Excavation of the stone-paved pathway in the southeastern corner of the swamp reveals wooden cribbing beneath the massive stone surface. Archaeologist Aaron Taylor identifies beams running perpendicular and parallel in layered courses, forming an engineered substructure designed to prevent the stones from sinking into the swamp floor. Billy Gerhardt trenches along the edges while Taylor and Laird Niven supervise, exposing the full profile of a feature extending from the swamp into the uplands. Rick Lagina video-calls Marty to show the construction: huge stones laid atop wooden poles, built when the area was not yet flooded. Marty calls the road super significant, noting that no searcher in the historical record ever mentions it.
At the wash table near the 10-X drill site, Jack Begley and Gerhardt Property Improvement representative Michael John sort through spoils from borehole OC-1, where the team had encountered a wooden tunnel at 150 feet dated to 1706. Michael John recovers a large square-shanked rosehead spike that Begley identifies as distinct from any known searcher-era nail. Laird Niven confirms it could date to the early 1700s, consistent with the 1706 timber from the same borehole. Doug Crowell notes no historical record documents any searcher activity at that depth in this location, reinforcing the possibility that OC-1 intersected an original depositor structure.
Craig Tester arrives on Oak Island for the first time this season after completing a 14-day COVID-19 quarantine required for entry into Nova Scotia. In the War Room, Crowell reports that 21 boreholes drilled around RF-1 have failed to locate the original Money Pit, prompting Tester to redirect drilling toward OC-1. His new grid targets the 150-to-165-foot level, where multiple boreholes have shown anomalous activity. The first hole, E-12, reaches 209 feet without the hoped-for debris column. The team moves to D-11, seven feet northwest, where Matheson, Charles Barkhouse, Scott Barlow, and Steve Guptill identify a possible tunnel at approximately 100 feet with darkened, disturbed clay and wood slivers, along with dark coloration near the 150-foot target horizon.
On Lot 15, Gary Drayton joins archaeologists Aaron Taylor, Liz Michels, and Miriam Amirault at the serpent mound, where excavation produces a hand-forged square spike with a distinctive pointed tip that Drayton dates to the 1700s. Near the stone pathway in the swamp, Drayton recovers an old copper coin from the spoils that he estimates dates to the late 1600s or early 1700s, adding to a growing collection of 17th-century coins found around the swamp, including a Spanish 8 maravedi from 1652 and English coins dating to 1673. He also finds an ox shoe nail embedded in the stone structure, further evidence of heavy cargo hauling along the route.
In the War Room, chemist Dr. Christa Brosseau of St. Mary's University presents her analysis of the two rosehead spikes from OC-1 and the serpent mound. Both are pre-1840 wrought iron containing 0.5 percent phosphorus with no manganese, consistent with a pre-1790 style, and she reports they are almost identical in composition. The matching phosphorus content, rare among Oak Island iron artifacts, raises the possibility that both spikes were forged by the same blacksmith. Marty suggests the serpent mound may be spoils from the original Money Pit excavation, explaining how an identical spike ended up in both locations. Rick frames the critical question: if the artifacts are pre-searcher, they belong to whoever made the original deposit, potentially connecting the Lot 15 mound, the swamp road, and the Money Pit as parts of a single operation.
