Swift Mines and Research

[boomer]

I have been away for a long time and see that there is still interest in the legend. First lets deal with stories of treasure from four states, Western Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. Since around 1632 there have been Spanish, French and English Explorers Searching in these four states for mineral wealth, of course the native American Indian tribes new of locations that held wealth in the ground and suffered severe cruelties because of this knowledge. Each state has a list of stories of hidden treasure and thats the problem. Over the years something is found, a piece of ore, a vein, bars and coins and the first thing that happens is, it must belong to swift and his Merry men and several stories become part of the Swift legend. As time passes the stories are changed or added to. So what is true. I worked for two long years, reading and rereading the legend of John Swift. Going to one location after another. Remember the stories you read in books are only a guide. Do the Research.
until one day i saw a topo map at the library. Ahhhhhh and i started to learn how to go about being smart.

The Swift Mines: I started by looking at all the stories on the subject and using a map of each state, pin pointed the areas of interest. I found that several stories were vary close to Indian trails or buffalo trails. One goes east and west, the crossing point is Fort Gay WVA. at the forks of sandy and goes toward Lexington KY. The other of interest runs along Route 23 from Johnson city Tenn. to a fork that heads west to Cumberland Gap. The north fork goes along Route 23 to Castlewoods VA. and on to the pound gap into KY. At the forks of sandy a branch of this buffalo trail goes southwest along the west fork of sandy to Paintsville KY. and then heads west. By the way, Route 460 was built on this buffalo trail. The old Route 23 from Paintsville to Pound Gap was part of an Indian or buffalo trail.
Maps: Shaded Relief Topo Maps and Aerial Photo Maps will save a lot of gas and shoe leather. For fine maps of all kinds for Kentucky go to this site (Kentucky Geography Network).
You will need to work with this site to get what you need.

Swifts Maps: There are four maps that do show locations of something of interest. But remember on all the maps i have seen there is nothing that says Swift or one of his party did the maps. The one map that shows up the most is the one that has been put into several treasure books. Showing a five pointed star and several crosses, this map is true except for two creeks that have been left off, is it Swifts, who knows? The other map shows lower devils creek. It to is correct except for the wording, so many miles from campton and lower devils creek, this was added to throw people off. By the way, the story about 27 iron kettles being found on lower devils is true. The people of Boone's Fort made salt by boiling salt water down in the iron kettles. (Research is the key) if i can be of any help in your search let me know. I have two book cases full of stuff about the four states. Boomer

[swiftseeker2005]

Greetings to all. I have been researching Swift silver mines (along with the Indian silver mines legends) in Kentucky for a number of years. I believe one of the mines to be in the Louisa area. I have seen some stories that attribute the naming of the Tug River to Swift. Supposedly, Swift lost some silver "pigs" that he had tied thru a "tug" as he was crossing the river. This leads me to my question, had anyone ever heard of any of these "pigs" being found anywhere in the Swift legend area? Does anyone have any idea as to what one of these silver "pigs" might look like (size, weight,etc)? How might crudely smelted/molded silver appear when dug from the ground? Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks to all, and good hunting.

[boomer]

First> On the best known map in most books with the arrow, is this swifts, don't know, but the map is real. Lets brake it down. The creek on the map with the arrow is correct, it does run north east and head south west. The star is on top of a ridge that has a knob on top of it, that is shaped like a star has five points. The lines just to the west of the star. There is a long cliff on another ridge that is layers of lime stone. On the map it shows a block with lines like a ladder and a crossed out area and two lines running through the X like a shaft. This ladder is a masonic symbol that has to do with Jacob's ladder. Each rung represents a type of metal, seven steps, since the four bottom rungs are crossed out, this leaves the three top steps, Iron, silver and gold. This tells me that the ore is in iron ore with silver and gold. On the bottom of the map the three wiggly lines is a water fall, the next is a sink about about 40 feet round 15 feet deep, comes to a point at the bottom. The X's on the map are locations of rocks that have carvings on them. One of the X's is the tea kettle rock also on tea kettle is carved names and another carving of Jacob's ladder. The 4 horse shoe shaped line with a dot at the bottom of each is four caves in line that run east and west. The arrow is carved on a flat rock and points to the first or west cave. boomer

[boomer]

Silver pigs and tug fork>? Tug fork got its name when a group of settlers were chasing Indians that raided a homestead and took prisoners. The famous Indian fighter John Harmon was with this group. They did not have any food left and hunting was poor. They lost track of the Indians and headed back to the settlement. They were down to eating there shoes boiled in water from the river. It took a lot of tugging and chewing to get a piece down. Thats what the history books say anyway.
Pigs are metal bars, slabs and also wedge shaped. With pack horses, small bars or wedge shaped would be best. Silver bars and coins have been found at different locations in Kentucky, west of paintsville along paint creek at rules mill and at flat rock, middle fork of the Kentucky river. Jackson county along war fork of station camp creek, Buffalo creek and the little sandy river in carter county, Gold coins were found on the licking river at the Morgan county line on mill creek silver coins were found in wolf county, two gold bars were found? on the red river near clay city. As for size a bar or pig can be any size but were kept to a fixed limit because of the horse or mule you were going to transport the load on. Some have been found that were has small has 8"x2"x4" and has large has 18"x 3" x 4". also i feel that there would be smaller ones for carring in a back pack. boomer

[snake35]

I just come back to the Louisa, Ky area. Anyone that wants to exchange notes feel free to e-mail me.

[-Ki-]

hey i was reading your post from a long time ago.....i read about the silver found on mill creek in wolfe co. And the gold bars near clay city............could you give me any more info on this .... thanks