Chapter One - The Lead

This is a true story as best as I can remember it. It all began in October, 1974 in Detroit, Michigan. I had been in the metal detecting hobby for about 2 1/2 years, and was looking through the classified ads of the newspaper. I did that a lot back then. You see, I was a Senior Designer in the Automotive industry. There was a lot of ups and downs during those years, and I once again found myself laid-off, and looking for something to tide us over until things picked back up.

Well, I'm looking through the paper, and I spot this ad. The headline read something like this; "Metal Detector Operator Wanted". That caught my attention right away. I had only been in the hobby for the 2 1/2 years like I said, but had been bitten real bad. Metal detecting was about all I could think about back then so naturally, I read the ad very thoroughly. I thought, "what the heck, perhaps I can make some money with metal detecting until the auto jobs were once again plentiful".

I called the number in the ad, and an older woman answered the phone. I told her I was calling about the ad, and was interested to find out more. She told me that it had to do with helping her, and her family find a lost treasure. I thought, "yeah sure", but asked for more information. She said she didn't want to discuss it over the phone, and asked if I would come over to her house one evening during the week. When I asked for her address she told me, and then I became a little concerned. You see, where she said she lived was not a very nice part of town. There was no way I was going into that section of Detroit after dark. Quite frankly, I was a bit concerned for my safety even in broad daylight. I told her I would come over during the day, and that I wanted to bring my cousin with me. I told her that we worked together, even though I really wanted him along for a back up, if needed. We made the arrangements, and set the time for us to meet.

I called my cousin and explained what was going on to him. He, too, was new to the hobby, but wasn't quite the fanatic that I was about it. He agreed to go with me to find out what this was really all about. I had enough experience already to know that almost everyone has a treasure story, and approached this with a good bit of skepticism.

Chapter Two - The Meeting

We showed up at the house at the designated time. I felt some apprehension as we pulled into the driveway. We got out of the car and walked up the stairs onto the front porch, and rang the bell. A young black man answered the door, and informed us that his mother wasn't there yet, but for us to come in as she would be arriving shortly. Right then I'm thinking "setup", but we went in anyway. We were invited to have a seat in the living room while we waited for his mother to show up. We sat down on the sofa, and he took a seat in a large chair between us, and the front door. Straight ahead was the dining room, and to the left a small hallway leading to the bedrooms. Beyond the dining room, in the back of the house, was the kitchen. A very typical bungalow style house, probably built in the 40's. In the hallway I could barely make out someone sitting on a small, wooden chair.

I asked him, we'll call him Charles as I don't remember his name, if he could tell us more about why we were there. He told us it was about a treasure that his Grandmother had dug up when she was a young girl. They had been looking for it for many years, and finally decided to seek more help as they weren't having any luck. He didn't want to go into any details, and I told him that without any details, we weren't interested.

About that time his mother, the lady I had spoken with on the phone, came in. She apologized for being late and took another seat to our right. She asked if Charles had told us about the "job", and what questions we had. I explained that he had given us some information, but we needed to know more. I believe they were reluctant to tell us any more, and were trying to protect the location, as well as what we were going to be looking for.

I told her that we needed more information to be able to determine if it was something we would be interested in looking at further. That's when she finally began the story.

Chapter Three - The Story

She began telling us that her mother, the lady sitting in the shadows in the hallway, lived on this farm in Alabama as a young girl. There was a story at the time that a treasure had been buried on the previous land owner's property. She looked for it several times, and actually had dug it up about 1915, but became frightened. It had started getting dark when she finally found it, and all of a sudden the ground started shaking, and there were red-eyed dogs walking a foot off the ground. She was so frightened that she quickly re-buried the pot, and never went back for it.

Now in her late 70's, she had enlisted the aid of her daughter, and grandson, to help find it once again. They had looked for it about six times over the years. The fifth time they went looking for it they had a cheap metal detector that sounded off. They started digging in the late afternoon and hit something solid. As soon as that happened, the fog rolled in, it got real dark, and they became frightened. They covered the hole back in and left.

On their next, and last, trip they found that a tree had fallen over the depression of the hole where they had dug previously. They took that as a bad sign, and decided they needed more help. That's when they decided to put the ad in the paper.

I pressed them for more information. They were reluctant to say any more. I told them we needed to know where we had to go for it, which they didn't want to say. They said that it was in Alabama. I asked, "where in Alabama are we expected to go looking"? They would only say that it was in the vicinity of Selma, where they had some relatives.

I then asked them how far from Selma was the hunt site. What, exactly, would we be looking for? How deep was it? What were the conditions, and terrain like? Were there houses nearby? Could we recover it without being seen? Was it on property they, or relatives, owned?

They would only say that it was about 75 miles from Selma. They told us that the hunt site was partly on an Uncle's land, and partly on an adjacent property owner's land. In telling us this information, Charles let the adjacent property owner's name slip out. I quickly made a mental note. They said the property was in the woods, and that a car on the road could be seen from the dig site, but a person at the dig site couldn't be seen from the road.

They seemed to think we had to dig about 4 to 5 feet to make the recovery. The closest house was probably a mile, or so away. There was a road by the search area that intersected a main road where there was a restaurant, and a couple of motels where David, my cousin, and I could stay.

I asked again what was it that we were looking for? They said that their Grandmother had said that when she dug it up that first time, there were silver coins, gold coins and small gold bars in a large cast iron Dutch oven. Supposedly, there were three of the Dutch ovens, or iron pots, full. The small gold bars got my attention as I knew they were used for currency in the early years, and perhaps there was some truth to this story.

They believed that all the property was part of a large plantation at one time. It was presumed that this treasure was put down during the Civil War by slaves of the plantation owner. It was also believed that the Grandmother was probably the grand daughter of former slaves on that plantation. But, then again, that was all conjecture on my, and my cousins, part.

Chapter Four - The Plan

Now that we knew all we were going to know, at least for now, we had to determine if we were going to get involved, and when. They wanted to know what we would charge them for this recovery. I said that it was normal to split the recovery in half, 50-50, and they agreed that was acceptable. Now all we had to do was finalize our arrangements, and determine when we were going to go.

My cousin said he could take some vacation time off work the following week, and they said they could make it as well. The timing was no problem for me. Remember, I was laid-off. It was decided that we would meet the following Monday morning across from the Ford River Rouge plant on I-75 south of the city at 9am.

My cousin, and I, made a list of everything we thought we would need to take for the recovery. We had several detectors, shovels, axes, saws, come-along, chains, etc. We planned on 4 days total on the road, two there, and two back, and 3 days on site. We had clothes for most any kind of weather, and any other incidentals ready to go.

Linda, David's wife, had baked us a big batch of home-made chocolate chip cookies for the road. We were ready. I couldn't sleep in anticipation of the adventure ahead.

We met on that Monday morning, finished packing his 1972 Chevy Blazer with our gear, said goodbye to our wives and kids, and off we went. We had to get through the rush hour traffic and finally were sitting across from the designated meeting place a half hour early.

9 o'clock came, and went. We thought perhaps they got caught up in traffic. Another half hour went by with no sign of them. We went and found a pay phone and called their number. No answer. Good, they are on their way.

10 o'clock, and no sign of them. We're starting to wonder what happened. We continued to wait.

11 o'clock. We don't give up easily. We go and try to call them again. Still no answer. The chocolate chip cookies for the trip are almost gone already. We're running out of soda's in the cooler. What the heck is going on?

Noon. We finally realize they aren't going to show, and dejectedly, head back home. You can imagine the explaining we had to do when we got home, and all the cookies were gone.

Chapter Five - The Let Down

I continued to try to get in touch with them the rest of the day to no avail. Finally, the next day I talk to Charles. He tells me that his mother suffered a gall bladder attack and had to go to the hospital for an emergency gall bladder operation, and they didn't have a way to get in touch with us to let us know. Little did he know, but I had a way to check his story.

My cousin's father-in-law worked for the department of health, and had an inside track to all of the hospitals. We asked him to check to see if an Ethel Jones had been admitted to any of them on that Monday. He checked, and the results were negative. No-one by that name had been admitted for a gall bladder operation within the last 48 hours. Something sounded fishy.

It became obvious that they had decided, for one reason or another, that they weren't going to go through with this. Perhaps they didn't trust us. Perhaps they thought we would cheat them once we made the recovery. There are many things that could have caused them to back out. Perhaps it was our color. Who knows. All I know is we were very let down and disappointed. What an adventure that would have been if only they would have shown.

My cousin cancelled his vacation. I enrolled at Control Data Institute to change careers, and life went on. I never forgot about that close encounter with an honest-to-goodness treasure hunt.

Chapter Six - The Story Continues

I finished the Programming Technology course at Control Data only to find that I couldn't buy a job in data processing. Things weren't looking too good for a recovery in the Auto Industry any time soon, so my wife, our 3 year old son and I sold our house, packed up our belongings, and moved, cold turkey, to Colorado in September of 1975.

I still couldn't get that story of treasure in Alabama out of my head. I just didn't have enough to go on to pursue it on my own. I needed more information, but how was I going to get it. The only thing I had was a possible fictitious name, a previous address of the people that led us on a wild goose chase and an old phone bill with their number on it. In Detroit, there were toll calls to various parts of town due to the size and distance involved. That's the only reason I still had their phone number, but how was I going to get the information I needed? I needed a plan.

Finally, I devised a shrewd plan to get the information I needed to continue the search without them. I called their phone number. Yikes, the number had been changed. I got the new number, and address, from the operator. Wait a minute, that was a much nicer neighborhood. Had they found the treasure. Was that the reason for the nicer home? Was I too late?

I called the new number. They didn't answer. A stranger answered and told me that he was a boarder, and that the family was down in Alabama and wouldn't be home until the following week. Drat, they are down there looking again, or perhaps digging up more as they weren't able to haul it all back in one trip. I told him I would call back the following week.

Chapter Seven - The Bi-Centennial Phone Call

I called the following week, and Ethel Jones answered the phone. Here is what I said:

"Hello, my name is Mr. Rogers (I got that from that kids TV show that my son and I watched together), and I'm with the Michigan Historical Society. We are working with the State and Federal Government taking a Special Bi-Centennial Census, and would like to ask you a few questions."

She said "ok", so I proceeded:

"What is your home address?". She answered.
"How many are living in the home?". She answered.
"What are their names?". She answered.
"What are their maiden names?". She answered.
"What are their ages?". She answered.
"What are their birthdates?". She answered.
"What is their birthplace?". She answered.

I then asked for parents names, aunts and uncles names, sisters, brothers, where they were from. She answered. What else could I do? I had to have this information, or I was doomed to just think about the treasure that got away?

I finally had what I needed to get closer to solving the puzzle of;

What?
Where?
When?
Who?
Why?

Epilogue

Well, after all that, I never did go in search of that treasure. Like so many, I was caught up in raising a family, a new career and life in general. Was it ever found? I really don't know. Did it really exist? I can't really say. They believed it was there, and they spent many years searching for it. I don't know if they ever found it, or not. Based on the information I got from them, I think there is enough to possibly put it together. Will I go look for it? At this time in my life, I won't. I have thought about it for over 30 years though. Like Karl von Mueller told me before his death, research is 90% of the project. I guess I can say that I was 90% there. I still have the notes on 3 by 5 cards, and the results of the "Special Census" on notebook paper that is showing signs of foxing around the edges. This is the first time I've told this story with this detail in over 30 years. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did in telling it.

The End