Hidden Gold....Lee County Virginia

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"The Bluebaughs of Lee County, Virginia"
by Donald Lewis Osborn

Jacob Bluebaugh lived in Lee County, Virginia, in the latter decades of the eighteenth century and died there probably in 1830. His presence there is known from family tradition passed down through the generations and is substantiated by several public records, including tax'books, land records, and censuses. Jacob was aged "45 and up" in the 1820 Census so he was born before 1776. We know Jacob was in Lee County, but we do not know from whence he came.

It is remotely possible that the Jacob Bluebaugh having a land survey (150 acres on both sides of North Fork Holston River) in Washington County, Virginia, in FEB 1786 1 was the Jacob we know of later in Lee County. However, unless the Lee County Jacob was born several years before 1776 (and we know his second wife was born circa 1786), he likely wasn't the Washington County Jacob who likely would have been at least 20 years old when he was having land surveyed in 1786.

There is a good possibly that Jacob Bluebaugh of Washington County in 1786 was the father or uncle of Jacob of Lee County. One might further speculate that some earlier records in Frederick County, Virginia, but of course it would be speculation.

Frederick County, Maryland, deed records show that on OCT 23, 1753, Conrad Hagmire conveyed some land by deed to Jacob Bromback (Deed Book E, page 293). We might suppose this Jacob was aged 20 years or more when he obtained this land which would place his birth before 1734. On MAR 22, 1773, Jacob Blueback or Bluebauch was petitioning for title to some land in Frederick County, Maryland, called Weddings Choice which he was "seized in fee of" (Deed Book P, page 680). Was this the same Jacob who was in Washington County, Virginia, in 1786? Two deed records in Frederick County, Maryland, are for a Rudey, Rudy, or Rudolph Bruback (probably a corrupted spelling of Bluebaugh). On OCT 5, 1759, Edward Diggs and Ralph Taney conveyed land to Rudey and on MAR 20, 1765, Rudy or Rudolph Bruback conveyed land to Andrew Hull (Deed Book 5, page 836) and (Deed Book J, page 1076) respectively. The 1790 Maryland Census shows some of the family still there. Benjamin Bluback was a family head in Frederick County with himself aged 16 years and up (born prior to 1775), a free white male under 16 (born 1775-1790), 2 free white females, and 1 slave.

What was the Jacob Bluebaugh of Lee County, Virginia, like? According to family tradition, he was married twice. He and his first wife (name unknown) were the parents of a girl named Mary. Perhaps she was the only child of his first marriage. After Jacob's wife's death, he married again, this time to Esther or Hester. Census records of 1830 and 1860 and a deed show "Esther." However, the step-mother of Mary Bluebaugh was "Old Granny Hettie" according to Mary's granddaughter, Elizabeth Flanary (1840-1930) who married Abraham Pennington.2 The deed showing Jacob's wife as Esther also mentions their daughter, Esther A., but the marriage record for this daughter shows "Hester A." Apparently, Esther, Hester, and "Hettie" were used interchangeably.

We can surmise from the stories handed down both through Bluebaugh descendants and descendants of their neighbors that Esther was quite overbearing and domineering and that Jacob was a "henpecked husband" and perhaps a bit eccentric. There is even a hint of Esther's personality in the name "Old Granny Hettie." Her name was remembered in a handed down story 3 that Hettie Bluebaugh hit her husband with a cornpone. He was so very meek and humble that he said, "Honey, what made you hit me so hard?" Also, there is the story, learned from a different source, 4 that one time Jacob Bluebaugh's second wife had him outside and was about to chop off his head with an axe because he wouldn't tell her where he had buried his gold. Luckily, so the story goes, a neighbor - thought to be a Flanary - happened by at the right moment and saved Jacob from the fate of the axe.

The story that Jacob Bluebaugh had gold was told and retold throughout the neighborhood. Apparently he wouldn't give up the secret as to where he had hidden it even to his second wife under her threats of death. Where had he obtained so much gold that he had to hide it? Probably Jacob brought considerable wealth with him when he came to southwest Virginia as he acquired several acres of land. Perhaps he had gold left after making his land purchases and buried it somewhere on his farm.

Some say that he buried his gold in his first wife's grave.5 Others say he buried his gold by a spring flowing east, 6 but who could say which spring? Likely, Jacob owned many springs emitting their waters toward the sunrise. People even had ideas as the size and nature of the gold - some said it was a peck pot of gold coins.7

Many have searched for the treasure. Probably "Old Granny Hettie" herself looked around for it when Jacob was away visiting the neighbors or had slipped off to get some lead ore to make some bullets. Hettie must have searched frantically after Jacob died for then she had no fear he would come home and find her digging. Holes were dug all around on the old Bluebaugh farm by many different people. There is a tradition 8 that one woman named Creech (from the near by Johnson farm - formerly known as the Bailey farm) searched and thought about the Bluebaugh gold so much that she went crazy and her family would have to lock her in a closet under or behind the stairs when she got uncontrollably violent.

On his deathbed, Jacob supposedly attempted to tell those around him his secret, but he was too weak and feeble in his last few minutes and couldn't make them understand where he had buried his gold. Some thought he mentioned something about a popular tree. He tried to tell them, but he slipped into death still holding his secret. 9

Even within this decade, this writer (Jacob's great-great-great-great-grandson) and some of his cousins searched for the legendary Bluebaugh treasure using the electronic metal detector. Near one stream was buried a pan lid probably of relatively recent vintage. By a little dry ditch (likely a spring in wet weather or was in Jacob's time) and by a tree (one too young to have been there when Jacob lived), the electronic apparatus registered a signal of something metallic. Excavation was immediately commenced, but was somewhat hampered when solid rock was reached. Had a rock slide come down the steep bank sometime in the intervening decades and buried still farther down Jacob's secreted pot of yellow metal? Not to be deterred, a little help from explosives got them down a little ways more. Probably too much has already been revealed. Was something found? That's another secret!

Besides being remembered for his pot of gold, Jacob Bluebaugh was well-known for his art of moulding bullets out of lead. Known to him and to no other human being was his source of lead ore. However, it has been said that Indians later spied on him and learned the secret source of ore. Years later, some Indian in Oklahoma is said to have related how he saw "Bluebaugh" get the lead ore. Even the story of the Indian's telling this has hazy with the passage of time and generations, but he may have stated that Jacob got the ore at Pea Vine Knob on Wallen's Ridge.10

Some Lee County residents of today recall that people have said in years past that Jacob himself was part American Indian11 and that the old cemetery located six-tenths of a mile straight northeast of the town of Dryden, Virginia, and situated on the top of the knoll is an Indian Cemetery. However, it seems that most refer to it as the old Bluebaugh Cemetery.

The Bluebaugh cemetery is (or was in 1962, at least) guarded by a lone old weathered lightning-splintered walnut tree. There are several native rock headstones and footstones, but no inscriptions can be found. Probably there never were anything more than hand-scrawled writings on them, if ever that. Probably Jacob and his two wives are buried there and likely his daughter, Mary (nee Bluebaugh) Flanary, and perhaps some of his and Esther's children.

Now let's look at some of the relatively few existing records concerning Jacob Bluebaugh and his family. Spelling of the family name varied somewhat, but was usually recognizable. He was Jacob Blewbough, white and above 16 years of age, in the 1795 Lee County Personal Property and Land Book now in the Virginia State Library in Richmond. The tax list of 1802 found in the same library shows him as Jacob Blubook owing 100 acres. On the 1803 tax list found at the Lee County Courthouse in Jonesville, Virginia, he was Jacob Bluebogh, still owing 100 acres. The 1814 list of Land Tax at the Lee County Courthouse shows that he then owned two tracts of land, 100 acres and 385 acres, both located on "Poor Valley Ridge." In the same tax record is a farm located on "Waters Blubough Spring," owned by James Benham and Peter Little.

The Lee County Land and 1814 Tax Records indicate Jacob owned at least 782 acres. This agrees with the statement of Mrs. Charles Blair of Lee County in 1961 that the Bluebaugh Farm probably originally contained as much as 700 or 800 acres.

According to the census taken on AUG 22, 1860, Jacob's widow, Esther M. Blabough, was 74 years old (born circa 1786) with the occupation of "House Keeper" and birthplace of Augusta County, Virginia. Her assets shown are $50. personal estate and no real estate. Her neighbor, Shelby Hobbs, had $10,000. real estate and $1,500. personal estate. These figures would indicate that all of Jacob Bluebaugh's land had been disposed of and that his widow still had only the personal property.

The only other person in the"Blabough Household" in 1860 was John Colton, age 24, a "Farm Laborer" born in Lee County, Virginia. Probably Esther, Jacob's second wife, died prior to 1870 as she was not noticed in the Lee County, Virginia, census for that year.

One can conclude from the existing records and the traditions and legends still told in Lee County, Virginia, that Jacob Bluebaugh was a most interesting and remarkable man evenif he perhaps was domineered by "Old Granny Hettie."

At least he knew how to keep secrets.
The account above compiled December 1, 1967
by: Don L. Osborn
322 Willow Way
Lee's Summit, MO.
64063
http://blubaughfamily.info/history_appendix_01.html


1Annals of Southwest Virginia, 1769-1800, by Lewis Preston Summers, Abingdon, Va., 1929, page 1786.


2Copied by D. L. Osborn in JUL 1958 from notes of Mrs. Golden (Nee Flanary) Bondurant, Dryden, Virginia, as dictated to her by her grandmother, Elizabeth.

3Interview AUG 12, 1960 by D. L. Osborn with Mrs. Clarence Earl Bramwell (nee Iva Marie Orr), Stockton, California.

4Interview in 1961 by D. L. Osborn with Mrs. Charles Blair (nee Emily Hobbs), near Dryden, Virginia.

5Interview with Mrs. Charles Blair, 1961.

6Interview in 1961 by D. L. Osborn with Mrs. Clyde H. Bishop (nee Sada Gilbert), Dryden, Virginia.

7Interview JUN 3, 1961 by D. L. Osborn with Ballard Parsons (born 1880, son of John Morgan Parsons), Dryden, Virginia.
 

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