' ' ' - / * 24 _ * / Herald & Lantern 4 July '84

Many Still Lie Below With Strongrooms Rotted

O B> SAM KI M EVK II A h,o y mates, so a treasure .hunter be you noW Well. lads, heave to and lend an ear to. my words. Aye teds, sunken and buried treasure lie about, on the ocean floor and some ashore Many in distant places and others hard by. Aye. the waters and shores of the South Jersey Cape hold a fair share. In - rotting hulks and wooden chests, wrecks that were tnce proud ships. Merchant galleons, frigates, meiy* o' war and modern cargo ships. Sunken ships and buried chests, bearing dubloons, pieces of eight, jewels and silver plate. Some ships were Slink by their own crews, scuttled to keep their treasure from falling into pirates, or enemy hands. Some were sunk by gunfire in a running battle at sea. And some were torn apart by a raging sea. or by uncharted reefs in unknown waters. MANY WENT down at the mercy of the seas and great storms driving mountainous waves across the decks, pown through the wild green waters they plunged, coming to rest at the bottom of the sea. Some lie in only a few fathoms, and some settled far below, where the darkness is eternal and strange sea mon^tws.lurk. Many still lie belowfrwith strongrooms rotted and broken by the sea Here treasure chests lie yet untouched. Ahwik our shores lie wealth/) buried in places long forgotten, and guarded only by the spirit of those fvho turned the last shovel of sand. So hoist anchor, mates.

we set sail, not for the Straits of Madagascar or the islands of the Carribean, but the waters and shores of the Jersey Cape. IT IS JUNE 10. 1798. The sloop of War De Braak. under the command of James Drew of His Majesty's Navy, with her crew of 86 men. sailed, by Cape May Point, heading for Cape. Henlopen. With her sails reefed she hove to. as a small boat came - alongside to take Captain Drew ashore at Lewes, Delaware. Suddenly, a squall caught the sloop and drove her into the shoals south of Cape May Point. Her bottom ripped open, she now drifted toward the Bay channel, capsized, and quickly sank. The captain and 38 of his crew went down with her. In her hold she carried a cargo of 70 tons of copper. pJus an estimated $10 million in gold and silver taken from Spanish treasure ships. Also aboard were 400 thousand dollars in British gold. DURING THE past years at least five costlysalvage expeditions have tried to recover the sunken treasure, one of which was financed by Franklin D. Roosevelt. The latest trywas in 1980. All have failed. And so it lies a hundred yards off shore of Lewes. Del., in 80 feet of murky waters. In August of 1782. the U.S. frigate Wasp of 36 guns met and engaged the 48-gun British man o' war. HMS Tenflqr. A three-hour running gumbattle finallysent the Tender to the bot torn of the- bay. She lies about a mile off Sunset Beach, with a British

payroll V 20 thousand pounds. \ But there are other ship of later times, some carry ing precious cargo. Th< cargo freighter, The CitOf Athens, went down ii heavy seas, her hul damaged by a shiftet cargo. She went down li miles due east of Cape Ma} Point. Her added cargo q three million dollars ii silver bullion was' nevei recovered, v THEN THERE is th< tanker Gulftrade, with i million dollars in industria diamonds, which lies jus> 20 miles off the £oast oi Atlantic City. In a purser'* safe, the diamonds lie there still. « When speaking of sunker ships, one cannot omit the maritime oddity of the con crete ship Atlantus. She was a 3,000-ton steamship built of concrete by Liberty Shipbuilding of Witni ington, N.C., as an ex perimental idea to save steel. The Atlantus was completed and delivered tc the U.S. Government in November 1919. She served only one year as a privately operated steamer and coal carrier. In September, 1920, she was sold for scrap, and her bare hull lay idle until 1926. This was when a ferry service was to be esta lushed between Cape May and Lewes. The Atlantus was to be towed to Cape May to be sunk and serve as a docking area. AT THIS TIME she broke her mooring during a storm, and drifting north, ran aground and broke apart. Now she lies a fewyards off shore, south of tne canal at Sunset Beach, an object of curiosity to visitors and beachcombers searching the sand for

choice CapJe May Diamonds. / And now lads, we make for shore. as there are other treajdrers that lie here, l^ft behind by Blackbeard and Capt Kidd. Aye lads, they lie here awaiting the finder, whoever it may be Captain Kidd. it seems, chose' the Delaware Bay as one of his many hiding places for his treasure. One of these places has become a target for hunters of treasure, IT SO HAPPENS -a map and instructions from one of Capt. Kidd's crew found its way into the hands of Jonathan Hand, one of the early menjbers of the well known Hand family of South Jersey. The paper was hidden away for many .years and nearly forgotten until in the early 1970s. Morgan Hand, a retired engineer, brought >tnr* paper to light With /ome friends he began \he search The goal was 14.000 British Pounds in gold arud 13.000 in silver — total worth, more than three million To this day it has not been found, or at least no one has made claim to it As the instructions say: "Find the 3rd creek north of New England Point i the original name of 'Cape May) go six regies upstream, to starboard, and 14 perches startioard from the creek to a cedar hammock, there find 27 boat spikes drove in a tree. Here you will find 27.000 pounds, 14,000 in gold in a silver tankard, and the remainder in silver wrapped in canvas! THOSE WHO decide to take up the search will find themselves in Del Haven, or on Fulling Mill Road, or maybe on someone's property south of Bayside Village, depending on the map they go by. Aye lads, the key lies in the oldest possible map. Across the bay to Blackbird Creek, on the. Delaware side, again the Hand family is in the picture with another treasure.

• This time it's Blackbear^T in the year 1718 as hej&jyif sued southward to the bay ? by a British man o' war. ? It is near nightfall, and the buccaneer turns into Blackbird Creek to jescape ? the British. As darkness falls the British lede sight of Blackbeard. andfgive up the search. J i SLOWLY Blajckbeard's ; ship moves ups/ream and ? runs aground^t is Isreal ? Hand, the ship s navigator. F who suggests that they should bury their Iqot here, > just in case they Jre cap- ■ tured And so a Vnajor fort I of his treaAire was buried f ashore in a marshy hammock Again the hammock I is chosen as a landmark. To those who don't know, the hammock or hummock i is a sharp rise in ground with a sharp drop on the I other side ft seems ^Blackbeard nevfcr returned - to claim his treasure. because Edward Teach. ' alias Blackbeard. died later that year in battle with the British on the Virginia coast As for Isreal Hand, he never tried to recover the loot Blackbeard's ghost he said, would be standing guard over it Hand later sold copies of a map and instructions. to raise money.,... to return to England, that treasure lies today on the property of former Senator James F. David IN 1716, Blackbeard. Capt. Kidd. and others of the pirate trade paid a visit to the sparsely populated area today known as Higbee Beach. Quipkiy' scanning the deserted and •tOtwly beach and *fie dense woodland, Blickbeard close his site. V. Wftre lads." follows Blackbeard, "below this, tree we shall bury our \ treasures tfr-claim another / day" ' / Two. chests were brought ( ashore as the men dug th^;-» sandy soil. They were laid' one atop the other and a ballast stone was placed over them to mark the site,/ below. 'j NOW BLACKBBATfb

bellows out, "Now lads, which of you will guard our treasure?" These were words the I men did not want to hear. , for it meant that one of them will be buried with the chests, his spirit_lo guard the treasure. / One of the men suggests a captive aboard ship, but Blackbeard would have none of that, and promptly Kut a buttet through his ead. And so the story goes, his ghost has been seen roaming the sandy beach, keeping a wary eye for seekers of the wealth he guards THERE ARE many other ghosts who wander in the night, in many places of the Jersey Cape. But that will be a yarn for some other time if }(ou will gather around to Hear So there it be. mates, the wonderful world of treasure. It can be fun. it will be hard work. It can reap a fortune beyond your dreams. How true lads, are the words of writer Joseph Conrad : "There is something about a treasure that, fastens upon a man's mind. He will pray and blaspheme, and still persevere and will curse the day he heard of it. And v will let his last hour come upon him unawares, still believing he missed it by only inches. He will see it every time he closes his eyes, and never forget it till he is dead. And even then he will pass it on to others that they may follow in his footsteps. TherCjis no way of getting away\ from a treasure, once it\fastens upon your mind." J All information ^given is found in theyfollowing MfiSt/B LOOMS. ^ y Oriscol, Pennant Pub. 1954. \ fNKEN TREASURE. Rieseberg, S. Gabriel. 4955: TREASURE. R.FrMarx, \ Arfgosy Mag. Pub. 1968. [ SUNKEN TREASURE. J F.L. Coffman. See Mag. J Pub. 1958. National Coast & Geodetic Survey, 1980.

SPANISH ft REALES ... OR *Pl£CE OF 6" SPANISH GOLD DUftLOON ^

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