Wooden chest filled with gold and silver

[kenb]

This appears to be an old article. Does anyone here have any more info on this fantastic find?

DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK, California (AP) -- An archaeologist's search of a cave yielded a wooden chest filled with gold and silver coins that may have been hidden 149 years ago during an ill-fated Gold Rush expedition across Death Valley.

Archaeologist Jerry Freeman uncovered the treasure in November as he recreated the steps of a group known as The Lost Pioneers of 1849. He and four others retraced the entire journey in December.

"I was just blown away," Freeman said Monday. "Nothing prepared me for this."

The chest was propped up on boulders and a board but remained hidden, and was in mint condition. The find is worth an estimated $500,000, said Freeman, a 56-year-old semi-retired substitute high school teacher.

The National Park Service is examining the find to determine if it is authentic but has not raised any questions so far.

With the coins were well-worn baby shoes, photographs and a letter documenting the wagon train trek of '49er William Robinson, who was among some 100 men, children and women seeking the gold-laden foothills of the Sierra Nevada. The group wound up in the merciless California desert.

The letter was tucked inside a small hymnal.

"My Dear Edwin," Robinson wrote. "Knowed, now we should have gone arownd.... Ifen I don't raturn by end of fifty I wont never come."

Robinson died 26 days later on January 28, 1850. According to journals, Robinson drank too much cold water at the first spring the party came to at what is known today as Barrel Springs near Palmdale. He lay down for a nap and never awakened.

The group, well-known to historians, was originally from the Midwest. The pioneers started out from Salt Lake City in October 1849, on an ill-conceived attempt to skirt the southern end of the Sierra Nevada, and ended up crossing Death Valley.

Most of the rest made it to what is now Valencia, in Los Angeles County, some 300 miles southwest of their destination. Freeman said he believes 13 died on the trek.

The team found a manifest of the trunk's contents dated January 2, 1850, along with nearly 80 pieces of currency, including $5 and $10 gold pieces and a number of silver dollars. None of the money appears to have dates after 1849, Freeman said.

There was also a holstered pistol, a wooden powderhorn, a locket adorned with pearls and china bowls. A knitted shawl covered it all.

Freeman said he hopes to donate the find to a museum.

kenb

 

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[kenb]

Evidently faked. I spent an hour and a half researching this story. It's a complicated and confusing hoax that may go back to the 1970's according to everything I've read.

Park Service Declares Forty-Niners' Treasure Chest a Fake
Some of the contents date from after 1850
Carl Nolte, Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, January 28, 1999

The wooden trunk found in Death Valley National Park that supposedly contained artifacts from a party of Forty-Niners on their way to the California Gold Rush is a fake, an investigation has determined.

The National Park Service announced yesterday that several artifacts in the trunk ``have been proven to have come from periods later than 1850.''

Jerry Freeman, a self-styled archaeologist who discovered the trunk inside a cave in the bleak Panamint Mountain range last month, had said the trunk was apparently left behind by William Robinson, a member of an ill-fated party of Forty-Niners who had become lost in Death Valley on their way to California.

He had removed the trunk from the park and returned it last month, saying he was ``just blown away'' by the discovery, which was hailed by some historians as a potentially valuable find.

The trunk also contained a letter supposedly written by Robinson and dated Jan. 2, 1850, telling of his concern for his wife and his fears that he would never find his way out of the mountains.

However, Death Valley National Park rangers were cautious, and park superintendent Richard Martin called in a conservator from the Western Archaeological and Conservation Center in Tucson and curators from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Their conclusions:

-- Glue samples from the trunk contained materials made in the 20th century.

-- Two photos in the trunk were tintypes, a process that was not patented until 1856.

-- One of the two ceramic bowls in the trunk was stamped ``Made in Germany.'' A united Germany did not exist until 1871, and the mark on the bowl, the experts said, ``could not have occurred before 1914.''

-- ``Several other inconsistencies in the condition and the time frame of the articles were also noted,'' the park service said.

In addition, superintendent Martin noted that though the trunk was returned to the park service, it was illegally moved from the national park, a federal offense.

``Removing the trunk from the park may well have impacted evidence that could have been used to understand the circumstances surrounding the origin of the trunk and artifacts,'' Martin said.

He also said he thought the discovery of the trunk might encourage others to hunt for lost treasures in the park, ``potentially destroying irreplaceable artifacts and depriving this and future generations of the unique historical heritage in this area.''

Freeman, a 56-year-old semi-retired substitute teacher who has a degree in archaeology, was devastated by the government's conclusions about the trunk and contrite about taking it out of the park.

``I personally do not have the expertise to challenge the government's experts,'' he said in a statement from his home in the tiny town of Pearblossom near Victorville. ``Had I acted less as a wide-eyed `Indiana Jones' and more like the professional anthropologist I profess to be, there might have been a different resolution to the park's findings.''

``I will go to my grave believing William Robinson left his things in the desert so long ago,'' he said. ``But my reputation as an archaeologist and Death Valley historian is in ruins. . . . I can only dishonorably and quickly fade away.''

It was not clear yesterday who placed the trunk where Freeman found it. LeRoy Johnson, a historian who wrote the book ``Escape From Death Valley,'' an account of the ordeal of the Forty-Niners in the valley, said, ``It is not proven who did it yet, and it may never be proven.''

Freeman himself said yesterday that the trunk looked authentic to him. ``You would have thought so yourself, had you seen it,'' he said. ``There were 80 or so coins, all dating before 1849, in there. What kind of idiot would do something like that?''

He retraced part of the route through Nevada last year, reportedly following the trail through Area 51, a super-secret region where travel is prohibited by government order. The area is also noted because some people believe it to be frequented by UFOs.

The pioneer trail through the area is real enough. Two parties headed for the California Gold Rush -- one from Kansas, calling themselves the Jayhawkers, and another from Missouri, named the Bugsmashers -- left the Salt Lake Valley in Utah too late to cross the Sierra before the winter snows.

Instead, they took a southern route, became lost in the trackless dry ranges of what is now Nevada and eastern California and stumbled into the bleak Death Valley region on Christmas Eve, 1849.

Some others made their way to settlements, but Robinson died at an oasis in the Mojave Desert in January 1850.

The unearthing of bogus artifacts purporting to be from the West's past is not uncommon. Perhaps the most famous was the ``Plate of Brasse'' supposedly left behind by the English naval hero Sir Francis Drake on the Marin coast in the 16th century.

A plate apparently corresponding to a description written by Drake's chaplain was found near San Quentin Prison in 1937. It was hailed as the archaeological discovery of the century in the West, and even Herbert Eugene Bolton, the University of California's most eminent Western historian, was taken in.

Other Berkeley professors remained skeptical, and tests of the metal in the 1950s showed the plate to be a fake. The Plate of Brasse is still on display at UC's Bancroft Library, along with an explanation.

Death Valley officials were not sure yesterday what they would do with the trunk. ``The park will continue to evaluate the origin of the trunk and determine what, if any, other actions will be taken relative to this find,'' the park statement said.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/1999/01/28/MN996CH.DTL

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco Chronicle Sections DatebookCommentarySportsNewsBusiness

kenb

 

[Dave45]

research research and a little luck

 

[Scribe]

Let's step back a take a look at this from a different view...
Nearly 80 pieces of currency including $5 and $10 gold pieces and a number of silver dollars none appearing to be dated after 1849. CHECK
A holstered pistol. CHECK
A wooden powederhorn.CHECK
A locket adorned with pearls.CHECK
And some china bowls.CHECK

Hmmm, yep, if I found anything like that I would still be running around giving strangers high fives.

 

[transplant]

if someone was faking it that right much of gold to give the park service.

 

[kenb]

From what I've read there wasn't that much coin, a couple thousand worth at late 90's value. It's been suggested this cache was left at this location for a reason. To prove the path of the Jayhawkers by persons heavily involved in a great debate of that time. I'll post the links I checked out tomorrow from my office. All the research has been done by others to prove this point. You can check out there stories from their direct links.
It sounds ridiculous, but people will go to extreme measures to prove their points. One question I still cant find an answer too is where's the chest now? and how come theres no pictures of the contents short of two coins?

kenb