For Pinkerton, the treasure of Hendricks Lake is its history and the people who have believed in the legend over the years. Blackbeard and the mysterious unsolved code of Olivier Levassuer, or The Buzzard, are mentioned. <>/Metadata 144 0 R/Outlines 97 0 R/Pages 141 0 R/StructTreeRoot 102 0 R/Type/Catalog/ViewerPreferences<>>> I always thought it was interesting that people had reason to believe there was pirate treasure 200 miles from the coast.. Connecting the legend to peoples minds now so it doesnt die out, I think is important, Pinkerton asserted. 0000003902 00000 n The film will center around local lore of a lost treasure of $2 million in silver ingots said to have been stolen by French pirate Jean Laffite and hidden by smugglers in Hendricks Lake, a. Extremely competent in market analysis and comparative sales, Angie has worked in many aspects of the real estate industry and uses this experience and foresight to be proactive and address all . Jensen Beach. Famous privateer who, according to legend, plundered the silver from the Spanish brig, Santa Rosa. A formal statement is due around noon in Moscow on Saturday when the first pictures of the gold will be revealed to the world's . The Irish Crown Jewels, stolen from Dublin Castle over a century ago, are still out there for treasure-seekers to find today. This warrants some underwater metal detectors to be taken e d u / e t h j)/Rect[230.8867 249.8227 390.0566 261.5414]/StructParent 5/Subtype/Link/Type/Annot>> The first episode premiered on Tuesday November 17 at 10PM EST on the History Channel. His book, True Believers: Treasure Hunters at Hendricks Lake, focused on the variety of people and their attempts to discover the fabled hidden silver and was released this past April. In the last chapter of the book, I really talk about where do we go from here now., Theres something inherent in us that wants to believe those legends, Pinkerton stated. Legends live on! However, all have failed in finding the supposed cache of silver, adding to speculation that the supposed treasure may be cursed. The legend has taken many twists over the years. Alternate versions of that story have been documented since the 1880s, with variations including that the silver was from Santa Anna and the battle of San Jacinto and that the treasure was in a different location nearby. But alas, nothing came of it. <>/Border[0 0 0]/Contents(www.easttexashistorical.org)/Rect[308.5376 282.2367 447.0903 295.1273]/StructParent 4/Subtype/Link/Type/Annot>> In June of 2020, the treasure was finally found by a man who chose not to be named (perhaps understandably, as he was suddenly $5 million richer!). When they returned after the war, Singer could no longer find Money Hill because the sands had shifted and erased all the landmarks that he once knew. H-E-Bs True Texas BBQ Restaurant Is Slipping, West Texans Are Learning What It Means to Live in Bear Country. including dialogue . <>stream Mary Roger also tells us about how some fishermen much later got an unusual catch in their hoop net when fishing in the Sabine River; entangled in their net were several silver bars. The popularity of treasure hunting during this time period was profiled in numerous pulp magazines and news features, and the business of supplying treasure hunters was page one news in the Wall Street Journal. 0000044783 00000 n He believes that stories like this reveal something about the people who tell them. The tale basically states Galveston-based pirate Jean Laffite, in the year 1816, plundered a Spanish ship named the Santa Rosa. The people who have looked for Hendricks Lake treasure since the 50s have spent a lot of money and hired a researcher in Spain to see if the Santa Rosa actually existed, all kinds of things, Pinkerton said. They lowered another contraption through the pipe to the lake floor. 0000000016 00000 n He built a new kind of sewing machine, and in 1851 he started I.M. Since that time, many parties and individuals have endeavored to find the Lost Treasure of Hendricks Lake, with searches as early as 1884 and as recently as the 1970s. swieser@panolawatchman.com, Stolen treasure, hidden mystery: Tatum-area lake lore focus of movie project. He was reading a book about lost treasure that inspired him to do some digging online, where he found supposed evidence that a ship was lurking underneath the water. None of (the rest) lines up, but 1860s, 1870s, there was enough yada yada to create some story.. I determined that there were maybe five that might have contained some sort of treasure. Host Mattie Blake and local movie maker Christian B. Roper (see Sunken Silver) led a team conducting underwater searching. s f a s u . It featured Pirate Treasures. There are two legends in particular that seem to have found purchase in the minds of East Texas treasure hunters. The legends a legend, but the people that believed it and the effort they went through to actually find it despite obvious questions about the details, Pinkerton stated. Just about every book written about Texas in that era mentioned it. He was now legally authorized by Great Colombia to take Spanish ships. For information on, or to order Trammels Trace, visit www.trammelstrace.com. (Courtesy of Andy Swanger) As far as more. they might find something, a storm rolls in. He is portrayed by Armando Riesco. Jean Lafitte's treasure Photo of Hendricks Lake, courtesy of Gary L. Pinkerton Its no surprise that East Texas has local tales of buried treasure. endobj According to a story by Mary Roger of the Fort Worth Star Telegram, the silver was indeed robbed from a galleon by Laffite and his mean in the early 19th century. The Lagina Brothers, famous for their search for the lost treasure on Oak Island and featured in the show The Curse of Oak Island, now hosts a new show called, Beyond Oak Island. Born to an American mother and English father in Knoxville, Tennessee, Hendricks was raised in Portland, Oregon, and Twin Falls, Idaho, where she became active in local theater. ingots were in transport, but the Spanish had set a trap. Patricia Sharpe writes a regular restaurant column, Pats Pick, for Texas Monthly. The lake is located in the extreme northeastern part of the county along the boundary between Rusk and Panola. And then he became postmaster two years later, so apparently nothing came of that. Roper is the director of a four-part documentary series about the Hendricks Lake legend titled Sunken Silver. The documentary follows Ropers personal journey with the story, starting when he first heard it at 7-years-old and chronicling his dives and searches at Hendricks Lake. He sent soldiers to look for it, but they found nothing. Omoa was the site of the largest Spanish fort in Central America, a fort constructed to safeguard the Spanish silver shipments from the mines of Tegucigalpa in Honduras. Houston historian Gary Pinkerton, a Longview native, is fascinated by those treasure hunters and their searches. <>/Border[0 0 0]/Contents(Tell us)/Rect[72.0 211.9047 103.6572 224.7953]/StructParent 7/Subtype/Link/Type/Annot>> That historic trail passed just to the east of the lake, with the trail making up two-thirds of the boundary between Rusk and Panola counties. Its just a great story and what intrigued me was the people engaged in that all over those 100 years.. wagons to be pushed down an embankment and into a lake. Hendricks Lake near Tatum is now off limits to the public because it is on land owned by a mining company. They both were at the lake during the treasure hunts of 1957 and 1958. 4. The Lost Treasure of Hendricks Lake The infamous pirate of the Gulf Jean Lafitte took a $2 million fortune in silver from a Spanish galleon and supposedly buried it in the Sabine River near the East Texas town of Sabine. <>/MediaBox[0 0 612 792]/Parent 142 0 R/Resources<>/Font<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageC]/XObject<>>>/Rotate 0/StructParents 0/Tabs/S/Type/Page>> Thats the one thing we all agree on about Sunken Silver, is that legend is a very powerful thing.. Barnie Waldrop of carthage was one of the more persistent treasure hunters. <>/Border[0 0 0]/Contents(cdsscholarworks@sfasu.edu)/Rect[183.5112 72.3516 299.2412 82.8984]/StructParent 10/Subtype/Link/Type/Annot>> The men, in fear of Spanish retaliation, are said to have hidden the wagons in a nearby body of water. Aug. 6, 2015 9:51 AM PT. Having grown up hearing these stories about buried treasure and now searching for it himself, hes becoming a part of history. His website is www.trammelstrace.com. My interest in the treasure legend turned into an article for the East Texas Historical Journal and the seeds for this book. Hendrick's Lake treasure is focus of Houston historian's upcoming book, By Stella Wieser xVy~}F0N13`&p"I9:tZ"-"}]{~~x/ c HfE4sowa-n_?B. Winds light and variable. A Book by Gary L. Pinkerton, author of "Trammel's Trace", Ive seen fifty of em beaten by the lakes bog bottom, from oil explorers and water witchers to plain nuts. . Many treasure hunters are convinced the money continues to lie beneath the mud of Little Cypress Creek in Upshur County. Jos R. Ralat is Texas Monthlys taco editor, writing about tacos and Mexican food. brought up to the surface. For Roper, stories like these are more than a curiosity. Peter Walker Adams lived in one of the houses on the hill near the lake and figured prominently in many of the newspaper stories. There was one spot that we initially found, I think it was June of 2020, which gave us a sonar reading that was pretty much an exact match to a wooden wagon that had submerged with some sort of weight, Roper said. endobj Now, more modern equipment was available, and one man used a metal detector and managed to get some interesting readings from the bottom of the lake. In 1965, led a team of Iowans in some aborted, but ambitious, attempts at the treasure. there were treasure legends, and the most common story is that Lafitte stranded a ship, a Spanish ship with gold, in Matagorda Bay in Corpus and was taking it to St. Louis on some wagon trains over roads that dont exist in 1816. Hendricks Lake Legend has it that Basss part of the money is in Cove Hollow, about thirty miles from Denton. A pharmacist. One particularly famous legend is that of Jean Lafittes treasure. After getting some readings at the bottom of the lake (Hendricks Lake), two Dallas oilmen actually brought in a giant crane and attached a drag bucket to the cable. The Lost San Saba Silver Mine This lost mine, with its rich vein of silver, has been what one treasure hunter writer has called the Holy Grail of Texas treasure seekers. In 1756 a Mexican official traveling through Texas learned from Indians of an exposed strain of pure silver that ran through a certain hill in Central Texas. The dumping of the silver in the lake was a temporary thing until danger passed, then was recovered, after all he had divers at his disposal. According to the legend, the Cherokee were fleeing north after the Battle of Neches when Roper said their path crossed Little Cypress Creek on the property of a man named OHendrick. Hendricks Lake was By the time the summer of 1958 had ended, Waldrop, buzzing again and the moss-laden oaks echoed the sound of the SoRelles, and all of the other treasure hunters spurred on heavy equipment and trucks pulling in for another attempt. The Fenn Treasure was a cache of gold and jewels that Forrest Fenn, an art dealer and author from Santa Fe, New Mexico, hid in the Rocky Mountains of the United States. After sitting undisturbed for more than 10 years, a treasure chest holding gold nuggets and precious gems has been found in the Rocky Mountains. Over the years, Hendrick's Lake near Tatum has been a place where many people have visited in search of a legendary treasure that was supposedly left at the site by Pirate Jean LaFitte. Hendricks Lake is an oxbow lake one and one-half miles south of the Sabine River and about four miles northeast of Tatum in Rusk County, Texas (32.371864N, 94.493190W). Laffite spent the rest of his life attacking merchant ships around Central American ports; sometimes as a pirate and sometimes as a privateer. The first documented treasure recovery attempt in 1894 was based on the belief that Santa Anna had dumped gold, silver, and jewels, By 1935, a full-page syndicated article fleshed out more details. 3 talking about this. <<83DDF97377B4B2110A0000A4D0C2FC7F>]/Prev 639425>> Societies are kind of defined by what they put their belief in and what they really want to be true. Some said it was Santa Annas gold sent north from San Jacinto, and others say it was not even in Hendricks Lake, but in Martin Creek. Gary Pinkerton, True Believers: Treasure Hunters at Hendricks Lake, East Texas Historical Journal 47 (2009). Any "COB" finds in Texas I was just wondering if any member in Texas has found any cobs, reales, etc. Laffite approached them and was granted a commission and given command over a 43-ton schooner named General Santander. Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) Spanish soldiers in pursuit overtook the transport at Hendricks Lake and rather than give up the silver, the transport leader cut six wagonloads of silver loose and pushed them into Hendricks Lake. Seagoville pharmacist who was the diver that planted dynamite on the bottom of Hendricks Lake. Royal discovery made after 99-year-old code is broken by Siberian mathematics genius. TV repairman in Carthage who kept up his efforts for years and was the local expert. Hendericks was a member of the Cras Est Nostrum and became Salazar at some point in the past. In the early 1800s, Stephen F. Austin, on his first trip to Texas, also heard about a rich silver mine on the San Saba River and a gold mine on the Llano. Houston historian Gary Pinkerton, a Longview native, is fascinated by those treasure hunters and their searches. Things Found in the San Antonio River: Periodic draining of sections of the river have revealed skateboards, Mardi Gras beads, old bottles and a cell phone. His body was buried at sea in the Gulf of Honduras. This is the place where six wagon loads of silver stolen by Jean Lafitte from a ship called the Santa Rosa were supposedly dumped, according to HendricksLake.com, a website run by author and independent researcher, Gary L. Pinkerton. Gary is currently working on a history of Spanish East Texas focused between 1770 and 1813. His website is titled True Believers: Treasure Hunters at Hendricks Lake but he is not a true believer himself. The other big buried treasure legend from East Texas is the story of Little Cypress Creek. 0000002763 00000 n For more information on Sunken Silver, visit www.sunkensilver.com. . View Tracy Y Hendricks results in Arlington Heights, IL including current phone number, address, relatives, background check report, and property record with Whitepages. 5. By 1810, their successful smuggling operation had been supplemented with piracy. When the Embargo Act of 1807 came into force, the Laffite brothers moved their business from New Orleans to an island in Barataria Bay, Louisiana. A TV repairman. Cush Reeves. Joe spent many hours growing up around Milzie Williamson and later used his Fisher M-Scope metal detector to search those mysterious holes. Trammel's Trace-The First Road to Texas from the North is a 2016 book by Gary L. Pinkerton. By 1829, the mythical lost silver mine of San Saba began appearing on Austins maps of Texas. My favorite part of the legend is that the Guadalupe Mission in El Paso was built in way so that the shadows of the mission point to the Lost Padre Mine. Although it hasnt yet been decided if the film will first be released at festivals and then to the public, Sunken Silver will eventually be available through online streaming. Id met his daughter, who when she was 12, they let her push the plunger on the dynamite to blow up the bottom of the lake.. Over the years, Hendricks Lake near Tatum has been a place where many people have visited in search of a legendary treasure that was supposedly left at the site by Pirate Jean LaFitte. When researching Trammels Trace for my last book, I encountered the treasure legend of Hendricks Lake. It was packed with tons of gold and silver. The divers do feel some round objects, and a piece is In 1884 treasure hunters were all over the Sabine and a nearby lake that had been fed by the Sabine. Some of the (alleged) lost treasures in Pennsylvania worth researching are ones like: $30,000 worth of gold coins said to be King George ll's Lost Plunder. It says so much about East Texas folklore. LAKE ISABELLA, Calif . <> For more information about this incredible project and to see a short film trailer, go to their website at www.sunkensilver.com. According to reports, the total bounty would be worth more than $1.36 million today. There are still treasure hunters to this day who believe the Lafitte fortune would be found if the lake was drained. 161 0 obj No matter what, I come to believe throughout professional research or diving, I will always associate it with Jean Lafitte, with treasure, with piracy because its meant so much to the community, Roper said. 0000043284 00000 n Not all listings found on this site are necessarily listed through Best of Luxury Realty, Corp. Houston oilmen who conducted the largest search ever attempted in 1957-1958. The film will explore the history of various parts of the tale, how they came to be woven in to a single fable and will reveal what was discovered during the months of research put into the project, including a new theory and information indicating the account of lost silver in an East Texas lake is actually a combination of stories. Building on that production they are airing a new 8-episode series titled "Beyond Oak Island" premiering Tuesday, November 17 at 9:00 pm central. endobj He had heard about the Trace from his dad as a portion of it runs through family land. 159 0 obj The man who found a hidden treasure chest said to be worth about $2 million last summer in the Rocky Mountains one that had tantalized fortune seekers for a decade, led to at least two deaths. To him it is the Chase and the history. Maybe they can help them in their search from the insights learned from their own pursuit of the Money Pit. In the final battle of the War of 1812, Lafitte and his comrades helped General Andrew Jackson defend New Orleans against the British. Just let me know if you find anything so I can break the story first. In attempting to honor what he perceives to be Fenn's wishes . Markers are dropped, and divers are sent down. endobj The show starts with the Lagina brothers, Rick and Marty, sharing how their search on Oak Island opened them up to a world full of mysteries and lost treasures to explore. Just another myth? In 1909 members of the United States Geological Survey visited the site, which they described as being unproductive. Is there anything better than the tale of someone discovering a hidden clue, figuring out an obscure reference, finding the final piece of the puzzle, and then discovering a fantastic stash of gold or silver? . 0000001390 00000 n endobj Lr !_) This same engineer, only two years earlier, had led the team who located the Tecumseh, a Union metalclad ship sunk during the battle of Mobile Bay in August 1864. 1``b`5 Y0$ Au`j`H@ Pinkerton himself doesnt personally believe there was any silver brought through East Texas during the time in which the legend takes place because the roads were little more than Indian trails. Exclusive opportunity to purchase 1843 S. Federal Hwy, Andy's Live Fire Grill & Bar. Essentially, somehow treasure came up in conversation and I had asked him if hed ever heard about the story of pirate treasure being lost in East Texas and we started slowly looking into it. Contacts. The box was hidden by millionaire art dealer. But theres just been this very persistent legend, and so in the late 50s, mid 60s, there were two really big efforts (to locate the treasure), tons of articles in the Watchman about these two different groups searching for it, dredging.. Fort Pierce. As they retreated, they headed into what is now known as Upshur County. Xi-vrcjVJO%X *hve~os)&pZl0nuUH;M%\,iB!N7;B`h Y2?SXx#l};(5-Sj\Ji6Y|f>>`}j8 C=H: =.p0=*y pGOF30.#yZeY92Hq{IjFhaftP[Ch[&P"(D3CSP+ )Q- $NNBeX"Ld_kUB'`Y%e8re%R 0aHd$0=~^nbY:pK/DQxE8"Sh5Y=9'wXJ9'.m*?%YTAcM>W*N7852@ZyV|>}c(&fZXBtzq]uF4A1*i If you change your mind, you can easily unsubscribe. Its hard to find any newspaper before that, but thats the first and oldest mention that I found of it, he said. The stolen loot was smuggled north some years later but ended up in Lake. So nothing lines up; its just factually, there was no road that would carry wagons at that time. Leave them blank to get signed up. Secret stash of tsar's gold worth billions found in old rail tunnel near Lake Baikal. THE LEGEND A brig named Santa Rosa plundered in Matagorda Bay in 1816. He is the primary antagonist of season one of National Treasure: Edge of History. The idea of finding a lost treasure has universal appeal. To the north of Tatum, in the middle of the forest, lies Lake Hendrix. On 4 February 1823, Laffite was onboard the General Santander off the town of Omoa in Honduras. Handbook of Texas Online, That was the story.. A nearby lake fed by the Sabine River also caught their attention, since the silver might have been transported there by the current. Even though some, including Waldrop and Stotlar, had looked into draining the lake, there were no other attempts at that folly. Singer & Co., which was renamed the Singer Manufacturing Company in 1865. On an 1863 map of the area, it was named Flanagan Lake but since the 1880s has been known by its present name. In the early 1820s, Great Colombia under the government of Simon Bolivar had begun commissioning former privateers as officers in their newly formed navy. While Pinkerton believes the lake area should be a park, the reality is Hendricks Lake is no longer accessible by the public as the land surrounding it belongs to private land owners or is being leased by mining companies. Well, according to a story by Mary Rogers of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, there is evidence that in the early 1800s the theft did happen and that Jean Lafittes men, afraid that they were about to be ambushed, pushed several wagons loaded with silver ingots into the muddy waters. They also had a raft built from which large pipes were sunk into the lake bottom, and used a metal detector to search the sediment. But did it even exist? . Kuna, ID hosted by Treasure Valley Disc Golf. <>/Border[0 0 0]/Contents()/Rect[493.2393 594.2333 540.0 607.124]/StructParent 3/Subtype/Link/Type/Annot>> Two years later, its researchers went on a mapping expedition with the . But all the treasure hunters declared that I must be hiding the truth. One thing is certain though, East Texans will continue to be fascinated by stories like these. Not one of them found any of the reported treasure, but that never prevented the next person from trying. During her time at the Watchman, she enjoyed writing features about businesses and local events. Now, two years later, in his book, "True Believers: Treasure Hunters at Hendricks Lake," he has given new life to a legend about hidden silver that developed alongside Trammel's Trace. The Lagina Brothers, famous for their search for the lost treasure on Oak Island and featured in the show The Curse of Oak Island, now hosts a new show called, Beyond Oak Island. A.C. SoRelle, Jr., and his brother, Henry, were oilmen who brought detection equipment, draglines, and other heavy machinery to dig into the gumbo mud on the bottom of the lake. The oilmen then built a raft with a hole in the center and sank large pipes into the goop on the lake bottom.