Swift Silver??

EC.Mason said:
Hey Ken, I have never heard of Jenny being in the Sandy Hook area; do you have any more information on this? THanks for the posts! Enjoy reading your information.
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If you will read through this story you'll see the Little Sandy mentioned . This story was supposedly told by her son some years later. Jenny's Maiden name was Sellard or something close. Saw a post about a Sellars owning some land on Caney or some where down in that area. Might be some of Jennys people. When you read the story you'll see her brothers name mentioned. Just a thought. The Jenny Wiley story took place some years after Swift was supposed to be in Ky. Mining but you never know what you might catch in a story like that.

https://web.archive.org/web/20080513155337/http://www.jeanhounshellpeppers.com/Jenny_Wiley_Story.htm
 

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The Jenny Wiley story tells of them traveling along the Louisa River to the Ohio and then along the Little Sandy to Dry Fk. and Cherokee Creek where the crossed the water. Cherokee Creek is just north of Blaine a few miles. Then they made their way back to Little Mud Lick Creek Where she escaped from the Indians. My geography might be off just a bit on them being in Sandy Hook area . But believe me that's not the first mistake I've ever made. I just got another look at a map of that area.
 

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KY Hiker said:
'Reputed Silver Mines' basically in the head waters of the North and Middle forks of the KY river and Eastward toward Paintsville and Prestonsburg.
I always saw this map as a rendering of the text in the Swift Journal that one group went West and the other Southwest along the great ridge (Pine Mt) from the forks of the Sandy.
Its farther East than the common thought of one of the mines being at or around the forks of the KY River. Its a broad area of the state if you use deductive reasoning based on the journal entry mentioned above and the stated amount of time traveled in days. If the journal is accurate the mines should be West of the Sandy Rvr...South of the Ohio Rvr...and along or North of the Ky Rvr. Although in the back of my mind I tend to discount anything along the KY River as there is no mention of another large river after the forks of the Sandy. Only a clifty area with a smart stream. This could be the KY headwaters or the Eastern sections of the Red River...or
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In Eastern Ky. as with many hilly/mountainous areas many of the county line run along ridges, some of them great long ridges. This being the case it wasn't necessarily Pine Mtn. that they were referring to as the Great Ridge. Most any ridge they couldn't see the end of would probably fit the description .
 

If that were the case it would say 'a great ridge' and not 'the great ridge'. A topo map of KY will show there is only one great ridge. If the Big Sandy were not mentioned those living in VA or WVA may claim the great ridge is the Blue Ridge Mts. in the same way. Find a macro topo map of KY and its easier to visualize the probable path of the Swift Mining parties. Add to this the Gibson find of seven kegs of silver coins in Pigeon Water cave near Jenkins and you have a confirmation that Pine Mt is the great ridge.

Here is a Detailed map of KY from online.
http://ontheworldmap.com/usa/state/kentucky/large-detailed-map-of-kentucky-with-cities-and-towns.jpg
 

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We can't deprive the people of Va. and W. Va. of their rights to hunt for the Swift Siler Mine. They might as well try to make some of the maps/waybills fit their area too. As for the Gibson find it could have been French or Spanish mined. Has anyone ever proved it to be Swifts ?
 

About impossible to prove anything, many don't believe he found them where he said much less who made them. Others need to see one to believe they are real, the man came across sincere to me. No reason to lie to anyone much less tell anyone anything about what he found or where he found it either. I heard he gave 100 or more of them away too.
 

From what info I've gathered there's probably a couple dozen map/waybills that are supposed to lead to the Swift mine/treasure . Most anyone should be able to find one out of that many that'll fit Anywhere, USA .
 

KY Hiker said:
About impossible to prove anything, many don't believe he found them where he said much less who made them. Others need to see one to believe they are real, the man came across sincere to me. No reason to lie to anyone much less tell anyone anything about what he found or where he found it either. I heard he gave 100 or more of them away too.
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I saw a photograph of one on the Internet somewhere. They looked like French Crowns dated 1764. I thought I had the photograph in my computer. If I can find it I will post it. The coins looked rather worn to be counterfeit though. It looked like an original but worn coin. french silver crown 1764.jpgfrench silver crown.jpg
 

Someone else posted an image of one on here somewhere... looked similar to what you have shown. In the colonies silver was silver... French, British or Spanish they were all used regularly.
 

So, if you were to make counterfeit coins, as long as they were made out of silver and not tin or something, then no one would care if they were "official" coins or not right? I mean, if someone gave me a $20 gold piece that had Bullwinkle The Moose's image stamped into it, as long as it had the right weight of gold, why would i care? So that part about being caught counterfeiting, especially during that time period, does not make sense to me, unless you were making wooden nickels, ha ha.

Bill
 

I have read the Swift was brought up on charges of counterfeiting in North Carolina. I have not seen any records to prove it. I sure would like to read the case if it actually happened?
 

I believe that is correct until we (USA) formed the treasury and mint. After that there was probably some law about using only legal money. The silver and gold obviously still had value though. I'm not up on all that legal currency stuff and when it was enforced.
 

PirateLabs said:
So, if you were to make counterfeit coins, as long as they were made out of silver and not tin or something, then no one would care if they were "official" coins or not right? I mean, if someone gave me a $20 gold piece that had Bullwinkle The Moose's image stamped into it, as long as it had the right weight of gold, why would i care? So that part about being caught counterfeiting, especially during that time period, does not make sense to me, unless you were making wooden nickels, ha ha.

Bill
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As long as you wasn't imitating an actual coin I doubt there would be anything they could do . They would probably say a plenty but don't think there would be anything done. Think about bit coin.
With the price of gold these days a $20 gold piece I figure would be smaller than a dime if pure gold. I'd like to see the person that could make dies of Bullwinkle that small, that would be a great treasure in itself. To see someone with that much talent. WOW !! I'm not sure what the legality of it would be. There are many coin like tokens made though.
 

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franklin said:
I have read the Swift was brought up on charges of counterfeiting in North Carolina. I have not seen any records to prove it. I sure would like to read the case if it actually happened?
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I only heard about others caught counterfeiting in KY, never heard about Swift. Sprinkle and Mullins are the names I recall.
 

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I've seen old newspaper clippings that state Sprinkle dollars had turned up in a horse trade in the Grayson, KY area. All reports of the Sprinkle dollar say they had a diameter bigger than minted coin, and crudely carved owl. He was charged with counterfitting but charges were dropped when his coins were proven more pure than common currency. He was supposed to have paid his lawyer with the coins in the court room when he won the case.
 

great to see you back we missed you
 

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Gibson, Steely and others give a presentation on Swift near the Breaks

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