Civil War Payroll gold may have been found in Elk County PA

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pa plateau hiker said:
Tedyoh. Thanks. At least you and your two friends can vouch that I was at the dig site. Not like another member who insists on pictures of an excavator and "the entire site is clear".
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Negative Negative Negative......some would be better off being members of snopes.com than here......
 

Booty Salvage checks in every now and then with some 1715 treasure fleet gold. But that is a treasure that keeps on giving and some who are reaping the rewards do not post about anything anymore.One thing is you will never find anything unless you get out and look.
 

Tedyoh: The Central America is an interesting example. It was well known she went down with a large fortune in gold coin and bar. The newspapers of the day often published how much treasure was aboard a vessel when it set sail from San Francisco. I can point to half a dozen examples just off the top of my head. The cargo aboard the Central America was well documented.

As to where she went down? That was quite another story. And it speaks to Tommy Thompson's genius that his research was so meticulous that when he went out to find the hulk it really didn't take that long. Not the 17 years of sacrifice Mel Fisher put in. The Atocha documentation was very complete - within the confines of the smuggling that went on to avoid paying the King's Fifth. And the wreck proved to be where the contemporary records said it was. The modern treasure hunters were looking in the wrong place for many years because over times the names of cays changed. Or the years that Burt Webber spent - until "Black Jack" Haskins went off on a paddle board and found the remains.

Regarding the yarn about a wagon load of gold bars lost in the woods of Pennsylvania - who lost it? Why were they there in the first place? The story, as presented, just doesn't make sense. And even if it did - why wouldn't the Federal government have gone out and recovered the treasure right away? The Spanish lost many galleons on the rocks and reefs of the New World. They also salvaged a great deal of it. "Pieces of eight! Pieces of Eight" ~ Cap'n Flint.

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo
 

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Lost Gold & Buried Treasure: A Treasure Hunter's Guide to 250 Fortunes Waiting to Be Found, by Kevin d. Randle (1995) certainly is a source. Not a primary one, however. I've looked at several versions of the story and they all seem to go back to Frances X. Scully's book. This is not a story I've spent a lot of time researching. The WPA Guide to Pennsylvania may well mention it. Perhaps some of the folklore books or journals dealing with the area have the yarn.

Again - it just doesn't make sense. Twenty-six 50# bars of gold - why? When Gen. Lee was running around the state? Between $300,000 and $500,000 lost and the US Government couldn't recover it?

There may well be some missing pieces of this saga I haven't seen. But so far - it sounds like something from a book by W.C. Jameson or Thomas Penfield. And that would mean it came from somewhere else. And probably isn't true.

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo
 

Clay Diggins: Back in the day I wrote an article about the lost treasure of the Brother Jonathan. There were many wild tales about the US Army payroll - hundreds of thousands of dollars - even millions! There was a silly yarn about gold that was going to pay Indian tribes to settle a treaty that went down with the ship. Wild stuff. With the good help of the late Sen. Phil Burton, the US Government released documents that had never been made public. There was a thorough investigation into the loss. Just under $200,000 was lost and never found - notes "packed into an iron box or chest." That didn't keep people from spending hundreds of thousands of dollars looking for the wreck and eventually they found her. But they didn't recover a million dollar government payroll.

The Yankee Blade is another famous West Coat "treasure wreck." I wrote an article about that one, as well. Again, there are many versions of the story, almost all involving hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in gold. She did go down with a cargo of gold. It was right there in the San Francisco newspapers of the day. So was the subsequent salvage of almost all of it. But the salvage didn't make it into the sunken treasure stories.

I've been at this since the mid-1960's.

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo
 

Now they are up to 52 gold bars. How they would be used to pay US soldiers is another mystery.

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo
 

It was headed to the Philly Mint......another odd thing maybe some one of greater intelligence than I can explain is why when I do a Google search of "FBI searching for gold" this is the only story that pops up?

I have a gut feeling a lot of crows are going to be plucked soon and made into soup.....
 

Tedyoh said:
Last paragraph....this is from the recent events this week...good read.

Historian shocked FBI searching Dents Run, warns about findings | Local News | thecourierexpress.com
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Well, if a guy went to a soothesayer (fortune teller), then you KNOW it has to be true. Here's the quote pulled from your link :

"..... Burke said at one point his partner in the search went to a “soothesayer” in New York state
.


“He didn’t tell her what he was looking for. She went into a trance and said you’re looking for gold buried in Pennsylvania,” Burke recounted, adding that she also said she heard the voice of a man, whose description fit that of Lt. Castleton, saying, “I’m stuffed down in the hole. I can’t get out. There’s a bobcat licking my face.” "
 

Tedyoh: That's a new version of the story. It wasn't a "US Army payroll" - it was gold bars from the bank(s)? in Wheeling headed for the Mint?

Wouldn't the railroad have made more sense than a wagon? How did that much gold end up in a bank in Wheeling?

Just for the record: I sincerely hope every member of TN finds every treasure she or he seeks. That would be the best outcome. Every time. One of the things we call can do here is try to help each other reach that goal.

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo
 

Tom_in_CA said:
Well, if a guy went to a soothesayer (fortune teller), then you KNOW it has to be true. Here's the quote pulled from your link :

"..... Burke said at one point his partner in the search went to a “soothesayer” in New York state
.


“He didn’t tell her what he was looking for. She went into a trance and said you’re looking for gold buried in Pennsylvania,” Burke recounted, adding that she also said she heard the voice of a man, whose description fit that of Lt. Castleton, saying, “I’m stuffed down in the hole. I can’t get out. There’s a bobcat licking my face.” "
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Good one! Where did you dig that up? It may be fake news to discredit the poor guy...

Edit....found it....didnt scroll past the multiple adds....
 

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Old Bookaroo said:
Tedyoh: That's a new version of the story. It wasn't a "US Army payroll" - it was gold bars from the bank(s)? in Wheeling headed for the Mint?

Wouldn't the railroad have made more sense than a wagon? How did that much gold end up in a bank in Wheeling?

Just for the record: I sincerely hope every member of TN finds every treasure she or he seeks. That would be the best outcome. Every time. One of the things we call can do here is try to help each other reach that goal.

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo
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Railroad during War, probably not.....your positive note at the end is probably the most intelligent thing said in this thread....especially for the younger hunters here reading what us "old timers" have to say... Appreciate that.
 

Old Bookaroo said:
Lost Gold & Buried Treasure: A Treasure Hunter's Guide to 250 Fortunes Waiting to Be Found, by Kevin d. Randle (1995) certainly is a source. Not a primary one, however. I've looked at several versions of the story and they all seem to go back to Frances X. Scully's book. This is not a story I've spent a lot of time researching. The WPA Guide to Pennsylvania may well mention it. Perhaps some of the folklore books or journals dealing with the area have the yarn.

Again - it just doesn't make sense. Twenty-six 50# bars of gold - why? When Gen. Lee was running around the state? Between $300,000 and $500,000 lost and the US Government couldn't recover it?

There may well be some missing pieces of this saga I haven't seen. But so far - it sounds like something from a book by W.C. Jameson or Thomas Penfield. And that would mean it came from somewhere else. And probably isn't true.

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo
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Francis Scully copied others stories. Example the gold bar story. I found the exact story in a old county history at the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh. Word for word!
I should add this was the original story on the incident. Found it just browsing through the old county histories
 

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Honest Samuel said:
Show pictures of the FBI digging up the treasure, and I believe the story.
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Funny how these guys lack the brass to go in and snap some pictures while the dig is on. The sloppy second pictures are nice though! The picture of the cave that was excavated was particularly revealing. Heck, the local news had better pictures. I see zero evidence that an excavator was present, well, could have been one of the types that will fit in the back of a pickup.
 

1320 said:
Funny how these guys lack the brass to go in and snap some pictures while the dig is on. The sloppy second pictures are nice though! The picture of the cave that was excavated was particularly revealing. Heck, the local news had better pictures. I see zero evidence that an excavator was present, well, could have been one of the types that will fit in the back of a pickup.
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<yawn>
 

FBI excavator, I asked operator if news was good and he indicated yes with head nod in front of FBI police. FBI had complete forensics team on site and US Army convoy on standby at Sheetze, Falls Creek, PA. FBI loaded boxes out but never sent convoy to site. Legend says more to come on this soon and it will be big. Screenshot_20180317-003255.jpgScreenshot_20180317-002549.jpgScreenshot_20180317-010431.jpg
 

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How much would you want for a goose that laid gold eggs???

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Interesting article that came out today on lost civil war gold in Pa.

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