Cowpen Creek Gold

[Gypsy Heart]

The Calhoun Monitor - July 20, 1905
During the land sales at Pontotoc town in the latter part of the thirties, Young Luker found a fine body of land on Cowpen creek near the old "Cattle Ranche" of the half breed Indian, McKinney, in what is now Calhoun county.
Luker purchased this tract and with his family, consisting of his wife, two sons and a family of negro slaves, settled there about 1840. He built good log houses for his family and the negroes and cleared a nice farm on the creek; it was fine rich, level land. Fortune seemed to favor him, he made a good crop the first year, the second year he cleared more land and made a better crop. his cattle grew into a big herd and his hogs were everywhere. He sold cotton at a fair price, and laid up some money; then he sickened and died, leaving his wife and two boys in the wild and almost uninhabited country. His death was caused by exposure and overwork.

His wife however proved to be a good manager; made good crops, lived economically and laid up more money every year, the corn made by the mother and stout boys, fed the stock, while the cotton sold for a good price. They lived close and each year stored away some gold and silver, which they hid out and said nothing except to complain of being hard run to keep up expenses.

So she finallly accumulated a considerable sum of money which from year to year she buried in her house, in the garden and in the orchard. She lived for more than twenty years after the death of her husband. Her sons grew into manhood, married and left the ancestral home, while she lived alone with her slaves and contineued to farm successfully.

She married old Sammy Hankins' a widower, with a large family of grown up sons and daughters, all married. Both being old with heads of their own they could not agree and so seperated, but in the best of feeling. Their homes were on the same creek and near each other and thus, they lived 'till after the war. She making and burying her treausres until her slaves were freed and death called her to her reward above.

The two boys Arch and Mose Luker suspected that their mother had buried money, but knew nothing of the amount or where buried. The land was sold and passed into other hands. The owner working about the orchard unearthed a jar of gold, but not all, for she took the precaution not to put all the eggs in one nest, but buried each year in a different place marked by a tree in the orchard and shrubs in the garden. From crops and stock sold, she must have buried $300 each year for more than a score of years and saved 6 to 10,000 dollars.

The Luker heirs made an effort at law to recover the lost treasure but they failed in court.

I tell the tale of the lost treasure about as twas told to me by the old pioneer settlers and I have no doubt but much treasure slumbers in the soil of old Calhoun buried there during the war.



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[1860 Calhoun County Census Transcriptions
Moses M. Lucre, age 37 $800/$8000 South Carolina
Charley Lucre, age 11, Mississippi
No Hankins listed in the index for 1860 Transcriptions.]

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[salty dog]

Great info Gypsy Heart !!!
You are really great at research !!!

[alabamadan]

I love old stories like that. I wonder....