About This Artifact
A clay pipe stem of large diameter was recovered from the spoils of borehole RP1 during Season 12 filming. The find was processed at the wash plant where Blake initially recovered it while searching the RP1 material with Charles Barkhouse, before passing the piece to Alex Lagina for Laird Niven's review. In the lab, Niven examined the fragment alongside Rick Lagina, Doug Crowell, Jack Begley, and Emma Culligan and identified it as the largest pipe stem ever found on the island and most likely English.
The angle of the fragment matched an example dating to 1680 to 1710. Doug Crowell pointed out that this date range coincides with the theory surrounding Sir William Phips and the treasure from the Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, which Phips recovered from a reef off Hispaniola in 1687. The Concepción treasure included substantial quantities of silver, and one theory advanced on the show proposes that a portion of the haul was secreted on Oak Island.
In the season finale, Scott Barlow confirmed the dating during the team's end-of-season review, restating the 1680 to 1710 range. RP1 was a caisson drilled into the area believed to overlap with the original Money Pit and the historical Shaft Six tunnel, dug by the Oak Island Association in 1861 and the source of the catastrophic flood that collapsed both shafts and buried what the searchers believed were two chests of treasure. The recovery context places this pipe stem within the same depth zone as the team's other Phips-era artifacts.
Historical Context
The Curse of Oak Island, Season 12, Episode 18, "If The Shoe Phips" (History Channel, April 1, 2024) and Season 12, Episode 25, "Uplifting Discoveries" (History Channel, May 20, 2024). Eyewitnesses on screen: Blake (wash plant crew), Charles Barkhouse, Alex Lagina, Laird Niven, Rick Lagina, Doug Crowell, Jack Begley, Emma Culligan, Scott Barlow, Marty Lagina. Phips and Concepción context: Peter Earle, The Wreck of the Almiranta (Macmillan, 1979); Cyrus Hamlin Karraker, The Hispaniola Treasure (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1934). Pipe-stem dating: angle-of-fragment method, standard reference Adrian Oswald, Clay Pipes for the Archaeologist (BAR British Series 14, 1975).
Where It Was Found
Found at Borehole RP1 spoils, processed at the wash plant (Lot 18, Money Pit area) — the original 1795 excavation shaft on Oak Island, Nova Scotia.
