Oak Island mystery
[3] Very little verified information is known about early treasure-related activities on Oak Island; thus, the following accounts are word of mouth stories reportedly going back to the late eighteenth century.
The original story by early settlers (first recorded in print in 1863) involves a dying sailor from the crew of Captain Kidd (d. 1701), in which he states that treasure worth £2 million had been buried on the island.
With the assistance of two men identified only as John Smith and Anthony Vaughn, he excavated the depression and discovered a layer of flagstones two feet (61 cm) below.
[4][9][10] In about 1802, a group known as the Onslow Company allegedly sailed from central Nova Scotia to Oak Island to recover what they believed to be hidden treasure.
[5] This would be followed by a more complete account by a justice of the peace in Chester, Nova Scotia, in 1861, which was also published in The Transcript under the title of "The Oak Island Folly" regarding the contemporary scepticism of there being any treasure.
[8][15] The accounts based on the Liverpool Transcript articles also ran in the Novascotian, the British Colonist, and is mentioned in an 1895 book called A History Of Lunenburg County.
[19] The Oak Island Association also did some work at Smith's Cove by drilling a few shafts in an attempt to shut off and seal the alleged flood tunnels.
When a plan to shut off the alleged flood tunnels from Smith's Cove didn't work, the company decided to shift focus to the original main shaft.
[26] Captain Henry L. Bowdoin arrived on Oak Island in August 1909 representing the Old Gold Salvage group, one of whose members was Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Gilbert Hedden, an operator of a steel fabricating company, saw the 1928 article and was fascinated by the engineering problems involved in recovering the reported treasure.
In January 1967, Daniel C. Blankenship, David Tobias, Robert Dunfield, and Fred Nolan formed a syndicate for exploration on Oak Island.
According to Blankenship and Tobias, cameras lowered down the shaft into a cave recorded possible chests, human remains, wooden cribbing and tools; however, the images were unclear and none of the claims have been independently confirmed.
[32] In June 1996, Robert S. Young of Upper Tantallon, Nova Scotia, purchased 4 acres (1.6 ha) of the island known as Lot Five from Fred Nolan.
[33] It was announced in April 2006 that brothers Rick and Marty Lagina of Michigan had purchased 50 percent of Oak Island Tours from David Tobias for an undisclosed sum.
[35] The act, which became effective on January 1, 2011, allows treasure hunting to continue on the island under the terms of a licence issued by the Minister of Natural Resources.
According to an account written in 1862, after the Onslow Company had excavated to 80–90 feet (24–27 metres), the pit flooded with seawater up to the 33-foot (10 m) level; attempts to remove the water were unsuccessful.
After running dye tests in the bore hole, the institution concluded that the flooding was caused by a natural interaction between the island's freshwater lens and tidal pressures in the underlying geology (refuting the man-made tunnel hypothesis).
[39] Oak Island lies on a glacial tumulus system and is underlain by a series of water-filled anhydrite cavities which may be responsible for the repeated flooding of the pit.
[41] An undated post-1893 letter by William Blair read, "Jefferson W. McDonald, who first mentioned Oak Island to me in 1893, worked under George Mitchell.
Harry W. Marshall (born 1879), the son of an owner of the bookbindery, wrote in 1935 that: One researcher claimed that the cipher translated as "Forty feet below, two million pounds lie buried".
The symbols associated with the "Forty feet below" translation first appeared in 1949's True Tales of Buried Treasure by explorer and historian Edward Rowe Snow.
[53] Franklin D. Roosevelt, stirred by family stories originating from his sailing and trading grandfather (and Oak Island financier) Warren Delano Jr., began following the mystery in late 1909 and early 1910.
Its resemblance to a human-made pit has been suggested as partly due to the texture of natural, accumulated debris in sinkholes: "This filling would be softer than the surrounding ground, and give the impression that it had been dug up before".
"[65] Author Joy Steele suggests that the money pit is actually a tar kiln dating to the historical period when "Oak Island served as a tar-making location as part of the British naval stores industry".
"[68] Templars, Masons, or Incas seeking to squirrel their treasure away from European persecutors or Spanish conquistadors may have created the money pit, according to William S.
[70] Other possible explanations include the pit being dug by Spanish sailors to hold treasure from a wrecked galleon or by British troops stationed there during the American Revolution.
[73] Steven Sora speculated that the pit could have been dug by exiled Knights Templar and might be the final resting place of the Holy Grail or the Ark of the Covenant.
[76] Author and researcher Mark Finnan[72] elaborated on Leary's Oak Island hypothesis, which was also used in the Norwegian book Organisten (The Seven Steps to Mercy) by Erlend Loe and Petter Amundsen and the TV series Sweet Swan of Avon.
[77][78] Another hypothesis holds that the Rosicrucians and their reported leader, Francis Bacon, organized a secret project to make Oak Island the home of its legendary vault with ingenious means to conceal ancient manuscripts and artifacts.
[79][self-published source] Some unproven stories allege that Marie Antoinette's jewels, missing except for specimens in museum collections, may have been hidden on the island.
