The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar

by Steven Sora

  It is very possible that the ultimate secret was not passed on but died an untimely death, which was tragically typical of the guardian family. William, the second earl of Caithness, fell in battle at Flodden along with forty other Sinclairs. John Sinclair, the third earl, died in battle in the Orkneys. John Sinclair, “master” of Caithness, died imprisoned in Girnigo Castle. George Sinclair, nephew of the earl, was killed in a landslide started by the enemy in a battle in Norway. Could the secret have died in such a way?

  After the ancestral home of the Sinclairs was destroyed in the mid-seventeenth century, surviving Sinclairs and their trusted Scottish relations—the Ramseys, Douglases, Setons, and Sutherlands—migrated en masse to the New World. The Sinclairs made a name for themselves there, but they were not known for their wealth. General Arthur St. Clair, whose name graces several geographic sites near Detroit, suffered the worst American military defeat against indigenous Indian tribes before George Armstrong Custer’s rout at Little Bighorn. Only fellow Mason George Washington saved him from a board of inquiry. He died in apparent poverty in western Pennsylvania.

  Major Samuel Sinclair, a master Mason who fought at Ticonderoga, whose name is immortalized in Sinclairville, New York, also died in poverty. His tomb, complete with such Masonic trappings as the square and compass, was visited even by Lafayette, who went to show respect to a fellow Mason.6 One of the more interesting lines of Sinclair descendants was that of a certain James St. Clair, who was related to the general. He had twelve children, including a son named Levi and a daughter named Polly. Polly married Hezekiah Whitney and had a son who was named Levi St. Clair Whitney.7

  Levi’s children included Henrietta May Whitney, who was gifted from birth. May, as she was known, could read at age three and published her writings starting at age nine. Her pseudonym was “Egypt” because of her love for things Egyptian. She started the Society de Sancto Claro and promoted the idea that the Norse discovered America, which was accomplished “by the kinsfolk and ancestors of the family.” One of her books was entitled The Origin and History of the Norse Arvel Cup, or Holy Grail.8 But neither she nor the hundreds of Sinclairs from Maine to Barbados would ever exhibit any massive wealth that might derive from ownership of the treasure of the Money Pit.

  The most likely scenario is that the secret of the Money Pit was lost. The Sinclairs who built it and who were the overseers of its expansion were also the Grail keepers. And the Grail knowledge, the secret of just what lies in the pit and how to gain access to the treasure, was lost because of the death of the secret bearer. If not a Sinclair, who else could be privy to the key to Oak Island?

  The date of the construction that the Sinclairs had supposedly started in the fifteenth century was confirmed by radiocarbon testing. The treasure was brought to Oak Island in intervals afterward. It is also very possible that the pit was then expanded upon and protected by the designs of Leonardo da Vinci. In 1510 da Vinci wrote his Codex Atlanticus, where he put on paper his military engineering and hydraulic designs. Seven years later he became completely devoted to his engineering work. While he never traveled to North America, Prieuré representatives, miners, and engineers in Nova Scotia followed his designs. The two most likely candidates to have brought the needed workers to Nova Scotia are Sir Francis Drake and Sir Oliver Sinclair.

  Drake is a candidate because he was intricately tied to the Elizabethan court and the surrounding intrigues of alchemists, secret societies, schemers, and plotters. If Drake played a role in transporting workers and treasure to America, it is still possible that a Sinclair was guardian, or gatekeeper. Oliver Sinclair disappeared from England and from history in 1545. While he could have hidden in the Orkneys or the Shetlands, even those refuges were under attack. It is more likely that this commander of the country’s army and his own navy sailed to North America. A small colony, or temporary camp, near Oak Island but not on it may have housed the workers.

  The existence of such a camp is not easily uncovered. Some claim that there are actually two Oak Islands, where oak trees were planted on purpose to distinguish them from the numerous other islands in Mahone Bay.9 The northern “Oak Island” is no longer an island because a man-made dike changed it into a peninsula in the 1930s. Midway between the two Oak Islands lies the ruin of an ancient structure that was likely the base for these pre-Columbian explorers. The ruined castle is intriguing, as are claims of two islands. (It should be noted that a local author claims that oak trees dotted the coast of Mahone Bay and the offshore islands until the late nineteenth century, when a plague of black ants started killing them.)

  The fact that the camp of the workers has not been found does not constitute proof that it was not there. Viking settlements existed in eastern Canada, but only one has been found, and that was a complete farming village. The camps of the first Sinclair-Zeno voyage and subsequent Sinclair voyages might still turn up. Someone did construct the Money Pit. And someone excavated a shaft connected to flood tunnels. Likewise, someone inscribed stones, placed flood drains, laid oaken platforms, and then hid all from view. The most important question may be “Did the guardians of the Money Pit ever remove their treasure?”

  The vault that is the Money Pit may have remained accessible from 1441, at the beginning of its construction, until the 1630s, when Huguenot families started to settle nearby Lunenberg. After that, the steadily increasing population and heightening tensions between England and France made trips to the Oak Island vault risky. Sometime after 1630 the single guardian of the vault passed away.

  The two secret societies, linked together (but not closely because of constant war), knew they possessed a treasure. The two groups, one cabal based among the Freemasons of Scotland and England and the other among the French Prieuré de Sion, collectively believed one of their number was the guardian, but because such a secret had to be kept secret, no one would even be aware that the gatekeeper was dead and the secret buried.

  As our clues led us from Jerusalem to Rennes-le-Chateau to Roslin and finally to Oak Island, all along the way treasure and sacred artifacts have disappeared. With the notable exception of Father Saunière’s wealth, none have surfaced. While it is difficult to keep secret the sudden appearance of wealth, hiding the discovery of other relics would be nearly impossible. The treasures of the Templars have not yet been recovered, and they must still lie deep underground somewhere on Oak Island.

  FOOTNOTE

  Chapter 10

  IAccording to Barbara Walker, “On” refers to a city in ancient Egypt, possibly Heliopolis.

  NOTES

  Chapter 1

  1 . D’Arcy O’Connor, The Money Pit: The Story of Oak Island and the World’s Greatest Treasure Hunt (New York: Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, Inc., 1978), and his 1988 updated edition, The Big Dig (see note 3), serve as the authoritative texts on Oak Island’s numerous excavations.

  2 . Robert I. Nesmith, Dig for Pirate Treasure (New York: Devin-Adair Co., 1959); p. 117.

  3 . D’Arcy O’Connor, The Big Dig: The $10 Million Search for Oak Island’s Legendary Treasure (New York: Ballantine Books, 1988), p. 12.

  4 . William S. Crooker, The Oak Island Quest (Hantsport, Nova Scotia: Lancelot Press, 1978), p. 31.

  5 . Douglas Preston, “Death Trap Defies Treasure Seekers for Two Centuries,” Smithsonian vol. 19, no. 3 (June 1988): pp. 52–62.

  6 . Nesmith, op. cit., p. 117.

  7 . Cameron Platt and John Wright, Treasure Islands (Golden, Co.: Fulcrum Publishing, 1995), pp. 1–39; Steve Proctor, “Island of Controversy,” Macleans, vol. 108, no. 34 (August 21, 1995): p. 54.

  8 . Crooker, p. 57.

  9 . Preston op. cit., pp. 52–62.

  Chapter 2

  1. Ruth Holmes Whitehead, Stories from the Six Worlds (Halifax, Nova Scotia: Nimbus Publishing Ltd., 1988), pp. 1–6.

  2. Barry Fell, America B.C. (New York: Simon and Schuster 1976), p. 257.

  3. Harold Harwood, Newfoundland (Toronto: Macmillan, 1969), pp. 130–32.

  4. F
rancis Parkman, The Jesuits in America (New York: The Library of America, 1983), pp. 146–47. Parkman’s work was written in 1867.

  5. Patrick Huyghe, Columbus Was Last (New York: Hyperion, 1992), p. 201.

  6. Harwood, op.cit., pp. 130–32.

  7. Parkman, op. cit., pp. 155–57.

  8. John Noble Wilford, The Mysterious History of Columbus (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991), pp. 62–63.

  9. Parkman, op.cit., p. 150.

  10 . Samuel Eliot Morison, The Great Explorers: The European Discovery of America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), pp. 147–51.

  11 . Barry Fell, Atlantic Crossings Before Columbus (New York: W. W. Norton, 1961), p. 190.

  12 . Parkman op. cit. pp. 145–47.

  13 . Ibid., pp. 175–86.

  14 . Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Palsson, The Vinland Sagas: The Norse Discovery of America (New York: Penguin Books, 1965) p. 9.

  15 . Ibid., pp. 11–43.

  16 . Hans Holzer, Long Before Columbus (Sante Fe, N.M.: Bear and Co., 1992), pp. xi–xiv.

  17 . Dean Snow, The Archeology of North America (New York: Viking Press, 1967), p. 196.

  18 . O’Connor, The Money Pit, p. 227.

  19 . O’Connor, The Big Dig, p. 220.

  20 . James A. Williamson, Sir Francis Drake (London: Crief, Lives-Collins, 1951) pp. 49–59.

  21 . Derek Wilson, The World Encompassed (New York: Harper and Row, 1977), p. 199.

  22 . James Bailey, The God-Kings and the Titans (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1973) p. 29.

  23 . Colin Wilson, The Encyclopedia of Unsolved Mysteries (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1988), pp. 237–48.

  24 . Ibid.

  25 . Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence, Bacon Is Shakespeare (New York: John McBride Co., 1910) p. 178.

  26 . Wilson, op.cit., pp. 237–48.

  27 . Durning-Lawrence, op.cit., p. 137.

  28. O’Conner, The Money Pit, pp. 131–32.

  29. Ibid.

  30. Catherine Drinker Bowen, Francis Bacon: Temper of a Man (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1963), pp. 61–62.

  31. O’Connor, The Big Dig, pp. 81–82.

  32. Robert C. Ritchie, Captain Kidd and the War Against the Pirates (Cambridge: Harvard University Press), pp. 173–82.

  33. O’Connor, The Big Dig, pp. 98–102.

  34. Wilson, op.cit., p. 161.

  35. William S. Crooker, The Oak Island Quest (Hantsport, Nova Scotia: Lancelot Press, 1990), pp. 169–87.

  Chapter 3

  1. Frederick Pohl, Prince Henry Sinclair (New York: Clarkson Potter, 1974), p. 130.

  2. Peter Firstbrook, The Voyage of the Matthew (San Francisco: KQED Books and Tapes, 1997), pp. 87–105.

  3. Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Palsson, The Vinland Sagas, (New York: Penguin, 1965), p. 8.

  4. Ibid., p. 22.

  5. Frederick Pohl, Atlantic Crossings Before Columbus (New York: W. W. Norton, 1961), pp. 38–39.

  6. Tim Severin, The Brendan Voyage (New York: Avon, 1978), pp. 11–35.

  7. Patrick Huyghe, Columbus Was Last (New York: Hyperion, 1992), p. 142.

  8. Magnusson and Palsson, op. cit., p. 19; Hjalmar Holand, Explorations in America Before Columbus, (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1958), p. 104.

  9. Pohl, Atlantic Crossings Before Columbus, p. 137.

  10. Hjalmar R. Holand, Explorations in America before Columbus (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1958), pp. 79–88.

  11. Arlington Mallery and Mary Roberts Harrison, The Rediscovery of Lost America (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1951), pp. 138–140, 163–66.

  12. Holand, op. cit., pp. 154–60.

  13. Huyghe, op. cit., p. 154.

  14. Peter Schledermann, “Eskimo and Viking Finds in the High Arctic,” National Geographic, vol. 159, no. 5 (May 1981): pp. 575–601.

  15. Mallery and Harrison, op. cit., pp. xiii–xv.

  16. Huyghe, op. cit., p. 142.

  17. Barry Fell, America B.C. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1976), pp. 283–84.

  18. Severin, op. cit., p. 13.

  19. Charles H. Hapgood, Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1966), pp. 124–32.

  20. Harwood, op. cit., pp. 130–32.

  Chapter 4

  1. Anna Ritchie, Viking Scotland (London: B. T. Batsford Ltd., 1993), pp. 44–76.

  2. Lawrence Millman, Last Places: A Journey in the North (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), pp. 54–60.

  3. Deanna Swaney, Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands (Hawthorn, Victoria: Lonely Planet, 1994), pp. 528–29.

  4. John Julius Norwich, A History of Venice (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982), pp. 254–55.

  5. Frederick Pohl, Prince Henry Sinclair, pp. 81–83. The late Frederick Pohl had been on the trail of the Sinclair expedition since 1943. In several works he wrote of the Sinclair-Zeno voyage, and they are the most extensive modern source on the voyage.

  6. William Herbert Hobbs, “The Fourteenth-Century Discovery of America by Antonio Zeno,” Scientific Monthly, vol. 72 (January 1951): pp. 24–31.

  7. Severin, op. cit., pp. 107–9.

  8. Swaney, op. cit., p. 518.

  9. Pohl, Prince Henry Sinclair, pp. 110–11.

  10. Hobbs, op. cit.

  11. Ibid.

  12. Pohl, Prince Henry Sinclair, pp. 130–31.

  13. Andrew Sinclair, The Sword and the Grail (New York: Crown, 1992), p. 147.

  14. Pohl, Atlantic Crossings Before Columbus p. 196.

  15. Lawrence F. Willard, “Westford’s Mysterious Knight,” Yankee 42 (April 1958): 61–62.

  16. Frank Glynn and T. C. Lethbridge, personal correspondence.

  17. Herbert B. Livesay, The Gunn Salute, vol. 17, no. 3 (March 1987).

  18. North Ludlow Beamish, The Norse Discovery of America. Edited by Rasmus Anderson. (London: Norroena Society, 1906) p. 239.

  19. Hjalmar R. Holand, op. cit., pp. 218–25.

  20. Sinclair, op. cit., pp. 144–47.

  21. Holand, op. cit., pp. 216–18.

  22. Pohl, Atlantic Crossings Before Columbus, pp. 171–72.

  23. Samuel Eliot Morison, The European Discovery of America: The Northern Voyages (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 504.

  24. Arlington Mallery and Mary Roberts Harrison, The Rediscovery of Lost America, (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1979), pp. 154–59 of the 1979 edition.

  25. Arthur M. Reeves, in Anderson, ed., The Norse Discovery of America, p. 31.

  26. Mallery and Harrison, pp. 154–55.

  27. Charles H. Hapgood, op. cit., pp. 124–32 of the revised 1979 edition.

  28. Ibid.

  29. Mallery and Harrison, op. cit., p. 154.

  30. Morison, The European Discovery of America: The Northern Voyages, p. 504.

  31. Ibid., p. 608.

  32. Mallery and Harrison, op. cit., p. 158.

  33. Pohl, Prince Henry Sinclair, pp. 132–54.

  34. Mallery and Harrison, op. cit., Appendix C, pp. 239–42.

  35. Pohl, Prince Henry Sinclair, pp. 132–54.

  36. Barry Fell, America B.C., pp. 247–51.

  37. Mallery and Harrison, op. cit., Appendix C, pp. 239–42.

  Chapter 5

  1. Leonard A. Morrison, A History of the Sinclair Family (Boston: Damrell and Upham, 1896), p. 37.

  2. Frederick Pohl, Prince Henry Sinclair, p. 172.

  3. Andrew Sinclair, op. cit, pp. 127–50.

  4. Morison, The European Discovery of America: The Northern Voyages, pp. 5–6.

  5. Pohl, Prince Henry Sinclair, p. 178.

  6. Charles H. Hapgood, op. cit., pp. 128–29.

  7. Samuel Eliot Morison, The European Discovery of America: The Southern Voyages (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), p. 97.

  8. John Noble Wilford, The Mapmakers (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981), pp. 73–77.

  9. Ibid.

  10. Morison, The European Discovery of America: The Northern Voyages, pp. 157–80.

  11. Christopher Hibbert, Venice: The Biography of a City (New
York: W. W. Norton, 1989), p. 39. Also see John Julius Norwich, A History of Venice (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982), pp. 249, 252, 254–55.

  12. Pohl, Prince Henry Sinclair, p. 82.

  13. Jean Markale, Celtic Civilization (London: Gordon & Cremonesi, 1978), p. 69.

  14. Inge Ingus, Baedekers Great Britain (London: Jarrold and Sons) p. 282.

  15. Pohl, Prince Henry Sinclair, p. 86.

  16. Morrison, op. cit., p. 55.

  17. Pohl, Prince Henry Sinclair, pp. 179, 181.

  18. Morrison, op. cit., pp. 17–30.

  19. Ibid., p. 17.

  20. David C. Douglas, The Norman Achievement (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), pp. 173–74.

  21. Sinclair, op. cit., pp. 27–35.

  22. Ronald McNair Scott, Robert the Bruce: King of Scots (New York: Peter Bedrick Books, 1989), pp. 15–16.