Years ago I gave a copy of the Beale papers to a neighbor who was a bit of a wizard at math and code breaking. He used to do radio talk shows where folks would call and ask him to solve perplexing math puzzles. Never, not once, was the man stumped. From time to time he'd update me on his progress on the Beale papers, and tell me what documents he'd reviewed and eliminated, none which provided the treasure's location. Melvin wasn't secretive with his progress, but I eventually became very sheepish about talking to him. He'd become obsessive, and, in many ways, I felt like I'd ruined his life simply by showing him the Beale papers.
Melvin's dead now, but a few months before he died he told me he'd broken the final code, the one that indicated where Beale had hidden the treasure. At the time, he claimed he'd gone to Virginia and was going back to search through old maps. This much he did tell me: the place he was searching for (apparently a mountaintop with some kind of religious reference) wasn't indicated on current maps. He wouldn't share details like the name of the mountaintop, but he did say the document he used to break the code was an obscure document particular to Virginia, not a national document like the Declaration of Independence, or a Biblical passage like the 23 Psalm...