Following enigmatic clues on Captain Kidd’s map and one man’s sighting of a ghostly apparition, further clues become apparent to heighten the search for the treasure of Oak Island.
Gilbert Hedden, the excavator wholly believed that there was treasure buried on Oak Island that he ventured to England to converse with Harold Tom Wilkins the author of Captain Kidd and His Skeleton Island. Hedden believed he had found a link between Oak Island and a mysterious map in Wilkins’ book.
The map was a crude drawing based on observations of the original however, it depicted a strange set of directions which were as follows:
18 W and by 7 E on Rock
30 SW 14 N Tree
7 by 8 by 4
Hedden had searched the area around the Money Pit with these clues in mind and had discovered a strange granite boulder with a hole drilled 2 inches deep and a quarter of an inch in diameter.
Blair, another follower of the mystery and involved in excavations soon told Hedden that he had found an identical stone at Smith’s Cove 40 years previously and had deliberated over its significance.
They were quick to measure the distance between the two boulders and found it to be 412 feet, or 25 rods – the sum of 18 and 7, as mentioned on the treasure map. One rod is equal to 5.5 yards or 16.5 feet, so they soon agreed that this was the measurement used in the directions.
The boulders showed signs of being positioned for centuries, being encrusted with moss and greenery. They were obviously well established in their environment . They were found to lie parallel to the subterranean flood tunnel from Smith’s Cove to the Money Pit.
Next, the men measured a distance of 30 rods, or 495 feet in a SW direction, adhering to the map’s directions. One of the team of surveyors followed the instructions and found himself in an area of tangled and overgrown bushes. To his amazement he had found a strange stone formation comprising of beach stones arranged in the shape of a triangle.
Each side of the triangle was 10 feet long where, at the base, they met a semi circle, making the formation look like a sextant. An arrow of stones 14 feet long protruded out from the base, connecting to the triangles apex. This pointed towards true north, not magnetic north and on viewing the bearing with binoculars, it pointed directly at the Money Pit.
The final directions given on the map as ‘7 by 8 by 4′ could sadly not be understood and remain a mystery.
Hedden immediately believed that the treasure buried must relate to that of Captian Kidd but Harold Wilkins soon dismissed this idea, believing the island to be one located in the China Sea.
Another follower of the mystery was Robert Gay who dismisses this map as a fake. The author of The Money Pit Mystery, Rupert Furneaux met with him to discuss possible leads. Robert Gay informed him of Herman Westhaver who was a pilot in 1912 working at St Margaret’s Bay near to Mahone Bay. He and another pilot, Amos Smith had discovered a box containing charts in a pile of stones on Cockrane’s or Redmond’s Island in Shad Bay, 15 miles north of Mahone Bay.
Westhaver claimed that they were led there by a ghostly pirate ship apparition. It is probable that they found it by chance and added this detail later to contribute to he atmosphere of their discovery. The contents of the box, other strange charts, remains unknown.
In 1930, Frederick Blair who had helped discover the stone triangle with Hedden had heard of this chart owned by Amos Smith. His grandson James Amos made a declaration regarding this enigmatic discovery.
The following account is a genuine quotation of his statement, taken from The Money Pit Mystery by Rupert Furneaux.
‘When I was a boy living at home in Greenfield, County of Colchetser, Nova Scotia, I frequently heard my father, John J. Smith, speak of a chart, then in the possession of his father, Amos Smith, who lived in Shaw’s Cove (Shad Bay) Count of Halifax, Nova Scotia.
According to my father, John J. Smith, the chart has reference to the burial of a quantity of gold on an island in Chester Basin, Nova Scotia, and that my grandfather Amos Smith, who had been a pilot working in and out of Halifax Harbour, claimed that the longitude and latitude given in the said chart was in the vicinity of the entrance to Chester Basin, and that the island was Oak Island.
‘I heard so much talk about this chart that when I became older, I determined to see to see and examine it personally, and to that end, I went to the house of my grandfather Amos Smith, where I saw and examined it, and read and studied its contents most carefully.
‘According to the best of my recollection and belief, the chart told of the burial of a quantity of gold on an island located near this longitude and latitude, the figures which I do not now remember.
The chart showed that the island was about one mile in length, and about one half mile in width, shaped like a bottle, two coves at the north and east end, forming the bottleneck; and the island was wooded with oak trees. The chart stated that on a hill between the two coves, on the north or north-east end, a pit was dug to a depth of 165 feet, near a large oak tree, from a limb which they hung a block and tackle, and that a vault was constructed at the bottom of the pit, and the vault was walled with granite stone eighteen-inches thick, and that their inside was lined with two-ply of lead one-half-inch thick.
The vault was filled with gold bars, each four feet long and four inches square and it was then covered with granite slabs. Two tunnels were dug forty-five feet below sea-level, at low tide, leading from the pit to the shore, in opposite directions, and there was placed in each tunnel an iron gate arranged so as to stop the flow of water, but these gates were left open to permit the water to flow through.
The chart was inadvertently destroyed with other old papers, the property of Amos Smith, after his decease.’
Some believe that the mysterious granite boulders mark the location of these iron gates, which were placed there, allowing the engineer of the pit to return and recover the treasure without the orchestrated problem of flooding.
Possibly after a long period of time, these gates will have rusted, rendering them useless and thus preventing anyone from ever recovering the treasure.
Find out more about some of the inscribed stone markers found on Oak Island.