Nova Scotia stretches 500 kilometres on a southwest-northeast axis from Cape Sable to Cape North, the shape of the province is often compared to that native delicacy, the lobster, with Cape Breton Island representing the outstretched claws, preparing to nip unsuspecting Newfoundland across the Cabot Strait.
The coastline of the uplands region is deeply indented, forming many good harbours, some of which are considered outstanding. Hundreds of islands dot the landscape along the entire Atlantic coast, most notably at St. Margarets Bay and Mahone Bay. Reefs and shoals abound, accounting for the many lighthouses erected along this coast. In many ways the Atlantic uplands coast epitomizes the North Atlantic coastline with its bare granite sheets plunging headlong into the raging surf to produce an awesome cataclysm between land and sea. When people think of Nova Scotia, they usually envisage the rocky granite shores of the uplands. Discovery of the Money Pit
In his history, DesBrisay gives a shortened but circumstantial account of the discovery of the Pit in 1795 and its later history, based mainly upon an account in The Colonist, a Halifax newspaper, published on December 20, 1863, and from other sources of information.
Some time in the spring or summer of 1795 Daniel McGinnis, while roaming over oak Island, discovered a spot which “gave unmistakable proof of having been visited by someone a good many years previous.” He found that the first growth of wood had been cut down and that another was springing up to supply its place. Some old stumps of oak trees that had been chopped down were visible. Near this place stood one of the original oaks with a large forked branch extending over the old clearing. To the forked part of this branch, by means of a wooden trunnel (tree-nail) converting the fork into a small triangle, was attached an old tackle block.
McGinnis made his discovery known to his two close friends, John Smith and Anthony Vaughan, then only a lad of thirteen years, and next day all three visited the site and as they took the block from the tree it fell to the ground and broke into pieces.
(In passing, it is perhaps significant that Smith immediately purchased, on June 26, 1795, the Lot, No. 18, upon which the mysterious tree stood. They also found that the ground over which the block and tackle swung had settled and formed a hollow.)
At first they were at a loss to decide what it all meant. Recalling the local tradition that pirates (including, of course, Captain Kidd) had buried treasure along the coast, they went to work to ascertain whether their conjecture was well-founded.
On removing the surface soil for about two feet, they struck a tier of flagstones, evidently not formed there by nature. Afterwards they ascertained that these stones were not indigenous to the island but must have been brought from Gold River, about two miles distant. On removing the stones, they saw they were entering the mouth of an old pit, or shaft, that had been filled up. The mouth was more than seven feet in diameter and the sides of the pit were of tough hard clay, but the earth with which it had been filled was loose and easily removed.
They dug ten feet lower down, where they came across a tier of oak logs tightly attached to the sides and found that the earth below the logs had settled nearly two feet. The outside of the logs was so rotten that they felt confident they must have been embedded there for a great many years. After removing them they continued the work till they were fifteen feet farther down.
At this juncture they were unable to proceed farther without more help, and decided to drop the work until they could obtain other assistance. Before leaving off, however, they took oak sticks and drove them into the mud and covered the place over.
As these men, like most new settlers, were poor and found that it required all their time at hard labor more certain of remuneration to supply their wants; they were unable to devote more time just then to “Captain Kidd and his treasure.” However they looked about them and sought help from others, but without success. Some were superstitions enough to credit the saying that when pirates concealed money they always killed a black man and buried him with it to guard it. There were others who laughed at the idea of money being hidden so deeply in the earth and none felt inclined to render them any assistance.
From other accounts we learn that red clover and other plants foreign to the soil were growing over part of the cleared area. The earliest authentic mention of clover covering the site is to be found in an account of the discovery written by James McNutt, in 1863, of which only a fragment remains. This account begins with the words “to dig in the clover-patch, at ten feet found a tier of wood and the pit to be twelve feet in diameter.”
We learn further that there were marks and figures on the trunk of the oak, that the over-hanging branch projected four feet from the trunk and that it was twelve to eighteen feet from the ground; that the hollow below the branch was a well-defined circular depression about thirteen feet in diameter; that before abandoning the work they reached a total depth of thirty to thirty-two feet and that there were platforms of oak logs at the twenty and thirty-foot levels.
As one version put it: “They found that they were working in a well-defined pit; the walls of which were hard and solid; and in some places on the walls, old pick marks were plainly seen while, within these walls the earth was so loose, that picks were not required.” It is also stated that “it was low tide and hunting around in the cove, the men discovered a huge iron ring-bolt set in a rock and apparently a mooring place of a bygone day.” The cove referred to was undoubtedly that known as Smith’s Cove, where it is said that a very low tide the ring-bolt may still be seen, embedded in a huge rock.
A second ring-bolt embedded in a boulder under water has more recently been found off the north shore of the island.