Buried "treasure" in Southeastern Pennsylvania

[SEPaMan]

Since we're running every angle, I'll be reading through Shoemaker in case there's a connection between cougar superstitions, the folktale, and the Lion's Tree. I have no doubt my neighbor's grandfather knew all about these matters, but whether or not he incorporated them in the treasure hunt is a different animal entirely. Thanks for the idea!

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[Rick_72]

There's acutally a conspiracy theorist out there thinking that PA Fish and Game is denying the existence of E. Cougars on purpose for financial reasons. The thought process is that hunting and fishing brings in a ton of revenue to the PA coffer's every year. If E. Cougars are found to be back in existence (wouldn't be the first time an animal previously thought to be extinct was found) that many of the these prime hunting grounds would be immediately shut down to accomidate the endangered species. This would significantly impact local economies as it's not just license fee's that would be lost, but food and supplies bought in local stores during hunting season, hotels, etc. If they're "extinct" they're out of sight out of mind for NREA.

[SEPaMan]

Makes sense, Rick 72. You know what you saw, your wife knows what she saw, and I know what I saw. Your so-called "conspiracy theory" sounds like a perfectly reasonable explanation to me. But let me ask you this. Would it be paranoid to speculate that Calkins Media and the Bucks County Historical Society are conspiring with one another to locate and seize the treasure, while lorddean13 is manipulated as an unwitting pawn in their schemes? They both received the letter, why not publish it to increase circulation and promote historical interest? Why not admit to having received the letter, especially to a trusted associate like lorddean13? What are their intentions? Cui bono?

[AC1955]

Answer to census question per US Census Bureau: census is taken every 10 years. A census will be released to the public after 70 years to ensure the privacy of people who may still be alive. Most recently released: 1940. The 1950 census is set to be released in 2020. Census records contain name, address, age, # of people in the home (their names & ages regardless if they are related or not), occupations and income. Although it is mandatory to answer the census, you do not have to provide any other info other than name and # of people in domicile. Hope this helps.

Again, on tax records, they are public records. You do not have to give a reason why you want to see them. Towns must provide them to those who ask. Many reasons why folks ask to see records: buying a house in the area? Researching median property incomes? Are you a realtor doing comps? Basically you do not need a reason. Some towns and cities post their tax records online, my town does. Maybe a good place to check if folks are "shy" about doing it in person.

[releventchair]

If wildlife agency confirms cats established they then need to get involved in studies and regulations. Accusations made here of attempted reintroduction being denied,maybe part of conflicts from wolf programs out west and again closer to home. Saw a persons personal picture yesterday of a lion with a 8?point buck, dragging it past a feeder. With pa. History and current passion for hunting deer they would create a hot topic. Let alone young cats seeking there own territories were they to become established enough to raise young. subdivision pets a big help to hungry young bellies. If any one going to be on ground around nike site let me know i n advance to give you something to look for before you go.

[Rick_72]

If wildlife agency confirms cats established they then need to get involved in studies and regulations. Accusations made here of attempted reintroduction being denied,maybe part of conflicts from wolf programs out west and again closer to home. Saw a persons personal picture yesterday of a lion with a 8?point buck, dragging it past a feeder. With pa. History and current passion for hunting deer they would create a hot topic. Let alone young cats seeking there own territories were they to become established enough to raise young. subdivision pets a big help to hungry young bellies. If any one going to be on ground around nike site let me know i n advance to give you something to look for before you go.

I saw that picture as well relevent. But with a little further investigation, that picture was proven to be a hoax...it wasn't in PA, but possibly TX.

Seems like the only reference to a "lion" that would make sense to me. Actual African Lion's don't climb tree's on a regular basis. However, there is one park in the Serengeti that they can be found in tree's on occaision. Usually mahagony tree's, which I don't think do well in PA forest's. If you stumbled onto a mahagony tree in the area, that was able somehow to survive the PA winter's that would also be something to explore....maybe a tree in the area that looks like one of the mahagony species of trees?

[flyadive]

You know if I was going to bury treasure ( or anyone else) of significant value I wouldn't actually use a tree that looks like a lion would climb, I think it has to reference something else like a carving in a large stone that would last for a thousand years. Think... Where would I hide valuables that would remain I undisturbed. Maybe instead of digging we should be scrapping of the moss from stones!

[flyadive]

Yea.. and I would like to know who got a bloody nose and a broken metal detector!!
I've been detecting a long time and never broke it from a fall or fell on my face.. What's up with that?

[releventchair]

Rick72 the picture i was shown yesterday was from "northern" Michigan. Spin feeder in background,cat between feeder and deer being dragged from right side of picture to left side ,trail camera shot. Have leaned towards native lion also,but flyadive just as valid so far. Wild example,lion on library steps,flagpole at police station,jail below with window,book of case numbers. Till a couple things match,all angles worth looking at. While multiple repeated sightings have been reported of lions in pa. Would expect tree in clue to have historic event tied to it. Like last one seen or killed,or treed while being pursued on a hunt. When pursued many head for high ground and "treed"doesn,t all ways mean up a tree but taking a stand to fight or to tired and holed up.

[newport74]

Maybe the "LIONS TREE" is the one the sun falls behind!
Illustration 18 depicts one of the classic symbols of alchemy - the green lion devouring the sun. As with most of the striking, and to the modern mind, somewhat 'surreal' images which populate these works, they have a bewildering range of possible meanings. But essentially the gold/sun is being dissolved/purified in some powerful solvent/green lion in order to release the seed from which pure gold may be grown.

[Kentucky Kache]

Answer to census question per US Census Bureau: census is taken every 10 years. A census will be released to the public after 70 years to ensure the privacy of people who may still be alive.

Which is what I said earlier.

[diverdan]

There is treasure buried everywhere!

[releventchair]

Alchemy,isn,t green lion the starting point? Red when process underway or something. might still be in use. Diverdan,good theory,i know a couple places its hard to find though!.

[Rick_72]

Rick72 the picture i was shown yesterday was from "northern" Michigan. Spin feeder in background,cat between feeder and deer being dragged from right side of picture to left side ,trail camera shot. Have leaned towards native lion also,but flyadive just as valid so far. Wild example,lion on library steps,flagpole at police station,jail below with window,book of case numbers. Till a couple things match,all angles worth looking at. While multiple repeated sightings have been reported of lions in pa. Would expect tree in clue to have historic event tied to it. Like last one seen or killed,or treed while being pursued on a hunt. When pursued many head for high ground and "treed"doesn,t all ways mean up a tree but taking a stand to fight or to tired and holed up.

That's exactly what I was thinking too. Something dealing with an "extinct" cougar from local lore.

[SEPaMan]

AC1955 - There are a hundred ways census data could be collated without revealing anyone's personal information, why not just publish the impersonal material? Funny that the results are considered "safe" in the hands of the government but "unsafe" in the hands of the people. What does that tell you?

releventchair - Hungry bellies indeed! After I saw the wolf in 2005 and reported it to Fish & Game without effect, I canvassed the neighborhood to see if there had been any other sightings; mostly I was concerned about pets and small children. Never had so many doors slammed in my face! You'd think hyper-paranoid suburban parents would be worried about a hungry wolf on the loose, but no, all they think about are the thousand-and-one pedophiles hiding in the bushes waiting to snatch up their kids with butterfly nets. At least that's where the media focuses their attention.

Rick 72 - You and releventchair have the same fascinating idea. I was reading back through Henry Shoemaker, the PA folklorist, who compiled superstitions and myths regarding the cougar. In Extinct Animals In Pennsylvania: The Panther And The Wolf, Shoemaker details the last known cougars killed in Pennsylvania by county, and Bucks county is not among them. However these are records of white men, not of Indians, and if we are to believe Bradford's folktale then the cougar slain in what was later Farmer Rialley's wood was brought to bay by Lenni-Lenape hunters, who knows how many years before the area was settled. I wonder though, if the story is true then perhaps the remains of the burnt tree can still be found in the forest, or maybe the tree survived and could therefore be easily identified as having caught fire at some point during its life. I can recall a few trees with scorch marks, but whether they were made by lightning or the fires of the "wild man" I cannot say. I will say though that the idea of waiting one evening for the ghostly torch-lights, and being lead to the tree, is somewhat tempting, if only for the whimsy of watching for spooks on a summer's night. In any case here is a Shoemaker excerpt regarding the mountain lion, hopefully there's a relationship to the grandfather's treasure, as I wrote earlier I have no doubt this information was old hat to him, and certainly has bearing on his buried wealth if this other tree and the Lion's Tree are one and the same: But there are real superstitions of the painter -- as most of the early settlers called it. It was said to have a very definite spirit, which came back and haunted familiar scenes after it had met with an unnatural death. A hunter in Centreville, Snyder county, in 1864, killed a large male panther, stuffed it and mounted it on the ridge-pole of his wood-house. One night the mate came after it, and springing on the roof, pushed the effigy into the yard. She carried it back to Jack's Mountain, where many persons averred it came to life again. In the White Mountains, not far from Troxelville, Snyder county, a panther was killed and its hide put into an attic to cure. Strange noises were heard, and the skin mounted on a carpenter's trestle was met with in the woods at night. A witch doctor hit the horrid manikin with a silver bullet, after which it gave no further trouble. Among the superstitions the Dorman panther was said to leave its case in the Natural History Museum on the top floor of the old Academy building at New Berlin on All Souls' Night and scamper about the big room after mice. It is now out of ghostly surroundings in the handsome new museum at Albright College, Myerstown, Lebanon County, having been taken there in 1905. Seneca Indians believed that the spirits of tyrants and unfaithful queens passed into panthers. They were hunted specifically for this and other before-mentioned reasons, having as little peace in animal form as in their human incarnations. Early German pioneers said that the panther's hide glowed like "fox-fire at night and green lights burned from the eyes." It was held to be good luck to be followed by a panther. It meant that outside forces were seeking the evil in the person followed, that it would soon be drawn away. Prof. E. Emmons, of Williams College, says in his Report on the Quadrupeds of Massachussetts: "The panther will not venture to attack man, yet it will follow his tracks a great distance; if it is near evening it frequently utters a scream which can be heard for miles." Some of the first Scotch-Irish frontiersmen regarded the panther's wailing as foretelling a death in the family. It was the "token" or "Banshee" of these sturdy souls. Samuel Stradley, a well-known hunter residing on the Tiadaghton or Pine Creek, in Lycoming County, while watching for deer at a crossing in 1870, fell asleep in the forest. When he awoke he found himself covered with leaves. Crawling out he sat perfectly still until he was rewarded by seeing a huge panther come up, which he shot. It had evidently thought him dead, and buried him in leaves to be eaten on some future occasion. The episode with the Dorman panther was referenced in a previous post, which described an incident when the "last" Nittany Lion was removed from its display case at University Park and panic swept the area, as people believed it had come to life and was on the prowl.

flyadive - That is a very good point, a carving in stone or upon the tree itself would certainly be a "smoking gun", I'll keep a lookout for anything of the sort when I wander in the woods.

Frankn - This is my take on it. The letter was sent to the president of Calkins Media, which publishes the Intelligencer and the Courier Times. The editors of both these papers received their own copies of the letter, as well as an Intelligencer archivist and a Courier Times columnist. In all, 7 letters went to Calkins Media publications and employees. Now they could print the story, as circulation is down and advertising revenues are poor, not to mention they are clearly grasping for material considering the tripe that appears on the front page, and pictures have recently increased in size to compensate for the dwindling amount of text; the story would get heaps of mail and correspondence, readership would go up, and their journalists could bleed it dry for months or even years, revisiting the tale whenever and on a whim, dramatizing it as "the Warrington Hoard" or some such term. But instead . . . silence. Anyone else suspicious? I think that when the president of Calkins Media received the letter, and learned of the other copies mailed to certain employees, he seized the duplicates and destroyed any remaining information, threatening the editors, the columnist, and the archivist with their jobs (or worse), and anyone else aware of the letter's contents, intimidating them into silence, allowing he or perhaps a cohort of like-minded executives to pursue the treasure at their leisure, maybe by hiring expert treasure hunters and disseminating the clues amongst them, with the aim of secretly recovering the buried wealth and making themselves, already rich men, richer. Meanwhile the letter also arrives at the offices of the Bucks County Herald and the Reporter, neither of which have yet printed the story. Hmm . . . And the kicker: soon afterward the Bucks County Historical Society receives their own copy, lorddean13 enters the archives and finds no information about it, questions a high-ranking member who claims to have no knowledge of any letter, and who immediately attempts to deflect his attention to an unrelated museum exhibit. By lorddean13's own admission this Society member is a friend and trusted associate to whom he donated $20,000 in Lenni-Lenape artifacts! If he's a true friend, why not tell him? So basically lorddean13 is now the only individual without anonymity seeking the treasure, as everyone here on the forum is unknown to the organizations that received letters, and he just so HAPPENS to be the victim of a mysterious motorcycle accident! Too many coincidences for me. Are Calkins Media, the Bucks County Herald, and the Reporter working together, or is each a separate entity in pursuit of the treasure? Has the Historical Society thrown in with them, or is it operating solo? Is every organization and individual that received the letter a branch of the same conspiracy, the purpose of which is to recover the treasure and silence any interlopers, whatever the cost? You're absolutely right, Frankn, I believe the covert activities taking place around the Reservoir at night are indeed agents of those to whom the letter was mailed, and they definitely do not want the word to get out. flyadive if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say the man with the broken nose was a forum member who encountered a team of treasure hunters employed by Calkins Media or the Historical Society, and they attacked him as a warning to others, but of course also to prevent him from finding the treasure.

newport74 - Excellent image and research! Will definitely keep it in mind. Would you mind providing some detail on the alchemical treatise that was your source? Both picture and text, please.

diverdan - Thanks for joining the discussion! Could you please elaborate upon your post?

[Rick_72]

Hmmm burnt tree. I grew up in South Florida....lightening storms and forest/brush fires abound almost yearly. Unless a forest is completely burnt to the ground, which is rarely the case, large tree's tend to stay put...showing their fire scars for years but then flourishing with the underbrush gone. This is nature's way of replentishing forest's actually. If there is a large tree that was caught in brush fire, there's a better then average chance it still stands unless it ran the course of it's life and was rotten and torn down by subsequent storms.

The funny thing about folklore is that there is almost always evidence of truths in the story. A very old, surviving or fallen burnt tree may have something to do with the search, as it relates to a "lion" in local folklore.

[sciflyer25]

IMHO, much too much overanalyzing. Topo, landmarks, trees, east-west, sunrise and sunset. Land and census records for more than that immediate area. Again, just my opinion.

[newport74]

1938 image of area

[newport74]

IMHO, much too much overanalyzing. Topo, landmarks, trees, east-west, sunrise and sunset. Land and census records for more than that immediate area. Again, just my opinion.

There I go again over thinking..... Your right I should just walk into the 300+ Acre area
pick some random tree out of thousands and start looking!
OR Assuming that this story is even true. I can look at the ONLY directional clue of 72 degrees and compare it to
features in the area that havent changed much in decades IE: the power line clearing (which happens to be 72 degrees).
I would think that if it were easy and obvious it would have been found long ago by those who have the most info.
Searching anglo saxon symbols lead me to the alchemy symbols.
I can say that as long as I have have lived in the area (47 years) I know of no stories or legends pertaining to lions.
Nor have I seen or heard of anyone seeing a lion in this area. I am 3 generation in this area.

[flyadive]

Lorddean13, better to run over the animals rather then drive off the road to avoid then, rabbits, deer and even Lions.
Newport74 that 72 degrees is that true north or magnetic north? There is a 12 degree variation here in that area for true north soooo if the magnetic north is - 12 degrees from 72 would equal 60 degrees for magnetic heading.
If my memory is correct??