Read Online The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar by Steven Sora - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Steven Sora
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digging into a previously dug shaft. Ten feet down into the shaft they came upon a platform constructed of oak logs. The logs were rotted and therefore easy to remove. These fitted logs were embedded into the sides of the thirteen-foot-wide shaft, and their poor condition gave them the appearance of having been there for a long time. The clay walls of the shaft had preserved markings that indicated previous digging. The young men removed the logs and continued digging. At twenty feet a second platform of oak logs impeded their progress but fortified their belief that something very valuable was buried further down in the shaft.
After removing the second platform, they continued working, only to reach another platform at the thirty-foot level. At this point they realized additional help was needed, both in terms of manpower and machinery. Persuading hardworking farmers to abandon their chores was difficult, and little work was done on the shaft for years. Another obstacle to enlisting workers for the project was that few of them would come to the island in the first place. The 128-acre island was just one of 350 islands in Mahone Bay, but it had a reputation. Years before, strange lights had been seen on the island at night, and a few of the mainlanders had rowed out to investigate. It is said that they were never heard from again. The island was haunted.
Without the support they needed, the young treasure hunters temporarily gave up on further excavation. Before the year was over, John Smith bought property on the island, and when he married, he moved there to farm it. Daniel McGinnis also farmed part of the island. When John’s wife was pregnant with their first child, they went to the mainland to visit the family doctor. Smith told Dr. Simeon Lynds, arelative of his fellow treasure hunter Anthony Vaughn, about the discovery, and Dr. Lynds became interested—so much so that he decided to invest money into excavating the shaft.
In 1801 Dr. Lynds formed the first syndicate that tried to conquer the Money Pit. 2 He raised the necessary capital from thirty other prominent Nova Scotians and went to work. Using ropes and pulleys, workers first removed the mud that had settled into the shaft after the teenagers’ aborted attempt, and then dug further. Again they encountered oak platforms at ten-foot intervals. The Onslow Syndicate, so named for Dr. Lynd’s hometown, also came upon layers of charcoal, putty, and a brown fibrous material, which was enough to keep everyone involved excited. Apparently someone had taken a lot of trouble to hide what must be a very important treasure.
At ninety feet, just over the expected oaken platform, they encountered another flagstone with an inscription. The flagstone’s symbols were not immediately deciphered. When they were shown to a professor of languages at a nearby Halifax college, he said that the inscription told of treasure buried another “forty feet below.” 3 The code was a very common one, also used by Edgar Allan Poe in his story “The Gold Bug,” in which a simple cipher is used in a search for buried treasure. It was cracked by substituting the most frequently used symbol for the most commonly used letter in the English language, an E. The inscribed stone was made into a part of John Smith’s fireplace and later found its way to a bookstore in Halifax, where another syndicate used it to raise money. It disappeared when the store closed.
Ninety-three feet below the surface, the treasure seekers discovered a new problem. After one more platform, they found that for every bucket of earth being raised, they had to bail out two buckets of water. Still their optimism held. It was late in the day, and they went home excited that the next day they surely would be breaking into the treasure trove. When they returned the next day they found that water had seeped in and flooded the shaft. Bailing took the place of digging, but water kept filling into the ninety-foot hole.
After removing the second platform, they continued working, only to reach another platform at the thirty-foot level. At this point they realized additional help was needed, both in terms of manpower and machinery. Persuading hardworking farmers to abandon their chores was difficult, and little work was done on the shaft for years. Another obstacle to enlisting workers for the project was that few of them would come to the island in the first place. The 128-acre island was just one of 350 islands in Mahone Bay, but it had a reputation. Years before, strange lights had been seen on the island at night, and a few of the mainlanders had rowed out to investigate. It is said that they were never heard from again. The island was haunted.
Without the support they needed, the young treasure hunters temporarily gave up on further excavation. Before the year was over, John Smith bought property on the island, and when he married, he moved there to farm it. Daniel McGinnis also farmed part of the island. When John’s wife was pregnant with their first child, they went to the mainland to visit the family doctor. Smith told Dr. Simeon Lynds, arelative of his fellow treasure hunter Anthony Vaughn, about the discovery, and Dr. Lynds became interested—so much so that he decided to invest money into excavating the shaft.
In 1801 Dr. Lynds formed the first syndicate that tried to conquer the Money Pit. 2 He raised the necessary capital from thirty other prominent Nova Scotians and went to work. Using ropes and pulleys, workers first removed the mud that had settled into the shaft after the teenagers’ aborted attempt, and then dug further. Again they encountered oak platforms at ten-foot intervals. The Onslow Syndicate, so named for Dr. Lynd’s hometown, also came upon layers of charcoal, putty, and a brown fibrous material, which was enough to keep everyone involved excited. Apparently someone had taken a lot of trouble to hide what must be a very important treasure.
At ninety feet, just over the expected oaken platform, they encountered another flagstone with an inscription. The flagstone’s symbols were not immediately deciphered. When they were shown to a professor of languages at a nearby Halifax college, he said that the inscription told of treasure buried another “forty feet below.” 3 The code was a very common one, also used by Edgar Allan Poe in his story “The Gold Bug,” in which a simple cipher is used in a search for buried treasure. It was cracked by substituting the most frequently used symbol for the most commonly used letter in the English language, an E. The inscribed stone was made into a part of John Smith’s fireplace and later found its way to a bookstore in Halifax, where another syndicate used it to raise money. It disappeared when the store closed.
Ninety-three feet below the surface, the treasure seekers discovered a new problem. After one more platform, they found that for every bucket of earth being raised, they had to bail out two buckets of water. Still their optimism held. It was late in the day, and they went home excited that the next day they surely would be breaking into the treasure trove. When they returned the next day they found that water had seeped in and flooded the shaft. Bailing took the place of digging, but water kept filling into the ninety-foot hole.
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