Treasure Legends of Ohio

[treasurejones]

Roman Coins from the Falls of the Ohio

Rev. 6/12/04



Claudius II (left), Maximinus I (right)
Scan courtesy Troy McCormick, of Natural Concepts

In 1963, a construction engineer found a small hoard of coins while excavating the north bank of the Ohio River during construction of the Sherman Minton Bridge for Interstate Highway 64 at the Falls of the Ohio, from New Albany, Ind., to Louisville, Ky. The coins were grouped as though they had originally been in a leather pouch that had long since disintegrated.

The discover kept most of the hoard for himself, but gave two of the coins to another engineer on the project. In 1997, the second engineer's widow brought these two to Troy McCormick, then manager of the new Falls of the Ohio Museum in Clarksville, Ind., not far from the find site. She donated them to the museum, where they remain today.

McCormick identified the smaller coin from a guide to Roman coins as a bronze of Claudius II, from 268 A.D. The larger coin has been identified by both Mark Lehman, president of Ancient Coins for Education, Inc., and Rev. Stephen A. Knapp, Senior Pastor at St. John Lutheran Church, Forest Park, IL, and a specialist in late Roman bronze coinage, as a follis of Maximinus II, from 312 or 313 A.D., despite McCormick's original identification of the coin as a 235 A.D. bronze of Maximinus I.

The coin of Claudius II is similar in type and period to the recently discovered Roman coins from Breathitt Co., Ky., but is in a much better state of preservation. The later coin makes this find several decades later than the Severian Period (193 - 235 A.D.) to which the Roman Head from Calixtlahuaca, Mexico has been attributed on stylistic grounds.

Unfortunately, the discoverer moved south to work on another bridge shortly after the find, and the second engineer's widow could not remember his name, so the bulk of the hoard is lost.

For several years, the Falls of the Ohio Museum had an exhibit about the find that displayed several casts of both sides of the two originals, so as to reflect the approximate number of coins originally in the hoard. The two original coins, depicted above, are in storage and were not on public display. McCormick has informed me that the exhibit has recently been removed from public display, because the Museum belongs to the state of Indiana, and the exhibit conflicted with the state's archaeological policy that there is no documented evidence of pre-Columbian contacts.

The hoard is not included in Epstein's 1980 survey of coin finds in the U.S.

McCormick is currently President and owner of Natural Concepts, a museum and exhibit consulting firm. The author is grateful to him for providing this information and the above images.

 

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[treasurejones]

Summit County, Ohio

As taken from the Vinton Co. Republican Newspaper=Dec.,27,1900-------A miser Oscar Osborn was Murdered 2 yrs. earlier by Edward Johnson for his hidden money. Johnson was able to find only $150.------Sometime later on while tearing down the old barn, the workmen found $3.000 in gold coin in a canvas bag under the flooring. COULD THERE BE MORE? This was in Richfield Township.------- I've never looked into this. So while the winter is blowing cold, you might do a little research and who knows. Make your own luck happen.

 

[cavers5]

Was the above story about the Roman coins a newspaper article?

thanks,
Cavers5

 

[treasurejones]

Hocking County:


Treasure Tales and Treasure Stories About Ohio from the Archives of Lost Treasure Magazine
Iron doorstop-pot of silver dollars
From State Treasure Tales BY MICHAEL PAUL HENSON

From page 30 of the February 1992 issue of Lost Treasure magazine.
Copyright ©1992, 1998 Lost Treasure, Inc.

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This is one of the most unusual caches I've ever investigated.

In the mid-1930s, Edward Floyd ]ived in Laurel Township of Hocking County. He had probably the oddest doorstop ever devised-a large iron pot with a chain through each handle that crossed over the top, which allowed the lid to be raised just high enough to put something small inside or take something out. The potwas filled with silver dollars.

Floyd did all right financially with having a small income from gas wells on his property and more-so the profits he made on an alleged bootleg business.

Frequently, people who lived in the area would come to Ed to borrow money. Times were hard and since they were his neighbors, Floyd would always make them a loan for a small amount of interest.

It was at one of these transactions that someone noticed the iron pot missing from its usual place by the door. When asked about it, Ed replied, "Oh, it's around here somewhere."

In 1938, Ed died and it wasn't long before most of the neighborhood was looking for the iron pot of silver dollars. But so far as it is known, the money was never found.

 

[treasurejones]

The Roman coins story come from a magazine found as link from an archeology website; second link is the arch website there are other intresting legends on this site.

http://econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/arch/coins/fallsoh.htm (I believe the magazine is sited on the top of the page)

http://www.falls-society.org/legends.php

 

[treasurejones]

http://www.therockerbox.com/ashtabula_county_oh_lost_treasures.htm

$2,000,000 in gold bullion is laying in the mud of a river near Ashtabula, the results of a train wreck.


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The Chesapeake, a side wheel steamer, sank 3 miles west of Conneaut, carrying about $8,000 in specie.

 

[treasurejones]

CINCINNATI PARK:

lol here's a good one!

http://www.uncoveror.com/treasure.htm


PIRATE'S TREASURE HIDDEN IN CINCINNATI PARK
By Professor Thomas Henry Williamson, Historian
Pirate's treasure is the stuff of a thousand adventure stories, and finding it has made a few men throughout history very rich. One cache of riches that no treasure hunter has yet found is that left behind by the notorious pirate, Fat Nicholas of Hispaniola. My research has led me to the conclusion that it is hidden in the unlikeliest of places: Cincinnati Ohio.

"How can this be?" you ask. "A pirate would hide his treasure some place he could sail, or at least near the coast. That is no where near the coast!" With most pirates, that statement would be true, but not so for Fat Nicholas of Hispaniola. This infamous pirate was not only a traveler of the high seas, but was originally from Mississippi, not Haiti or The Dominican Republic (the two nations on the island of Hispaniola). He began his life of crime inland on fresh waters robbing riverboats. In those days he was know as Nasty Nick of Natchez. Until now, no one may have suspected that Fat Nicholas of Hispaniola and Nasty Nick of Natchez were one in the same, but they most certainly were. I have analyzed letters attributed to them. Handwriting analysis was no help, as the pirate always dictated to a scribe with prettier handwriting than his own, and the riverboat robber used his own hand, but the flowery poetic language and clever use of double entendre are the same in both.

Nicholas D. LePetomaine, born sometime in the 1820s, was the illegitimate son of a Louisiana farmer's adventurous daughter, and a sailor she met in New Orleans. After he came along, his grandparents disowned his mother, and she left the farm forever to lead a life as a riverboat entertainer. She sang, danced, and became well know on the riverboat circuit. Young Nicholas was fascinated by tales of the father he never knew who had swept his mother off of her feet, and the high seas, which he would never give up. His favorite seafaring tales were those of pirates. Along the way, he met many people and learned many things. He became fluent in both French and Spanish. These would come in handy later in his life.

After several years of robbing riverboats, a bounty was placed the head of Nasty Nick so high that he knew he was not safe anywhere along the Mighty Mississip. The official story was that he simply disappeared, and may have been killed. My research suggests otherwise. He knew much about the seafaring life from trips to New Orleans and stories he had been told. Advertising for able-bodied men seeking adventure was a common way to recruit in port towns, both for legitimate merchant mariners and for pirates. Nicholas probably responded to such an ad, and left New Orleans bound for Port Au Prince or Santa Domingo.

He became a pirate. It wasn't long before he was the captain of his own ship, growing wealthy and very well fed. This led to the moniker, "Fat Nicholas." After swashbuckling through the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic for decades, he decided to hide his stash, and he hid it so well that to this day its location is a secret. I am convinced that I know this secret. Nicholas wrote a poem about traveling to the garden of Eden and planting a precious seed. It describes sailing the Euphrates and the Hiddekel rivers. It also mentioned, seemingly in passing, a confluence of the Pison and the Gihon. If you are familiar with the Book of Genesis, you recognize these rivers. The poem also mentions a city on seven hills.

To those who did not make the connection, and do not realize that Fat Nicholas and Nasty Nick were the same person, the poem makes no sense. It reads as if he were using opium, or was otherwise intoxicated while writing it. To me, it makes perfect sense. Nicholas D. LePetomaine returned to the riverboats of his youth, and rode them to a hiding spot that no one would suspect. The Euphrates is a metaphor for the Mississippi. This seems plain. The Hiddekel represents the Ohio. His mention of the confluence of the Pison and Gihon makes this conclusion unavoidable, as the Ohio is formed by the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers. This might lead one to conclude that the treasure is right at that point, in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. This would be an error, because the city on seven hills can only be Cincinnati Ohio, and the precious seed he planted in the garden of Eden refers to Eden Park. His treasure is certainly buried there. No other location makes any sense based upon his writings. If uncovered, Fat Nicholas of Hispaniola's treasure would be worth tens of millions of dollars. Its value might even go over one hundred million.

 

[cthayerusmc]

Re: Ashtabula wreck

Is this the same wreck known as the Ashtabula Horror?

 

[starsplitter]

A friend of mine, an old timer, and his brother got very far with this treasure story. Actually tracked it to a cave. Can't say more as it it not really my story to tell. However, it is one of the few legit Ohio treasure adventures I've encountered.