gates21
Full Member
Illinois treasures waiting to be found
In the late 1860s in the 1200 block of North State Street in Chicago, Felix and Ellen Conway spent their married years, but were not on friendly terms with each other. Felix, upon being diagnosed with an incurable illness, dug deeply in his backyard and buried $250,000 in gold coins. He told his doctor of the cache, and suggested that after he died and after Ellen also had passed to her reward, he could recover it. The doctor himself became ill and neared death, at which time he told his son of the fortune in store. As it turned out, the doctor's son died, while Ellen Conway continued to live, until at the age of 92 she passed away. Today, the exact location of the gold coins is not known, and they are presumed to still be there.
Near old John Hill's Fort at Carlyle, Clinton County, a buried fortune remains for the lucky finder.
Cave In Rock in Hardin County was long used as a hideaway by many robbers and other unsavory characters including the Harpes Gang and the notorious Wilson, and it is said much loot remains secreted there. Robert M. Coates has written: "From Red Bank [on the Ohio River] on down to the town of Smithland, the river traversed its most dangerous section. Shoals abounded, sand bars lay just below the ripple of the surface, islands split the channel.
Landsmen most of the travelers were, as they came poling down in their barges." A whole hierarchy of piracy had arisen to prey on them. The first of these was a man named Wilson. "He took his stand at a cave in the bluff along shore, a cave with deep chambers and hidden recesses. He posted a sign on the river bank: 'Wilson's Liquor Vault & House for Entertainment.' The cave was known as the Cave Inn, later twisted to Cave-In-Rock. It had a long chapter in the history of river piracy. Boat-wreckers waited along the bank. Watching a boat pass, they would offer to pilot it through the channel. If the unskilled steersman chose to run the rapids unaided, it was more than likely he would run aground. If he hired a pilot, the chance of his grounding became a certainty. Once beached, the boat and its occupants fell easily before the attack of Wilson's gang."
In the late 1860s in the 1200 block of North State Street in Chicago, Felix and Ellen Conway spent their married years, but were not on friendly terms with each other. Felix, upon being diagnosed with an incurable illness, dug deeply in his backyard and buried $250,000 in gold coins. He told his doctor of the cache, and suggested that after he died and after Ellen also had passed to her reward, he could recover it. The doctor himself became ill and neared death, at which time he told his son of the fortune in store. As it turned out, the doctor's son died, while Ellen Conway continued to live, until at the age of 92 she passed away. Today, the exact location of the gold coins is not known, and they are presumed to still be there.
Near old John Hill's Fort at Carlyle, Clinton County, a buried fortune remains for the lucky finder.
Cave In Rock in Hardin County was long used as a hideaway by many robbers and other unsavory characters including the Harpes Gang and the notorious Wilson, and it is said much loot remains secreted there. Robert M. Coates has written: "From Red Bank [on the Ohio River] on down to the town of Smithland, the river traversed its most dangerous section. Shoals abounded, sand bars lay just below the ripple of the surface, islands split the channel.
Landsmen most of the travelers were, as they came poling down in their barges." A whole hierarchy of piracy had arisen to prey on them. The first of these was a man named Wilson. "He took his stand at a cave in the bluff along shore, a cave with deep chambers and hidden recesses. He posted a sign on the river bank: 'Wilson's Liquor Vault & House for Entertainment.' The cave was known as the Cave Inn, later twisted to Cave-In-Rock. It had a long chapter in the history of river piracy. Boat-wreckers waited along the bank. Watching a boat pass, they would offer to pilot it through the channel. If the unskilled steersman chose to run the rapids unaided, it was more than likely he would run aground. If he hired a pilot, the chance of his grounding became a certainty. Once beached, the boat and its occupants fell easily before the attack of Wilson's gang."
