I just love reading stories about lost and found gold. The following was reported in 1919 and tells how a man, knowing he was about to be captured and executed, buried his gold. Roughly 20 years later, it was found by his son, along with a map to the mine.
Finds Treasure After 20 Years
SHINGLETOWN, Ca., Dec. 26, 1919. — Fred K. Dawes of this place has just been rewarded in a search for buried treasure that has lasted for more than 20 years.
More than two decades ago Fred K. Dawes, Sr., was captured and killed by Indians as he was coming from his placer mine in the Lost Creek district. The elder Dawes had with him the fruit of six months of toil. His companion, Jerome Fitzpatrick, escaped the Indians, but he was unable to bring any of the gold. Dawes, said Fitzpatrick, buried the gold when he saw that capture and death were inevitable.
Dawes, Jr., has been searching for his father’s cache ever since. The other day he found it. The gold was buried five feet from the stump of a pine.
More than $45,000 worth of gold dust was found in the cache. The buckskin bags and the tin cans used by the elder Dawes were rotted away and the gold was loose in the earth. Little was lost, however, as Dawes, Jr., “panned” the earth for many yards around.
Wrapped in oiled silk, and barely legible because of the many years it had lain in the earth, was found a map showing just where Dawes’ mine is located. Fitzpatrick died soon after reaching civilization and it was thought the secret of the rich placer mine died with him. The map, however, has cheated death.
Source: The Seattle star. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.), 26 Dec. 1919.
