Art Bell’s broadcasts were always interesting. I do miss his show.
Regarding lost Confederate gold. In the mid 1970’s I worked in Florida as a survey archeologist. Land development and highway construction projects were required to file environmental impact statements to procur the various permits needed before construction could begin. One section required a physical survey of the property and a search of public records to determine if any historic or pre-historic sites would be affected. The developer was given a list of individuals qualified to perform the survey. It was a sweet deal for me. A project could normally be completed in 3-4 weeks with a variable fee of 5-10K depending on project size. I visited every potential developer I could locate and in 2 years had developed a client list for repeat business. But I digress. Back to the gold.
I was hired to survey a large project North of Jacksonville. Initially 10000 acres were to be developed for housing shopping etc. The owner had acquired almost 150000 acres and wanted to proceed with surveying the entire tract so he would be past the permitting process. The owner had a helicopter and pilot. I used topographic and satellite/infra red imagery to plot potential areas. The helicopter made it very easy. I located over 300 sites mostly aboriginal and modern campsites, 1 small Spanish contact burial mound and 4 old homesteads, one of those from the late 1700’s. The concept was the sites once located could be preserved and incorporated as natural “green” spots in the overall plan.
I spent the last 2 weeks checking smaller areas I had not visited trying to be certain I had not missed anything major. We had flown to a small island I wanted to check. I cleared a 1 meter square of vegetation finding bits of bone and shell with several pottery shards thrown in. Typical kitchen midden refuse. I continued excavating and noticed the pilot and owner had walked 20meters or so off to one side of the island and were poking around. I warned them to be careful of snakes as they were near a stand of bamboo. I can’t say why but rattlesnakes have an affinity for bamboo. The owner called me over to look at an object he had discovered. To make this already long story short it was the rusted remains of a wagon wheel. We cleared a larger area and found the metal parts left of an entire wagon that had been disassembled and stacked. Dead vegetation had covered it over but it had not been buried. This is not as unusual as it might seem. The normal mode of transportation for pioneers/settlers in that area and the Everglades to the south was by flat boat or canoe. The US Army transported cannon using that method in Florida. I surmised a pioneer type or the Army had broken down a wagon for transport and for whatever reason had unloaded and left it there. By this time the pilot had walked away but the owner was on his knees digging. I thought he was looking for wood remains and told him the wood parts would not have survived. He laughed aloud and said “Not wood but I found what I was looking for.” Underneath the wagon was buried what I believe to have been 3 chests. The wood was long gone but the locks,hasps,straps etc were there. I estimate about 200 pounds of 20$ US gold coins were lying in the ground. The gentleman would not tell me how he became aware but he did say that the whole development was a sham so he could search for the gold. Later I discovered he didn’t even own the property. He claimed the gold was a Confederate shipment bound for South America as the War was ending. That afternoon he paid me in cash with a bonus of one coin. The only “proof” I ever had of this crazy story was stolen by my ex-wife when we split.
I can only give you my word, but it did happen. I never saw the guy again. I researched US Army records and journals thinking it may have been a payroll shipment stolen or lost. The Army did issue pay in gold but I never found any mention of a payroll missing.
