Confederate gold in Greensboro, NC

[Darren in NC]

This is for you guys and gals who are still looking for the pots of gold buried close to the RR tracks between Greensboro and Burlington, NC. I have done extensive research on this legend and I have come to believe it's a hoax. There is no JW Duchase in the Civil War records, nor a PH Black ever in Mebane, NC who supposedly heard the story firsthand. Also at the close of the war, almost all Confederate funds were accounted for EXCEPT for kegs of Mexican silver dollars donated to the southern cause by Mexico. So IF there's anything buried in the Greensboro/Burlington area, it would be the kegs of silver dollars. But there is reason to believe the kegs were buried in Danville, VA.

If anyone has done any other research to refute or bring clarity to my research, please contact me and I'll be glad to compare notes with you. While I do believe it's a hoax, I hope I'm wrong and someone can find further information that would make a search worthwhile. Meanwhile, the best stories for you to check out are not the stories out of treasure books, but stories from old timers who grew up nearby and "heard a rumor from years ago that..." Those are unpublished leads that could lead to the real deal. I have such a story from Louisiana and hope to search for it when I return home this Christmas. I'll keep you posted.

Darren

 

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[glw54]

Very interesting post Darren, you had already informed me of such! I'm happy you chose to enlighten others!

Gary

 

[Siegfried Schlagrule]

According to my research there was a large amount of money recovered by the occupation troops during the reconstruction period in that area. So much money was circulating that the officers had trouble controlling their men. There is an account of a sharecropper finding one pot and he and the property owner seeking the other two pots. I believe that the majority of these caches were recovered from the most obvious spots about 1900 or earlier by the Knights of the Golden Circle. I think that very few pots remain in the area that is generally searched along the tracks between Greensboro and Burlington. I have hunted in north carolina but not for this one yet. If I ever do I won't look between those two towns. exanimo, ss

 

[Darren in NC]

You are correct, SS, about the troops finding gold. It is often confused with the Confederate legend above. It was at Company Shops (Burlington) one month after the war ended, but the gold came from the Commercial Bank of New Bern. The facts of record are that the Tenth Ohio Calvary found and buried the gold in a frenzy. The authorities got involved and began recovery. General Kilpatrick said in his report that most of the gold (about $100,000) had been recovered, but not all. About $30,000 was admittedly buried between Hillsborough and Company Shops and another $1400 close to Greensboro. He stated that all known amounts would total the full amount. It is assumed, but not confirmed in record, that all indeed had been recovered and returned to New Bern since the confessions were made.

There are too many reports from many sources that state a recovery of iron pots with gold coins found by a farmer/sharecropper in the early 1900s for there not to be some truth to the story. Obviously, something was found. Who knows what it was. Perhaps someone's life savings who fled the coming march of Sherman only to die or lose their markers? Or even the New Bern gold that hadn't been fully recovered? But there are no additional stories of any kind to confirm multiple findings of the same. Evidence reveals that there is no documentation prior to the early 1900s that speak of the Confederate legend. This leads me to believe the Confederate story grew out of that one finding and the factual story of the New Bern gold years earlier. Also, the only proof of missing Confederate treasure is wooden kegs, not iron pots. But I hope someone finds either?

 

[Siegfried Schlagrule]

Good update. Thanks. Here's another factoid for your files. There is no one named Du Chase anywhere in the world according to the mormon genealogical webiste. Either that was a nom de guerre or someone spelled it phonetically and got it wrong. Some possibles are Dushays, Duchez, etc. exanimo, ss

 

[gldhntr]

darren , if you didn't get my message let me know here and i will try to send again

 

[Darren in NC]

Got it. Thanks a bunch. You'll get a reply

 

[Connecticut Sam]

I agree with Darren first comment.... UPDATE.

 

[Treasureseeker3311]

W.C. Jameson, made an "interesting" authors note about this story in one of his books that may give you cause to reconsider this being a hoax. I'm a newbie here , first ever forum post please feel free to inform me otherwise.

 

[Bigdogdad]

I believe in the existence of the pots. I believe I know where 3-4 of them are buried. I have tried in the past to dig them up but now realize I was a little off. I am working with the property owner. He is in his 80's. You can't rush the old timers. It has been difficult for me as I live 600 miles from the location. I am not going to go into the details at this time. Duchase was part of the secret service. Get it , secret. Does anyone really think they can find out everything that happened 150 years ago by looking on the internet or reading whatever they can find. I believe that a lot of the stories out there are probably not true. I think this one is. Maybe all the details are not 100% correct but I do think the pots are waiting to be found. The people I am dealing with family owned the property well before the Civil war. When they are ready for me to come back to dig again I believe I will find the pots. It does not matter what anyone on this board thinks, if they exist, I will be digging them up. Part of the problem is that they are deeper than you would expect because they leveled the track right after the war and piled the dirt over the pot locations. I was shown the location 20 years ago. The same person that showed me this location also showed me the location of a pile of buried pirate silver not far from my home. I have been working the last 3 weeks to get permission from the DOT here in Florida as they are on part of the Interstate highway right-of-way. They turned me down today. I am not giving up. I am going to the state headquarters next week to meet with them face to face. I believe there is over a ton of silver bars. I know exactly where they are and how deep they are. The silver is there. The pots of gold exist. The story continues.

 

[TheHarleyMan2]

Hey BDD, If the state won't let you dig on the right of way, at least you could try and dig it at night, but don't know if you would be able to dig with a shovel going X amount deep.

Chances are the state will probably and most likely steal it from you once you dig it up, unless you have a lawyer to help you claim it. Or they may not give you permission at all.

I came across something yesterday and looked adn did a little research and I might be looking in an area around here, but I got more research to do. I know it has been long lost!

Keep us posted and good luck!!!

 

[Bigdogdad]

I have no interest in digging it up without a permit. I do not want to be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life or getting caught because somebody talked about it (like me). I am going to have to fight to get the permit. I am prepared. If I were to find it in the water with permission, I might get 80%. I was told by the state archaelogist that because it is on land they will give me nothing. I am going to fight for 50%. One of the reasons I have not gone after it before this was because it is on state land. When (not if) I get the permit to dig, I may keep it low key or I may decide to go very public with it. I know the smart thing would be to tell as few people as possible but I like to tell my stories. Thats why I have written this story to be put out as a book.

 

[Franklin]

I believe in the existence of the pots. I believe I know where 3-4 of them are buried. I have tried in the past to dig them up but now realize I was a little off. I am working with the property owner. He is in his 80's. You can't rush the old timers. It has been difficult for me as I live 600 miles from the location. I am not going to go into the details at this time. Duchase was part of the secret service. Get it , secret. Does anyone really think they can find out everything that happened 150 years ago by looking on the internet or reading whatever they can find. I believe that a lot of the stories out there are probably not true. I think this one is. Maybe all the details are not 100% correct but I do think the pots are waiting to be found. The people I am dealing with family owned the property well before the Civil war. When they are ready for me to come back to dig again I believe I will find the pots. It does not matter what anyone on this board thinks, if they exist, I will be digging them up. Part of the problem is that they are deeper than you would expect because they leveled the track right after the war and piled the dirt over the pot locations. I was shown the location 20 years ago. The same person that showed me this location also showed me the location of a pile of buried pirate silver not far from my home. I have been working the last 3 weeks to get permission from the DOT here in Florida as they are on part of the Interstate highway right-of-way. They turned me down today. I am not giving up. I am going to the state headquarters next week to meet with them face to face. I believe there is over a ton of silver bars. I know exactly where they are and how deep they are. The silver is there. The pots of gold exist. The story continues.

Biddogdad, You seem to be saying I believe an awful lot. Nothing wrong with that except if you are going to get into legal contracts, you had better know for sure. By your post I get the feeling you are relying on some sort of map dowser or LRL by someone else. Nothing wrong with that you may still find something. But if I were going to go into contracts I would know definitely by research or some other means that something was definitely located there. Only my thoughts not saying you are wrong but I do believe you need better research.

As for the pots of gold along the tracks near Burlington and Greensboro I have searched for them several times. Most of the land there is off limits and if you park along the highway or railroad you will be checked by the police within 15 minutes. Also if you will do research about these pots of gold it never happened. As for Captain Duchase being a secret service, I don't think so. All secret service agents during the war were either active soldiers or active government officials. Judah Benjamin head of the Confederate Secret Service was a government official. I have read the Union SS documents which contain the SS names, ranks and their addresses.

As for your pots of gold, most of this came from the OR about the 10th Ohio finding gold of the Bank of New Bern along the railroad near Company Shops (today Burlington, NC) Even with the OR this is entirely wrong the 10th Ohio found their gold near Salisbury, NC and the men did not turn the money in to the Bank of New Bern. There was a trial and the finders keep the money and carried it back into Ohio.

 

[Bigdogdad]

Did you do your research before you went looking for the pots or after? If you don't think they exist, why did you go looking for them? I have had a legal written contract in the past to search for and try to dig up some of the pots. If you go about it right and earn peoples trust, you can get permission to dig. As far as what really happened back during and after the war, your "facts" are only as good as the source you choose to"believe". I do believe in dowsing and have seen it proven. I also own my own rods but do not consider myself a competent dowser. I may have not done as much research as a lot of the "armchair/google" experts, but I feel I have done enough to put a shovel in the ground. How do you know so much about the secret service? Were you there? Its called "secret" because there may be things that were actually kept secret. Just because you can't google it means nothing. It's amazing how many "experts" there are in this world. As far as the silver bars go, there location was confirmed over 20 years ago by different methods that I won't go into on here. I chose not to dig them up then. I now plan on getting the proper permission to dig them up and when I do you and everybody else will know about.

 

[Chagy]

Biddogdad, You seem to be saying I believe an awful lot. Nothing wrong with that except if you are going to get into legal contracts, you had better know for sure. By your post I get the feeling you are relying on some sort of map dowser or LRL by someone else. Nothing wrong with that you may still find something. But if I were going to go into contracts I would know definitely by research or some other means that something was definitely located there. Only my thoughts not saying you are wrong but I do believe you need better research.

As for the pots of gold along the tracks near Burlington and Greensboro I have searched for them several times. Most of the land there is off limits and if you park along the highway or railroad you will be checked by the police within 15 minutes. Also if you will do research about these pots of gold it never happened. As for Captain Duchase being a secret service, I don't think so. All secret service agents during the war were either active soldiers or active government officials. Judah Benjamin head of the Confederate Secret Service was a government official. I have read the Union SS documents which contain the SS names, ranks and their addresses.

As for your pots of gold, most of this came from the OR about the 10th Ohio finding gold of the Bank of New Bern along the railroad near Company Shops (today Burlington, NC) Even with the OR this is entirely wrong the 10th Ohio found their gold near Salisbury, NC and the men did not turn the money in to the Bank of New Bern. There was a trial and the finders keep the money and carried it back into Ohio.

Inst it Larry The Cable Guy the one who says; "I believe" ......You are free to believe what ever you want but at the end; "it is what it is"

 

[mdavis3238]

Pots of Gold..

Hey BDD, If the state won't let you dig on the right of way, at least you could try and dig it at night, but don't know if you would be able to dig with a shovel going X amount deep.

Chances are the state will probably and most likely steal it from you once you dig it up, unless you have a lawyer to help you claim it. Or they may not give you permission at all.

I came across something yesterday and looked adn did a little research and I might be looking in an area around here, but I got more research to do. I know it has been long lost!

Keep us posted and good luck!!!

The story goes.. for them to bury 100 paces pass the right of way. so its NOT on the RR right of way which is 50FT, its on private land..

its should be between 120 to 125 ft off the RR.. but. .it according where did he start the pace, the first rail.. the center, or the bottom of rock pile makes a big difference...

 

[Bigdogdad]

The story goes.. for them to bury 100 paces pass the right of way. so its NOT on the RR right of way which is 50FT, its on private land..

its should be between 120 to 125 ft off the RR.. but. .it according where did he start the pace, the first rail.. the center, or the bottom of rock pile makes a big difference...

We are talking two different sites here. You are talking about the gold filled pot story in North Carolina and TheHarleyMan2 is talking about a site in Florida called Rocky Bluff. I was in North Carolina in November with a magnetometer expert. We had some good hits and did some digging. The problem was that the soil there is highly ironized and also has a lot of magnetite. I have written permission to come back and try again. The spot that I have the most interest in has a lot of very large trees in the way. I have permission to take them out but I just have not been ready to commit to that yet. I need to have the right kind of detection equipment and make sure there is something valuable buried there.

One of the spots we dug in November. One of the guys we met ran the backhoe and was a little rough with it.

He broke the rental backhoe on Sunday morning before we got a chance to dig in the area I wanted to. They went home to Alabama, we went back to Florida. I will go back again.

 

[Haldean]

I have a book about the history of Burlington, Alamance County NC that has a couple of paragraphs about the gold that was found in the 1920's. It is titled "When Shoeshines Were A Nickle". The author "Dover G. Heritage" was born in 1892 and grew up in Burlington. He tells about Bob Sutphin, an indian who lived on Grace Ave. He had a mule and did odd jobs around town. There was a vacant lot near Broad St. and Hawkins St. behind the old hunt club. Bob was hired to keep up the grounds in the summer as the hunt club house was closed in the summer. He was plowing the vacant lot with the help of his black friend when they hit something that jarred the plow. They looked down and saw that it was a big wash pot with a lid on it. They saw the pot was filled with gold money. The two men hitched up the wagon and put the pot of gold in it. Bob then gave his friend all his pockets would hold of the gold and made him promise not to tell any one what they had found. Bob and his family disappeared from Alamance County and it is not known where he went. Word got out though and soon the whole town was down there digging up the whole neighborhood looking for more gold. Reportedly none was ever found. It is believed that the gold was the property of the railroad and when Sherman reached "Chapel Hill" headed towards Burlington they buried the gold behind the old railroad shops. I didn't see any sense of searching there for more gold. I believe Bob got it all. Yes there are a lot of legends but I suspect a lot of treasures were buried in Shermans path. There may even be some of them still there.

 

[A2coins]

Keep swinging that detector you never know

 

[Curtis]

Not longafter Bigdogdads last post I was contacted by a guy in Georgia about the pots,he had some very good information, I contacted Bigdogdad (since I knew he waslooking), and he met us near the site. I traveled from Ohio BDD came up fromFlorida and Chuck from Georgia. BDD had writtenpermission to search on the property (this was after the work with the backhoe)so we did, we did not find any gold coins, found a small amount in a rock but thatwas it. I was using a state of the art device that would have found it if itwas there. We then covered the whole area, and if it would have been anywherein that 11 mile stretch we would have found it. Lots of time and effort by BDD,he had even figured that the railroad had been raised and may have filled I overthe top of other buried items…About a year after we did this he died….he was agreat Treasure Hunter and we miss him.