Buried Gold

For me, the Adventure is the reward - so even if we don't get to keep the Millions, we'll get to keep the story.

If you can get access to ER Snowe's papers at BU, we should be specifically looking for information on these subjects:

• Book Title : Fantastic Folklore and Fact - New England Tales of Land and Sea

• Copyright : 1968

• Publisher : Dodd, Mead & Company New York

• Story : Is It Lost Forever?

• Years of Interest (in notes) : 1793, 1851, 1852,1866,1876, 1957, 1960, November 1967

• Names of Interest (in notes) : Henry Haggman, Joseph R. Shields, Mrs. Henry Whitcomb

• Places of Interest (in notes) : Isle au Haut, Penobscot Bay, Rockland Maine, Newport, Boston, West Street Boston, Worcester, Springfield, Lee, Spindle Hill, Mattaquatic Hill, Vaughn Hill, Highway 117, Route 85, Bolton MA

He has in the published books some drawings that are said to be from Henry Haggman's personal notes - if he had all of these notes, we could continue the search that way.

I'm also trying to find an excuse to drive that way - maybe a visit to Auntie Carrie and team (once everyone is healthy).

On Wed, Oct 12, 2022 at 8:35 PM Caleb Joseph wrote:

I’ve been looking into the legality of buried treasure and poking into the historical resources I’ve got at my disposal and while treasure law is horribly underdeveloped, I have in fact found that the BU archives do have a collection donated by one Edward Rowe Snow dated 1902-1982. It’s archive Accession #1352 for the record. I’ll be looking into it some more and reaching out to the archive to find out what I’d need to do to be allowed access to the materials of the collection, or if it’s at all possible to get someone to look through the contents and let me know whether it’s all research notes or just personal papers.

Regarding treasure law, so far as I’ve been able to figure out Massachusetts has no treasure statute and follows the traditional rule of find in that, if you find it, it’s yours. There is a federal statute stating that treasure or abandoned property on federal property is federal property, but as the highway in question is state-owned it’s not federal land so that’s a non-issue. This doesn’t mean you can just go digging under a highway mind you, if you found anything before getting caught you’d be seen as a wrongful actor and the courts would probably bend over backwards to take the gold from you. Technically a wrongful actor does still have a lawful claim to property obtained wrongfully (stealing from a thief is still stealing for example), but it’s not worth the fight considering the subject at hand.

From: Chris Joseph
Sent: Sunday, October 2, 2022 2:50 PM
Subject: Re: Treasure Hunt

There's an antique store called lighthouse antiques in Worcester that two years ago claimed to have original copies manuscripts of the book fantastic folklore and fact they were donated by the daughter as a fundraiser for her charity organization.

I've reached out to them in hopes that they might have something useful or can put us in touch with the daughter.

On Sun, Oct 2, 2022 at 10:58 AM Chris Joseph wrote:

As suspected neither the email or the phone number for the existing living relative dolly bicknell snow are in working order.

Caleb let me know how the treasure laws go.

because the state took the property over in 1963, I can't find any property cards on it from before that time, so I can't find the boundaries online. the Bolton historical society probably has maps there with clear markings and maybe even a way to guess where the barn would have been located. 

I've looked a little into metal detectors and what it would take to find this cash and it looks like the piece of equipment we need is like $30,000 new maybe we can rent it for the day or maybe I'm just getting ahead of myself.

A relatively free next step would be to make a trip out there and just look at the property to see if there's any hope of seeing anything there. We can easily park at the cemetery.

I don't know if the highway department has a library or history department that would keep track of property that they had to move to build 495.

I did read that for the well to have been there when the guy put the money in it in the 1850s it would've been a hand dug well so that limits its size to approximately 30 feet it also makes it a bigger footprint to look for.

If the world was filled in as part of the project it would've been filled in with Bentonite cement and if that's the case I think I'll hope it's lost, As we'd have to dig up thousands of pounds of rock and then break it apart.

On Fri, Sep 30, 2022 at 3:40 PM Caleb Joseph wrote:

So I didn’t check my email in a few days and all of a sudden you’re elbow deep into one hell of a treasure hunt. I’m a bit busy but I’ll see what I can do.

Firstly, I’m going to double check Massachusetts treasure laws (yes treasure is a legal classification), normally it’d be an honest finder gets it but things get screwy once you need to get a shovel involved.
Secondly, I’ll see if I still have access to the BU archive lists. If so, and the fella who wrote that book was a BU alumn, there’s a chance he donated his old notes and reference materials to the archive.
Thirdly, unless you do so first I’ll check to see if Bolton has its own library or some kinda historical society. If such exists they could be hanging onto old maps of the area we could reference.

As you’re Mr. Zoning Board I’ll ask outright, do you know of any town or state repository that would keep track of property which needed to be demolished in order to construct the on ramp in question? If the well wound up underneath they would’ve needed to fill it in or it’d be one hell of a integrity risk.

Also do you know the name of the property in question? Such could be used to check property records and possibly find a blueprint or some such.

Love ya pops


On Sep 30, 2022, at 2:03 PM, Chris Joseph wrote:

Ok, so to recap -
There might be $20M in gold coins in a well near or underneath the 117 onramp to I495N in the town of Bolton MA.
The story of how it got there comes from a book by Edward Rowe Snow, written in 1968.
While the gold itself may be a fabrication, I've been able to verify many of the facts in the story.

The nearest location we can pinpoint so far is the property where the house was removed - and we don't have the boundaries for that yet.
Here is a too-big range to be looking for gold: 245,000 sq ft.

If we can find the old property card, then we can narrow it down.  I'll look there next.
I'm also looking into the life history of the author of the book - Snow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Rowe_Snow.  

CALEB - He went to BU!

He has a living daughter in  Marshfield, MA 02050
Her email address.
Her phone number looks to be...
I don't want to call and bother a 71 year old lady though.

I sent her an email but that address looks shit.
-C

On Thu, Sep 29, 2022 at 2:53 PM Chris Joseph wrote:
From Milford to Bolton, I495 passes just west of Route 85 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Route_85>.

$50k in 1852 today would be worth between $10M and $20M or more.

I think I've found the name of the house where the well was located:
https://www.townofbolton.com/discover-bolton/pages/late-modern-period-1945-present
The biggest change in transportation routes, however, came in 1964, with the building of Interstate Route 495 north-south through the town just east of the center. Its construction involved the destruction of a few historic houses and the moving of others (cf. the early-eighteenth-century Kimmens/Whitcomb House, now at 48 Hudson Road (#153).
---This is referenced in the book - The editor of the History of Bolton says the farm house was originally built in 1793 and was moved to the spot where the guy who hid the treasure found it.

I can't seem to find anything about this house or its original location, but after a search on the name I found that there is an author with the same name who wrote a book on the history of bolton MA, and it is available online entirely here:
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b542209&view=1up&seq=7

Here is a reference to the Kimmens House:

Here is the image of the current house at 48 Hudson Rd - Does it match the description?

It appears to be a Bed and Breakfast now - https://westpondinn.business.site/#summary<https://westpondinn.business.site/#summary>

The author says "Where the house stood was now the junction of a highway"
so maybe our map can be limited to:


I called the bed and breakfast and asked them if the house that was moved for the highway was their house...she said yes.
I asked if she knew the exact location it was moved from and she said "at the ON RAMP on 117 heading N for I495".
Here is our hunting grounds:
https://www.google.com/maps/dir//Bolton,+Massachusetts/@42.430738,-71.590641,176m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m9!4m8!1m0!1m5!1m1!1s0x89e3f29b1c548bf7:0xb16b4e9c336e8834!2m2!1d-71.6078449!2d42.4334258!3e0

How do you find buried gold without digging?
Ground penetrating radar?

We are about to become millionaires.

On Thu, Sep 29, 2022 at 1:27 PM Chris Joseph wrote:
I read "Fantastic Folklore and Fact" book on the plane by Edward Rowe Snow.  It was written in 1963.
The story of interest is called "Is it Lost Forever?" about $50,000 in 1852 gold pieces still buried in a well in BOLTON MA.

I started to google and found this interesting thread -
https://www.treasurenet.com/threads/bolton-ma-farm-cache.15508/

I'll start to pull together the facts from the book.

What do we do next?

We need a MAP from 1960, when the farmhouse where this is buried was torn down for 495 to get built.

Let's hunt some treasures!!!