Craig Tester and the team watch as the EC1 shaft nears 150 feet, positioned one foot east of C1 and eight feet northeast of TF1, on course to reach the seven-foot-tall vault first reported at 153 feet in 1897. Rick arrives and Craig reports they are at 147 feet with the plug six feet behind. Gary Drayton scans the spoils and finds only slurry and limestone. Peter Fornetti spots a piece of wood in the next scoop that the team wants carbon dated in case it came from the vault. Andrew Beaulieu reports it took fifteen minutes to advance the caisson just an inch and a half, with the can at 152.5 feet and the hammer grab at 151 feet under high pressure. Marty notes that anhydrite is particularly difficult to drill because it is soft and gummy. Rick calls the shaft finished unless the next hammer grab produces something significant, but Gary finds only a piece of anhydrite. The following day, the ROC and Irving teams begin backfilling EC1 and preparing for the next shaft.
In the War Room, Marty tells the team they can dig two more caissons and asks for input on placement. Rick advocates for F4 because of the high concentrations of gold and silver found in the water there. F4 sits at the center of the hole Robert Dunfield excavated in 1965 after building a causeway to bring a seventy-ton crane to the island. Dunfield reached 140 feet before flooding and cave-ins stopped the dig. Terry Matheson favors the north and west side of the Dunfield dig, noting that the F4 area contains a quadrant that could house the vault and has not been covered by any boreholes drilled since 2017. Rick names the new shaft Dan Henskee-82. Meanwhile, Gary and Billy Gerhardt search through the Dunfield spoils from 1965, material that has never been metal detected. Earlier in the year the team found old timbers and an iron spike possibly 250 years old in the same spoils. Billy exposes a large piece of black wood, Gary gets a signal and Rick digs out a piece of cast iron pipe, and Rick then finds a piece of leather that Gary suspects could be an ox harness strap or the bottom of a shoe.
Peter, David Fornetti, and Charles Barkhouse take the leather to Dawson's Print Shop in Halifax, where expert Joe Landry identifies it as the sole of a shoe made from oak bark-tanned leather. Joe explains that oak bark tanning involves soaking leather in an emulsion made from oak bark so it absorbs the tannin, a process that takes a full year but produces an extremely durable material. The technique has been in use since at least 1235. Charles asks whether the leather could fall within the 1488 to 1650 date range of wood found in the Money Pit, and Joe says it could very easily fit. The tapered shape of the sole indicates a finely cut boot such as one worn by an officer. David asks about other dating methods, and Joe suggests that any dye on the leather could help narrow the date further.
Back at the Money Pit, excavation of DH82 begins. Terry reports they are at seventeen to twenty feet, and the shaft moves quickly through Dunfield backfill. Andrew tells the team they should reach one hundred feet by the end of the day. Gary and Rick inspect the spoils and recover a shaped piece of wood Gary thinks could be a trunnel, followed by a large timber that Rick believes was cut with an adze. At the wash table, Jack Begley and Eric Valois sort through the final EC1 spoils. Eric finds a piece of material with flecks that is neither rock nor anything natural. Jack believes it could be old concrete and wants it tested, noting that since no known searcher operation ever used concrete, the material could be depositor related.
