It featured Pirate Treasures. Forrest Wilder writes about politics and the outdoors. Hendricks Lake is an oxbow lake one and one-half miles south of the Sabine River and about four miles northeast of Tatum in Rusk County, Texas (32.371864N, 94.493190W). and the story of the Hendricks Lake treasure is no different. https://www.tshaonline.org, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/hendricks-lake. Ive actually been at this project about 14 months now. Jean Lafitte's treasure Photo of Hendricks Lake, courtesy of Gary L. Pinkerton I always thought it was interesting that people had reason to believe there was pirate treasure 200 miles from the coast.. Jensen Beach. The story goes that wagon loads of silver Extremely competent in market analysis and comparative sales, Angie has worked in many aspects of the real estate industry and uses this experience and foresight to be proactive and address all . endobj %PDF-1.7
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He shows Rick and Marty the 1957 Stella Wieser of the Panola Watchman. During 1957 and 1958 the most significant attempts to locate the treasure took place at the lake. Trammel's Trace-The First Road to Texas from the North is a 2016 book by Gary L. Pinkerton. 0000017195 00000 n
This is the place where six wagon loads of silver stolen by Jean Lafitte from a ship called the Santa Rosa were supposedly dumped, according to HendricksLake.com, a website run by author and independent researcher, Gary L. Pinkerton. Snavely of Taylor, who had hunted treasure for 60 years, found a ruby arrowhead weighing 15 karats, along with many other gemstones. Its hard to find any newspaper before that, but thats the first and oldest mention that I found of it, he said. That set off a huge treasure hunting stampede. 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. Legend remains victorious in spite of history and it just attests to the power that legends have over people when the facts may not necessarily support something, Pinkerton said. Over the years, Hendrick's 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. 0000002062 00000 n
(Image credit: Pictorial Press Ltd./Alamy) British . This catch rendered a lot of attention and by 1884, the Sabine River was riddled with silver hunters. 0000003902 00000 n
Hughes Springs up in Cass County was founded by two brothers looking for a treasure in the 1850s or 60s. Pinkerton came across the Hendricks Lake legend while doing research for his book, Trammals Trace: The First Road to Texas from the North. . The silver was never recovered. Hendricks Lake is a special place for Roper. 30 April 2021 AFP It is one of Sweden's most spectacular Bronze Age finds A man surveying a forest for his orienteering club in western Sweden stumbled on a trove of Bronze Age treasure reckoned. Akins and one of his former deputies were landowners along the lake and active onlookers with a piece of the action. 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. endobj In Gretna in 1960, across the river from New Orleans, a large number of gold coins were found in an area frequented by Lafitte and his men .According to another story, Laffite buried a large cache on an unnamed island in Lake Borgne. . Although hes fascinated by the legend and the excitement it created, Pinkerton doesnt believe its even a little bit true. 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. HOUSTON It's the treasure hunt of a lifetime, and now it's landed them on national TV. Lets be honest, everybody loves a good treasure story. Filmmaker Brackston McKnight uses a metal detector on his property, searching for lost treasure. Since 2014, Rick and Marty Lagina have produced "The Curse of Oak Island" for The HISTORY Channel. 0000000016 00000 n
They both were at the lake during the treasure hunts of 1957 and 1958. Every dollar helps. All they found was a big sawblade from one of the sawmills that had operated on the lake; they left the artifact behind for future treasure hunters. <> For more information about this incredible project and to see a short film trailer, go to their website at www.sunkensilver.com. 1``b`5 Y0$ Au`j`H@ 148 0 obj The legend says that in 1816, Laffite and his fellow pirates plundered six wagon loads worth of silver from the Spanish. 0 Its got quite a long story in the community. A man named Nathan Smith thinks he's found the remnants of a sunken ship from an 1822 hurricane north of Corpus Christi - thanks to Google Earth. When a giant storm hit the region, the raft was washed away and destroyed. 0000010052 00000 n
None of (the rest) lines up, but 1860s, 1870s, there was enough yada yada to create some story.. 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. TREASURE HUNTER CLAIMS FBI IS COVERING UP DISCOVERY OF CIVIL WAR-ERA GOLD WORTH MILLIONS "The two vessels separated after the impact, both fatally damaged. It is my sincere belief that the Hendricks Lake treasure was silver taken by Lafitte from capturing of the Spanish ship Santa Rosa in Matagorda Bay in 1820. You have permission to edit this article. The Fenn Treasure was a cache of gold and jewels that Forrest Fenn, an art dealer and author from Santa Fe, New Mexico, hid in the Rocky Mountains of the United States. Barnie Waldrop and the former Sheriff of Panola County, Corbett Akins, at the time were in an article on the first page of the Wall Street Journal. 153 0 obj endobj they might find something, a storm rolls in. Although $25,000 worth of coins and jewelry have been accounted for, no one knows where the rest of the loot went, and Collins and Bass were killed before they revealed anything. In one Internet posting, I read the following: Texas has more buried treasure than any other state, with 229 sites within the states borders. Christian B. Roper, Ryan Travis, and Brackston McKnight, all Jacksonville natives, are working toward a documentary film about Hendricks Lake called Sunken Silver. <>stream
151 0 obj Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). The ships turned out to be heavily armed privateers and they mounted a frontal counterattack that included heavy fire. Whats Up With All the Kangaroos on the Loose in Texas? Connecting the legend to peoples minds now so it doesnt die out, I think is important, Pinkerton asserted. The Lagina Brothers, famous for their search for the lost treasure on Oak Island and featured in the show The Curse of Oak Island, now hosts a new show called, Beyond Oak Island. 155 0 obj Ho-hum, right? A dirt contractor. She was then forgotten for nearly 300 years. Read More about Texas Tea Slot, about Jean Laffites treasure in the Sabine River. Pinkerton spent time in Carthage recently talking to those with accounts of some of the treasure hunters, and he hopes to connect with more people who have Hendricks Lake stories to tell. When I found out theres essentially a documentary, a great one right here in East Texas waiting to be put out there, I was just excited to try to do everything I could to make that happen, he commented. Little Cypress Creek, north of Gilmer, is the site where legend says a cache of Mexican coinage was dumped, according to A Brief History of Upshur County a history book published in 1946. endobj May the hunters strike gold. But alas, nothing came of it. But people buy into it, and thats the part thats interesting to me.. The hidden fortunes of the Doan Boys Gang, said to be $2 million at least. Its just a great story and what intrigued me was the people engaged in that all over those 100 years.. It lies along the historic route of Trammels Trace, only one and one-quarter miles south of the location of Ramsdales Crossing/Ferry (Rocky Ford) on the Sabine River. Texas is full of buried bootyor, to be a bit more accurate, full of stories about buried booty that no one has been able to find. Hendricks Lake near Tatum is now off limits to the public because it is on land owned by a mining company. Somebody made fun of him; he clubbed the guy to death. An historian named Herbert Bolton, using the original journals of the Mexicans from the eighteenth century, found what is now known as the Boyd shaft on Honey Creek. For Roper, stories like these are more than a curiosity. by the Rieseberg article had gone home with no treasure to On Monday, June 16th, 1958 Barney 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. They say this inspired them to reach out to other treasure hunters and hear their stories. Read More about Jean Laffites treasure in the Sabine River, USS Hatteras (formerly St. Mary) was a 1,126-ton steamer purchased by the Union Navy during the early part of the American Civil War. Gary L. Pinkerton is an author and independent researcher. Clarksville Standard, August 29, 1884. 0000017011 00000 n
Pinkerton had to get special permission to visit for research and to take pictures. And You Thought Feral Hogs Were Bad. At that time, the legend was that Mexican land pirates lived along the lake and dumped gold, silver, and precious stones in the lake when they were attacked by the Texans or some other forces. Tatum reportedly built a device with buckets on a conveyor and operated by steam engines to attempt to bail the water from the lake. 0000001730 00000 n
click photo for more. The earliest mention of the treasure legend of Hendricks Lake that Pinkerton could find was in 1884. Sight was acquired & transformed back in 2018 by Anthony Bruno, founder of Anthony's Runway 84 & Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza along wit 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. And then he became postmaster two years later, so apparently nothing came of that. Texas oilmen who later drilled an oil well based on scripture. 10 Lost Treasures in America Waiting to be Found. The location was later widely believed to be Hendricks Lake, an oxbow lake formation on the south side of the Sabine River. TV repairman in Carthage who kept up his efforts for years and was the local expert. His website is titled True Believers: Treasure Hunters at Hendricks Lake but he is not a true believer himself. endobj <>/Metadata 144 0 R/Outlines 97 0 R/Pages 141 0 R/StructTreeRoot 102 0 R/Type/Catalog/ViewerPreferences<>>> hb```E@9Z9:sj*5)o(Hd`8iQ^gFMJNvZ7he);Ndx8uy}xc;Mt0u410[t0v4t40t40Zt00L@,E@`E,AsE^X/q5tDX4C#{ As of May 2022, she resides in Austin and does media relations for TCEQ. Pinkerton also maintains facebook pages Trammels Trace and Hendricks Lake Treasure-True Believers. &m;vH}p,$[%7?7hm'm&@A2Ef8IR%%p.Bs.H'QKR 5 ]sHT. If you fill out the first name, last name, or agree to terms fields, you will NOT be added to the newsletter list. Stella Wieser was a reporter at the Panola Watchman from June 2018 to April 2022. One particularly famous legend is that of Jean Lafittes treasure. 149 0 obj Essentially, somehow treasure came up in conversation and I had asked him if hed ever heard about the story of pirate treasure being lost in East Texas and we started slowly looking into it. 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. We need your support because we are a non-profit organization that relies upon contributions from our community in order to record and preserve the history of our state. The desire to believe that millions of dollars of silver bars still lie at the bottom of Hendricks Lake is not for the treasure hunters only. Hobe Sound. June 6, 2020 - Fenn writes on his blog that the treasure has been found. 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. The story goes that Union soldiers tracked down Confederate president Jefferson Davis in 1865 and confiscated his gold. In a location on the lake, matching the tale, with a sloped True Believers: Treasure Hunters at Hendricks Lake. The stories of treasure have been around for a long time, Pinkerton said. Published by the Texas State Historical Association. And if so is the treasure still there? Houston historian Gary Pinkerton, a Longview native, is fascinated by those treasure hunters and their searches. The first documented treasure recovery attempt in 1894 was based on the belief that Santa Anna had dumped gold, silver, and jewels, By 1935, a full-page syndicated article fleshed out more details. Sometime around 1816,six wagon loads of Spanish silver ingots, allegedly stolen by the pirate Jean Laffite, were being transported through what is now East Texas. While Pinkerton believes the lake area should be a park, the reality is Hendricks Lake is no longer accessible by the public as the land surrounding it belongs to private land owners or is being leased by mining companies. By The Siberian Times reporter. Now, more modern equipment was available, and one man used a metal detector and managed to get some interesting readings from the bottom of the lake. Singer Treasure on Padre Island In the mid-nineteenth century, a man named Isaac Merritt Singer made significant improvements to the sewing machine. startxref In 1983 a German biologist accidentally discovered more forged British pounds, numerous Nazi-era rockets and missiles that had crashed into the lake, and a previously unknown worm. Excited about the history, research, and prospects of this Hendricks Lake was the sight of many treasure hunts over the course of the 20th century. Even though some, including Waldrop and Stotlar, had looked into draining the lake, there were no other attempts at that folly. The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry. 0000001829 00000 n
THE LEGEND A brig named Santa Rosa plundered in Matagorda Bay in 1816. There was no treasure found. That lucky treasure hunter who finds where X marks the spot, will become an East Texas legend, just like the treasure they strove to find. As Laffite and his men raced through East Texas with the wagons, Spanish. Thats the one thing we all agree on about Sunken Silver, is that legend is a very powerful thing.. Jupiter Island. All Rights Reserved. However, all have failed in finding the supposed cache of silver, adding to speculation that the supposed treasure may be cursed. Some said it was Santa Annas gold sent north from San Jacinto, and others say it was not even in Hendricks Lake, but in Martin Creek. 24 Lake Toplitz In Austria Is Believed To Hold The Lost Treasures From World War II. endobj Pinkerton is hoping to publish his book some time in the new year and is interested in finding more people with first and second hand accounts of the treasure hunting. Not a treasure hunter, but a character who built an amphibious tractor he called the Watt-a-Bug which he drove into Hendricks Lake. Legend has it that the ship was so big it took two months to load and the Spanish were so upset with its loss that they sent five more ships to recover it- unsuccessfully. He sent soldiers to look for it, but they found nothing. In 2018, we decided to renew the legend with some information of our own. He bought some steam engines and pumps, had a months worth of logs to keep the steam engines going and was gonna drain the lake. Six wagon loads of silver carried north along Trammel's Trace. Pinkerton. 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 new book is available in paperback. Mainly clear. His main focus is on Jean Lafittes treasure, Please support the Cherokeean Herald by subscribing today. On 4 February 1823, Laffite was onboard the General Santander off the town of Omoa in Honduras. At the end of World War II, the German Nazi's are believed to have sunk a fortune in Lake Toplitz, Austria, Daily Star reports. Soldiers approach, wagons sunk in Hendricks Lake, an oxbow lake just south of the Sabine River in northeastern Rusk County. The last. Photo: WhisperToMe, Public domain. Barnie was a TV repair man, and he had built this underwater metal detector, like the size of a washing machine. Believed the treasure was in Martin Creek after meeting old Mexicans with a map when he was just a boy. That was the story.. The box was hidden by millionaire art dealer. Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives. endstream The lake is located in the extreme northeastern part of the county along the boundary between Rusk and Panola. He built a new kind of sewing machine, and in. And if so is the treasure still there? 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. Hendricks Lake It is this tale that Christian wants to follow up on. It certainly had promise since it was a round piece of wood, like the legend of the wagon sunk in the lake. endobj Although it hasnt yet been decided if the film will first be released at festivals and then to the public, Sunken Silver will eventually be available through online streaming. https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/hendricks-lake. Over the years there have been many who made a minimal effort or spent a little time at the lake only to discover that the conditions were too difficult and they had neither the time nor the money for such an undertaking. Download Free PDF. Spanish troops caught up with the wagons along a trail near present-day Tatum, Texas. Beyond Oak Island Episode 2 Summary: Wild West Gold and the Search at Robbers Roost Canyon for Butch Cassidys Lost Treasure, All can be found to have a questing theme within them, Third Annual Masquerade Tribute of Hunts for Charity, The Second Annual Masquerade Tribute Wrap Up, Privacy Policy, Disclaimer and Affiliate Disclosure. Singer Treasure on Padre Island In the mid-nineteenth century, a man named Isaac Merritt Singer made significant improvements to the sewing machine. wooden object recovered during dive for the taping On the episode, diver Alex Wilcher brought up the one item found during the days spent searching. A famous actress said, Legend remains victorious in spite of history. For this one to last over 150 years, the grains of truth have firmly resisted erosion by the progress of historical research and inspection. As they retreated, they headed into what is now known as Upshur County. February 2023 Reader Quiz: What Did You Learn? In doing the research, I ran across stories about Hendricks Lake, Pinkerton said. Access to the lake that for 150 years had been accessible for picnics and fishing was closed off to all but a few private landowners at the time. I got copies of pages in Spanish that say Yeah there was the Santa Rosa, the proposed name of the ship, there was a Santa Rosa, (but) it didnt sink. It carried cane liquor and salt and sugar from Cuba to Cadiz. click photo for more. They know its there. Also join us in the Facebook Group: Beyond Oak Island Treasures for more discussions.