Buried Strong Boxes

Gypsy Heart

Gold Member
Nov 29, 2005
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Ozarks
Arizona :

Canyon Station is located at the foothills of the Cerbat Mountains near Kingman. It was the site of a stage station near the mouth of the narrow canyon, through which the road twisted up the Cerbats before descending to Mineral Park. All that is left of Canyon Station today is the diminishing foundations of well-aged structures and a weed infested road leading to them.

Tradition claims that a robbery took place near the Canyon Station in October of 1873. A man named Macallum (McAllen) and his partner received information from an unnamed source that a shipment of government funds, $72,000 worth, in gold coins was in route to Fort Mohave from Prescott. The two men made careful plans to rob the stagecoach of its precious contents. With his partner standing guard Macallum stopped the stagecoach, demanded the strongbox and sent the coach on its way. The coach traveled a short distance and soon a posse was formed to pursue the two bandits.

Meanwhile the robbers had no chance of carrying their unwieldy prize with them any extended distance, so they decided to bury the strongbox containing the loot. It wasn't long before the sheriff's posse caught up with them killing Macallum’s partner. Macallum was sent to the Yuma Territorial Prison for an undetermined sentence. He did not reveal the location of the hidden money, hoping to enjoy the loot after serving his prison term. While in prison Macallum became well acquainted with another inmate. Macallum became very ill and before his death he relayed information regarding the robbery to the inmate.

It is believed that this inmate returned to Canyon Station and talked to Andy Goodwill, who at the time was living in the Canyon Station building and cultivated a fine orchard and garden there. Goodwill reported that he had no objection and the man continued the search for the money, staying in the area for a few days. At the time of his departure, the man told Goodwill that the place had changed and he couldn't find any marker described by the old inmate. Discouraged after his extensive search, the man left to no avail.

What makes this story more creditable is the fact that a few years later Nelle Clack, who owned Clacks Canyon at the time, told of a hideout she believed the robbers used. It was a cave formed by two large boulders. There Nelle Clack found a few personal belongings left by persons who had been living there for a short period of time. It was an ideal spot for observing the movements of people and wagons at the station.


California:

Joaquín Murieta and his gang were often known to hide their stolen loot in the area of their robberies. On one occasion Murieta and his right-hand man, Manual Garcia, known as "Three-Fingered Jack, robbed a stagecoach along the Feather River. The strongbox was said to have contained some 250 pounds of gold nuggets worth $140,000 at the time. Allegedly, the pair buried the strongbox in a on the banks of the Feather River in a canyon a few miles south of Paradise, (present Butte County). According to Wells Fargo officials, the stolen gold has never been recovered.

Another cache of Joaquín Murieta, or one of them, anyway, is said to lie between Susanville and Freedonyer Pass near today's Highway 36

Michigan
Legend has it that on Poverty Island in Lake Michigan, a schooner was transporting 5 chests of gold that were to be used by the Americans in their fight against the English. The 60-foot schooner wrecked off the island which is located East of Wisconsin. The chests could be worth 400 million dollars! Many people have made attempts to find them, but none have been successful.

New York
A legend in Whitehall, NY tells of a man named Robert Gordon who in 1775 left his home in New York to go to Canada to avoid the war. He put his valuables into a strongbox and while on his journey to Canada, he dropped it on the West shore of the Haven in the marshes. He noted the location of his strongbox, but he never returned. 159 years later in 1934, a person was working at clearing up a swamp. A metal box was brought up, balanced on the debris and then fell back into the water. Many people have tried to relocate the box, but none have been successful!

Black Hills
In the fall of 1878, the Monitor was held up at a stage stop called Canyon Springs about 37 miles south of Deadwood. According to accounts at the time, five gunmen took over the stage stop and waited for the coach to arrive. Once the stage arrived a gunfight erupted and one of the guards was seriously wounded by a high calibre rifle bullet. Another guard inside the coach was wounded and a third killed when he tried to run off.

The gang took the stage into the woods where they worked for two hours to open the strongbox and eventually made off with $3,500 in currency, $500 in diamonds, hundreds of dollars worth of jewelry and 700 pounds of gold dust, nuggets and bullion. The gold ingots were loaded onto a two-wheeled wagon and the tracks set off to the East through the Black Hills following various canyons and stream beds.

As the news of the holdup (and a reward from Homestake Mine) spread throughout Dakota and Wyoming several posses formed up and rode in every direction based on rumors of where the outlaws had been seen. As a result, within six weeks, the stageline let it be known that 60 percent of the loot had been recovered. But the wagon and two big ingots were still missing
If you want to look for the gold here are some clues: US Highway 85 leaves Deadwood, SD, heading southwest winding its way through Cheyenne Crossing and then into Wyoming. Highway 85 then turns south and heads straight to Cheyenne following, for the most part, the old stage road, passing close to Jenny Stockade near Newcastle and continuing south to Lusk, the home of the famed Stagecoach Museum. The treasure is said to be buried somewhere near the old Canyon Springs Stage Station. Canyon Springs was a relay station located in Beaver Canyon about 37 miles south of Deadwood. Of course the gold could be anywhere between there and, say, Buffalo Gap.
 

In August of 1860 a group of eight wagons led by Mark Vanorman left Fort Hall in what is now eastern Idaho under military escort. The fifty four immigrants were following the Oregon Trail west planning to make a new life in the Willamette Valley. They had brought what possessions they could carry and enough gold to buy land when they arrived. The gold had been entrusted to their wagonmaster and was kept in a strongbox. It is believed that there was more than $10,000 in gold coin within the chest.
Meeting no resistance, the military escort decided that it was no longer needed and soon returned to the fort leaving only a handful of soldiers to guard the pioneers. All went well for two weeks until a band of Snake Indians attacked them just south of present day Adrian in eastern Oregon near the Snake River. Nineteen people were killed in the attack. The rest were forced to abandon their wagons and flee for their lives. While some of the men rode for help the other survivors, including Vanorman, made their way to the Snake River. What little food they had managed to secure was soon gone and they were starving as they worked their way along the Snake until they reached the mouth of the Owyhee River. Here they decided to make camp until help arrived.

Initially an Indian hunting party provided the victims with food but an unfortunate comment turned the Indians against them and they raided the camp taking all the remaining guns and ammunition. Vanorman decided that they had better move on. Most of the remaining party were too weak and refused to go. Vanorman took his family and those able enough to travel and headed north up the Snake River. They made it as far as the mouth of the Burnt River where they were massacred.

Forty five days after the first attack the soldiers finally arrived at the Owyhee camp. Twenty one people had died of starvation. The remainder had resorted to cannibalism to stay alive. Only fifteen of the original fifty four immigrants survived.

Okay, so what happened to the gold? Well, months later, in Vanorman's belongings, a letter was found. In the letter, he described the events that had occured and also what had happened to the strongbox. Apparently he had managed to salvage the gold as they were forced from their wagons during the attack. The weak and starving survivors carried the cumbersome box with them until they reached the Owyhee River camp. When Vanorman and his family left the camp, he took the chest across the Owyhee and buried it on the north side of the river. He etched his initials into a nearby rock as a marker. The survivors at the camp must not have known what he had done.

The lady who received the Vanorman's possessions simply filed the letter away. It was not rediscovered until her death many years later. This is not a well known story and there is no record of the gold ever being found. If you ever find yourself on the north side of the mouth of the Owyhee River it might pay to keep an eye open for the initials M. V. carved in a rock.

http://members.aol.com/OTRC/tt799.html
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Eight Mason Jars of money buried on old Spitler Farm near Paducah KY
When I was about 6 years old, my grandparents had a car wreck. Grandpa was killed instantly but my Grandma lived long enough to tell me a secret. She was lying in the hospital room trying to fight death so she could let me alone know.

“There's eight fruit jars buried at the place, Elmer,” she said. ‘”They’ve all got money in them.

Now, Grandma and Grandpa owned an oil well somewhere that made them rich I was told, so that made me perk up and listen!

“I don’t trust banks, so I hid them on the place.”
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Martin County Indiana
A county treasurer was rumored to have come down with the Yellow Fever, and when he fell ill he took the county taxes that he had collected and buried it in an iron pot. He told no one of where he had hidden the pot, so the legend of the buried money still lives on today

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Texas
One day in 1861, rancher John Singer ( of the sewing machine family) buried about $100,000 in cash along with some family jewels in a fruit jar under a tree on his ranch. He buried it so that it wouldn't fall into Confederate hands as he headed north where his sympathies were. After the war; he returned to find that his ranch and tree were obliterated by a hurricane. The jar has never been found
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