Kids Say The Darndest Things.......

[Gypsy Heart]

Reports taken off the internet that kids wrote for school projects .....





Auglaize County
by Chase Flinn, from information
provided by his grandmother, Helen Miller

A long, long time ago in the 1800s,
my great-great-great-grandmother discovered oil on her
property.... My g-g-g-grandmother got money for that
oil every month. By this time, her husband wasn't
around to manage the money. So she managed it her own
way: she buried it. Every month she went for a long
walk and buried her money....and it's never been found.
She never told anyone where it's buried, so it's never
to be found.


//////////////////////////////

Uncle Charlie was my grandfather's brother.
Charlie also served during World War I.
He lived with his parents, and kept all his money
in jars which he buried around the house. After he
died, all the relatives hunted for his buried treasure.
Charlie C. Wienand, 1890 - 1946
Stephenson County Illinois
/////////////////////////////////////

Grandma Clarissa had a nephew killed by a horse. He had
quite a bit of money
in gold and silver coins. He had never married.
His sister said, "No one shall
ever spend Bud's money." The sister put it in a bag
and asked Grandma Clarissa to
put it in his casket before it was closed, which she did.
Bud's body was buried
in Rawls Cemetery. If the money were buried too,
who knows?
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Ben H
A farmgirl in a little town.
My grandmother Mary Jane Lemnus was that little girl
and she
grew up in a little townnamed Burnstad. Burnstad is
located in the
southern part of North Dakota, southeast of Bismarck
near napoleon. It was and still is full of German
people. It was and still is a small farm but now is
abandoned and owned by other members of the family.
My grandma was one of seven kids that my
great-grandparents had. Every single one of them
worked there on that little farm. I was surprised
to find out that my great grandfather was a trapper.
I thought that was a cool way to make a living.

She told me about a shed they owned where they kept
the furs ready to be sold. He would stretch and dry
them to perfection to get the best price. Every morning
before sunrise he would grab his gun and go to check
the traps. Sometimes my grandma or one of the other
children would tag along. Usually they would find a
muskrat or two but, if they were lucky they would
have a fox or coyote, they were more valuable.
She also told me about ice fishing and hunting during
the wintertime. It was on a large pond that was near
their house. They hunted mainly muskrat and beaver
there.



One other thing she told me of was butchering chickens.
They would place a stump in the middle of the yard,
then the feathery victims were brought to be executed.
They would take one of the birds hold it on the stump
and proceed to decapitate it and watch theheadless
body run around until it would finally die.
She then mentioned the fact that her dad did not trust
the bank. She said he thought the bank would steal his
money. He buried his money in glass jars all over the
farm. You can only wonder if some of it is still there.
Everyone is now grown and has grandchildren.
My grandmother goes there once in a while to see
and remember where she grew up in that little town
of Burnstad.


......................................................

 

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[Gypsy Heart]

Chestnut, LA

NOAH CLOUD, SR

Story goes that in the early part of the Civil War, Sam Cloud, Noah's nephew whom he had raised, and an Elkins' boy (Uncle of J.T. Elkins, Eva Elkins's father) plotted to rob Noah, who, according to tradition, "had quite a bit of money and silverware."

Mrs. Elkins, the boy's mother who lived about a mile from Noah, heard them plotting; she slipped off to Noah's house and told him about the plan. Forewarned, he put his money, we are told, in a buckskin bag and went out back toward the smokehouse to bury it. He had his daughters, Mary and Ann, and his wife, Delilah, watching for him. He came back in about 10 minutes and said that it was alright.

It is also told that he moved his buried money that night and planted a cedar bush to mark the place. The boys came to take the money as plotted, and in the skirmish, Noah was shot by Sam Cloud. He died a month later from gangrene poison without telling anyone where he buried his money.

This buried treasure has been the subject of much conversation and search since the last century. It has been suggested that it was finally buried in the bottom of a 60 foot well; another idea is that it was buried under the smokehouse. About 1908 Noah Jr. pointed out the location of the old smokehouse which was 18 by 18 feet, and said the original logs of his father's smokehouse were still there. After he marked off the spot, Lee Cloud, his son, and M.B. Evans, his son-in-law, dug 3 or 4 feet deep but did not find any money. They also dug where Noah Jr. said the cellar under the front porch was.

They found broken dishes, a piece of chain, and a spur--but no money. They and many others, including Noah Sr.'s great grandson, Buddy Evans in 1970, have dug hunting the money many times; but no one has reported finding any.




ANOTHER VERSION

(From the Brewton Family)



Noah's daughter Ann married Sam Brewton. While I was exploring the internet for more data on the Cloud family I chanced to discover another distant cousin, descended from this daughter. We exchanged information on our two branches of the Cloud family. Among his lore was this version:

"It seems as if Samuel George Brewton and his brother-in-law Noah Cloud sold a herd of mules in Natchitoches, Louisiana, and with the money, they got into a game of poker and won about $10,000 in gold. After the game was over Samuel Brewton was talked into having a drink with the losers; the drink was supposed to have been doctored. Noah Cloud took the money back to Goldonna, Louisiana, by one route and Samuel Brewton took a different trail; but the doctored drink took effect and he fell out of the saddle and was found the next day. He was brought home where he lived for a couple of days and died. Later Noah Cloud was shot late one night in front of his home, supposedly for the same money. The men that shot Noah Cloud were never caught, however, it is believed that a man by the name of Elkins was the leader of the men." (From James P. Brewton)







JOHN NELSON SMITH



John Nelson Smith was the father of my great grandfather Noah Cloud Jr.'s first wife, Mary Izora Smith. Quite apart from the buried treasure tale which I am coming to, John Nelson must have been a memorable person, a "one-er" in cross-word puzzle terminology.

On Nov. 13, 1814, John Nelson enlisted in Captain Thomas Gordon's Company of the 10th Regiment of the Tennessee Militia, at Giles County, Tenn. He fought in the Battles of Horse Shoe Bend and New Orleans in the War of 1812. When he was applying for a pension in 1873, when he was 74 years old, he wrote in his application: "While employed by a contractor who furnished cattle and hogs to the army I reached Horse Shoe Bend just at the time of the battle with the Creek Indians. I volunteered and fought in that engagement."

He also said, "When Gen. Andrew Jackson called on Tennessee my Mother state for volunteers to meet the British foe at New Orleans I responded to his call and volunteered on the 13 of Nov 1814 to then become a soldier and according to my best recollections we reached New Orleans on the 1st day of Dec 1814. Skirmishing was going on almost every day until the 8th of January 1815 when the memorable Battle was fought. NEVER NEVER (his own capitalization) shall I forget that time I was in the Ranks and in the ditch and owing to a dense and dark fog we could not see the British Troops but about 8 or 9 o'clock a little wind rose and the fog disappeared and ...Great God to my youthful eye I thought we had met a British well-armed foe to the amount of millions. I felt miserable but after a few rounds of firing I did not feel so bad."

He was discharged on the 25th of January 1815, in Nashville, Tenn. Sometime after the war, according to my grandmother, his granddaughter, Delilah Cloud, "Pres. Jackson appointed John Nelson Smith to appraise the land claimed by Indians. When they were paid off Smith bought several hundred barrels of whiskey and sold to them. They were so eager and so thirsty for the drink each came with a canteen and rushed in saying, 'Me first, me first,' until the last one was gone. The Government tried to prosecute Smith but he was too shrewd for he had gotten on a strip of unsurveyed land and the Government had no authority. As Indians were paid for their land they packed and moved." She also added: "Smith then put up first store at Memphis."

In 1836 John Nelson Smith married Mary Izora Hinkle, a wealthy widow with a son named Morgan. Thirteen years later they had a daughter, Mary Izora, who by destiny or chance was to become my great grandmother. Unfortunately her mother died at the time of her birth.

Mary Izora, who was a beautiful girl (confirmed by a picture I have of her taken shortly after my grandmother's birth), apparently became the focus of a fierce conflict between her older step-brother, Morgan Hinkle, and her father. Both wanted to keep her, but, according to my grandmother, her "father took her and a trunk of gold to a farm." Morgan had his step-father arrested but John Nelson Smith was clever and put his daughter "on a boat and sent her to Alabama to evade Hinkle." He "kept her hid and slipped her out to Louisiana" where she was kept in a convent at Natchitoches.

According to my grandmother, in 1856, when Mary Izora would have been 7 years old, "the entire Negro slaves camped at Natches Miss where he (John Nelson) treated Negroes to cider and candy for New Years" came after them. "(He) moved on in wagons and one buggy with a trunk of gold toward Black Lake (LA)." Grandma's story becomes confused at this point, but she concluded, "Billie Pierce came with a squad of Negroes and Billie Woods another. There was about 310 Negroes." Apparently his step-son, Morgan Hinkle, was still trying to get his sister away from his step-father.

Evidently Smith was able to keep her in Louisiana however, because in 1866, when she was 16 years old, she married my grandfather, Noah Cloud Jr. Her father disapproved (so what else is new for doting fathers!) of the marriage and "never liked Noah."

But after his daughter and Noah had been married about 7 years and were living at Cloud's Crossing in Natchitoches Parish, he finally gave in and decided to come visit them. He was living in New Iberia, LA, at the time, where he had become very wealthy, reportedly "owning a large portion of the town." Was he also curious about his four grandchildren by the daughter he must have loved excessively (given how possessive he had been of her)?

He came, it is said, with two servants in a surrey and brought two satchels of gold. Somewhere before reaching Cloud's Crossing, perhaps fearing, or at least not trusting, his son-in-law any more than he had his step-son, he stopped and had the servants wait while he went out and buried the gold.

During his visit, he became ill and was put to bed. As the story goes, when it seemed that his illness might be fatal, he was asked where his gold was buried. He got so mad, they say, that he spit at them, turned over, and died.

Reportedly there was much digging in the area later; but no one has, so far as I know, has ever been able to find where he buried his gold. It is said that his slaves in New Iberia kept his house open for many years, "waiting for the old man who never returned."

John Nelson Smith is buried in Pleasant Hill Cemetery, near the grave of his daughter, with no dates on his grave.

In later years some of my grandmother's sisters and their descendants have returned to New Iberia trying to lay claim to their never-received inheritance. They found that "he was indeed wealthy," but the statute of limitations on possession of property had run out, and none were ever successful with their claims. On one such trip my mother recalls my grandmother who accompanied them telling her: "They told me as we drove through the town, 'Just think, this should all be ours.'"

 

[Gypsy Heart]

Along the Banks of Scary Creek.”

“They hung a Yankee there,” she said, pointing out that ancient oak.

Her stories of our history had been passed down from simple folk. “Great Uncle Luke died in the war in Clarksburg from a spell of flux. And Tom's Pa, also known as Luke, the war left maimed. . .he suffered much.

“The Grays they hid in Maddox Cave, snuck food to `em and helped `em hide.”

I knew that cave!. . .right down the hill. . . we weren't allowed to go inside. Just once dad had lowered us down into its dusty yawning mouth. But we feared snakes and cats and bear. . . we pleaded and he pulled us out.

On frost-cold West Virginia nights we'd huddle `round the old coal stove as grandma spun her web of tales that she's passed down from simple folk.

Grandma said, “When I was young we had a cow that turned up dry. I seen a blacksnake at her teats and knowed for sure the reason why. “I grabbed a stick and knocked him off and ran full speed straight down the hill. He put his tail right in his mouth. . . rolled after me, just like a wheel. “I reached the cold spring out of breath, took one last swing and hit my prey. That snake, he broke into three parts, each separate piece just crawled away.

“Black panthers prowled Big Scary Creek. I heared their screams most every night. Sounds like a woman cryin' for help bounced through the holler til first light.”

I know the truth is hidden somewhere in the web that she once spoke. Her stories of our history had been passed down from simple folk. “There's jars of money in the woods. Pa buried `em before he died. He was a silversmith by trade. . . took Anne Kinnard to be his bride.