Indy!
01-18-2011, 11:56 PM
Most of you from the old White’s forum have read all about the treasure chests I found as a kid, which led to getting my first White’s detector in 1976. Now 45 years later, this is STILL an unsolved mystery. So now for the rest of you, Here goes...
When I was 5 in 1966, I was boating with my granddad off the gulf coast of Florida, and a storm was coming up, so we had to beach the boat on a small island. The waves were rough as we approached shore, so we got out and walked the boat in, and that’s where we saw it. The top of an actual chest under about 2 feet of water. Thick metal bands all around. We could feel down the sides, but had nothing to pull it up with. The storm was coming in so we had to try and remember where it was. But by the time the storm passed, we couldn’t find it again. We decided someday we’d get a metal detector and come back. The years passed and we never did anything about it, but it often came up in conversation. I was only 5, but I remember it like yesterday.
Flash forward 10 years to 1976. I’m 15 now. Our family is camping along the Wisconsin River in Sauk City, WI. The Dells are upriver and work on the dams were in progress, so the river was quite low. About 10 feet under normal levels. I’m fishing along the edge and see a box with metal bands around it buried in the sand under about 2 feet of water. About a 4 inch corner is visible. My mind flashes back 10 years, and this one’s not getting away! I work away some sand and pull up a board. The box is filled with sand. But i reach in and pull out a plate, then another. I run and get my family, who all think it’s campers trash. But they do come, and we pull out 224 pieces of (what we later learn to be) antique 1820’s Staffordshire China, all in sets of 12 & 24. None broken! Cups, bowls, plates, saucers, chamber pots, and about 3 lb of brass straight pins (outlawed in the 1850's because of blood poisoning), and a dozen spools of purple thread (the purple was actually still there for a brief second before flowing away in the current). We found out that a ferry had crossed the river at that point in the 1820’s.
Flash forward 10 years to 1986. I'm now 25. There’s alot more to the story, but to make it short, 10 years later, I get the story published in a national antiques publication, an Archaeologist in Virginia sees it, and I sell him the whole collection for $4,000 to make down payment on my first home (yes, I regret selling it now). And I always wondered what ever happened to it.
Flash forward 20 years to 2006. I'm now 45! I have a wife and 4 kids who have been hearing this story for 30 years. I do alot of Google research, and find out the entire collection is part of a living history museum where the Mormons have recreated their original town of Nauvoo, Illinois, where they were before fleeing to Utah. I took the wife and kids there on vacation, and sure enough, the entire collection is there in the drug store, as if it were ready to sell. Pictured below.
Flash back again to 1976. Age 15 again. After finding the China Treasure, I did buy my first White’s, a Coinmaster GEB, and went back to the island with my granddad. But by this time the Island is a State Park, and the Ranger says we have to leave the detector in the boat. AAAARRRGH! It’s still there. I know right where it is. And someday I’ll find someone who can help me find it. Would that be any of you? Now, who (not from the old forum, you cheaters) can figure out what island the chest was found on? But more importantly, how can we find it again?
When I was 5 in 1966, I was boating with my granddad off the gulf coast of Florida, and a storm was coming up, so we had to beach the boat on a small island. The waves were rough as we approached shore, so we got out and walked the boat in, and that’s where we saw it. The top of an actual chest under about 2 feet of water. Thick metal bands all around. We could feel down the sides, but had nothing to pull it up with. The storm was coming in so we had to try and remember where it was. But by the time the storm passed, we couldn’t find it again. We decided someday we’d get a metal detector and come back. The years passed and we never did anything about it, but it often came up in conversation. I was only 5, but I remember it like yesterday.
Flash forward 10 years to 1976. I’m 15 now. Our family is camping along the Wisconsin River in Sauk City, WI. The Dells are upriver and work on the dams were in progress, so the river was quite low. About 10 feet under normal levels. I’m fishing along the edge and see a box with metal bands around it buried in the sand under about 2 feet of water. About a 4 inch corner is visible. My mind flashes back 10 years, and this one’s not getting away! I work away some sand and pull up a board. The box is filled with sand. But i reach in and pull out a plate, then another. I run and get my family, who all think it’s campers trash. But they do come, and we pull out 224 pieces of (what we later learn to be) antique 1820’s Staffordshire China, all in sets of 12 & 24. None broken! Cups, bowls, plates, saucers, chamber pots, and about 3 lb of brass straight pins (outlawed in the 1850's because of blood poisoning), and a dozen spools of purple thread (the purple was actually still there for a brief second before flowing away in the current). We found out that a ferry had crossed the river at that point in the 1820’s.
Flash forward 10 years to 1986. I'm now 25. There’s alot more to the story, but to make it short, 10 years later, I get the story published in a national antiques publication, an Archaeologist in Virginia sees it, and I sell him the whole collection for $4,000 to make down payment on my first home (yes, I regret selling it now). And I always wondered what ever happened to it.
Flash forward 20 years to 2006. I'm now 45! I have a wife and 4 kids who have been hearing this story for 30 years. I do alot of Google research, and find out the entire collection is part of a living history museum where the Mormons have recreated their original town of Nauvoo, Illinois, where they were before fleeing to Utah. I took the wife and kids there on vacation, and sure enough, the entire collection is there in the drug store, as if it were ready to sell. Pictured below.
Flash back again to 1976. Age 15 again. After finding the China Treasure, I did buy my first White’s, a Coinmaster GEB, and went back to the island with my granddad. But by this time the Island is a State Park, and the Ranger says we have to leave the detector in the boat. AAAARRRGH! It’s still there. I know right where it is. And someday I’ll find someone who can help me find it. Would that be any of you? Now, who (not from the old forum, you cheaters) can figure out what island the chest was found on? But more importantly, how can we find it again?