Presentation about Swift given in Prestonburg

[KY Hiker]

Very interesting insight and research done by this man. I have not read his book yet, but it is on my short list. He has found facts related to the Swift legend. The maps and property ownership docs are compelling evidence. The 52 minute video is up on YouTube and a link to it is below. I think, based on what he presents, John's creek would be a great place to start looking for signs to the lower mines.

 

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[KY Hiker]

Please leave any ideas or comments on this presentation and its theory.

 

[franklin]

Please leave any ideas or comments on this presentation and its theory.

The author is absolutely correct. I have similar research that he revealed. I was on the same track but he was years ahead. Glad he found everything he found. I had maybe 90 percent of his revealed information. As I said I had already laid out the 100,000 acre track of Swift's which had Pikeville in the center western edge. That could have been where Swift corraled his stock of pack animals as it could have easily been enclosed. I am glad that someone has finally done all of the work and put it all together. I had Swift a mason with G. Washington. G. Washingon even held his clubs meetings in a cave near Harpers Ferry. I will have to purchase the authors book. Sure am glad it is finished. I was getting there but he got there first. Great show. Thanks. Now I can move on to other treasures and linger on this one searching for lost caches buried or hidden along the trails and on property in North Carolina. I sure wish I had none and could have worked with him as I located and mapped their properties in North Carolina. Oh well time to move on. Thanks for the show. I watched some of it once before. I have portion copies of those deeds but not complete. There is some deeds also where Jonathan Swift sold some of this property in Lancaster County, Liverpool, England. I have partial copies of those deeds also. Great job.

Purchased the book at 4:13. Glad Mr. Prather did all the leg work. I will catch up to him and continue the search. Move 10 years ahead.

 

[EC.Mason]

Wow that is very interesting. I have heard of Bill Gibsons find before. Has anyone here seen one of his coins or have a picture of one?

 

[franklin]

Wow that is very interesting. I have heard of Bill Gibsons find before. Has anyone here seen one of his coins or have a picture of one?

There has been a couple posted on this thread but I don't know the link. I copied the coin and I have it in my photos if I only knew where in my photos. If you can not locate the link or some else may can post it. If not I will look it up and post mine when I find it.

 

[1320]

Swift: That's the Breaks

 

[EC.Mason]

Thanks guys. That is awesome. So that is one from Gibsons find? Is there anywhere in his area that has some that will show them to the public?

 

[franklin]

Swift: That's the Breaks

According to the story of "Pigeon Water Cave" Mr. Gordon found seven kegs about the size of a five gallon bucket. Now this would be about thirty to thirty-five thousand pieces of eight. Mr. Prather said he found them over nine miles inside of the cave. This being true how did he get them out of the cave. That would be over a ton of silver. I would believe the story but I have not seen a flood of 1740 Pillar Dollars for sale. There is or was a bunch of copies and they were dated 1740. So until I see more than just one I tend to believe the story was made up.

 

[KY Hiker]

In the other video I posted, where he (GIbson) is one of the speakers, he says he returned many times, He also says it was about 9 miles in from where he went in. Saying if you go parallel it was about 9 miles in, but if you go perpendicular it could be a mile or so in. Depending on what entrance you take, because the Indians claimed there were many entrances and that the cave went thru the mountain. The audio is bad but if you turn it up you can hear him say those things as well as the Swift crew covered up there entrance and it still may be that way.

 

[rgb1]

great video hard to hear good reaserch will say its info that ties with things i know will give my info one of these days hopefully i tried to contact him to no avail was going to give him my info and let him write the conclusion he did not contact back since have decided to hold off do not want my info adualtrated or altered i want to tell a true story without adding anything not true to sell books dont need theories just facts hope you all understand rgb1

 

[KY Hiker]

great video hard to hear good reaserch will say its info that ties with things i know will give my info one of these days hopefully i tried to contact him to no avail was going to give him my info and let him write the conclusion he did not contact back since have decided to hold off do not want my info adualtrated or altered i want to tell a true story without adding anything not true to sell books dont need theories just facts hope you all understand rgb1

I hope to hear more from you with more detail of your find. I suggest you open up your own thread by clicking on the 'post new thread' button on the top left. Then you can fill us in on whatever info you would care to share with all of us. Time and effort has been put forth by many in both research and foot work. Many have stated "they found it" before here, and nothing comes of it. Please share what you can, I know of no one on here that is motivated by greed. If I may speak for most on here, we just want to know the legend as fact or fiction. Boomer has found many mines in the past, French, Spanish but none that could be directly tied to Swift.

 

[rgb1]

new thread

soon as possible i will start new thread it has been a long up hill battle not there yet soon i hope have some info i have not seen posted it ties in directly with what i have found for upper mines until i sercure rights mum the word when i do get every thing legal i will show all i have pictures silver and other things by the way i have found no markings near these mines in reference to swift first i need to know more about use of a computer have grandauter teaching me im 77 yrs. old in good health for now hope it holds despite heart surgery , strokes, and inoperable blood clot on brain i cant give up swift mines i think this is what keeps me going rgbi

 

[swiftfan]

According to the story of "Pigeon Water Cave" Mr. Gordon found seven kegs about the size of a five gallon bucket. Now this would be about thirty to thirty-five thousand pieces of eight. Mr. Prather said he found them over nine miles inside of the cave. This being true how did he get them out of the cave. That would be over a ton of silver. I would believe the story but I have not seen a flood of 1740 Pillar Dollars for sale. There is or was a bunch of copies and they were dated 1740. So until I see more than just one I tend to believe the story was made up.

Well, I’ve seen plenty of them in pictures from a meeting that I missed cause I had to work, and couldn’t get off. He gave all those attending one. They were in display binders. When he found them, if I remember right, they were in saddle bags in a water sump in the cave. The saddle bags were completely rotten. And there were about 1200 of them. Since he died I haven’t heard what’s happened to them. I do know he was living in Florida with his family. So they’re probably all gone by now.

 

[franklin]

There is a few things about the J. Swift silver mines that do not make much sense. So tell me if I am wrong. When JS and company mined the silver they would mention thousands of coined money from the silver and where they hid it. Why would they even attempt to mint silver coins in the wild. Makes more sense to me that they carried the silver ore out of Kentucky and minted the coins in North Carolina.

Is not that how Tug River got it's name from silver tugs with holes for rope to hold them together.

But if these men were pirates and their coins came from plunder of the Spanish Main then saying they counterfeited coins would be a good cover-up. Myself I believe the story was for land speculators so they could sell their thousands of acres of land, get Kentucky settled and get people to move in with their greedy hearts in tow.

 

[KY Hiker]

There is a few things about the J. Swift silver mines that do not make much sense. So tell me if I am wrong. When JS and company mined the silver they would mention thousands of coined money from the silver and where they hid it. Why would they even attempt to mint silver coins in the wild. Makes more sense to me that they carried the silver ore out of Kentucky and minted the coins in North Carolina.

Is not that how Tug River got it's name from silver tugs with holes for rope to hold them together.

But if these men were pirates and their coins came from plunder of the Spanish Main then saying they counterfeited coins would be a good cover-up. Myself I believe the story was for land speculators so they could sell their thousands of acres of land, get Kentucky settled and get people to move in with their greedy hearts in tow.

I have no more knowledge of the details of the legend than anyone else, yet I will try to apply my perspective on what I have read thus far on the legend. I would imagine that once the ore is mined and then refined (smelted) it would be simpler to cast it into ingots (tugs or other various shapes). Then heated again and poured into coin molds to be impressed afterwards. Coins would be easier to carry than tugs, but if all the silver that was refined could not be poured into molds and impressed, they would be carried back as tugs/ingots.
Remember this is legend, probably based on SOME facts. I think its a mistake to take it all as chapter and verse fact or fiction. For one, some legends have them from N.C. while others VA. Were there two mines or two sets of mines? Did Swift find the first mine by chasing a bear into a cave or was Mundy the one who knew the location by working the mines for the indians?
I doubt seriously that they were pirates, they were avoiding the English crown (authority) by making the coinage in the wilderness. If they brought back bulk silver to the colonies it probably would have been taxed or taken from them. This was not a time of equal rights, property rights and other freedoms we currently have. The authority of the crown was absolute, and colonists were subjects to those laws made back in England. It makes no sense for them to risk life and limb with the Indians to go hundreds of miles inland to make coinage when they could have done it on a isolated beach along the Eastern seaboard.
The land speculation aspect of this is a possibility. To me this is where the embellishment of the original story/legend makes sense. A small group of men make multiple expeditions into the frontier and return with silver coins and become wealthy. The story grows and is passed on at the same time the frontier is being opened up to pioneers seeking freedom from the English crown. This is when the story gets much of its embellishment. To lure more people into the freedom of the frontier.
To me, Swift and Co. were real. How much of the legend it true is what I want to know. I believe the journal was written after his return. Every version I have read is in past tense. A journal should read like a diary, not like a paragraph from a history book. So, he comes back to re-find the mines, and writes the journal as he recalls it. Passes it out to locals to help him and this is where the details start to vary. Landmarks in particular are more in tuned to what people know in their own areas. Now maybe this is where the land sellers fit in, and use his story to sell land by use of those same landmarks.

Just my $0.02

 

[franklin]

Whether they were pirates or not is a question of why they purchased ships and said they were very profitable. If I had ships on the high seas and piracy was rampant at that time in history. A good cover up for the obtained pirate wealth could very well be explained by having four or more silver mines in the Western Country. I believe it was a cover up for their piracy. Two of Swift's partners had over 600000 pieces of eight in 1761 when they made out their Wills and had a sabre fight. One dying and the other a cripple. I and my late brother found where Swift's men lived and one of his partners Jeffries or Jefferson had a huge vault of treasure. I could not dig it up because it is on government property and right beside the highway where digging can not be done with out proper papers and permission.

 

[swiftfan]

One thing I never understood is it seems that once they buried it why they never mention digging it up? All the people besides Swift that went to me mines, we’re to believe that nobody remembered the way? They needed Swift to guide them? If I had to guess, someone went back and got it. Or someone found it, and being afraid of what would happen, kept their mouth shut about it. Think like a pirate.. the more that know, the more that share..

 

[franklin]

One thing I never understood is it seems that once they buried it why they never mention digging it up? All the people besides Swift that went to me mines, we’re to believe that nobody remembered the way? They needed Swift to guide them? If I had to guess, someone went back and got it. Or someone found it, and being afraid of what would happen, kept their mouth shut about it. Think like a pirate.. the more that know, the more that share..

Did not one of the Swift stories say that JS killed his partners and that was the reason for him going blind?

 

[swiftfan]

Yeah. Killed them all in the cave. When he got outside, he was struck blind. Crawled back out of the wilderness till he was found. Promised to cut them in on the treasure if they could help him relocate it. But I always thought that was quite a stretch to have happened..

 

[KY Hiker]

Whether they were pirates or not is a question of why they purchased ships and said they were very profitable. If I had ships on the high seas and piracy was rampant at that time in history. A good cover up for the obtained pirate wealth could very well be explained by having four or more silver mines in the Western Country. I believe it was a cover up for their piracy. Two of Swift's partners had over 600000 pieces of eight in 1761 when they made out their Wills and had a sabre fight. One dying and the other a cripple. I and my late brother found where Swift's men lived and one of his partners Jeffries or Jefferson had a huge vault of treasure. I could not dig it up because it is on government property and right beside the highway where digging can not be done with out proper papers and permission.

I don't recall ever reading about pirates having partners...only crews. Two of Swift's partners had 600k pieces of eight? Can you sight a reference for that? I have never heard of such a thing...or a sabre fight. If you know where Swift's partners lived please let us know how you came to find this out? I'm always looking for more background reading if you could site your sources.