There's Something Mysterious in God's Country (Nova Scotia)

By Beamish O'Bryan

I have attempted to share a few of the mysteries within the vicinity of Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada. It is my hope that the theories I propose in the book merit consideration.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Beamish O'Bryan
• Release date: Sep 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301906031

Beamish O'Bryan

When I'm not painting, writing or playing Golf, I am employed as mechanic at a country club in Denver, Colorado.I am a retired Teaching Professional. I was selected "Best of Denver" in 1988 for Golf Lessons. There are many tips to improve your game within the novel.

Book preview

There’s Somethin’ Mysterious in God’s Country

(Nova Scotia)

Beamish O'Bryan

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Bryan Joseph Smith.

Smashwords Edition, License Statement

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

ISBN: 9781301906031

"History is a set of lies agreed upon."

Napoleon Bonaparte

"It wasn’t the world being round that agitated people but that the world wasn’t flat."

Dresden James

"UFO’s are as real as the airplanes flying overhead."

The Honorable Paul Hellyer, former Canadian Minister of Defense

"Do you think that’s a good idea Julian?"

Bubbles

"Anyone degreed or not can be mistaken"

Skeptical Inquirer

***

Introduction

Nova Scotia is steeped in Maritime History. The boats and ships of Nova Scotia were the best the world has seen and more tonnage was registered there than anywhere else and all built with woods from the Nova Scotia forests. They still build trusty boats. I am proud to have lived and fished at sea among the Nova Scotians.

It is not Utopia but a damned good attempt, far as I’m concerned. There is a jolly love of life there that is infectious. Nova Scotia is a huggable place while at the same time frightening! One wrong slap of a wave and your Davy Jones, consigned to Poseidon’s prison.

Nova Scotia may have received survivors of Atlantis, those that hung on until the last moments and that survived the cataclysm that befell our planet and solar system, maybe even our galaxy. There is an ancient mysterious magic there that can be best appreciated by folklorists and those who are willing to let their imaginations run amuck! Add to this the UFO that crashed there. There are mysterious things to be found in Nova Scotia.

They call Nova Scotia, God’s Country.

***

Disclaimer

The research gathered for this book was driven by an amateur’s curiosity and is an amalgam of primary and secondary sources most of which were located on and studied from the internet accessed from my laptop computer. What I found got me speculating.

I have attempted to share a few of the mysteries within the vicinity of Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. It is my hope that the theories I propose herein merit consideration.

***

Oak Island

The first time I was made aware of Oak Island, Nova Scotia was due to a colorfully illustrated pirate biography complete with treasure maps which were inserted as a free prize in a cereal package my parents brought home from the local grocery store. The story of Captain Kidd was one of those cereal manufacturer prizes which purported that Oak Island was indeed the location where Kidd had ingeniously hidden his loot. X marked the spot of the Money Pit. There was also a description of the interior of the pit’s construction and the ingenious defenses incorporated into the design which had thus far thwarted the recovery of the treasure.

I was a little disappointed by what I saw when I visited Oak Island in the mid 1970’s. All that was there was a round hole filled with muddy water. I exclaimed in disbelief, That’s it!? I don’t know what I expected to see. My disappointment paled when I thought about what the discoverer of the pit and the searchers who followed must have felt when they realized the builder of the pit had outsmarted them and they were going to have to abandon their dig empty handed.

Here is the bare bones story of the over two century long search. Teenager Daniel McGinnis came across a circular depression in the ground beside an old oak tree in 1795. One of the oak’s branches extended out over the indentation and looked like it had been used to hoist something heavy at one time. Tales of fabulous buried pirate treasure were at the forefront of the local gossip, at the time. McGinnis had no trouble recruiting two friends, John Smith and Anthony Vaughan to help dig for the treasure that McGinnis was certain lay below the oak tree.

When the young men had dug down but a few feet they encountered a layer of flag stones, which came from across the bay. The stones were removed and their dig into the soft soil continued until at 10 feet they struck a platform of oak logs which were wedged into the walls of what appeared to have been a circular hole in the surrounding hard clay. The logs were removed and the digging continued until another oak log platform was struck at a depth of twenty feet. Undeterred the boys removed the second stage of logs and continued their excavation. When they hit a third log platform at thirty feet they were convinced that they were really on to something! They also realized that they were thirty feet down and needed more help if they were to continue. Reluctantly and full of chagrin they abandoned the dig.

Eight years later, during a visit in 1803 Simeon Lynds who was a relative of Vaughan’s heard of the three boys’ dig and became excited by their story of the pit. Lynds formed the Onslow Company with investors to continue the search for the presumed treasure. The three original diggers joined this second burrowing into the ground as employees of Onslow. At ten foot intervals they encountered more log platforms. At forty feet they came upon a layer of charcoal. At fifty feet down a course of putty was discovered. The putty was put to use and kept many a window sealed from rain and wind, ashore in Chester, Nova Scotia. Coconut fiber was found at the sixty foot level. An inscribed stone was unearthed at ninety feet. The inscription was of some strange language and eventually translated to say that there were millions of pounds of gold just another forty feet down or so the story goes. Darkness closed in and work was halted for the day. The next day they returned to the pit certain that the treasure would be theirs. But the pit had filled with water overnight. Attempts to bail the water out proved useless and the hunt for treasure was stopped until the next summer when a second pit was dug to the south-east, alongside the original. The second hole filled with water as well. Onslow gave up on the project with no return on the money invested.

The treasure was still there! The Truro Company was formed 1845 with Anthony Vaughan as an investor. This new group got down to eighty six feet before once again the hole filled with water that bailing could not empty. Undaunted, they employed a pump that was powered by horses and found that it was ineffective. An auger normally used to discover coal deposits was brought in to drill deeper into the original pit. At the ninety eight foot depth a spruce platform was struck. Sixteen inches deeper another oak layer was hit. Further down pieces of metal were recovered, then more wood that lead to the speculation they had struck a chest of some sort. When the auger was brought up from the depth of one hundred and four feet a small piece of gold chain or chain mail was recovered.

A third shaft was dug during the summer of 1850 to one hundred and nine feet and there at that depth they tunneled sideways into the original pit. Once again, water burst in only this time they realized it was salt water and that the level of the water rose and fell with the tides. Awakening to these phenomena they realized there must be something connecting the Money Pit to the sea. Smith Cove was some five hundred feet distant to the east. An investigation of the cove revealed an artificial beach which was matted with layers of eel grass and coconut fiber. Coconut fiber suggested a Caribbean connection to the pit since coconut trees do not grow as far north as Oak Island. Where did they come from?

A coffer dam was built to hold back the sea and that enabled them to discover that there were a series of five drains stretching out like fingers into the sea. The drains seemed to converge inland into one drain that led water directly toward the pit. They surmised they had discovered an ingenious booby trap. An unusually high tide overwhelmed the coffer dam and destroyed it.

Several unsuccessful attempts were made to block the water channel between the ocean and the pit. The next summer the Truro Company was unable to obtain any additional funding and had to shut down the project due to insufficient funds.

1859 saw the return of the Truro Company to Oak Island after finding more investors and obtaining more funding. Pumps were brought in to deal with the water, but had no success.

Anthony Graves was the owner of the lot 18, where the pit was located in 1861. Graves was to receive one third of the treasure from the newly formed Oak Island Association.

The Oak Island Association cleared out the Money Pit. They sank two more shafts near the pit and when tunneling to the original pit water rushed in and nearly took the lives of two work men. They tried a cast iron pump driven by a steam engine. The boiler of the steam engine exploded scalding one man to death and injuring others. The Money Pit had cost a life.

In 1862 the seventh shaft was sunk and the Money Pit was cribbed to one hundred and three feet. Pumps that were brought in could not keep out the water. An attempt was made to dam the flood tunnels from Smith’s Cove ended with no luck. They then attempted to block the finger drains at Smith’s Cove with clay, which slowed down the amount of water entering the pit, but eventually tides ate away at the clay and water rushed back in. More money was lost to the pit.

When the Oak Island Eldorado Company acquired the rights to the hunt from Oak Island Association in 1866 they built another coffer dam three hundred and seventy five feet long and twelve foot high. The wood and clay dam in Smith’s Cove was intended to keep the water from entering the flood tunnels and the Money Pit. The dam failed to prevent water from entering the pit and the sea destroyed the second coffer. The next year they sank the tenth shaft on the island. It was two hundred feet south-east of the Money Pit and one hundred and seventy five feet south of the presumed flood tunnel’s location. At the one hundred and ten foot level they tunneled horizontally into the money pit and found the two and a half by four foot flood tunnel entrance, which headed for Smith’s Cove at a 22.5 degree angle. The flood tunnel had been filled with round stone. Work was halted with no return to the investors.

The daughter of Anthony Graves, Sophia Sellers was plowing with a team of oxen some three hundred and fifty feet from the Money Pit, between the pit and Smith’s Cove in 1878 when a sinkhole opened up and her oxen toppled in. Sellers’ sinkhole became known as the Cave-In-Pit. Sinkholes are common to the region and they also often occur in the vicinity of underground salt works. (Salt, Mark Kurlansky)

During the years between 1885 and 1890 two intriguing artifacts were found. A boatswain’s whistle made from baleen or whale bone was discovered on the beach of Smith’s Cove and a copper coin presumed to be dated 1317 was found on the island. The whistle and coin did little to help solve the enigma of the pit, but did generate fresh speculation concerning the identity of the builder of the pit and encouraged new investors.

Frederick Blair and S.C. Fraser incorporated the Oak Island Treasure Company in the State of Maine. They excavated the Cave-In-Pit and found that it had been worked in a very similar manner to the Money Pit. The Cave-In-Pit also filled with water. They concluded that the "Cave-In-Pit must have been intended for ventilation while the flood tunnel was being constructed. They dug the 12th shaft on the island and unsuccessfully attempted to locate the flood tunnel. The year was 1893.

A mining engineer by the name of Adam Tupper was brought in and he mistakenly dug down shaft number three rather than the Money Pit during 1895. The Oak Island Treasure Company was able to raise $2000.00 for a pump that same year.

The Money Pit claimed another life in 1897 when Maynard Kaiser was accidentally dropped into the hole. It was also the year of furious activity and discovery on the island. That year the thirteenth shaft was dug in hopes of locating the flood tunnel and staunching the flow of water into the pit. This was another unsuccessful attempt. In an effort to prevent the sea from flooding the pit dynamite was exploded intended to disrupt the flood tunnel, but was later found to have no effect. Work was resumed within the Money Pit. Their drilling revealed cement, oak chips, coconut fiber and pieces of metal. An impenetrable iron plate, clay and a tiny swatch of parchment that had the initials vi or wi written upon it in India ink were also found. A fourteenth shaft was dug whose purpose it was to reach one hundred and seventy five feet then tunnel horizontally under the iron plate, to the Money Pit. It too filled with water and another life lost.

The fifteenth shaft was dug in 1898 and once again became full of water. That same year four more shafts were hollowed and were all abandoned due to unsafe conditions and the inrush of water.

They tried another shaft in 1899 with the same disappointing result.

The Oak Island Treasure Company was forced to sell off its assets and Frederick Blair bought out the shareholders in 1900.

A second baleen whistle was found on the shore of Smith’s Cove during the year 1901.

A new player entered the scene in 1909. Captain Henry Bowdoin while full of bravado announced in a New York newspaper article that his company, Old Gold Salvage Company would resume the quest for the treasure and that more than likely the supposed trove at the bottom of the pit was the Crown Jewels of Marie Antoinette that had gone missing during the French Revolution. Franklin D. Roosevelt the former US President was a friend of Bowdoin and joined the dig for a time during August of 1909. Future President Roosevelt bought shares in the Old Gold and Wrecking Company. He maintained a life-long interest in the treasure hunt. Two years later Fred Blair refused to extend Bowdoin’s permit. Bowdoin then declared both the Money Pit and Flood Tunnel to be nothing but a hoax and stormed off! Around the same time Rudolph Faribault undertook a geological survey and reported that limestone, gypsum, sandstone and shale are located beneath Oak Island.

Professor S.A. Williams proposed a novel method to gain access to treasure when he proposed to drill several holes in which to drop calcium chloride into and thereby freeze the water. No action was taken on this plan of 1912.

Nothing much of consequence occurred until 1930 when the Smithsonian Institution reported that the fibrous material found within the pit was in fact coconut and had likely been buried there for as long as several hundreds of years.

1931 is an interesting year, as concerns Oak Island. Rumors of a treasure map which was supposed to have shown Mahone Bay and the Money Pit’s location surfaced, but the map was never produced or authenticated. Frederick Blair joined with William Chappell and digging began again. Several curious artifacts were unearthed by their efforts. The artifacts included an anchor fluke, a rusty axe, the head of a pick and a seal oil fueled miner’s lamp. They also found the tip of a crescent shaped knife blade deeply embedded within the trunk of a nearly 200 year old oak tree, not far from the pit. William Chappell’s son Melbourne discovered an equilateral triangle of boulders. The triangle pointed straight at the Money Pit! Frederick Blair’s lease expired and was not renewed.

Between 1932 and 1935 various other groups tried their luck without success, but did find a small amount of free mercury and fragments of china below ground. These finds opened up new lines of speculation concerning the builder and purpose of the pit. Since free mercury was not a naturally occurring element it had to have been brought there possibly by the Spanish from their mines in Mexico. Since mercury was used at one time to preserve documents such as the originals of Shakespeare’s manuscripts or the lost works of Sir Francis Bacon might be stored below. Sir Francis Bacon might have been involved in another way it was suggested when the bits of china were found. One of Bacon’s many works was called, Novum Organum and in that treatise he made reference to the use of deep pits by the Chinese to produce porcelain or chinaware. Chinaware became an English obsession in Elizabethan times.

Gilbert Hedden who was from New Jersey entered the search in 1935 by purchasing the east end of the island and made an agreement with Frederick Blair.

Doubts had begun to arise concerning Captain Kidd being the designer and builder of the elaborately constructed pit. No one had turned up a scrap of conclusive evidence that Kidd ever went anywhere near Oak Island or that he had any of the engineering skill required to construct the pit. Did he have the time or a crew large enough or disciplined or even motivated sufficiently for such an undertaking? It was very unlikely since what was known of Kidd’s English sanctioned privateering career