• • We shall discuss hammer claws grabbing material out of big cans

  • Are we possibly seeing more bones have been discovered?

  • A barrel type looking artifact from the hole has been unearthed?

  • And in the darkness, one ring to rule them all and bind them has been unearthed! Or… a Gary Drayton discovery, but as we get into it….we shall see

  • As Gary says: We’re back in business! LETS GOOOOOO

• MONEY PIT/CANS/HAMMER CLAW:

  • The first thing FOTP Mr. Clotworthy notes is that it is chilly Fall day for the team, when we enter the scene over the Irving and ROC Equipment teams who are set up in the Money Pit area…the season is coming nearer to being over!

  • Still digging away at location OC1- lots of wood being pulled out at 50 ft, slow progess is being noted, these are the 1937 Heddon shaft pieces of wood they are clearing out of the way

  • 125 ft Heddon Shaft is a 12 x 24 feet shaft designed to recover the Chappel vault, but the efforts failed due to….flooding? This is near the spot that they found the hand cut piece of wood dated to 1626- 150 yrs older than the 1795 Money Pit..Rick clearly states they are looking for more wood to dendro/date it to see if they are truly near the Money Pit area that has been lost to time on its exact location

  • Terry Rick and Craig head back the next day to hear some numbers on digging/hammer claw progress, and Rick notes that wash plant we talked about before with Billy G. is set up ready to roll and wash of material for investigation and sifting, as they get closer and closer to Money Pit depth

  • Pulling out lots of recently cut wood at this point, and then a huge piece of metal comes out of the hole, which turns out to be shielding from the Heddon shaft, not since 1936 they say, has that piece of metal seen the light of day, so this shielding was used to support the bottom of the shaft against cave in due to possible flood tunnels, so they are through the Heddon shaft now, things could get interesting again after that shielding was pulled out

  • Wash plant review: Paul Troutman pulls out what looks to be anther piece of bone! From 128 ft deep in OC1 hole? Could this be connected to other bones found that dated back to 1600s to European and middle Eastern origin?

  • They continue under the Heddon shaft, and find a piece of beveled edge which is part of a barrel, a keg, and this is where in 1861, Shaft #6 which was 18 ft east of Money Pit, at 118 ft had a lateral tunnel trying to reach the vault from a different angle, 2 ft shy of it, the tunnel flooded and nearly drowned them, but during this chaos, a piece of wooden barrel was recovered from the 1861 flood event by one of the workers, and then Gary comes in saying all old Spanish treasure was mainly kept in kegs like this…sooo…..

  • They end up bringing up a hand hewn beam, flat on two sides and not on the others, this could be exciting for many reasons, as it may go way back to the original people as Craig Testor notes

  • Next hammer claw grabs go dry, or wet depending on how you look at it, basically the trail stops cold again here which is very puzzling which could show a shift over time of the material under foot

• SWAMP/Research Center :

  • We see Rick and Gary walking along the area connected to the stone walkway feature we have been discussing

  • Gary fires up ol’ Big Bertha and…gets a good sounding hit..only to first discover a tin can lid! But as he continues, HE FINDS A RING, MATE!! An ornate ring that will call for additional investigation!

  • This is a top pocket find to be official,

  • Headed off to the Oak Island research center where Marty, Laird and a Kelly Bourassa Conservator are talking as Gary and Rick head in for analysis. Very small ring they note, throw it under the microscope, up to 2000 times actual size, looks to be a silver ring with lots of detailed designs on it, need to find a jewelry expert look at it,

§ WAR ROOM:

o Rick and the team are gathered to review the report of the silver ring, and Gemologist Charles Lewton-Brain a professor from from Alberta College of Art and Design with over 30 years’ experience, joins them to share some data

o Professor Lewton-Brain shares that the repairs made to it were to make it larger, and smaller, the floral design appears hand made and the flower in the middle of the ring was chiseled, which leads one to believe it could be quite old, could be pre 1730 with a European/Spenish influence behind this

§ Mr. Dan Blankenship’s former house:

o Rick, Doug, and Dave B. visit his former home, and find Dave’s sister Linda Flowers answering the door, to go and review some papers? Not just some papers, these are Dan’s research papers we are talking about, and all of the previous treasure hunters notes that Dan collected as well, too many hidden gems could be in this collection

o Doug pulls out an unbound map and notes he had never seen that before,

o The team also needs to determine where they are going to conduct the next search

§ EPISODE ENDS IN RESEARCH ROOM:

o Doug uses a piece of this map, showing the tunnels mapped from 1938 Irwin Hamilton NYU Prof. of Engineering teamed who teamed with Heddon and Frederic Blair to try and locate the original money pit, and for 5 years, explored 20 previous searches dating back to 1850, with each being charted on a survey grid

o So using this info on Shaft 6, that location seems to be key to locate original Money Pit location, and that’s what they are going after, the next can location, known as “8A” which is 20 ft SW of OC1, as Charles also says 1867 was last known Money Pit location

NEXT EPISODE: “ SPRINGING THE TRAP “

The search over the years - from Blair to the Restall family.

In 1893, Blair helped to found The Oak Island Treasure Company. As we have discussed on THE Oak Island Podcast, the exact location of the money pit had been argued over and was essentially lost to time, perhaps by deliberate concealment, failing memories, the change of landscape, etc. Although, accounts of Blair’s early expeditions claim work on "the Money Pit", the exact area was not known for certain by that date. I asked Doug Crowell directly. He confirmed it was indeed in 1867,

Famously, in 1897, Blair and his team, dug the five pits and tossed dynamite down in hopes of destroying the flood tunnels. I can only imagine, friend of the podcast Indiana Laird, would cringe at such a notion.

In 1904, Blair took out a fifty-year treasure license for rights around the Money Pit area. Of course, he knew there was something there. Accounts state he pulled out the gold chain in the late 1800’s as he was a drill operator. He did not share this with anyone for over thirty years. This information was something he finally revealed and used to pull in the likes of William Chappell, who, like Blair, worked the site in 1897 when the parchment was found.

Blair and Chappell now, over thirty years later, disagreed of the exact location. Chappell thought they should dig slightly north of the 1897 site, and Blair thought to the south. So in 1931, they dug in Blair’s believed location. This is the Chappell Shaft. It was here, they discovered the famous Chappell Vault.

In 1937, the Heddon Shaft was dug near by. Heddon gave up shortly there after. This can be seen in the side by side photo and the unbound map found in Dan Blankenship's office.

Next comes Edwin Hamilton in 1941. Blair controlled all this activity and held rights until his death in 1951. Mel Chappell, son of William, then took over. Eventually, he sold the rights to the Restall family in 1959.

-Jeremy

- The original source for the above dates and names comes from Peter Fortune.

- We also covered the "lost" location of the Money Pit and some of the early history on Episode 3 & Episode 5 of The Oak Island Podcast