Cape Breton Places & Foods

Some time between seven and fifteen years after the original discovery, operations at the Pit were resumed. Most accounts say “seven years,” which would place the resumption of work about 1803; although the account in the Colonist of January 2, 1864, gives the time as “fifteen years” after the first discovery. The weight of evidence, however, fixes the date as 1804. The Colonist account says:

The late Simeon Lynds of Onslow, a man well known in many parts of Colchester County, at the time happened to visit Chester on business. As Lynds’ father and Vaughan were related, he called and passed an evening with him. In the course of their conversation, Lynds was let into the secret of the “Pit” on Oak Island, and the opinion entertained about it by Vaughan and his companions.

Another version, however - a modern one dating from 1930 - gives the name of Dr. John Lynds of Truro. According to this version, John Smith’s wife did not want their first child to be born on Oak Island, apparently because of its mysterious history. They therefore traveled to Truro to see Dr. John Lynds, a relative of Anthony Vaughan, and they stayed at his home in Truro until the birth of the child.

During their stay with Dr. Lynds they told him of the Pit and he became greatly interested, and when they returned to Oak Island he came along with them to see the island and advise as to further exploration of the Pit.

After considerable research, little or no evidence has been found in support of this story. The best evidence is that Smith did not build his house on the Island until about 1805 and, their first child was born at Chester some time before April 15, 1798, on which date he was baptized.

Moreover, the genealogy of the Lynds family of Colchester County shows no physician with the name “John” at this time.

It would seem very improbable in those days, with all the existing difficulties of travel, that John Smith and his wife should travel to Truro, more than one hundred miles away, when competent midwives, if not a physician, were available in Chester, four miles away, or in Halifax, forty-four miles distant, if not in nearby Lunenburg, Mahone or Bridgewater. James McNutt’s diary written on the island in 1863, when and where the best sources of information were available, gives Simeon Lynds of Onslow as the leader of the expedition of 1804.

The accepted version of the story relates that the next day Vaughan crossed over to the place with Simeon Lynds, in a boat, to let him pass his own judgment upon it. The result of Lynds’ visit was that he came to Vaughan’s way of thinking:

Lynds was then a young man (about thirty years) and his father (Thomas) Lynds was in comfortable circumstances, and he had a good many well-to-do friends. He concluded to go home, form a company among them, to assist the pioneers in the search after the treasure and to complete it.

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.

The most reliable account of the discovery of the Money Pit, so-called, is given by Judge Mather B. DesBrisay in the second or 1895 edition of his History of the County of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, first published in 1870. DesBrisay lived in Chester in the days of his childhood and was always in contact with those who were exploring the mystery of the Money Pit. He was an ardent and accurate student of the law of evidence and of the history of his native county.

In his History, he says: “The first settlers on the island were John McMullen, and Daniel McInnes (or McGinnis)… one of the early residents was Samuel Ball, a colored man, who came from South Carolina where he had been a slave to a master whose name he had adopted. His wife Mary had been a domestic in the house of Provincial Treasurer Michael Wallace, at Halifax.” They were married in 1795.

His firm comprised thirty-six acres (lots 6, 7, 8, 24, 25, 26, 30, 31, 32) on which he lived and “cleared.” He died December 14, 1845, aged 81 years, and under his will the property passed “to my servant, Isaac Butler who had resided with him on condition that he take the name of Ball.”

Daniel McInnis, to whom reference was made above, came from New England and took up land on Oak Island. One of his sons, also known as Daniel, his son James and his grandson John McInnis were all interested in the Oak Island enterprise. John McInnis, the grandson, was born on the island about 1865 and lived and died there.

At this point two others should be mentioned who with McInnis discovered the pit and worked to recover the treasure, and passed on the facts of the original discovery from father to son until a very late date in our story.

Anthony Vaughan was one of seven brothers, residents of Rhode Island, descendants of Rowland Vaughan who came to Massachusetts in the seventeenth century. Three of them settled in Chester, john in 1768, Anthony and Daniel in 1772, all of them being residents in 1783. Anthony took up 200 acres on the mainland, near Oak Island, and Daniel owned lots 13 and 14 on the island, which he sold in 1790 to Nathaniel Melvin.

According to the parish records of Chester, Anthony and his wife, Anna Vaughan, had four children - all born in Chester,

Anthony Vaughan, his son, was the chief source of the story of the discovery of the Pit. In 1849 he related the facts to Robert Creelman, who worked on Oak Island in that year.

Four grandsons of Anthony - namely, George, James, Harris, and J. Albert, aged respectively 80, 82, 84, and 90 - were all living on the Vaughan homestead at Western Shore in September, 1930. James died on October thirteenth of that year.

The various pits or shafts dug in search of the treasure were dug in the period 1795 to 1850, all on the farm of John Smith.

He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, August 20, 1775. He married Sarah Floyd on September 28, 1790. John, their first child, was baptized at Chester, along with twelve other children, by Rev. Robert Norris, on April 15, 1798. On June 26, 1795, Smith purchased Lot 18 on Oak Island from Caspar Wollenhaupt, a merchant of Chester. About 1795 he built a house near the Money Pit, and later purchased Lots 16 to 21, and there he and his family lived until his death in September, 1857. He brought up his children in very respectable circumstances. His daughter Mary lived in the family of Judge M. B. DesBrisay for sixteen years, first at Chester and later at Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

Some time before 1790, the island became known as Oak Island, because of the very fine grove of large and beautiful oak trees growing upon its eastern end. It is a fact that Oak Island is the only one out of over 300 in Mahone Bay which has on it any oak trees. That they were large and consequently very old in 1795 is well established. Owing largely to the attacks of black ants in the last century, these oaks, which were numerous at one time, have entirely disappeared, the last two or three dying about 1960.

A number of writers, apparently with a view to adding more mystery to their stories, have stated that this species of oak does not grow elsewhere in Nova Scotia, that they are southern trees found no farther north than Louisiana. Some accounts allege that they are of Mexican origin, and on that assumption advance the theory that the treasure is an Aztec hoard.

Other writers have asserted that these oaks are of the variety or species known to the botanist as the “live oak” (quercus Virginia), an evergreen oak found principally in the southern United States. Its leaves are smooth and glossy; its wood hard and heavy, much used in shipbuilding. This assertion cannot be supported, for the oaks on Oak Island undoubtedly are red oaks, found along the same coast of Nova Scotia.

In 1931 one of these oaks, which bore on its surface evidence of having received an injury in earlier life, was cut down and examined critically with a view to determining its age and the cause of injury. Embedded deeply in the tree was found the end of a stout knife blade had broken off at the point of entry into the tree, the “rings” or “layers” were counted and it was determined that the tree was at least 183 years old, or dated from 1748 or earlier.

As we shall see, the presence in the Money Pit itself of platforms of oak logs, one platform above another, to a depth of more than ninety feet (each log six to eight inches in diameter) would indicate that a very extensive grove of trees existed on oak Island when the Money Pit was constructed. As such engineering work must have been carried out previously to 1749 when Halifax was founded, it follows that the tree cut down in 1931 was of a later generation. We have it as the opinion of a forestry expert, familiar with the grounds of oak trees along the south coast of Nova Scotia, that a tree measuring approximately seven or eight inches would be in the vicinity of fifty to seventy-five years of age. The older the tree, the slower it increases in diameter. A sixteen inch oak tree in this area would probably be about 200 years old. Assuming the correctness of this opinion, it fits in with the writer’s theory that the “Pit” was constructed between 1650 and 1750.

Oak Island is one of over 300 islands in Mahone Bay and is itself four miles from the town of Chester, Nova Scotia, and about forty-five miles from Halifax. A narrow channel separates it from the mainland at a point known as Western Shore.

The island was originally included in a Crown grant of 100,000 acres, forming the township of “Shoreham” (the original name of Chester), made to some seventy-three grantees or proprietors, on October 18, 1759. These grantees came in that year from Boston, Kingston, Hanover, Pembroke, Concord, Lexington, Plympton, Shrewsbury, Lancaster, Stoughton, Casco Bay and other places in New England. A further grant of 29,750 acres was made in 1760, and a third grant of 12,400 acres in 1785. The island is about twenty-five miles from the inner run of vessels sailing along the coast, and is almost entirely hidden from the view of passing ships by Big and Little Tancook Islands which lie to the east and southeast.

Oak Island itself is about three-quarters of a mile long and about half a mile wide and was designed on the first survey in 1762-1765 made by Charles Morris, Surveyor General of the Province, as Island No. 28. It was divided into thirty-two lots of four acres each, arranged in two tiers, one north and the other south of a line running almost easterly and westerly the length of the island. In DesBarres’ Atlantic Neptune (1778) the island is shown as Gloucester Island, a name conferred by DesBarres, which, however, did not persist. It was also known as Smith’s Island about the same time.

The eastern end of the Island runs out to a point which encloses a crescent-shaped cove, known today as “Smith’s” or “Smuggler’s Cove.”

In 1965 a causeway was built between the mainland and the western end of the island passable for ordinary motorcar traffic, and extending eastward towards the Money Pit.

It will also be observed that there is a marked indentation in the southern shore of the island and abundant evidence that this indentation was originally a lagoon, cut off from the ocean by a barrachois, or bar, of heavy gravel. Today the land north of the indentation is a very wet swamp, running almost across the island to the north side, and probably in earlier times a narrow channel between two islands. East and west of the swamp the land rises to form two hills, each rising thirty or thirty-five feet above sea level. It is near the crest of the easterly hill that the Money Pit, so-called, is located.

The soil of the island is very hard tough clay mixed with boulders of glacial origin. The erosion of the southern shore is proceeding at less than two inches a year. Today the island is partly cleared at its eastern and western ends. From time to time during the island’s history portions of it have been cultivated by residents.

Oak Island has become known as the most elusive treasure in the world, and the Money Pit and its adjacent works the greatest piece of engineering on the American continent.

The unique precautions taken by those who made the original deposit of treasure on Oak Island were intended to protect the treasure from all who might learn of its existence, and those same precautions and safeguards have successfully protected its secret for more than 170 years since its discovery and foiled the efforts of scores of capable, intelligent engineers, at a cost of many thousands of dollars. Who made the deposit? For what purpose was a pit opened to a depth of nearly 200 feet? Who constructed the subterranean sea-guarded vault, and protected it with water tunnels and other devices? Every new attempt to solve this mystery has made it more puzzling.

It is a fact that a vast amount of work was done at some remote period in an exceedingly well-conceived and efficient manner, in order to conceal and safeguard something of very great value. Men do not undertake such stupendous works from mere caprice, or for the concealment of trifles.

Competent engineers have estimated that it took an army of men, working for at least two years, to make this excavation. Their work was competently done, defying all later efforts to recover the treasure.

Each attempt to recover the deposit, after the discovery of its existence in 1795, has been based on, and encouraged by, information obtained directly from predecessors, and as the work progressed from one attempt to another additional evidence of the original work was disclosed, but always without leading to complete success.

One interesting fact that stands out throughout the 170 years of history is that men of high reputation and skill have persisted in believing in the existence of treasure buried on Oak Island, and this in spite of the ridicule of others. It is also noteworthy that from the beginning to the present day many of those who have been identified with one search have hastened to become identified with the next, and that with every succeeding exploration the evidence and probability of ultimate success has steadily grown until it has become almost a certainty.

Failure to recover the treasure after the conditions became known has been due to lack of funds, or lack of engineering skill, or lack of proper equipment, or all three. Money was often raised in too small amounts, the work was conducted in too haphazard a manner, or no well-considered plan was ever adopted and carried persistently and aggressively to its logical conclusion.

It was always the confident belief of those identified with the operations that the recovery of the treasure would excite a much greater interest than was aroused by the discovery of Tut-ankh-amen’s tomb; for the reason that the treasure on Oak Island was believed to be one of even greater size and value.