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The Oak Island Mystery
“The structures beneath Oak Island must rank as the eight wonder of the world.”
Lionel Fanthorpe, Oak Island Researcher
 Oak Island off the coast of Nova Scotia is home to one of the world's most unusual mysteries; according to legend a fabulous treasure trove lies buried there. That treasure is protected by a deep shaft that has proved itself to be ran ingenious feat of engineering that has foiled the attempts of numerous treasure hunters over the last 200 years. The money pit consists of a deep shaft, furnished with an ingenious series of side tunnels which allow the sea to flood in whenever diggers plumb its depths. Whoever constructed the money pit was a brilliant engineer. If they did conceal a fabulous treasure at the bottom of the pit then they must have incorporated a means of accessing that treasure when they needed to. That logic has motivated dozens of treasure seekers to invest millions of dollars into efforts to solve the mystery and recover the treasure; yet to date nothing of real value has ever been recovered. The Oak Island Money Pit is an incredible piece of construction that has so far protected its secrets, but who built it, and is there really still treasure on the island?
The Discovery
One summer's day in 1795, sixteen year old Daniel McGinnis from the Nova Scotian town of Chester s went hunting on the island. As he walked towards the eastern end of the island he noticed an old ship's block and tackle hung from an oak tree. Under the branch from where these hung he noticed a twelve foot wide depression in the ground. Inspired by tales of pirates and buried treasure, Daniel returned to the mainland and told two friends, Paul Smith and Anthony Vaughan about his strange discovery. The three boys then returned to the island with picks and shovels and began to dig under the oak tree.
As the young adventurers dug, it became clear that this wasn't merely a hollow in the limestone, in fact they soon unearthed a 13 foot wide circular shaft that had been dug through flinty clay. The immediate ground below them was soft but the outer edges of the hole were hard clay and still showed the pick marks of the original diggers. As they reached a depth of about 60 cm they discovered a layer of slabs, slabs that would only have come from an island some 3 or 4 km away. After removing the slab layer they dug on. At a depth of 3 metres they discovered a oak platform, although the wood had begun to rot the outside of the layer was dug deep in to the clay walls of the hole. Once again they continued their dig and at 6 metres came up against another oak platform. The excavation carried on for nine years, but hindered by superstitious townsfolk whose fear of ghosts exceeded their desire to find buried treasure the dig was eventually abandoned.
The First Excavation.
In 1804, a local businessman named Simeon Lynds organized a group of wealthy friends and formed the first treasure hunting company.
As the men dug down beyond the point where the boys had reached they discovered the same oak layers at regular 3 metre intervals, they also discovered charcoal, ship's putty and coconut fibre.
 As the men approached to 30 metre point they discovered a stone now known as the Cipher stone, due to its strange inscriptions. Several years later, in 1866 the stone was allegedly translated by a Halifax University language professor. It is quite possible that the message might have offered instructions on how to proceed without tripping the trap that unbeknown to the men had been set by the pit's engineers; instructions that only someone familiar with the cipher would have been able to read. Without the all important key to decode the cipher stone, which may
well have explained how to avoid springing the booby trap that sat
below the cipher stone, the fate of the treasure was sealed. Additionally of course the stone might offer clues as to the identity of whoever engineered the pit. The original cipher stone has long since been lost - as is often the case, but a copy of the inscription (see above) still exists. The cipher was allegedly decoded to read "Forty Feet Below, Two Million Pounds are buried" but there is a strong argument to suggest that this was a convenient translation to rally investors to the dig.
The Pit Floods.
Three feet below the Cipher stone they hit something solid that Lynds was sure must be a treasure chest.The solid object went from wall to wall, and after trying hard to remove it with crowbars they decided to finish for the day and resume their dig in the morning. When they approached the pit the following day they discovered that it had been flooded to a depth of almost sixty feet of seawater. Although there had been no sign of water before then, they now found themselves removing two barrels of water to every
barrel of earth. In all the men had broke through eight oak platforms,
three of which were sealed with ships putty and coconut fibre, but now it seemed their efforts were for nothing.Weeks of bailing the water out with buckets and a pump proved useless, and they were forced to temporarily abandon the hunt. In 1805 they decided to sink a parallel shaft to the pit, and have dug to a depth of 110 feet started to tunnel towards the treasure. As they did so the water broke through almost drowning the men in the shaft. Lynds was now left with two pits that both contained around 60 feet of sea water and which could not be drained, disenchanted and now penniless, he was forced to abandon his dream of finding untold wealth.
The Truro Company.
For the next forty years very little was done to excavate the mystery pit. In 1849 that changed when the Truro Company was formed .Now in their late sixties but still holding out hope of finding fame and fortune, Paul Smith and Anthony Vaughan who had helped Daniel McGinnis with the original dig lent their expertise to the Truro team by ensuring they were digging in the right place.
The team's engineer named Jotham B. Mcully, successfully traced the source of the sea water to a beach at nearby Smith's Cove. A man-made tunnel 111 feet down lead from the pit to the cove. In 1893 the tunnel was dynamited to seal it, but still the pit flooded. This and other factors such as the bottom of the pit collapsing as a result of their excavations, which made it even more inaccessible than before, led them to abandon their dig as the money ran out.
Since then there have been many failed attempts to overcome the pit's defences, all of which have failed. In 1942 a second tunnel that ran to another cove was discovered at a depth of 150 feet. After two centuries of digging, drilling, excavating a draining, the exact location of the original money pit it said to be uncertain, and what if anything lies at it bottom is still waiting to be discovered, as is the identity of the person who built the pit. There are certainly many theories that have been put forward over the last 200 years, some of which deserve careful consideration.
The Knights Templar.
The most intriguing theory to come out of this mystery is that the pit is the repository of the lost treasure of the Knights Templar which was spirited away to Oak Island, to keeping it from falling into the hands of the order's enemies.
According to the theory, when King Philip le Bel of France destroyed their noble order in 1307 in an effort to seize their assets, a handful of Templar Knights emptied their Paris headquarters of its wealth before the kings men arrived. The Templar treasure was taken by two ships to secret destinations. Many think that at least some of the treasure was hidden on Oak Island. Certainly the use of ships putty to seal the oak platforms indicates that whatever is buried on Oak Island arrived there by ship. Is it possible then that fleeing knights headed for this remote and uninhabited Island. Many think that this is the case and that they were aided by the Sinclairs of Orkney, who had strong connections with both the Knights Templars and the sea faring Vikings. This is interesting and quite plausible given that the Vikings are known to have had colonies in Nova Scotia at the time. A military order well used to operating in difficult conditions, the Templars also possessed the engineering skills that would have been required to undertake such an elaborate task. It is said that the Templars had the strength, stamina and discipline to carry out such a mammoth task on Oak Island. Their military architectural skills were of the best in the world, and with their enemies perhaps wanting the treasures, they certainly had the motives.
Other theories include the possibility that Oak Island acted as a communal bank for pirates. Each group would dig tunnels off the Money Pit shaft and bury their treasure. To retrieve it they could dig down through untouched dirt to get their cache. Another possibility is that Captain William Kidd and his crew buried treasure on the Island. Periodically maps have popped up alleged to be Kidd's showing the location of his treasures. There are many tales of old men on their death beds claiming to have been part of Kidd's crews and having knowledge of hidden wealth. Some of these stories point toward Oak Island. Others think that the treasure belonged to a Spanish Galleon returning with plundered gold and jewels from Central or South America could have been damaged and forced off course.
What casts doubt on all these theories other theories is that they involved entire ships crews – often over a hundred men. When that number of people knows about a treasure, the chances of it remaining a secret, and indeed being forgotten about are slim – unless the entire ship was subsequently lost at sea, in which case the secret would go down with the ship. If we look for suitable candidates to keep a secret, a small group of Knights Templar have to remain our number one possibility.
For now however, the mystery remains.
Copyright © by ThothWeb - Your Portal to the Unknown All Right Reserved. Published on: 12 May, 2007 (3222 reads) [ Go Back ] |
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