Old barns are great for treasure hunting, whether you find an old horseshoe or an urn filled with gold and gemstones.
In 1929, it was reported that a New York farmer found such an urn, complete with mysterious inscriptions.
Farmer Finds Buried Gold Coin in Barn
INTERLAKEN, N.Y. — For no particular reason Will Eastman, a farmer living near here, started digging in a corner of his barn recently.
Being of a practical turn of mind, it is reported, he wasn’t sure if everything was right with himself when he came upon an ancient urn containing a fortune in gold coins and precious gems. He took the gems to a jeweler, however, and remained reticent about the amount of gold he found, meanwhile attempting to discover whether he had a legal claim to the treasure.
In the urn were two cards bearing the inscriptions:
“The heart will with its treasure be faithful until death, 1838”
and
“William Smart, stone mason, New Road, Spalding. Lincolnshire — for Charlotte Bernard, Billington. Lincolnshire.”
No families of Smarts or Bernards are known in this section, so far as can be learned.
Source: Vashon Island news-record. (Vashon, Wash.), 30 May 1929.
