th centuries. Old records seem to indicate that the few fisherman who lived on the larger islands fed and indulged these "gentlemen-of-fortune" in every way. Edward Teach, better know as Blackbeard, was a periodic visitor of the Isles, as were Ned Low, William Kidd, and Black Sam Bellamy of WHYDAH fame. Phillip Babb- one of Capt. Kidd's first mates- settled on Appledore Island soon after Kidd was sent off to England in chains to be hanged. According to New Hampshire historian Oscar Laighton: "When Babb first came to Appledore there was a large excavation at the head of the cove," near Babb's house. "Babb made a big effort to dog something. The pit he made was 30 feet across and 10 feet deep, as I remember it, but the place was filled up level in the great storm of 1851." Early in this century the Coast Guard built a boathouse over the spot of Babb's treasure pit.

In 1720, Blackbeard was almost captured at the Isles by a British warship. He and his crew had stopped off at Star Island to replenish their food supply, but were forced into a hasty retreat when the British ship came into view. They departed in such a hurrythat B;Blackbeard left his girlfriend Martha Herring behind. She according to legend , remained at the Isles for 15 years, awaiting the return of her ferocious lover. He never showed up, she died of heartbreak at White Island in 1735.

Only one person lived on Smuttynose Island in 1813 and that was Sam Haley. On stormy nights he would keep lanterns burning in the windows of his home that faced the open sea. The lights, he hoped, would help vessels avoid the treacherous shoals. On the morning of Jan. 15, 1813, Sam found the frozen body of a ship-wrecked sailor lying in the drifting snow in front of his home. The Spanish sailor had dropped dead from exposure only a few feet from his front door. In the night a Spain's Galleon heading for Spain from Portsmouth hit Cedar Island Ledge, only a few hundred yards from Sam Healy's home. Sam had slept soundly through the stormy night, not hearing the ripping of timbers as the galleon was crushed by the rocks, nor the screams of the frightened Spaniards. Only 14 bodies washed ashore: there were no survivors. Grave markers covered with weeds and crude rock monument still stand in memory of these unknown Spaniards on the wind swept island of Smuttynose. There had been 28 crewman aboard the 400 ton galleon CONCEPTION, under the command of don Juan Coxava, when she wrecked that night but even well into this century there was a confusion as to whatever it was the Spanish vessel SAGUNTO or the Cadiz galleon CONCEPTION that wrecked. Both had traveled up the coast from the West Indies to Portsmouth, New Hampshire to add dried fish to their cargoes, and both had slipped out of port heading for Spain on the night of Jan. 14th. The SAGUNTO apparently made it to the Isles and put into Newport, Rhode Island, rather than sailing out the storm, so says historian Samuel Adams Drake, but the CONCEPTION disappeared and is thought to be the vessel that had crashed into Cedar Island Ledge. For ten days after the storm, much wreckage drifted ashore at the eastern point of SMuttynose and into the wash between Smuttynose and Appledore Islands: raisins, oranges, wood, cloth, clothes, and a few silver pieces of-eight.

It was 3 years after the shipwreck in 1816, that Sam Haley Jr.- old Sam's son- got permission from Mass. legislature to build "a sufficient sea-wall around the dock where they said Haley now lives" While building this sea-wall that connects Smuttynose with Cedar Island, providing a harbor between thees islands, Sam Haley Jr. found four silver bars. They were hidden under rocks on the islands south beach. He sold them for $4,000. It was this find that started people thinking that the CONCEPTION carried a cargo more fruitful than oranges and raisins. The bars could have been hidden by pirates, but most thought they had washed onto the beach from the 1813 wreck.

In 1901, while she was vacationing on Star Island, Mrs. James Allen found 3 Spanish gold doubloons dated 1600, which had probably washed up in a storm from the galleon. A church was built on the Southwest side of Star Island from the wood that washed ashore from this wreck, and part of this church still remains today.

From 1865 through 1869, blackened Spanish coins of silver washed ashore on the southside beach at Appledore, facing Smuttynose, and until a few of the coins were cleaned it was thought that they came from the CONCEPTIO: but they all dated in the 1700's over 100 years before the galleon sank. Possibly another unknown Spanish vessel carrying treasure had wrecked at the Isles?

In 1870, a clay pot with 60 Spanish silver coins was dug up on Star island. This without a doubt, was the hidden catch of some old pirate.

There is only one snug harbor at the Isles, called Gosport, surrounded by Smuttynose, Cedar and Star Islands. Here, scuba divers from Portsmouth recently found a few fistfuls of coins, some brass and copper, and a few silver.


There are a few houses, mostly summer cottages, on the bigger islands at the Isles of Shoals, a rickety old wooden hotel on Star Island and a lighthouse on White Island. Otherwise the Isle are deserted-except of course, for the ghost of Phillip Babb and Martha Herring, who respectively guard the buried treasures of Capt. Kidd and Blackbeard. There is without a doubt much of value to be recovered from these Islands, on land and in the surrounding sea.

 

[stewed03064]

Re: NEW HAMPSHIRE'S LOST SILVER MADONNA

the area to look is along the isreal river look for a high ledge or precipise overlookig the river it is claimed to be the spot madonna was dropped from

 

[jammar85]

Re: NEW HAMPSHIRE'S LOST SILVER MADONNA

I've grown up in the woods of the White Mountains of NH but never with an open eye for an artifact. It was just recent that I read about such a thing.. I'm hopeing to make a trip through Jefferson at somepoint in the future to use my outdoor knowledge as a guide to maybe uncovering something lost.. youd be suprised the things ive found in the Mount Washington Valley growing up and making my own fun in the woods.please email me if there is any other interesting facts about this silver madonna [email protected]

 

[steelheadwill]

Re: NEW HAMPSHIRE'S LOST SILVER MADONNA

here is another.
Sorry this book is Very old & Crumbling.
This is the Only way to Save what's in it.

Maby Being From the area you should be able to
Figure out the Words that are Partially Missing

I am tracking this route myself, I believe the Royal Governor made his escape from his mansion in Portsmouth to his other mansion on Smith Pond, (now called lake wentworth) in Wolfeboro, not portsmouth.
I think he left portsmouth, taking the old dover rd (still exists), then following rt 108 thru rochester, rt 11 west to 153, farmington , milton, and the old kings road to Wolfeboro. he allegedly secreted several caches of valuables along his route.

 

[Red James Cash]

Re: NEW HAMPSHIRE'S LOST SILVER MADONNA

I've read quite a few different stories about the madonna.My brother lives in randolph NH fairly close to jefferson notch.Actually I think you can see the notch from his front porch.Both of us thrive on stuff like this.That area is pretty rugged country, lots of landslides in the area,old and new .That madonna (if buried on land)is most likely covered under tons and tons of rock.