Fact, Evidence and Folk Lore,Proving the story.

When most people think of treasure hunting they have scenes of Indiana Jones in mind, exploring dusty tombs, crocodile infested rivers, secret chambers filled with gold bars and sparkling gems. What the movies don’t show is that the “exciting “parts are usually the end result of a long information search.

Most “treasure” stories start out as what I call FOLK LORE or LEDGENDS, a vague unsupported story usually too good to be true. Once you have the story now it is time for the FACT/EVIDENCE hunt to begin.

Let’s start with an easy one.

EXAMPLE: Just outside of town there used to be an old man named Jackson, who lived alone and raised chickens that he sold for meat and eggs. Because he lived frugally and had a distrust of banks, all his vast wealth was hidden on his property somewhere.

Okay, basic story and of a type you will run into many times.

First off, WAS there a man named Jackson, if so where did he live, when was he alive?

If you can’t find the answers to these questions then you probably don’t need to go any further with this project.

If you do find the man’s name and where he lived then you can run down some of the other questions.

What did he do for money, was it possible that he hid money on his property?

You don’t have to PROVE that the old man hid money just that it was possible that he did so.

Did he have family that he might have left his money to?

What were his debits when he died?

Was he generous or miserly?

These things are usually not impossible to find but might take a bit of digging, and will let you know if this is a viable project. A lot of questions can be answered by a good obituary or you might have to dig deeper.

A check of old county records might help with this one.

Sometimes the search is for evidence rather than facts.

TRUE STORY: We heard a story about an old Spanish gold mine in a remote area. We had a little bit of research verifying that the Spanish did have mines in the general area but this particular mine was not detailed in the research but there were hints. So we went to the area and started exploring and doing some metal detecting work. After a while we started finding hand forged iron chain and other hand forged iron objects. This led us to a campsite and evidence that “someone“ was in that area several hundred years ago. Not “facts” but solid evidence of the mine in question. This then gives us a starting place for our next search and narrowed the area down quite a bit.

It helps to keep in mind what it is you have found, is this a fact or evidence and if evidence, evidence of what. Does it support your theory? Does it go against you theory? Keep an open mind during all phases of your project sometimes you might make some turns you were not expecting.

People who dive on shipwrecks are always looking for a cannon or ships bell, something with a name on it. This will tell them what wreck they have found. When you have a name then you can look and see if the is an archived manifest or other list of the ship’s cargo. Was this ship carrying treasure or just cloth and ballast? If you know the name of the ship you can find the design of the ship so you can narrow down your search area. Are you looking in the hold area or the crew’s quarters? Until you have a name or some other solid traceable lead all you have is a theory. You have the wreck and might find some “treasure” but without a name and specific knowledge you are limited and not really sure what you are looking for, just hoping to find something.

In the case of our hand forged chains and other things, it was evidence of SOMEONE within the right time frame of what we were looking for. But it COULD have been an early pioneer or possibly trapper or other explorer. We need more and we are currently working this story.

When looking in old books and manuscripts be sure to differentiate between facts and hearsay. Is the account first-hand knowledge or is it just passed on as gossip. A second hand story is EVIDENCE not FACT. First hand stories do no always equal truth.

While doing some research at a local university library I came across a letter from a man that claimed that Jim Bridger and he, took a boat and floated down the Green River, into the Colorado River and down to Lee’s Ferry prospecting along the way. While doing this they found a cave high up on the side of a side canyon. While exploring the cave they found many skeletons and Spanish armor.

This was an amazing story and just the kind of firsthand account that really gets the blood pumping. So I finished up the project I was working on and then dug into this new story. It didn’t take long to find a lot of information on the man who wrote the letter, none of it good. The fact that I found him mentioned by several historians was telling. He had a reputation of writing himself into important events and claiming to be on close personal terms with important people. All of the references to him I found were very skeptical that he did even a quarter of what he said.

This information was disheartening but did not immediately invalidate the story, I have worked on projects with less reputable sources or less info. The time frame he gave for this trip was easy to cross check with Jim Bridger’s documented activities. There was a 2-3 week time frame that matched up with a blank spot in Bridger’s known activities. It would be tight but it COULD have happened.

So far I have not found anything that tells me that this COULD NOT have happened. I have been reading all I can on this area, but so far I have not come across any mention of this cave. This area is now in a popular recreation area of Lake Powell so I would think that if there were a cave it would have been found by now, but maybe not. Now I think it is just a matter of exploring the area. Maybe a couple of days with a drone, searching the canyons will give some more information.

Internet

The internet and “social media” are great places to get stories and start research but because anyone can post anything, any information found on the internet is highly suspect until proven reliable. The same goes for any information source but because of the vast amount of people online the information needs to be looked at with more skepticism. Whenever possible try to go to the original source. The closer you get to the origin the better and more reliable your information will be.

One project we worked on that we got the initial information from a story on the internet was a variation of the first story….it went like this.

A man was selling off his farm and moving, he made the deal and sold off his land and cattle. While he was finishing up his affairs he moved into a small house several miles away. He took the money he got for his farm and cattle and hid it somewhere between his old place and the new one. One day while moving things between locations he was killed in an accident. He had told his house keeper that he had hid the money but not where.

So now it is time to do some research. Did this man exist? Did he live where the story says he did? Did he die where and how the story says?

The problem is, you have a story, any of the parts of the story could have been changed, the man’s name, the place he lived, the place he died or the whole story might be made up.

We found the original write up of the story in a book from the early 70’s and everything matches up to the internet version, but did the person that originally wrote the story give out the true story as told to him or did he change it a bit, Did he get the true story from the guy that told him?

What if you find that the man did live and die as reported but the area that this occurred in was actually the next canyon over, without doing some basic research you would spend wasted hours searching in the wrong canyon.

The ultimate PROOF of a story is finding the “treasure” at the end. Give yourself the best chance of making the recovery by doing your research and then get out and find it!