Ring bolts

About This Artifact

Large iron ringbolts found embedded in boulders on the eastern edge of the triangle-shaped swamp. Fred Nolan first discovered two ringbolts in this location in 1969 after purchasing eight lots across the center of Oak Island, including the swamp. When he drained the area that same year, Nolan recovered wooden scuppers and part of a mast from a large sailing vessel, leading to his theory that the swamp was artificially created to conceal a treasure galleon.

During Season 8, the team searched for the ringbolts Nolan had reported on Lot 15. Although the original bolts remained elusive, a new iron ringbolt was recovered atop the stone pathway in the swamp. Jack Begley, Tom Nolan, and Charles Barkhouse brought the piece to blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge at Northville Farm, approximately 50 miles north of the island. Carmen identified it as a wharf pin designed for timber rather than granite, with a split end that prevents it from pulling free once driven into wood. He dated the forging style to between the 1600s and 1760, well before the known discovery of the Money Pit in 1795.

The ringbolt's splayed end confirmed it had been driven into a structure and not merely dropped. Doug Crowell reasoned that if the ringbolt dated no later than 1760 and was already buried beneath accumulated soil, the stone road underneath must be considerably older, potentially by two centuries. The team theorized that a wooden wharf once stood in what was then a sea inlet, connecting to the square rock structure detected by sonar off the south shore, the cribbed wharf remains confirmed by diver Tony Sampson, and the 200-foot galleon-shaped seismic anomaly identified two years prior. Near the ringbolt site, Billy Gerhardt and Dr. Ian Spooner examined a piece of slate with a circular indent that did not appear natural, and Billy discovered cobblestones in a test hole confirming the road extended along the eastern swamp border and turned uphill toward the Money Pit.