Gorge Benner told Alton H Blackington story of how he and his friend George Levensaler just after WW1 found treasure buried on the Maine coast.
In 1951 the story got out how they both discovered buried treasure with a map found in an old Attic in a house in Vermont. How they found a flat stone dug under it and found a rotten cask of gold coins and gold cross with precious stones.
Here is a newspaper story of this alleged discovery in early 1920's in 1951.
ONE TREASURE HUNT THAT PAID OFF
Most of the pirate treasure hunts you hear about never succeeded in unearthing real
treasure. But one undertaken by two boys, years ago, on the Maine coast, actually turned up a keg full of old coins and a gem-studded gold cross,
worth a small fortune in all.
The story of this pirate treasure and its discovery is told by Alton H. Blackington, authority on New England lore and legend, in a January Reader's Digest article condensed from the Saturday Review of Literature.
Directions for finding ? the treasure were found in an old sea chest in a Vermont attic.
A pirate, according to the story, had left the chest many years before and had never
come back to reclaim it. A nephew of the chest's owner, and another boy his age. followed the directions, as treasure hunters always do. but this time the directions really led to gold.
Under a flat stone, found after only a one-day search, was a deeply buried wooden
keg. all but rotted away. Digging it out with pickaxe and crowbar, the boys found that
it contained hundreds of coins, plus the gold cross studded with diamonds' and rubies and wound with a pearl necklace.
Next morning, in Boston, the youthful treasure hunters showed their 'find to amazed .
officers of the Atlantic National Bank. In the appraisal which followed the discovery was valued at 20000 dollars, then about £500.
But the Paper was not entirely accurate because boys was not boys they was men who was returned soldiers from WW1
Kanacki
