George Hamilton and the Tuamotus Request

[Speedbird]

Greetings!

Like all of you I’m a big fan of these treasure legends, and I’ve amassed a nice little library of related books. One that I simply can’t find is the George Hamilton 1939 “Treasure of the Tuamotus “.

Does anyone have a copy they’d be willing to part with or let me borrow? I’m in the US.

I’m trying to put together all of the information on this one that I can and this book is the missing link.

Thank you all for your consideration,

Joe

 

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[freeman]

Yes, I have a copy. And investigated it all.

I was involved through the members of French expedition in 1990s that thought as many did and went to follow it because it all sounded so easy.

I'll save you the cost and time of going further; the book and Hamilton leads to a pool (and another minor spot) on the atoll of Tuanake where the treasure was said to be hidden.

The French group went twice, the first time to follow Hamilton and locate the pool. The second time they went back with purpose built detectors (one of the members was an electronic engineer) to conduct a recovery.

You can guess already the outcome.: there was nothing there.

I was then involved to review/report for them what had possibly gone wrong.

Basically there is a lot of lying that went on in the book. Hamilton (whose real name was George Hamilton Snowball) was just one of the persons that was lied to but then he continued on with even more new lies in his book.

Hamilton wrote the book to make it sound it was just a lack of equipment that was the reason they could not get the gold. HIs book was an attempt to generate interest to so he could try again as he had lost everything.

Others that took part either lost their money also or their reputations suffered. Police were involved.

Hamilton's family was even tracked down and they wanted nothing further to do with it as they consider him blowing the family money on it was the cause of them being poor.

Below left is a picture of Hamilton standing at the pool from the book. On the right is a still taken from the video shot by the French expedition of the pool. The same bush on the rocks in the background you see in Hamilton's photo was still there.

if you want to know something out of the book or what really happened just ask. The 'what really happened' doesn't get told much as it ends the myth.

One of the members of Hamilton's own expedition, George Farwell, was a writer and published his own account. To quote his article on it '.......actually we found nothing'.

 

[Speedbird]

Greetings!

Indeed I know that it’s mostly a fictional story. I’m more interested in the legend and the story than gathering the hard facts, which is why I’d like to read the book.

I like a good story, and I’d like to see what GHS wrote. I have a copy of the Farwell book, and Fairylands of the South Seas. I have no interest in searching for this treasure as others have far more information on it, im just interested in the story.

Best regards,

Joe

 

[freeman]

I was able to pick up a photocopy of the book from Germany years ago but It's not even a good story.

It's just a lot of 'This guy told me this', 'This guy said this' for the first 1/3. then the last 2/3 is 'this isn't working', 'this isn't anything like we were told' and 'what do we do now' etc.

Hamilton's source was a guy named Charles Howe, who wasn't adverse to telling stories to get others to grubstake him. Howe says he got a map from a 'dying pirate' in either Sydney or Christchurch hospitals, depending on which person is telling it (he was just telling a version of Treasure Island that has been told to him by another person pulling the same stunt called James Brown.) No such person died in either hospital, the records are available. A lot of the story said to be told to Howe by the 'pirate' reveals itself as total invention due to factual impossibilities of the names/locations/dates given.

Anyways, Howe was selling story to multiple people about a treasure on different islands at the same time: I have a letter written by him where he is saying to the French government the treasure is on another island.

Hamilton makes out in the book Howe mysteriously disappears on the eve of the expedition and cannot be found. that part is true, Howe went missing but why he did was no mystery.

One of the expeditions members was a barrister and made him sign a contract that he was going to take them directly to the gold as they were putting together a costly expedition to recover (and if he didn't then he breached the contract and could be sued for damages).

Howe knew the game was up so went missing.

(He died of old age later, his death is recorded).

 

[Speedbird]

I simply want to read what was written, that’s it. It may not seem to be a good story to everyone, but it does to me.