Boulanger Gold

Gypsy Heart

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In 1872, a 160-acre homestead was allotted Jospeh W. Boulanger, some
13 miles south of Sedan on K-99, just north and west of the Big Caney
river bridge near the town of Boulanger that was platted by Joseph's son,
Walter, in his honor. Walter, father of Mrs. Lenora (Boulanger) Hills, a
resident believes Boulanger to be the only Osage Indian in history to honor
his father by naming a town for him.

The original homestead has remained in the Boulanger family these 100 years
and recently was purchased from the Stephen Boulanger estate by Betty Lee,
a great granddaughter of Joseph.

Within the Boulanger saga comes an intriguing tale. In 1862, one Captain
Goldie was leading a wagon train of immigrants through Osage Nation from
the gold fields of California. When the caravan of wagons neared the Osage
hills near the present Pawhuska, a band of Pawnee Indians swooped down to
attack.

Only one man succeeded in escaping the wagon train, with the $100,000 in
gold concealed on the train. It was Captain Goldie.

Goldie saw he was being followed, and decided to bury the gold when he
reached a dense forest near the Caney river. He chose two large trees that
grew from the same trunk, and between them and the Artillery Mound, (north
of Boulangerville), just to the north, he buried the gold. For a final
marker, he placed a musket rifle in a hollow tree just to the south of the
gold burial. He then turned his horses loose, hoping the Indians would
follow them instead of him. His hopes were fulfilled.

Captain Goldie reached his home in Missouri all right. But, though the
Pawnees had not captured him, he had contracted a deadly illness. The
doctor told Goldie he had little chance to survive. The wagon master told
his wife what had happened and drew a map of the area where he had buried
the gold. On the map, he marked the exact number of steps from the mound
and trees. In a few weeks he died.

His wife knew no one whom she could trust with the maps. Her only child,
a boy only six years old, she believed was too young to make the journey
after the goldwith her. She decided to wait.

Twenty years passed before Goldie's son attempted to find the treasure.
It was in 1882 when …… who lived near the banks of the Caney river. Young
Goldie had found Artillery Mound, but south of it was no dense forest as
his father had told. The land was now clear and planted in grain.

Young Goldie learned that Boulanger had cleared the land, cut down the two
large trees that grew from the same trunk, and found the old musket in
another. Boulanger showed Goldie about where the trees had grown, but all
their digging for the treasure yielded nothing. Goldie's family gave up
search long ago. But if the captain's map was right, $100,000 in gold
lies close to the Caney river, near Artillery Mound.

As late as the summer of 1971, a family of treasure hunters stopped at the
Everett Boulanger ranch. They were equipped with all types of metal
detection devices and were treasure hunting for the Boulanger treasure.
Perhaps it is still there!

The above story was told many times to Granddaughter Thursie (Boulanger)
Uhls by her Grandmother Sarah. Thursie made her home with her grandmother
after the death of Grandfather Joe in 1913.

MAps at
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~usgenweb/ok/osage/blngrmap.htm
 

Charmin

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Gypsy Heart, thank you for posting this story--I had forgotton about it until I saw it on here. This is a great example of treasure stories here in Oklahoma.
sandcreek4 :thumbsup:
 

ammo_u

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There is a ton of legends about stuff hidden around okesa...the bad guys liked to hide out there. I wonder if the Boulanger stache could be closer to pond creek?
 

Jason in Enid

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ammo_u said:
There is a ton of legends about stuff hidden around okesa...the bad guys liked to hide out there. I wonder if the Boulanger stache could be closer to pond creek?

What would make you think this was anywhere close to pondcreek?
 

Jason in Enid

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OK, I have read a LOT of treasure stories. Most of them are pure fiction, and nothing in the story matches up in the real world. But it's cold outside, and I'm bored.

From my armchair research so far, the ground matches the story. The area was obviously heavily wooded, and right where the story claims... is cleared farmland. The town is in the right place, the distances are correct. Trying to match the topography to "artillery hill"....
 

Gooner

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Sorry folks, Joe lied. The musket was found in 1961 where it was grown shut into a tree. The man who found the musket did give it to a member of the Boulanger family, and he, the musket finder, died in 1968. Instead of 300 lbs., only about 150 lbs. of gold was found, according to my 3 sources. I worked extensively on this one from 1988 thru 1993 and was somewhat discoverd, identified, and privately informed as to what transpired. It has long since been recovered,(1962) QUIETLY TURNED into paper money, and all was spent some years ago. Contact me if you want to know more, I located the massacre site as well. To my knowledge it has never been detected.
-bill-
 

naturegirl

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That's interesting gooner. do you do alot of research in this area, or just the Boulanger gold story? It must have been fun tracking down the info. Welcome to t-net :hello:
 

Gooner

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I have studied and have done research and fieldwork on over 40 documented treasure stories in this region, as well as several other private and family tales, and at least three others that experts claim are elsewhere. If you buried something at point B or point C, no amount of searching will allow you to find it at point A regardless of what some book says. I live in Osage County, Okla. where there are over 300 treasure stories. Certain ones I have located, if you knew the situations and hazards, you'ld know why it is still there. A few others never existed, a few have been recovered. The landmarks on the Madrugada Estrella Mapa Oro are on an area creekbank, 1500 varas away the turtle with three back ridges has a severed head, and the huge tree with the dagger on the east side is now a tall stump. So if the 13 jackloads of bullion have been removed from where originally buried in Osage co., then no amount of searching will let you find it where it was never hidden, be it near Lawton or in the Wichita Mt. range.
-bill- (sometimes called "spanish bill")
 

okietreasurehunter

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Gooner the only problem with your theory on the Morning Star Map to Gold is that the stone it was carved on was found by linemen clearing limbs for a line. Wells Blevins came into possession of the stone. The stone was found in Comanche County. I think the money was recovered in the 70's but note 100% for sure.
 

Gooner

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:read2: According to Steve Wilson's book,Ok. Treasures and Treasure Tales, page 145, Blevins inherited the map from a member of the gang. I don't know. I thought Jesse and his entourage got the map from the Mexicans when they robbed and killed the pack train with the eighteen burros loaded with bullion. Seems the Mexicans had planned on recovering the Madrugada cache in the near future. Comanche co. was where map was found? How does the location of a map determine the location of a place?
I can draw a map of my neighborhood and show where my buddies live. I can take the map
out of town or out of state, but the map will still detail my neighborhood.
some 1500 varas, paces, from the core of landmarks on an area creek is a turtle with a severed head, a sign that a treasure has been removed. The turtle has three ridges on his back, each represents 500 varas according to text I have read. Turtle is looking, headed in general direction of markers and topography which matches Mafrugada Estrella Mapa Oro. So accurate is the match that if you were there with the map, you'ld believe that whoever made the map was at that location.
Even the spring is there in the right place. Never met Wells Blevins. His son Frank is gone now as well. Betty moved to Arkansas.Don't think Frank ever believed in treasure.
As for Goldie's gold, two different people told me it was found, a third person told me when and by whom and that it was about half the amount stated, and where and when the musket was found, and C. E. McClurkin(dec.) also told me where the musket was found and that it was given to a member of the Boulanger family. I might be mistaken. I have never been wrong, I thought I was once, but I was mistaken.
I am listenning and reading, this is a resource beyond all expectations, this website.
-bill-
 

okietreasurehunter

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The Morning Star Map wasn't a Spanish map. It was an outlaw map with some Spanish writing on it. The distances are marked using paces not varas. I don't know of a turtle or anything giving you a distance of 500 varas on the map. From the stone boot 22 paces is a rock that has three shallow holes chipped out that when lined up point back at the boot and to a pile of rocks 22 paces away. The piles of rocks is about 22 paces from the boot as well. It forms a nice triangle. I can't take credit for finding this site since many before me had been there.

It was a man who hunted treasure with Wells that told me the true story of the map. The Morning Star map may have had nothing to do with the James Gang. I think it was only 3 jack loads of gold and not 13. Maybe 20, twenty pound bars or about what three donkeys would carry easily. In the middle of three large boulders, as drawn in the bottom left corner of the triangle, is a large hole that nobody bothered to fill back in many years ago. Not being critical here but where the map was found probably has a lot to do with where the treasure was located. It wasn't too far from where the stone boot was located and near a spot the outlaws used as a camp. I can't see them leaving a rock with a map carved on it in a tree a hundred miles from where they buried the money.

I have found sites that match maps before but where the wrong location. Look at how many people claim to have found the location the copper map goes to and each is different from the other. I'm just going from what I was told and the fact there's a large hole where three boulders are and the map said the money should be.
 

Gooner

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Perhaps you are right and that would mean I have accidently come across another site where something entirely different could be hidden. At my loc. there is no hole between the rocks. The turtle isn't on the map, nor the L-shaped line of ancient trees, nor the 3 profiles of faces downstream 1/2 mile or so, but the other markers do match eerily with the ones on the map.
I knew Frank Blevins. I lived next door to him. Wells was his dad. Interesting to think that if a certain group or groups became accustomed to caching valuables along a certain set of guidelines and rules, then that group could have cached something at this loc. also. This gives credence to my site. I guess I'm validated. I need to get up there and dig a big deep hole amongst the three rocks. :headbang: I might get luckier than a puppy who just discovered his own tail.
-bill-
 

okietreasurehunter

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It never hurts to look around and maybe whatever was buried is still there. It sounds like you've done a great deal of searching and I enjoy reading your postings.
 

ammo_u

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Jason in Enid said:
ammo_u said:
There is a ton of legends about stuff hidden around okesa...the bad guys liked to hide out there. I wonder if the Boulanger stache could be closer to pond creek?

What would make you think this was anywhere close to pondcreek?
Was not really serious...pond creek is less than a mile from boulangers landing primitive camp site on the caney.
 

oksniper

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Gooner I was just looking into this one & was wondering if your research turned up what boulanger family member received the musket? I'm related to some by marriage right here in the area. I live just a few Miles south of boulanger. Until just this year I was on a hunting lease that artillery mound was included in. I had a bowstand not far from there. After reading a few different versions of this story, there are a lot of geographical discrepancies. Most of which make no sense at all. In the story here in this thread it states Joseph boulanger had the 160 acre plot just north & west of the caney river bridge. That seems to check out. But if Joseph's land was on the north side of caney river, and artillery mound is on the south side of the river, (& it is) it doesn't make sense to me. The story states that young goldie found artillery mound but there was no dense forest to the south. There is still not today. But it is obviously still on the south side of the caney river, unlike Joseph boulanger's 160 acres.
 

kgunn

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so who found the half of the 300 lbs treasure?
 

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