Download Free PDF. In this work you will find what I hope you found in my first book solid, thorough research and a story with which we can all connect. Having grown up hearing these stories about buried treasure and now searching for it himself, hes becoming a part of history. The lake is located in the extreme northeastern part of the county along the boundary between Rusk and Panola. Pinkerton is an enigmatic figure. Houston historian Gary Pinkerton, a Longview native, is fascinated by those treasure hunters and their searches. They both were at the lake during the treasure hunts of 1957 and 1958. HOUSTON It's the treasure hunt of a lifetime, and now it's landed them on national TV. In an interview with KETK, Pinkerton discussed the treasure, or lack thereof, at Hendricks Lake. Overtime, Roper believes that this information was interpreted to mean that there was treasure in Hendricks Lake. An estimated $340 million., And as I write, the treasure hunters are out there, hunting, hunting, and hunting. On the trail of East Texas' buried treasure news - The Black Chronicle Buried, EAST, Texas, texas news, texas news update, trail, Treasure A huge battle ensued between the two groups near what is now known as Tyler. Tales of pirate booty and Mexican gold have captivated minds for generations, and it all could be closer than you might think. Historian Gary Pinkerton says the legend is mostly unsubstantiated. There was one spot that we initially found, I think it was June of 2020, which gave us a sonar reading that was pretty much an exact match to a wooden wagon that had submerged with some sort of weight, Roper said. He found what he was looking for in the Spanish colony of Texas. In one account, Pinkerton recalls doing research and finding a story about the son of the founder of Tatum. For information on, or to order True Believers, visit www.hendrickslake.com. (In English documents, his last name was often spelled Lafitte, but Laffite was the spelling used by Jean and his brother Pierre.). Texas Lege Watch: A House Republican Fights for Chicken Freedom, Texas Monthly Recognized by ASME in the 2023 National Magazine Awards. 1``b`5 Y0$ Au`j`H@ Texas oilmen. East Texas Gold From Mexico In 1839 Mirabeau B. Lamar, the newly inaugurated successor to Sam Houston as President of Texas, sent the Texas Army out to get rid of the Cherokees. . The information comes from books and treasure hunting Web sites (the best of which are legendsofamerica.com and treasurefish.com). Eventually, the Mexicans unloaded the moneygold and silver coinsso they could make an escape. I titled it True Believers because Im way more interested in the people who believe this stuff than the possibility that there might actually be something, Pinkerton said. Forrest Wilder writes about politics and the outdoors. The son of the founder of the town of Tatum. Peoples commitment to myths, tall tales and legends is powerful, according to Pinkerton. Click here to start your Free Trial (no credit card required), by Michelle Dillon michelle@thecherokeean.com. In the early 1820s, Great Colombia under the government of Simon Bolivar had begun commissioning former privateers as officers in their newly formed navy. 2019. Gary L . 0000006665 00000 n More maps appeared showing various locations of a lost silver mine. The tale basically states Galveston-based pirate Jean Laffite, in the year 1816, plundered a Spanish ship named the Santa Rosa. Also join us in the Facebook Group: Beyond Oak Island Treasures for more discussions. He was reading a book about lost treasure that inspired him to do some digging online, where he found supposed evidence that a ship was lurking underneath the water. Photo: WhisperToMe, Public domain. Others have mounted full-scale salvage expeditions with backhoes and monster trucks and whatnot. That set off a huge treasure hunting stampede. Having already written a book on Trammels Trace, a road running through Tatum which he noted was the first road to Texas from the north, Pinkerton is now embarking on a journey to research the people and the reasons for the treasure hunting extravaganza for an upcoming book. But did it even exist? A nearby lake fed by the Sabine River also caught their attention, since the silver might have been transported there by the current. Pictured from left, Gary Pinkerton, Brackson McKnight and Christian Roper. A semi-weekly newsletter with all of The Panola Watchman's sports coverage. hunt presented by Christian, Rick and Marty offer to send Matty Blake down to Tales of pirate booty and Mexican gold have captivated minds for generations, and it all could be closer than you might think. In 2005, Agent Hendricks was a young FBI agent who was aware . 0000003470 00000 n 0000017011 00000 n One group proposed to use a new divining rod activated with isotopes. He gave the loot to smugglers who were attempting to transport six wagonloads of silver ingots to St. Louis where the treasure would presumably be minted into coins. The story goes that Union soldiers tracked down Confederate president Jefferson Davis in 1865 and confiscated his gold. We had not even known that he had heard of the treasure. February 2023 Reader Quiz: What Did You Learn? So, he set up these steam engines and buckets on a conveyor belt and pumps. As a backup plan, they would supply all adjacent markets with fresh fish on ice. The Galveston Daily News made light of the effort by suggesting they move their operation to the Gulf of Mexico since a good deal of wealth has been left under its waters by shipwrecks. A week after that humiliation, Paul Tatum clubbed a man to death after he made fun of Tatums attempt to drain the lake. We organized some strategic searches via dives doing grid patterns and things of that sort to try to get those up.. My favorite part of the legend is that the Guadalupe Mission in El Paso was built in way so that the shadows of the mission point to the Lost Padre Mine. During his research for Trammals Trace, Pinkerton came upon the legend and it was something he tucked away and parked for a little while.. There is a legend surrounding a supposed lost treasure in East Texas, one that filmmaker Christian B. Roper and his team have been researching for a documentary production, Sunken Silver. Read More about USS Hatteras, This is a funny little slot filled with intricate features and attention-grabbing symbols. This book is the story of those people. The Lost San Saba Silver Mine This lost mine, with its rich vein of silver, has been what one treasure hunter writer has called the Holy Grail of Texas treasure seekers. In 1756 a Mexican official traveling through Texas learned from Indians of an exposed strain of pure silver that ran through a certain hill in Central Texas. e d u / e t h j)/Rect[230.8867 249.8227 390.0566 261.5414]/StructParent 5/Subtype/Link/Type/Annot>> No matter the evidence, they knew there were more ships filled with riches.. In attempting to honor what he perceives to be Fenn's wishes . Hobe Sound. endobj Laffite approached them and was granted a commission and given command over a 43-ton schooner named General Santander. I once made a scientific study of all the known shipwrecks, from ancient to modern, that occurred off the Texas coast. The legend says that in 1816, Laffite and his fellow pirates plundered six wagon loads worth of silver from the Spanish. All Rights Reserved. The dumping of the silver in the lake was a temporary thing until danger passed, then was recovered, after all he had divers at his disposal. He sent soldiers to look for it, but they found nothing. As of May 2022, she resides in Austin and does media relations for TCEQ. 152 0 obj s f a s u . He was now legally authorized by Great Colombia to take Spanish ships. When they returned after the war, Singer could no longer find Money Hill because the sands had shifted and erased all the landmarks that he once knew. &m;vH}p,$[%7?7hm'm&@A2Ef8IR%%p.Bs.H'QKR 5 ]sHT. The people who believed the legend enough to pursue it were a diverse lot. 0000002304 00000 n Did the infamous privateer Jean Laffite steal a $2 million fortune in silver from a Spanish galleon and bury it in the Sabine River near the East Texas town Sabine? Many came to the lake to drain, dredge, dig, dynamite and scan its murky depths. He maintains websites for Trammels Trace and for Hendricks Lake, as well as social media Facebook groups for both stories. The land was sold sometime in the last 20 years and is now within a restricted mining area. As of 2019 much of the land surrounding the lake was in the permit area for the surface mining for lignite that covers thousands of acres. It was found approximately a decade later in 2020 in Wyoming by an anonymous treasure hunter later revealed to be former journalist and medical student Jack Stuef. LAKE CHIEMSEE, GOLDEN CAULDRON In Bavaria, in southern Germany, Lake Chiemsee has been the focus of many divers ever since a Nazi-themed gold cauldron, worth more than $560,000, was found there in . So where is it? Barnie Waldrop. A dirt contractor. Its no surprise that East Texas has local tales of buried treasure. Since that time, many parties and individuals have endeavored to find the Lost Treasure of Hendricks Lake, with searches as early as 1884 and as recently as the 1970s. None of (the rest) lines up, but 1860s, 1870s, there was enough yada yada to create some story.. There are two legends in particular that seem to have found purchase in the minds of East Texas treasure hunters. And soldiers were overtaking them, so they had six wagon loads full of gold and silver they dumped it in the lake. Laffite spent the rest of his life attacking merchant ships around Central American ports; sometimes as a pirate and sometimes as a privateer. xref The tried to dynamite the bottom, but ended up with no silver for this efforts. The box was hidden by millionaire art dealer. Two years later, its researchers went on a mapping expedition with the . \Dy@tw sde!F@D}@10 4c/ An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. A formal statement is due around noon in Moscow on Saturday when the first pictures of the gold will be revealed to the world's . 10 Lost Treasures in America Waiting to be Found. Peter Walker Adams lived in one of the houses on the hill near the lake and figured prominently in many of the newspaper stories. The people who have looked for Hendricks Lake treasure since the 50s have spent a lot of money and hired a researcher in Spain to see if the Santa Rosa actually existed, all kinds of things, Pinkerton said. Other stories of Pirate Treasures are discussed. There are many stories about the famous pirate Gene Lafitte, but one of them places his lost treasure at the bottom of a lake right here in East Texas. In fact, this same story about Lafitte treasure being lost somewhere, was repeated over and over in almost the same pattern from the Gulf Coast all the way up into Arkansas and Missouri.. Ocean Breeze. for the most familiar version of the legend. Oxbow lakes result from a river's course change, in this case the Sabine River just to thc north. Six wagon loads of silver carried north along Trammels Trace. Hendricks Lake, No matter what, I come to believe throughout professional research or diving, I will always associate it with Jean Lafitte, with treasure, with piracy because its meant so much to the community, Roper said. The duo are currently working to make a documentary about the local legend of sunken silver ingots in the lake near Tatum. Filmmaker Brackston McKnight uses a metal detector on his property, searching for lost treasure. Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos. endstream 0000001730 00000 n He is the primary antagonist of season one of National Treasure: Edge of History. True West Magazine article on Jean Lafitte. endstream In a location on the lake, matching the tale, with a sloped One thing is certain though, East Texans will continue to be fascinated by stories like these. Over the years, Hendricks Lake near Tatum has been a place where many people have visited in search of a legendary treasure that was supposedly left at the site by Pirate Jean LaFitte. Christian B. Roper, Ryan Travis, and Brackston McKnight, all Jacksonville natives, are working toward a documentary film about Hendricks Lake called Sunken Silver. The Lakeview Motel's name is false advertising these dry days. endobj At the age of 25, Jean Laffite was living in New Orleans, operating a warehouse essential to dispersing the goods smuggled by his brother Pierre. The Cherokees started getting their butts kicked. wagons to be pushed down an embankment and into a lake. Only recently did I learn of a parallel effort to tell the story of the Hendricks Lake treasure legend via film. :P1N8ihB:Ap"4qau_-6)aqhcgZ!=(!~qB3&\S%I}Dc{M6H31jiet_Ya dZ`URw#ser6QcS$JJrnlHN_f1`>!nUA{:_>vtZ)F+/z#~+PDG-+\X?U89XfDD\%E%R! b#[\Z}%dw2Q cDDp=_Em&>M!$]5yors8%52]Tp%>E]SV)IW%]Ka("Y4'7QuFf$a But if you dont like that version of the legend there are others. George Mallory (left) with Andrew Irvine in the last known photo of them on their fatal Everest climb in June 1924. Christian Roper and Brackston McKnight, film makers. This page is for discussion about that early history,. After getting some readings at the bottom of the lake (Hendricks Lake), two Dallas oilmen actually brought in a giant crane and attached a drag bucket to the cable. And then he became postmaster two years later, so apparently nothing came of that. 150 0 obj A.C. SoRelle, Jr., and his brother, Henry, were oilmen who brought detection equipment, draglines, and other heavy machinery to dig into the gumbo mud on the bottom of the lake. His website is titled True Believers: Treasure Hunters at Hendricks Lake but he is not a true believer himself. Back in the 1580s, Spanish conquistadors and priests often passed beneath the peaks of the Franklins on their way to New Mexico to colonize the Indian villages. The man who found a hidden treasure chest said to be worth about $2 million last summer in the Rocky Mountains one that had tantalized fortune seekers for a decade, led to at least two deaths. Continue Reading. Singer & Co., which was renamed the Singer Manufacturing Company in 1865. One of Hendricks's biggest contributions was financing the excavation of Hawikku, an ancestral village in New Mexico, where the A:shiwi (Zuni) first made contact with Europeans. Joe spent many hours growing up around Milzie Williamson and later used his Fisher M-Scope metal detector to search those mysterious holes. startxref The treasure, placed in a. His body was buried at sea in the Gulf of Honduras. endobj In one Internet posting, I read the following: Texas has more buried treasure than any other state, with 229 sites within the states borders. Since that time, many parties and individuals have endeavored to find the Lost Treasure of Hendricks Lake, with searches as early as 1884 and as recently as the 1970s. Charles Fitzhugh Grice had the technology needed to find Spanish silver if the treasure was there. Now, two years later, in his book, "True Believers: Treasure Hunters at Hendricks Lake," he has given new life to a legend about hidden silver that developed alongside Trammel's Trace. The tale basically states Galveston-based pirate Jean Laffite, in the year 1816, plundered a Spanish ship named the Santa Rosa. endobj According to the legend, the Cherokee were fleeing north after the Battle of Neches when Roper said their path crossed Little Cypress Creek on the property of a man named OHendrick. According to one legend, a group of priests put about three hundred burro loads of silver in a mine on one of their expeditions to New Mexico. And the story was basically, you wanna be the guy selling the metal detectors, you dont want to be the guy out there looking for (stuff) that doesnt exist. This catch rendered a lot of attention and by 1884, the Sabine River was riddled with silver hunters. "My father and his friends shared the Hendricks Lake treasure legend with me when I was very young, perhaps 6 or 7 years old," Roper said. Singer Treasure on Padre Island In the mid-nineteenth century, a man named Isaac Merritt Singer made significant improvements to the sewing machine. There was an error processing your request. The July 17, 1958 edition of the Panola Watchman includes this update on a search for Jean LaFittes treasure at Hendricks Lake near Tatum. [150 0 R 151 0 R 152 0 R 153 0 R 154 0 R 155 0 R 156 0 R 157 0 R 158 0 R 159 0 R] A Seagoville pharmacist who sailed around the world. It led all the way back to an 1884 account where the guy who was the son of the founder of Tatum, Texas in East Texas decided he was going to drain the lake. For information on, or to order Trammels Trace, visit www.trammelstrace.com. For Pinkerton, the treasure of Hendricks Lake is its history and the people who have believed in the legend over the years. Clarksville Standard, August 29, 1884. endobj endobj He built a new kind of sewing machine, and in. Things Found in the San Antonio River: Periodic draining of sections of the river have revealed skateboards, Mardi Gras beads, old bottles and a cell phone. It was packed with tons of gold and silver. I looked into it a little bit in high school and at UT, just on and off. emily compagno family business,

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