5. The Paradas accompanied the FBI to the site in Dent's Run, about 135 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, but say they were confined to their car while the FBI excavated. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc, or its affiliates. It's the site where the treasure-hunting group, Finders Keepers, says as much as $55 million in lost Union gold could be buried. Hansen and some other Alabama citizens raised quite a bit of capital in the form of gold and silver bullion and coins. The contractor detected an underground mass that weighed up to nine tons and had the density of gold, according to an FBI affidavit unsealed last year at the request of news organizations, including The Associated Press. He was very skilled at evading the police. You could argue the Delosie Mine belongs to North Carolina AND Tennessee, as it used to lie right on the border. The daughter didnt want anything to do with the braces that her father presented to her but she had an infatuation with the white trapper who recently came around. Demopolis is an abandoned town on the Tombigbee River, near the intersection of rout 43, and 80. your Facebook account, or anywhere that someone would find this page valuable. For three long, bloody years, General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia defied the . There are a few instances of the plantation ruins that still remain to this day including the spring where the cotton gin was. Somewhere near Primm Springs, Tennessee. Jean and his older brother Pierre stole a lot of loot over the years in and around the Gulf of Mexico in the early 1800s. All the Confederate officials would board the first train, while the second train would hold special cargo. . So get your picks, shovels, and metal detector ready as we go through the 15 lost treasures of Alabama. Wesley Millett and Gerald White are the authors of The Rebel and the Rose. Jean Lafitte the French Privateer and Pirate is said to have spent a considerable amount of time visiting Fort Morgan, Alabama. So the treasure has never been found. After a long day traveling Hansen ended up at a friends home. In the Civil War-era movie, Gone With the Wind (1939), Rhett Butler, played by Clark Gable, is rumored to have stolen the treasure. . Should Ken Burns start working on a new special? Hansen ended up killing one of the Union scouts. $13,000 in gold. You are using an out of date browser. The Beckham Plantation Treasure. According to local lore, the gold was lost or stolen during the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg. La Bellone ran aground at the entrance of Pelican Bay in September of 1724 which is on the east end of Dauphin Island. This Metal Detector Has all the top features you would expect in a quality metal detector. Back in the 1800s that made for a huge town. They ended up in a large cavern and when they took the blindfold off of the trapper he saw that the cave was filled to the ceiling with gold and silver bars, coins, and jewels. The ruins of the plantation still remain to this day. Military money pokes. President Davis pleaded with Lee to form defense lines for just one more day and informed his cabinet that Richmond was to be evacuated and that they would take the Confederate treasury with them. The legend of the Confederate gold is referenced in many films. Digging Deeper: Lost Treasures of Oklahoma. Here are a few of the gems and buried treasure in Virginia that we managed to dig up. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. As the men transporting the money neared Athens, Alabama, the wagon became stuck in a muddy "bog hole." Sharps ended up falling off the mills roof when he was doing repairs in June of 1899. Appreciative of the home the Mumfords provided and his opportunity for a college education, he set out to discover the facts behind the Confederate gold. They picked 3 men to bury the box full of gold coins somewhere near the courthouse. Expand. La Bellone was a French merchant ship that was in the area of Dauphin Island to pick up merchandise from the French Colonials in Louisiana. They also covered the boxes with straw and fertilizer to conceal the treasure within. Subscribe Today! I doubt very seriously that any of the phantom confederate gold myths are real. . I hope you have found this article of interest and if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them in the comments section below. The Missing Confederate Gold, Raid at Chennault, Georgia, May 24, 1865. They were transporting a large quantity of gold bars, hidden in false-bottomed wagons, from Wheeling, W.Va., to the . Imperial Seal of China created by Emperor Qin Shi Huang, lost after the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period in the 10th century. Here's how this gold war began, according to a Pittsburg Post-Gazette article about a 1983 story in Lost Treasure magazine. The Union Cavalry came upon them and they were both killed. I was born and raised in the area. With slightly less than a thousand men in his command, Duke transferred all the treasure into six wagons and began his journey south with eight of his veterans on each wagon as guards and the rest of his command, along with the midshipmen, as escorts. Also, a Spanish galleon ship broke up near the east end of Dauphin Island in 1801. The town of Louina grew to 2,500 residents with 30 homes, two churches, two schools, eight stores, and even a Masonic Lodge. The Beale Treasure - The Myth of Millions in Bedford. The King died in 1819, and was supposedly buried . So Hardy decided to bury the treasure late at night when everyone was asleep. Through a critical analysis of primary and secondary sources, including the research of historian Peter S. Svenson, this paper argues that the city's development was aided [] In late May 1861, Jefferson Davis, the former Mississippi Senator and the reluctant president of the seceding Confederate States of America, moved the capital of the CSA from Montgomery, Alabama to Richmond, Virginia to boost the morale of the Confederate troops and weld Virginia to the Confederacy. The 1907 theft included the removal of a diamond star, pendant, and the collars of five knights of the Order. Maybe you could be the one who prospers from finding one of these lost treasure gems in Alabama! The Indians thought this request to be outrageous and attacked De Sotos camp. But, the first story sounds very familiar with a post I put on Treasure Legends-"swamp gold." The chief wanted him to marry his daughter. Jesse James the legendary outlaw of the west and in those days Alabama was considered out west had hideouts in and around the areas of Dawson, Guntersville, Gadsden, and Mentone Alabama in the Sand mountains. The American Civil War may be about to start up again and not for any of the reasons you might think. A man by the name of C.E. The officer brought troops to Henrys home in the hopes of getting Henry to tell them where his treasure was hidden. He was then valued at $300,000 which made him a wealthy man, to say the least! (Note: specie describes money in the form of coins, usually gold or silver, as opposed to paper money. Apparently in 1865, $100,000 of gold and silver was put into two large metal boxes by Confederate troops, and then thrown into the swamp. But this time Henry died from being beaten. Millions of dollars' worth of gold was lost or unaccounted for after the war, and its possible location has been the source of speculation of many historians and treasure hunters. Nor did anyone else looking for it after word got out. 2022 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. Just imagine if you were the one to discover all this loot! The really big lost treasure is that of the Confederate Treasury in custody of Jeff Davis upon leaving Richmond, fleeing the Yankee hordes. Norfolk Southern train derails in Springfield, Ohio, At least 12 dead after winter storm slams South, Midwest, Trump speaks at CPAC after winning straw poll, Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant to "take some time away" from the team after allegedly brandishing a gun in a club, How Paul Murdaugh testified "from the grave" to help convict his father, Man charged for alleged involvement in 2 transformer explosions, Promising drug could provide alternative to statins, new study finds, Iran to allow more inspections at nuclear sites, U.N. says, NTSB to investigate in-flight turbulence that left 1 passenger dead. This legend was first advanced by Martha Mizell Puckett, a former school teacher and Brantley County native, who spun her tale of Confederate gold in her book, Snow White Sands. The story has it that Mr. Clemens buried $100,000 worth of gold on his property because he was worried about losing it. The consent submitted will only be used for data processing originating from this website. Here's how this gold war began, according to a Pittsburg Post-Gazette article about a 1983 story in Lost Treasure magazine. In Danville, the officials handed out a lot of the gold in exchange for Confederate money to help the soldiers when all hopes of saving the Confederacy were lost," Ricketts said. Mar 7, 2019. (Bibb Co.) buried a bag of gold to hide it from the invading Yankees. In 2002, the church awarded $32,000 to qualified women from Southeast Georgia, and in October 2003 there were fifteen women attending colleges or technical schools who were funded by the scholarship program. De Soto demanded that the Chicksaw Chief who had a camp nearby furnish him with squaws for his trip into Mississippi. The Outlaw PresidentJefferson Davis was an unlikely traitor to the United States. 's don't mention anything about the skirmish. It would be a great place to find all kinds of history and relics that might still be strewn about by all those army camps. The Hero of Gettysburg Surveyed the Great Lakes. I grew up in Prattville, Alabama. Worth roughly $100,000 in 1865, when it disappeared, it would be a small fortune in today's dollars--around one million dollars. After some minor resistance from roving Confederate bands, on April 11, 1862, his Union troops marched into Huntsville and occupied the city. Finders Keepers filed a federal lawsuit against the Justice Department over its failure to produce documents on the FBI's search for the legendary gold, which took place nearly four years ago at a remote woodland site in northwestern Pennsylvania. Is Lake Michigan hiding millions in Confederate gold? First published on January 6, 2022 / 11:11 AM. Or, a Top Secret Human Experiment Gone Wild? was the operator of a ferry during the Civil War, on the Perdido River. In June 1863, President Lincoln ordered two wagons with false bottoms to carry anywhere from 26 to 52 gold bars weighing 50 pounds each from Wheeling, West Virginia, 400 miles north to Pennsylvania to pay the Union troops stationed there. According to most news accounts and his website, hes been fighting for the right to dig there ever since. Another had the group split up because of Castletons fever, with the lieutenants group taking the gold and disappearing. Please enter valid email address to continue. Hardy grew his small acres of land into whopping 9000 acres by 1850. Legend. You must log in or register to reply here. That is a crazy amount of money even by todays standards. . Some of the add-ons on this site are powered by. Long story short it is said that Levi Colbert buried some of his savings from the inn and ferry operations in what is now Colbert County Alabama. His nephew Grady tried to find the gold caches that his uncle had presumably buried in the woods. Will the FBI abscond with it? In Washington, Georgia, Jefferson Davis and his cabinet met for the final time, where Davis signed his last official order, making Micajah Clark the acting Treasurer of the Confederacy. Louinas gold and silver could still be buried under the ground in that old ghost town! 6) Lost Delosie Mine. By the time that the trea-sure train under Confederate naval captain William Harwar Parker gold and silver coins. A member of the society said there is no historical evidence that gold is buried in the area. The gold became a lost legend. Her book alleged that New York native and Confederate sympathizer Sylvester Mumford was present at the Confederacys final cabinet meeting in Washington, Georgia, and claimed that Jefferson Davis divided the gold among those present and instructed them to use the money as they felt best. The wreck is still there and its treasure is waiting to be recovered! These legends are fueled by the fact that the state was a hub . circa 990-995. rjcox / flickr. However, the new civil war wont be between the North and the South this one will be between the government and the treasure hunters who claim they found the location of the buried gold as far back as 2005 and have been denied their rights to it. Most of the tales revolve around the . Indeed, no one who was an eyewitness to the events ever documented that the gold was actually lost. A rich man named Hansen was a Confederate sympathizer who wanted to financially help the Confederate economy that was falling apart at the end of the Civil War. Newton Alabama in Dale County came under attack by the 1st Florida Calvary that was led by former Confederate captain Joseph Sanders who lived in Dale County. By 1960, this scholarship fund was creating more income from its principal investment than there were recipients for the scholarships. In the 1966 Spaghetti Western film The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the . The chief said that he could have all the treasure if he would marry his daughter. It may not display this or other websites correctly. His wife sold the ferry and went to live with relatives in Georgia. In recent years, the number of students receiving tuition assistance has fluctuated between ten and twelve. The Stolen Lost Confederate Gold: A Historical Analysis of Duluth, Minnesota's Development Abstract: This paper explores the historical claim that Duluth, Minnesota was built using stolen lost Confederate gold. This guard consisted of mostly young navy midshipmen from a training ship on the James River and some of them were only twelve years old. Over the years the trapper kept trying to find Red Bone Cave and the treasure without avail. Hansen now alone with the two wagons of treasure knowing that the soldier would soon return with more union troops decides to use the horses to overturn the wagons into the deep swamp. FBI spokeswoman Carrie Adamowski told CNN that the FBI personnel were "carrying out court-authorized law enforcement activity in Elk County." The story goes that when she was forced to leave she had so much gold and silver her horses couldnt carry the load so she was forced to bury the gold and silver where she stood. The courts eventually agreed with the federal government, who claimed the funds because the Richmond banks had aided a rebellion by making loans to the Confederacy. By the end of the war, nothing remained in the coffers of the Confederate treasury except for its incalculable amount of debt. Levi and his brother George were interpreters and negotiators that worked with U.S. Indian Agent John Dabney Terrell Sr. of Marion County Alabama. Which leads us to today. These were enormous-sized boxes measuring from 3 deep x 2 wide x 4 long. By all accounts, he stayed by the tracks between Atmore and Bay Minette Alabama stealing from the trains every chance he got. This ended in the Trail of Tears that forced the Indians out. A battle took place on one of his plantations in central Alabama in October 1779 and the plantation was destroyed. Treasure hunters in the area believe his house was located at the following coordinates: N 3030 38 W 872651 which is close to U.S. Highway 90 bridge that now crosses the Perdido River. He landed in a swamp and drowned because he couldnt swim. Knowing that he was wealthy and owned half of the town the legend has it that the gold could be buried anywhere in Fort Payne. An example of data being processed may be a unique identifier stored in a cookie. Many of these treasures are now on private land or owned by the federal or state government. No one else knew where the box was buried and it hasnt been found to this day. I guess this happened more often than we would think. Buried treasure in Alabama may be located in ghost towns. #1. In June 1863, President Lincoln ordered two wagons with false bottoms to carry anywhere from 26 to 52 gold bars weighing 50 pounds each from Wheeling, West Virginia, 400 miles north to Pennsylvania to pay the Union troops . She questioned whether the agency is "acting in good faith.". Rutherford B Hayes Presidential Library & Museum, William McKinley Presidential Library & Museum, On Trees and Forests: Correcting Historys View of J. Wilkes Booth, President Lincoln on Emancipation Proclamation Day, January 1, 1863, General Burnside of Burnsides Bridge Fame Faced Infamy at Fredericksburg for Lack of a Bridge. The FBI initially claimed it had no files about the investigation.