It has been in my family for over 40 years. Although it was never an everyday hunt for us, our minds were always working on it and coming up with something else to try. My Dad and the man who found the first piece spent many work nights going over topographical maps pinned up in our basement on the walls. They were trying to locate the mapped area for many years, and my Dad was down there every night it seemed like. My father and I finally did locate it years after that when I was a man. The internet came along and helped out quite a bit, but we spent many hours still doing it the old fashioned way too, that is what eventually paid off. Then we came to the realization that it was a map on a map, and finally that it was K.G.C., all of which never happened over night. After all of those years we are finally reading the symbols and understanding them, and most of all that they are not specific. Unfortunately it takes time and money to try each thing one at a time and check it off, especially when you are trying to feed your family, raise your kids, pay the bills. "Life Happens", and then your buying diapers,,,,,
It has been a long row to hoe and we will probably die digging. We are both Freemasons, and I believe that has helped us along the way. All you have to do is ask one to be one if you are interested in gaining that knowledge and improving your arsenal in the field. I find it very interesting that the original letter has a date on it of Dec, 10th, 1908 and was decoded with a document from 1896 which only coincides with some of the pieces we have. In other words, the older the trail gets the older the code and symbols are that were used. It is more proof of the transformation of the organization over the years that I can not make 100% public.
Along the way I became sidetracked on the Lincoln implications once I had identified Ben Ficklin in the mix with Russel Majors and Waddell............ & S.F. Nuckolls & John B. Floyd their silent partners. That cost me a few years in the archives as well, but it was well worth the time to try and find the truth, plus during that time I came acrossed the original letter from Lewis Cass to Gov. Francis Burt still in the original envelope in the archives. With Julius S.Morton identified as K.G.C. it was some pretty damn good proof that Franklin Pierce was involved in the take over of the Nebraska Territory. That left "ME" with no doubt that at one time the K.G.C. controlled this government from its highest seat of office. All of that history had very little to do with what was left by the K.G.C. after the Civil War began, but that is where the row began...in the ground under a turtles nose. I really would like to see what they left behind with this map, especially for my Father.
L.C.
