Gypsy Heart
Gold Member
- #1
Thread Owner
http://www.genealogy.com/users/f/u/n/Mearah-R-Funk/FILE/0001text.txt
..........There are 165 - $20.00 new uncirculated gold coins, [ $3,300.00], that came from a train robbery . The train
robbery was done by S.W. Harper [your Great-Great Grandfather] and Bill Longley. All gold coins back then that were being shipped were new. They were from the mints to the banks, or cattle buyers, or railroads or who ever bought them from the mint. The old coins stayed in circulation because it was a growing country. What was shipped to the mints was raw processed gold from the gold fields and mines, which was further processed and minted at the various mints.
They were partners for a couple of years. The best date I have estimated is a mint date of around 1876-77. This was during the period that Bill Longley was an outcast from the State of Texas.
Longley was hung in 1878. He messed up too much in Texas, and was given a flyer out of Texas. In those days, a flyer meant to leave and not come back. On the other hand, S.W. Harper kept his criminal mischief away from Texas.
The $3,300.00 was 1/3 of the amount they stole. They took $3,300.00 each and buried the rest. Again, these are Newly Minted Uncirculated coins, so the actual worth of each coin is astronomical. Such coins are called Gems in the coin world. Somewhere between $15,000.00 and $100,000.00 per coin. Depending on the exact date and mint of the coins.
New [uincirculated] coins are graded by MS60 through MAS65. MS60 being the lowest grade of an uncirculated coin. For example, the listing in a coin book of an uncirculated coin for a MS60 grade may be $5,000.00. While the level of MS65 for the same dated coin [in pristine condition] may be five time that of the MS60 grade.
Harper’s coins would undoubtedly fall under the MS65 category. Or, at least quite a bit higher than the MS60 grade. I think coins of this grade are so rare that one will fail to find any classification in coin books.
Dad was 14 years old when S.W.Harper died. Great-granddad Harper was living with Dad’s family when he
died. Dad was his pet. He told Dad were the cache was. Grand-Grandfather Bybee also knew. That’s an entire
story into itself. None of the other children knew the location. Uncle Lawrence had a horse and was off chasing the pretty skirts. [another story]. Among the other children Father was the oldest by a few years. I think Uncle William Wesley Bybee had long flew the coop. I.e. Left home.
We have so many relative down their in Leakey and Utopia that a find of this nature would have been
practically impossible to keep a secret. No one down their has ever suddenly got rich over night except
Uncle Tom. Back in the fifties, Uncle Tom bought a new semi-truck and trailer, set up several cedar yards
and started hauling posts to Montana and Wyoming. Dad figured Tom might have found the gold S.W. Harper personally had when he died. It was at least a quart mason jar 1/3 full, because Aunt Isabel dug it up under the house when she happened on a freshly dug spot under the house. That old house is still standing and is built on pier and beams about two feet off the ground. It’s exactly four miles west of Utopia and about 150 yards off the highway on the north side of the road.
S.W. Harper caught Aunt Isabel with the jar of coins and spanked her. He then gave her a silver dollar because
he felt bad about the deed. At supper that night, he took the silver dollar away from her and gave her a $20.00 gold piece, telling her that she was worth a lot more than a dollar. I know she still had it in 1957, because when
I was in the Marines and stationed at El Toro [near L.A.], I had thanksgiving dinner with her and her family and she showed it to me. So there were two separate catches of gold. Dad thinks Tom may have found the gold in the fruit jar under the house near Utopia. That may not be true thought, because none of the paper work ever surfaced. The paperwork was somewhere close by, I’m thinking.
Grandmother Bybee [Alma Smith Bybee} sold the two parcels of land without title. I have a whole stack of
Legal papers from Great Uncle Sam Harper. [this may sound confusing] I‘m talking about S.W. Harper’s son, who was a sister to Alma Smith Bybee, who was also a daughter to S.W. Harper]. S.W. Harper was a Smith, and Harper was the outlaw name he went by. He was a wanted man as S.W. Harper. In the Utopia cemetery,
there is a section there with a 6 inch wall around it that has maybe a dozen tombstones, and enough plots to
maybe bury another dozen or so. This is the in new cemetery. All the stones are white, off-while and different shades of gray. EXCEPT ONE, and that particular one is BLACK. [more of a dark charcol color] You guessed it, the black one reads S.W. Harper. Everyone in Utopia call tell you how they’re related to S.W.Harper or the Bybees and everyone in Leakey can tell you how they’re related to the Bybees. Anyway, Sam Harper also used the name Harper, just like his dad, S.W. Harper. Sam Harper, [your great-uncle], is buried here in Plainview, Texas. Father and mother took care of him during the sunset years of his life. Heck, I don’t even think the people in Utopia know that S.W. Harper was a Smith!!!
I met the Superintendent of the school down there in Utopia and he was a Harper. When he found out I was S.W. Harper’s great-grandson, he went to great length’s to show me how he was related to S.W. Harper. <smile>
Anyway, under Texas law, Grandma Alma [Smith] Bybee didn’t have the right to sell the kids share of
S.W. Harper’s property. Nor did she have the right to sell Sam Harper’s ½ share, which she did. By Texas law, the surviving spouse gets ½ of the estate and the surviving children divide the remainder. In this case, Sam Harper should have gotten ½ and the other ½ going to grandmother and the kids. She was entitled to ½ of ½ and the other ½ of her ½ going to her kids. Think that one out. <smile>
Seems as how the six sections in the Houston were worthless because it covered with all this stinking black stuff called OIL. So Standard Oil wound up with it and like good citizens, proceeded to clean up all that oil and haul it away. Evidently, the property ownership was seen as questionable by Standard Oil, because all the children of Alma [Smith] Bybee were contacted and paid $100.00 each to sign a quit claim. All except Udora and Jack Bybee. Udora held out for two hundreds dollars and got it, and Jack Bybee [my Dad] refused to sign. Sam Harper was off somewhere building sawmills, making his millions and enjoying them. He said he never signed a quit claim either. Don’t know about your mother. In his later years, Sam Harper pursued the matter and I wound up with all the paper work. He said each lawyer he approached would just flip over the prospect of suing Standard Oil. Then, in a short while, they would become negative. Great Uncle Sam told Dad that he thought Standard Oil was buying off the lawyers as fast as he could find them. That is probably true. They all sleep together, that’s for sure.
I never heard from Dad if Aunt Myrtle signed away her rights or not.
I asked Uncle Tom in 1975, and he said he never found the outlaw gold. He said, hell, it’s probably been washed away by now. Well, that told me had no idea where it was located, because it wasn’t cached anywhere near any water courses.
I know that Uncle Tom and Aunt Udora both attempted to find it on several occasions, because I was home when they would come by and try to get Dad to tell them where it was located. He would just tell them that he was sure it was there if someone hadn’t found it. Tom came by 3 times and Udora came by twice. Udora came all the way from California to find out from Dad. [another story]
..........There are 165 - $20.00 new uncirculated gold coins, [ $3,300.00], that came from a train robbery . The train
robbery was done by S.W. Harper [your Great-Great Grandfather] and Bill Longley. All gold coins back then that were being shipped were new. They were from the mints to the banks, or cattle buyers, or railroads or who ever bought them from the mint. The old coins stayed in circulation because it was a growing country. What was shipped to the mints was raw processed gold from the gold fields and mines, which was further processed and minted at the various mints.
They were partners for a couple of years. The best date I have estimated is a mint date of around 1876-77. This was during the period that Bill Longley was an outcast from the State of Texas.
Longley was hung in 1878. He messed up too much in Texas, and was given a flyer out of Texas. In those days, a flyer meant to leave and not come back. On the other hand, S.W. Harper kept his criminal mischief away from Texas.
The $3,300.00 was 1/3 of the amount they stole. They took $3,300.00 each and buried the rest. Again, these are Newly Minted Uncirculated coins, so the actual worth of each coin is astronomical. Such coins are called Gems in the coin world. Somewhere between $15,000.00 and $100,000.00 per coin. Depending on the exact date and mint of the coins.
New [uincirculated] coins are graded by MS60 through MAS65. MS60 being the lowest grade of an uncirculated coin. For example, the listing in a coin book of an uncirculated coin for a MS60 grade may be $5,000.00. While the level of MS65 for the same dated coin [in pristine condition] may be five time that of the MS60 grade.
Harper’s coins would undoubtedly fall under the MS65 category. Or, at least quite a bit higher than the MS60 grade. I think coins of this grade are so rare that one will fail to find any classification in coin books.
Dad was 14 years old when S.W.Harper died. Great-granddad Harper was living with Dad’s family when he
died. Dad was his pet. He told Dad were the cache was. Grand-Grandfather Bybee also knew. That’s an entire
story into itself. None of the other children knew the location. Uncle Lawrence had a horse and was off chasing the pretty skirts. [another story]. Among the other children Father was the oldest by a few years. I think Uncle William Wesley Bybee had long flew the coop. I.e. Left home.
We have so many relative down their in Leakey and Utopia that a find of this nature would have been
practically impossible to keep a secret. No one down their has ever suddenly got rich over night except
Uncle Tom. Back in the fifties, Uncle Tom bought a new semi-truck and trailer, set up several cedar yards
and started hauling posts to Montana and Wyoming. Dad figured Tom might have found the gold S.W. Harper personally had when he died. It was at least a quart mason jar 1/3 full, because Aunt Isabel dug it up under the house when she happened on a freshly dug spot under the house. That old house is still standing and is built on pier and beams about two feet off the ground. It’s exactly four miles west of Utopia and about 150 yards off the highway on the north side of the road.
S.W. Harper caught Aunt Isabel with the jar of coins and spanked her. He then gave her a silver dollar because
he felt bad about the deed. At supper that night, he took the silver dollar away from her and gave her a $20.00 gold piece, telling her that she was worth a lot more than a dollar. I know she still had it in 1957, because when
I was in the Marines and stationed at El Toro [near L.A.], I had thanksgiving dinner with her and her family and she showed it to me. So there were two separate catches of gold. Dad thinks Tom may have found the gold in the fruit jar under the house near Utopia. That may not be true thought, because none of the paper work ever surfaced. The paperwork was somewhere close by, I’m thinking.
Grandmother Bybee [Alma Smith Bybee} sold the two parcels of land without title. I have a whole stack of
Legal papers from Great Uncle Sam Harper. [this may sound confusing] I‘m talking about S.W. Harper’s son, who was a sister to Alma Smith Bybee, who was also a daughter to S.W. Harper]. S.W. Harper was a Smith, and Harper was the outlaw name he went by. He was a wanted man as S.W. Harper. In the Utopia cemetery,
there is a section there with a 6 inch wall around it that has maybe a dozen tombstones, and enough plots to
maybe bury another dozen or so. This is the in new cemetery. All the stones are white, off-while and different shades of gray. EXCEPT ONE, and that particular one is BLACK. [more of a dark charcol color] You guessed it, the black one reads S.W. Harper. Everyone in Utopia call tell you how they’re related to S.W.Harper or the Bybees and everyone in Leakey can tell you how they’re related to the Bybees. Anyway, Sam Harper also used the name Harper, just like his dad, S.W. Harper. Sam Harper, [your great-uncle], is buried here in Plainview, Texas. Father and mother took care of him during the sunset years of his life. Heck, I don’t even think the people in Utopia know that S.W. Harper was a Smith!!!
I met the Superintendent of the school down there in Utopia and he was a Harper. When he found out I was S.W. Harper’s great-grandson, he went to great length’s to show me how he was related to S.W. Harper. <smile>
Anyway, under Texas law, Grandma Alma [Smith] Bybee didn’t have the right to sell the kids share of
S.W. Harper’s property. Nor did she have the right to sell Sam Harper’s ½ share, which she did. By Texas law, the surviving spouse gets ½ of the estate and the surviving children divide the remainder. In this case, Sam Harper should have gotten ½ and the other ½ going to grandmother and the kids. She was entitled to ½ of ½ and the other ½ of her ½ going to her kids. Think that one out. <smile>
Seems as how the six sections in the Houston were worthless because it covered with all this stinking black stuff called OIL. So Standard Oil wound up with it and like good citizens, proceeded to clean up all that oil and haul it away. Evidently, the property ownership was seen as questionable by Standard Oil, because all the children of Alma [Smith] Bybee were contacted and paid $100.00 each to sign a quit claim. All except Udora and Jack Bybee. Udora held out for two hundreds dollars and got it, and Jack Bybee [my Dad] refused to sign. Sam Harper was off somewhere building sawmills, making his millions and enjoying them. He said he never signed a quit claim either. Don’t know about your mother. In his later years, Sam Harper pursued the matter and I wound up with all the paper work. He said each lawyer he approached would just flip over the prospect of suing Standard Oil. Then, in a short while, they would become negative. Great Uncle Sam told Dad that he thought Standard Oil was buying off the lawyers as fast as he could find them. That is probably true. They all sleep together, that’s for sure.
I never heard from Dad if Aunt Myrtle signed away her rights or not.
I asked Uncle Tom in 1975, and he said he never found the outlaw gold. He said, hell, it’s probably been washed away by now. Well, that told me had no idea where it was located, because it wasn’t cached anywhere near any water courses.
I know that Uncle Tom and Aunt Udora both attempted to find it on several occasions, because I was home when they would come by and try to get Dad to tell them where it was located. He would just tell them that he was sure it was there if someone hadn’t found it. Tom came by 3 times and Udora came by twice. Udora came all the way from California to find out from Dad. [another story]
