There is a story about an Army payroll that was lost in 1835 after the convoy was attacked by Indians. It happened just south of Ft. Dade in Florida. The payroll was buried and all but two of the soldiers were killed. The two survivors made it back three miles to Ft. Dade where one of them died of his wounds the next day. The sole survivor went back to the scene of the battle with a patrol but he could not find the payroll since he did not witness the burial. The area is just south of present day Dade City near Buddy Lake. Does anyone have a reference to a more detailed account of the incident? I hear there is also a report of the incident in the National Archives.
The story you are talking about was supposedly during the Third Seminole War. A group of soldiers were carrying an $80,000 payroll. They were attacked when they reached the Henry Williams Hammock, west of Buddy Lake. They buried the payroll, and placed an iron kettle over it as a marker. The lone survivor lived long enough to tell the story, but died soon after. About twenty years later (this would have been the late 1870s), a man heard the story and said that he had found an old kettle in the area, but couldn't find the spot again. It was supposedly buried at the foot of a large tree in the hammock.
South of Fort Dade is the opposite direction from the Dade battlefield.
The main problems with this story is the very large amount of money...especially for the Third Seminole War, which had about as many local militia as federal troops, and wouldn't need to move that huge amount of money...especially in that area since that war was (with a few exceptions) mostly taking place well south of that area.
Also...there is no massacre of troops that I have ever heard of taking place in the Third Seminole War...and even if it was the Second Seminole War...The only thing besides the Dade massacre that might rank as a massacre would be the attack on the 2nd Dragoons under Harney on the Caloosahatchee River...and neither of those were carrying a payroll, or near Fort Dade. There were no forts between Ft. Brooke and Ft. King at the time of the attack on Dade's column.
Another, very similar, story was supposed to have happened during the Second Seminole War on a party taking a payroll to Ft. Mason. Almost word for word...a column of soldiers carrying a, this time, $25,000 payroll were ambushed by Seminoles and only a single soldier made it to the fort to tell the tale. The payroll was supposed to have been hidden in or near Indian Springs in Lake County. Fort Mason was near Lake Eustis.
Again...similar problems with this story...I don't know of any other "massacre" that occurred other than Dade and the surprise attack on Harney's men that was hardly a "massacre".
A real "lost Third Seminole War payroll" was the Fort Capron payroll that was lost when a boat taking it to shore on the east coast, overturned, and lost it off shore in the Atlantic. The coins pop up every now and then at auction.
And yes...They were coins. Gold and silver and different denominations. There were also soldier's diary entries talking about Seminoles coming into the forts to exchange their paper money for coins...I imagine the soldiers got the better of them on those deals...
The Treasure Beaches Report Direct From Florida's Treasure Coast.: 3/13/11 Report - More on the Fort Capron Treasure & Jeremiah Dashiell
