Did a Sawpit start the Legend?

[SSR]

It is that simple. I posted some of the details of how the story, from the start said they were using a 'treasure map'. And this map was used not just on Oak island, but for many islands .

See it's not so much that it all exists and was known, it's the continuous pretense that 'no one knows what went on as there was nothing to say what did'.

I also mentioned that it was still being talked about and recorded in accounts up until the late 1960s.

Shouldn't the reply be, "Gee I didn't know about this. Perhaps I should look'.

To continue on is just sticking your head in the sand pretending somehow none of this exists.

That doesn't really work does it when people are reading here the exact things that are claimed not to exist?

The main problem with Oak Island is all the 'laundry list' researchers. That isthose who waste their time pulling up wads of useless historical information about things not important or even relevant to what was going on as if that's good research eg Samuel Ball's laundry list, when it was just openly written about and published in the contemporaneous sources.

The other problem is , 'laundry list' researchers only looked in the local archives there which had the reports removed later to prevent it being learned. That's why these reports can be found and some appear here now, they come from sources away from the area.

I mean when you point out say a reference to a treasure map being used on Oak Island and ask 'DId you follow that avenue of research' the answer is always "No, no one told me about it'.

And yet you even have Doug Crowell on The Curse of Oak Island publishing the biggest and latest direct tell about how the Mcginnis family passed down the treasure map and it's back to 'no one knows" as if he never wrote it? C'mon.

You can hear them now: 'Oh no, it can't be that they had a treasure map, there is nothing to say that in my research of the Mcginnis potatoe sale records from Oak Island in the 1790s. Oh, there is mention in common sources about a treasure map? Well that's just one thing. Sorry, what's that? There's more than one source. Well, it still doesn't really say that is what happened because that's just someone writing it. Um, there are reports up until the 1960s/70s mentioning it? Well, I haven't seen them. That doesn't mean it was known all around as you say. Ahhh, I see, they were using it to determine where to dig and even showing copies to people? Wait, it was being used on other islands? There is nothing...Oh, when you orient the islands the same direction the searchers were digging in the same relative position on each island. But you still cannot....hang on, there was a copy published of the actual map in 1934? Umm, hey I hear my mom calling, gotta go....."

It's the ones who go "Jesus F Christ! I friggen missed that. How in the light of Sammy Ball's glowing nuts did I miss what everyone from the time were just saying about it?" are the ones who will get somewhere with this.

The ones who say they just need to do some more analysis of dowl pins, well.......

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That's a mere single newspaper article written by God knows who with God knows what expertise and motive who mentions a very false, yet common, detail leading to the one you are focused on. Do you see the word "supposed"? People who supposed the existence of Kidd maps to a treasure on OI were already guilty of supposition before they started off. I am not aware of any serious searcher group who favored a Kidd theory. In the mid 19th century Kidd treasures were associated with at least 5 New England treasure stories that were newspaper published. There are no known authentic Kidd maps. There are multiple examples of maps (variations of only one) that showed up in the same 10 year period in the 20th century that are not taken seriously by the map collector community and by document experts. They live on only in pop culture as speculative fodder, and they have appeared in the the OI pulp as sources of intrigue. The first claim of a Kidd attribution did not surface until well after other published NA suggestions that came before it, so its use at OI makes it part of an existing trend of fitting a treasure story to a candidate looking for one. At OI the suggestion is first seen in a newspaper from 1857. That is about the time of the fictitious origin stories offered by Vaughn saw the light of day. By then the original searches had already fizzled, but it had left hopefuls everywhere (people only too willing to suspend their disbelief). On the whole , people have always wanted this to be a treasure story. At the speed that other reasonably sounding things could be suggested they were eventually used as candidates for what may lie at the bottom of the hole that was being searched for. In 1847 one important local was already writing about the OI story to mock the pirate/French/Spanish treasure theories presumably circulating in the countryside based on nothing more than poorly educated guesses egged on by rumors put out by those eager to sell people what they had a bias for wanting to believe. There were so many treasure island claims being produced in these years that it led R.L. Stevenson to be interested in this type of story which became the inspiration for "Treasure Island written in the 1880s. The phenomena was just as popular in England and Scotland as it was on the East Coast of NA. Blackbeard and Roberts had fascinated Stevenson. His work has immortalized this type of account. I find it charming that even the fictions at OI never claimed that anyone knew what they were digging for. This has allowed just about anything to be suggested. What has not been suggested to encourage the look for the missing hole by the local yokels? While it may be fun to think there exists such a thing as pirate treasure maps, none exist to serve as evidence for their use. That makes them as common as underground UFO base maps. For whatever reason, the existence of treasure maps as a "feature" appears to align with the common sense of the masses. And a hole means a treasure, I suppose.

 

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