The Jolicure Pit is another mystery originating in New Brunswick, Canada which bears a startling resemblance to the Oak Island Money Pit.

The story begins with a Jolicure blacksmith named Coats who one day noticed a cow struggling to escape a hole in a pasture. Truman, in his book Ghosts, Pirates and Treasure: The phantoms that haunt New Brunswick explains:

Rescuers found she had fallen through decayed timbers into a deep shaft with a series of platforms; one platform was inscribed with unintelligible markings like hieroglyphics, possibly directions of some kind. Below 100 feet in the shaft, water kept surging in, defeating the most strenuous efforts of the treasure seekers – even after they timbered the sides and used hydraulic pumps. No one knows to this day if there is money there – but tantalisingly, when a mineral auger bored its way down, traces of gold, silver and oak were found on the auger worm.

In Ghosts of Nova Scotia, Daryll Walsh elaborates:

As with the Money Pit, there were regular wooden platforms at ten foot intervals, except these were said to have mysterious markings which were destroyed by the farmer and his cohorts. Perhaps if they had taken the time to read or save the markings, they might have solved this puzzle. But like those at the Money Pit for the last two hundred years, they tried to find the treasure through brute strength alone. Well, nature and/or the original diggers had a surprise for them. Just after the thirty foot level, a great torrent of water rushed in and all attempts at bailing were unsuccessful. Though drilling and an auger produced evidence that there was gold and silver buried far below, no one has been able to get to it. Perhaps if they hadn’t destroyed the markings on the first platform, they might have had the instructions on how to overcome the water.

Truman also adds that as is all too common in treasure finding legends, there is the “just too late” anecdote:

Near Jolicure, it’s said, Busby Oulton one morning discovered a hole in the ground that had contained a chest so recently that the hinge and clasp marks were still visible in the hard, muddy soil.

It is easy to spot the similarities to our Oak Island Money Pit, with log platforms at regular intervals, mysterious markings offering clues which have since been destroyed, flooding of the pit and treasure just beyond reach.

As these accounts mention names, it was my hope that it may be possible to find out when and where these people were living, then see if there exists any evidence which might suggest there was a digging operation. One would think that if an operation took place involving hydraulic pumps and a mineral auger, it would have been pretty unusual and someone, somewhere would have made a comment about it in local press.

My gut feeling is that as there is so little information available on this is that it is a local legend which has borrowed elements from the more popular Oak Island story. Perhaps they did, and this would be reason to spend a day or two trawling through some local archives.

Do you live in New Brunswick? Are you familiar with the legend? If so, we’d love to hear from you.