Dr. John Marsh's cache of coins found

[swirll360]

Does anyone know if Dr John Marsh's chache of gold coins near Mt. Diablo in N.California has been found?

[Mackaydon]

You may be too late:
Dr. John Marsh, a California pioneer who was sometimes referred to as California's first American doctor, was allegedly known to bury his money near his home nestled in the foothills of Mt. Diablo. Marsh was murdered in 1856 while on his way home from Martinez, without ever telling anyone of the exact location of his hidden riches. The treasure tale today alleges that Marsh had hidden a cache of some $40,000 gold coins near his home or Marsh Creek, that bears his name. Currently plans are under way to develop the location into a California State Park.
If this park becomes (or is now) a reality, hunting may be forbidden.

[EE THr]

Here are a few maps of the ranch. The original property extended to Antioch.

[swirll360]

thanks for the info

[Cal_Cobra]

I live about ten minutes from the Marsh house, and it's not accessible. There was also an adobe house that Dr. Marsh originally lived in and stayed at until his stone house was built. The stone house is on a ranch and is fenced. They did recently find the adobe remains of his original house. After Dr. Marsh was murdered, sis son looked extensively for his fathers gold coins, but reported that he never found them. His original property holdings were so vast, that even if you had access you could spend the rest of your life metal detecting the area and not cover the entire area. I do believe that if the gold is still there, it would make sense that it would be within sight of the house, but then again who knows. There's also a small lake/pond near the house.

EE THr where did you access those great old maps ?

[EE THr]

I ran across the John Marsh Ranch information while checking out Marsh Creek, on the Internet.

I can't find the bookmarks folder that the map sites are in, probably because I've added tons of stuff since, and I hadn't really organized my bookmarks the way I now realize that I should have. Or maybe I didn't bookmark them, as I was only checking out the path of Marsh Creek. I did save maps to my hard drive, and those are what I posted above. I tried some quick Google searches, but I couldn't find whatever line I was following the night I found these maps. If I ever do, I'll post them.

I am able to find some bookmarks to Marsh Ranch information sites, though. It sounds like you have seen these, but I'll post them just in case something might help.

(Note: For the map sites, I Googled stuff like "historic california maps" and the names John Marsh Ranch and Los Medanos, Los Meganos, Cowell Ranch, old and historic Contra Costa County maps, etc.)

http://www.theschoolbell.com/history/early/marsh.html
http://www.cocohistory.com/essays-murrieta.html
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_was_john_marsh
http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=525

Two interesting things are that the Marsh Ranch was raided by a band of robbers, which might have been the cause for him to find a good hiding spot for the gold. Also, his ranch was the wagon way-point for all those bound for the San Francisco Bay area---probably because Mount Diablo is the highest point in Central California, so it can be sighted on and followed right to the Marsh Ranch.

eeTHr

[Cal_Cobra]

Thanks eeTHr, some great info there. .

I'm in the Mt Diablo Metal Detector club, and we have permission to hunt around the Los Vaqueros Reservoir when their archaeologist is available (which is close to the Marsh house). I know there's old spanish land grant era homesteads around there (there's an old adobe there), but I don't know how to find these old maps to show the dwellings around the area ?

HH,
Brian

[EE THr]

Cal_Cobra;

I searched some more to try to find the sites where those maps above came from. I didn't find them, but I did find these--

Here is a site with maps that show houses. Maps are dated 1914 and 1916. They are East of Mt. Diablo, from Oakely down to Byron Hot Springs. They are Topographic maps with old roads and railroads, too.

Use Search Term: Los Meganos (note the g instead of a d). There will be three maps available, click on 2 and 3 at the top to see the other two.

Their server is really slow, so it takes awhile to get full resolution, but it will come. It also takes awhile for the "enlarge" and "pan" controls to work. I downloaded their LizardTech viewer, and it is a little better than the "see without viewer" option button at the bottom of the map frame.

California Historic Topographic Maps Collection
http://cricket.csuchico.edu/spcfotos...po_search.html


Below is the USGS Quadrangle Topographic maps site. The Antioch North and Antioch South go back to 1916 and 1918, but others in that area only go back to 1953. This site uses the LizardTech viewer. Click on the little colored map on the first page, and it will enlarge, then click in the square that you want. That will take you to a page where you can click the date of the map you want to see. These old maps look like the ones on the previous site. Use the controls on the top of the map (not the ones on the left side of the page, unless the left ones work if you're not using the viewer--since I downloaded the viewer, it is using that and maybe that locks out the left ones--I can't tell because for me it's automatically using the viewer now).

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/histopo/#

eethr