Error! https://www.tshaonline.org, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/hendricks-lake. It was found approximately a decade later in 2020 in Wyoming by an anonymous treasure hunter later revealed to be former journalist and medical student Jack Stuef. On his website, Fenn wrote, "It was under a. Do@aj^HmFd*`G1 0000003134 00000 n I determined that there were maybe five that might have contained some sort of treasure. Tales of pirate booty and Mexican gold have captivated minds for generations, and it all could be closer than you might think. Many came to the lake to drain, dredge, dig, dynamite and scan its murky depths. Many believe the body of water concealing the silver to be Hendricks Lake near Tatum, although other places have also been examined. 0000043284 00000 n 168 0 obj One of Hendricks's biggest contributions was financing the excavation of Hawikku, an ancestral village in New Mexico, where the A:shiwi (Zuni) first made contact with Europeans. TATUM A trio of Jacksonville natives wants to turn two-century-old piracy legend into a full-length feature documentary film and theyre seeking funding help to do it. Filmmaker Brackston McKnight uses a metal detector on his property, searching for lost treasure. Thats the one thing we all agree on about Sunken Silver, is that legend is a very powerful thing.. The man who found a hidden treasure chest said to be worth about $2 million last summer in the Rocky Mountains one that had tantalized fortune seekers for a decade, led to at least two deaths. No matter the lack of proof for a lot of these things, it just makes sense in your mind for a story like this to take place here.. Read More about Texas Tea Slot, about Jean Laffites treasure in the Sabine River. But to this day, treasure hunters are unswayed. Stella Wieser was a reporter at the Panola Watchman from June 2018 to April 2022. Lake Ridge (5) Las Olas Isles (5) Las Olas by the Sea (0) Lauder Gate Isles (2) . . Hendricks Lake was the sight of many treasure hunts over the course of the 20th century. Hendricks Lake In 1909 members of the United States Geological Survey visited the site, which they described as being unproductive. He maintains websites for Trammels Trace and for Hendricks Lake, as well as social media Facebook groups for both stories. The team has found several people who have direct . June 6, 2020 - Fenn writes on his blog that the treasure has been found. One person who is still committed to the Hendricks Lake legend is Jacksonville documentary film maker and treasure hunter, Christian B. Roper. Hendricks Lake is a special place for Roper. <>/Border[0 0 0]/Contents()/Rect[72.0 594.2333 124.3037 607.124]/StructParent 1/Subtype/Link/Type/Annot>> Akins and one of his former deputies were landowners along the lake and active onlookers with a piece of the action. During his research for Trammals Trace, Pinkerton came upon the legend and it was something he tucked away and parked for a little while.. The other big buried treasure legend from East Texas is the story of Little Cypress Creek. H-E-Bs True Texas BBQ Restaurant Is Slipping, West Texans Are Learning What It Means to Live in Bear Country. Tales of pirate booty and Mexican gold have captivated minds for generations, and it all could be closer than you might think. <>/Border[0 0 0]/Contents(Tell us)/Rect[72.0 211.9047 103.6572 224.7953]/StructParent 7/Subtype/Link/Type/Annot>> There were treasure legends like that all over Texas, he said. Maybe they can help them in their search from the insights learned from their own pursuit of the Money Pit. It was one of the first times I met with Brackston after we graduated university last summer, Roper recalled. I always thought it was interesting that people had reason to believe there was pirate treasure 200 miles from the coast.. They did their research and, with dredging equipment and electronics gear, made multiple trips to Hendricks Lake but had no success. Jensen Beach. Charles F. Grice, Interview by Gary Pinkerton, February 2019. A pharmacist. Texas oilmen. True Believers: Treasure Hunters at Hendricks Lake. endobj HOUSTON It's the treasure hunt of a lifetime, and now it's landed them on national TV. Singer & Co., which was renamed the Singer Manufacturing Company in 1865. Pickering, a veteran diver, has made it his mission to recover all things odd and ordinary lurking in the lake to keep Georgia families safe. According to the legend, the Cherokee were fleeing north after the Battle of Neches when Roper said their path crossed Little Cypress Creek on the property of a man named OHendrick. By using deep-sea sonar technology that can pierce the thick mud and clay at the bottom of the lake, Roper said he may have found a cart or wagon that might have moved treasure to the lake. 0000000756 00000 n When researching Trammels Trace for my last book, I encountered the treasure legend of Hendricks Lake. Laffite was wounded in the battle and is believed to have died just after dawn. Boise County - Near the Nevada state line at Rye Flats, a shipment of newly-minted gold coins . <>/Border[0 0 0]/Contents()/Rect[130.3037 595.1786 171.4307 606.1786]/StructParent 2/Subtype/Link/Type/Annot>> An electrical engineer and MIT grad who before coming to Hendricks Lake to look for treasure had found the Union navys ironclad Tecumseh in Mobile Bay. And if so is the treasure still there? I looked into it a little bit in high school and at UT, just on and off. . Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos. Can College Sports Get More Absurd Than SMU Joining the Pac-12? In this work you will find what I hope you found in my first book solid, thorough research and a story with which we can all connect. He had heard about the Trace from his dad as a portion of it runs through family land. Houston oilmen who conducted the largest search ever attempted in 1957-1958. &m;vH}p,$[%7?7hm'm&@A2Ef8IR%%p.Bs.H'QKR 5 ]sHT. Joe spent many hours growing up around Milzie Williamson and later used his Fisher M-Scope metal detector to search those mysterious holes. Angie Hendricks has been a dedicated RE/MAX Realtor for more than a decade, who offers attention to detail in every real estate transaction she handles. 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. So, he set up these steam engines and buckets on a conveyor belt and pumps. 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. Patricia Sharpe writes a regular restaurant column, Pats Pick, for Texas Monthly. While en route through East Texas, the smugglers received word the Spanish army was closing in and, in an effort to hide the treasure, dumped the loot in a local lake. He built a new kind of sewing machine, and in. In 1965 a professional syndicate of treasure hunters, men who worked together at a packaging company in LeClaire, Iowa, and led by Clarence A. There was one spot that we initially found, I think it was June of 2020, which gave us a sonar reading that was pretty much an exact match to a wooden wagon that had submerged with some sort of weight, Roper said. This same engineer, only two years earlier, had led the team who located the Tecumseh, a Union metalclad ship sunk during the battle of Mobile Bay in August 1864. He is the primary antagonist of season one of National Treasure: Edge of History. endobj A nearby lake fed by the Sabine River also caught their attention, since the silver might have been transported there by the current. . Pictured from left, Gary Pinkerton, Brackson McKnight and Christian Roper. endobj One thing is certain though, East Texans will continue to be fascinated by stories like these. wagons to be pushed down an embankment and into a lake. For more information about this incredible project and to see a short film trailer, go to their website at www.sunkensilver.com. 154 0 obj In the early 1800s, Stephen F. Austin, on his first trip to Texas, also heard about a rich silver mine on the San Saba River and a gold mine on the Llano. 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. THE LEGEND A brig named Santa Rosa plundered in Matagorda Bay in 1816. Legend says six wagons full of silver bars were rolled into hendricks lake. accepts, and the show continues at Hendricks Lake in East Texas. 3. Also join us in the Facebook Group: Beyond Oak Island Treasures for more discussions. After completing high school in Virginia, she moved to New York City and pursued a career as a model following her entry into a Seventeen cover contest. 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. Lr !_) Many of them are wandering through the beaches and backlands with nothing more than metal detectors. As a young girl, Diana pushed the plunger to set off dynamite. 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. When you see Hendricks Lake it just looks like it should have treasure in it.. For Pinkerton, the treasure of Hendricks Lake is its history and the people who have believed in the legend over the years. Abilene Reporter-News, June 24, 1958. 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. In 1884 treasure hunters were all over the Sabine and a nearby lake that had been fed by the Sabine. Fearing an ambush by Native Americans, they then decided to hide the treasure by pushing it into the muddy waters of the Sabine River. As they retreated, they headed into what is now known as Upshur County. At one point, while wandering the beaches of Padre Island, he came across a bunch of Spanish coins. 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. 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). But if you dont like that version of the legend there are others. What they would love to find, if not the silver, are clues to the treasure at least being there. After getting some readings at the bottom of the lake (Hendricks Lake), two Dallas oilmen actually brought in a giant crane and attached a drag bucket to the cable. Christian B. Roper, Ryan Travis, and Brackston McKnight, all Jacksonville natives, are working toward a documentary film about Hendricks Lake called Sunken Silver. 157 0 obj Somewhere with access to treasure-laden vessels, open coast, and trails and waterways to transport stolen goods. Join the adventures in Beyond Oak Island- Tuesdays at 10PM and summaries and more in depth looks into the many stories of treasure, here at MW! Six wagon loads of silver carried north along Trammel's Trace. %PDF-1.7 % I spent the majority of the summer of 2020 organizing expeditions into the lake, through sonar we had come up with quite a few hits of things that were very interesting, Roper said. 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. The Lost Treasure of Hendricks Lake The infamous pirate of the Gulf Jean Lafitte took a $2 million fortune in silver from a Spanish galleon and supposedly buried it in the Sabine River near the East Texas town of Sabine. Visibility is nil, so it is a touchy situation. A semi-weekly newsletter with all of The Panola Watchman's sports coverage. Roper believes that the Little Cypress Creek story and the Hendricks Lake story may have a common heritage. We need your support because we are a non-profit organization that relies upon contributions from our community in order to record and preserve the history of our state. Spanish silver stolen by the privateer, Jean Lafitte. Although hes fascinated by the legend and the excitement it created, Pinkerton doesnt believe its even a little bit true. 1``b`5 Y0$ Au`j`H@ It was packed with tons of gold and silver. 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. Fort Pierce. Stella Wieser of the Panola Watchman. endobj There are people who spend their whole lives and considerable sums of money searching for sunken treasure ships, lost mines, and hidden loot. LAKE CHIEMSEE, GOLDEN CAULDRON In Bavaria, in southern Germany, Lake Chiemsee has been the focus of many divers ever since a Nazi-themed gold cauldron, worth more than $560,000, was found there in . Captain Blackbeard's Lost Silver, said to be $1.5 million worth of silver bars. The film will center around local lore of a lost treasure of $2 million in silver ingots said to have been stolen by French pirate Jean Laffite and hidden by smugglers in Hendricks Lake, a. The lake is located in the extreme northeastern part of the county along the boundary between Rusk and Panola. In Colombian newspapers, his death was lamented and his obituary described him as a brave naval officer. Continue Reading. swieser@panolawatchman.com, Stolen treasure, hidden mystery: Tatum-area lake lore focus of movie project. (Courtesy of Andy Swanger) As far as more. Pinkerton himself doesnt personally believe there was any silver brought through East Texas during the time in which the legend takes place because the roads were little more than Indian trails. 1. Trammel's Trace-The First Road to Texas from the North is a 2016 book by Gary L. Pinkerton. The dumping of the silver in the lake was a temporary thing until danger passed, then was recovered, after all he had divers at his disposal. The same thing is true for the Paradise Cove Lodge down California 178. Just another myth? help him in his search. Omoa was the site of the largest Spanish fort in Central America, a fort constructed to safeguard the Spanish silver shipments from the mines of Tegucigalpa in Honduras. His main focus is on Jean Lafittes treasure, Stories are how we interact as people and its how we grow. 0000006665 00000 n In the final battle of the War of 1812, Lafitte and his comrades helped General Andrew Jackson defend New Orleans against the British. In 1965, led a team of Iowans in some aborted, but ambitious, attempts at the treasure. endobj <>stream MW Questions: Are Keywords for the Null Cipher Used in The Great US Treasure Hunt? 2. Adams was a Rusk County backwoodsman who wears an old slouch felt hat, bib overalls, and a denim jacket, buttoned at the throat even in hot weather, and a favorite character of columnist Frank X. Tolbert for many of his Tolberts Texas articles over the years.