Suggesting a Location Other than the Money Pit

[gjb]

The personal files and correspondence of both Wilkins and Palmer are a far more authoritative source on the maps than you are. Also, they tell a great deal more than what's been written about them and reveal what changes have been made to the actual historical record specifically to mislead people.

That's the benefit of conducting documentary research rather than what you do - pontificating from an armchair declaring that you know all the answers - with no knowledge whatsoever about what was really going on and, what's more significant, about what both Wilkins and Palmer were trying to hide.

 

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[Singlestack Wonder]

The personal files and correspondence of both Wilkins and Palmer are a far more authoritative source on the maps than you are. Also, they tell a great deal more than what's been written about them and reveal what changes have been made to the actual historical record specifically to mislead people.

That's the benefit of conducting documentary research rather than what you do - pontificating from an armchair declaring that you know all the answers - with no knowledge whatsoever about what was really going on and, what's more significant, about what both Wilkins and Palmer were trying to hide.

LOL...fiction writing style research from a ufo and hollow earth quack such as wilkins.

Nothing more to see here.....

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

I suggest if you have an interest in Captain Kidd that you read The Pirate Hunter by Richard Zacks. It is a biography of the last years of Kidd's life.

Yes, he captured a valuable ship. But he was "thrown under the bus" by the powerful men in England who sponsored his ship and funded the expedition. The "treasure" from the Quedagh Merchant (an Indian ship under a British captain) which consisted mostly of cloth and trade goods. Some silver. That that had not already been forward to England on other ships or pawned in the Caribbean (to William Burke) was seized in Boston; but between what was used to pay crew and some left on Gardniers Island on his way to his intended destination of NYC it has pretty much been accounted for. I don't think his crew would have been interested in burying their "rightful" plunder shares.

 

[BennyV]

I’ll be honest. I put this story right up there with Victoro peak. Some people said there was treason and some don’t. No definitive evidence or proof. I can tell you this. I doubt there’s much left if anything.

 

[gjb]

LOL...fiction writing style research from a ufo and hollow earth quack such as wilkins.

Nothing more to see here.....

There’s a difference between what Wilkins wrote in his books and what he wrote in his letters and in his research papers. And don’t equate Wilkins’ public face with his private and personal life and views. He didn't report everything he knew, and that much is evident from his files.

While nobody here will find it at all surprising, it’s nevertheless amazing that you have totally no idea that historians look to consult people’s private files, correspondence and diaries to determine the actual thoughts and actions that lie behind their influence on events and the part they played in them.

Wilkins' views on UFOs have nothing whatsoever to do with the information he obtained concerning the treasure maps, as I'm sure you're well aware. Concerning the maps, he was hiding the truth, and people got sucked in - including you.

Consult his personal files, not his books.

 

[gjb]

I suggest if you have an interest in Captain Kidd that you read The Pirate Hunter by Richard Zacks. It is a biography of the last years of Kidd's life.

Yes, he captured a valuable ship. But he was "thrown under the bus" by the powerful men in England who sponsored his ship and funded the expedition. The "treasure" from the Quedagh Merchant (an Indian ship under a British captain) which consisted mostly of cloth and trade goods. Some silver. That that had not already been forward to England on other ships or pawned in the Caribbean (to William Burke) was seized in Boston; but between what was used to pay crew and some left on Gardniers Island on his way to his intended destination of NYC it has pretty much been accounted for. I don't think his crew would have been interested in burying their "rightful" plunder shares.

The maps have nothing whatsoever to do with the so-called pirate Captain Kidd, and Wilkins eventually came to realise this when he caught on that they actually applied to Oak Island at a later date. It's just that a ship's captain by the name of Kidd is mentioned in the files that contained the map instructions.

When new data is presented, sensible people reassess their views and change their minds if this seems to be warranted.

 

[Singlestack Wonder]

Please provide any factual data that you have.

Wilkins is a proven purveyor of fiction and has no credibility in the realm of factual history.

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

When new data is presented, sensible people reassess their views and change their minds if this seems to be warranted.

On that we agree. But you are confusing nonsense with data. Show me the money. Until then - you're blowing smoke up our asses and the realists among us find that offensive.

 

[gazzahk]

On that we agree. But you are confusing nonsense with data. Show me the money. Until then - you're blowing smoke up our asses and the realists among us find that offensive.

Ha ha...

 

[DaveVanP]

Wacky writers often take genuine information and misuse and misdirect it, which is exactly what Wilkins did. That doesn’t mean that the original information they used is necessarily false.

...but it DOES throw even MORE suspicion that the information is false. Given Wilkins' reputation, accepting any of his writings as "evidence" would be like accepting investment advice from Bernie Madoff...

 

[DaveVanP]

I’ll be honest. I put this story right up there with Victoro peak. Some people said there was treason and some don’t. No definitive evidence or proof. I can tell you this. I doubt there’s much left if anything.

My own opinion on that is that there are TONS more (pun intended) credible evidence of a treasure at Victorio peak than a treasure at Oak Island. At least with Victorio Peak, we have photographs, official US Government documents, and MULTIPLE eyewitness descriptions of actually seeing a treasure there - NONE of which are available for Oak Island - other than film and photos of fruitless searches.

 

[gjb]

...but it DOES throw even MORE suspicion that the information is false. Given Wilkins' reputation, accepting any of his writings as "evidence" would be like accepting investment advice from Bernie Madoff...

I do take the point, but Wilkins’ personal papers suggest something quite different. He intended to publish Palmer’s maps, but when Palmer refused he was actually being honest in putting what he believed to be genuine treasure instructions on the maps he created.

He was also honest in publishing in the same book the island outline to which these instructions actually belonged. As indicated, this is clearly Oak Island as it appears in Des Barres’ Atlantic Neptune the position and shape of which would have been plotted some 30 years before the Money Pit was reputedly discovered.

Wilkins didn’t want to give everything away, because he wanted a shot at Oak Island himself after Hedden identified the island for him. Hedden wrote in correspondence that Wilkins had no idea that his map was similar to Des Barres’ chart, but Wilkins checked up after Hedden’s visit and finally realised the truth. It wasn’t Captain Kidd, it wasn’t Juan Fernandez and it wasn’t the China Sea. It was Oak Island.

This is a treasure hunt, and it should be appreciated that Wilkins wasn’t being altogether forthcoming about what he knew - but I don’t think that he had the full answer as he claimed.

My point is that by taking what we know about the ground markers on the island and then assuming that the instructions on all five maps are genuine and that they apply to the underlying plan there is a strong likelihood that any major deposit on the island is highly unlikely to be in the Money Pit.

Wilkins was an eccentric from a working class background with a chip on his shoulder concerning the privileged upper classes of his age under whose prejudice he had suffered, including government. He was thus fully prepared to believe in cover-ups which he was keen to expose - hence UFOs as reported by pilots during WW2 and shortly thereafter and strenuously denied by the powers that be.

Wilkins was a product of his age and should be assessed as such. His world believed in buried treasure, treasure maps, treasure hunts and UFOs and, as such, Wilkins wrote about them in order to supplement his income.

 

[SSR]

You can relate all the "special" surveying features on that island very well to the surveying of its lots in ca. 1762 by Charles Morris. This simple fact never gets mentioned. There was a survey that occurred there. It wasn't for a treasure burial; it was for 32 lots included in the Shoreham grant. As for the depression under a tree with a block hanging from it, that's a detail from another island in Mahone Bay, Hobson's Nose, ca, 1830. There's no obvious reason why that detail traveled to John Smith's land which he acquired in 1795. "Solving" this treasure story by scanning the wider treasure literature that comes after the searcher era is not addressing the inconsistencies that allow all of this fantasizing to get started. A mildly complicated geometric solution appears only to have ever mattered to Morris, he who set off to divide the lots in approximately the same acreage. The reasonable interpretation of details that are found on, or in obvious relation, to the main road across that island ought to be dated to ca.1762.

 

[BennyV]

More and more I think it was just a rouse to increase land prices.

I too remember reading that National Geographic story and being excited, but reality is seeped in as I’ve gotten older lol

 

[SSR]

More and more I think it was just a rouse to increase land prices.

I too remember reading that National Geographic story and being excited, but reality is seeped in as I’ve gotten older lol

I would probably argue that the point was to lease out land rights and tap investors. The circumstantial evidence shows that the original search group were rich relatives of Vaughn's young wife from the Truro area. It's pretty clear from reading the historical accounts from this period that the area was severely economically depressed. It had originally fared well as a source of food crops for the garrison at Halifax, but farming had by the 1800s lost its cachet. Dirt farmers struggled. Vaughn himself was a scoundrel, and he is named in gossipy papers of the day as a philanderer and man of ill repute. He wasn't a hard-working man supporting a wife. He also kept the company of wildcat speculators who sold bogus claims for coal mines in Cape Breton. Vaugh is said to have showed the "money pit" pit area to other investor groups, once trying to secure a lease payment to himself while claiming Smith's land was his. Something not on the up and up happened there since rich men who raised money ended up leaving a long trail of unpaid bills. The largest industrial pump that money could buy at the time has been acquired and it was never paid for. The mention of the litigation for this still exists in the archives. It is worth noting that the original digs there ended in widespread shareholder displeasure, and that nothing ever reoccurred there until John Smith died (ca.1858) and Vaughn started pumping out affidavits about what had originally happened on John Smith's land. By 1862 the story had been revived, but it had taken on a new life as a new sort of mystery that is well infused with Masonic story elements on one hand, and allegations of Kidd's treasure on another. Vaughn must have been a very lucky man, because when he later moved to New Brunswick a treasure account surfaced on his land there too.

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

More and more I think it was just a rouse to increase land prices.

I too remember reading that National Geographic story and being excited, but reality is seeped in as I’ve gotten older lol

I think you mean Readers Digest. National Geographic has never stooped so low.

 

[BennyV]

I think you mean Readers Digest. National Geographic has never stooped so low.

No it was Nat Geo.

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

I stand corrected. But they only dedicated 250 words of inconclusive work as a footnote to mention a project. Hardly an endorsement.

 

[BennyV]

I stand corrected. But they only dedicated 250 words of inconclusive work as a footnote to mention a project. Hardly an endorsement.

True that LOL.

 

[kagey]

If you consider how long ago this vault was supposed created and the amount of "treasure" it was supposedly hiding, it seems that instead of digging for the vault, we should be looking for the entrance.

If the Halpern Map is authentic, it offers logical clues.
Plus, the Halpern Map, written in French, was poorly translated.
On the bottom left of the map - it states "The Oak, enter here"
When overlayed with a real map, it seems that this is the money pit area. If you recall how the legend was started, some guys started digging at the base of an oak tree.
So it makes sense that the money pit isn't where the treasure is - it's where the entrance to the tunnels were. So digging here will not reveal any treasure.

Now if you look north of the swamp - you'll see that something is indicated as "La Voute en bas de Terre."
The English version translates this as "the Earth Vaulted Bay" (which makes no sense) -- when in actuality the translation should be "The vault under ground." This is literally suggesting where the vault is.
So if you're digging 100 feet + for the vault (and not the entrance or tunnel) - you should be looking not where the money pit is - but where the vault is said to be located.

And if you consider the cobblestone roads and oxen shoes found - whatever they were putting in the vault would probably have been heavy and put on carts -- meaning that you would have wanted to have a gradual decline (less than 13 degrees). Which if you calculated this starting at the money pit - would take you to somewhere at the top of lot 28/29 as the map indicates.

The legend states that the 3 who dug and found treasure did so at night and with hand shovels.
How possible is that - to go 100+ feet underground? Not likely. But what's more likely is that they dug to uncover the entrance.

If all roads lead to the money pit - it makes sense that the money pit area is where the "opening" to the vault was - not where the vault was.

To find the vault - I think they need to dig elsewhere.

Including photos from show.
Any thoughts?