by Lee Lamb
The Stone in the Money Pit
It is recorded that the stone that was found became part of the fireplace in John Smith’s home. Many years later it was moved to a bookbinding shop in Halifax and was displayed in the window. This coincided with shares being offered for sale to finance a dig. The stone was described by a worker/relative in the firm as being about two feet long, 15 inches wide, and ten inches thick, and weighing about 175 pounds. After being displayed, it took its place inside the shop and was used as a “beating stone and weight.” By then, no evidence remained of inscription either cut or painted on the stone. Any characters had faded. In 1919, when the business was closed (the original owner was long gone), the stone could not be found.
It was late in the day when they had cleared the shaft to a depth just short of 98 feet, but before they quit work, the searchers took a crowbar and probed down into the wet earth. They struck a hard object that spanned the width of the pit. Was it a treasure chest? Hope was high.
When the men awoke the next morning, they found that 60 feet (18.3 metres) of water had filled the Money Pit. They immediately set to work bailing out the water, but no matter how many buckets they drew out, the water level didn’t change. Eventually a pump was brought in, but in no time it burst. So, with winter setting in, it was decided that treasure hunting on Oak Island would have to wait until the spring.
In the spring of 1805, as soon as the weather allowed, the Onslow Company began work again. This time they tried a different approach. They dug a new shaft in the hard clay not far from the Money Pit — we’ll call this Shaft #2.
Digging in dry earth in this new shaft, the Onslow crew dug down deeper than they had in the Money Pit. They believed the chest or vault they had struck with the crowbar the year before held the treasure they were seeking. This new shaft would allow them to tunnel horizontally from the bottom toward the Money Pit, coming up under the fabulous treasure that they imagined lay waiting for them.
But when their tunnelling got close to the Money Pit, water broke through into the new shaft with such force that the workmen had to flee for their lives. Soon, the water filled the new shaft to the same height as in the Money Pit.
That must have driven the men mad, especially because the Onslow Company had a bigger problem — they had run out of money. The Onslow Company’s search for treasure on Oak Island was over.
The work done by the Onslow Company uncovered the fact that the layers of earth, oak logs, putty, charcoal, and coconut fibre continued for at least 90 feet into the Money Pit. From this, we can assume that if and when a treasure had been buried there, many workmen would have had to have been involved.
Figure 5: The Onslow Company dug Shaft #2, and then tunnelled out from the bottom of it toward the Money Pit in an attempt to come up under the treasure. Water broke through from the Money Pit and both shafts filled with water to the same level.
But there was a new twist to the Oak Island Mystery. Somehow, water was coming into the Money Pit with enough force to destroy the work being done. Other questions remained unanswered: Who did the work on Oak Island? How did they manage to do it without being flooded out themselves as they dug into the lower depths? Had they brought the coconut fibre with them from some other place? And what was buried there that could possibly be worth such trouble?
One part of the mystery may have been cleared up — why oak logs would have been secured to the sides of the Money Pit every ten feet. After the treasure was placed in the bottom of the shaft, the pirates must have known it might be a long time before they returned to Oak Island, and they wouldn’t have wanted to leave any trace of their work. So they packed the earth they had removed back into the pit. But they knew in time, it would settle. That would leave a hole at the surface deep enough to attract attention. Placing platforms of oak logs in the shaft meant that only ten feet of earth got to settle over each platform. At the surface, this little bit of settling would hardly be noticeable. Their work could go undetected.
And this would have worked … if it hadn’t been for the block and tackle.
Chapter Four
Simply Amazing
In their search for treasure, the Onslow Company had added surprising new information to what was known about Oak Island. But Bobby soon learned the best was yet to come.
The Truro Company Tries for the Treasure
It was a number of years before anyone would raise enough money to tackle Oak Island again. The Truro Company began work on the island in 1849. Among their members were a number of the old Onslow Company investors, as well as a few new ones. It had been more than 50 years since the three teenagers had first discovered the Money Pit, but two of them, John Smith and Anthony Vaughan, were on-site throughout the dig.
By the time the Truro Company began their work, the Money Pit had filled with debris, so they started by clearing it out. When the Onslow Company had left the Money Pit in 1805, it was filled with water, but when work began in 1849, the pit appeared to be dry. Because it was a Sunday, however, everyone on the crew left to go to church; when they returned, the Money Pit was again filled with water, this time to a depth of 60 feet.
The men realized that the water that filled the Money Pit reached the same height as the water in Mahone Bay. In other words, water poured into the Money Pit until it reached sea level.
Despite their best efforts to bail out the water, it remained.
The water in the Money Pit made it impossible for the crew to continue digging, so they decided to use a drill to see what they might encounter at a lower level. They ran big pumps that kept the water in the Money Pit just lower than sea level. Then they built a platform partway down the pit and used a type of auger as a drill. When an auger is used, pieces or splinters of whatever you are drilling are carried up to the surface.
The results were exciting, and the men were certain that they had found evidence of the treasure! After boring down a short distance, the auger had gone through a thick spruce platform, then it had passed through two oak boxes and three oak casks that contained loose metal. (Could these be coins?) Beneath all of these lay another spruce platform, even thicker than the first. As well, the auger brought up three links of a gold chain, thought to be from a pocket watch.
But there was something more.
Figure 6: The Truro Company believed they had drilled through casks and boxes of treasure at the bottom of the Money Pit.
The foreman of the work crew, James Pitblado, was seen by an investor to be looking at something that resembled a jewel on the end of his auger. He apparently washed it off and put it in his pocket. When the investor demanded to see it, Pitblado refused, saying he would bring it to the directors’ meeting. They never saw him again.
The following year, the Truro Company decided to sink a new shaft (#3) and to use it to bail out the water in the Money Pit. This new shaft was dug through the hardest type of red clay to a depth of 109 feet, which is lower than the spruce platform encountered in the Money Pit that they suspected held the casks of treasure. The crew then began to dig a tunnel horizontally from the bottom of this new shaft toward the Money Pit; but once again water broke through and the workmen had to scramble to get out alive.
They were using the best equipment available at that time to bail out the shafts, but the water level did not go down. That is when they made a startling discovery … the water in the new shaft and in the Money Pit was salt water, and the level rose and fell with the ocean tide.
Now they realized there must be a connection between the ocean and the Money Pit. They came to the conclusion that a tunnel must have been carved through the island to cause sea water to surge in and stop anyone from reaching the treasure in the Money Pit.
The Truro crew turned their attentions to Smith’s Cove.
They noticed that water was bubbling up from the beach at low tide. It did not take much digging to find that at about three feet below the beach sand there was a thick layer of coconut fibre, and under that an even thicker layer of ee
l grass (a type of seaweed), and under that a layer of stones that were placed tightly together. It was an elaborate construction that caused this area to act like a sponge for the sea water. Soon, this part of the beach work would be referred to as the “reservoir” because it soaked up water and held it in one place.
These discoveries were fascinating, but the ebb and flow of the tide made it really hard to work on the beach. It was decided that a cofferdam should be constructed to hold back the sea. A cofferdam is a water-tight structure that acts as a dam, and this one consisted of a curving wall of large stones.
The “Drains"
Most histories of the island refer to the five finger formations as “drains.” But they do not actually drain water from the island. Instead, they are conduits, bringing sea water from Smith’s Cove into the Money Pit. However, I have followed the norm and called them “drains” throughout.
Once built, the cofferdam worked perfectly, and no sea water reached Smith’s Cove beach. The Truro Company was able to begin a careful examination of the beach and seabed near the shore without the tides interfering with their work. And here they made a surprising discovery. Just inside the cofferdam, after digging five feet into the seabed, they found five small drains about eight inches apart. These drains spread out from one point like a fan, or like five fingers on a hand. Each of those five “fingers” was an individual drain constructed of small, flat stones that appeared to have been shaved by a hammer so that they fit together tightly, creating passageways for sea water. The five drains converged into one larger drain that travelled inland. It was so strong and perfectly constructed that no part of it had collapsed or allowed sand to enter and obstruct it during all the years since it had been placed there.
Up on the beach, at the high-tide level, the five finger drains came together to form one larger drain, or water tunnel, just like a wrist for the five fingers.
The crew tried, but they could not follow that single tunnel inland toward the Money Pit because the beach was completely saturated with water. The reservoir had been constructed to draw in water and hold it for long periods of time.
Figure 7: Under the water at Smith’s Cove, the Truro Company found five drains, or conduits, that came together to form a wider drain that travelled through the island to the base of the Money Pit. Sea water was drawn into these drains and flooded the Money Pit whenever searchers got close to the treasure.
Imagine how excited the Truro group must have been when they made these discoveries.
This beautifully designed beach work was the source of the water that flooded into the Money Pit. Sea water at Smith’s Cove was drawn by gravity into the five finger drains, and on into the wrist-like single tunnel that passed under the beach and then travelled some 520 feet (159 metres) down through the hard clay of the island to the bottom of the Money Pit, where it flooded away every attempt to get to the treasure.
This work was an engineering marvel.
Could it have been produced by pirates? Surely the work on Oak Island would have had to be done by clever minds with high-level engineering skills. To complete this massive job, they also would have had to possess knowledge of underground tunnelling and had a small army of men at their command.
But these brilliant men from long ago had finally met their match. The Truro Company had every right to believe that with their cofferdam holding back the sea, the treasure of Oak Island would be theirs at last.
But fate had other plans.
During a raging storm one night, a very high tide swept in to Smith’s Cove. The combination of high tide and storm allowed the sea to overflow the cofferdam and to surge onto the beach. The cofferdam had not been built in a way that would keep it strong if it received pressure from the inside, so as the water rushed back to the sea, it broke the top of the cofferdam into pieces. Now, once again, the ocean tides could come and go in Smith’s Cove freely. The cofferdam that had permitted the Truro crew to study the beach in such detail was gone, and all the original work on the beach that had been opened up to examination now lay buried by sand.
But the company and crew were determined to press on. They decided not to rebuild the cofferdam, but instead opted to cut off the flow of sea water after it left the beach but before it reached the Money Pit. So, they went down to Smith’s Cove beach and tried to find the place where the five finger drains came together. They drew an imaginary line between that spot and the Money Pit. Directly under that line they expected to find a tunnel that brought in sea water. They would block that inlet tunnel so that the water could not get through. They chose a spot partway between the beach and the Money Pit and dug down to a depth of 75 feet (Shaft #4). They found nothing.
Horse Gins
A horse gin was a piece of equipment that was driven by a horse and was used for raising great weights or pumping water. If you search for “horse gin” on the Internet, you will find some amazing images.
So they dug another shaft (#5) a little way from the previous one, this one to a depth of 35 feet. Success! Sea water poured into this shaft.
To block the sea water, they drove a wall of tight-fitting logs down into the earth in front of shaft #5. It had no effect, and the water kept flooding the Money Pit. Their efforts had simply created another shaft (#5) that would fill with water that would rise and fall with the tides.
The Truro Company decided to concentrate their efforts back at the Money Pit, so they went back up to the clearing and dug another shaft (#6) quite close to the pit. This one went deeper than any that had been dug before. From the bottom of this shaft they began to dig horizontally, hoping they would connect with the Money Pit.
Their tunnel was three feet by four feet wide, big enough for a crouching workman. The crew had tunnelled 18 feet toward the Money Pit when they stopped for dinner. They were keeping the level of water in the Money Pit down by using a horse gin (horses on the surface near the pit turned a big wheel, which generated the electricity to run a pump).
Suddenly, they heard a tremendous crash. When they rushed back and looked into the Money Pit, they discovered that the bottom of the pit had sunk out of sight.
One crewmember who had been working in the new tunnel at the time of the crash barely escaped. As he raced to stay ahead of the muddy avalanche, he managed to grab hold of a round piece of wood that resembled a keg-end that was painted yellow.
Looking into their new shaft (#6), the workers could see that the bottom 12 feet was filled with mud and debris. Looking into the Money Pit, they could see farther down than ever before — deeper than the level where their auger went through the casks of a treasure. The treasure had either broken into the tunnel leading from the newest shaft or had fallen into the space under the spruce platforms. Or perhaps it was strewn between both.
Regardless, the bottom of the Money Pit had collapsed and things were no longer where they had always been. This disaster marked the end of the Truro Company, for they, like the Onslow Company before them, had run out of cash.
More of a Mystery than Ever Before
Through the efforts of the three boys, the Onslow Company, and then the Truro Company, it was clear that sometime before 1795, persons unknown had come to Oak Island and carried out incredible work. They created the formation of stone and vegetation that made up a kind of pavement under Smith’s Cove beach, with a “reservoir” at its centre. They built the five finger inlet drains underwater in Smith’s Cove to draw sea water into the island. They then tunnelled more than 500 feet through the hard clay of the island to connect the five finger drains to the base of the Money Pit so that sea water would burst into the Money Pit and safeguard the treasure. And they had created the Money Pit itself with its many layers of oak logs, earth, coconut fibre, charcoal, putty, and treasure.
The discovery of all this amazing work fanned the lust for gold. Without question, Oak Island must contain riches beyond belief!
Chapter Five
Odds and Ends
The three teenagers, the Onslow Comp
any, and the Truro Company all made amazing discoveries on Oak Island. Many of the groups that came after them also accomplished important work. Although there is not enough space in this book to tell their full stories, here are some highlights from their discoveries that are important in understanding the Oak Island story.
Treasure Hunters Timeline
In Appendix A you will find a timeline that charts all the known treasure hunters who have come to Oak Island. You may find it helpful to refer to the timeline while reading this chapter.
The Cave-In Pit Is Discovered
By the 1800s, some of the land on Oak Island was being used for farming. One day in 1878, Sophia Sellers was plowing a field that lay between the Money Pit and Smith’s Cove when the ground suddenly opened up under one of her oxen and it fell into a deep, wide, well-like hole.
Fortunately, Mrs. Sellers’ ox was rescued, although it was quite a struggle to get the animal out. Afterward, the hole became known as “The Cave-In Pit.” But what had caused this to happen? No one had any idea.
Fifteen years later, Frederick Blair and the Oak Island Treasure Company began their quest for treasure by clearing this pit out. It was found to be seven feet in diameter, 52 feet deep, and had been carved out of hard clay. Pickaxe marks could clearly be seen in the clay, and the earth within the hole was loose, indicating that it had been dug out before. The pickaxe marks and loose earth were indications that that this pit was part of the original work of the pirates. But its purpose is unclear. Some believe it might have been an air vent for the original underground workers.
The Money Pit