# The Curse of Oak Island - Complete Content Generated: 2026-08-20 11:55:35 URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com --- ## About This Site TheCurseOfOakIsland.com is the comprehensive online resource dedicated to the Oak Island mystery - a 231-year treasure hunt on a small island in Nova Scotia, Canada. The site covers the history of discoveries, excavation attempts, theories about what may be buried there, evidence found, and the popular History Channel television series. ## Key Facts About Oak Island - Oak Island is located in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada - The treasure hunt began in 1795 when three boys discovered the "Money Pit" - Over 231 years of excavation attempts have occurred - The History Channel series "The Curse of Oak Island" premiered in 2014 - Rick and Marty Lagina lead the current excavation efforts - Theories include Templar treasure, pirate gold, Shakespeare manuscripts, and the Ark of the Covenant - Notable artifacts found include a lead cross, coconut fibers, and bone fragments dated to the Middle Ages --- # ARTICLES ## The Mystery The core mystery of Oak Island: the Money Pit, its discovery, and what might be buried beneath. ### Down the Money Pit URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/mystery On a summer day in 1795, a teenage boy named Daniel McGinnis was exploring the southeastern shore of Oak Island, a small, heavily wooded island in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. What he discovered that day would ignite the world's longest treasure hunt, one that continues to this day, more than 230 years later. The Discovery McGinnis noticed something strange: a circular depression in the ground beneath an ancient red oak tree. More curious still, an old ship's tackle block hung from a sawed-off branch directly above the depression. To a young man living in an area thick with tales of pirate treasure, the implications were unmistakable. Someone had buried something here and had gone to considerable effort to do so. The next day, McGinnis returned with two friends: John Smith, aged 19, and Anthony Vaughan, just 16. Armed with picks and shovels, they began to dig. What they found exceeded their wildest expectations. [article:the-real-daniel-mcginnis-of-oak-island] The First Excavation Just two feet down, they struck a layer of carefully laid flagstones, clearly placed by human hands. Beneath the stones, the earth had been disturbed and was noticeably easier to dig than the surrounding clay. The boys had discovered a shaft, roughly 13 feet in diameter, with walls bearing the distinct marks of pickaxes. At ten feet, they hit a platform of oak logs, their ends firmly embedded in the clay walls. Excited, they removed the logs and continued digging. At twenty feet, another platform. At thirty feet, yet another. Each platform was constructed identically: solid oak logs spanning the entire shaft. The pattern was unmistakable. Someone had dug this pit, installed platforms at precise ten foot intervals, and filled it back in. The engineering required suggested not a simple hiding place, but something far more elaborate: a vault designed to protect its contents for centuries. Unable to continue alone, the boys reluctantly abandoned their excavation at thirty feet. But they never forgot what they had found. [artifact:oak-log-platforms-multiple] [artifacts-timeline] The Onslow Company (1803) Eight years later, in 1803, the discovery attracted serious attention. Simeon Lynds, a businessman from Truro, formed the Onslow Company with Colonel Robert Archibald and assembled a crew of 25 to 30 workers. The professional excavation of the Money Pit, as it would come to be known, had begun. The Onslow Company confirmed everything the boys had reported. More oak platforms appeared at regular ten foot intervals. But they also discovered something new: at 40 feet, a layer of charcoal. At 50 feet, putty. At 60 feet, coconut fiber, a material that could not possibly have originated in Nova Scotia. The coconut fiber discovery was stunning. The nearest natural source of coconut was thousands of miles away, in the tropics. Whoever had constructed this pit had access to materials from far flung corners of the world. [artifact:coconut-fibre-money-pit] The Inscribed Stone At 90 feet, the workers made their most tantalizing discovery: a large flat stone inscribed with mysterious symbols. No one could decipher the markings. The stone was eventually taken to Halifax, where it would be displayed in a bookbinder's shop for decades until it mysteriously disappeared in 1919. Various translations of the stone's symbols have been proposed over the years. The most famous claims it read: "Forty feet below, two million pounds are buried." Whether this translation is accurate, or even whether the stone existed at all, remains hotly debated. [artifact:inscribed-stone-90-foot-stone] The Flood At 93 feet, the workers stopped for the night, certain they were close to their prize. The next morning, they returned to find the pit flooded with 60 feet of seawater. Despite working the pumps continuously, they could not lower the water level by more than a few feet. They had triggered a booby trap. Further investigation revealed an engineering marvel of staggering sophistication. A flood tunnel, carefully constructed at a gradient, connected the Money Pit to the ocean at Smith's Cove, 500 feet away. When the excavators reached a certain depth, they had breached this tunnel, allowing the Atlantic Ocean to fill the shaft. At Smith's Cove, workers discovered an artificial beach: five stone box drains covered with tons of coconut fiber and eel grass, designed to filter seawater into the flood tunnel while preventing sand from clogging the system. The beach extended 145 feet along the shoreline and had been constructed at enormous effort. The implications were clear: whoever had buried treasure in the Money Pit had not merely hidden it. They had built an elaborate hydraulic trap to protect it. Centuries of engineering knowledge had gone into creating a vault that would flood itself if disturbed. [article:oak-island-flood-tunnels-and-box-drains-the-water-trap][artifact:possible-box-drain-entrance][artifact:coconut-fibre-smith-s-cove] The Mystery Deepens Over the following decades, additional discoveries only deepened the mystery. In 1849, drilling at 98 feet brought up three links of gold chain, the only treasure ever recovered from the Money Pit. The same drilling revealed layers of spruce, oak, loose metal, and more oak, suggesting multiple chambers or chests buried at different depths. In 1897, workers recovered a tiny scrap of parchment from 155 feet down. Analysis revealed it was made of sheepskin and bore letters written in India ink, possibly "vi," "ui," or "wi." The presence of parchment suggested documents, not just gold. In 1970, a U-shaped structure of massive logs was discovered beneath low tide at Smith's Cove. The logs, some 30 to 65 feet long and 2 feet thick, were notched with Roman numerals. Carbon dating placed their origin around 1720, some 75 years before the Money Pit's official discovery. And in 2017, modern excavation recovered human bones from 190 feet down. DNA analysis revealed two individuals: one of European descent, one of Middle Eastern origin. The bones were centuries old. [artifact:u-shaped-wooden-structure][article:the-oak-island-dry-dock] What Lies Beneath? After 230 years and countless excavation attempts, the fundamental question remains: what could possibly justify such extraordinary engineering? The scale of the original construction is staggering. Estimates suggest the Money Pit alone required excavating 15,000 cubic feet of earth, all of which had to be done by hand, in secret, on a remote island. The flood system required tunneling hundreds of feet through solid rock, constructing an artificial beach, and engineering a self activating trap. This was not the work of a pirate burying a chest of coins. This was a massive, organized project requiring considerable resources, engineering expertise, and manpower. It was designed not merely to hide something, but to hide it forever, or at least until whoever buried it chose to reveal its location. The theories about what lies in the Money Pit are as varied as they are extraordinary: Captain Kidd's pirate treasure, Marie Antoinette's jewels smuggled out of France, the lost manuscripts of Sir Francis Bacon proving he wrote Shakespeare's plays, religious artifacts brought to the New World by the Knights Templar, even the Ark of the Covenant. What we know for certain is this: someone went to extraordinary lengths to bury something on Oak Island. After more than two centuries of searching, six lives lost, and millions of dollars spent, the mystery endures. The Money Pit keeps its secrets still. [article:pirates][article:the-knights-templar][article:baconians][article:the-jewels-of-marie-antoinette] ## The Hunt 231 years of excavation attempts, key expeditions, hope, failures and the relentless search for answers. ### A Hunt with no End URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/hunt/a-hunt-with-no-end The story of Oak Island is not just about buried treasure. It is the story of the men who spent their fortunes, their sanity, and in some cases their lives trying to find it. For 230 years, the Money Pit has drawn dreamers and schemers, engineers and eccentrics, paupers and presidents. None have succeeded. None have given up. The Early Searchers (1795-1850) After Daniel McGinnis and his friends abandoned their excavation at thirty feet in 1795, the Money Pit sat dormant for eight years. But the boys never stopped talking about what they had found, and word eventually reached Simeon Lynds, a businessman from Truro. In 1803, Lynds formed the Onslow Company and launched the first professional excavation. His crew of 25 to 30 men dug to 93 feet, discovering the now famous oak platforms, layers of coconut fiber, and the inscribed stone. They were certain treasure lay just below. Then the pit flooded, and despite months of effort, they could not pump it dry. The Onslow Company disbanded, its investors ruined. Nearly half a century passed before the Truro Company arrived in 1849. Dr. David Lynds, a relative of Simeon, led the effort with businessman Jotham McCully. Unable to excavate through the flooded shaft, they pioneered a new approach: drilling. Using a pod auger, they bored through the mud and debris at the bottom of the pit. At 98 feet, the drill passed through spruce, then oak, then struck something that felt like loose metal. It passed through 22 inches of this material before hitting more oak, then more metal, then spruce again. When the drill was pulled up, it brought three links of gold chain, the only treasure ever recovered from the Money Pit. The Truro Company also made a crucial discovery: the flood tunnel. After digging exploratory shafts, they found that water was not seeping into the Money Pit from underground springs. It was being fed deliberately through a 500 foot tunnel from Smith's Cove. Someone had engineered a trap. [article:the-real-daniel-mcginnis-of-oak-island][artifact:possible-box-drain-entrance] The Oak Island Association (1861-1866) The Oak Island Association arrived with 63 shareholders and renewed determination. They re-excavated the Money Pit to 88 feet and dug multiple new shafts trying to intercept the flood tunnel. On one attempt, they accidentally struck the original treasure chamber. Workers heard a tremendous crash. The platforms and whatever rested on them, estimated at 10,000 board feet of lumber, dropped from around 100 feet to somewhere below 119 feet. The treasure, if there was treasure, had fallen deeper into the earth. The Association also suffered the first death. In 1861, a worker was scalded when a pump engine's boiler exploded. The legend states that seven must die before the treasure is found. The count had begun. The Oak Island Treasure Company (1893-1900) Frederick Blair was 25 years old when he joined the Oak Island Treasure Company as its treasurer. He would remain involved with the island for the next 58 years, until his death in 1951. Blair's company drilled extensively, and at 153 feet they made a remarkable discovery: a tiny scrap of parchment with letters written in India ink. The presence of a document suggested that whatever lay below was not merely pirate gold. Someone had buried something worth writing about. The company also confirmed a second flood tunnel, this one originating from the south shore of the island. The engineers who designed the Money Pit had built redundant protection. If searchers blocked one tunnel, the other would continue flooding the shaft. Blair's company ran out of money in 1900, but Blair himself never gave up. He spent the next five decades securing treasure rights, advising new expeditions, and documenting every discovery. He died believing the treasure was real and recoverable. The Roosevelt Expedition (1909) In 1909, a young Franklin Delano Roosevelt purchased shares in the Old Gold Salvage group and visited Oak Island. He was 27 years old, a recent law school graduate with a taste for adventure. The future president spent several weeks on the island, fascinated by the engineering puzzle. Roosevelt maintained interest in Oak Island for the rest of his life. Letters from his presidential archives show he continued corresponding about the treasure hunt even while leading the nation through the Great Depression and World War II. He never returned to the island, but he never forgot it either. [article:the-roosevelt-connection][site:hyde-park-roosevelt-estate] The Hedden and Hamilton Years (1936-1950) Gilbert Hedden, a New Jersey steel manufacturer, purchased the eastern end of Oak Island in 1936. He brought modern equipment and systematic methods. His workers discovered the stone triangle: a perfect equilateral triangle made of beach stones, ten feet on each side, with a medial line pointing true north directly at the Money Pit. They also found two drilled rocks, exactly 415 feet apart on an east-west line. These markers, along with the triangle, suggested the original depositors had left a survey system for relocating the treasure. Unfortunately, the stone triangle was later destroyed during careless excavation. Erwin Hamilton took over from Hedden in 1938 and spent four years exploring. His most significant contribution was a dye test that revealed water from the flood tunnels exiting 100 yards offshore to the southeast. The system was even more extensive than anyone had imagined. [article:stone-triangle-the-oak-island-sextant] The Restall Tragedy (1959-1965) Bob Restall was a former carnival stunt rider who moved his entire family to Oak Island in 1959. They lived in two small shacks with no electricity or running water, working the Money Pit by hand while tourists watched from the shore. For six years, the Restalls dug and pumped, slowly making progress. They found a stone at Smith's Cove inscribed with the date 1704, evidence that activity on the island predated the official discovery by nearly a century. On August 17, 1965, Bob Restall climbed down into a shaft to check a pump. Without warning, he collapsed. His son Bobbie, just 18 years old, climbed down to rescue him and also collapsed. Karl Graeser, a worker, followed them down. Then Cyril Hiltz, just 16 years old. All four died from hydrogen sulfide gas that had accumulated in the shaft. The tragedy remains the darkest chapter in Oak Island's history. Four men dead in minutes, including a father and son. The curse now claimed six victims. [article:the-restall-tragedy] Robert Dunfield and the Big Dig (1965-1966) Robert Dunfield was a petroleum geologist from California who believed the Money Pit could be solved with brute force. He built a causeway connecting Oak Island to the mainland, the first time the island had been accessible by land. Then he brought in a 70 ton crane and simply dug. Dunfield excavated a pit 140 feet deep and 100 feet across, destroying much of the original Money Pit area in the process. He found nothing but disturbed earth and seawater. When his money ran out, he left behind a cratered moonscape where the Money Pit had once been. His causeway, however, remains. Oak Island is no longer an island. [article:robert-dunfield-and-the-destruction-of-oak-island] Dan Blankenship and Triton Alliance (1966-2005) Dan Blankenship read an article about Oak Island in Reader's Digest in 1965 and was immediately hooked. He showed it to his wife and announced: "There's treasure on Oak Island, and I'm going to be instrumental in getting it." He moved his family from Florida to Nova Scotia and spent the next 50 years searching. In 1967, he partnered with David Tobias, a Montreal businessman, to form Triton Alliance. Together they conducted the most extensive exploration to date. Their most dramatic discovery came in 1971. A camera lowered into Borehole 10-X, a shaft 180 feet northeast of the Money Pit, captured images at 230 feet that appeared to show a severed human hand, wooden chests, and tools. Blankenship made several dives into the flooded chamber but could never relocate the objects. Blankenship nearly died in 1976 when the casing of 10-X collapsed while he was 90 feet underground. He escaped but never fully recovered his health. Still, he refused to leave. He lived on Oak Island until his death in 2019 at age 95, the longest serving searcher in the island's history. [article:dan-blankenship-and-borehole-10-x] The Lagina Brothers (2006-Present) Rick Lagina first read about Oak Island in that same Reader's Digest article when he was 11 years old. He dreamed of searching for the treasure for nearly 40 years before he and his brother Marty purchased a stake in Oak Island Tours in 2006. The Laginas brought something no previous searchers had: a television audience. The Curse of Oak Island premiered on the History Channel in 2014 and became a phenomenon. Millions of viewers watched as the brothers deployed ground penetrating radar, seismic imaging, and massive excavation equipment. But beyond the entertainment, the Laginas have made a serious contribution to history. Their discoveries have fundamentally shifted the conversation about early contact between Europe and North America. A medieval cross dating to 900-1300 AD. Human bones of both European and Middle Eastern origin, centuries old. Leather bookbinding material. Evidence of sophisticated construction predating Columbus by hundreds of years. To investigate these findings, the Laginas have assembled a network of European experts, historians, and researchers, bringing academic rigor to a mystery long dismissed by mainstream archaeology. The work of Doug Crowell, Judi Rudebusch, Emiliano Sacchetti and Corjan Mol suggests that Oak Island may hold answers not just about buried treasure, but about who really reached the New World first, and why. They have not found the treasure. But they may have found something more significant: proof that our understanding of history is incomplete. [artifact:lead-cross] The Cost of the Hunt Estimates suggest that searchers have spent between $50 million and $100 million on Oak Island over 230 years. Six people have died. Marriages have ended. Fortunes have been lost. Careers have been abandoned. And still they come. The Money Pit has never lacked for searchers, and likely never will. Whatever lies buried there, the hunt itself has become a kind of treasure, passed from one generation of dreamers to the next. The search continues. ### The Real Daniel McGinnis of Oak Island URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/hunt/the-real-daniel-mcginnis-of-oak-island The story that most people know goes something like this: in 1795, a teenage boy named Daniel McGinnis rowed out to an uninhabited island in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, where he stumbled upon a mysterious circular depression beneath an old oak tree. He fetched two friends, they dug, and what they found launched the longest treasure hunt in history. It is a clean, compelling origin story. It is also, in several important respects, wrong. The primary sources disagree on who Daniel McGinnis was, how old he was, what he found, who helped him, how deep they dug, and whether the island was even uninhabited. The real story is more complicated than the legend, and considerably more interesting. Who Was Daniel McGinnis? R. V. Harris, the Nova Scotia lawyer who served as legal advisor to Oak Island treasure hunters for decades and whose 1958 book The Oak Island Mystery first brought the story to a wide audience, was blunt about the difficulty. McGinnis was "an enigma," Harris wrote. "His age in 1795 is unknown. His origin and parentage is unknown." What Harris could establish from parish records, land deeds, and surviving family accounts was limited, and what later researchers have added has only deepened the confusion. The family name itself is unstable. In the earliest records it appears as McInnes, then MacInnes, McInnis, and finally McGinnis, a transition that seems to have occurred before the end of the eighteenth century. Harris wrote that McGinnis "came from New England and took up land on Oak Island." Judge Mather Byles DesBrisay, whose 1870 History of the County of Lunenburg contains the first account of the discovery to appear between hard covers, called him one of the "first settlers" on Oak Island and noted that he was the father of Mrs. Thomas Whitford of Chester and the grandfather of James McInnis. In DesBrisay's account, McGinnis, Smith, and Vaughan all "emigrated from New England to Chester." The conventional version of the story holds that McGinnis was roughly sixteen years old when he found the Pit, a claim that rests primarily on the recollections of Anthony Vaughan as recorded in the mid-nineteenth century. Harris accepted this general picture, describing Vaughan as "then only a lad of thirteen years," which, if the two were close in age, places McGinnis in the same range. Randall Sullivan, researching his 2023 book The Curse of Oak Island, traced a plausible genealogy: McGinnis may have been the son of Donald Daniel McInnes, a Scottish-born loyalist who served in the Revolutionary War under General Angus McDonald and Lord Cornwallis, commanded a gunboat in Charleston, South Carolina, and received a Crown grant of one hundred acres near Chester around 1784. If the father was born around 1759, a son born around 1779 would have been sixteen in 1795. Supporting this timeline, Daniel McGinnis married Maria Barbara Saller at St. James' Anglican Church in Lunenburg on September 8, 1795, and their son Johan was baptized in Chester on July 26, 1797. Marriage at sixteen was not unusual in the period; his companion John Smith had married at fifteen. Researcher Les Clarke, drawing on land records brought to light by Paul Wroclawski, has argued a very different case. Clarke found genealogical records indicating that Daniel McInnis was born in 1758 in Scotland, which would have made him thirty-seven in 1795. Clarke also discovered that McGinnis owned four lots on Oak Island before the supposed date of the discovery: lot 28, purchased in March 1788; lot 21, in May 1790; lot 27, in May 1791; and lot 1, in September 1794. He built his home on lot 21, the foundation of which is still visible near the modern-day War Room. Clarke has pointed out that Jothan McCully's 1862 account, the earliest published description of the discovery, says McGinnis told "two men" about the pit, not two boys. If Clarke's identification is correct, the story is not about a teenage adventure but about a settled landowner who found something unusual on his own property and brought in his adult neighbours. No consensus exists on McGinnis's age. Sullivan acknowledged Clarke's evidence but favoured the younger identification on circumstantial grounds, noting that the ages of Smith (nineteen in 1795) and Vaughan (thirteen, according to Harris) make better sense alongside a teenager than alongside a thirty-seven-year-old farmer. Clarke countered that the earliest accounts describe McGinnis telling "two men," and that the "two men" may have been Anthony Vaughan Sr., who was forty-five in 1795 and had himself owned six lots on the island, and John Smith, who was two months from turning twenty and already married for five years. Oak Island in 1795 The popular version of the story assumes that Oak Island was uninhabited when the discovery was made. This is almost certainly false. John Smith, born in Boston on August 20, 1775, appears to have moved to Oak Island with his family around 1786, when he was eleven. He married Sarah Floyd on September 28, 1790, and on June 26, 1795, he purchased lot 18, the plot of land where the Money Pit was located, from a Chester merchant named Caspar Wollenhaupt for five pounds. Harris noted in passing that it was "perhaps significant" that Smith made this purchase so promptly. If Clarke's land records are correct, McGinnis himself had been buying lots on the island since 1788. The Vaughan family also had deep roots in the area. Anthony Vaughan Sr. had come to Nova Scotia from Massachusetts in 1768 as part of the Shoreham Grant, a Crown dispensation of 100,000 acres to seventy-three grantees from various New England towns. The Vaughans operated a lumber mill on the mainland directly across from Oak Island and by the 1780s owned multiple lots on the island itself. Whether Anthony Vaughan Jr., the one associated with the discovery, was living on the island or on the mainland in 1795 is uncertain; most early writers place the Vaughan family on the mainland, but their economic activity on the island was well established. The 1951 account published by the Nova Scotia Bureau of Information described all three as having been "on a shooting trip to Oak Island from the neighboring mainland." Frederick Blair, the most significant figure in the Oak Island treasure hunt from the 1890s through the 1950s and by many accounts its most dedicated researcher, wrote that McGinnis had been "partridge hunting." Other accounts say he was cutting trees for Smith or Vaughan. McCully's 1862 letter said he "went to Oak Island to make a farm." The simple answer is that nobody knows why McGinnis was in that particular spot on that particular day. What McGinnis Found The primary sources offer four distinct descriptions of the scene that caught McGinnis's attention, and no two of them agree. The earliest published account is McCully's 1862 letter to the Liverpool Transcript. McCully, who had been a member of both the Truro Company and the Oak Island Association and was writing from direct acquaintance with the surviving participants, described the scene as follows: McGinnis found the spot "from its being sunken, and from the position of three oak trees, which stood in a triangular form round the pit." The bark on each tree had "letters cut into it with a knife," facing the pit, and one tree stood so directly over the depression that "two large branches formed a crotch, were exactly perpendicular to the centre, and had a hole bored through, and an oak tree-nail driven in, on which hung a tacle block." In McCully's telling, the carved letters on the bark, the triangular arrangement of the trees, and the tackle block all feature together. There is no mention of old stumps, cleared forest, or young growth. DesBrisay's 1870 account, based primarily on a December 20, 1863 article in the Halifax Colonist and other sources, paints a different picture. In this version, McGinnis found "a spot that gave evidence of having been visited by someone a good many years earlier." There had been "cuttings away of the forest, and oak stumps were visible." One surviving original oak had "a large forked branch extending over the old clearing," and to this branch, "by means of a treenail connecting the fork in a small triangle, was attached an old tackle block." In DesBrisay's account, there is no mention of three trees in a triangle or of carved letters on bark. The emphasis is on the cleared forest, the oak stumps, and a single surviving tree. The 1893 Oak Island Treasure Company prospectus, written to sell shares but drawing on the recollections of Robert Creelman and other participants, introduces yet another set of details. Here the three men came to "a spot, of which the unusual and strange conditions at once engaged their attention." The ground had "every appearance of having been cleared many years before," and "red clover and other plants altogether foreign to the soil in its natural state were growing." Near the centre stood "a large oak tree with marks and figures on its trunk," and one of its lower branches, "the outer end of which had been sawed off, projected directly over the centre of a deep circular depression in the land about 13 feet in diameter." This is the only account that mentions red clover, the only one that says the branch had been sawed off, and the only one that specifies a thirteen-foot diameter for the depression. Harris, synthesizing the available accounts in 1958, followed DesBrisay's version most closely but added detail from other sources. He described McGinnis finding that "the first growth of wood had been cut down and that another was springing up to supply its place," with "old stumps of oak trees that had been chopped down" visible among the younger growth. The forked branch, the treenail, and the tackle block were present as in DesBrisay, but Harris also noted from other accounts that there were "marks and figures on the trunk of the oak" and that the hollow beneath the tree was "a well-defined circular depression about thirteen feet in diameter." Sullivan made the important observation that if the descriptions of oak stumps and young replacement trees are accurate, they almost certainly narrow the timeframe of the original work. Arborists consulted by the producers of The Curse of Oak Island confirmed that neither the stumps nor the younger trees would have been distinguishable if the clearing had occurred centuries earlier. The original excavation, by this reasoning, likely took place no earlier than the seventeenth century. The Question of Samuel Ball The identity of the men who helped McGinnis dig is not as settled as most accounts suggest. In the first edition of DesBrisay's History of the County of Lunenburg, published in 1870, the three discoverers of the Money Pit were named as Daniel McGinnis, John Smith, and Samuel Ball. It was not until the second edition, published in 1896, that Ball was replaced by Anthony Vaughan, with no explanation offered for the change. Samuel Ball was a freed slave from South Carolina who had joined the British forces during the Revolutionary War after Lord Dunmore's 1775 Proclamation of Kemps Landing offered freedom to enslaved men who fought for the Crown. Ball arrived in Nova Scotia around 1783 and settled in the Mahone Bay area. He purchased his first lot on Oak Island on September 22, 1787, paying eight pounds, a considerable sum at the time. He eventually acquired nine four-acre lots on the island, making him its largest landowner. Harris described him as one of the "early residents" of Oak Island, "a coloured man, who came from South Carolina where he had been a slave to a master whose name he adopted," and added only that Ball was remembered as "a good man." Ball's presence in the first edition of DesBrisay is difficult to dismiss. DesBrisay lived in Chester during his childhood, was personally acquainted with people involved in the Money Pit operations, and was a careful student of local history. Whether Ball was directly involved in the initial discovery or simply among the earliest to learn of it and participate in the digging is unclear, but the fact that DesBrisay named him as one of the three original discoverers, and that this identification stood uncorrected for twenty-six years, deserves more attention than it typically receives. Ball's unexplained prosperity has long attracted speculation. In poll tax records he was listed as a farmer who raised cattle and sheep and worked as a logger and fisherman, yet he and his wife Catherine were able to afford a servant, to purchase additional lots on Oak Island, and to acquire a hundred acres on the mainland. His will, probated on January 5, 1846, shows that his mainland property adjoined "lands owned by Daniel McGinnis." Ball was also a witness to McGinnis's own will in 1827, evidence of a relationship that extended across decades. Sullivan attempted to trace Ball's descendants to learn whether, like the McGinnis family, they had passed down stories about the discovery, but the effort was unsuccessful. [article:samuel-ball-the-unlikely-landowner] Smith and Vaughan John Smith is the best documented of the three men traditionally associated with the discovery. Born in Boston on August 20, 1775, he came to Mahone Bay with his family as part of the Shoreham Grant immigration. He married Sarah Floyd on September 28, 1790, at the age of fifteen. His purchase of lot 18 on June 26, 1795, has been taken as evidence that the Money Pit was discovered in the spring or early summer of that year, the assumption being that Smith bought the property to secure access to the presumed treasure. Harris called this assumption "not unreasonable, but far from conclusive." Smith eventually acquired lots 16, 17, 19, 20, and 21, giving him ownership of the entire eastern end of the island. He built a house near the Money Pit around 1805, lived there for more than fifty years, and died on September 29, 1857. The inscribed stone pulled from the Pit by the Onslow Company was built into the back of his fireplace, where it was viewed by hundreds of visitors over the following decades. Anthony Vaughan is more difficult to pin down. Harris gave his age as thirteen in 1795. The 1893 Treasure Company prospectus, which states that Vaughan "subsequently related these facts to Mr. Robert Creelman," described him as "only a lad of 16 at this time." Clarke has argued that the man McCully described telling about the pit was more likely Vaughan's father, Anthony Vaughan Sr., who was forty-five in 1795. The Vaughan family were descendants of Rowland Vaughan, residents of Rhode Island who came to Massachusetts in the seventeenth century; three Vaughan brothers settled in Chester between 1768 and 1772. Anthony Vaughan Jr. married Elizabeth Nelson of Truro in May 1803. Clarke discovered that Nelson was related to the Archibald family, providing the likely connection through which the Onslow Company learned of the Money Pit. By every account, Vaughan was the chief source for the discovery story. In 1849, now sixty-seven years old, he related the details to Robert Creelman of the Truro Company. He also helped the Truro men locate the original shaft, which by then had been filled in. His recollections, filtered through Creelman and then through McCully's pen, form the backbone of every subsequent retelling. McGinnis himself had been dead since 1827. Smith's wife Mary was another source, but her direct contributions are poorly documented. The First Excavation On the sequence of events after McGinnis brought his companions to the site, the sources agree more closely, though discrepancies remain. Harris's synthesis, drawing primarily on the Colonist account and on DesBrisay, runs as follows. The three men visited the spot and attempted to remove the tackle block from the oak tree. It fell to the ground and broke apart, suggesting considerable age. They found the ground beneath the tree had "settled and formed a hollow." They also discovered the remains of an old road leading from the site to the western shore of the island, and concluded that whoever had buried something here had used this route to transport materials from their ship. At the eastern cove, at low tide, they found a large iron ringbolt set into a rock, which they took to be a mooring point. They began to dig. After removing the surface soil for about two feet, they struck a tier of flagstones laid across the full width of the shaft. These stones, they later determined, were not indigenous to Oak Island but had been brought from the Gold River area, roughly two miles north on the mainland. Beneath the flagstones they found themselves in a well-defined shaft approximately seven feet in diameter (McCully gave the diameter as sixteen feet, but most other accounts say seven to thirteen feet). The walls were tough, hard clay, but the fill inside was loose and easy to remove. Pick marks from the original excavation were plainly visible on the clay walls. At ten feet below the flagstones, they hit a tier of oak logs, six to eight inches in diameter, their ends firmly embedded in the walls of the shaft. The outer surfaces of the logs were badly decayed, suggesting they had been in place for a long time. The earth below the logs had settled nearly two feet. The three men removed the logs and kept digging. At twenty feet, they struck a second tier of identical oak logs. McCully's account says they found a third tier at thirty feet. DesBrisay's wording is less precise, saying they went "fifteen feet farther down" after the first tier of logs, which could mean they reached a depth of roughly twenty-five to twenty-seven feet. Harris followed DesBrisay's phrasing. The 1893 prospectus says they dug to thirty feet, finding "marks at each 10 feet." At this depth, they stopped. The work was too heavy and too dangerous for three men with hand tools. Before leaving, they drove oak sticks into the mud at the bottom to mark their depth and covered the site with branches. They then sought help from their neighbours, but found no takers. Harris recorded the reasons: some people were "superstitious enough to credit the saying that when pirates concealed money they always killed a black man and buried him with it to guard it." Others simply thought the idea of treasure buried so deep was absurd. The Search for Partners The period between the initial excavation and the arrival of the first organized company is one of the least documented stretches in the Oak Island story. McCully's 1862 letter says it was "about seven years" before Simeon Lynds arrived. DesBrisay gives the interval as "about fifteen years," which does not square with the documented date of the Onslow Company's operations in 1804. The 1893 prospectus says "6 or 7 years." Harris, weighing the evidence, fixed the date of the Onslow Company's work as 1804. During this gap, the three men farmed and waited. McGinnis married, had a son, and by most accounts was living on the island. Smith continued to acquire lots and establish himself on the eastern end. Vaughan returned to the mainland. Harris wrote that they "looked about them and sought help from others, but without success," and that the reluctance of their neighbours to assist left them unable to proceed on their own. The connection to Simeon Lynds came, according to the most widely accepted version, through the Vaughan family. Harris recorded that the accepted story placed Lynds in Chester on a business visit, where he spent an evening with Anthony Vaughan's father and heard the story. Clarke's genealogical research offers a more specific link: Anthony Vaughan Jr. married Elizabeth Nelson of Truro in May 1803, and Nelson was related to the Archibald family, whose members would become the leading investors in the Onslow Company. Clarke proposed that the Vaughan-Nelson wedding in May 1803 was the occasion on which the Money Pit story reached the ears of Colonel Robert Archibald and his relatives. What the Onslow Company Found In the early summer of 1804, members of the newly formed Onslow Company loaded a small schooner with tools and provisions and sailed more than three hundred miles from Onslow to Oak Island. The investors included Colonel Robert Archibald, the government surveyor who had laid out the township of Onslow in 1780 and now served as justice of the peace; his son Captain David Archibald; and Sheriff Thomas Harris of Pictou County. These were men of standing who were putting their reputations as well as their money at stake. On arrival, they were met by McGinnis, Smith, and Vaughan. The first task was to clear the Money Pit, which had caved in and formed what Harris, paraphrasing an early account, described as "the shape of a sugar loaf resting on its apex." When the debris was removed, the crew found the oak sticks that the three men had driven into the mud years earlier, still in place. This was taken as proof that nobody had disturbed the site in the interim. As they dug below the point where McGinnis and his companions had stopped, the Onslow Company crew found what the three men had found above: oak log platforms at regular intervals, with their rotting ends embedded in the clay walls of the shaft. The pick marks of the original builders were clearly visible. But they also encountered new materials. The accounts differ on the exact sequence, and the differences between the McCully, DesBrisay, McNutt, and Vaughan versions are not trivial. Compiling the various sources, Harris listed the following: tiers of charcoal, putty, coconut fibre, and a layer of smooth beach stones with figures and letters cut into them. James McNutt, secretary of the Oak Island Association, whose 1863 manuscript survives only in fragments, placed these at specific depths: charcoal at forty feet, beach stones with carvings at fifty feet, manila grass and coconut fibre at sixty feet, putty at seventy feet, and the inscribed stone at eighty feet. McCully placed the inscribed stone at eighty feet as well. Vaughan's own account, according to Harris, said it was found at ninety feet. The quantities of these materials were substantial. Hiram Walker, a ship's carpenter from Chester who worked on the dig, told his granddaughter Mrs. Cottnam Smith that he had seen "bushels of coconut fibre" pulled from the shaft. There was so much putty on one platform that it was later used to glaze the windows of local buildings. The coconut fibre would be confirmed in 1916 by the Smithsonian Institution as being from the husks of a coconut, a tropical plant that had no business being in a shaft on a Canadian island. Harris cited the Smithsonian's finding that the fibre was "especially resistant to the effects of sea water and under the conditions under which it was found may have been there for several hundred years." The inscribed stone, a slab of what appeared to be dark Swedish granite, roughly two feet long, one foot wide, and ten inches thick, bore characters that none of the workers could decipher. It was placed in the back of John Smith's fireplace, where hundreds of people examined it over the following decades. A professor at Dalhousie College reportedly interpreted the inscription as reading "Ten feet below two million pounds lie buried," though most contemporaries were sceptical of this translation. [artifact:coconut-fibre-money-pit] Below ninety feet, the earth became softer and water began to appear. At ninety-three feet, the crew was bailing one tub of water for every two tubs of earth. On their last evening of work, they probed the bottom with a crowbar and struck, at ninety-eight feet, a hard, impenetrable surface that spanned the full width of the shaft. They left for the night expecting to reach it in the morning. When they returned, the pit contained sixty feet of water, level with the tide in Mahone Bay. No amount of bailing could lower it. The water had defeated them, as it would defeat every company that followed for the next two centuries. [artifact:inscribed-stone-90-foot-stone] McGinnis After the Discovery Daniel McGinnis lived on Oak Island for the rest of his life. He married Maria Barbara Saller in September 1795, built a home on lot 21, and farmed. His son Johan was baptized at Chester in 1797. Harris noted that one of McGinnis's sons was also named Daniel, that another was named James, and that his grandson John McGinnis was born on Oak Island around 1865 and lived and died there. Multiple generations of McGinnises maintained a connection to the island and to the treasure hunt throughout the nineteenth century. McGinnis died in early 1827. His will was dated January 4 of that year and probated on February 27. Anthony Vaughan was named as one of two executors. John Smith was a witness. So was Samuel Ball. The document confirms that all four men were still in contact more than three decades after the discovery of the Pit, and Ball's presence among the witnesses adds weight to the evidence of his involvement from the earliest days. McGinnis was buried on Oak Island. No formal grave marker bearing his name has been positively identified, though a rock pile on the Money Pit drumlin contains a stone shard with letters that may be consistent with his name and dates. The McGinnis Family Legacy In 2007, a local historian named Danny Hennigar met Joyce McGinnis, a woman claiming descent from Daniel McGinnis, who showed him a heavy cross of braided, hand-hammered gold. She said the cross had been passed down through the oldest son in each generation, and that it was a remnant of treasure found at the bottom of the Money Pit in 1795. According to this family tradition, the three discoverers found three chests of treasure at about twenty feet and took one each. The cross, Joyce McGinnis said, was the one piece that Daniel had insisted be kept and handed down. Joyce McGinnis and her two sisters visited Oak Island in 2015 and repeated this story for the cameras during the Season 3 finale of The Curse of Oak Island. Jewelers who examined the cross reportedly told the family that it could be as old as five hundred years. The story cannot be independently verified, and the claim that treasure was found and kept secret is at odds with the well-documented poverty of the three discoverers in the years immediately following 1795. If they had found even a modest treasure, the decade they spent trying to recruit investors to dig deeper would be difficult to explain. The family tradition may reflect a real heirloom of unknown provenance, or it may be an embellishment that grew in the telling across two centuries of retelling. [artifact:mcginnis-gold-cross] How the Story Survived The chain of transmission by which the discovery story reached the written record is worth understanding, because it determines what can and cannot be known with confidence. Daniel McGinnis died in 1827, more than two decades before any account of the discovery was committed to paper. John Smith died in 1857, by which time his daughter Mary had lived for sixteen years in the household of Judge DesBrisay, who would publish the first book-length account in 1870. Anthony Vaughan, the last surviving member of the original group, gave his detailed recollections to Robert Creelman in 1849, when Vaughan was sixty-seven years old and recalling events from more than half a century earlier. Creelman's notes were used by Jothan McCully for his 1862 letter to the Liverpool Transcript and, most likely, for the longer account published in the Halifax Colonist on or about January 2, 1864. James McNutt, secretary of the Oak Island Association, wrote his own account in 1863; it was never published, and only fragments survive. Every surviving written account of the discovery therefore rests on the memories of an old man recalling events from his youth, filtered through at least one intermediary before reaching print. This does not mean the story is false. The physical evidence found by the Onslow Company in 1804, including the oak platforms, the pick marks, the flagstones, the coconut fibre, and the inscribed stone, confirms beyond reasonable doubt that someone excavated a deep shaft at this location before the arrival of European settlers in the Mahone Bay area. What it means is that specific details, particularly those on which the sources contradict one another, should be held lightly. What Can Be Established Harris, at the conclusion of his account of the discoveries made between 1795 and 1805, offered five conclusions that remain as sound as anything that has been established since. First, the Pit, including the oak platforms, was a man-made work. Second, the finding of charcoal, putty, coconut fibre, and the inscribed stone confirmed that the works were constructed with deliberation and resources that pointed to an origin far from Nova Scotia. Third, the Pit was constructed before 1749, when Halifax was founded, because works of this scale could not have been carried out after European settlement of the area without becoming widely known. Fourth, the magnitude of the undertaking suggested a deposit of substantial value. Fifth, the men involved in the early recovery attempts were persons of good reputation who invested their money and, in some cases, the balance of their lives in pursuing what they had found. To these, modern research has added refinements. Sullivan's observation about the oak stumps and young trees narrows the probable construction date to the seventeenth century at the earliest. Clarke's land records complicate the identities of the discoverers and suggest the standard "three boys" narrative is, at minimum, an oversimplification. The first edition of DesBrisay's history raises the possibility that Samuel Ball was involved in the discovery from the outset, a possibility that has been insufficiently examined. What remains unknown is almost everything else. The identity of the original builders, the contents of the shaft, and the purpose of the elaborate underground works on Oak Island are no closer to being established than they were in 1795. The discovery of the Money Pit was not the end of a mystery but the beginning of one, and after more than two centuries it has still produced more questions than answers. Sources Primary accounts (in chronological order of publication): Jothan Blanchard McCully, letter to the Liverpool Transcript, Truro, June 2, 1862. First published account of the discovery and early excavations. McCully was secretary of the Oak Island Association and a former member of the Truro Company. He participated personally in the 1849 boring operations and wrote from direct acquaintance with Anthony Vaughan and John Smith. "A member of the Oak Island Association," article in the Halifax Colonist, published December 20, 1863, and January 2, 1864. Probably written by McCully. The Colonist account gives the interval before the Onslow Company as "fifteen years" and is the principal source used by DesBrisay. James McNutt, manuscript account, 1863. McNutt was secretary and treasurer of the Oak Island Association. The manuscript was never published; only fragments survive. Contains details not found elsewhere, including the clover patch, beach stones with carvings at 50 feet, and figures and letters on a stone at 80 feet. Judge Mather Byles DesBrisay, History of the County of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia (first edition, 1870; second edition, 1896). First account of the discovery to appear between hard covers. DesBrisay lived in Chester during his childhood and was personally acquainted with people involved in the treasure hunt. In the 1870 edition, the three discoverers are named as McGinnis, Smith, and Samuel Ball. In the 1896 edition, Ball is replaced by Vaughan with no explanation. Oak Island Treasure Company prospectus (Boston, 1893). Public share offering document, $60,000 capital in $5 shares. Draws on the recollections of Robert Creelman, J. B. McCully, and Adams A. Tupper, all of whom were still living. Contains the verbatim statement of McCully's boring results and unique details including red clover, a sawed-off branch, and Vaughan's age given as sixteen. Oral testimony and interviews: Anthony Vaughan, interview with Robert Creelman, 1849. Vaughan was approximately sixty-seven years old, recalling events from 1795. His account was the chief source for McCully's articles and, through them, for nearly all subsequent retellings. Vaughan helped the Truro Company locate the original shaft. Mary Smith, daughter of John Smith, who lived for sixteen years in the household of Judge DesBrisay. Her recollections contributed to DesBrisay's account, though the extent of her contribution is poorly documented. Hiram Walker, ship's carpenter of Chester, who worked on the Money Pit during the Onslow Company operations. He told his granddaughter Mrs. Cottnam Smith that he had seen "bushels of coconut fibre" pulled from the shaft. Adams A. Tupper, of Upper Stewiacke (later South Framingham, Massachusetts). Helped sink shaft No. 3 during the Truro Company operations. His eyewitness account is quoted in the 1893 prospectus. Secondary sources, books: R. V. Harris, The Oak Island Mystery (Ryerson Press, Toronto, 1958; revised edition, 1967). Harris served as attorney to Frederick Blair and later to Melbourne Chappell, the two men who controlled the treasure hunt from 1895 to 1965. He drew on the vast collection of records and documents now held in the Oak Island file at the Nova Scotia Archives, Halifax. His account synthesizes all earlier sources and includes genealogical research on the Vaughan, Smith, and Ball families. Mark Finnan, Oak Island Secrets (Formac Publishing, Halifax, 1995; originally published 1997). Detailed account of the discovery and early excavations, including the flagstone layer, coconut fibre identification, and inscribed stone. Lionel and Patricia Fanthorpe, The Oak Island Mystery: The Secret of the World's Greatest Treasure Hunt (Dundurn Press, 1995). Synthesizes the Onslow Company operations and provides analysis of the coconut fibre quantities, putty, and platform sequence. Les MacPhie, Oak Island: And the Search for Buried Treasure (Nimbus Publishing, Halifax, 2006). Compilation of scientific testing results including the Smithsonian Institution fibre analysis (1916) and Bureau of Plant Industries report (1937). Lee Lamb, Oak Island Family: The Restall Hunt for Buried Treasure (Dundurn Press, 2012). Accessible account of the discovery and initial excavation, with the detail that the three discoverers reached 32 feet before stopping. Randall Sullivan, The Curse of Oak Island: The Story of the World's Longest Treasure Hunt (Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 2023). The most thorough modern investigation of McGinnis's identity, including the age debate, the McInnes-to-McGinnis name transition, the North Carolina loyalist connection, and Sullivan's interviews with the Nova Scotia Archives, South Shore Genealogical Society, and local historian Charles Barkhouse. Sullivan also documented his unsuccessful attempt to interview descendants of Samuel Ball. Les Clarke, Oak Island Odyssey (2023). Clarke's research, drawing on land records brought to light by Paul Wroclawski, established that McGinnis owned four lots on Oak Island before 1795 and argued that McGinnis was born in 1758 (age thirty-seven in 1795), not a teenager. Clarke also discovered the genealogical link between the Vaughan and Archibald families through Elizabeth Nelson's 1803 marriage. Scientific and institutional reports: Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., fibre analysis, 1916. Confirmed the fibrous material from Oak Island as coconut husk fibre, noting it was "especially resistant to the effects of sea water" and could have been in place "for several hundred years." Dr. Frederick L. Newton, Curator of Textiles, Smithsonian Institution, confirming report, 1930. Bureau of Plant Industries, Washington, D.C., fibre analysis, 1937. Reported the fibrous material as "unquestionably the fibro-vascular tissue of some plant" but could not identify it further. Confirmed it was not seaweed. Botanical Museum of Harvard University, fibre analysis, 1937. Reported the material as "readily distinguishable as manilla hemp," contradicting the Smithsonian identification. Genealogical and land records: Paul Wroclawski, land ownership research (cited by Clarke). Established McGinnis's lot purchases: lot 28 (March 1788), lot 21 (May 1790), lot 27 (May 1791), lot 1 (September 1794). Families of the Western Shore (genealogical volume, cited by Sullivan). Contains the lineage from Donald Daniel McInnes to "Daniel Jr." who "found 'The Money Pit Site' in 1795." Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints archives. Record of the marriage of Donald Daniel McGinnis to Maria Barbara Saller at St. James' Anglican Church, Lunenburg, September 8, 1795. Chester parish records. Baptism of Johan James McGinnis, son of Daniel and Maria Barbara, July 26, 1797. Daniel McGinnis will, dated January 4, 1827, probated February 27, 1827. Anthony Vaughan named as executor; John Smith and Samuel Ball named as witnesses. Samuel Ball will, probated January 5, 1846. Shows mainland property adjoining "lands owned by Daniel McGinnis." John Smith, purchase of lot 18 on Oak Island from Caspar Wollenhaupt, June 26, 1795, for five pounds. Government and institutional records: Nova Scotia Bureau of Information, official account of the Oak Island story, 1951. Described the three discoverers as being "on a shooting trip to Oak Island from the neighboring mainland." Henry S. Poole, government geological report, 1861. Visited the Money Pit area and described the shaft conditions. Charles Morris, Surveyor General of Nova Scotia, survey of Oak Island (designated Island No. 28), 1762-1765. Divided the island into thirty-two four-acre lots. The Curse of Oak Island (TV series): Season 3, Episode 13 (finale, 2016). Joan, Jean, and Joyce McGinnis visit Oak Island and present the McGinnis family gold cross, claiming it was inherited from Daniel McGinnis and that the three discoverers found three chests of treasure at approximately twenty feet. Danny Hennigar, local historian, first documented the McGinnis family gold cross in 2007 after meeting Joyce McGinnis.   ### Simeon Lynds, the Oak Island Organizer URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/hunt/simeon-lynds-the-oak-island-organizer Simeon Lynds is remembered as the man who turned the Oak Island story from a local curiosity into an organised treasure hunt. In 1803, he organised the company that carried out the first systematic excavation of Oak Island's Money Pit, the dig that recovered the inscribed stone, struck a hard layer at 95 feet, and ended after a second attempt in 1804 was also flooded. Beyond that single role, the documentary record on Lynds is sparse. A small set of letters in the Nova Scotia Archives, exchanged between Halifax lawyer R. V. Harris and Lynds's family in the 1930s, gives the clearest surviving outline of the man behind the company. The Onslow Wheelwright The only Simeon Lynds for whom genealogical records survive was born in Onslow, Nova Scotia, on 15 November 1774, a twin son of Thomas Lynds and Rebecca Blair. He lived either on East Mountain of Onslow or by the North River, worked as a wheelwright, and died unmarried on 15 August 1857. These details come from a December 1937 letter written by Martha Kirkpatrick of Shubenacadie to R. V. Harris, the lawyer who would later publish The Oak Island Mystery (1958). Kirkpatrick added that her mother could not recall past events readily and "evidently has no knowledge of any connection with the Oak Island treasure hunting." The letter is preserved in the Nova Scotia Archives, R. V. Harris papers, MG1 Vol. 380. If this is indeed the man who organised the Onslow Company, the picture is modest. A tradesman from a farming and milling district north of Cobequid Bay, well connected by family, with no public standing recorded beyond his trade. The Wedding Network of 1803 The earliest published account of the Onslow Company, by Jotham B. McCully in the Liverpool Transcript in June 1862, reports that about seven years after the original discovery, Lynds travelled from Onslow down to Chester and, on stopping in with Anthony Vaughan, was informed of what had taken place on Oak Island. A Colonist article of 2 January 1864 added that "the late Simeon Lynds" was a relative of Vaughan's father, brought into the secret through family ties, and suggested that it was his father Thomas Lynds who provided the money and social connections that launched the company. Later authors have offered other versions. Lionel Fanthorpe records a tradition that Lynds was a doctor who attended the birth of John Smith's first child in 1802, while noting that the Smith child had been baptised in 1798. A second account presents Lynds as a businessman acquainted with the fathers of Vaughan and Smith, and a third has him meeting Vaughan in Chester by chance. The sources have not been brought into agreement. Genealogical work published by Randall Clarke in Oak Island Odyssey (2023) offers a more economical route. The principal Onslow Company members (Colonel Robert Archibald, Captain David Archibald, Simeon Lynds, and Sheriff Thomas Harris) were related to one another by blood or marriage. Archibald had married Hannah Blair; Hannah's sister Rebecca was Lynds's mother. In May 1803, Anthony Vaughan Jr. married Elizabeth Nelson of Truro, whose mother Margaret Archibald was a first cousin of Robert Archibald. On Clarke's reading, the Oak Island story reached the Onslow circle through that wedding network in the spring of 1803, the same year the company was formed. The Onslow Company, 1803-1804 The company that Lynds helped raise included his father Thomas Lynds, Colonel Robert Archibald (its reported leader), Captain David Archibald, and Sheriff Thomas Harris, with perhaps twenty-five to thirty workmen and shareholders in total. In 1803 the crew reopened the original shaft, descending through the layers of oak platforms, charcoal, putty, and coconut fibre that Daniel McGinnis, John Smith, and Anthony Vaughan had only partly cleared in 1795, and recovered the inscribed stone at around 90 feet (see [article:90-foot-stone]). Water broke into the pit at that depth, increasing as the diggers continued. A crowbar driven into the floor at 95 feet struck a hard, impenetrable layer. By tradition the work paused on a Saturday evening; on Monday morning the pit had filled with water to within thirty feet of the surface. A committee sought advice from a Mr. Mosher of Newport, who supplied an £80 pump. It burst before reaching the bottom and the season was lost. In the spring of 1804 the company sank a second shaft to the east of the original to 110 feet and drove a tunnel toward the Money Pit. Water broke through as the diggers approached, flooding both shafts to tide level. The company's resources were spent. The dig closed without a recovery and Lynds played no further public role in the search. The full sequence is set out on the [article:onslow-company] page. Two Lynds Brothers The Lynds name reappears in the Oak Island story in 1849, when the Truro Company began work on the island. Among its investors was Dr. David Barns Lynds, born 10 September 1781, who practised medicine on Queen Street in Truro and died there on 9 June 1871. The Kirkpatrick letter treats him as a separate person from Simeon, and Randall Sullivan, working from independent records, identifies him as Simeon's younger brother. The two figures have travelled together through the literature for more than a century. R. V. Harris was already working at the question in May 1935, when he wrote to the Reverend Henry I. Lynds in Lockport, New York, asking what could be established about a "Dr. John Lynds of Truro" said to have been interested in the Oak Island hunt and to have taken the inscribed stone to Truro for a period. Harris received no biographical material in reply. The "Dr. Lynds" who recurs in the early hunt accounts appears to draw on both brothers: Simeon's role in the 1803 excavation and David Barns Lynds's involvement with the Truro Company in the 1840s. The two strands gradually entwined as the story passed through later writers. The Family's Silence The most arresting line in the Kirkpatrick letter is the last. By 1937, the man who had set the first organised excavation in motion had passed out of family memory. Several readings are available. Lynds played a brief, costly, and unsuccessful role in 1803-1804, lost what he had put in, and did not speak of it afterwards. He died unmarried in 1857 with no direct descendants to carry the story, and by the third generation, in a rural Nova Scotian family without published members, the episode could vanish from oral tradition without much difficulty. A different reading is that the Onslow Company's investors, having sunk private capital into a hole that produced nothing, treated the venture as an embarrassment rather than an exploit. The published 1862 newspaper accounts came from Jotham McCully and other figures connected with the later Truro Company, not from Onslow Company veterans. A third reading is simply that the Kirkpatrick branch had lost touch with the relevant line. None of these can be established from the surviving documents. The Man and the Legend Simeon Lynds is securely the named organiser of the Onslow Company, the first systematic excavation of the Money Pit. That role rests on independent accounts from the 1860s onward. The genealogical reconstruction offers a plausible route by which the Oak Island story reached him. The 1803 dig produced the inscribed stone and the first encounter with the flooding system, and the 1804 follow-up confirmed that the flooding was a structural problem the company could not solve. Beyond that, the biographical record narrows to a single document. The Kirkpatrick letter of December 1937 gives a wheelwright from the Onslow district who lived to eighty-two and never married, and whose family by that date had no recollection of the dig that carries his name. The earlier published accounts, working from second- and third-hand sources, drew a fuller and more elevated portrait. Whether the historical Lynds resembled either figure remains, in the strict documentary sense, an open question. Sources Martha Kirkpatrick to R. V. Harris, letter, Shubenacadie, 20 December 1937. Nova Scotia Archives, R. V. Harris papers, MG1 Vol. 380. R. V. Harris to Rev. Henry I. Lynds, letter, 21 May 1935. Nova Scotia Archives, R. V. Harris papers, MG1 Vol. 380. The First Treasure Company 1803/4, typescript working notes. Nova Scotia Archives, R. V. Harris papers, MG1 Vol. 380, p. 367. Jotham B. McCully, Liverpool Transcript, June 1862. The Colonist, 2 January 1864. Clarke, Randall. Oak Island Odyssey. 2023. DesBrisay, Mather B. History of the County of Lunenburg. 2nd edn. Toronto: William Briggs, 1895. Fanthorpe, Lionel, and Patricia Fanthorpe. The Oak Island Mystery: The World's Greatest Treasure Hunt. Harris, R. V. The Oak Island Mystery: The Secret of the World's Greatest Treasure Hunt. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1958. Sullivan, Randall. The Curse of Oak Island: The Story of the World's Longest Treasure Hunt. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2018. ### Frederick Blair: The Man Who Held Oak Island for Sixty Years URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/hunt/frederick-blair-the-man-who-held-oak-island-for-sixty-years Frederick Leander Blair was born in 1867 at Thomson Station, a small community in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia. His father William and mother Susan raised him in Amherst, where he would live for most of his life and where he would eventually die, still holding the document that had defined his existence: the treasure trove license to Oak Island. Between those two points lay nearly sixty years of relentless effort, conducted almost entirely from behind a desk, that made Blair the single most important figure in the Oak Island story between the original discoverers and the Lagina brothers. He never found the treasure. He never stopped believing it was there. Uncle Isaac's Stories Blair first heard about Oak Island as a boy in Amherst, from his uncle Isaac Blair. Isaac had been part of the Oak Island Association and Halifax Company crews that worked on the island during the 1860s, and he carried firsthand memories of what the men had found underground. As Isaac wrote to his nephew in 1896: "I saw enough to convince me that there was treasure buried there and enough to convince me that they will never get it." The first half of that sentence lit a fire in the young Frederick Blair. The second half he chose to ignore. Blair moved to Massachusetts as a young man and established himself in the insurance business, working out of an office in Boston. He was twenty-six years old when, in 1893, he formed the Oak Island Treasure Company, drawing on the connections and knowledge he had accumulated through his uncle and through veterans of earlier searches. One of those veterans was Adams A. Tupper, who had worked on the island in the summers of 1850, 1851, and 1863, and who swore under oath in a notarized affidavit dated November 23, 1893, that the account of operations Blair had compiled was accurate. Another was J.W. Andrews, a consulting engineer then living in Brooklyn, who had watched the digging as a nine-year-old boy in 1849 and confirmed the story of the oak tree with block and tackle, the circular cavity, and the flooding at depth. Blair was a meticulous researcher, and he made it his business to gather as much verbal and written testimony as he could from anyone who had been involved in the earlier searches. The archive he assembled over the following decades would become the foundation on which every subsequent account of the Oak Island story was built, from R.V. Harris's 1958 book to D'Arcy O'Connor's histories to the modern television series. Without Blair's records, much of the 19th-century history of the island would have been lost. The Treasure Company Years The Oak Island Treasure Company conducted operations on the island through the late 1890s, and Blair was present for some of the most significant discoveries of the era. In 1897, Captain John Welling and the Treasure Company crew sank shaft number thirteen and discovered a man-made tunnel flowing with saltwater into the Money Pit. The same year, a scrap of parchment with writing in India ink was pulled from a drill bit probing the depths of the Pit, and a substance identified by the London firm of A. Boake Roberts and Company as primitive man-made cement was recovered from another boring. Blair would carry that scrap of parchment with him for the rest of his life, and it would become the single most cited piece of physical evidence in the case for a deliberate deposit. Maynard Kaiser, a worker on the 1897 crew, became the second person to die during treasure-hunting operations on the island when he fell to his death down one of the shafts. The Treasure Company was besieged by creditors and collapsed in 1898, with many investors declaring bankruptcy. Blair responded by buying out all the remaining shareholders in 1900, consolidating his hold on the operation at a time when no one else wanted it. Securing the Rights The legal framework governing treasure hunting in Nova Scotia presented Blair with a problem that would consume years of his life. The difficulty traced back to England's Law of the Treasure Trove, enacted in 1276 under Edward I, which declared that hidden treasures with no known owner belonged to the Crown. The royal prerogative had passed to the provincial governments in Canada, and in September 1895 the Nova Scotia Attorney General, J.W. Longley, declared that any treasure discovered at Oak Island would belong to the government. Blair fought this through a decade-long bureaucratic campaign. He applied for a lease under Nova Scotia's Mines Act covering an area 450 feet by 500 feet that contained the Money Pit and all the surrounding shafts. That lease was not secured until late 1905. It had a forty-year life span, but it only protected precious metals. Convinced that the island's treasure might be something other than gold and silver, Blair then negotiated a separate agreement giving him the exclusive right to search for an undefined "trove," in exchange for paying the government two percent of whatever he found. That agreement was signed in 1909. He also signed a lease with Henry Sellers that allowed him to dig on the east end of Oak Island for one hundred dollars a year. In his own 1930 manuscript, titled "With Reference to Attempts Made at Various Times to Recover a Treasure Supposed to Be Buried on Oak Island, Nova Scotia," Blair set out his case in characteristically direct language. "There is no map, no mythical story, no dream, nothing handed down from a sailor, or any other person, indicating the burial of anything on Oak Island, at any location," he wrote. "The discovery of the pit was accidental." He went on to summarize the physical evidence: the circular pit twelve or thirteen feet in diameter, the layers of charcoal, putty, and beach stones at twenty-five feet, the coconut husks and fibre dug up at the shore. "It is certain that a vast amount of work was done to bury something," he concluded. "The artificial conditions were there to be seen, and were exposed at both the pit and the shore." [article:the-treasure-and-the-law-the-oak-island-treasure-act] Bowdoin and the First Betrayal With his legal position secured, Blair needed a partner with money and engineering skill. In 1909, he found one in Captain Henry Bowdoin, a New York mining and marine engineer who announced his involvement in the treasure hunt in the New York Herald on March 18, 1909. Bowdoin formed the Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company, capitalized at $250,000 in one-dollar shares, with Blair and Captain Welling on the board of directors. Among the shareholders was a young law clerk named Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who purchased ten shares. Bowdoin drilled more than two dozen boreholes around the Money Pit, reaching depths of 171 feet, but found nothing beyond layers of cement. By November 1909, the money was gone. Bowdoin agreed to resume work the following summer, then wrote from England that he could not return before the end of 1911. Blair demanded proof of additional financing before granting any extension. Bowdoin's reply carried a barely veiled threat: if Blair did not cooperate, the company would publish a report that would make future fundraising impossible. Blair was not the sort of man to be intimidated. "Your letter almost conveys a threat," he wrote back. "Let me say that anything that can be said against Oak Island has already been written, and the publication of any article you might be able to bring forth would not in the least jar those of us who own the lease." Bowdoin made good on his threat with a long article in Collier's Magazine in August 1911, in which he declared there had never been any treasure. Blair answered with his own article in the Amherst Daily News in February 1912, accusing Bowdoin of writing in revenge after the two fell out. The Long Middle Around 1912, Blair moved his insurance business to Calgary, Alberta. Even at a distance of three thousand miles, he maintained his grip on the treasure trove license and continued to field inquiries from prospective searchers. He negotiated a new eight-year lease with Sophia Sellers in 1913, followed by a revised agreement in 1921 that gave him control of the Money Pit area until 1931. In 1915, he signed a partnership agreement with a Rochester, New York syndicate headed by engineer William S. Lozier. The Rochester Group drilled at four locations during the summer of 1916 but made no new discoveries. In 1921, he struck a deal with another engineer, Edward Brown of Newark, New Jersey, who proposed to sink a shaft fifteen feet from the Pit. Brown's crew went to work on July 4, 1922, but when Blair visited and found that the drill had never gone deeper than seven feet, he terminated the agreement. The period between the Bowdoin fiasco and Blair's return to Nova Scotia was marked by what Sullivan called "a whiff of desperation and even, perhaps, a slight degree of hucksterism." On December 7, 1922, Blair placed an advertisement in the Boston Journal of Commerce under the heading "Buried Treasure." The text read: "Speculative venture, partly proven, requires $50,000 for half interest. If successful, will produce millions within one year; otherwise possible eighty per cent loss. Satisfactory credentials, proofs partially successful efforts, will prove good sporting proposition for party financially able to take chance." The accompanying article described Blair as a native of Nova Scotia who had come to New York "to find men with imagination enough to risk some funds in a venture." Blair returned to Amherst in 1931. He immediately partnered with William Chappell, the drill operator who had brought up the famous parchment scrap in 1897. William's son Melbourne helped organize operations, and they sank a new shaft on the island. Blair visited the site and concluded at once that the Chappell shaft was not properly located, telling Chappell so when the shaft was only ten feet down. They discussed moving it, but Chappell decided he was close enough. Blair later described this as "one great big mistake." The Hedden Partnership Gilbert D. Hedden, a wealthy New Jersey steel manufacturer, first read about Oak Island in a 1928 New York Times Magazine article and carried the clipping with him for years. In early 1934, he traveled to Nova Scotia, inspected the Money Pit area, and began assembling his own thirty-one-page monograph on the island's history. Blair shared his entire archive with Hedden. On March 1, 1935, the two signed an agreement guaranteeing each a share of any treasure recovered. The partnership began promisingly but was immediately complicated by a political fight. The Nova Scotia government proposed amending the Mines Act to give the Minister of Mines authority over treasure troves as well as minerals. Blair saw the move as a direct threat. In a letter to R.V. Harris dated March 13, 1935, he compared the potential discovery on Oak Island to the opening of Tutankhamun's tomb: "It is high time that the Gov't of the Province of Nova Scotia awakened to the fact that they possess at their front door, a possible means of bringing the province before the world in a manner equaled only by the discovery of Tut-ankh-Amen's tomb. No mining proposition is in its class." The Mines Act amendment was ultimately killed in committee, but the fight consumed time and energy that Blair could ill afford. Simultaneously, Blair was fighting to acquire the land itself. The heirs of Sophia Sellers demanded what Blair considered an outrageous price. An offer of $900 cash for the twenty acres containing the pit area was refused. The only price the Sellers family would accept for the entire 150-acre property was $5,500. Blair lobbied for the government to use its expropriation powers, arguing that the land was worth $200 at most and that the owners were blocking a $100,000 project that would employ local labour. In a memorandum submitted to the legislature by E.T. Parker on April 23, 1935, Blair estimated that a quarter of a million dollars had already been spent on the Oak Island search, most of it benefiting the local economy. Hedden, determined to proceed regardless, eventually paid the Sellers heirs close to ten times the land's appraised value. Hedden's excavations during 1936 and 1937 were the most systematic to date. He believed he was very close to solving the mystery when work stopped abruptly in September 1937. He left for England, and by March 1938, he informed Blair that he would postpone operations indefinitely. The agreement between the two men was allowed to expire without renewal. Blair was furious. In a letter to Harris on April 19, 1938, he described Hedden's withdrawal as "nothing more or less than a downright betrayal and by a brother mason at that." He accused Hedden of playing a "freeze out" game, waiting for Blair to die so that he could operate without sharing. "Mr. Hedden has taken his cue from the former owners and now proposes to stand pat awaiting developments fully realizing my age as compared with his," Blair wrote. "Now you see me and now you don't; yes we have no bananas today." His closing line was defiant: "All I can say at the moment is that I am not going to be defeated by a foreigner if I can help it." Blair suspected financial motives behind Hedden's retreat. In a letter dated May 16, 1938, he observed that by closing down and "throwing up the sponge" publicly, Hedden could deduct his losses from income tax under American law. "Matters are not good in the United States," Blair noted, "and by closing down and throwing up the 'sponge' ostensibly, he can deduct his loss from income and materially reduce his income tax." Hedden had spent approximately $40,000 on the project, exclusive of the land purchase. Blair believed the man was still confident treasure lay beneath the surface, but could afford to wait. Blair could not. Hamilton and the War Professor Erwin H. Hamilton, an associate professor of engineering at New York University and a high-ranking Freemason, negotiated a working arrangement with Hedden (who still owned the property) and Blair (who still held the license) and arrived on the island in 1938. The proposed division of any treasure caused immediate friction. Blair objected to a three-way equal split, arguing that Hamilton was merely carrying on Hedden's unfinished work. "I do not want two men living under the stars and stripes dictating just what shall be done in the way of disposing of all that may be recovered," Blair wrote to Harris on August 6, 1938. "I realize it may be their money and efforts that made possible the recovery, but they will be well paid with 60% of the proceeds without giving them all to say in the disposal." He proposed that he should receive 40 percent, with Hedden and Hamilton splitting the remaining 60 percent. By November 1939, Blair was disappointed with Hamilton's progress. "I am very much disappointed in Hamilton's work this summer, and have so advised Hedden," he told Harris. "He seems to have been working for information or evidence, in other words, on an exploring expedition, rather than going at the job in a business-like manner." In the same letter, Blair revealed that he had always known the Chappell shaft was mislocated, and he offered a precise technical analysis of the tunnels Hamilton had encountered, including his belief that a "cave in pit" discovered during Hedden's operations was connected to the original pirate tunnel and that the men had come within reach of solving the problem without realizing it. Hamilton spent six years and more than $60,000 on the island. His work established for the first time the existence of man-made tunnels below bedrock at 200 feet and revealed an extensive flooding system on the island's south shore. The war halted operations in 1943, and Hamilton covered the shafts and returned home. He later settled near Chester, where he went into boatbuilding. [article:gilbert-hedden-and-edwin-hamilton-the-engineers-who-mapped-the-oak-island-money-pit][map:cave-in-pit] Registrar of Probate Alongside his Oak Island work, Blair had established a second career in public service. Sometime around 1936, he was appointed Registrar of Probate for Cumberland County, operating from the Court House in Amherst. His letterhead changed from "Fred L. Blair, General Insurance" at the Maritime Block to "Frederick L. Blair, Registrar of Probate, County of Cumberland." The Halifax Chronicle-Herald later noted that although Blair was not a lawyer, "he made himself intimately acquainted with all the responsibilities of that important position and fulfilled them to the better." His colleagues described him as an exceptionally capable official who worked long hours to manage the court's heavy caseload. Blair was also a past master freemason of Alexandra Lodge No. 87 A.F. and A.M. and an active member of the First Baptist Church in Amherst. [article:freemasons-on-oak-island-the-masonic-connection] The Last Decade Blair's wife, known in family records as Ann or Colin, predeceased him in 1943. Their son Gordon worked in finance at the Traders Finance Corporation in Saint John, New Brunswick. By the late 1940s, Blair was in his eighties but still answering the mail. In a letter dated August 4, 1947, replying to an inquiry from a Texas mining man named L. Elbert Smith, Blair wrote that Smith's letter was "just one more added to the hundreds which I have received from parties scattered all over this continent and even so far away as New Zealand, containing ideas and suggestions of procedure in the work of recovery of the treasure supposed to be buried at Oak Island." The difficulty, Blair wrote, was "not so much the method of recovery as is the financing of the work. Scientific engineering and modern equipment will do the work if properly financed." He still held the right of recovery. He was "fully convinced that a treasure of vast proportions is buried on Oak Island." In April 1947, a peculiar episode demonstrated Blair's fame. Edward R. Snow, a Boston author and authority on New England coastal history, announced in a radio broadcast that the lessee of Oak Island had died of a broken heart after failing to find the treasure. Blair, who happened to be listening, immediately wrote to Snow to inform him that the lessee was very much alive. Snow flew to Amherst by way of Borden Price, apologized in person, and then flew with Blair to Oak Island to take photographs for a book he was writing on the treasure hunts of the South Shore. In May 1950, Hedden finally sold the Oak Island property to John Whitney Lewis, an elderly New York mining engineer, for $6,000. Hedden told Lewis that Blair's treasure trove license had expired, which it had at the time. Blair, hearing of the sale, acted immediately to renew his license with the province. Lewis's own application was refused on the grounds that a license had already been reissued to Blair. The standoff was resolved when the Nova Scotia legislature, after lobbying by Blair and Melbourne Chappell, passed an amendment to the Treasure Trove Act that gave the license holder legal access to property owned by another party. Lewis, outmaneuvered, eventually sold the land at cost to Chappell. Frederick Leander Blair died on the morning of Sunday, April 1, 1951, at the Victoria General Hospital in Halifax. He was eighty-three years old. He had been ill for nearly a month and had been transferred from Highland View Hospital in Amherst to Halifax on March 21. He was survived by his son Gordon, one sister (Mrs. Reina Quinn of Bayside, Long Island), and one granddaughter, Marie. His funeral was held at Colonial Hall in Amherst on the following Wednesday. What He Left Behind The British United Press wire story by Ted Shields, filed from Halifax on April 3, 1951, ran under the headline "Nova Scotian's Dream of Solving Oak Island's Riddle Ended By Death." The story described fifty-five years of watching one expedition after another end in failure, noting that none of it had dimmed Blair's conviction that treasure lay buried in the flint-hard clay of Oak Island's south coast. The Halifax Chronicle-Herald editorial that followed was more personal. It described Blair's tall, spare figure as a familiar sight on the streets of Amherst, and noted that his many and varied experiences and excellent memory had made him an interesting conversationalist. "Mr. Blair had, in the course of sixty-five years, gathered a vast amount of information respecting the efforts to find the Oak Island Treasure," the editorial stated. "He believed implicitly in its existence and in its ultimate recovery." R.V. Harris, who had served as Blair's attorney, friend, and colleague for almost a quarter century, added: "Mr. Blair received thousands of letters from eccentric as well as sane people who had suggestions to make for the sure and certain recovery of the treasure. In answering them, he was invariably courteous as well as lucid." Shortly after Blair's death, Melbourne Chappell acquired the treasure trove license. For the first time in Oak Island history, both the license and the land belonged to a single person. Blair's personal archive, including his journals, the correspondence with Bowdoin, Hedden, Hamilton, Harris, and hundreds of others, and the parchment scrap recovered in 1897, passed first to Gordon Blair and then, after Gordon's death, largely into the Nova Scotia Archives. Grace Blair, Gordon's wife, told Dorothy MacDonald in 1977 that most of what her father-in-law had collected had been lent to R.V. Harris for his book, and that very little had been returned. What Harris did not use wound up with the Chappell family in Sydney, Cape Breton. In his later years, Blair had become fixated on a theory about the origin of the Oak Island treasure. He believed it consisted of royal and church plate removed from England during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, after the execution of King Charles I in 1649. In his 1930 manuscript, he described the treasure as "royal and church plate and valuables, known to have been removed from England and hidden during the Protectorate of Cromwell, after the execution of Charles I. This treasure simply vanished from the face of the earth and has never been recovered. Very probably it now lies buried on Oak Island." He estimated its value at five million dollars, calling that figure "a very conservative appraisal." Whether or not he was right about the contents, Blair's conviction never wavered. "A treasure of vast proportions is buried on Oak Island," he wrote in 1947, at the age of eighty, and he believed it until the day he died. Blair never owned any portion of Oak Island. He paid licensing fees for the right to search. His daughter-in-law clarified this point years after his death, noting that the distinction mattered. He was not a landowner or an investor in the conventional sense. He was a guardian: a man who held the legal keys to the mystery for six decades, who recruited and vetted every expedition that set foot on the island during that time, who collected and preserved the historical record, and who answered every letter that arrived at his desk in Amherst, whether it came from a president of the United States or a mining prospector in Texas. The Oak Island story as it is known today is, in large part, the story Frederick Blair chose to tell. Sources Primary documents (Frederick L. Blair papers, Nova Scotia Archives, MG1 Vol. 381–384, R.V. Harris Papers): Frederick L. Blair, "With Reference to Attempts Made at Various Times to Recover a Treasure Supposed to Be Buried on Oak Island, Nova Scotia," typescript manuscript, 1930 (MG1 Vol. 383). Blair's own five-page synopsis of the treasure hunt from 1795 to his time, written after thirty-seven years of involvement. Includes his statement that "there is no map, no mythical story, no dream, nothing handed down from a sailor" and his summary of the physical evidence at the pit and shore. Affidavit of Adams A. Tupper, sworn November 23, 1893, First District Court of Southern Middlesex, Massachusetts (MG1 Vol. 383). Tupper, of South Framingham, Mass., confirms he worked on Oak Island in the summers of 1850, 1851, and 1863 and vouches for the accuracy of Blair's account. Statement of J.W. Andrews, C.E.M.E., Consulting Engineer, 1453 East Third St., Brooklyn, New York, October 1, 1916 (MG1 Vol. 383). Andrews, who as a nine-year-old boy watched the 1849 operations, confirms the oak tree discovery, the circular cavity, the flooding, the boring that produced coins and a piece of gold, and the coconut fibre on the plank platforms. Handwritten annotation notes Andrews was 76 years old in 1916. Frederick L. Blair to Reginald V. Harris, letter, March 7, 1935 (MG1 Vol. 381). Blair reports on the size of Oak Island (120–130 acres, three-quarters of a mile long) after visiting the Mines office, and discusses the Sellers family's refusal to sell the east-end lots. Frederick L. Blair to Reginald V. Harris, letter, March 13, 1935 (MG1 Vol. 381). Contains the Tutankhamun comparison: Blair argues that the province should use expropriation powers to clear the way for operations, calling Oak Island's potential "equaled only by the discovery of Tut-ankh-Amen's tomb." Memorandum re: Bill to Amend the Mines Act Relating to Treasure Trove, submitted by E.T. Parker, April 23, 1935 (MG1 Vol. 382). Legislative brief arguing for the Mines Act amendment. States that $250,000 had been spent on the Oak Island search and that an additional $100,000 was available from private backers if land access could be secured. Frederick L. Blair to Reginald V. Harris, letter, April 19, 1938 (MG1 Vol. 381). Blair's reaction to Hedden's withdrawal, calling it "nothing more or less than a downright betrayal and by a brother mason at that." Contains the "freeze out" accusation and the line "I am not going to be defeated by a foreigner if I can help it." Frederick L. Blair to Reginald V. Harris, letter, May 16, 1938 (MG1 Vol. 381). Blair's analysis of Hedden's financial motives, including the observation that by closing down operations publicly, Hedden could deduct his losses from U.S. income tax. Notes Hedden had spent approximately $40,000 on the project exclusive of the land purchase. R.V. Harris to Gilbert D. Hedden, letter, May 18, 1938 (MG1 Vol. 381). Harris writes to Hedden on Blair's behalf, urging him to renegotiate the agreement. Notes Blair "feels that he is getting old and that the indefiniteness of your letter as to your future plans in connection with the Island actually means the end of your operations there." Frederick L. Blair to Reginald V. Harris, letter, July 9, 1938 (MG1 Vol. 381). Blair objects to the proposed three-way equal split of treasure proceeds with Hedden and Hamilton, arguing that a 20 percent cut to his share is "going more than half way" and proposing a 40/30/30 division. Notes Hedden told him he would spend at least $100,000 and had expended approximately $40,000 by September of the previous year. Frederick L. Blair to Reginald V. Harris, letter, August 6, 1938 (MG1 Vol. 381). Blair objects to the draft agreement: "I do not want two men living under the stars and stripes dictating just what shall be done in the way of disposing of all that may be recovered." Handwritten annotation on the letter reads "Hedden = 30%, Hamilton = 30%, Blair = 40%." Frederick L. Blair to Reginald V. Harris, letter, August 24, 1939 (MG1 Vol. 381). Blair quotes from his own letter to Hedden of July 11, warning that the government agreement expires in 1944 and that the present administration will insist on 25 percent rather than 2 percent in any future license. Blair writes: "I have reached the allotted span while Mr. Hedden is in his prime and now owns the property. Delay means a lot to me and very little to him." Frederick L. Blair to Reginald V. Harris, letter, November 17, 1939 (MG1 Vol. 381). Blair expresses disappointment with Hamilton's work: "He seems to have been working for information or evidence, in other words, on an exploring expedition, rather than going at the job in a business-like manner." Contains Blair's analysis of the Halifax Company tunnel, the Chappell shaft location error, and the "cave in pit" theory. Frederick L. Blair to Reginald V. Harris, letter, February 24, 1940 (MG1 Vol. 381). Blair reports that Hedden is not paying outstanding accounts, despite repeated promises. Frederick L. Blair to Reginald V. Harris, letter, April 6, 1940 (MG1 Vol. 381). Blair reports Hamilton unable to obtain written renewal from Hedden for continued operations. Frederick L. Blair to Reginald V. Harris, letter, December 16, 1940 (MG1 Vol. 381). Blair discusses the tunnel system in detail, states he told Chappell in 1931 that the shaft was mislocated, and calls the decision not to move it "one great big mistake." L. Elbert Smith (American Commodities, Dallas, Texas) to Frederick L. Blair, letter, July 26, 1947 (MG1 Vol. 382). Inquiry from a Texas mining man about pirate caching methods and the dimensions of the Money Pit. Frederick L. Blair to L. Elbert Smith, letter, August 4, 1947 (MG1 Vol. 382). Blair describes Smith's letter as "just one more added to the hundreds" received from around the world. States the original pit was 12 or 13 feet in diameter, uniform in size to at least 90 feet, dug in "very hard blue clay," and not shored by timber. Confirms he still holds the right of recovery and is "fully convinced that a treasure of vast proportions is buried on Oak Island." Gordon Blair to Reginald V. Harris, letter, May 15, 1951 (MG1 Vol. 384). Gordon, writing from Traders Finance Corporation in Saint John, encloses a photograph of the parchment and asks Harris to measure the original. Reginald V. Harris to Gordon Blair, letter, May 18, 1951 (MG1 Vol. 384). Harris confirms the parchment measures 5/16ths of an inch and reports slow progress on his history of the treasure hunt. D'Arcy O'Connor to Mr. Blair (Gordon), letter, June 21, 1976 (MG1 Vol. 384). O'Connor, recently moved to Mahone Bay, requests access to Frederick Blair's papers for a book he is writing. Handwritten reply from E. Grace Blair (Mrs. Gordon B. Blair) notes that Gordon had passed away, that most of Frederick Blair's materials had been lent to R.V. Harris and never returned, and that "Mr. Blair never owned any portion of Oak Island — he paid license fees for search." Dorothy MacDonald to D'Arcy O'Connor, letter, October 20, 1977 (MG1 Vol. 384). Encloses Grace Blair's letter and confirms the family connection. Blair's 1922 Wall Street advertisement: Frederick L. Blair, classified advertisement under heading "Buried Treasure," Boston Journal of Commerce (and Commercial Bulletin), December 7, 1922, p. 1. Source: New York Public Library microfilm, W 43rd St. Annex. The accompanying article, titled "Can Buried Treasure Lure Wall Street?", appeared on page 3 of the same issue. Newspaper obituaries and articles: "Fred L. Blair Dies Suddenly in Hospital," Amherst Daily News, April 2, 1951. Obituary giving Blair's birth year as 1867, birthplace as Thomson Station, parents as William and Susan Blair, career as insurance agent and Registrar of Probate, Masonic membership (Alexandra Lodge A.F. and A.M.), and survivors (son Gordon of Saint John, sister Mrs. Reina Quinn of Bayside, L.I., granddaughter Marie). "The Late F.L. Blair," editorial, Halifax Chronicle-Herald, April 4, 1951. Contains R.V. Harris's tribute to Blair's courtesy, memory, and sixty-five years of involvement with Oak Island. Ted Shields, "Nova Scotian's Dream of Solving Oak Island's Riddle Ended By Death," British United Press wire story, datelined Halifax, April 3, 1951. Reports Blair's death at age 83, his role as "judge of the Probate Court in Amherst, Nova Scotia for the past 15 years," the 1950 sale to John Whitney Lewis, and the mention of Franklin D. Roosevelt as a former searcher. "Finds Oak Island's Boss Much Alive," Halifax Herald, April 25, 1947. Article about Edward R. Snow of Boston announcing Blair's death on radio, only to receive a letter from Blair correcting him. "Finds Treasure Island Lessee Very Much Alive," Halifax Chronicle, April 25, 1947. Parallel account of the Snow episode with additional details about Snow's visit to Amherst and flight to Oak Island with Blair. Books: Randall Sullivan, The Curse of Oak Island: The Story of the World's Longest Treasure Hunt (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2018). Chapters 6–8 and 13 draw extensively on Blair's papers. Sullivan provides the most complete published account of the Bowdoin partnership, the Hedden years, and Blair's death. Mark Finnan, Oak Island Secrets (Formac Publishing, 1995; revised edition 2002). Chapter 6 ("A Vault and Parchment") and Chapter 7 ("Another Century Begins") cover Blair's formation of the Treasure Company in 1893, the Bowdoin episode, and the Hamilton years. R.V. Harris, The Oak Island Mystery (Ryerson Press, 1958; revised edition 1967). Harris was Blair's attorney and collaborator for nearly twenty-five years. His book draws directly on Blair's archive, much of which he retained after Blair's death. D'Arcy O'Connor, The Secret Treasure of Oak Island (Lyons Press, 1978; revised as The Big Dig, 1988; further revised 2004). O'Connor sought access to Blair's papers through the family and through Dorothy MacDonald, as documented in the 1976–1977 correspondence. ### The Chappell Family and the Vault Beneath Oak Island URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/hunt/the-chappell-family-and-the-vault-beneath-oak-island William Chappell was a contract driller from Sydney, Nova Scotia, when he joined Frederick Blair's Oak Island Treasure Company in the 1890s. He was not a dreamer or a promoter. He was a man who operated machinery for a living and who understood what a drill bit was telling him when it passed through different materials underground. In the summer of 1897, at a depth of 153 feet in the Money Pit, the bit Chappell was operating told him something that would define his family's relationship with Oak Island for the next eighty years. It passed through spruce, then fell through empty space, then cut through oak, then through loose metal, then through more oak, then more metal, then more oak, then spruce again. The sequence described two wooden chests, stacked one on top of the other, encased in a larger wooden structure approximately seven feet tall and sealed in a layer of cement. When the bit was withdrawn, it carried with it a tiny scrap of parchment bearing what appeared to be the letters "Vi," written in India ink. The work manager for the drilling, a man named T. Pearly Putnam, privately told Blair that the drill bit showed unmistakable evidence of having passed through or into gold. [artifact:parchment-fragment] The Parchment and the Promise The 1897 discovery was not the first time someone had drilled into something at depth in the Money Pit. The Truro Company's pod auger had brought up oak, metal fragments, and loose material from roughly the same zone in 1849. But the Treasure Company's drilling was more systematic, and the parchment scrap gave it a specificity the earlier probes had lacked. Parchment meant writing. Writing meant human intent. Combined with the cement, the stacked oak platforms, and the traces of gold, the find amounted to the strongest physical evidence yet recovered from the Money Pit that something had been deliberately placed there. William Chappell signed a sworn affidavit on October 25, 1929, describing what the drill had encountered. Blair wrote his own account in 1900. When D'Arcy O'Connor compared the two documents decades later while researching his book, he found factual discrepancies between them but concluded that Chappell's version, matched against several later drill probes, appeared to be the more accurate of the two. The parchment itself passed into Blair's keeping. Blair carried it for the rest of his life, and it eventually made its way into the Nova Scotia Archives through Blair's son Gordon and the lawyer R.V. Harris. The structure that the 1897 drill had penetrated became known as the Chappell Vault. It was not a vault in any architectural sense. It was a description inferred from drilling data: a seven-foot-tall wooden enclosure, sealed in cement, containing what appeared to be loose metal in two distinct compartments. No one had seen it with their eyes. No one had touched it with their hands. Its existence rested entirely on what the drill bit had passed through and what it had brought back up. That distinction mattered, because for the next 130 years, every major expedition to Oak Island would orient itself around the task of reaching a structure that had been identified by feel rather than by sight. [article:frederick-blair-the-man-who-held-oak-island-for-sixty-years] The Chappell Shaft William Chappell did not return to Oak Island for thirty-four years. His next involvement came in 1931, when he and Blair signed a partnership agreement to sink a new shaft. William's son Melbourne, then in his thirties and working in the family construction business (Chappells Limited, Wood Workers and Builders, Sydney, N.S.), helped organize the operation. The expedition also included William's brother Renwick and nephew Claude, whose father George was another of the Chappell brothers. The work was done by Chappells Limited, and the money came mostly from William and Melbourne, with between five and six thousand dollars from outside investors. The total expenditure was closer to $40,000 than the $30,000 commonly cited. The 1931 season was Melbourne Chappell's first visit to Oak Island. His father gave him the general location of the stone triangle near the shore south of the Money Pit, a formation first noted by Captain John Welling in 1897. Melbourne found it, though the area was covered with spruce trees and difficult to navigate. He showed it to his father and Blair. Neither man considered it of particular importance, which is why, when Gilbert Hedden arrived four years later and interviewed both men extensively before beginning his own operations, neither of them mentioned it. Hedden stumbled across the triangle independently in 1937 while trying to make sense of a supposed pirate map. The omission puzzled O'Connor, who raised it directly with Melbourne in 1977. Melbourne's answer was direct: "Frankly we did not give it much consideration and that is no doubt the reason they did not bring it to the attention of Mr. Hedden, that is if they never mentioned it to him." The Chappell Shaft was sunk a few feet southwest of where William and Blair estimated the original Money Pit had been. In 1931 the area around the pit was irregular and depressed several feet, covered with grass and weeds, the ground disturbed by more than a century of digging. Blair told William Chappell on his arrival that the shaft was not properly located, raising the issue when the cribbing was only ten feet down. They discussed moving it. William decided he was close enough. Blair later called this decision "one great big mistake." The shaft went down to between 156 and 164 feet. At the bottom, Melbourne and the foreman, a man named Stevens, attempted to drive tunnels outward. They drove one out through the east side about six to eight feet, then another through the north side about six feet. When they attempted to connect the two, the soft soil caved in and practically buried Stevens. Melbourne helped extricate him. The tunneling was abandoned. At 120 feet, the crew recovered an anchor fluke from the side of the pit. Melbourne described it in detail in his 1976 interview: about an inch and a quarter thick, eight or nine inches wide, and about fourteen inches long, the same thickness all around. The rib ran on top rather than on the bottom as in modern anchors, marking it as an old design. Melbourne wanted to have the steel analyzed to determine its age, but the fluke disappeared along with other artifacts from Blair's office after Blair's death in 1951. The 1931 operation did not resume the following year. The commonly given reason is the Great Depression, but Melbourne Chappell told a different story. The real obstacle was the death of the landowner Sophia Sellers in January 1932 (Melbourne recalled spending a half day with her shortly after arriving on the island in May 1931). Her property passed to her heirs, approximately fifty in number, and they refused to allow Blair, who held the treasure trove license, to continue operations without what Melbourne described as "very substantial payments to each of them." His recollection was that the heirs demanded $5,000 apiece. The Chappell family could not meet that price, and operations stopped. The Sole Owner Melbourne Chappell was not directly involved in any search operations between 1931 and 1950. During that period, Hedden bought the island and excavated (1935-1937), Hamilton drilled and tunneled (1938-1943), and John Whitney Lewis briefly owned the property (1950). When Blair outmaneuvered Lewis by renewing his treasure trove license ahead of Lewis's own application, and the Nova Scotia legislature passed an amendment allowing the license holder to access property owned by others, Lewis found himself boxed out. He sold the land at cost to Melbourne Chappell. [article:gilbert-hedden-and-edwin-hamilton-the-engineers-who-mapped-the-oak-island-money-pit] Shortly after Blair's death on April 1, 1951, Chappell acquired Blair's treasure trove license as well. For the first time in the history of the Oak Island search, both the land and the license belonged to a single person. Chappell held this position for more than two decades, controlling access to the island through a series of agreements with searchers who came and went while he remained. In 1951, Chappell hired the Parker Contract Company to test the Money Pit area using what he described as gold-finding equipment. The Parker device indicated deposits of gold in two locations. Chappell had five holes drilled in each location, each going about fifty percent deeper than the equipment indicated. The operation cost him approximately $35,000 and produced no treasure. Whether the device was a legitimate instrument or something closer to a dowsing rod, Chappell did not say. Through the 1950s and 1960s, Chappell managed the island from his construction office in Sydney, corresponding with Harris about legal matters and fielding approaches from prospective searchers. Robert Restall, who had been working on the island under an agreement with Chappell since 1959, wanted to buy it outright. The asking price was $100,000. Restall could not raise the funds, and the matter was dropped. In November 1961, Chappell wrote to Harris that "the last word I had from Mr. Restall was to the effect that he had uncovered some very interesting items. Just what they are or where they were uncovered, I am not aware." Less than four years later, Restall and three others were dead at the bottom of a shaft on the island. Robert Dunfield arrived in 1965 with heavy equipment and a plan to excavate the Money Pit area on a massive scale. He built a causeway to the island without obtaining permission from the provincial government, a fact that came to the attention of the authorities only when Fred Nolan reported it in 1973. Dunfield's work destroyed the stone triangle that the Chappells and Blair had observed in 1897 and 1931, along with much of the surface archaeology on the east end of the island. [article:robert-dunfield-and-the-destruction-of-oak-island] The Last Witness In July 1976, D'Arcy O'Connor, a journalist who had moved to Mahone Bay to research a book on the treasure hunt, interviewed Melbourne Chappell at his office at Island Construction Co. in Sydney over the course of two days. Chappell was in his eighties. He had been connected to Oak Island for forty-five years, first as a participant in his father's expedition, then as the island's owner and gatekeeper. O'Connor would later describe him in a letter as "the most astute and clear-headed person I've spoken with or written to on the subject of Oak Island." In the interview, Chappell provided details that appear nowhere else in the published record. He described Blair's big chest of Oak Island material, which had been in Blair's office at the time of his death and then disappeared: "We don't know where it went." Blair's son Gordon tried to locate it but was unsuccessful. Gordon had given two cabinet drawers of correspondence and four box files to Harris for his book. Harris, who was Grand Secretary of the Masonic Lodge in Halifax and used the lodge's office staff for his correspondence, never returned the material. When Harris died in 1968, a Mrs. Surrey told Chappell at the funeral that Harris had instructed her to gather up any Masonic data and send it to the relevant lodges. The Oak Island material was presumably dispersed along with it, or lost. Chappell himself had suffered a disastrous fire some years before the interview, in which he lost documents, pictures, maps, and plans connected to Oak Island. When O'Connor asked for photographs of William Chappell or Frederick Blair for his book, Chappell replied: "Sorry I do not have a photo of either Father or Mr. Blair." The correspondence between O'Connor and Chappell continued through 1977 in a remarkable series of letters. O'Connor's questions, numbered and detailed, ran to twenty-four in his first letter alone, covering everything from the stone triangle to the Restall years to the Nolan land dispute. Chappell answered each one methodically. Among the details he provided: the three piles of stones noted by various searchers were located approximately six hundred feet northwest of the Money Pit. The boulder under which burned bones had supposedly been found was at the northern end of the bog, and no analysis of the bones was ever conducted. The first person he could recall advancing the theory that the Holy Grail was buried on Oak Island was Mrs. Blankenship. Nolan's claim to seven lots would, Chappell anticipated, have to be settled by the courts. [artifact:stone-cairns][article:the-holy-grail-on-oak-island] On March 25, 1977, O'Connor wrote to ask whether Chappell would read the manuscript of his book before publication. "I have been in contact with several hundred persons during the course of researching and writing this book," O'Connor wrote, "and I consider you the most astute and clear-headed person I've spoken with or written to on the subject of Oak Island." He added: "Everything that's stated as fact in the book comes from original research, personal interviews and correspondence. And anything that is fanciful or hypothetical or even plain untrue comes from quoted or attributed sources." The Vault Endures Melbourne Chappell eventually sold his interest in Oak Island to David Tobias, who had been involved with the Triton Alliance since the early 1970s. Chappell's five-year agreement with Triton, renewed in 1977, gave the alliance operating rights while Chappell retained ownership and the treasure trove license. The transfer of ownership came later, and by the time Rick and Marty Lagina purchased their share of Oak Island Tours from Tobias in 2006, the Chappell family's direct involvement had ended. What had not ended was the search for the structure William Chappell's drill bit had passed through in 1897. The Chappell Vault remains the fixed point around which the modern treasure hunt revolves. Every major borehole drilled during the television era, from the Hedden Shaft remnants at 170 feet to the caissons sunk in Seasons 4, 6, 9, 11, 12, and 13, has been aimed at the same target: a seven-foot wooden structure sealed in cement at approximately 153 feet, containing what the drill operator from Sydney believed was gold. The vault has never been seen. No camera has photographed it. No human hand has touched it. Its dimensions, its contents, and its precise location are all inferred from a single drilling operation conducted in 1897 and a sworn affidavit signed thirty-two years later. The Lagina team has found wood, metal, and cement-like material at consistent depths, and the show's narration treats the vault as an established feature of the underground geology. Whether it is a discrete structure waiting to be opened or a zone of disturbed material left behind by 130 years of overlapping excavations is a question that remains open. William Chappell died believing the vault was real and that he had been within reach of it. His son Melbourne spent fifty years managing the island and its searchers, watching one expedition after another try and fail to reach the same depth his father had probed with a drill bit. When O'Connor asked Melbourne in 1977 whether his father had been involved in any expedition between the Treasure Company era and 1931, Melbourne's answer was definitive: "Father (William Chappell) certainly did not have any connection with a search expedition in 1922 or at any other time until 1931." William had waited thirty-four years to go back. The vault had waited for him. It is waiting still. Sources Primary documents (Nova Scotia Archives, MG1 Vol. 381-384): William Chappell, sworn affidavit, October 25, 1929. Describes the 1897 drilling results at 153 feet. Frederick L. Blair, account of the 1897 drilling, written 1900 (MG1 Vol. 383). Interview with M.R. Chappell, July 20-21, 1976, Sydney, N.S. (conducted by D'Arcy O'Connor). Covers Blair's disappeared chest, the anchor fluke, the fate of Blair's papers, and Chappell's fire. M.R. Chappell to R.V. Harris, six letters, 1936-1961 (MG1 Vol. 382-383). Including the February 1953 review of Harris's book manuscript and the November 1961 report on Restall's finds. D'Arcy O'Connor to M.R. Chappell, and M.R. Chappell to D'Arcy O'Connor, approximately 20 letters, January-December 1977. Covering the stone triangle, the 1931 shaft, the Stevens cave-in, the Sellers heirs, the Parker Contract Company, the Restall sale offer, Dunfield's causeway, the Nolan dispute, and the Holy Grail theory. Additional correspondence June-August 1976 and 1978-1979. Books: Randall Sullivan, The Curse of Oak Island: The Story of the World's Longest Treasure Hunt (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2018). Chapters 7-8 and 13 cover William Chappell's 1897 drilling, the 1931 shaft, and Melbourne Chappell's acquisition of the land and license. Mark Finnan, Oak Island Secrets (Formac Publishing, 1995; revised edition 2002). Chapter 6 covers the Treasure Company drilling and the vault discovery. R.V. Harris, The Oak Island Mystery (Ryerson Press, 1958; revised edition 1967). Written with direct access to Blair's archive and reviewed in manuscript by Melbourne Chappell (as documented in the February 17, 1953 letter). D'Arcy O'Connor, The Secret Treasure of Oak Island (Lyons Press, 1978; revised as The Big Dig, 1988; further revised 2004). Written with Melbourne Chappell as primary source, drawing on the interview and correspondence documented above. ### Captain Henry Bowdoin and the Old Gold Salvage Company URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/hunt/captain-henry-bowdoin-and-the-old-gold-salvage-company In the spring of 1909, a New York engineer named Henry Livingston Bowdoin told the New York Herald that he could solve Oak Island in a fortnight. By the following summer his company was finished. By the summer after that, he had published an article in Collier's declaring the whole story a delusion. He kept writing, even so, and one of his correspondents was a young law clerk at Carter, Ledyard and Milburn in Manhattan who had bought ten shares of the venture in 1909 and would later occupy the White House. The Bowdoin chapter of Oak Island and the Franklin D. Roosevelt connection are entangled at every point. [article:the-roosevelt-connection][research:collier-s-solving-the-mystery-of-oak-island] The New York Herald Announcement, March 1909 On March 18, 1909, Bowdoin appeared in print at the offices of 44 Broadway in Manhattan. The New York Herald described him as a mining, mechanical and marine engineer, a master mariner and pilot, and a licensed submarine diver. He had dredged harbours, built bridges, and held government contracts. Modern machinery and engineering science, he told the paper, would solve in a jiffy the difficulties Captain Kidd made to guard his treasure. He had reached an agreement with Frederick Blair for the apportionment of the ten million dollars he estimated the buried valuables would be worth. Six handpicked men would leave for Nova Scotia by rail on the first of May, with the machinery sent ahead by schooner. The cost he placed at fifteen thousand dollars. "Any competent engineer could clear up that affair in no time," Bowdoin said. "I don't want more than two weeks for the work." A shorter piece in the New York Times the same day reported him admitting he had not yet decided how to reach the treasure. He might sink a caisson, or build a cofferdam, or send a diver down with a pick-axe. He had never been to the island. He would decide once he arrived. The Times piece also recorded an unusual claim that did not appear in the Herald: what was buried on Oak Island, in Bowdoin's view, was not the Captain Kidd treasure at all, but the crown jewels of France. [article:captain-kidd-and-the-hidden-maps][article:the-jewels-of-marie-antoinette] The Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company By May 1909 Bowdoin had reconsidered the cost. He told the New York Sun it was too big a job to tackle without selling a little stock first. The Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company was incorporated in the Arizona Territory in April 1909, with offices in New York. Authorized capital was $250,000, offered to the public as 250,000 shares of one dollar each. The prospectus, which Bowdoin wrote himself, opened with a brisk history of the search and an even brisker promise: failure had been due to lack of modern machinery and ignorance, and recovery would now be "easy, ridiculously easy." A return of 4,000 percent was offered on each share. Operations would begin in May or June and be completed in three or four weeks. The board reflected the partnership Bowdoin had assembled with Blair. Bowdoin was president. Blair was vice president. The treasurer was Leon H. Andrews, a New York attorney. The secretary was G. D. Mosher, an accountant. Captain John W. Welling, who had worked on the Oak Island Treasure Company expedition of the 1890s, sat on the board as an experienced hand. The capital did not arrive. By the time the company sailed for Nova Scotia in August, only about five thousand dollars in stock had been sold. Among the small investors was Franklin Roosevelt, then a twenty-seven-year-old clerk at Carter, Ledyard and Milburn. Roosevelt purchased ten shares and persuaded several friends to do the same.  Camp Kidd, August 1909 Bowdoin and his crew arrived on Oak Island on August 27, 1909. They named their headquarters Camp Kidd and inscribed a stone to that effect. The plan, on paper, had been to locate the flood tunnel and seal it before approaching the Money Pit. The plan changed at once. Captain Welling, who had been expected to guide the team to the tunnels he had worked on a decade earlier, could not locate them. Bowdoin decided to clear out the pit instead. Work began with a sinking pump rated at sixty gallons a minute. It was insufficient. Using a bucket, the team cleared the cribbing to a depth of 107 feet, removing boulders, timber, and what Duncan G. Harris would later describe in a letter to Roosevelt as a heavy platform across the bottom of the cribbing that they were unable to remove. A diver was sent down to examine the bottom. He reported wreckage from earlier expeditions and no sign of the original chamber. [article:down-the-money-pit] The Boreholes to 171 Feet With the pit no closer to being dewatered, the team turned to drilling. The sources differ on the count. The Old Gold records list twenty-five boreholes; Randall Sullivan, working from Blair's later journals, puts the number at more than two dozen. The depths reached ranged from 155 to 171 feet, at which point the drill struck bedrock and brought up only limestone, clay, sand, and stones. The drilling did, however, encounter cement. At depths between 146 and 150 feet, the bit passed through layers six to ten inches thick. Harris's letter to Roosevelt of October 17, 1909, gives the most detailed contemporaneous account. The team had reached 160 feet by core drill, passing through about eight inches of cement at 150 feet, then four feet of sand, then four more inches of cement, then blue clay, then hard gravel at 160 feet. A sample of the cement was sent for analysis to a chemist named Rodman, employed by the Pennsylvania Railroad. Rodman pronounced it "undoubtedly artificial." Harris observed that the cement was struck at exactly the depth Captain Welling had encountered it nine years earlier, on the occasion when Welling reported finding the small piece of parchment. Whether the Rodman analysis was conclusive, and whether the cement at that level is man-made or a natural concretion, remains one of the unresolved technical questions of the search. [article:frederick-blair-the-man-who-held-oak-island-for-sixty-years] The Stone at Creighton and Marshall At some point during the expedition Bowdoin travelled to Halifax to examine the inscribed stone that had been recovered from the Money Pit at a depth of ninety feet by Simeon Lynds and the Onslow Company in 1804. By 1909 the stone had been in the bookbindery of A. O. Creighton and Marshall on Upper Water Street in Halifax for more than forty years, used as a beating stone to flatten leather. Bowdoin described it as basalt, hard and fine-grained, and reported finding no symbols on its surface. He was sceptical that markings could have worn off a stone of that hardness in normal use. The only carving still visible to him was a set of initials, L and N, cut by an unknown hand. [article:simeon-lynds-the-oak-island-organizer] The visit established the last documented examination of the stone by anyone now able to describe what they had seen. The bookbindery closed in 1919 and the stone disappeared. In December 2016, in Season 4, Episode 4 of The Curse of Oak Island, researchers Doug Crowell and Kel Hancock retraced Bowdoin's steps to the same Halifax building, by then occupied by the Halifax Seed Company, in an attempt to locate the stone. The Letter from England By November 1909 the money was gone. Bowdoin agreed with Blair that operations would resume the following summer. He sailed for England on other business and did not return. Several months later he wrote from London asking for an extension to the end of 1911, with the explanation that business abroad would prevent him from sailing earlier. Blair was already concerned. He replied that he would consider a revised agreement only if Bowdoin could demonstrate that he had the financing in place to complete the work properly. Bowdoin's response carried what Blair read as a threat. If they could not agree, Bowdoin wrote, he would be obliged to travel to Oak Island to sell the equipment and prepare a final report. The report, which a newspaperman in his employ would publish, "would not help in getting further investments in Oak Island." Blair replied with composure. "Your letter almost conveys a threat," he wrote, "that if we do not permit you to make further tests at Oak Island you will publish such information as would probably prevent the possibility of raising funds for exploration there in the future. Let me say that anything that can be said against Oak Island has already been written, and the publication of any article you might be able to bring forth would not in the least jar those of us who own the lease." Solving the Mystery of Oak Island The article appeared in Collier's on August 19, 1911, under the title "Solving the Mystery of Oak Island." It was a frontal dismissal of the entire story, organized around six declarations. M. R. Chappell, whose father William had drilled the Money Pit in 1897, preserved the six points verbatim in his unpublished 1973 manuscript The True Story of Oak Island. There never was a pirate treasure or any other treasure in the Money Pit. A tunnel six hundred feet from Smith's Cove to the pit would have been an unnecessary labour when one of a hundred and fifty feet from the south shore would have served. The salt water did not reach the pit through a tunnel at all, but percolated through the soil from the bay on the south side. There was never a ring bolt in the beach, because it would have been easier to tie a line to an oak tree than to drill a hole in a rock. No borings ever brought up links of a chain or anything else of value, because such things do not adhere to a flat chisel or auger through a hundred and twenty feet of water. And there had never been any characters cut into the rock found in the Money Pit, only the worn initials he had seen at Creighton and Marshall. The article closed with a line that has since been quoted in nearly every history of the search: "My experience proved to me that there is not, and never was, a buried treasure on Oak Island. The Mystery is solved." [article:the-chappell-family-and-the-vault-beneath-oak-island][article:pirates] Blair's Reply in the Amherst Daily News On February 23, 1912, Blair answered in the Amherst Daily News. He wrote that Bowdoin had taken no advice from him or from any of the workers familiar with the operation, that he had used dynamite without good reason, and that he had ruined the cribbing so badly that his pipes and rods could only reach a small area at the bottom of the pit. He then took up Bowdoin's six points in order. The Chappell manuscript preserves Blair's rebuttal in summary form. Only a small part of the cribbed shaft, Blair wrote, had been over the original Money Pit. Bowdoin had failed to explain the discoveries on the beach: the five artificial drains, the bored holes above high water, the effect of the dynamite charges, the air shaft, and the body of evidence for an artificial connection between Smith's Cove and the pit. When the entrance of the tunnel had been exposed, the water did not seep but poured at five hundred gallons a minute, rising and falling with the tide. Whether there had been a ring bolt was a matter of indifference. As for the chain links, Blair admitted candidly that all he had was tradition, but his experience told him such pieces could readily have come up embedded in sticky clay. As for the inscribed stone, its history was, in his view, incontrovertible and spoke for itself. The exchange settled little. It is reasonable to say that it widened the audience. Whatever Bowdoin had intended, the Collier's piece guaranteed that the Oak Island story would be argued in print rather than quietly forgotten. [article:oak-island-flood-tunnels-and-box-drains-the-water-trap] Bowdoin's 1926 Letter to Roosevelt Bowdoin and Roosevelt did not lose touch. In November 1926, seventeen years after the Old Gold expedition had been wound up, Bowdoin wrote to Roosevelt with a new proposal: a diving operation using a specially designed suit for the recovery of treasure from sunken ships. Roosevelt forwarded the letter to his adviser Thomas A. Scott. Scott replied the next day. Roosevelt wrote back to Bowdoin within a week. The exchange is preserved in the Roosevelt presidential papers at Hyde Park Presidential Library. Whatever Roosevelt had concluded about the 1909 expedition, he had not concluded that Bowdoin's judgment was without value. [site:hyde-park-roosevelt-estate] The Cement, the Stone, and the Parchment The Bowdoin expedition did not find the treasure and did not, on its own terms, succeed in any of its stated objectives. The flood tunnel was not located. The pit was not dewatered. The original chamber, if one survives below the wreckage of earlier searches, was not reached. Approximately eight thousand dollars was spent, of which about five thousand had been raised from the public. The Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company was dissolved. The work nevertheless left a record that later searches have had to reckon with. The twenty-five or more boreholes drilled in 1909, spaced so that anything of substantial size in the area should have been struck, brought up only limestone, clay, and the layers of cement. The Rodman analysis of those cement samples as artificial is one of the more durable inheritances of the expedition, and the question of whether the deposit is man-made remains open. Bowdoin's account of the inscribed stone is the last description of it made by anyone able to handle it before it disappeared. Whether the L and N initials he saw were the worn remnants of an older inscription, later additions, or the entire original carving, no one alive can say. The Collier's article has not aged well in some respects. The second flood tunnel from the south shore, which Bowdoin proposed as the source of all the water, was eventually confirmed, but so was the original tunnel from Smith's Cove that he denied. The parchment fragment recovered in 1897, which Bowdoin called impossible, had been examined under magnifying glass by Dr. A. E. Porter of Amherst, who later declared in a sworn affidavit that it had every appearance of being parchment marked in ink. Most subsequent investigators have accepted the parchment as genuine. The three gold chain links recovered in 1849 have never been recovered or photographed and rest only in testimony, as Blair himself acknowledged. [artifact:parchment-fragment] What Bowdoin got right was narrower than what he claimed. The Money Pit had been worked over so thoroughly by 1909 that the original shaft was difficult to locate, the cribbing was twisted, and much of the early evidence existed only in second- and third-hand accounts. His caution about those accounts, considered in isolation, was not unreasonable. What he asserted positively, that there had never been a tunnel and there had never been a treasure and there had never been an inscription, has not survived contact with subsequent excavations. He is best understood as the first engineer with serious credentials to apply modern methods to the Oak Island problem, fail, and leave a record that future searchers would either confirm or refute. The expedition of 1909 sits in the archive with its boreholes, its photographs, and its letters from London. It is a chapter of the search rather than a verdict on it. Sources Primary documents New York Herald, March 18, 1909, interview with Captain Henry L. Bowdoin New York Times, March 18, 1909, interview with Captain Henry L. Bowdoin New York Sun, May 1909, on the formation of the Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company Duncan G. Harris to Franklin D. Roosevelt, October 17, 1909, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, New York Henry L. Bowdoin to Frederick L. Blair, undated, late 1910 to early 1911 (quoted in Sullivan 2018) Frederick L. Blair to Henry L. Bowdoin, undated, early 1911 (quoted in Sullivan 2018) Henry L. Bowdoin, "Solving the Mystery of Oak Island", Collier's, August 19, 1911 Frederick L. Blair, reply article, Amherst Daily News, February 23, 1912 Henry L. Bowdoin to Franklin D. Roosevelt, November 1926, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, New York Affidavit of Dr. A. E. Porter, Edmonton, Alberta, January 11, 1926, on the 1897 parchment examination Books and manuscripts M. R. Chappell, The True Story of Oak Island, unpublished manuscript, Sydney, Nova Scotia, September 1973 (copy held at Nova Scotia Archives) Randall Sullivan, The Curse of Oak Island: The Story of the World's Longest Treasure Hunt, Atlantic Monthly Press, 2018 Mark Finn, Oak Island Secrets, 1944 Lionel and Patricia Fanthorpe, The Oak Island Mystery: The Secret of the World's Greatest Treasure Hunt, Hounslow Press, 1995 Randall Clarke, Oak Island Odyssey, Nimbus Publishing, 2023 D'Arcy O'Connor, The Money Pit: The Story of Oak Island, Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, 1978 Episodes of The Curse of Oak Island Season 4, Episode 4, "No Stone Unturned", first aired December 2016 (Doug Crowell and Kel Hancock locate the former Creighton and Marshall building in Halifax) Season 4, Episode 11, "Presidential Secrets", first aired January 2017 (the FDR investment examined at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library) Season 4, Episode 12, "Hyde Park and Seek", first aired January 2017 (the Duncan Harris interview transcript on Roosevelt's beliefs) ### The Roosevelt Connection URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/hunt/the-roosevelt-connection On August 24, 1939, the President of the United States sat down to write a letter to his childhood friend Duncan G. Harris. The subject was not the deteriorating situation in Europe, nor the military buildup that would soon engulf the world. The subject was Oak Island. "I planned to go into Mahone Bay," Roosevelt wrote, "but the fog delay and the international situation made it impossible." He added that he was much interested in Gilbert Hedden's expedition, and closed with a line that belonged more to a college reunion than to the White House: "What a grand crew you had with you. I wish I could have joined up." One week later, Germany invaded Poland. That letter was not an anomaly. Franklin Delano Roosevelt's fascination with Oak Island lasted thirty-six years, from a boyhood visit to the island in the 1890s to presidential correspondence with treasure hunters, engineers, and explorers throughout the 1930s. He is the only sitting president known to have maintained an active interest in the mystery, and his involvement connects three generations of the Roosevelt family to the search. The connection was also geographic. The Roosevelt family had summered on Campobello Island, New Brunswick, since the 1880s, and Franklin spent nearly every childhood summer there. It was on Campobello that he would contract polio in August 1921, and the estate remains a landmark to this day as the Roosevelt Campobello International Park. Oak Island lay roughly a day's sail south along the same Atlantic coast. The mystery was never far from his doorstep. The Delano Investment The Roosevelt family's connection to Oak Island predates Franklin's birth. His maternal grandfather, Warren Delano Jr., was a wealthy merchant who had made his fortune in the China trade. In 1849, Delano invested in the Truro Company, the second major treasure-hunting syndicate to work the island. It was the Truro Company that discovered the box drains at Smith's Cove and recovered small bits of gold chain from the Money Pit, providing the first physical evidence that something of value lay below. The young Franklin grew up hearing these stories. Oak Island was not an abstraction to him. It was a family inheritance. The Boy on the Island In 1976, author D'Arcy O'Connor wrote to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library at Hyde Park, New York, inquiring about Roosevelt's connection to Oak Island. The reply, from the National Archives and Records Service, contained a detail that has received remarkably little attention. The Library confirmed documentation of not one but two Roosevelt expeditions to Oak Island: "the first about 1896 and the second about 1908." Among their holdings was a collection of twenty-four photographs of the treasure site and digging apparatus, and in one photograph, the young Roosevelt was clearly present. If the 1896 date is accurate, Franklin Roosevelt was approximately fourteen years old when he first set foot on Oak Island. He was a student at Groton School, the son of a prominent New York family, and already absorbing the treasure stories that his grandfather's generation had brought back from Nova Scotia. The visit would have placed him on the island during the period when Frederick Blair's Oak Island Treasure Company held the search rights, a full thirteen years before the expedition that is usually cited as Roosevelt's first involvement. 54 Wall Street By 1909, Roosevelt was a twenty-seven-year-old law clerk at the firm of Carter, Ledyard and Milburn, working from an office at 54 Wall Street in Manhattan. That year he invested in the Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company, a new venture led by Captain Henry L. Bowdoin that planned to use modern engineering equipment to finally crack the Money Pit. Roosevelt's friend and fellow investor Duncan G. Harris traveled to Oak Island that summer. On October 17, 1909, Harris wrote to Roosevelt from the offices of Harris and Vaughan, Real Estate, at 1416 Broadway in New York. The letter is remarkably detailed. Harris reported that he had arrived on the island on August 27th and found conditions different from what had been represented: Captain Welling did not know the location of the supposed tunnels, and Bowdoin decided to clear out the main pit instead. They found water at thirty feet from the top of the cribbing and discovered that their sinking pump, throwing sixty gallons a minute, was insufficient. By use of a bucket, they cleared the pit to a depth of 107 feet, removing large quantities of boulders and timber. At that depth they found a heavy platform across the bottom of the cribbing which they were unable to remove. Harris then described the boring operations. By core drill they reached 160 feet, striking nothing of interest until 150 feet, where they passed through about eight inches of what seemed like cement, then four feet of sand, then four more inches of cement, then blue clay, and at 160 feet hard gravel. A chemist named Rodman, employed by the Pennsylvania Railroad, analyzed the cement and pronounced it "undoubtedly artificial." Harris noted that they had struck it at exactly the same depth Captain Welling had nine years earlier, on the occasion when Welling said he found a small piece of parchment. The Bowdoin expedition ultimately failed to reach the treasure, but Roosevelt's investment and Harris's reporting established a pattern that would continue for decades. Even as his political career accelerated through the New York State Senate, the Navy Department, and the governorship of New York, Roosevelt maintained his connection to the search through a network of friends and associates. In November 1926, Bowdoin wrote to Roosevelt proposing a new investment in a diving operation using a special suit to recover treasure from sunken ships. Roosevelt did not dismiss it. Instead he forwarded the letter to his adviser Thomas A. Scott, asking for an opinion. Scott replied the next day. Roosevelt then wrote back to Bowdoin. The exchange took less than a week. Seventeen years after the failed expedition, Roosevelt was still taking Bowdoin's proposals seriously enough to seek professional counsel. Duncan Harris (far left), Captain H.L. Bowdoin (with bow tie) and a young Franklin Roosevelt in shorts, on Oak Island in the summer of 1909. Letters to the White House Roosevelt was elected president in 1932, and the Oak Island correspondence followed him to Washington. The letters in the presidential files, compiled by researcher Les MacPhie in 2014, reveal a sitting president engaged in regular exchanges about a treasure hunt in Nova Scotia. In October 1933, a woman named Ida L. Purves wrote directly to "Mr. President" about Oak Island. Roosevelt replied on November 11. In September 1936, the engineering firm Sprague and Henwood contacted the White House about the island, and Roosevelt responded. These were not perfunctory acknowledgments. The president was reading the letters, engaging with the details, and writing back. The most extraordinary correspondence began on September 1, 1937, when Gilbert D. Hedden wrote to Roosevelt from Chester, Nova Scotia, on the letterhead of Gilbert D. Hedden, Inc., a Cadillac, LaSalle, and Oldsmobile dealership in Morristown, New Jersey. Hedden, a wealthy businessman who had purchased the eastern end of Oak Island and was conducting his own excavations, opened his letter with a sentence that captures the peculiar gravity of the Oak Island story: "Knowing that you were once associated with or interested in, an endeavor to solve the mystery of Oak Island, Nova Scotia, I felt that it might be of interest to you to know of the more recent history of this strange spot." Hedden then gave the president a full briefing. He described how his interest dated to 1927, when he read an account in the magazine section of the New York Times. He explained that he had contacted Frederick Blair, examined Blair's files accumulated over forty years, and begun his own excavations in 1936. The correspondence between Hedden and Roosevelt continued through multiple exchanges, with Hedden providing updates on his progress and theories. It was Hedden who had traveled to England to meet the author Harold Wilkins about an alleged Captain Kidd treasure map, and it was Hedden who would later connect the island to a broader network of historical mysteries. The Professor's Concern In February 1939, Professor Erwin H. Hamilton, a consulting engineer at New York University, wrote to Roosevelt at the White House about a different matter entirely. Hamilton had been working on Oak Island and had learned that Popular Science magazine was about to publish a series of articles about the treasure hunt, starting with the March issue. Hamilton was worried. He told the president that the articles had been written by a staff member of the magazine, that he personally had provided no information, and that the material must have come from Hedden or another source. His concern was diplomatic but unmistakable: "I hope that it will develop that these articles have been based on true facts so that they will not prove embarrassing." The letter reveals how sensitive the Oak Island connection had become. A sitting president's youthful treasure-hunting adventure was about to appear in a national magazine, and his associates were scrambling to ensure the coverage would not cause political damage. That Roosevelt maintained his interest despite this risk says something about the hold the mystery had on him. The Visit That Never Was In the summer of 1939, Duncan Harris wrote to Roosevelt on personal stationery headed simply "Winsome," the name of his sailing vessel. Harris knew that Roosevelt would be cruising the Nova Scotia coast that August and invited him to visit Oak Island. "Since you will probably sail by Mahone Bay twice," Harris wrote in his familiar, looping hand, "it might interest you to visit the scene of our 1909 treasure seeking activities, where there have been interesting developments." Harris mentioned that he had met Gilbert Hedden, the new owner, and that Hedden had built a lumber home near the pit and was working with modern engineering equipment. "Since he has plenty of money it looks as though the mystery would be solved at last." Harris added that he himself was sailing eastward with friends in a 65-foot ketch, naming his companions: John Saltonstall, Otway Byrd, Charlie Draper (all Harvard class of 1900), and Jim Lawrence (class of 1901). "F.V. (fog willing)," he wrote, "we may get as far as Oak Island ourselves." Roosevelt's reply came on August 24. He confirmed that he had planned to enter Mahone Bay but that fog and the international situation had made it impossible. He expressed delight at the Popular Mechanics stories about the island and said he was much interested in Hedden's expedition. "I wish I could have joined up," he wrote. The FDR Library later complicated this account somewhat. In their 1976 reply to D'Arcy O'Connor, they noted that Roosevelt had written to industrialist Cyrus Eaton on August 2, 1939, declining an invitation to stop at Eaton's home near Chester, Nova Scotia, stating that he was "not going to stop anywhere except at Campobello." Whether the Mahone Bay plan was a private intention that Roosevelt kept separate from his official itinerary, or whether he softened his refusal to Harris with a kinder explanation, the letters do not resolve. What is clear is that in August 1939, the last summer before the world changed, Franklin Roosevelt was still thinking about Oak Island. What Roosevelt Believed The question of what Roosevelt thought lay beneath the island was answered decades after his death. Researcher Paul Troutman, working in the archives at Hyde Park, discovered an interview transcript with Duncan Harris recorded by biographer Joseph P. Lash. In the interview, Harris confirmed that he had accompanied Roosevelt to Oak Island and revealed what his friend believed: the treasure was the lost crown jewels of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, smuggled out of France during the Revolution and hidden in Nova Scotia. This discovery was presented to Rick Lagina and Alex Lagina in Season 4, Episode 12 ("Hyde Park and Seek"), when the team visited the Roosevelt Library. The revelation connected the most powerful man in American politics to one of the most romantic theories about Oak Island, and it raised an obvious question: Roosevelt had access to intelligence resources that no previous treasure hunter could have imagined. If anyone could have investigated the Marie Antoinette theory through diplomatic and intelligence channels, it was a sitting president. Whether he ever did so remains unknown. No such inquiry has surfaced in the presidential papers. [article:the-jewels-of-marie-antoinette] Thirty-Six Years Franklin Delano Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, at Warm Springs, Georgia. He never returned to Oak Island after his 1909 expedition, and the planned 1939 visit was thwarted by fog and the gathering storm of a second world war. But his archive tells the story of a man who never let go. Twenty-four photographs. Twenty-six pages of correspondence. An investment in a salvage company. At least one and possibly two visits to the island. Letters exchanged with treasure hunters, engineers, professors, and private citizens across three decades. A Pentagon in a Swamp Two years after fog and war prevented Roosevelt from entering Mahone Bay, he made a decision that his generals could not explain. The new headquarters for the Department of War would be built as a pentagon, the largest on earth, and it would be built not on the solid ground at the foot of the Arlington Memorial Bridge where the Army wanted it, but in a swampy shanty town called Hell's Bottom. Roosevelt personally drove General Brehon Somervell to the site on Columbia Pike, pointed at the marsh, and gave the order. One hundred and fifty people were evicted. Six hundred and eighty thousand tons of sand were dredged from the Potomac to make concrete. Forty-one thousand piles were driven into the mud to keep the building from sinking. The generals, who called the design "the world's largest target," opposed both the shape and the location. Roosevelt insisted on both. The parallels are difficult to ignore. Louis XIV chose an inaccessible, unremarkable marshland for Versailles, a site his courtiers found miserable, because its precise geographic position mattered more than the ground beneath it. Roosevelt, who had walked on Oak Island as a boy and written about it from the White House as president, demanded the same: a specific shape, in a specific place, over the objections of every practical mind in the room. Ground was broken on September 11, 1941. Why a pentagon. Why a swamp. Why there. These are questions that the presidential correspondence cannot answer, but the geometry might. For those who wish to follow that thread further, the authors explore the sacred geometry connecting Versailles, Washington, and Oak Island in The Jerusalem Files: The Secret Journey of the Menorah to Oak Island (Watkins/Penguin Random House, 2024). In 1909, a young law clerk at 54 Wall Street read a letter from his friend about cement at 150 feet and a pump that could not keep up with the water. In 1939, the President of the United States wrote from the White House that he wished he could have joined a sailing party bound for the same island. In 1941, he ordered the largest pentagonal structure ever built, planted in a swamp, against every recommendation he received. The mystery that captured Roosevelt as a boy held him for the rest of his life. Whatever he knew, or believed, or had been told, it was enough to shape the geometry of a nation's capital. ### Gilbert Hedden and Edwin Hamilton: The Engineers Who Mapped the Oak Island Money Pit URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/hunt/gilbert-hedden-and-edwin-hamilton-the-engineers-who-mapped-the-oak-island-money-pit Between 1935 and 1943, two engineers from the northeastern United States brought a level of professional discipline to Oak Island that no previous expedition had matched. Gilbert Hedden, a Cadillac dealer and former mayor from New Jersey, purchased the eastern end of the island and hired one of Pennsylvania's leading drilling contractors to attack the Money Pit. When financial ruin forced Hedden to step back, Edwin Hamilton, a consulting engineer at New York University, took over the operation with the same crew and the same equipment. Together, they spent more than $110,000, sank 58 boreholes to bedrock, measured the flooding that had defeated every previous attempt, and traced a tunnel system that ran from the shore to the heart of the island. Their work produced no treasure, but it did something that a century of searchers had failed to do: it established, within a margin of five feet, where the original Money Pit actually was. The Car Dealer from Morristown Gilbert Douglas Hedden was born in New Jersey in 1897. By his mid-thirties he had built a comfortable life in Morristown, operating a Cadillac, LaSalle, and Oldsmobile dealership at 39-41 Market Street, with a service department at 40 Bank Street. He had served as mayor of nearby Chatham. He was a Freemason. And he had become consumed by Oak Island. Hedden's interest in the mystery predated his involvement by several years, but it was Frederick Blair, the insurance broker from Amherst, Nova Scotia, who held the Treasure Trove licence and who controlled access to the site, who made the partnership possible. In February 1935, Blair wrote to his lawyer Reginald V. Harris in Halifax with undisguised confidence. He felt "reasonably sure that nothing stands in the way of Mr. Hedden entering into an agreement whereunder he will solve the mystery of Oak Island before the fall of 1936, or prove it cannot be done." The only obstacle, Blair noted, was securing property rights from the heirs of Sophia Sellers, who owned the eastern lots where the Money Pit was located. Hedden solved that problem by purchasing all the lots on the east side of the island from the Sellers heirs for $5,000. In April 1936, Hedden wrote to Harris from his Morristown letterhead to report that he had completed his agreement with a contracting firm and anticipated having men on the site by the first of May. The firm was Sprague and Henwood of Scranton, Pennsylvania, a company with deep experience in diamond drilling and underground work. Hedden's plan of attack, influenced by information from Melbourne Chappell, was to open and drain the Chappell shaft (No. 21), reinforce it, and use drills to explore the surrounding ground at various depths. He instructed Sprague and Henwood to admit only Blair, Chappell, and Harris to the site. Local hostility was already a concern; when Hedden sought electric power from a Chester firm, he received an estimate of $4,500 with $1,500 salvage, nearly double what Chappell had paid for the same installation. Hedden suspected local efforts to overcharge him, and opted for gasoline-powered equipment instead. [article:the-treasure-and-the-law-the-oak-island-treasure-act] The 1936 Campaign By the summer of 1936, Hedden was on the island personally directing operations. On August 24 he wrote to Harris that the crew had reached the bottom of the Chappell shaft and that the drilling outfit was assembled and ready to go into action. During this period, the team found coconut fibre at the beach in considerable quantity. Hedden also experimented with a divining rod and became convinced he had located the tunnel lines, though he placed no great weight on the method. An inscribed stone found on the shore that summer drew his attention. Someone, perhaps Harris, wrote to Hedden suggesting that the last line of the inscription meant "something begins forty feet to the right of the stone from the shore," and expressed conviction that the stone had something to do with the original deposit. Hedden investigated and came to the opposite conclusion. Writing back to Harris, he judged the stone to be "of local origin and the work of a jokster," noting that much of it had been removed and broken up in recent years. The Stone Triangle and the Wilkins Map The following summer proved far more eventful. In 1937, Blair told Hedden about a stone triangle and drilled boulders that Captain John Welling had reported finding on the island in 1897. Hedden ordered his men to search for these markers, and one of them, a local worker named Amos Nauss, found the triangle. Hedden then discovered not one but two drilled boulders. He brought in Charles Roper, a Halifax land surveyor, to conduct a formal survey using the reference points. Roper's survey established that the medial line of the stone triangle pointed due north, directly into the centre of the Money Pit. [article:stone-triangle-the-oak-island-sextant] Around the same time, a book titled Captain Kidd and His Skeleton Island by Harold Wilkins was published, containing what became known as the Mar Del map, purportedly based on authentic Captain Kidd treasure charts. Hedden noticed striking similarities between the map and Oak Island. Using the map's legend and a rod as the unit of measurement, the dimensions between the markers on the map corresponded closely to the distances between the drilled stones and the triangle on the island. Hedden wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt to inform him of the discoveries, then booked passage on the Aquitania, sailing to England in November 1937 to meet Wilkins in person. Meanwhile, Hedden had been conducting his own research. He located a 1670 map of the North American continent drawn by the Dutch cartographer Frederick De Wit, on which the Atlantic Ocean was labelled "Mat Del Nort" and the Pacific "Mar Del Sur," with longitude measured from the island of Ferro in the Canary Islands rather than from Greenwich. Hedden believed this older coordinate system might reconcile the map's position with Oak Island's actual location, and he shared the discovery with Harris in an excited letter in October 1937. In the same letter, he described preparing slides for a lecture at his Masonic lodge and reported that a company called Avon Enterprises had told him their metal-detecting machine could not function on the island because the mass of buried metal was so enormous that it threw the instrument out of adjustment. The company estimated as much as five tons of metal might be present. Hedden initially found this intriguing, though he later dismissed the company as "a complete and not very clever hoax." The meeting with Wilkins in England was clarifying. Hedden found that the map was, as he later described it to Robert Gay in 1967, "purely the product of his imagination," roughly copied from a map of Tierra del Fuego. Wilkins could not explain why his fictional map matched Oak Island's markers so closely. Hedden was taken to the owner of several purportedly authentic Kidd charts and found three different maps, only one of which he considered genuine. That one bore the inscription "Start from Centre of Triangle" with a latitude and longitude, though no specific island was identified. He was offered all the maps for $10,000 and refused. The encounter left Hedden convinced that Kidd may have known of a valuable cache and its general location, but that Wilkins was, in his words, "a rather crack-pot writer." [article:captain-kidd-and-the-hidden-maps] A Sudden Withdrawal On March 25, 1938, Hedden wrote what an archivist later marked as a "KEY LETTER" to Harris. The news came without warning. Through an unusual combination of circumstances, Hedden explained, he had acquired a new Cadillac, LaSalle, and Oldsmobile franchise in addition to the one he already held. The new activity would require his personal charge through most of the year, and most of his liquid finances would be tied up in the organisation. He would have to postpone his activities on Oak Island "rather indefinitely." Someone, likely Harris, annotated the letter with two words: "so sudden." The franchise acquisition was not the full story. By August 1939, Harris learned the deeper truth from Hedden's lawyer Ralph Lum during a meeting in England. Hedden had lost a lawsuit brought by the federal government for income tax, and an appeal had been filed but with little hope of success. To pay the judgment, Harris was told, would almost bankrupt Hedden. By April 1940, Hedden himself laid out the extent of the damage in a long letter to Harris. The claim had been fought all the way to the Supreme Court and lost. A compromise settlement would consume every liquid asset he possessed and put him financially where he had been twenty years earlier. He was forced to sell his home, liquidate his business, and dispose of his securities. He was working nights at bookkeeping jobs to support a family of seven. His present employment was as a municipal auditor, investigating embezzlements in Union City, New Jersey. Despite all of this, he held on to the island property, which the government valued as worthless real estate. He had already spent approximately $60,000 on the Oak Island venture. Hamilton Takes Over Edwin Hamilton had been corresponding with Blair about the possibility of taking over the search before Hedden's withdrawal made it a practical matter. In a June 1938 letter to Harris, Hedden described the professor as "a consulting engineer for a college in New York and, while not impressive, seems thoroughly reliable." Hamilton had sufficient capital to complete the drilling campaign and was eager to begin. The negotiations over profit-sharing consumed more than two months. Blair, who had always received half of any recovery in previous agreements, initially resisted the proposed split. By the end of June 1938, the three men agreed on a 40-30-30 division, with Blair receiving the largest share and Hedden and Hamilton splitting the remainder equally. Hamilton moved quickly. He arrived on the island in mid-July 1938 with a drilling crew from Sprague and Henwood, the same firm Hedden had used. He hired Amos Nauss, who had found the stone triangle the previous year, and retained a foreman named Krupp to direct the daily work. His letterhead identified him as "Erwin H. Hamilton, Consulting Engineer" at New York University, 181st Street and University Avenue, New York. Mark Finnan later noted in Oak Island Secrets that Hamilton was a high-ranking Freemason in New York, a connection that linked all three partners in the enterprise. [article:freemasons-on-oak-island-the-masonic-connection] Five Summers of Systematic Work Hamilton's first priority was to locate the original shaft as precisely as possible. Working from the Chappell shaft, where two sections of the cribbing were beginning to buckle, his crew spent five weeks reinforcing timbers between depths of 145 feet and 170 feet, then between 90 feet and 62 feet. Once the shaft was stabilised, they used a diamond bit to bore 58 holes in the Money Pit area down to bedrock, which they struck at depths of between 168 and 171 feet. Several of the lateral probes at 119 feet encountered what was described as "very old oak" in the area immediately north of the Chappell pit and west of the Hedden shaft. Hamilton also established that seawater was pouring into the Money Pit area at a rate of approximately 800 gallons per minute, a measurement that definitively ended any suggestion that the flooding was caused by natural percolation. [article:oak-island-flood-tunnels-and-box-drains-the-water-trap] In a typed report titled "Work Carried on at Oak Island (Summer 1939)," Hamilton described the second season in detail. The first five weeks had been consumed by emergency repairs: the timbering in the 12-by-12-foot shaft was broken or unlocked at the corners and liable to collapse. In all, upwards of 10,000 feet of timber was used to stabilise the structure. While this work was under way, the sand-filled pit on the shore was excavated and revealed three separate tunnels. The uppermost started at approximately 40 feet in the north corner and ran diagonally toward the Sink Hole. The next ran beneath the first, diagonally toward the western shore. The lowest ran directly from the south side of the shaft. Both the uppermost and lowest tunnels extended 25 to 30 feet and ended in what appeared to be disturbed ground. Checking their direction against the surface, Hamilton determined that both terminated on a straight line that passed through the Sink Hole and the Money Pit. At the end of the lowest tunnel, a small shaft was sunk to a depth of 18 feet. The earth gave every evidence of having been disturbed by human activity. At approximately 12 feet, an appreciable quantity of old-fashioned leaf tobacco was found. Hamilton conducted his own dye test, similar to the one Blair had performed in 1898. As Nauss later recalled, dye was dropped into both the Hedden and Chappell shafts. He and Nauss took a boat out and observed the dye emerging from the seabed on the southeast side of the island, roughly a hundred yards from the high-tide mark. The starting point of this underground connection was completely submerged even at low tide, the result of decades of rising sea levels and shoreline erosion. During the 1940 season, Hamilton traced the Halifax Company tunnel, the passage dug by the Halifax-based syndicate that had worked the island in the 1860s. Tunnelling from the Hedden shaft around the Chappell shaft, he found the Halifax tunnel just to the southeast of Hedden's shaft. What Hedden's crew had identified as Fraser's tunnel in 1937 turned out to be part of the Halifax system. Hamilton followed the tunnel from the Halifax pit near the beach up to the top of the hill, finding a branch near the Sink Hole Pit. Some of the original wooden track rails were still in evidence, and the excavation substantiated Chappell's account of having traversed the tunnel in 1897. In Hedden's account of this work, written to Harris in December 1940, he reported that he and Hamilton were now convinced the Halifax tunnel had once terminated at the actual Money Pit, and that Chappell had been "a bit off in his location when he put the shaft down in 1931." In 1941, Hamilton returned determined to explore the bottom of the Money Pit itself, but wartime labour shortages made progress difficult. He managed to sink an 8-by-8-foot shaft between the Hedden and Chappell shafts in 1942, using the remains of two earlier tunnels to connect the two at a depth of 155 feet. Lateral drilling produced no significant results, but the crew did intercept a watercourse 8 inches high by 10 inches wide, cut through limestone. Analysis of the water flowing through this apparently man-made channel showed it had a slightly higher specific gravity than water drawn from Smith's Cove, suggesting the presence of dissolved minerals. During the same season, several drill holes between the Chappell and Hedden shafts reached approximately 12 feet below the bottoms of both shafts and encountered a large amount of gravel and stones of a kind not native to that depth. Only limestone should have been present at that level. A President, a Movie Star, and an Astor Hamilton maintained a correspondence with President Roosevelt throughout his time on the island. On November 4, 1938, he sent a summary of the summer's work, and Roosevelt seemed especially interested in the 800-gallon-per-minute flooding measurement, which confirmed that the water intrusion could not be natural percolation, as Captain Henry Bowdoin had suggested after his own unsuccessful 1909 expedition. Roosevelt, then in his second term, made plans to visit Oak Island during a scheduled Halifax stopover of his US Navy cruiser in the summer of 1939. Hamilton was so confident the visit would happen that he ordered the construction of a custom sedan chair to carry the polio-disabled president from the dock at Smith's Cove to the Money Pit area. At the last minute, Roosevelt sent word through a friend that the looming war in Europe made the visit impossible. [article:the-roosevelt-connection] The war also complicated Hamilton's efforts in other ways. Canada entered the conflict alongside Britain in September 1939, and finding workers in Nova Scotia became increasingly difficult. Hamilton eventually assembled a crew of eleven in the summer of 1940, reportedly by offering the exorbitant pay of forty cents per hour. During this same period, the actor Errol Flynn attempted to join the treasure hunt. A February 1940 article in the Boston Sunday Advertiser, headlined "Errol Flynn Set to Hunt Kidd's Gold," reported that Flynn had instructed his business manager to contact the Canadian syndicate to determine whether he could buy in. Flynn was no stranger to treasure hunting; he had previously financed an Alaskan prospector and had located a sunken cannon off the Isle of Pines south of Cuba. Hamilton wrote to Harris in February 1940 asking whether Flynn had actually obtained any rights to the island, noting that a magazine article had made the claim. The Flynn bid came to nothing. Another suitor attracted less publicity but carried greater weight. In April 1940, Hedden revealed to Harris that Vincent Astor had sent for him the previous year. Astor, one of the wealthiest men in America, went into the Oak Island affair in considerable detail and expressed genuine interest. Hedden was to guide him on a cruise to inspect the site in early October 1939, but the outbreak of war in September ended the plan. Astor had been too busy since to pursue it further. Hamilton's Verdict By 1942, Hamilton had exhausted his ideas. In December of that year, Hedden relayed Hamilton's conclusions to Harris in a letter written on War Department stationery. Hedden was now a Resident Auditor for the Army Air Forces, stationed at International Business Machines in Endicott, New York. Hamilton's assessment was blunt: he had substantiated the accounts of earlier searchers like Fraser and the Halifax Company, but his present conclusions were that "either the whole thing is a cruel mirage based on fantastic imagination, or, that the exact location of the early money pit has been irretrievably lost." Hamilton was inclined to discount Chappell's account of his 1897 drilling on two grounds: the detailed account had been written many years after the fact, and Hamilton detected familiar phrases that coincided with the language used in earlier accounts by Fraser and others. Hamilton had also reached a conclusion about the drilled stones that Hedden had once considered evidence of the original deposit. He now believed they were nothing more than sockets for "Whim" axles, the supports for the horse-drawn hoisting equipment that various searcher groups had erected over the shafts. He had found at least one other drilled stone of similar size and depth near other shafts, supporting this interpretation. As Hedden reported it, "the only two items unexplainable are the work and fibre at the Beach and the parchment." In the summer of 1943, Hamilton covered the exposed shafts with strong platforms placed just above the normal water level in each pit and decked all three over at the surface. He removed his equipment from the island and placed it in storage in Chester. His five-year campaign was over. He had spent an estimated $60,000. After the Island Hamilton retired to Chester, where he established a boat-building business. In his corrections to R.V. Harris's manuscript around 1950, he was precise about what his work had established: the correct location of the Money Pit was between the Chappell and Hedden shafts, perhaps five feet to the south of where Chappell had put his shaft down. He also noted that Hedden was never on the island from June 1938 until July 1949, a period of more than a decade in which the man who owned the property never set foot on it. Hedden's path after Oak Island traced a long arc of financial recovery. From his Cadillac dealerships, he moved to a position at the British Purchasing Commission in New York in late 1940, working in the Service Division of the Aircraft Section. By 1942 he was a government auditor at IBM in Endicott. He held on to the Oak Island property throughout, selling it in 1950 to John Whitney Lewis, an elderly New York mining engineer, for $6,000. Hedden and his wife Marguerite eventually moved from New Jersey to Kissimmee, Florida, in 1962. In 1967, writing from Florida at the age of seventy, Hedden responded to a letter from Robert Gay in Halifax and was amused to learn that several recent articles had written him off as dead. He was, he assured Gay, "very much alive and active." He had been receiving phone calls from a group working on the island with a new type of core drill, almost certainly the Triton Alliance. In the same letter, he shared what three decades of reflection had given him. He believed that Kidd may have known of the cache but had not created it. "Oak was constructed before Kidd was born," Hedden wrote, "and was not intended to be discovered until about 1900. The original one who conceived the idea and did the work underestimated human progress by a bit over 100 years." He estimated that resolving the mystery would require two years of sustained effort and at least $200,000. In an interview conducted in Kissimmee in February 1976, Hedden's widow Marguerite recalled that her husband had believed the deposit was either pirate treasure or Bacon's Shakespearean manuscripts. She had visited the island only once, in 1935, but she still held the conviction that something of great value was buried there, "because of the care they had taken in putting it down." Gilbert Hedden had tried to locate the inscribed stone that once sat inside the Money Pit, but could not find it. The last he had heard, it was somewhere in Chester. Gilbert Douglas Hedden died in Florida on September 14, 1974, at the age of seventy-seven. The Money Pit he had mapped and measured, and the tunnels he and Hamilton had traced beneath the island, would remain sealed for another three decades before a new generation of searchers arrived with the resources to go deeper. [article:william-shakespeare-the-lost-works] Sources Archival Collections R.V. Harris Papers, MG1 Vol. 381/382/384, Nova Scotia Archives, Halifax, N.S. Gilbert Hedden correspondence (1935–1967), R.V. Harris Papers Edwin Hamilton correspondence (1939–1940), R.V. Harris Papers Hamilton's Notes re Harris MS. (~1950), R.V. Harris Papers Erwin Hamilton, "Work Carried on at Oak Island (Summer 1939)," typed report, obtained from Amos Nauss, May 1976 Interview with Mrs. Marguerite Hedden, Kissimmee, Florida, February 15, 1976 Newspaper Sources "Errol Flynn Set to Hunt Kidd's Gold," Boston Sunday Advertiser, February 18, 1940 Books Randall Sullivan, The Curse of Oak Island: The Story of the World's Longest Treasure Hunt (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2018) Lionel and Patricia Fanthorpe, The Oak Island Mystery: The Secret of the World's Greatest Treasure Hunt (Dundurn Press, 1995) Graham Harris and Les MacPhie, Oak Island and Its Lost Treasure (Formac Publishing, 2005) Mark Finnan, Oak Island Secrets (Formac Publishing, 1995) Joy A. Steele and Gordon Fader, Oak Island Mystery Solved (2020) D'Arcy O'Connor, The Secret Treasure of Oak Island (Lyons Press, 2004) William S. Crooker, Oak Island Gold (Nimbus Publishing, 1993) Lee Lamb, Oak Island Obsession (Dundurn Press, 2006) Rick Clarke, Oak Island Odyssey (2023) ### The Restall Tragedy URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/hunt/the-restall-tragedy Globe Trotters Robert Restall was born in England and came to Canada as a young man. He was short and stocky, five foot eight, with a broad forehead, bushy hair, and hands that could fix anything. Before Oak Island entered his life, he had already lived several of them. He was a steelworker. He was a builder. He was a plumber in the pipe-and-drain trade. And for thirty years, he was a carnival daredevil. Restall rode trick motorcycles on the English stage in the 1920s, touring with circuses across Europe. During one tour, he met a young ballet dancer from Yorkshire named Mildred. She was eighteen. They married, and she became his partner in the act. Together they built the Globe of Death, a round steel cage inside which they rode motorcycles at roughly sixty-five miles per hour, crisscrossing each other's paths at furious speed while the audience watched from outside. Mildred drove horizontally along the curved sides while Bob powered up from the bottom around the top. The act played circuses and carnivals across Europe and North America for decades. It was, by every measure, a life defined by calculated risk. They eventually settled in Hamilton, Ontario, where Bob took a steady job in the pipe-and-drain business at $150 a week. They had three children: Bobby, Lee, and Rickey. After a lifetime of wandering, Mildred believed they had finally put down roots. She was wrong. A Patient Man Bob Restall had read about Oak Island as a young man during a trip to England, sometime before the Second World War. The story seized him and never let go. He read everything he could find about the island, about the Money Pit, about the flood tunnels and the generations of men who had failed to defeat them. He never mentioned his interest to the family. For years, Oak Island was a private obsession. In the mid-1950s, Bob began writing letters to Mel Chappell, the Sydney, Nova Scotia businessman who owned most of Oak Island and held the provincial licence to search for treasure there. Restall asked for a chance to search. Chappell wrote back without committing. Several times, it appeared that Chappell was ready to grant permission, only to give the contract to someone else instead. George Greene got his turn, then the Harman brothers. Bob kept writing. In 1955, the Restall family visited Oak Island, and Bob met Greene, who gave him a firsthand account of the Money Pit mystery. That visit hardened his resolve. By 1956, according to Bob, he had made up his mind. As he later told reporters, he had believed since boyhood that pirate treasure lay buried on Oak Island, and he had always planned to dig for it himself once he had the means. The means never quite materialized the way he imagined, but by the late 1950s he decided he could wait no longer. In 1959, Chappell finally signed the first of what would become a series of one-year agreements. Robert Restall, age fifty-four, was on his way to Oak Island. Arrival on Oak Island Bob and his eldest son Bobby, then eighteen, arrived on Oak Island on October 10, 1959. They set up camp on a mound of earth thrown up by a previous searcher, near the Money Pit clearing on the eastern plateau of the island. Their home was a 16-by-16-foot cabin made of rough unfinished boards, lined inside with plywood and insulated against the cold. Heat came from a space heater. Cooking was done on a propane-gas stove. There was no electricity, no running water, and no indoor plumbing. The nearest telephone was on the mainland. The island had not been worked seriously in nearly twenty years. Nine of the old shafts were still more or less open. The place was quiet, overgrown, and isolated. Bob and Bobby explored, mapped, and began to put things in order. In June 1960, Mildred arrived with nine-year-old Rickey and the family's Belgian sheepdog, Carnie. Their daughter Lee was already married and living in Oakville, Ontario; she did not join them on the island. The family was now complete, or as complete as it would ever be on Oak Island. Bobby had a separate cabin close by. Mildred and Bob shared the main cabin, where the family ate together and gathered in the evenings. Water was a daily labour. A crater left by a previous searcher's dynamite blast, about fifty feet across and forty-five feet deep, collected rain and snowmelt. The Restalls hauled water from this makeshift well to the cabin in pails, a distance of roughly three hundred feet, then boiled and strained it before use. Groceries came from the mainland shore twice a week. Rickey helped carry them up to the cabin while Carnie trotted beside him. A Spartan Life Mildred Restall called herself "the reluctant treasure hunter." She had been a dancer on the London stage before marrying Bob, and the leap from that world to a plywood cabin on a treeless island in Mahone Bay was considerable. In all her years on Oak Island, she rarely wore a dress. She taught herself French. She rediscovered reading. She gathered wild apples and cooked them in every imaginable way. She planted sweet peas beside the cabin, in soil that struggled to support them, next to the roar of generators and pumps. The isolation was, by her own account, the hardest part. There were no neighbours and no other women on the island. In a 1965 account told to Weekend Magazine journalist Cyril Robinson, she described the loneliness plainly: all she heard was the male point of view. She would have given anything to walk down a familiar street, see a familiar face, or simply hear someone say her name. Halifax, Chester, and Bridgewater were not far across the water, but it did not seem right for her to go on pleasure trips while Bob was working so hard and spending every dollar on the search. Rickey, for his part, adapted more easily. He kept up his schooling through correspondence courses from the Nova Scotia government. He became an avid bird watcher, and once fenced off an area where a bird had nested so that no one could disturb the eggs. His one constant companion was Carnie, who never left his side; if Rickey went to the mainland with the men, the dog would curl up on the beach and wait, regardless of weather, until the boy returned. The family fished, hunted, and gathered food from the island. They played chess in the evenings to pass the long winter nights. In the summers, tourists from all over the world arrived by boat to see the famous little island, and the quiet rhythm of the family's life would briefly fill with strangers. There was also the worry about storms. One Christmas, Bob and Mildred went to Bridgewater to buy presents for the boys. Bobby was to pick them up later that night in their sixteen-foot motorboat. The storm came without warning. The bay, which could be like glass one moment, turned violent within minutes. Bobby had already left the island. His engine quit in heavy seas, and he spent hours fighting the breakers with an oar, gradually working the boat into a sheltered cove. The family was overjoyed to find him safe, but they were also acutely aware that Rickey had been alone on the island during the ordeal. About two years before the end, the cabins finally got electricity. It was a small mercy. There was still no plumbing, no refrigeration (the 127-foot-deep Hedden shaft served as the family larder, keeping groceries cool), and no television. As Mildred put it in a 1964 interview with the Star Weekly: sometimes she was sick to death of Oak Island, but the mystery of the place continued to hold the family spellbound. Works at Smith's Cove Bob and Bobby initially concentrated their efforts on the Hedden shaft, the most imposing of the existing openings, sunk in 1936 by Gilbert Hedden, a New Jersey steel manufacturer, to a depth of 125 feet. A small extension, six feet by six feet, had been sunk another 43 feet below that. Restall built a forty-foot bridge over the shaft to carry a 1,000-gallon-per-minute pump he had purchased from Professor Edwin Hamilton, who had worked Oak Island in the 1930s and 1940s. He also installed a small mine hoist. Progress in the shaft was slow and not very rewarding. Restall understood early that the central problem of Oak Island was water, not depth. Reaching the treasure, if there was a treasure, required cutting off the flood tunnels that connected the Money Pit area to the sea. He shifted his focus to Smith's Cove, the crescent-shaped beach on the island's eastern shore where the original cofferdam and box drains had been discovered in the nineteenth century. The work at the beach was painstaking. In a letter to R.V. Harris dated May 1, 1961, Restall reported that he and Bobby had drilled sixty-five holes into the Smith's Cove beach, some reaching down to the stone paving, others penetrating into the reservoir beneath. He described finding the remains of three cofferdams, and inside the innermost one, the fanwise drains that previous searchers had reported. The paved area, he wrote, measured 243 feet from one side of the cofferdam to the other at the high water mark, and 168 feet from inside the cofferdam to the back of the excavated area. The entire surface was covered with eel grass and coconut fibre from the high tide line almost to the cofferdam, with local wood branches (oak, elder, birch, spruce, fir) and eel grass covering the rear portion. The vegetable fibre covering varied from eight to twenty-four inches thick; one section contained hundreds of acorns, still in good condition though somewhat shrunken. Among Restall's most significant finds was a stone, approximately five by six inches, buried in the paving on the line between the Cave-in Shaft and the Money Pit, covered with decayed eel grass and coconut fibre. When the grime was scoured away, the date 1704 was visible, carved into the surface. Restall wrote to Harris that the stone came from an absolutely undisturbed part of the original works, and that it confirmed what Harris had long argued: the work on Oak Island was done between 1700 and 1750. He also found a pierced stone buried deep below the surface, surrounded by a circle or barrier of other stones. [artifact:1704-stone] In a formal statement dated June 20, 1961, Restall recorded additional discoveries: the stone triangle on the south side of the island, which he interpreted as a map of the underground workings. The base of the triangle, he believed, represented the cofferdam, and the medial line represented the water tunnel to the place where the treasure was buried. He measured the distance from the pierced rock to the Cave-in Pit at seven rods, and from there to the Money Pit (or the place where the original oak tree stood) at eighteen rods further. It should be noted that the 1704 stone's authenticity was later questioned. Professor Edwin Hamilton, who had worked Oak Island during the summers of 1938 to 1943, told journalist Jack Sivley for a 1967 True Magazine article that one day his men had produced the stone, freshly cut, as a joke. When Hamilton laughed it off, they buried it. Sivley reported that the stone lay undiscovered until Restall found it. Whether Hamilton's account was accurate, or was itself a piece of mischief, has not been settled by any subsequent investigation. [article:stone-triangle-the-oak-island-sextant] The Privateer Theory Robert Restall developed his own theory about Oak Island, and it differed from the common accounts in several respects. He dismissed the idea that Captain Kidd had buried treasure on the island; Kidd, he pointed out, was not even a pirate, but a privateer turned scapegoat, and he was hanged in London on May 23, 1701. Restall believed the treasure had been buried by English privateers, three years after Kidd's execution, in 1704. He argued that the island was not a one-time burial site but a guarded depot, used for roughly twenty years by a consortium of privateers who pooled their loot, stored it in an elaborately engineered underground vault, and returned periodically to add to the hoard. The system of tunnels and pits, flooded by seawater, was the mechanism by which they protected it. In his view, the treasure consisted of approximately $30 million in gold bars, much of it taken from the Spanish plate ships in the Caribbean. He rejected the higher estimates (some as high as $200 million) that other searchers had entertained. He believed the privateers had employed slave labour to build the Money Pit and its connecting tunnels, and that the engineering of the flood system was consistent with similar works used for safekeeping of treasure in Panama and the West Indies during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Restall also believed that the stone triangle, the drilled rocks, and the original oak tree at the Money Pit site formed a deliberate survey system, laid out by the builders as a map. In his letter to Harris, he corrected errors he had found in earlier survey records: the distance from the base of the triangle to the oak tree was eighteen rods, not fourteen as previously reported. The drilled rock near the Money Pit was not north of the triangle as shown in Hedden's drawing; someone had made an error. These measurements mattered to Restall because they were, in his view, the key to locating the main flood tunnel and, ultimately, the treasure itself. [article:pirates][article:oak-island-flood-tunnels-and-box-drains-the-water-trap] Financial Pressure Restall was not wealthy, and Chappell was not generous. The contract between them divided any treasure found into one hundred shares: thirty-five to Chappell, fifteen to Restall, and fifty for Restall to sell in order to raise capital. Perhaps because Restall lacked heavy financial backing, Chappell refused the sort of long-term contract common in exploration. Instead, he renewed the agreement one year at a time, sometimes for only a few months, and always grudgingly, hinting that he might not renew again. The effect was to make fundraising nearly impossible; no serious investor would commit money to an operation that might lose its lease before a discovery could be made. Restall sold the fifty shares when and where he could, typically for about $1,000 each. By 1964, four years into the search, he had invested roughly $70,000, a figure that included his own life savings, contributions from friends, and the proceeds from share sales. Among his roughly twenty backers were Karl Graeser, a Long Island businessman who owned a dock construction and marine crane service, and Floyd G. Matthews of Moncton, New Brunswick. David Tobias, a Montreal businessman, also became a Restall investor in 1962. Bob lived frugally. There is no evidence he took more than living expenses from the funds raised. He and his family lived like pioneers on the island, and every dollar went into equipment, fuel, and the ceaseless work of pumping, drilling, and digging. By the summer of 1965, Restall had persuaded Chappell to broaden the share ratio so that he could raise more money. That month, the last block of new shares went to Robert Dunfield, a petroleum geologist from Canoga Park, California, who paid $5,000. Dunfield was a heavy-equipment man by temperament. Though he did not say so bluntly at first, he believed Restall had wasted six years with his careful, small-tool approach and that a bulldozer would get to the heart of the matter. For his $5,000, Dunfield demanded and got control of the operation. Restall, who had been working the island for six years, said little. Perhaps there was not much to say to the suggestion that the job could be finished in two months. August 17, 1965 By August 1965, Restall was using a borrowed diamond drill and felt he was near success. He had told backers the previous Sunday that he was within twenty-five feet of the treasure. Peter Beamish, a teacher at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, who was visiting the island with a group of students, had spoken with Bob the night before the tragedy. Restall described how he had found the key to the network of tunnels between Smith's Cove and the Money Pit. Beamish later told the press that Restall had been excited, certain he had it this time. August 17 was a Tuesday. The air was hot and heavy and moist. Fog drifted in over the half-square-mile island. Smoke from brush being burned along the shore lay hard against the water, pressed flat by the heavy air. There was a surprising number of people on the island that day. Dunfield was there. Karl Graeser had arrived from Long Island the previous Sunday. A physics class from Andover, Massachusetts, led by a young instructor, was on a field trip. There were tourists, and there were labourers hired from the shore. The shaft where the disaster occurred was not at the Money Pit. It was near Smith's Cove, at a point where the land began to rise toward the clearing. Restall had dug it in mid-July, in an effort to intercept the Smith's Cove flood tunnel. The shaft was rectangular, ten feet by thirty feet, twenty-seven feet deep, with three or four feet of black, stinking water at the bottom. A gasoline-powered pump ran continuously at the top, drawing water out. At two o'clock that afternoon, Bob came up from the shaft to the cabin. He told Mildred he was going to Halifax that day. He would leave at 3:30, so he needed a few minutes before three to wash and change. It was the last time she saw him alive. What happened next is pieced together from witness accounts, and some details remain uncertain. At some point after returning to the shaft, Bob leaned over the edge to check the water level, or perhaps began to descend the ladder. Without a sound, he toppled in. Bobby, who was nearby carrying brush, saw his father fall. He dropped the bushes and raced to the shaft. He started down the ladder and within seconds collapsed into the water beside his father. Karl Graeser arrived next, drawn by Bobby's earlier shout. He went unhesitatingly down the ladder and also lost consciousness. Sixteen-year-old Cyril Hiltz of Martin's Point, a loyal member of the Restall crew, followed Karl into the shaft. He too fell. Andrew DeMont, seventeen, of Gold River, a friend of the Restalls who had been working with them, scrambled down after the others. Leonard Kaizer, twenty-one, of Western Shore, was the last man to attempt a rescue. Two other men who had started down the cribbing retreated to the top when they began to choke, and huddled there, peering fearfully at the black water below. Mildred learned what had happened when she walked toward the shaft about ten minutes before three o'clock. One of the men who had been working with Bob in the shaft was soaking wet and shaking. She asked him what was wrong. He told her straight. Bob and Bobby were gone. Not then, not the next day, not ever. That was it. The Rescue Among the tourists approaching the island by boat at that moment was Edward J. White Jr., a lieutenant in the Buffalo Fire Department, on vacation from Clarence, New York, with his wife and three sons. White's family had been camping their way through the Maritime provinces since late July. The visit to Oak Island was a last-minute detour; White had read about Restall in the January 1965 issue of Reader's Digest and had steered the family toward Mahone Bay without telling them why. Their boat operator, William Sawlor of Western Shore, was bringing them across when another boat intercepted them. The man at the helm shouted that there had been an accident or cave-in on the island, and that five men were trapped in a pit. White told Sawlor and Floyd Matthews, who was aboard, that he was a trained firefighter. They sped to the island. White jumped from the boat and ran to the shaft, where twenty-five to thirty people stood around the open hole. A man who appeared to be in charge told him five men were in the pit, four of them under water, and a fifth was unconscious, wedged against the side with water up to his lower lip. White looked down. All he could see was black water and wooden shoring. A loud, rasping noise came from one corner: DeMont, his head wedged under the horizontal perimeter shoring, unconscious but still breathing. White asked for a ladder. There was none. He asked for a mask or any breathing device. None. He asked for a rope. This they had. He walked ten steps away to make a life hitch around himself without interference. As he was tying the knot, his wife came and stood in front of him. Their eyes met. She knew what he was about to do. She grabbed the two younger boys and fled behind a tool shed. White finished the hitch, put the rope end into the hands of his eldest son, sixteen-year-old Edward, and told him not to pull unless he signalled. White climbed down the shoring into the pit, holding his breath. The air was foul. His neck, armpits, and legs stung from the gas. He estimated he descended about twenty-five feet to the water. There in a corner, his head under a log, was DeMont. Black water was running into his mouth; he would spit it out and make a terrible rasping noise. White stepped into the water, lifted DeMont upright, and the semiconscious teenager punched him. White, who had cracked a rib at Bay of Fundy Park days earlier, held on. DeMont had been weakened by the gas and did little damage. The scuffle caused the men above to think White was in danger and they began to haul him up. He shouted for them to stop. Looking up, White could see the colour of the gas in the pit against the sky: greenish yellow. He made up his mind to hold his breath. He tied a clove hitch around DeMont's chest, put on two good binder knots, and signalled for the men above to haul the boy out. Once DeMont was clear, White reached into the water as far as he could, trying to find one of the four men submerged below. He felt nothing. He put his leg in up to the hip and moved it around. Still nothing. He saw what he thought was the top of a man's head and grabbed at it, but it was only bubbles of gas breaking the surface. He had to breathe. The first breath nearly choked him. His scalp and arms tingled. He climbed out. The whole episode, from descent to return, lasted roughly ten minutes. On the surface, White and others removed DeMont's wet clothing, covered him with blankets, and rubbed his arms and legs to restore circulation. Rich Barber of Exeter, New Hampshire, a teacher with the student group, and Peter Beamish administered artificial respiration. DeMont opened his eyes, then closed them again. His breathing slowed and stopped. His fingertips and earlobes were turning blue. White straddled him, arched his back, and pushed down on his rib cage. DeMont belched foul air. After three or four repetitions, he began to breathe more easily. The Chester Fire Department arrived. None of the young volunteer firemen were willing to be lowered into the gas-filled shaft. They proposed using a treble hook, a three-pronged gaff, to pull the bodies up. Jim Kaizer, a short, stocky, powerfully built man of Mi'kmaq descent who had worked alongside the Restalls for months, had arrived from the mainland. According to his son Faron, who was ten years old at the time and later recounted the story to author Randall Sullivan, Kaizer refused to let them use the gaff. He put on an old World War II gas mask, soaked rags in water and wrapped them around it, tied a rope around his thighs and waist, and had the firemen lower him into the shaft. He went down four times, bringing up the bodies of Robert Restall, Bobby Restall, Karl Graeser, and Cyril Hiltz one at a time. After that, Faron said, his father was not the same. Tragedy The coroner ruled the cause of death as drowning. All four men had fallen unconscious into the water at the bottom of the shaft and drowned before they could be reached. The nature of the gas that rendered them unconscious was never conclusively identified. Autopsies found no trace of carbon monoxide poisoning. The immediate assumption at the scene was "swamp gas," meaning methane, but methane is both odourless and colourless. Every witness at the scene described a powerful stench. White, looking up from below, saw the gas as greenish and heavy, rolling like fog. From above it appeared brownish. The medical examiner thought it smelled awful but detected no clear whiff of rotten eggs. Others at the scene compared it to rotten eggs or auto exhaust. Leonard Kaizer's grandmother, according to his grandson Tim, told the family that when Leonard came home that day, she hung his overalls out back, but the smell persisted for a week. His father never wore them again. Dr. J.P. Nowlan, the deputy minister of mines for Nova Scotia, said he believed carbon monoxide from the gasoline pump engine was the more likely cause. The weather that day, hot and humid with little wind, would have allowed exhaust fumes to settle into the shaft rather than dissipate. Others pointed to hydrogen sulphide, which produces the rotten-egg smell and can be generated by decaying organic matter in waterlogged soil. Randall Sullivan, writing decades later, suggested carbon dioxide collecting in an enclosed space, which can also produce a sulphurous odour at high concentrations. Crown Prosecutor Gary Bardon of Bridgewater examined the preliminary police report and concluded that an inquest was unlikely to be necessary. There was not much question, he said, that it was an accident. The deputy minister of mines added that his department could not order the pit closed, as it was not classified as a mine. Aftermath On the evening of the tragedy, as fog settled over the island, fourteen-year-old Ricky Restall wandered aimlessly around the pit where his father and brother had died. A reporter for the Halifax Mail Star found him there. Ricky told him they had been close, very close, to finding the treasure. Mildred was under heavy sedation in the cabin. The Reverend M.J. Finlay, the Anglican minister at Western Shore, attended to her. He told the press he did not think she had fully realized what had happened, even before the sedation took hold. The next day, Mildred spoke to a UPI reporter on the island. Her words carried the weight of six years of suppressed doubt. She said she had never believed in the treasure, not once, not from the moment she stepped on the island in October 1959. But it was Bob's dream. He was always so sure, so absolutely positive there was something there. So she went along. Funeral services for Robert Restall, Bobby Restall, and Cyril Hiltz were held at Martin's Point. The two Restalls were natives of Hamilton, Ontario; Hiltz was from the local community. The body of Karl Graeser, thirty-eight, of Massapequa, Long Island, was returned to the United States for burial. Bob and Bobby were interred in Western Shore Cemetery, where Mildred herself would eventually be laid to rest. Cyril Hiltz was buried nearby. Though just sixteen, Hiltz had been supporting himself by his own labour and looking after his pregnant girlfriend. Before working for the Restalls, he had been a scallop dragger out of Lunenburg, lucrative but dangerous work that he had given up because, as he confided to his girlfriend, he was afraid of drowning at sea. Chappell and Dunfield moved quickly. According to Mildred's later account and the recollections of her surviving son Rick, Chappell urged her to come to Halifax to sign a legal transfer of the search rights to Dunfield before Bob and Bobby were even buried. Dunfield promised to pay the rent on a mainland house for the rest of Mildred's life. He kept that promise for a few months, Rick recalled bitterly, then simply stopped paying. Worse, every chart, map, and document the Restalls had collected before and during their six years on Oak Island disappeared into Dunfield's and Chappell's possession. The family's photo albums were taken as well. Mildred, according to her surviving children, never got over the loss of those records. In a telephone interview recorded on May 14, 1975, Mildred said she did not go on the island anymore because she found it depressing. She had closed the door when she left in August 1965 and had not reopened it. She was furious about a tourism sign on the island that read "Restall tragedy pit," calling it cheap, shoddy, and disgusting. The government, she said, was trying to make money from her misfortune, and they had never even consulted her. The island, she added, was no longer beautiful the way it had been when the family lived there. In March 1978, Mildred wrote to author D'Arcy O'Connor to thank him for a copy of his book about Oak Island. She found it concise and to the point, she said, unlike the Harris book with its confusing technical details. In a postscript that revealed something of the woman behind the tragedy, she noted: "I had never thought of myself as being 'frail.' Frail?" O'Connor, mortified, wrote back to explain he had confused the word with "petite." He added that he had at least got the "attractive" and "Yorkshire accent" parts right. Lee Lamb, the Restalls' daughter, wrote two books about the family's experience: Oak Island Obsession (2006) and Oak Island Family (2012). In an interview with Randall Sullivan in 2003, shortly after Mildred's death, she said simply: "I say Oak Island killed my parents." The Restall Legacy The Restall expedition was, in financial and material terms, the most modest of all major Oak Island operations. Where previous searchers had brought capital from wealthy syndicates and industrial equipment from the mainland, the Restalls brought themselves. Bob worked largely by hand, assisted by Bobby and a small number of hired helpers, using tools and methods that would have been familiar to nineteenth-century miners. His total investment of roughly $70,000, substantial for a working-class family, was a fraction of what earlier and later operations spent. What Restall lacked in resources he compensated for with patience, careful observation, and a systematic approach to the island's physical evidence. His detailed mapping of the Smith's Cove beach works, his drilling of sixty-five test holes to chart the underground drainage system, and his measurements correcting errors in earlier surveys all represented genuine contributions to the body of knowledge about Oak Island's engineering. His letters to R.V. Harris reveal a man of considerable intellectual curiosity, working through the evidence methodically and arriving at conclusions (the privateer consortium theory, the triangle as a survey map, the role of the 1704 stone) that, whether ultimately correct or not, were grounded in fieldwork rather than speculation. The tragedy of August 17, 1965, brought the total death count on Oak Island to six, all by drowning, all in shafts. It remains the single worst disaster in the island's recorded history. Robert Dunfield, who assumed control of the Restall contract, would bring a seventy-ton crane and two bulldozers to Oak Island within weeks, obliterating much of the surface evidence that Restall had spent six years documenting. The stone triangle was buried under tons of dozed earth. The cofferdams and beach works at Smith's Cove were covered over. Much of what Restall had mapped and measured was destroyed. The Restalls gave six years of their lives to Oak Island. Four members of the expedition, Bob and Bobby among them, gave their lives outright. Mildred and Ricky survived with their grief and without the records that might have preserved the full scope of what Bob had learned. Whether the island holds a treasure or does not, and whether the Restalls were close to finding it or were not, the fact of their sacrifice is beyond dispute. They lived with less than any other Oak Island expedition and endured more. The island gave them nothing in return. ### Fred Nolan, the Oak Island Surveyor URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/hunt/fred-nolan-the-oak-island-surveyor Frederick Gerald Nolan was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on July 5, 1927. He attended Oxford Street and College Street schools before enrolling at St. Mary's High School, where he developed the precision and discipline that would define his professional life. He became one of the first land surveyors in Nova Scotia to earn the designation PLS, Provincial Land Surveyor, and with his brother Richard established Nolan Brothers Surveys. The firm built a strong reputation across the province. Among their early projects were the layout of the entire Westmount Subdivision at the site of the old Halifax airport on Chebucto Road, the surveying of what became the first Sobeys store in the Halifax Regional Municipality, and the development of the Lewis Lake subdivision. Nolan loved working outdoors, and his chosen profession served him well in that regard. He was methodical, exacting, and stubborn in the way that good surveyors tend to be. Then, sometime in the late 1950s, he read a book that redirected the rest of his life. The Free Survey The book was R.V. Harris's The Oak Island Mystery, published in 1958. Nolan read it forward and backward, at least half a dozen times by his own account. He was particularly fascinated by the 1937 survey conducted by provincial land surveyor Charles Roper for treasure hunter Gilbert Hedden, which had identified links between the stone triangle near Smith's Cove, the Cave-in Pit, and a series of drilled boulders. Nolan believed his own professional skills could succeed where others had failed. He discovered that Harris's law office in Halifax was only a few blocks from his own surveying office and began paying regular visits. Harris seemed to welcome the company, even when the younger man peppered him with questions about every detail of the treasure hunt's long history. Nolan first set foot on Oak Island in 1957, just as George Greene's operations were winding down. He returned to poke around further, only to be informed by the island's owner, Mel Chappell, that the Harman brothers were about to take over the treasure hunt and that Robert Restall was waiting behind them. Undeterred, Nolan proposed surveying the entire island, at his own expense and on his own time. Chappell, reasoning that he was getting an expensive professional service for free, agreed. What Nolan did not tell Chappell was that he had been horrified by the damage the older man was inflicting on the island's surface with a drag line, a tractor pulling a digging bucket that tore up everything in its path. Nolan feared that valuable landmarks were being obliterated, and he pressed to survey immediately before more were lost. Through 1961 and 1962, Nolan spent thousands of dollars on labour and equipment and devoted hundreds of hours his family wished he were putting into his business. He laid out a grid that covered every inch of Oak Island, installing twenty-three concrete survey markers, each crowned with a numbered bronze disk on which a transit or theodolite could be mounted. The transit lines he cut through trees and brush stretched for tens of thousands of yards. Nolan was also the first person to photograph the stone triangle near Smith's Cove and to survey it precisely, actions that would be much appreciated decades later, after Robert Dunfield destroyed the triangle in his 1965 excavation. It was backbreaking work, nearly all of it done by Nolan himself. The Registry of Deeds In late 1962, convinced that his survey had accomplished something important, Nolan arranged a meeting with Chappell and proposed leasing the search rights. Chappell already had the Restall family installed on the island and was holding out for someone willing to spend serious money. Whether it was because Nolan was pushy or Chappell was testy, the conversation ended with Mel telling the surveyor to "get off my damn island and go to hell." Instead, Nolan went to the Registry of Deeds in Chester. He was, as he later put it, "playing a hunch." That hunch paid extraordinary dividends. Tracing the Oak Island records back to 1935, when Gilbert Hedden had bought land from the heirs of Sophia Sellers, Nolan found that the deed office records stated Hedden had purchased only lots 15 through 20. A separate survey plan from September 1935 indicated Hedden had bought 52 acres, which should have included lots 5 and 9 through 14, but the legal conveyances did not match. The same discrepancy carried forward through the 1950 sale from Hedden to John Whitney Lewis and from Lewis to Chappell. Seven lots in the centre of the island had never been properly conveyed. Nolan immediately visited the last remaining Sellers heirs, two elderly sisters living on the mainland, and arranged to purchase lots 5 and 9 through 14 for $2,500. In April 1963 he went to Chappell without making arrangements for a meeting, showed him the deeds to seven lots comprising roughly a quarter of Oak Island, and offered to trade the property for a lease on the Money Pit. Chappell reacted with fury, calling Nolan a sneak and again ordering him off the property. He hired R.V. Harris to investigate. Harris reported back that it appeared Nolan's claim was valid. Fred was disappointed that Chappell had rejected his offer, but he soon realized what he held. His seven lots formed a swath across most of the east end of the island, and anyone travelling from the west to the Money Pit would have to cross his land. The Swamp Nolan spent the following years conducting his own search on the property he now owned. He found rocks with round holes bored or chiselled into them, some with pieces of metal inserted. He excavated pieces of old hand-cut wood that he believed were from an ancient chest, one piece with old iron hinges still attached. He discovered sandstone rocks that had been cut to leave two smooth sides and two rough, standing on end in positions a geologist confirmed were not natural resting states. Burn marks on the stone indicated that heat had been used in the cutting. Nolan eventually concluded that the sandstones were not native to Oak Island but had been brought there to serve as survey markers, placed by human hands centuries before his own. He was convinced that the treasure everyone sought lay in a watertight vault at the end of a tunnel running from, or possibly not even connected to, the Money Pit. He searched for that tunnel on his own property for years. His reluctance to reveal anything more than he absolutely had to created a haze around his work that no one would ever entirely penetrate. In 1969, Nolan undertook his most ambitious project: draining the Oak Island swamp. The cost was considerable, involving substantial labour and heavy equipment. He did not find the tunnel entrance or the treasure vault, but he discovered numerous markers, among them spruce stakes driven into the ground that had clearly been placed for some purpose of identification. He also found what he believed to be a gold-branding bar, parts of a sailing vessel including sections of a spar and a scupper, and part of a wooden ship's gunwale. He was convinced that the swamp had once been low-lying dry ground, used possibly as a docking or boat-repair yard, and that it had been artificially created by holding back water with a cofferdam, digging out the triangle shape, and then letting it fill with freshwater. The spruce stakes would later be carbon-dated to as far back as approximately 1550, well before the accepted era of treasure searchers. [map:the-swamp] Two Men, One Island By 1969, the year Nolan drained the swamp, the biggest story on Oak Island was no longer what lay underground. It was the war above it. The conflict had its roots in 1965, when Robert Dunfield, who had absorbed the animosity toward Nolan from his then-partner Mel Chappell, built the causeway connecting Oak Island to the mainland and posted an armed guard at its entrance. Dunfield himself used to sit there with a rifle, Nolan said, and threaten to shoot him if he tried to drive onto the island. Nolan was forced to use a boat to reach his own property and to barge out his equipment. [article:robert-dunfield-and-the-destruction-of-oak-island] When Dunfield left Nova Scotia, a new figure arrived. Dan Blankenship was a building contractor from Miami, Florida, who had read about Oak Island in the January 1965 issue of Reader's Digest. The two men had arrived by different paths (Nolan through Harris's book in 1958, Blankenship through a magazine article seven years later) but shared a profile that was almost eerily similar. Both were skilled professionals who had given up stable careers. Both had come to believe the treasure was real. Both were willing to spend everything they had to find it. The early relationship was functional. Blankenship paid Nolan $1,000 to remove a barricade Nolan had erected at the causeway entrance, and in return gave Fred permission to use the causeway. The arrangement evolved into a deal that gave Nolan a small share of the Money Pit operation in exchange for surveying work and a right of way through his property. In 1967, Canada's centennial year, the situation was amicable enough that Nolan built a museum at Crandall's Point, where he exhibited artifacts he had collected on the island and negotiated a deal with the Department of Tourism to collect a percentage of public tour revenue. All of those agreements were annulled in 1969, when David Tobias and Blankenship formed Triton Alliance. After each side accused the other of breach of contract, Nolan blocked the causeway entrance. Triton built a bypass road. Triton chained off the causeway where it touched island land, forcing Nolan back onto boats. Nolan chained off the trail to the Money Pit that ran through his property, cutting Triton's road access to the east end of the island entirely. The confrontations escalated to what were described as nose-to-nose shouting matches, though Sullivan noted these were technically Fred's nose to Dan's chin. One afternoon in 1970, Blankenship became so incensed that he confronted Nolan at the chain armed with a hunting rifle. Nolan called the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who arrived in time to find Blankenship still manning the chain with the rifle in his hands. They confiscated the weapon. By late 1971, both sides were exhausted enough to negotiate a truce. Triton would receive at least 40 percent of any treasure found on Nolan's land; Nolan would get causeway access and a promise that Triton would not challenge his ownership of the seven lots. It held for a few years. But with the stakes high and bad blood already between them, it was, as Mark Finnan later wrote, a shaky relationship at best. What made the rivalry more than a property dispute was how much the two men had in common. Both had rejected the Money Pit orthodoxy: Nolan believed the treasure lay in a tunnel and vault elsewhere on the island, while Blankenship had staked everything on Borehole 10-X, drilled 180 feet northeast of the Pit. Both had independently pursued Spanish maritime connections. Nolan studied documents and maps from the maritime libraries and museums of Spain, tracking treasure ships that may have been storm-driven into the coast of Nova Scotia. Blankenship arrived at a similar theory through his own research, and by 2003 was publicly claiming a Spanish solution to the mystery. Both men described their situation in language that was almost identical. Nolan told Finnan in December 1994: "I guess in a way I've created my own living hell and it's not easy to get out of it." Blankenship, separately, told a British newspaper: "I'm here now until I get the treasure or it gets me." [article:dan-blankenship-and-borehole-10-x] The Court Battle In January 1983, Triton Alliance filed a lawsuit against Fred Nolan, challenging his legal ownership of the seven lots. David Tobias said he had no choice: Nova Scotia's twenty-year statute of limitations on civil action was about to expire, and any attempt to recover the lots would have to be made now or never. Tobias also argued that Triton needed a resolution if it was going to attract the financial backing required for a major Money Pit operation. The resulting litigation consumed more than two years and tens of thousands of dollars. Triton's lawyers submitted upward of a thousand documents. Nolan's own attorneys billed him for countless hours of discovery. The financial damage extended far beyond legal fees. Triton had successfully portrayed Nolan in the press as a kook, and the companies that hired him to testify as an expert surveyor in court became leery of putting a man publicly identified as a "treasure hunter" on the witness stand. That part of his business evaporated almost completely. Fred made up his mind that he was going to fight to the bitter end. On December 17, 1985, Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice A.M. MacIntosh upheld Nolan's claims to all seven lots and dismissed Triton's trespassing allegations. The judge ordered Nolan to pay Triton $15,000 for interfering with its tourism business and to move his museum off the causeway path. Dan Blankenship would later describe that day as the worst of his life. Within weeks, Tobias instructed his lawyers to appeal, despite warnings from his own son Norman, a Toronto attorney, that Triton's chances were slim and the additional fees would run at least $20,000. Part of the motivation was Tobias's wish to control every inch of Oak Island. In 1977 he had acquired all of Mel Chappell's holdings for $125,000, giving him roughly 78 percent of the island. Only the Blankenship house lot and Nolan's seven lots remained outside his control. Tobias offered to buy Nolan's land for $125,000, the same price he had paid Chappell for nearly four times as much property. Nolan refused to sell, "for any price," and filed his own cross complaint. The ruling on the appeal was issued on April 15, 1987. Fred had won again. The $15,000 he had been ordered to pay Triton was reduced to $500. By then, Nolan estimated he had spent $75,000 on lawyers. The losses from his survey business exceeded a quarter of a million dollars. He was forced to spend an additional $80,000 to construct a dock on his property because the only access he had to the island was by boat, and barging equipment out was, as he put it, very expensive. What surprised Sullivan when he interviewed both men in 2003 was that Nolan's bitterness was directed more intensely at Blankenship than at Tobias. After the appeals court ruling, Tobias had congratulated Fred, handed him one of his expensive Cuban cigars, and taken the position that it had all been business, nothing personal. Nolan accepted that. Of Blankenship, however, his assessment was blunt: "Dan wanted to destroy me. And he was willing to do anything, no matter how dirty, to do it." Blankenship said much the same about Nolan. Nolan's Cross In 1981, while conducting survey work on his property, Nolan uncovered what would become his most significant contribution to the Oak Island mystery. Five massive cone-shaped granite boulders, each weighing up to ten tons and measuring roughly eight by nine feet, were arranged across the centre of the island in a symmetrical Latin cross. The stem of the cross measured approximately 720 feet; the arms spanned 867 feet. A sixth stone at the intersection of the stem and arms was different from the others: it was sandstone rather than granite, and it appeared to be shaped like a human head, with features resembling a forehead, an eye, a nose, and a mouth. Nolan concluded that the headstone symbolized the "brain" and a dagger-like indentation pointed to the "heart." He believed the cross contained a mathematical equation, though he never elaborated on what he meant by that. Nolan spent years excavating carefully around and beneath the boulders, marking their positions with the precision of a man who had spent his career doing exactly that. Beneath the boulder at the end of the south arm he found a layer of small beach stones and parts of a ship's pot-belly stove. He could not explain how either came to be there. He had the formation examined and verified by Halifax engineer and surveyor William Crooker before going public with the details in the summer of 1992, more than a decade after the initial discovery. Halifax geologist Petra Mudie confirmed that the formation was not a product of glacial action. [artifact:nolan-s-cross-6-boulders] In the 1990s, Nolan continued his analysis using offset sightlines of the cross and identified a secondary feature he called the Quadrilateral, located about 200 feet from the top of the cross on the north side. It consisted of three layers of boulders with a longest side of 32 feet. In 2022, archaeoastronomer and astrophysicist Professor Adriano Gaspani of the Brera Astronomical Observatory in Milan conducted a positional analysis of the cross using the coordinates of its unmoved stones. His calculations placed its construction at approximately 1200 AD, a date consistent with the Templar period and the broader body of archaeological evidence from the island. Gaspani later extended his analysis to the Stone Triangle and the stone cairns on Oak Island, identifying the Templars as the most likely builders of all three formations. [article:real-or-not-the-geometry-of-nolan-s-cross] The Thaw For decades, Nolan worked alone. He told a local reporter he was on to "something big" but refused to reveal what it might be. In 1982 he confided to a handful of people that he had verified his great discovery, but he was not ready to reveal it publicly. He was still studying his grid, searching for new levels of meaning. He told Finnan during a meeting in December 1994 that no one would believe him if he explained what he thought, and so he would continue working until he found the treasure or died in the process. The change came with the arrival of Rick and Marty Lagina. Rick, in particular, won Nolan over more thoroughly than anyone ever had. Sullivan, who observed the relationship, attributed it to Rick's enthusiasm for the treasure hunt combined with his genuine respect for those who had conducted it before him. Nolan was eighty-seven years old by then, far more gaunt and frail than he had appeared in 2003. Some of the frost on the old fellow, as Sullivan put it, had melted. In 2015, during the third season of The Curse of Oak Island, Rick brokered a historic agreement. Nolan came to the War Room for the first time and agreed to cooperate. After decades of secrecy, he declared that he no longer wanted to be an obstacle and was ready to share his research. He brought his detailed survey maps, representing more than fifty years of fieldwork across 104 individual maps. Unlike most treasure hunters who had focused on the Money Pit, Nolan had spent his career documenting the stone markers, carvings, and surface features across the entire island. He also revealed his theory about the treasure's origin: during the American Revolution, King George III ordered British generals to gather gold, silver, and jewels from the colonies and ship them to Halifax. According to Nolan, a group of officers conspired to hide a large portion on Oak Island as both compensation and insurance against an uncertain future. The first joint drilling operation on Nolan's property, near the centre of the island, found no cavity at the expected depth. But the second, targeting a site Nolan called the old well just north of the swamp, produced something. The drill hit a five-foot void. Nolan was visibly elated. It was not definitive proof of a man-made structure, but it was the first time drilling on his property had returned evidence consistent with an underground chamber. With the cooperation now in place, virtually every acre of Oak Island was available for exploration for the first time in nearly half a century. [artifact:stone-well-lot-11] The Inheritance Frederick Gerald Nolan died on June 4, 2016, at the QE2 Halifax Infirmary in Halifax, after a short illness. He was eighty-eight years old. A funeral Mass was held at Saint Theresa's Catholic Church on the corner of North and Dublin Streets. Roughly one hundred people gathered for the service, and he was buried in a private family interment at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Lower Sackville. He was survived by his wife of fifty-three years, Ora Miller, their son Thomas, granddaughters Catherine and Shannon, and his brother Frank. Rick Lagina read a tribute to surveyors in Nolan's memory. He later told Sullivan that what pained him most was that Fred had not lived to see what the team was about to undertake. The older Lagina brother sounded sincere when he said it, though he also acknowledged a harder truth. Nolan's son Tom, who felt he had already lost his father to Oak Island many years earlier, was not ready to make decisions about how to dispose of the enormous collection of objects and documents Fred had accumulated in more than fifty years of searching. Promises made to Rick but never put in writing were, as Sullivan observed, just whispers in the wind. In time, Tom Nolan found his own relationship with the island. In 2017 he granted the Laginas full access to Fred's sixteen acres, including the area surrounding Nolan's Cross. By 2019, Tom had joined the team as a full-time member, uniting all major Oak Island landowners for the first time since his father and Dan Blankenship began their feud half a century earlier. Fred's maps, his survey data, his stone marker documentation, and his drilling records now feed a search he spent fifty-eight years conducting alone. Between Nolan and Blankenship, who died in 2019, the two rivals represented 110 years of dedicated searching on Oak Island. Neither man found the treasure. Both believed until the end that it was there. The island took everything each of them had to give, and the fact that Fred Nolan's name appears in 105 of the show's 260 episodes is a measure of how much his work, conducted largely in isolation and secrecy, turned out to matter. Sources Published : Randall Sullivan, The Curse of Oak Island: The Story of the World's Longest Treasure Hunt (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2018). Chapters 15 and 24. Principal narrative source. Sullivan interviewed Nolan in 2003 and observed the Nolan-Lagina relationship during 2016-2017 visits. Primary source for the survey, the Registry of Deeds acquisition, the Blankenship-Nolan feud, the Triton lawsuit, and the final years. Mark Finnan, Oak Island Secrets (Formac Publishing, 1995). Chapters 12 and 14. Personal interviews with Nolan in 1993 and 1994-1995. Source for the Nolan's Cross discovery narrative, the court case, the causeway conflicts, and the December 1994 quote ("I've created my own living hell"). Tom Clarke, Oak Island Odyssey (self-published, 2023). Confirms 1985 court ruling and appeal; Borehole 10-X casing collapse chronology; 1971 Nolan treasure trove licence. Obituary of Frederick G. Nolan of Waverly. Scientific analysis: Professor Adriano Gaspani, Brera Astronomical Observatory, Milan. Archaeoastronomical positional analysis of Nolan's Cross using coordinates of unmoved stones. Dating result: approximately 1200 AD, consistent with the Templar period. Extended analysis to Stone Triangle and stone cairns; identified Templars as most likely builders. Presented to the team Season 10, Episode 22 ("Starry Knights") and Season 11, Episodes 16-17. Petra Mudie, geologist, Halifax. Confirmed Nolan's Cross boulders were not a product of glacial action. William Crooker, engineer and surveyor, Halifax. Verified the formation and measurements of Nolan's Cross prior to Nolan's 1992 public disclosure. Author of Oak Island Gold. Radiocarbon dating of spruce stakes from swamp drainage (originally found by Nolan, 1969). Carbon-dated to approximately 1550, predating the recognized era of treasure searchers. Confirmed Season 7, Episode 11. The Curse of Oak Island episodes TheCurseOfOakIsland.com episode database. Fred Nolan or Nolan's Cross referenced in 105 of 260 episodes across 13 seasons (direct count from episode descriptions). ### Robert Dunfield and the Destruction of Oak Island URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/hunt/robert-dunfield-and-the-destruction-of-oak-island The Geologist Robert R. Dunfield was a petroleum geologist from Canoga Park, California, a graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles, and the operator of his own oil geology consulting business. He first learned of Oak Island at the age of eleven, reading an article in the Denver Post. That childhood fascination became a lifelong preoccupation. By his late thirties, Dunfield had accumulated enough professional experience in excavation and subsurface geology to believe he could solve what two centuries of treasure hunters had not. He was a registered geologist, California Certificate No. 1036, and later served as president of Hope Bay Mines Ltd., a company with silver and gold mining interests in the Northwest Territories and El Dorado County, California. He was not, as some accounts have suggested, a wealthy man from Beverly Hills. He had used the address of investor Jack Nethercutt's Beverly Hills home on some business documents, which created a misleading impression of personal wealth. The Restall Connection Dunfield arrived in Nova Scotia in July 1965, while Robert Restall was still conducting his search on Oak Island. He had invested money in the latter stage of Restall's operation, specifically to explore Restall's theories about the flood tunnel at Smith's Cove, and had corresponded with both Restall and island owner Melbourne R. Chappell. According to a September 1965 interview in the Edmonton Journal, Dunfield was with Restall just a few days before the August 17 tragedy that killed Restall, his son Robert Jr., Cyril Hiltz, and Karl Graeser. Within two weeks of the accident, Dunfield purchased the controlling interest in the treasure rights from Mildred Restall. Mrs. Restall, her surviving son, and daughter retained a small percentage. Three other investors held major shares: Jack Nethercutt of Beverly Hills, G.R. Laperle of Bakersfield, and Dan Blankenship of Miami, Florida. Dunfield held approximately 37 percent of the venture, which was initially budgeted at $35,000. [article:the-restall-tragedy] Preparations Dunfield began work in August 1965 by barging two bulldozers to the island. The machines skimmed twelve feet of soil off the drumlin where the Money Pit was located and pushed tons of clay onto the beach at Smith's Cove in an attempt to block the flood tunnel. This bulldozing exposed what observers agreed was some of the cribbing of the original Money Pit, but it did nothing to stop the inflow of water. Dunfield then turned to larger measures. In ten days in early October 1965, his crew built a causeway connecting Oak Island to Crandall's Point on the mainland. The structure was approximately 650 feet long (sources vary, with some reporting 700 feet), and newspaper accounts give conflicting figures for the fill required, ranging from 7,000 to 15,000 cubic yards. It was intended as a temporary, one-lane road of earth and stone, designed to carry the heavy crane that no available barge could support. Dunfield told reporters the causeway would come down and the channel would be deepened within three weeks. It never did. The causeway remains in use to this day. The first consequence of the causeway was hostility from local fishermen, who for two centuries had used the sheltered passage between Crandall's Point and Oak Island to reach the deeper waters of Mahone Bay. Dunfield had forced them into the open Atlantic, adding time and risk to every trip. A second, unintended consequence was a flood of tourists. Over a thousand people attempted to visit the island in the weeks following the causeway's completion on October 17, 1965, and had to be turned away for safety reasons. [map:causeway] The Excavation On October 18, Dunfield hauled a 70-ton crane across the causeway. The machine, rented from a steel firm in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, had a 90-foot boom and a clam bucket capable of removing approximately 800 cubic yards per hour. He did not go directly to the Money Pit. Instead, he ran two shifts of up to a dozen men at the south shore, where they excavated a trench 200 feet long and up to 20 feet deep, parallel to the shoreline, in an effort to cut off the underground water channels that had defeated every previous expedition. During this work, Dunfield's crew discovered a refilled shaft eight feet in diameter with no cribbing, which had no match in any existing record and was believed to predate the known search expeditions. By early November, the crane moved to the Money Pit itself. Dunfield began excavating a pit that eventually reached approximately 50 feet in diameter, with a plan to widen it to 100 feet. The first crane's month-long contract expired in early December, and it was replaced by an 80-ton machine from a Halifax firm, delivered by rail from Moncton, also equipped with a 90-foot boom. In his own 1976 account to author D'Arcy O'Connor, Dunfield described the equipment as a 2½ cubic yard P&H clam. Newspaper reports gave varying specifications, likely confusing the two different cranes. Progress was constant but battered by setbacks. Cables snapped, the water pump and generator broke down, rain caused the clay walls to slide, and working time averaged only 4.2 hours out of every 10. Melbourne Chappell later alleged that many of the crane's broken cables had been cut with hacksaws, and accused local fishermen of sabotaging the operation in retaliation for the causeway. Robert Dunfield II, the geologist's son, who was seven years old and living with the family in Chester during the operations, later recalled that "the Orton digger had been sabotaged" as well. Despite these difficulties, the excavation produced findings. Dunfield's crew uncovered pick marks on the clay walls of the Money Pit, confirming the exact location of the original shaft. They found old timbers and cribbing from previous expeditions, hand-hewn logs identified by provincial forestry official Lloyd Hawboldt of Truro as hemlock (a species not native to Oak Island), pieces of porcelain dishware at depth, evidence of what Dunfield called "fanwise drains," and tunnels he attributed to the Halifax Company's 19th-century operations. Foreman James Keizer, 32, of nearby Robinson's Corner, told the Globe and Mail that he had found 18th-century dishes buried under five feet of clay on the shore, and that Dunfield had discovered a large rock with the initials "DH" worn into it. Dunfield sold exclusive still-photo rights to Life magazine, and a closed-circuit television camera was lowered into the pit in early December, producing images that led to revised depth estimates. Robert Dunfield's sketch of the Oak Island drain system from July 25, 1965. The Christmas Cave-In By mid-December 1965, the pit had reached approximately 140 feet, approaching Dunfield's first objective of 155 feet. Then came the pivotal setback. According to Dunfield's account to United Press International on December 27, the crew had been "within 18 feet of our objective" when the crane operators refused to work on Christmas Day or Boxing Day. Dunfield warned them the hole would fill in. During the two-day pause, rain and sliding earth collapsed the walls. Sand and silt poured into the pit, reducing the depth from over 130 feet back to approximately 112 feet. The hole had to be cleared out three times as further slides continued. Robert Dunfield II later recalled this as one of the most stressful moments of his young life: his father "aged 10 years in only two years" on Oak Island. On January 3, 1966, Dunfield ordered the pit refilled with soft soil. The original Money Pit, the 1863 shaft, and the Chappell Shaft had all collapsed together, leaving a single 80-foot-wide opening at ground level. He shifted to a different approach. The Drilling Program In January 1966, Dunfield had a large oil-drilling rig hauled to the island and bored four six-inch-diameter holes to a depth of 140 feet (some sources say 190 feet). At approximately 139 to 141 feet, the drill broke through a hard layer into a cavity below. Dunfield described the hard layer as approximately two feet thick. Below it, the cavity extended to somewhere between 182 and 184 feet, where the drill struck what he identified as cast iron. The drill brought up roughly 1,000 pounds of material, which Dunfield described as either concrete or natural carbonate. He sent samples to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles for spectrographic analysis. A separate piece of metal was sent to a personal contact in Montreal for examination. Dunfield refused to reveal the USC results publicly, but according to author Lee Clarke, "when Dunfield saw them, he intensified the digging." The cavity Dunfield drilled into may have been the same one located in 1955 by Texas oil driller George J. Greene, who had pumped more than 100,000 gallons of water into it in an attempt to determine its nature. All the water seeped away. Dunfield told reporters he had found concrete-like material at the cavity level across an area of nine square feet. R.V. Harris, the Halifax barrister and author of The Oak Island Mystery, visited the island on February 27, 1966, and recorded notes from his meeting with Dunfield. Harris wrote that "drilling showed treasure chamber in four stories, 153 ft. down, gypsum walls," and that Dunfield was "looking for entrance to Treasure Chamber" somewhere on the island's surface. [map:money-pit] Secondary Excavations While the drilling continued, Dunfield also excavated the Cave-in Pit, reaching over 100 feet in depth. At 68 feet, his crew found old timbers, two with planking. Further digging to 52 feet in another direction produced no results, and the work stalled when a crane bucket became lodged at 68 feet. He also excavated a pit south of the stone triangle. On the south shore, he deepened the shaft he had discovered during the initial trenching, reaching 40 feet. After Dunfield's departure, Dan Blankenship and David Tobias would later deepen this same shaft to 90 feet, finding at 60 feet a hand-wrought nail and what appeared to be a very old washer. [map:cave-in-pit] Dunfield's Geological Assessment What sets Dunfield apart from most Oak Island operators is his professional geological analysis of the site. His conclusions, laid out across several letters in 1966 and 1976, represent the first systematic geological assessment of the Money Pit area by a trained earth scientist. Dunfield determined that Oak Island is a formation of glacial deposition, consisting of clay, till, and typical glacial material, overlying what he identified as the Windsor and Halifax geological formations. The clay, he noted, has a shear angle of nearly zero degrees, which is what allowed him to dig an open pit without catastrophic collapse of the walls, at least under dry conditions. At 140 feet, he encountered the Windsor Formation, a layer of hard limestone. Below the limestone lay the cavity, which he considered a natural feature consistent with limestone geology found throughout the world. His assessment of the flooding problem was direct and consequential: "Flood tunnels to the money pit are ruled out owing to the presence of the Windsor formation at 140 feet in depth," he wrote to R.V. Harris on November 7, 1966. "During our excavation of the money pit we noted no water (except surface drainage) entering above 140 feet." He concluded that the drainage system at Smith's Cove involved only a very short flood tunnel restricted to that immediate area, and that the so-called "cement" reported by earlier searchers was "nothing more than limestone." Dunfield's interpretation evolved during his time on the island. In February 1966 newspaper interviews, he described the gypsum he found as "primitive cement" used by whoever buried the treasure. By November 1966, he had reclassified it as a natural geological feature. By 1976, writing to D'Arcy O'Connor, he was emphatic: the cement was limestone, the cavity was natural, and the flood tunnels did not reach the Money Pit. He did not, however, dismiss the possibility of buried treasure. While he would have classified the deep cavity as natural, he acknowledged that "if something is buried on Oak Island, the limestone could have been a surprise to any depositors and used to their advantage." He pointed to specific items of wrought iron and wood recovered by Triton Alliance that had been "carefully dated and fall into the pirate era," calling them "man-made and foreign to glacial deposits." His final professional judgment was measured: "a preponderance of evidence suggests underground work done by men many years in the past." He also confirmed that the coconut fiber found on the island had been analyzed and identified as coir, the fibrous material between the coconut shell and outer husk, which was historically used as dunnage in early shipping. And he stated that the stone triangle was "definitely original," though he was uncertain about when the drilled rocks near it had been made. [article:the-natural-formation-theory] The Destruction The damage Dunfield inflicted on Oak Island was severe and, in several cases, irreversible. The twelve feet of soil removed from the Money Pit drumlin erased surface features that had survived since the original deposit. The finger drains at Smith's Cove were broken apart and buried. The drilled boulder nearest to the cove disappeared and was never recovered. The south shore trench, which widened during the rainy season, swallowed the stone triangle whole. Nova Scotia surveyor and historian William Crooker described Dunfield's work as "nuking the island" and argued that "a vast amount of visual history was lost." The Lunenburg Progress-Enterprise had predicted it in November 1965: "When the search is over Oak Island won't bear any geographical resemblance to the island that was." The Cave-in Pit was left a shapeless hole filled with water. The east end and south shore of the island were, by contemporary accounts, devastated. Chester's Municipal Council, joined by other Lunenburg County organizations, petitioned the Nova Scotia provincial government to declare Oak Island a national historic park and prevent Dunfield from returning. The government ultimately chose to acquire nearby Grave's Island instead. [article:oak-island-flood-tunnels-and-box-drains-the-water-trap] Departure and Aftermath Dunfield made one final attempt to redig the Money Pit in February 1966, announcing a plan to excavate a 100-foot-diameter pit to 184 feet. "If we can't make it this time, we will leave it to someone else," he told reporters. Rain and sliding earth defeated him again. In March 1966, he left for California, telling the press he was "not finished on Oak Island" and would return "when the weather is better" to investigate the beach sites. He never returned. His lease with Mel Chappell expired in August 1966. He negotiated to purchase the island with several associates but failed. In November 1966, he informed R.V. Harris that the lease had been awarded to David Tobias of Montreal, who asked Dunfield to serve as project manager. Dunfield accepted, but the arrangement produced no further fieldwork on his part. He remained a shareholder in Triton Alliance, the company Tobias and Dan Blankenship formed in 1969. Dunfield's total expenditure on the operation was $131,000, a figure he confirmed to D'Arcy O'Connor in 1976, correcting the $120,000 widely reported in newspapers. Dan Blankenship had invested approximately $21,000 in the 1965-66 effort. The initial budget of $35,000 had been exceeded by nearly four times. In 1975, nine years after leaving Oak Island, Dunfield was diagnosed with Lymphocytic Lymphoma. His oncologist gave him six months to live. He refused to accept the diagnosis, sought second opinions, and underwent intensive chemotherapy. He lived five more years, though his health declined steadily. His passion was flying, and he continued to pilot aircraft when well enough, but the FAA eventually revoked his license. Robert R. Dunfield died quietly in his sleep in September 1980, at the age of 54, from a heart attack. The cancer had spread to his blood and elsewhere in his body. His wife, Alene Dunfield, died in March 2000. Assessment Robert Dunfield's seven months on Oak Island remain among the most contentious chapters in its history. Randall Sullivan, writing in 2018, called him "the great malefactor of the Oak Island story." His son Robert Dunfield II, in a 2004 email exchange with D'Arcy O'Connor, argued that the characterization was unfair and that his father "was not the villain as previously described elsewhere." D'Arcy O'Connor, whose three books on Oak Island represent the most thorough published accounts, wrote that Dunfield deserved credit for rediscovering the site of the original Money Pit and for helping stem the flow of water from the south shore flood tunnel. The case for Dunfield rests on three contributions: he relocated the precise position of the Money Pit (verified by M.R. Chappell), he discovered the south shore flood tunnel, and he built the causeway that has served every subsequent expedition. He also produced the first geological survey of the site by a credentialed professional, identifying the Windsor Formation and challenging the assumption that man-made flood tunnels reached the Money Pit from distant beaches. His analysis of the coconut fiber and the stone triangle added verified data to the evidentiary record. The case against him is that these contributions came at a cost that cannot be recovered. The stone triangle, the finger drains, the drilled boulder, and the original surface topography of the Money Pit area are gone. Whether the information Dunfield gained was worth what was lost is a question the available evidence cannot settle. What the primary sources do establish is that Dunfield was neither the reckless opportunist of popular caricature nor the misunderstood hero his family believed him to be. He was a trained geologist who applied industrial methods to an archaeological problem, produced real data, and left real damage behind. [article:stone-triangle-the-oak-island-sextant] ### Dan Blankenship and Borehole 10-X URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/hunt/dan-blankenship-and-borehole-10-x Daniel Christian Blankenship was born in Ohio on May 23, 1923. He served in the United States Army during the Second World War, fighting through Europe in a campaign that left two friends dead on either side of him in Belgium. He came home, met Jane Cecilia Lablanovitz in New York, married her, and built a successful construction business in Miami, Florida. By 1965 he had just finished building a hospital in Palm Beach. He was forty-two years old, financially secure, and by every conventional measure a man who had made it. Then he picked up a copy of Reader's Digest. The Magazine Article The January 1965 issue of Reader's Digest carried an article condensed from The Rotarian magazine under the title "Oak Island's Mysterious 'Money Pit.'" The piece described the two-century-old treasure hunt on a small island off the coast of Nova Scotia: the discovery of the pit in 1795, the flooding, the coconut fiber, the inscribed stone, and the generations of searchers who had spent their fortunes trying to reach whatever lay at the bottom. Blankenship handed the article to Jane and told her to read it. Her response, as family friend David Eisnor would recount at Dan's funeral decades later, was brief: "So what?" Blankenship told her there was treasure on Oak Island, and that he was going to find it. Jane would later say, wistfully, how different her life might have been if she had never let Dan see that magazine. The same article would also be read by a thirteen-year-old boy in Iron Mountain, Michigan, named Rick Lagina, who insisted on reading it aloud to his ten-year-old brother Marty. And it would be read by a teenager in upstate New York named Dan Henskee, who would eventually follow Blankenship to Nova Scotia and spend the rest of his life there. One magazine article, three lives permanently altered.  [research:reader-s-digest-oak-island-s-mysterious-money-pit] Arrival on Oak Island Blankenship travelled to Nova Scotia shortly after reading the article. Robert Restall was running the treasure hunt at the time and was wary of newcomers, particularly those being shown around by the island's owner, Mel Chappell. Blankenship found himself standing in line behind another outsider: Robert Dunfield, a California geologist who had his own designs on the island. [article:robert-dunfield-and-the-destruction-of-oak-island] On August 17, 1965, Restall, his son Bobbie, worker Cyril Hiltz, and investor Karl Graeser died in a shaft near the Money Pit, overcome by underground gas. Within days, Dunfield took over operations under the Restall contract. Blankenship invested $21,000 in Dunfield's venture, becoming one of several limited partners. He would later describe Dunfield's heavy-equipment approach as going at it "the wrong way," but the investment was his only way in. Dunfield was gone within a year. Blankenship quickly persuaded Chappell that he was the right man for the job, and by 1967 he had assumed control of field operations on Oak Island. [article:the-restall-tragedy] The Split Life For the next seven years, Blankenship divided his existence between two countries. Winters were spent in Florida with Jane and their three children, working long days on construction projects. Summers were spent in Nova Scotia, living out of a motel in Western Shore, focused entirely on Oak Island. He was methodical in a way previous searchers had not been. He spent weeks in Halifax, working through the records at the Public Archives of Nova Scotia, most of them collected by Frederick Blair and R. V. Harris. He interviewed every surviving veteran of earlier expeditions he could find: Mel Chappell, Gilbert Hedden, Edwin Hamilton. He hired botanists and geologists to study Smith's Cove. He mapped the drainage system and laid out plans for a drilling program based on what he found. One of his earliest conclusions was that the oak platforms found in the Money Pit by the Onslow Company had been placed there not as markers but to reduce soil compaction over the centuries, so the surface would settle into a slight depression rather than a deep crater. If the original depositors had not intended to excavate back through those platforms, Blankenship reasoned, they must have had another way to reach the treasure. Finding that other way in became his driving purpose. But his construction business was suffering. Despite a company still netting six figures annually, by early 1967 the financial strain was becoming serious. It was at that moment that David Tobias entered his life. Triton Alliance David Tobias was a Montreal businessman who had first visited Oak Island in 1943 as a young Royal Canadian Air Force officer training at the Maitland, Nova Scotia, base. He had invested $20,000 in Robert Restall's project in 1963 and was looking for a new operator after the tragedy. In January 1967, Tobias joined Blankenship, Dunfield, and Fred Nolan in forming a syndicate for exploration. Two years later, Tobias and Blankenship formed Triton Alliance and purchased most of Oak Island for $125,000 through a consortium of approximately 49 investors. The shareholder list was impressive: Boston property developer Charles Brown, former Nova Scotia Attorney General Gordon Coles, former Toronto Stock Exchange president George Jennison, and Pentagon weapons systems designer Bill Parkins. Tobias served as president and CEO. Blankenship became field operations director, the man on the ground. In 1975, Blankenship persuaded Jane to leave Florida permanently. They rented a house in Mahone Bay for two years, then Dan acquired Lot 23 on Oak Island's west end, near the causeway, and built the bungalow where they would live for the rest of their lives together. Borehole 10-X In 1969, under Blankenship's direction, Triton began drilling what would become the deepest and most controversial shaft in Oak Island's history. Borehole 10-X was located on Lot 19, approximately 180 feet northeast of the Money Pit. The Bowmaster Drilling Company took it down to 230 feet under Blankenship's instructions, blowing compressed air down the hole to bring up material loosened by the drill. Thin metal scrapings that rapidly oxidized on exposure to air, lengths of old wire, and fragments of chain came up from between the 160 and 170 foot levels. The Steel Company of Canada analyzed the chain links as at least two hundred years old and the metal as a form of smelted steel of comparable age. Triton had the borehole widened to 27 inches and lined to bedrock with quarter-inch steel casing the following winter. At 155 feet the drill struck spruce wood and several small links of steel chain. The fifty feet through the anhydrite bedrock to a seven-foot-high cavity at the bottom remained unlined, but the hole was now large enough to admit an underwater camera. In August 1971, with assistance from the CBC in Halifax, a remote-controlled television camera was lowered into the cavity. Blankenship watched a monitor in a shed on the surface. What he and his assistant Dan Henskee and driller Parker Kennedy saw on the screen became one of the most debated moments in Oak Island history: what appeared to be a severed human hand floating in the water, rectangular shapes that resembled wooden chests covered in a layer of whitish anhydrite sediment, the upright handle of what looked like a pickaxe or large hammer, man-made timbers, and what appeared to be a partly preserved human body slumped against the cavern wall. The camera footage was recorded on tape, though its existence was not acknowledged publicly for over twenty years. The images were grainy, shot through murky water swirling with suspended particles. Clarke, who later viewed the original footage on a small monitor, could not make out the objects Blankenship described. Opinions have remained divided ever since. What no one disputed was that the camera had revealed a cavity at depth, connected by what appeared to be tunnels, in an area where no natural formation of that kind would be expected. More than ten dives were subsequently conducted into the cavern. Professional diver Phil Irwin of Atlantic Divers descended well below the 180-foot mark, where the force of the subterranean current nearly tore the helmet from his head and suspended particles reduced visibility to zero. Blankenship himself went down, but neither he nor any other diver was able to venture far from the narrow opening above their heads. The continuous pumping was eroding the soluble anhydrite bedrock, making each descent more dangerous than the last. [map:borehole-10x] Thirty-Five Seconds In November 1976, Blankenship was strapped to a seat and lowered into 10-X by his son David, who operated the winch at the surface. Dan was at the 140-foot level when he heard a noise from within the shaft and felt bits of clay falling on him. He looked up and saw the steel casing above his head beginning to buckle inward. He shouted into the telephone link to David. His son worked the winch as fast as it would go. It took thirty-five seconds to raise Dan from 145 feet to 95 feet, the point where the casing was collapsing. Moments after he passed that depth, the quarter-inch steel crumpled like cardboard as tons of soil and rock crashed against it from the surrounding earth. Had David been slower by even a few seconds, his father would have been buried alive 140 feet underground. When Dan reached the surface, he told his son: "For God's sake, don't tell your mother, David." He went back into 10-X the next day. Dave lowered him only 73 feet before Dan was standing on solid ground; that much debris had fallen into the shaft overnight. Blankenship drilled 22 feet down through the rubble until his bit caught on twisted, shredded steel where the casing had collapsed. He concluded that a man-made flood tunnel was passing close to 10-X at around 90 feet, and the continuous pumping had created a fault between the shaft and the tunnel that caused the collapse. He moved away from 10-X for a time, but he was not finished with it. By 1978 he was back, this time using railroad tank cars. After cutting off the ends with an acetylene torch, he had three solid steel cylinders, each 34 feet long and 8 feet in diameter, with half-inch walls twice the thickness of the original casing. The work of clearing the interior with jackhammers, loading broken rock into buckets, and driving the cylinders into the shaft took two full summers. Blankenship was by then more than sixty years old. His son Dave had left the island to work as a construction steelworker on the mainland. The bulk of the underground work fell to Dan Henskee, who by then had become Blankenship's indispensable partner, living in a shack that doubled as an equipment shed. [artifact:borehole-10-x-camera-images] The Partnership Dissolves The relationship between Blankenship and Tobias, which had been productive for more than two decades, deteriorated through the late 1980s and into the 1990s. The two men had fundamentally different temperaments: Blankenship was the man in the field, physically present on the island year-round, while Tobias managed operations from Montreal. As the years passed without a breakthrough, disagreements over strategy and money deepened into personal animosity. Blankenship resigned from the Triton Alliance board in 1994. In 1990 the two had formed Oak Island Exploration as a separate entity, but that partnership also fractured. By 2003, when journalist Steve Proctor of the Halifax Chronicle Herald interviewed Blankenship at length, the eighty-year-old treasure hunter was blunt about the state of affairs. He and Tobias together owned roughly 100 acres of the island and held 78 percent of Oak Island Tours, but they had not worked as a team in the better part of fifteen years. Tobias, quoted in the same newspaper, dismissed some of Blankenship's methods and conclusions, while Blankenship maintained that Tobias had never properly valued his decades of fieldwork. In July 2005, the Chronicle Herald ran a headline that seemed to mark the end of the story: "For Sale: One Money Pit." The subhead read: "Partners give up treasure hunt, put Oak Island Tours on market." Blankenship confirmed that he and Tobias had agreed to abandon their court claims against one another, liquidate Oak Island Tours, and put their share of the island on the market for $7 million. But he added a caveat: any sale would depend on the buyer and their reasons. He would not agree to a developer breaking the island into lots and building condominiums. "Money's not my god," he told the newspaper. "It never has been, and it isn't now." The Spanish Theory Blankenship held a consistent theory about what lay beneath Oak Island, and he never wavered from it across five decades. In his earliest known written statement, a document dated September 27, 1965 and now held in the D'Arcy O'Connor Fonds at the Public Archives of Nova Scotia, he wrote that Captain Kidd "knew the way to Nova Scotia" and speculated that the treasure "may have been Incas treasure." He referenced the story of Pizarro and noted that, as a Florida resident, he recognized the material found on the beach at Smith's Cove as coconut fiber. By 2003, his thinking had refined but not fundamentally changed. In the Chronicle Herald interview, he went public for the first time with his conclusion that the island was a repository for gold and silver left by Spanish forces in the mid-sixteenth century, and that the treasure could be recovered within seven months if he were granted a new treasure trove license. He cited a book detailing 1,500 years of mining experience in Spain, and suggested that surface features on the island were markers that mirrored something happening deep below. In a 2007 phone conversation recorded by D'Arcy O'Connor, Blankenship stated that he had had swamp stakes carbon-dated in the 1980s, at a cost of $300 per sample, and that the results came back to approximately 1550. He continued to argue the connection to the Spanish New World until the end of his life. [article:spanish-galleons-full-of-inca-gold] The Laginas Arrive Rick and Marty Lagina had been thinking about Oak Island since reading that same 1965 Reader's Digest article. In the early 1990s, the two brothers drove from Michigan to Nova Scotia to introduce themselves to their hero. They made it as far as the entrance to the causeway at Crandall's Point and stopped, afraid to drive any further. Jane Blankenship had told Rick over the phone that if he wanted to drive the nearly fourteen hundred miles from Iron Mountain, she could not stop him, but she had not exactly extended an invitation. They eventually crossed the causeway and found Dan himself clearing trees with a chainsaw. Rick went to work alongside him without a word. Marty had brought a bottle of whiskey. Both brothers agreed that they were barely past some opening small talk before Dan got a phone call and sent them on their way. It would be years before the relationship developed into a partnership. In 2006, the Laginas purchased a majority stake in Oak Island Tours. By the time O'Connor spoke with Blankenship in September 2007, Dan mentioned that "Marty and Rick" were waiting alongside him for the provincial minister to approve new treasure trove licenses. In 2014, the History Channel series The Curse of Oak Island premiered, and Blankenship, now in his early nineties, became the show's elder statesman: the living connection to a half-century of searching. The Price of the Search Jane Blankenship died in 2011. Their daughter Janet Kirby also predeceased Dan. His son David and daughter Linda survived him, along with four grandchildren, six great-grandchildren, and two great-great-grandchildren. Dan had admitted even in his later years that he brooded over the possibility that death would find him before he found the treasure. "What I find most frightening is the thought that what I know might die with me," he told Sullivan. The arrival of the Laginas gave him a repository for that knowledge, but he found little consolation in the process of sharing it. Sullivan, who spent time with Blankenship in both 2003 and 2016, observed that the passage of time and the death of his old rival Fred Nolan had deepened a melancholy in him. By 2016, Dan seemed certain he would be gone before the treasure hunt was finished. He was right. Daniel Christian Blankenship died peacefully of natural causes at the South Shore Regional Hospital in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, on March 17, 2019. He was ninety-five years old. Roughly 120 people attended his funeral at St. Mark's Anglican Church in Martin's Point. The service included a rendition of Frank Sinatra's "My Way." Assessment Dan Blankenship spent 54 years on Oak Island. He gave up a profitable construction business, moved his family to a foreign country, drilled the deepest shaft on the island, survived its collapse by seconds, formed and dissolved the largest treasure-hunting syndicate in Oak Island's history, and never recovered a single item of treasure. His contributions to the search were substantial. The Becker drilling program he and Tobias initiated in 1967, carried out by Canada Cement LaFarge, identified cement from below ground as a type common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and carbon-dated recovered wood to at least two and a half centuries old. The program established the existence of man-made tunnels at depths exceeding 200 feet. The 1969 cofferdam at Smith's Cove exposed the massive U-shaped structure of notched logs with Roman numerals that remains one of the island's most significant archaeological features. The camera footage from 10-X, whatever one makes of the images, proved that a cavity existed at 230 feet in a location where none should naturally occur. His limitations were equally real. The 10-X footage, for all the conviction Blankenship brought to its interpretation, was never confirmed by the more than ten dives that followed. His Spanish theory, held from 1965 to 2019, was based largely on personal conviction rather than documentary evidence. His falling out with Tobias cost both men decades of potential collaboration and nearly resulted in the island being sold to developers. The History Channel's official tribute at his death read: "It is with heavy hearts that we share the news of the passing of Daniel Blankenship. A true Oak Island legend. Dan was a respected and admired man. His perseverance, ingenuity and passion inspired all." Rick Lagina, on the first episode filmed after Blankenship's death, put it simply: "You can't have Oak Island without Dan Blankenship." He had a good contracting business in Florida, friends, and a good reputation. He gave it all up to come to Nova Scotia and make a gamble. The gamble did not pay off in the way he intended. Whether it paid off in other ways is a question the search he helped sustain may yet answer. Sources Primary documents: Statement of Daniel Blankenship, September 27, 1965. Earliest known written statement by Blankenship. Filed at the Public Archives of Nova Scotia (MG1 Vol. 383, p. 212, R.V. Harris Papers). Records his arrival on Oak Island, dismissal of Restall's work, glass-bottom boat survey, Cave-in Pit observations, Captain Kidd/Inca theory, and identification of Smith's Cove material as coconut fiber. Annotated in manuscript by Dunfield. D'Arcy O'Connor Fonds. Correspondence and phone interview notes spanning 1978 to 2007, including: letters between O'Connor and Blankenship (1978, 1988), O'Connor's phone notes (January 1988, November 2003, September 2007). Key material includes the 1988 legal advice on Blankenship's story rights independent of Triton Alliance, the 2003 interview documenting the Tobias falling out and Spanish theory, and the 2007 call recording the first mention of the Lagina brothers and carbon-dated swamp stakes (approximately 1550). Newspaper sources: Steve Proctor, "Treasure hunter says he's pieced together Oak Island puzzle," Halifax Chronicle Herald, December 29, 2003. First major published interview with Blankenship. Spanish theory, 10-X near-death, license dispute. Photo by Tim Krochak. Steve Proctor, "Rival treasure sleuth just wants a resolution," Halifax Chronicle Herald, December 29, 2003. Companion article. Fred Nolan interview. Tobias quoted dismissing Blankenship's methods. Nolan regrets publicizing the cross-shaped stones. "No news like Oak Island news (not!)," Gazette (Montreal), December 31, 2003. Editorial column on Blankenship's license renewal. "For Sale: One Money Pit," Halifax Chronicle Herald, July 2005. Partners agree to put Oak Island Tours on market for $7 million. Blankenship quoted on refusing developer sales. Obituary and funeral reporting: Daniel Christian "Dan" Blankenship obituary, Mahone Funeral Home, Mahone Bay, N.S. Born May 23, 1923, Ohio. Died March 17, 2019, South Shore Regional Hospital, Bridgewater, N.S. Age 95. Survived by son David (wife Garnette), daughter Linda. Aly Thomson (Canadian Press), "Famed N.S. treasure hunter brought about new era in Oak Island mystery," CBC News, March 26, 2019. Funeral reporting. David Eisnor eulogy. 120 attendees at St. Mark's Anglican Church, Martin's Point. Frank Sinatra's "My Way." "Dan Blankenship" memorial, Find a Grave (memorial 197634036). WWII service, family details, predeceased by wife Jane (2011), daughter Janet Kirby. Published books: Randall Sullivan, The Curse of Oak Island: The Story of the World's Longest Treasure Hunt (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2018). Principal narrative source. Sullivan met Blankenship in 2003 and 2016. Covers Reader's Digest origin, Dunfield investment, split life between Florida and Nova Scotia, Tobias partnership, 10-X drilling and camera footage, 1976 near-death, railroad tank car reconstruction, Henskee partnership, Tobias falling out, Lagina arrival. D'Arcy O'Connor, The Secret Treasure of Oak Island (Lyons Press, 2004; earlier editions as The Money Pit, 1978, and The Big Dig, 1988). Three editions spanning the Triton era. O'Connor had direct and sustained access to Blankenship from the mid-1970s onward. Mark Finnan, Oak Island Secrets (Formac Publishing, 1995; second edition 1997). Finn visited Oak Island in 1992-1994, met Blankenship, attended the March 1995 public showing of the enhanced 10-X tape at Western Shore firehall. Detailed account of 10-X camera footage, diver descents, 1976 shaft collapse, and the previously suppressed videotape. Lionel and Patricia Fanthorpe, The Oak Island Mystery: The Secret of the World's Greatest Treasure Hunt (Hounslow Press, 1994). Met Blankenship in 1988 and again in October 1993. Triton Alliance shareholder list. Reader's Digest origin. 10-X camera tape description. Graham Harris and Les MacPhie, Oak Island and Its Lost Treasure (Formac Publishing, third edition 2013). Engineering-focused account of Triton operations and underground structure. Dennis William Clarke, Oak Island Odyssey: A Detailed Analysis of the Oak Island Treasure Hunt (self-published, 2023). 10-X camera footage description from personal viewing of original tape on small monitor. Near-death chronology. Triton drilling program detail. U-shaped structure at Smith's Cove. Scientific and technical analysis: Steel Company of Canada (Stelco), analysis of metal fragments and chain links from Borehole 10-X, 160-170 foot depth. Identified as smelted steel and low-carbon wire, estimated pre-1750. Canada Cement LaFarge, analysis of cement from Becker drilling program (1967). Identified as type common in sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Bowmaster Drilling Company, drilling of Borehole 10-X to 230 feet under Blankenship's direction, 1969-1970. Parker Kennedy, driller (Halifax). Atlantic Divers Ltd. (Phil Irwin), Brooklyn, Nova Scotia. Professional dive into 10-X below 180-foot mark. Severe current, zero visibility from suspended particles. Bill Parkin, ground-penetrating sonar sensor, c. 1976. Detected previously unknown cavities in bedrock connected to or near 10-X. Television series: The Curse of Oak Island, Season 1, Episode 1: "What Lies Below" (History Channel, 2014). Introduction of Blankenship as elder statesman of the search. The Curse of Oak Island, Season 2, Episode 2: "Return to the Money Pit." Paul Troutman (son of Dunfield crew member), recap of Dunfield-era operations. The Curse of Oak Island, Season 2, Episode 9: "A Dangerous Dive." Diver descent into 10-X. The Curse of Oak Island, Season 3, Episode 5: "Disappearing Act." Rick and Marty reach impasse over continuing 10-X work. The Curse of Oak Island, Season 5, Episode 8: "Dan's Breakthrough." The Curse of Oak Island, Season 7, Episode 1: "The Torch Is Passed." First episode filmed after Blankenship's death. Rick Lagina: "You can't have Oak Island without Dan Blankenship."   ### David Tobias: The Business of Oak Island URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/hunt/david-tobias-the-business-of-oak-island David C. Tobias was born in Winnipeg around 1924. He graduated from Sir George Williams University in Montreal, served as a Royal Canadian Air Force officer in the Second World War, and spent most of his working life managing a packaging company he acquired out of bankruptcy in 1955. He made his money quietly. When Robyn Bryant profiled him for This Week in Business in April 1990, she asked him to describe himself. His answer, preserved as the headline quote, became the defining line of his public identity: "I'm not a fortune hunter." By then Tobias had spent an estimated $750,000 of his own money trying to solve the mystery of Oak Island, and the Montreal-based consortium he ran, Triton Alliance Ltd., had spent approximately $2 million more. He was sixty-five years old. He had been at it for twenty-seven years. He would continue for another sixteen. A Wartime Visit Tobias's first encounter with Oak Island came in 1943, during a leave from the RCAF. He was stationed at the Maitland, Nova Scotia, base as a young combat pilot in training. He had heard about the small island in Mahone Bay, the hole dug by three teenagers in 1795, the tunnels said to flood the shaft with seawater, the generations of failed expeditions. On a free day he drove the long road south to have a look. He left unimpressed. Why anyone had not simply dug up whatever was down there escaped him completely, he would say with a laugh sixty years later. The indifference held for twenty years. After the war he completed his degree at Sir George Williams, worked at various jobs in Montreal, and in 1955 took control of a bankrupt company that manufactured product identification items: tags, labels, and data processing products. The firm was Jonergin Co. Inc., headquartered at 110 River, Verdun, Quebec. Tobias rebuilt it. He opened plants in Ontario and Vermont, and over the following three decades grew Jonergin into a successful mid-sized manufacturer with operations on both sides of the border. The Restall Investment In 1963 Tobias read a newspaper article about a man named Robert Restall, a former carnival motorcycle stunt rider who had been digging on Oak Island since 1959 with his son Bobbie. The article renewed his curiosity. He travelled to Oak Island, met the Restalls, and arranged to become what he later described as "a small passive investor" in the venture, giving Restall $20,000 for a percentage of any treasure that might be recovered. Two years later, on August 17, 1965, Robert Restall, his son Bobbie, and two of their workers, Cyril Hiltz and Karl Graeser, died in a shaft near the Money Pit. Contemporary reports attributed the deaths to noxious gas from a small pump. The 1990 Bryant profile would later describe it as carbon monoxide poisoning. Tobias's $20,000 was gone, and within weeks the treasure hunt had passed to a California petroleum engineer named Robert Dunfield, who began tearing the island apart with heavy machinery under a new contract from the owner, Mel Chappell. For the next year Tobias watched from the outside. [article:the-restall-tragedy][article:robert-dunfield-and-the-destruction-of-oak-island] The Becker Program By the summer of 1966 Dunfield had given up and returned to California, leaving the island gouged and the Money Pit area filled in. Tobias moved quickly. He approached Mel Chappell in early 1967 with a specific proposal involving a Toronto company called Becker Drilling Ltd. Becker operated a new type of core sampling system: a drill pipe driven into the ground by a pile-driving hammer, with high-velocity compressed air forcing cuttings back up through the pipe in real time. The advantage over every earlier drilling method on Oak Island was that artifacts recovered from depth could be located with precision rather than churned up through hundreds of feet of uncontrolled borehole. Tobias offered to pay for the entire program personally, a commitment of $130,000, in exchange for two-thirds of any treasure recovered. Chappell agreed. Tobias's first confirmed correspondence with Dan Blankenship, the Florida building contractor who had been working on Oak Island since 1965, is dated October 5, 1966, and is addressed to "Mr. David Tobias, Jonergin Company Inc., 110 River, Verdun, Quebec, Canada." The two were already on first-name terms. Blankenship was writing to update Tobias on his dealings with Chappell and to propose a joint approach to the site. He closed with a request for a five percent share for his own backers, and signed it "Best wishes, Dan." The Becker program began in the spring of 1967 and ran for several months. To interpret the results, Tobias hired Colin Campbell, a Toronto consulting engineer considered one of Canada's leading authorities on underground workings. Campbell's August 22, 1967 report to Tobias concluded that the drilling had confirmed the existence of man-made workings well below the bedrock line. Core samples from the bedrock gypsum and limestone horizons at depths exceeding 200 feet produced wood, china, metal, cement, and clay putty. The Canada Cement LaFarge laboratory analyzed the cement as a type common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Carbon-14 analysis of the wood placed it around 1575, give or take eighty-five years. Campbell recommended that the next phase of the search should concentrate on the gypsum and limestone horizon below the Money Pit, to be reached by sinking a new shaft adjacent to it and then drilling laterally. The Becker program was the single most important scientific result of Tobias's entire involvement with Oak Island. It was the first time any search had produced laboratory-grade evidence that something man-made existed at extreme depth. Every treasure hunter who came after Tobias built on that foundation. Founding Triton Alliance By the end of 1967, Tobias, Blankenship, Dunfield, and surveyor Fred Nolan had formed an informal syndicate for exploration. Two years later Tobias formalized it into a Montreal-based private company, Triton Alliance Ltd., with himself as president and Blankenship as field operations director. The Financial Post of March 21, 1970 described Triton as a group of twenty-four Canadian and American investors prepared to commit up to half a million dollars. By 1990 the number had grown to forty-eight. The shareholder list was built on Tobias's business network. Boston property developer Charles Brown III. Former Nova Scotia deputy attorney general Gordon Coles. Past Toronto Stock Exchange president George Jennison. Toronto financier Donald Webster. Bill Sobey, honorary chairman of Sobeys Stores Ltd. Pentagon weapons systems designer Bill Parkin. Mel Chappell, the previous owner, joined as a director. In 1977 Tobias bought the majority of Oak Island's land from Chappell for $125,000, consolidating the ownership that had been split since the Restall era. For the next decade Triton operated on a simple division of labour. Tobias handled the money, the corporate structure, the investor relations, and the theories. Blankenship handled the field. The Montreal office was initially Tobias's own residence at 6200 Grande Allée in the suburb of St-Hubert. The corporate letterhead featured an oak-tree logo, still in use today, under the words "The Oak Island Exploration: A Project of Triton Alliance Ltd." [article:fred-nolan-the-oak-island-surveyor] The First Fifteen Years The 1970s were the closest thing to a productive partnership Tobias and Blankenship would ever have. In 1969 Triton built a four-hundred-foot cofferdam at Smith's Cove that exposed a massive U-shaped wooden structure below the low-tide line, with two-foot-thick logs up to sixty-five feet long, notched at four-foot intervals with Roman numerals. In the same year Blankenship drilled what would become Borehole 10-X. Between 1971 and 1972 a remote-controlled camera was lowered into the flooded cavity at the bottom, producing the disputed footage of what Blankenship described as chests, tools, timbers, and a severed human hand. Professional divers from Can Dive Services Ltd. of Vancouver descended in August 1971, and Blankenship made his own first dive on September 18, 1972. The two men corresponded constantly. Blankenship wrote detailed progress reports, now collected in a 193-page compilation by engineer Les MacPhie, across every season from 1966 to 1994. The letters read as a record of a close working relationship. In December 1975, after Blankenship had built a small house on Lot 23 on the island's west end, he wrote to Tobias to account for every dollar of the $2,000 Tobias had personally advanced him to finish the construction. Jane Blankenship had moved up from Florida. The cellar had been dug by hand. The furnace was in. "All of us are very happy and comfortable in our new home," Dan wrote, "and cannot thank you and M. R. [Mel Chappell] too much for your wonderful help and understanding." The most striking letter of the period is a handwritten note dated February 12, 1981. Blankenship, writing from Oak Island ahead of a trip to Montreal, told Tobias that after fifteen years of failure he had finally located what he called "the magical, mythical place called 'X'." He warned Tobias that the idea would seem insane. He also wrote, in a line that captured the texture of their partnership at its best: "the answer is not very much different than what you have advocated all along, except it is more massive than either of us could imagine." [article:dan-blankenship-and-borehole-10-x] Francis Bacon and Francis Drake Tobias was the Triton partner most interested in theories. Blankenship preferred to stay on the ground. Over the years Tobias cycled through most of the major candidates for what had been buried on Oak Island and by whom. His 1990 profile lists the catalogue he considered: a pirate's cache, Incan or Mayan or Aztec treasure, the crown jewels of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Huguenot riches, and the original manuscripts of Sir Francis Bacon that might prove Bacon had been the author of the plays attributed to William Shakespeare. [article:the-huguenot-treasure-vault-of-oak-island][article:william-shakespeare-the-lost-works][article:the-jewels-of-marie-antoinette] From the mid-1980s onward his attention settled on two Elizabethan figures. The first was Sir Francis Drake. When Peter C. Newman's Maclean's profile appeared on August 10, 1987, Tobias was publicly arguing that gold plundered by Drake in the sixteenth century might be buried on Oak Island, and predicting that recovering it would be the deepest and most expensive archaeological dig ever attempted in North America. The second was Francis Bacon himself. [article:sir-francis-drake-the-queen-s-privateer] The Bacon theory came to Tobias through a California esotericist named Betty McKaig, who had plotted the position of God's index finger on a Tycho Brahe star map and calculated that it pointed at Oak Island. McKaig flew to Montreal in the late 1980s to pitch Tobias. He was intrigued but not yet convinced. After McKaig died in 1991 of apparent mercury poisoning from her own alchemical experiments, Tobias opened an extensive correspondence with the Francis Bacon Foundation in Claremont, California, and the Francis Bacon Society in Surrey, England. Through those contacts he became interested in Joachim Gans, the Bohemian mining engineer brought across the Atlantic by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584, and in Thomas Bushell, the British mining engineer who had been Bacon's protégé and was said to have been entrusted with Bacon's "dearest secret." Tobias never produced a formal written theory tying these figures to Oak Island, but the Bacon-Drake axis dominated his thinking for the last twenty years of his life. [article:francis-bacon-s-secret-island] The Big Dig That Wasn't In 1985 Tobias sold the Canadian and U.S. operations of Jonergin Co. Inc. He was sixty-one years old. He announced that he intended to devote his time to managing his family investment company, Ilex Capital Corp., to piloting his Beechcraft aircraft, and to Oak Island. The Ilex offices were in Westmount, at Suite 150, 4 Westmount Square. A framed poster on the wall carried a quote attributed to Einstein: "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." A 1986 feasibility study, prepared by Ottawa engineer Bill Cox for Triton, concluded that sealing the flood system and exploring the Money Pit below bedrock would cost up to $8 million. Triton's partners had by then invested $1.25 million of their own money. They were not willing to go deeper. The only way forward, the board decided, was a public stock offering capable of raising the full amount. Only one director voted against the plan. Dan Blankenship wanted the money spent on completing 10-X instead. The Big Dig, as Tobias called it, was designed to the scale of the problem. Cox's plan called for an eighty-foot-diameter shaft sunk to 215 feet, lined with interlocking steel plates reinforced by concrete, surrounded by a $300,000 cofferdam at Smith's Cove and a $700,000 dam at the south shore. Any remaining flood tunnels would be sealed with cement grouting. By the time Cox completed the engineering document that would serve as the central piece in the stock prospectus, the cost estimate had risen to $10 million. In September 1987 Blankenship wrote Tobias a formal letter of objection. "Finally," it began, "I feel compelled to put my thoughts and feelings down regarding your recent memo on our meeting of Aug. 30, in Montreal." The two men had a great difference of opinion on how to proceed. Blankenship continued to believe, on the basis of the 1971 camera footage and Parkin's sonar, that 10-X was the backdoor to the treasure. Tobias did not. The board sided with Tobias. The prospectus went out to twenty Canadian and American underwriters in the winter of 1988, with a stated plan to begin the Big Dig the following June. The response was almost silent. Black Monday, the October 1987 crash, had made institutional investors cautious about anything speculative. Triton waited two years, then in 1990 took the project public on its own. In December 1989 it acquired ninety percent of a New York trading company called Northeast Capital Inc., renamed it Oak Island Exploration Co., and listed one million shares on the over-the-counter market as a Rule 144 stock. Tobias's son Norman, a director of the new company, told the Financial Post on February 5, 1990 that he expected no difficulty registering the shares. They sold fewer than one in ten. In 1991 Triton applied to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency for a $12 million loan guarantee, offering in exchange to create fifty jobs and the largest tourist attraction in Nova Scotia. The application was rejected as falling outside ACOA's guidelines. A follow-up request to the Nova Scotia Department of Tourism was rejected by minister Greg Kerr on the grounds that Oak Island was a treasure hunt, not a cultural asset. A federal application for tax incentives was turned down by Finance Minister Don Mazankowski. Tobias would later tell Sullivan he had been bitterly disappointed. [map:borehole-10x] The Partnership Fractures The failure of the Big Dig plan accelerated what was already a deteriorating relationship. Through the early 1990s Blankenship and Tobias disagreed on almost every major decision. Blankenship's funding from Triton had been cut to a subsistence budget of roughly $30,000 a year. He was drilling without pay and repairing equipment out of his own pocket. Tobias, operating from Westmount, was preoccupied with stock and lawsuit matters in Montreal. On April 30, 1994, Blankenship formally resigned as a director and officer of both Triton Alliance and Oak Island Exploration Co. He sent Tobias a three-and-a-half page letter dated May 16 detailing his reasons. Tobias did not reply until July 18, by fax. On August 11, 1994, Blankenship sent a public memo "To all Concerned," with carbon copies to David Tobias, Norman Tobias, Charles Brown III, Dick Nieman, and Bob Atkinson. The memo is a document of exhausted generosity. Blankenship itemized his health complaints: chest pain, shortness of breath, arthritis, bursitis in both shoulders from twenty years of drilling, rapid atrial fibrillation, migraine. He declined to blame Tobias personally. "Both, David and myself have been through many very trying and flustrating years," he wrote. "Perhaps history will treat us both kindly." He added: "I wish all of you to know that I do not blame David for any of the flustrations that have happened in the field. They were GOD's will, and I accept that." Then, in a postscript that cut through the public composure, he wrote: "And David said I was 'faint hearted'." The memo ran to two single-spaced typed pages. Its final line addressed twenty-five years of Blankenship's life: "25 years of my life could go down the tube." Mugar and the Hollywood Boys With Blankenship off the Triton board, Tobias began exploring new partnerships. The most consequential of them involved David Mugar, a Boston businessman best known as the founder of the Boston Pops Fourth of July concert. Mugar's pitch was ambitious. He and his partner Don Glazer would handle the media rights for the Oak Island project through a new company called Oak Island Discoveries. Mugar would commission the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to conduct a thorough scientific survey of the island, which could then be used to attract Hollywood financing for the Big Dig. In exchange, Oak Island Discoveries would receive a significant share of any resulting media revenues. Tobias was cautious from the outset. In an April 27, 1995 letter to his Montreal lawyer Simon V. Potter of Ogilvy Renault, he wrote that any agreement "should be conditional upon the raising of the necessary total finances for the project in order that we not be vulnerable or swallowed up." The contracts were eventually signed with significant alterations inserted by Bob Atkinson on the Triton side. Woods Hole scientists made their first visit to Oak Island on March 29 to 31, 1995, taking field samples for analysis and carbon dating. The relationship began to deteriorate almost immediately. On the Woods Hole return visit of July 21, 1995, Mugar phoned Tobias in Switzerland and asked Atkinson to sign what Mugar represented as a Woods Hole confidentiality agreement. Atkinson did, after adding his own alterations, and also obtained the signature of Steve Curcuru on behalf of the Mugar/Glazer side. Tobias later came to believe the document had never been a Woods Hole contract at all, but one originating from Mugar's own Oak Island Discoveries. From that point forward, Mugar and Glazer gave a series of excuses for the absence of any feedback from the Woods Hole field tests. Mugar blamed Woods Hole; Tobias later concluded Mugar had been blocking the feedback himself. Meanwhile Mugar's lawyer Ed Benjamin never responded to Potter's letter confirming that Mugar/Glazer would begin paying Triton $10,000 per month from October 1, 1995. No payments were ever made. On October 18, 1995, Mugar placed a conference call to the entire Triton group and announced he no longer wanted to pursue the Oak Island project. Just before Christmas he contacted Tobias again, sent a new confidentiality agreement, and asked to resume discussions. Tobias recognized the new document as the same one originally presented to Atkinson at the start of the Woods Hole work. On February 7, 1996, Mugar called Tobias in San Francisco and asked why the contracts had not been signed and returned. Tobias said he was waiting for his lawyer. Mugar asked, in Tobias's words, "why I was involving our lawyer (can you believe it?)." On February 13, 1996, Tobias wrote a three-page private memorandum summarizing the entire Mugar episode for Potter. The memorandum, preserved in the O'Connor archive, is the closest thing to a Tobias autobiography that survives. He concluded that "all the transactions of the past year have been contrived to reach a very non-equitable and predaceous conclusion at our expense, trying to create leverage to enhance their position." Under a heading marked Second Thoughts, he admitted a painful error: "I'm afraid I was too open in my contacts with the Mugar Group so that they are probably aware of our financial situation." One line from the memorandum, written in Tobias's accountant's prose, captures the bitterness better than any summary could. Referring to the information Triton had provided to Woods Hole to enable the field tests, he wrote that his group had supplied "97% of the information which enabled Woods Hole to proceed with field tests." Steve Curcuru, on the Mugar side, had put the figure at ninety-five percent. In Tobias's view the difference was immaterial. What mattered was the principle. The Mugar deal ended in the spring of 1996. The Woods Hole report, when it eventually arrived, concluded only that the evidence for man-made works on Oak Island was inconclusive and recommended another $700,000 to $1 million in further testing. Tobias had spent $80,000 for an inconclusive summary. Blankenship, on hearing the result, was reported by Sullivan to have gloated. The Final Sale The common enemy briefly reconciled the two old partners. Blankenship and Tobias worked together against Mugar in 1995 and 1996, then drifted apart again. Through the late 1990s and early 2000s their relationship settled into a pattern of mutual obstruction. Each blocked the other's treasure trove license renewals. Each accused the other of planting a January 2003 newspaper rumour that Oak Island Tours intended to sell the island for $7 million. In 2004 Tobias announced plans to raise $15 million for a new excavation. Nothing came of it. In July 2005 the Halifax Chronicle Herald ran the headline "For Sale: One Money Pit," with the subhead "Partners give up treasure hunt, put Oak Island Tours on market." Blankenship, the only partner quoted in the article, confirmed that he and Tobias had agreed to abandon their court claims against one another, liquidate Oak Island Tours, and list their 78 percent share of the island at $7 million. The sale did not happen in the form either man had expected. In March 2004, an advertisement for one of Tobias's Oak Island lots appeared in Islands magazine. Two Michigan brothers, Rick and Marty Lagina, saw it. They had been following Oak Island since reading the same 1965 Reader's Digest article that had drawn Blankenship in. In 2005, through a company called Center Road Developments, they purchased Lot 25 from Tobias for a reported $230,000, then spent the following year negotiating to acquire the remainder of Tobias's holdings. In April 2006 it was announced that the Laginas, with partners Craig Tester and Allan Kostrzewa, had purchased fifty percent of Oak Island Tours from Tobias for an undisclosed sum. The remaining fifty percent stayed with Blankenship. Tobias was eighty-two years old. His own health was failing, though not as publicly as Blankenship's. He kept Lot 25 out of sentiment only briefly before transferring it. The transaction that finally closed the Triton era took less time than any of the lawsuits that had preceded it. Death in Montreal David Tobias died in Montreal in 2012. He had been eighty-three at the time of the Lagina purchase, and Sullivan, who by then was researching the book that would become The Curse of Oak Island: The Story of the World's Longest Treasure Hunt, described him in that period as on his last legs. Tobias's son Norman, who had been a director of Oak Island Exploration Co. since 1990, survived him. Tobias did not live to see The Curse of Oak Island premiere on the History Channel in January 2014. He did not see Rick and Marty Lagina become the public face of Oak Island, or the 10-X chamber re-entered by professional diver John Chatterton, or the U-shaped structure his 1969 cofferdam had exposed become the subject of seven seasons of excavation. The show dedicated no episode to him. His name appears in early seasons only when other characters mention him in passing, usually in the context of Blankenship's memories. Assessment David C. Tobias spent forty-nine years on Oak Island. He never picked up a shovel. He personally invested an estimated $750,000 or more of his own money, underwrote a corporate structure that raised and spent several million more, and kept the Oak Island treasure hunt continuously funded from the death of Robert Restall in 1965 to the arrival of the Lagina brothers in 2006. Without Tobias, there would have been no bridge between the two eras. The decades of activity documented on the show would have had nothing to build on. His contributions to what is actually known about Oak Island are concentrated in the years 1967 to 1971. The Becker drilling program, which he proposed, funded, and staffed, produced the first laboratory-grade evidence that man-made workings existed below 200 feet. The Smith's Cove cofferdam of 1969 exposed the U-shaped structure that remains the single most impressive archaeological feature recovered from the island. The 1971 camera footage from 10-X, whatever one concludes about the images Blankenship identified, confirmed the existence of a cavity at 230 feet in a location where none should occur naturally. All three of those were Tobias's projects in the financial sense that matters, and all three remain foundational to the modern investigation. His limitations were equally clear. The Big Dig strategy of 1986 to 1990 was premised on the assumption that a detailed engineering plan and a respectable investor roster would attract capital. The Black Monday market conditions and the inherent speculative character of the project made that assumption wrong. The Mugar episode of 1995 to 1996 showed that his dealmaking instinct was not immune to the pressure of diminishing resources. His extended theories about Sir Francis Drake and Francis Bacon were speculative at best and unsupported by any primary document Tobias was ever able to produce. His falling out with Blankenship cost both men most of the productive years they had left. The 1990 Bryant profile closed with a quote Tobias had mounted on his Westmount office wall, attributed to Albert Einstein: "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." It is the only surviving piece of writing in which Tobias indicated how he wished to be remembered. Whether the treasure ever existed, and whether Tobias's long obsession will be vindicated by anything the Laginas or their successors eventually recover, is a question the search he helped sustain may yet answer. Blankenship's own verdict, written in the margin of the August 11, 1994 memo that ended their formal partnership, may be closer to what Tobias himself would have accepted. "Perhaps history will treat us both kindly," he had said. Sources Primary documents: Periodic Reports by Dan Blankenship on Oak Island Activities, 1965 to 1994. Compiled and annotated by Les MacPhie, Revision 1 May 2014. 193 pages. 77 reports including at least ten letters addressed directly to David Tobias. Key letters used in this article: October 5, 1966 (the first Blankenship-to-Tobias letter on record, establishing their working relationship prior to the official 1967 Becker deal); September 12, 1967 (negotiating the Becker Drilling contract); August 28 and October 17, 1972 (Can Dive Services diving operations in 10-X); December 17, 1975 (Blankenship's acknowledgement of Tobias's $2,000 personal loan for the Oak Island house); February 12, 1981 (Blankenship's handwritten note describing his breakthrough theory); September 17, 1987 (Blankenship's formal objection to the Big Dig plan); May 24, 1988 (Blankenship's historical summary of 10-X for Tobias); July 7, 1993 (handwritten letter to Bob Atkinson and Tobias on the Money Pit boreholes, transcribed by MacPhie July 18, 2007); August 11, 1994 (Blankenship's public resignation memo). Recap on David Mugar, memorandum from David C. Tobias to Simon V. Potter, Esq., Ogilvy Renault, Montreal, dated February 13, 1996. Three pages, marked "TOBIAS' NOTES RE MUGAR!" in the archival annotation. The single most detailed Tobias-perspective document of the Woods Hole / Oak Island Discoveries episode. Letter from David C. Tobias to Simon V. Potter, April 27, 1995, Re: MUGAR/GLAZER DRAFT AGREEMENT. Oak Island Exploration Company letterhead, 30 Forden Avenue, Montreal. Includes Tobias's initial and final reactions to the proposed contracts. Letter from Green Parish Barristers and Solicitors (Victoria Steeves) to David Tobias, April 8, 1998, covering a draft confirmation letter from Oak Island Tours Inc. to Oak Island Exploration Co. Letter from David C. Tobias, president of Oak Island Tours Inc., to Oak Island Exploration Co., April 13, 1998, confirming the latter's access to all lots on Oak Island exclusive of lots 23, 5, and 9 through 14. Establishes the 1998 corporate structure. The Discovery Begins, undated promotional document, c. 1995. Prepared during the Mugar / Oak Island Discoveries period. Describes the Money Pit as comparable in complexity to the inner workings of the pyramids and requiring approximately 100,000 man-hours to construct. D'Arcy O'Connor Fonds, Public Archives of Nova Scotia. Correspondence and phone interview notes with Tobias and Blankenship spanning the mid-1970s to 2007. Colin Campbell, consulting engineer, report to David Tobias on the Becker drilling program, dated August 22, 1967. Newspaper and magazine sources: Robyn Bryant, "Montrealer Tobias heads Oak Island treasure hunt," This Week in Business, April 7, 1990, page 5. Profile photograph by James Sebert. The most detailed single published account of Tobias's biography, including his Winnipeg birth, Sir George Williams degree, 1955 Jonergin acquisition, Ontario and Vermont plants, 1985 sale, and Westmount office Einstein poster. Accompanying sidebar: "Triton ready to raise funds for final assault on treasure." Norman Tobias quoted in the Financial Post, February 5, 1990, on the Oak Island Exploration Co. share issue. Financial Post, March 21, 1970, on the original Triton Alliance shareholder structure. Peter C. Newman, "The Mystery of Oak Island," Maclean's, August 10, 1987. Tobias quoted on the Drake theory and on the projected cost of the Big Dig. Douglas Preston, "Death Trap Defies Treasure Seekers for Two Centuries," Smithsonian Magazine, June 1988. Steve Proctor, "Treasure hunter says he's pieced together Oak Island puzzle," Halifax Chronicle Herald, December 29, 2003. Blankenship-focused. Companion piece the same day: "Rival treasure sleuth just wants a resolution," featuring Fred Nolan and a Tobias quote dismissing Blankenship's methods. "No news like Oak Island news (not!)," Gazette (Montreal), December 31, 2003. "For Sale: One Money Pit," Halifax Chronicle Herald, July 2005. Published books: Randall Sullivan, The Curse of Oak Island: The Story of the World's Longest Treasure Hunt (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2018). Principal secondary source. Sullivan conducted extended interviews with both Tobias and Blankenship in 2003. Confirmed Tobias's death year as 2012 and his age of eighty-three during the 2006 Lagina purchase. D'Arcy O'Connor, The Secret Treasure of Oak Island (Lyons Press, 2004; earlier editions as The Money Pit, 1978, and The Big Dig, 1988). O'Connor was a former Wall Street Journal reporter who maintained direct contact with Tobias from the mid-1970s onward. Mark Finnan, Oak Island Secrets (Formac Publishing, second edition 1997). Includes detailed coverage of the 1988-1992 period, the Norman Tobias quote, the ACOA rejection, and the 1990 NASDAQ listing. Lionel and Patricia Fanthorpe, The Oak Island Mystery: The Secret of the World's Greatest Treasure Hunt (Hounslow Press, 1994). Triton Alliance shareholder list and original Campbell engineering conclusions. Graham Harris and Les MacPhie, Oak Island and Its Lost Treasure (Formac Publishing, third edition 2013). Engineering-focused account of the Triton period. Dennis William Clarke, Oak Island Odyssey: A Detailed Analysis of the Oak Island Treasure Hunt (self-published, 2023). Contains Clarke's firsthand observation of the 1971 10-X camera footage on an original monitor. Lee Lamb, Oak Island Family: The Restall Hunt for Buried Treasure (Dundurn, 2012). The Restall family perspective on Tobias's 1963 investment, and a timeline confirming Tobias as co-operator from 1969 to 2006. Scientific and technical analysis: Becker Drilling Ltd., Calgary. Deep core sampling program on Oak Island, 1967, funded by David Tobias at $130,000. Established presence of wood, china, metal, cement, and clay putty in bedrock horizons below 200 feet. Canada Cement LaFarge, analysis of cement recovered by the Becker program, 1967. Identified as a type common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Carbon-14 dating of Becker wood samples: approximately 1575, plus or minus eighty-five years. Huntec Limited, seismic and geophysical testing concurrent with Becker program, 1967. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, field survey of Oak Island, March 29 to 31 and July 21 onwards, 1995. Bathymetry, groundwater, side-scan sonar, and seismic tests at Smith's Cove, 10-X, and the Money Pit area. Report commissioned and paid for by Triton Alliance at $80,000. Bill Parkin (Pentagon weapons systems designer and Triton shareholder), ground-penetrating sonar sensor deployed in 10-X from approximately 1976. Television series: The Curse of Oak Island: Drilling Down, Season 1, Episode 4. Dan Blankenship discusses his first meeting with Tobias and the early Triton years. ### Equipment and Technology on Oak Island URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/hunt/equipment-and-technology-on-oak-island In 1795, Daniel McGinnis, John Smith, and Anthony Vaughan dug with hand tools and stopped at 30 feet. In 1849, the Truro Company lowered a pot auger into the Money Pit and brought up fragments of oak, coconut fiber, and what they described as "metal in pieces." In 2025, a 135-ton telescoping drill rig operated by Soletanche Bachy Canada and ROC Equipment ground through anhydrite bedrock at 212 feet and kept going. The Oak Island treasure hunt has always been defined as much by its machinery as by its mystery, with each generation of equipment pushing deeper into ground that has defeated every previous attempt. Metal Detection Metal detection expert Gary Drayton joined the Oak Island team in Season 2 and has appeared in nearly every episode since, making him the most consistent field presence in the search. His primary instrument is the Minelab CTX 3030, a professional-grade detector equipped with interchangeable coils ranging from a 6-inch unit for tight spaces to a 17-inch oval coil for deeper penetration. Drayton pairs the CTX 3030 with a Minelab PRO-FIND 25 pinpointer for precise target isolation once a signal has been identified. The CTX 3030's built-in GPS allows every find to be logged with exact coordinates, creating a searchable map of artifact distribution across the island. For fine gold detection in excavated soil, the team uses a Minelab SDC 2300, a compact pulse-induction detector designed for heavily mineralized ground. Spoils removed from Money Pit boreholes are spread on tarps and scanned with the SDC 2300 to catch small metallic fragments that larger detectors might miss. The island's beaches are covered in iron pyrite, but the pulse-induction technology is unaffected by this mineral interference. In Season 8, the team introduced the OKM eXp 6000 Professional Plus, a 3D ground scanner capable of creating subsurface imaging maps that distinguish between different metal types and geological features. Supplied through KellyCo Metal Detectors, the eXp 6000 has been deployed in seven episodes across Seasons 8 through 12, primarily to survey areas where conventional detectors lack the depth to reach targets of interest. Earlier in the search, the team used a Deepmax X6 unit, a deep-seeking detection system acquired from KellyCo that produced strong nonferrous readings in the swamp during Seasons 1 and 2. The Deepmax X6 was fitted with a large frame coil mounted to a sled for systematic grid scanning across the frozen swamp surface in winter conditions. Drilling Core drilling is the primary method for probing the Money Pit at depths beyond the reach of excavation equipment. Choice Drilling, a Nova Scotia-based company, has provided sonic drilling rigs to the team since Season 6. The sonic rig uses high-frequency vibrations to pulverize subsurface obstacles and extract intact core samples from depths of up to 500 feet. Choice Drilling foreman Brennan has operated the rig across nine episodes, working alongside geologist Terry Matheson to position boreholes based on seismic data and historical shaft maps. The cores are examined on-site as they are extracted, with each section catalogued for depth, material composition, and any artifacts present. In Season 7, Choice Drilling assembled a 20-ton floating barge composed of four ten-by-twenty-foot sections to support a five-ton sonic drill rig in the swamp, where solid ground does not exist. RMI Marine Limited assisted with the barge construction. From this platform, the team drilled into the "ship anomaly" identified by earlier remote sensing, extracting cores from multiple locations at depths of up to 57 feet below the swamp surface. Logan Drilling appeared in Season 3, with drillers Harold Fraser and Jason Pike operating a coring rig on the western side of the island, where compacted slate bedrock meant that any void encountered would almost certainly be man-made rather than natural. Well driller Jordan Rogers has also appeared across multiple seasons, operating conventional drilling rigs for exploratory boreholes in locations suggested by researchers and historical maps. The Oscillator and Caisson System The casing oscillator, supplied by ROC Equipment of Salt Lake City, is the largest and most distinctive piece of machinery on Oak Island. The oscillator twists toothed steel caissons into the earth, creating shafts wide enough for systematic excavation of underground material. In Season 4, ROC used a smaller oscillator weighing approximately 64,000 pounds. By Season 7, a custom-built unit weighing 110,000 pounds had replaced it, capable of driving eight-foot-wide caissons to depths exceeding 200 feet. ROC Equipment CEO Lou Lucido initially ignored phone calls from the Oak Island production team, finding the idea of chasing buried treasure outside his company's normal operations. After conducting research into previous drilling attempts on the island, Lucido committed ROC to the project, drawn by a challenge that aligned with the company's expertise in straight-shaft drilling. Previous attempts on Oak Island had routinely produced shafts that deviated as much as 40 feet from plumb at depth, a problem ROC's oscillator technology was specifically designed to solve. Vanessa Lucido, CEO of ROC Equipment, has been a regular presence on Oak Island since Season 6, appearing in 26 episodes to oversee caisson operations and advise the team on drilling strategy. Material excavated from inside the caissons is removed by a hammer grab, a long cylinder with metal jaws at its base that is lowered by crane and closed around soil, rock, and debris. The hammer grab has featured in 38 episodes, and the process of examining each load of spoils as it surfaces has produced many of the search's most significant artifact recoveries. In Seasons 12 and 13, ROC partnered with Soletanche Bachy Canada, a geotechnical engineering firm, to deploy a telescoping caisson method. Adam Embleton of Soletanche Bachy outlined the approach: an 8.5-foot-diameter caisson for the first 130 feet, narrowing to seven feet for the remaining depth to reach 230 feet. The operation replaced the hammer grab with a giant auger bit mounted on a 135-ton rotary drill rig, capable of grinding through the dense gypsum and anhydrite that had slowed previous seasons. Once the auger reached the solution channel, a dig bucket with rock teeth replaced it to safely extract spoils without damaging potential artifacts. Heavy Machinery and Site Operations Irving Equipment Limited, based in St. John, New Brunswick, has supplied cranes and heavy lifting capacity to Oak Island since Season 4, appearing in 44 episodes. The company's largest crane on the island has a lifting capacity of 500,000 pounds, used to position and drive the caissons during oscillator operations. Irving project manager Mike Jardine has coordinated logistics across multiple seasons, including the construction of the 525-foot steel cofferdam at Smith's Cove in Season 6, where Irving crews drove 117 interlocking steel sheet pilings some 25 feet into the seabed to create a dry excavation area. Heavy equipment operator Billy Gerhardt is the most frequently seen operator on the island, appearing in 103 episodes from Season 5 onward. Gerhardt operates excavators and backhoes for everything from road construction and swamp drainage to trench excavation and artifact recovery. The team has used Volvo EC200E and ECR145E medium crawler excavators, supplied by equipment dealer Strongco, for excavation and cleanup work. The ECR145E, a zero-tail-swing model, proved particularly useful in tight spaces around active dig sites. Brycon Construction assisted with early infrastructure work in Seasons 4 and 6, including cofferdam preparation and access road construction. Kent Homes, an affiliate of Irving Equipment, donated a prefabricated building in Season 6 to serve as a dedicated research center on the island. The wash plant, a 50-ton industrial unit acquired in Season 6 from Rhodes Corner Quarry near Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, processes excavated material through a hopper, conveyor belt, grizzly bars, and dual shaker decks with spray nozzles. The system sorts and cleans material by size, allowing the team to identify artifacts that would be invisible in raw spoils. Billy Gerhardt demonstrated the machine before purchase, and it has been in continuous use since, processing material from caisson operations, swamp excavation, and surface digs across 18 episodes. Remote Sensing and Geophysics Eagle Canada, a geophysical survey company based in Calgary, Alberta, conducted seismic imaging of the Money Pit area beginning in Season 6. Geophysicist Jeremy Church led the survey, which used controlled energy pulses to map underground density variations and identify anomalies. The data revealed a 13-by-13-foot feature at the center of the Money Pit area at a depth of 160 feet, dubbed the "Teardrop," along with numerous smaller disturbances consistent with the dozens of searcher tunnels dug over the previous two centuries. Church's seismic data informed drilling decisions across 23 episodes and multiple seasons. Ground-penetrating radar has been deployed in 13 episodes, beginning in Season 2 when Canadian Seabed Research brought a MALA rough terrain antenna system to the swamp. GPR sends electromagnetic pulses through the earth to detect structures, objects, and voids at depths of up to 30 feet. Unlike metal detectors, GPR can identify stone structures and wooden objects. The technology was later used to survey Samuel Ball's former property on Lot 6, where it detected underground wall features and anomalies near the foundations of Ball's home. LIDAR scanning, which fires laser pulses and measures the reflected light to create three-dimensional surface models, was introduced in Season 6 and used to map terrain features across the island that are invisible at ground level. The technology revealed subtle depressions, alignments, and ground disturbances that directed subsequent excavation. In Season 9, Ideon Technologies of Vancouver brought muon tomography to Oak Island, a technique that detects naturally occurring subatomic particles called muons as they pass through underground material. Density variations in rock and soil alter the muon trajectories, allowing the system to map voids and structures at great depth. The same technology detected an unknown chamber inside the Great Pyramid of Giza in 2017. Gary Agnew, Doug Schouten, Kim Lawrence, and Max Howarth of Ideon placed 14 sensors in five boreholes at depths between 80 and 250 feet. The sensors remained in place for nearly two years before Howarth and Schouten delivered results in Season 11, identifying density anomalies that guided the team's subsequent drilling targets. Laboratory Analysis X-ray fluorescence analysis, performed with a handheld XRF gun, has become a standard field tool since Season 8, appearing in 40 episodes. The device fires X-rays at an artifact and reads the elemental composition of the returned fluorescence, identifying metals such as gold, silver, copper, lead, and iron within seconds. On Oak Island, XRF analysis has been used to confirm the composition of coins, buttons, fragments of worked metal, and soil samples without destroying or altering the artifact. More detailed laboratory work is conducted off-island. Carbon-14 dating has been applied to wood, fiber, and organic material recovered from boreholes and excavations throughout the search. Dendrochronology, the analysis of tree ring patterns, has supplemented radiocarbon results where wood samples are large enough. Mass spectrometry and spectrographic analysis have been used to date metal artifacts and identify alloy compositions, including the brass fragments from deep boreholes that were shown to contain high levels of impurities consistent with early smelting techniques. Marine and Dive Operations The steel cofferdam at Smith's Cove, constructed by Irving Equipment in Season 6, is one of the largest single structures ever built on Oak Island. The 525-foot wall of interlocking sheet pilings created a dry enclosure around the cove, allowing the team to excavate the area where the original box drains and flood tunnel entrances are believed to exist. Earlier seasons used a water-filled bladder system as a smaller-scale cofferdam, but the steel version provided far greater stability and permitted deeper excavation. Divetech Limited conducted remotely operated vehicle operations in deep boreholes, lowering camera-equipped ROVs into flooded shafts to conduct sonar scans and visual inspections at depths inaccessible to divers. In Season 3, safety diver John Tapper assessed the challenges of a 235-foot descent into Borehole 10-X, recommending trimix breathing systems to manage nitrogen narcosis below 100 feet. Professional diver Harvey, working with diving partner Michael, ultimately reached approximately 204 feet inside 10-X before encountering an impassable drill bar in zero-visibility conditions. Canadian Seabed Research deployed side-scan sonar off Oak Island's south shore, discovering triangular rock formations on the seabed that appeared to align with the stone triangle first identified by Frederick Blair on the island's south shore in 1897. Marine archaeologist Rod Peterson conducted follow-up dives to examine the formations at roughly 20 feet of depth. Historical Equipment The tools used in the first century of the Oak Island search were crude by comparison but no less ambitious. The Truro Company's pot auger, deployed in 1849, was the instrument that produced the first physical evidence from deep inside the Money Pit: fragments of oak, spruce, coconut fiber, and what the operators described as "metal in pieces" at depths exceeding 100 feet. The auger also brought up a small piece of sheepskin parchment bearing the letters "vi" or "wi" in India ink, one of the most frequently cited finds in the island's history. The Onslow Company, which conducted the first organized excavation in 1803 or 1804, used manual labor and horse-drawn equipment. By the mid-19th century, searchers had introduced pump engines to combat the flooding that defeated every attempt to reach the bottom of the Money Pit; the first recorded death on the island occurred in 1861 when a pump engine boiler burst during an Oak Island Association operation. In the 1960s and 1970s, Dan Blankenship and the Triton Alliance brought industrial drilling to the island for the first time. Parker Kennedy of Halifax, described by Blankenship as "the best damn driller I've ever had on the island," operated a churn drill that bored a 27-inch hole through bedrock to 235 feet at Borehole 10-X. A quarter-inch-thick steel casing was driven down to 180 feet, with the remaining 55 feet left with natural anhydrite walls. The Becker drill, used during the same era, brought up fragments of china, cement, wood, charcoal, brass with high impurity levels, and oak buds from blue clay at 170 feet, material that geologists said could only have been placed there by human activity. An unusual footnote in the equipment history involves Statesman Mining of Aspen, Colorado, a company partly owned by the actor John Wayne. In 1970, Triton leased Statesman's hybrid drill and clamshell digger to rebore 10-X. The machine brought up thin metal fragments from 45 feet but could not handle the boulders below that depth, reaching only 85 feet before being sent back to Colorado. Negotiations for Wayne to narrate a documentary about Oak Island fell through, though the episode left behind a persistent legend about his connection to the treasure hunt. The Limits of Technology For all the advances in drilling, detection, and remote sensing, the geology of Oak Island continues to impose constraints that no piece of equipment has fully overcome. The Money Pit area is, as ROC Equipment's Vanessa Lucido described it, "like Swiss cheese," riddled with more than 40 shafts, tunnels, and boreholes dug over 230 years of searching. Each one eventually flooded, leaving the soil unstable and the subsurface honeycombed with voids. In Season 6, a sinkhole opened beneath the oscillator during drilling of borehole H-8, forcing the team to halt operations while engineers assessed whether the entire Money Pit area might collapse. The sinkhole grew to 11 feet across overnight. Seawater infiltration, the same problem that defeated the Onslow Company in 1804, remains active. The flood tunnel system, whether originally constructed as a booby trap or a natural feature of the island's limestone geology, continues to fill shafts and boreholes with saltwater at rates that overwhelm pumping capacity. The anhydrite and gypsum bedrock below 150 feet is dense enough to stop drill bits and slow even the 135-ton auger rig brought in by Soletanche Bachy. The solution channel, a natural dissolution feature in the limestone, creates unpredictable voids and shifting ground conditions that make precise targeting at depth an ongoing challenge. The equipment on Oak Island has evolved from shovels and ropes to industrial machinery costing millions of dollars per season. What has not changed is the fundamental difficulty of extracting material from a waterlogged, geologically complex site that has been disturbed by over two centuries of previous attempts. Each new technology has extended the reach of the search, but the island has yielded its secrets slowly, one core sample, one hammer grab load, and one metal detector signal at a time. ## The Island Geography, key locations, structures, and the physical features of Oak Island. ### Oak Island Has Opened to the Public: How to Visit URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/island/oak-island-has-opened-to-the-public-how-to-visit The causeway to Oak Island carries traffic again. Cars cross it, park in a lot on the island, and their passengers walk into a museum and a shop that had been closed for six years. Most of what you will find online still has the island down as private property, shut to the public and reachable only on a booked tour. That is out of date. Your author was there in July 2026 and saw it for himself: a full parking lot, families working their way round the museum, and a steady stream through the Treasure Shop. The Oak Island Interpretive Center, the Museum on the island Open after a Six-Year Closure Guided walking tours ran on the island for years before the pandemic. Oak Island Tours Inc., the company through which Rick and Marty Lagina hold their stake, released roughly 10,000 tickets a year in a single online batch, and they reportedly sold out in under three minutes. Charles Barkhouse, the island's historian and a familiar face on the show, was the guide most visitors remember. Then COVID-19 stopped tourism across Nova Scotia in 2020. The tours ended and the museum closed. What nobody expected was how long the closure would hold. The island stayed shut from 2021 through 2025, six seasons in all. Oak Island is an active excavation and a working television production at the same time, and moving visitors around 140 acres of heavy equipment was never going to be simple to reconcile. That has now changed. [article:oak-island-and-the-tourism-boom] [article:equipment-and-technology-on-oak-island] The Causeway Carries Public Traffic The causeway from Crandall's Point to Oak Island is open. There is no gate to negotiate and no permission to arrange in advance. Drive across, follow the road, and park in the lot on the island. Take it slowly. The causeway is single lane, the sightlines across the water are short, and there is not enough width for two vehicles to pass. The signs at the approach say as much. For most of the show's run this was where the public stopped. It now carries visitors onto the island. The Museum and the Treasure Shop Two buildings are open to walk-in visitors, seven days a week. The museum, formally the Oak Island Interpretive Centre, holds the displays: maps, documents, and cases of recovered material covering the search from the 1795 discovery forward. Admission is five dollars a person, and parking is included. The Treasure Shop stands about fifty metres away in its own building, stocked with official Curse of Oak Island merchandise, books, and pieces made from Oak Island wood. What the museum and the shop take in goes back into the island itself, funding the visitor operation and the preservation of the site and its history for the people who come to see it. Museum hours are 10:00am to 5:00pm Monday to Friday, and 8:30am to 6:00pm on Saturday and Sunday. Both buildings keep a longer calendar than the tram tours below, so you can visit them outside the tour season. The Oak Island Treasure Shop The Money Pit Express Tram Tour Everything past those two buildings is reached on a booked tour. It runs aboard the Money Pit Express, a covered and accessible tram, and takes about two hours. The route follows Centre Road past the Money Pit area, Smith's Cove, the swamp, and the other places that turn up week after week on the show, with narration from a guide who knows the ground intimately including long time Curse of Oak Island cast member Charles Barkhouse. The 2026 season runs from May 2 to October 31. Departures are Wednesdays at 6:30pm, and Saturdays and Sundays at 9:00am, 12:30pm and 3:30pm. Tram tickets are 99 dollars for adults, 35 dollars for children aged 6 to 12, and free for children under 5. Booking is through Oak Island Legend at oakislandlegend.com, and it has to be done in advance. Visitors are asked to arrive half an hour before departure. Tours run in rain as well as sun, and refunds come only when a tour is cancelled for extreme weather. If you need accessible seating, say so when you book rather than on the day. Demand has outstripped capacity again. In July 2026 the operator reported tours fully booked with a waitlist in place. If the tram is the reason for the trip, book well ahead rather than turning up and hoping for a seat. Where Visitors Can and Cannot Go On foot you reach the museum and the Treasure Shop, but you can't go beyond them. Remember at all times that the island is a private property. Season 14 is being filmed on the island right through the summer of 2026, which means the search is happening around you while you visit. Filming and excavation areas stay closed, as a live set always does, and the tour is built to work alongside them. The upside is that there is a fair chance you will run into someone from the show while you are there. Cast and crew are on the ground most days, and visitors do cross paths with them. It is not something the tour promises or can arrange, but it happens often enough to be worth hoping for. Seeing Oak Island from the Water There is a third way to see the place, and it skips the causeway entirely. Salty Dog Sea Tours runs narrated trips around the island from the Oak Island Marina aboard a covered tritoon, taking in the shoreline sites from the water along with the wider Mahone Bay and Chester coast. Tony Sampson, who owns the operation, has worked on the series as both cast and crew. If the tram is booked out, this is the closest you will get to the ground. Getting There Oak Island sits in Mahone Bay, on the south shore of Nova Scotia, in Lunenburg County. Chester is the nearest village of any size, Western Shore faces the island directly, and Halifax is about an hour away by road. From Halifax, take Highway 103 southwest and leave at Exit 9 toward Gold River. Coming up from the South Shore, take Exit 10 toward Mahone Bay and Martins River. Either way you join Crandall Point Road, which runs down to the causeway with the parking lot immediately across. Two things worth knowing from having been there. The site is coastal and exposed, so the weather turns faster than any forecast suggests, and the tram is covered but not heated. And the parking lot is finite: on a weekend with three departures and walk-in traffic, arriving early is the difference between parking on the island and parking somewhere else. For what the tour route passes, the interactive map marks each location by name. The Artifact Vault catalogues the finds, a number of which are on display in the museum. For how a private island became one of the most requested destinations in the province, see Oak Island and the Tourism Boom. Sources Operator information: Oak Island Legend, tour booking pages and published operator notices, July 2026. Hours, admission, tour times and pricing are the operator's own published figures and are subject to change without notice. Confirm before travelling. Tourism listings: Tourism Nova Scotia listings for the Oak Island Interpretive Center and Salty Dog Sea Tours, consulted July 2026.  Access details on this page were accurate in July 2026 and are reviewed each season. Last update July 25, 2026. ### A small island URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/island/a-small-island Oak Island is small. Just 140 acres of glacial drumlins rising from Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, connected to the mainland by a causeway built in 1965. From the air it looks like dozens of other islands dotting this stretch of the Atlantic coast. But beneath its surface lies an engineering mystery that has baffled searchers for over two centuries. Geography of a Mystery The island sits roughly 200 meters off the shore of the mainland, in a bay that contains over 350 islands. The Mi'kmaq people, who have inhabited Nova Scotia for thousands of years, called it Wna'kat, meaning "island of foam." European settlers named it Oak Island for the slender red oak trees with characteristic umbrella canopees that once covered its eastern end, trees that have long since been cut down during various excavation attempts. The island measures roughly 1 kilometer long and 400 meters at its widest point. Its terrain is characterized by two drumlins, oval hills formed by glacial deposits, with a swampy depression running between them. The highest point rises about 35 feet above sea level. For treasure hunters, the geography presents both opportunity and obstacle. The island is small enough to search systematically, but its glacial soil is unstable, prone to flooding, and riddled with natural cavities that complicate any excavation. [article:the-natural-formation-theory] The Money Pit Area The eastern end of the island contains the famous Money Pit, the original shaft discovered in 1795. Or at least it did. After 230 years of excavation, the precise location of the original pit has been lost. Dozens of shafts have been dug, collapsed, refilled, and dug again. The area now resembles a churned battlefield. What we know is that the original pit was located beneath a large red oak tree. A ship's tackle block hung from a sawed off branch directly above a circular depression in the ground. The tree is long gone, cut down in the early 1800s, and its exact location has been debated ever since. Modern surveys using ground penetrating radar and seismic imaging have revealed a complex network of cavities and voids beneath this area. The original builders created something far more extensive than a simple shaft. By now it is impossible to say what is natural, what is original work and what has been created by more than 200 years of searching under the island. [article:down-the-money-pit] Smith's Cove On the northeastern shore lies Smith's Cove, perhaps the most important location on the island after the Money Pit itself since it is a great natural harbour. Here, in 1850, searchers discovered an artificial beach: a layer of coconut fiber and eel grass covering five stone box drains, all feeding into a flood tunnel that ran 500 feet inland to the Money Pit. The engineering was remarkable. The box drains acted as filters, allowing seawater to flow while preventing sand from clogging the system. The coconut fiber, which could not have originated anywhere near Nova Scotia, was specifically chosen for its resistance to rot in salt water. Beneath the artificial beach, workers in 1970 discovered a U-shaped structure: massive logs, some 30 to 65 feet long, notched with Roman numerals and arranged in a U formation. Carbon dating placed the logs around 1720, seventy five years before the Money Pit's official discovery. Someone was building here long before Daniel McGinnis arrived. Smith's Cove also yielded important artifacts: wrought iron scissors identified by the Smithsonian as Spanish American and roughly 300 years old, a heart shaped stone, and fragments of old wharves or slipways suggesting the cove once served as a working harbor. [article:the-oak-island-dry-dock] The Swamp Between the two drumlins lies a triangular swamp that most early searchers ignored. Recent investigation suggests this was a mistake. Ground penetrating radar has revealed anomalies beneath the swamp perhaps consistent with a ship or large wooden structure buried in the muck. The swamp has yielded significant finds: a Spanish maravedi coin dated 1652, hand forged nails, and wooden planking that may be ship's timbers. Some researchers now believe the swamp is not natural at all, but was created deliberately by damming a former cove, possibly to conceal evidence of earlier activity on the island. If a ship lies buried in the swamp, it would explain how the original depositors transported the massive quantities of material needed to construct the Money Pit: the oak platforms, the tons of coconut fiber, the engineering equipment. They may have sailed directly to the site, then sunk their own vessel to hide the evidence. [map:the-swamp] The South Shore The south shore of Oak Island has received less attention than the Money Pit area, but it holds its own secrets. Dye tests in the 1890s revealed a possible second flood tunnel originating from this shore, providing redundant protection for the Money Pit. Block one tunnel, and the other continues flooding the shaft. While trenching along the south shore in 1965, Robert Dunfield's crew discovered a refilled shaft eight feet in diameter with no cribbing. No previous records of this shaft existed, leading researchers to conclude it predated the known excavations. Someone had dug here before the modern search began, for reasons that remain unknown. The south shore also offers the best view of the Frog Island drumlin, a small island 300 meters offshore that some researchers believe may have served as a lookout point or secondary depot for the original depositors. [article:robert-dunfield-and-the-destruction-of-oak-island] Nolan's Cross Fred Nolan, a surveyor who spent over 50 years searching Oak Island, made a discovery in 1992 that changed how researchers view the island's geography. Using survey equipment, he identified five large granite boulders arranged in a perfect cross formation, 867 feet from tip to tip. The boulders were not native to Oak Island. They had been transported from elsewhere and placed with precision. The cross sits 60 degrees off true north and, according to Nolan, points to significant locations on the island. Whether it marks a burial site, serves as a survey marker, or has religious significance remains debated. Nolan's Cross suggests that whoever used Oak Island did not merely dig a single pit. They surveyed the entire island and marked it according to a deliberate plan. In recent years, by analyzing the cross’s star alignments, renowned Italian archaeo-astronomer Adriano Gaspani has dated Nolan’s Cross to 1200 AD. [article:real-or-not-the-geometry-of-nolan-s-cross] The Stone Triangle In 1937, Gilbert Hedden's workers discovered a stone triangle on the island's surface: a perfect equilateral triangle made of beach stones, ten feet on each side. A medial line pointed true north, directly toward the Money Pit. Two drilled rocks were found 415 feet apart on an east-west line, possibly serving as additional survey markers. Together with the triangle, they suggested the original depositors left a system for relocating the treasure. Tragically, the stone triangle was destroyed in 1965 during Robert Dunfield's careless excavation. It exists now only in photographs and survey notes. Whatever message it contained is lost forever. [article:stone-triangle-the-oak-island-sextant] The War Room Modern searchers operate from a research center known as the War Room, a building on the island that serves as command center for the ongoing excavation. Here, the team analyzes finds, reviews data from ground penetrating radar and seismic surveys, and plans each season's work. The War Room represents how much the search has changed since Daniel McGinnis arrived with a shovel. Today's treasure hunters deploy million dollar equipment, consult with experts worldwide via video link, and document every discovery for scientific analysis. Oak Island has become as much an archaeological and archival research project as a treasure hunt. [map:war-room] An Island Transformed Oak Island today bears little resemblance to the wilderness Daniel McGinnis explored in 1795. The red oaks are gone. The Money Pit area has been excavated dozens of times. A causeway connects the island to the mainland. Buildings, roads, and heavy equipment cover what was once untouched forest. But beneath the surface, the mystery remains. Tunnels still flood with seawater. Chambers still lie unexplored. The original engineers built their vault to last centuries, and it has. Whatever secrets Oak Island holds, the island itself is not yet ready to give them up. [article:oak-island-mystery-trees][article:the-real-daniel-mcginnis-of-oak-island] ### Mahone Bay: History of the Waters That Hold Oak Island URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/island/mahone-bay-history-of-the-waters-that-hold-oak-island The bay stretches twenty-two kilometres long and sixteen and a half wide. Two hundred and eighty-eight square kilometres of sheltered water on the outer Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia. By some counts the bay holds three hundred and sixty-five islands, one for every day of the year. Oak Island sits in the western half, a short distance from the mainland at the head of an unnamed cove. The bay opens directly south onto the open Atlantic. The Nova Scotia Current runs along the coast from the northeast, while in summer the prevailing winds blow from the southwest. A vessel approaching under sail from the open ocean gets pushed into the bay's mouth and then sheltered by its islands. The geography is what made the place worth coming to. The names attached to it across four centuries are the history. Sebetre and the Mi'kmaw Centuries For at least thirteen thousand five hundred years, the bay was part of the territory known as Mi'kma'ki. The Mi'kmaq summered along its sheltered coves and wintered inland up the rivers that drain into it. Indian Point, on the bay's western shore just outside the present town of Mahone Bay, was a primary summer settlement. In the Mi'kmaw language the bay carried the name Sebetre, preserved in a French royal survey conducted between 1700 and 1703 and only recorded there. A second name, Mush-a-Mush, taken from the river that flows into the bay at its western end, survived in British records into the 1750s and remains in place names today. In September 2021, archaeologists working in the Oak Island swamp recovered pieces of Mi'kmaw pottery. Carbon dating placed the fragments between five hundred and two thousand five hundred years old. Excavation in the swamp was halted, the find reported to Acadia First Nation, and the Mi'kmaw presence on Oak Island became part of the documented record rather than a matter of inference. The bay's first chapter is older than every European arrival put together. [article:mi-kmaq-the-first-nation] The Portuguese on the Charts Two manuscript maps drawn by the Portuguese cartographer Bartolomeu Velho in 1560 and 1561 mark a double bay at 44.5 degrees north latitude on the coast of what would become Nova Scotia. The label reads Gulfo de Sam Bernaldo, the Gulf of Saint Bernard. A small island within that bay system is named, with explanation: I. barselonas por serem de Barcelos hos que as descobrirao, the Barcelona Islands because those who discovered them were from Barcelos. The two adjacent bays of close enough size and proximity at that latitude on the Nova Scotia coast are Mahone Bay and St. Margaret's Bay. The colony Velho is recording was led by an Azorean family. In documents preserved in the Archives of Angra on the island of Terceira and rediscovered in the 1950s by the chief archivist Manuel C. Baptista de Lima, Diogo de Barcelos petitioned the Portuguese crown for the right to renew explorations begun by his father Pedro. Between 1521 and 1531 Diogo armed a ship at his own expense and reached the new lands. After his death his son Manoel and his nephew Marcos continued the voyages. Testimonies given before a notary in January 1568 describe expeditions in 1562 or 1563 and again in 1565 or 1566, with another planned for the spring of 1568. Across these voyages cattle, sheep, goats and pigs were put ashore on the island the Azoreans called Barcellona de Sam Bardão, where the animals bred without supervision. The colony's exact location within the Mahone Bay area is open, since the Velho maps show it on an island within a two-bay system that includes both Mahone Bay and St. Margaret's Bay. [article:portuguese-connection-order-of-christ] Les Martyrs In 1604 Samuel de Champlain charted the south shore of what the French called Acadie. On his chart the islands of the bay carry the name Les Martyrs, the martyrs. No surviving document explains who was martyred, when, or by whom. The name appears on Champlain's map and on no other. Mirligueche: The Knight of Malta's Coast Sixty-five years of continuous French administrative attention to this bay began with one man's arrival in 1632. Isaac de Razilly came up the coast that September at the head of a fleet of three ships and three hundred men, commissioned by Cardinal Richelieu and the Company of New France to take possession of Acadia under the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. The document confirming his appointment names him in full: Isaac de Razilly, Commandeur de l'ordre de St Jean de Jerusalem, a Knight of the Order of Malta. He landed at La Hève on 8 September 1632 and built Fort Sainte Marie-de-Grâce at the river's mouth. La Hève became the principal French harbour on the Nova Scotia coast. [article:the-knights-of-malta] In the bay three leagues east-northeast of La Hève, a connected quarter-league portage away, lay Mirligueche. The name came from the Mi'kmaw word for the whitecaps that broke on its waves. To the French it carried no other label. Razilly's lieutenant Nicolas Denys, the future governor and author of the first sustained French description of Acadia, established a sawmill in the oak forests between La Hève and Mirligueche near present-day Riverport. He cut white oak in the form of planks and beams and exported it to France in Razilly's ships. The operation ran until Razilly's death in late 1635. When royal surveyors returned to the site in 1700, the abandoned mill pilings were still in the ground, rotted and worm-eaten but visible. A second French presence at Mirligueche from the same period took root and stayed. The Petitpas and Bugaret family was established at the bay by the Company in roughly 1636, a date confirmed by the military engineer Lhermite's retrospective document of 1716, which records the family's continuous residence over the preceding eighty years. They were still there when the British founded Lunenburg in 1753. A French naval list of fishing harbours compiled before 1685 includes a single line on the bay: La Baye de Mirliguefge qui a 10 L de large et 7 de profondeur. The bay of Mirligueche, ten leagues wide and seven deep. It is the only outer-coast harbour in the list given specific dimensions, the kind of attention paid to places the navy expected to use. In 1684 Louis XIV ordered a royal survey of the Acadian coast for naval oak. The mission was led by a writer named Lalanne, with the Port Royal-born coastal pilot Abraham Boudrot aboard. Lalanne visited Mirligaiche three times. The only place in his journal where he records active interest in trees is at Mirligaiche. The map he produced of the bay was left deliberately blank, though he described islands on both sides in great quantity. A full timber report from the voyage exists somewhere in the French archives but has not yet been located. Lalanne's coast journal survives at Dalhousie Special Collections in Halifax. In April 1695 a ministerial letter from Versailles to the Governor of Acadia instructed Captain Pierre Denys de Bonnaventure to leave gifts for the Indigenous communities of Chibouctou (Halifax), Miraraichy (Mirligueche), and beyond. The bay is named alongside Chibouctou as an administrative unit. Bonnaventure that summer made a full Acadian coast transit on the frigate l'Envieux, carrying detailed piloting instructions for La Hève and treating the south shore as patrolled French water. Three years later, on 19 September 1698, the military engineer Lhermite, Major of Plaisance, embarked for La Hève and Port Rossignol on the Dragon. His coastal pilot was Abraham Boudrot, the same man who had piloted Lalanne to Mirligaiche fourteen years earlier. Lhermite's mission was a military survey in advance of proposed fortification. In the same weeks his report records English vessels. A New England ketch was at Mouscoudabout, at the house of the named Petitpas, the same family established at Mirligueche from 1636. Two Salem fishing vessels, l'Espervier and le Dauphin, were intercepted by Bonnaventure at Chibouctou. New England merchants were using the French Mirligueche network as a contact point. Around 1699 a French coastal pilot's manuscript described the route from La Hève to Mirligueche in operational detail. The bearing is east-northeast, the distance three leagues. La Hève is named the finest harbour on the eastern coast, with the old fort site capable of sheltering vessels of fifty guns. Red oaks are noted at Mirligueche. The bay is described as good for vessels but with hazards requiring local knowledge. The fullest French description of the bay survives in a royal survey conducted between 1700 and 1703. The Mi'kmaw name Sebetre is recorded. The portage from La Hève is given at a quarter-league. Two islands at the bay's eastern end are named: Meransecanby at the back of the bay and Causamancaby next to it. Eight settlers are proposed. The trees are described as predominantly oak, suitable for barrel staves. Denys's abandoned sawmill is noted northwest of the bay. One league north of the bay's head, at the Mi'kmaw place called Chichimichiouaty (Gold River), Philippe Mius d'Entremont's son is recorded as living. By roughly 1702 or 1703, the bay was formally granted. The acting governor, under royal authority, conceded the seigneurial rights of Morlégueche (Mirligueche) to Bonnaventure. The neighbouring tract at Chichimichiouaty went to Villellieu the same year. La Hève, by accident of paperwork, fell inside a separate concession to Falaise. Lhermite was proposed as engineer to build a permanent fort at La Hève. The fort was never built. This whole French administrative life took place without ever producing a published map. The Velho charts of 1560 had labelled the bay; Champlain in 1604 had labelled the islands. After that, for one hundred and thirty-two years, the French ran administrative correspondence, naval surveys, land grants, and a continuously inhabited family settlement on a bay that appears on no French map under any name. Cap La Hève and Port Maltois In September 1746, one hundred and fourteen years after Razilly built his fort, the largest expeditionary force France had ever sent to North America approached the Nova Scotia coast. The Duc d'Anville's fleet of sixty-four ships and eleven thousand men was tasked with retaking Louisbourg and Acadia. The expedition collapsed at Chibouctou. The fleet's ship journals across those weeks share one navigational reference point: Cap La Hève. At least six separate vessels recorded their position by bearings to Cap La Hève as they made the coast. The promontory Razilly had chosen for his fort in 1632 was still the anchor of French navigation on this shore. On 8 November 1746 the frigate La Sirène, unable to join the main fleet at Annapolis, retreated to a harbour her captain called Port Maltois, Malta Port. From there she sent Mi'kmaw messengers to Chibouctou and to La Hève for intelligence. Port Maltois is Port Medway, one harbour southwest of Mahone Bay on the same outer coast. A British military map drawn in 1757 by Lieutenant Elias Meyer of the Royal American Regiment is titled "A chart of the coast of Nova Scotia from Port Maltois to Lawrence town" and confirms the identification. No surviving document explains why a Nova Scotia harbour on the same coast where a Knight of Malta built France's principal fort was called Malta Port. The name appears in French naval records of 1746 and a British military map of 1757, and is unexplained in any secondary source. [article:the-doomed-expedition-of-the-duc-d-anville] Captain Durell's Chart, 1736 The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 ceded peninsular Nova Scotia to the British. Acadie became Nova Scotia; the French capital at Port Royal became Annapolis Royal. Continuous French administration of Mirligueche outlasted the treaty by twenty years. A 1734 chart drawn by the New England cartographer Cyprian Southack still shows French inhabitants near the bay, naming La Have, Margaret's Bay, and Mallagash Harbour without any label for the inner bay between them. [article:the-secret-british-military-bank] The name Mahone Bay appears for the first time on a chart drawn by Captain Thomas Durell of the Royal Navy in 1736. Durell left no record of where he got the name. The standard derivation, given by Judge Mather DesBrisay in his 1870 History of the County of Lunenburg and reaffirmed by R. V. Harris a century later, links the name to the French word mahonne, a low-lying barge propelled by long oars called sweeps, used by Mediterranean pirates and well known on the French coast. DesBrisay's etymology is the one that has held, though no document records the moment of naming. In May 1753 Governor Peregrine Thomas Hopson, preparing to relocate his Foreign Protestants from Halifax, applied British names to the coast. Merligueche became Lunenburg, in honour of King George II's German duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg. Mushamush became Mahone Bay. The Mi'kmaw name persisted in British surveyor records as late as 1756, but the new name went on the maps and stayed. The Foreign Protestants and Ephraim Cook Between 1750 and 1752, British recruiters placed notices in Germany, the Montbéliard region of France, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. The promise was land, food for a year, and a few farm animals. More than two thousand two hundred Foreign Protestants made the crossing to Halifax. The town was overcrowded within months. In May 1753 Governor Hopson assembled them, had them draw cards for the lots of their new settlement, and sent them down the coast under Colonel Charles Lawrence with ninety-two regulars and sixty-six militiamen. They landed at Merligueche, which they renamed Lunenburg. The town of Mahone Bay itself dates to the following year. In June 1754 Captain Ephraim Cook arrived with a smaller party of English, French, and Swiss settlers and established a community on the inner bay's western shore. Mills were built at the mouths of the two rivers that flow into the bay. Over the following decades the settlement grew its own blacksmiths, merchants, school, churches, and shipyards. The first families on record include John Kedy and his sons, who took the mill seat on the Mushamush River. On the west side of the bay the early names were Zwicker, Ernst, Rooder, Loy, Ham, Mader, Smeltzer, Swinchammer, Moser, Eisenhauer, Lantz, Keizer, Vicnot, and Hyson. In Bayview Cemetery, where the original Anglican and Presbyterian churches once stood above the village, gravestones from the late 1700s remain in German. The Three Churches The architectural picture that draws photographers to the bay was the work of fifty years of denominational competition. In 1833 the Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian congregations of Mahone Bay built a Union Meeting House together on Edgewater Street. As congregations grew they built their own. The first dedicated church was St. James Anglican, raised in 1833 above Bayview Cemetery on the outskirts of the village. The Presbyterians followed in 1861 on the same hilltop. In 1869 St. John's Lutheran built on Edgewater Street, the first of the three churches at the modern waterfront location. By 1885 the Anglicans had outgrown their hilltop building. The rector William Henry Snyder, active in the local Masonic Lodge, originally proposed that the new church be modelled on Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem, a Masonic icon. The proposal ended when Edward Harris, the youngest brother of the Prince Edward Island architect William Critchlow Harris, arrived in the parish as curate. William Harris was already known for English Gothic churches across the Maritimes. He designed the new St. James for Mahone Bay in the style that became the crown of his early period. It was built between 1885 and 1887 next to St. John's Lutheran on Edgewater Street. The 1887 interior colour scheme has been preserved through every repainting since. The Presbyterians, not to be left on the hilltop alone, had their building lifted onto logs and rolled downhill to Edgewater Street the same year. In 1925 the Mahone Bay Presbyterian and Methodist congregations merged, and the building became Trinity United. The three steeples reflected in the harbour have been the postcard image of Mahone Bay since at least 1900. By 1934 the town had a Tourism Association. The Young Teazer On 26 June 1813, during the War of 1812, the American privateer Young Teazer was cornered outside the entrance to Mahone Bay by two British warships. The vessel had begun life as a Spanish slaver, was sold at Halifax in 1811, converted to a British packet, refitted as a British privateer (the Liverpool Packet), captured by an American vessel, and finally sold at auction as the Young Teazer. Her captain on that day, Lieutenant Frederick Johnson of Maine, had been captured once before by the British and had signed a parole undertaking never to take up arms against the Crown again. When the British squadron sighted him outside the bay, Johnson ran for the shelter of Great Tancook Island. The British cut him off. Facing capture and a hanging for breach of parole, Johnson set fire to his own ship. He had not accounted for the gunpowder in the hold. The Young Teazer exploded with a force that rattled windows in the town of Mahone Bay. Few aboard survived. The hull was towed into Chester the next day and sold as salvage; its remains became the foundation of the Rope Loft Restaurant on the Chester waterfront. The keelson was framed into a wooden cross that hangs today in St. Stephen's Anglican Church, Chester. The annual Wooden Boat Festival in Mahone Bay reenacts the burning every August. The town was incorporated as the Town of Mahone Bay in 1919 with a population of around nine hundred. It has not grown much since. The Mahone Bay Museum, at 578 Main Street, holds the local archive and the official history of the town. The view of the three churches reflected in the harbour from Edgewater Street is fifteen minutes' walk from the museum. The Mug & Anchor at 643 Main Street, the English-style pub that has served as the unofficial War Room for the Oak Island team across the seasons, sits another five minutes along the same street. In August the town holds its Pirate Regatta. In September it stages the Scarecrow Festival. In November the Father Christmas celebration. The harbour is good for kayaking. The looping roads around the bay are good for cycling. The bay is about an hour by car from Halifax. [site:mug-and-anchor-pub] Oak Island lies on the bay's southern shore, twenty minutes' drive east of the town along the coastal road. Mi'kmaw fishermen worked these waters for thirteen thousand five hundred years before any of the rest of it. Whatever else is true of the place, that part is established. Sources Primary documents Richelieu-Razilly convention, 1632, confirming Razilly as Commandeur de l'ordre de St Jean de Jerusalem (COL C11D Vol. 1, fol. 51, microfilm C-11359 p. 65). Undated fishing harbour list, pre-1685, giving dimensions of Mirligueche (COL C11D Vol. 1, fol. 9, C-11359 p. 20). Archive summary of the Lalanne royal oak survey, 1684 (COL C11D Vol. 3, fol. 534, C-11360 p. 275); full journal at Dalhousie Special Collections, Halifax. Ministerial letter, Versailles to Villebon, 16 April 1695 (C-11990 p. 267, Marine B4 Vol. 16). Bonnaventure coast transit and La Hève piloting instructions, summer 1695 (C-11990 pp. 251–300, Marine B4 Vol. 16). Lhermite embarkation for La Hève with Abraham Boudrot, 19 September 1698 (C-11990 p. 658, Marine B4 Vol. 19). English vessels at the Petitpas household and at Chibouctou, September–October 1698 (C-11990 pp. 660–661, Marine B4 Vol. 19). French coastal pilot manuscript, La Hève to Mirligueche, c. 1699 (COL C11D Vol. 3, fols 447–449, C-11360 pp. 175–177). Royal survey of Mirligueche, 1700–1703, with portage, islands, settlers and oak (COL C11D Vol. 4, fol. 214, C-11360 p. 542). Mirligueche granted to Bonnaventure, c. 1702–1703 (COL C11D Vol. 5, fol. 106, C-11360 p. 1031). Lhermite's retrospective on the Petitpas family at Mirligueche, January 1716 (Bibliothèque et Archives Canada). D'Anville fleet ship journals citing Cap La Hève as primary navigation reference, September 1746 (C-11991 pp. 716–721). La Sirène at Port Maltois, 8 November 1746 (C-11991 p. 627, fol. 71). Cartography Bartolomeu Velho, manuscript world maps, 1560 and 1561 (reproduced in Portugaliae Monumenta Cartographica, II, plates 202 and 229). Samuel de Champlain, chart of the Nova Scotia coast, 1604. Cyprian Southack, chart fragment of the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia, 1734. Captain Thomas Durell, chart of the Nova Scotia seacoast, 1736 (first known use of "Mahone Bay"). Lieutenant Elias Meyer (Royal American Regiment), A chart of the coast of Nova Scotia from Port Maltois to Lawrence town, 1757 (Huntington Library). Published sources L.-A. Vigneras, "The Voyages of Diogo and Manoel De Barcelos to Canada in the Sixteenth Century," Terrae Incognitae 5 (1973). W. F. Ganong, ed. and trans., Nicolas Denys, The Description and Natural History of the Coasts of North America (Acadia), Champlain Society, Toronto, 1908. W. F. Ganong, Crucial Maps in the Early Cartography and Place-Nomenclature of the Atlantic Coast of Canada, Royal Society of Canada, 1929–1937; reprinted with commentary by Theodore E. Layng, University of Toronto Press, 1964. Mather B. DesBrisay, History of the County of Lunenburg, Halifax, 1870 (second edition 1896). R. V. Harris, The Oak Island Mystery, 1958. Paul Wroclawski, "Early History of Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia," NEARA Journal 44 (Summer 2010). Robert C. Tuck and Graham Tuck, Churches of Nova Scotia. Steve Vernon, Haunted Harbours: Ghost Stories from Old Nova Scotia, Nimbus Publishing, 2006. Beamish Murdoch, History of Nova Scotia, Halifax, 1865–1867. Mahone Bay Museum, "Our Town's History," published research panel at mahonebaymuseum.com. ### Oak Island, Ghost Island URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/island/oak-island-ghost-island The first time Marty Lagina was alone at the Money Pit after the sun had gone down, he lasted ten minutes. He is, by his own steady insistence, a sceptic on these matters, a Michigan engineer whose patience for ghost stories runs short. Ten minutes was enough. He heard, in the trees behind him, a shriek that he later described to Randall Sullivan as blood-curdling, and he ran. He has not been back alone after dark. "First, I don't believe in any of this stuff," he told Sullivan. "But I was there not even ten minutes when I heard this blood-curdling shriek, and I admit it, I was terrified. I got out of there as fast as I could." That admission, made by the most level-headed man on the island, is a useful place to begin. The ghosts of Oak Island do not announce themselves. They do not deliver tidy spectacles for the camera. They arrive in the corner of a sound engineer's microphone feed, in the periphery of a child's afternoon at the shore, in the smell of smoke from a fire that nobody else has lit. They have been doing this since the eighteen-fifties. The accounts that follow are drawn from the documented record: from the testimony of people who lived on the island, from the recollections of those who worked it, and from the books that have, over the past century, tried to take the measure of a place that resists the measuring. The Black Dog with Eyes of Fire Of all the things people claim to have seen on Oak Island, the most often reported is the dog. Randall Sullivan, in his 2018 book on the search, calls it "a big black dog with fiery-red eyes." It is described as larger than it should be, silent more often than not, and inclined to vanish before the witness can convince a companion to come and look. It is not a local animal. There are no records of a feral dog colony in Mahone Bay. The descriptions, gathered across nearly two centuries, are too consistent for that. [article:mahone-bay-history-of-the-waters-that-hold-oak-island] What the descriptions are consistent with, Lionel and Patricia Fanthorpe pointed out in their 1995 book on the mystery, is a much older European tradition of ghostly hounds. The classical ancestor is Cerberus, the three-headed dog who guarded the entrance to the underworld in Roman mythology and who, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable suggests, was a literary memory of the trained dogs that ancient Egyptians used to guard their tombs. The English iterations are Black Shuck, the spectral hound of the Norfolk coast who is said to walk between the graves of two drowned brothers, and the Black Dog of Bungay, described in the parish record as the size of a pony with eyes like live coals, which broke into the church on a Sunday in 1577 and savaged the congregation. The Wild Hunt of Germanic and French folklore, led by Herne the Hunter in the English variant, was accompanied by a similar pack. The Fanthorpes are careful in their phrasing. They do not claim the Oak Island dog and the Bungay dog are the same animal. They observe, more cautiously, that if there is a medieval European connection to the island then it would not be surprising for the medieval European folklore of guardian hounds to have travelled across the ocean with it. Herne was associated with oak trees. The ancient Druids were associated with oak trees. The island is named for them. [article:oak-island-mystery-trees] The Stranger on the Shore One evening in the eighteen-fifties, William Graves was out in his boat off the south shore of Oak Island, spearing lobster in the last of the light. He was the son of Anthony Graves, the Irish settler who had bought most of the island in 1857 and who, in his later years, was rumoured to have made purchases on the mainland with Spanish silver coins of dubious provenance. William, that evening, was hailed from the shoreline. Sullivan recounts the moment from the deathbed account that William gave decades later. A man with a long white beard was standing on the rocks. "Come here," he called out across the water, "and I will give you all the gold you can carry." William, by his own admission, did not row toward the stranger. He rowed for home. He did not look back. He did not return to that part of the shore for the rest of his life, and he told the story only when there was nothing left to keep him from telling it. The account is preserved because someone wrote it down. There is no way now to verify what William Graves saw, or whether the white-bearded man was a hallucination, a flesh-and-blood vagrant trying his luck with a fisherman, or something else. What is preserved, instead, is the shape of the encounter: an offer of the very thing that two and a half centuries of searchers have come to the island to find, made on terms that the man receiving the offer recognised as not safe to accept. The Soldiers at Smith's Cove Peggy Adams was five years old in the winter of 1940. Her father, Jack Adams, was the caretaker of the island for Edwin Hamilton, the Wisconsin engineer who had taken over the search rights after the Restalls. The Adams family lived in a modest house on the knoll southeast of the Money Pit, the foundation of which is still visible to anyone who walks the path. [article:gilbert-hedden-and-edwin-hamilton-the-engineers-who-mapped-the-oak-island-money-pit] Peggy came running back from Smith's Cove that afternoon in tears. She told her father that there had been three big men down at the cove. One of them had dark skin. The others were dressed in red jackets and pants with broad yellow stripes down the legs. They had been sitting on the timbers of the old wharf, which by 1940 was a half-rotted relic of someone else's century. Jack Adams went out to the cove with the snow still fresh on the ground. There were no tracks. No men. No sign of anything having been there at all. [map:smiths-cove] Peggy never let go of the story. Years later, in her seventies, she was visiting the Citadel Museum in Halifax with her family, and she stopped in front of a display of British military uniforms from the seventeen-hundreds. They were the men she had seen at the cove. Red jackets. Yellow striped pants. She said so out loud. Her brother George Adams, who was in his eighties when he met the writer Joy Steele on Oak Island in 2010, told her the story exactly as Peggy had told it for seventy years, exactly as Peggy still told it. The uniforms in the museum were two hundred years older than the little girl who described them. [article:the-secret-british-military-bank] The Fire That Wasn't There Sullivan writes that the last person he expected to tell him a ghost story was Dave Blankenship, the laconic son of the late Dan Blankenship who had carried his father's share of the burden of the search for half a century. Dave is not given to flights of fancy. One afternoon, out of the blue, he told Sullivan about the day he and a couple of men who were visiting the island had seen flames rising over the treetops on the east end. They had taken it for a wildfire. They had hurried over with the urgency of men who had spent enough summers on a small wooded island to know what a brush fire could do, and when they reached the place where the flames had been, there was nothing. No fire. No scorched ground. No smoke. No heat. Nothing at all. "I saw a fire," Dave Blankenship told Sullivan. "Nobody can tell me I didn't. But there was no fire. Damnedest thing." [article:dan-blankenship-and-borehole-10-x] The Watcher Near 10X Becky Parsons was an Englishwoman, a camera operator who had worked two summers on the History Channel show before Sullivan tracked her down in 2016 and asked her what she had experienced on the island. She had not gone looking for the paranormal. She had a father who was a student of the piracy era and who had filled her childhood with stories about Oak Island, but she had arrived for work with no particular expectation of seeing anything. What she found, on her first walk into the wooded area just past the 10X borehole, was a place that made her feel watched. [map:borehole-10x] One afternoon she was filming B-roll, the secondary footage that documentary crews use to cover edits. She was walking with the viewfinder up, letting the camera drift her toward the edge of the trees on the left of 10X. She had the strong sensation of someone behind her. She put the camera down to speak to her assistant. There was no one there. There was, however, a depression in the ground directly behind her that she had not noticed when she walked in. Some weeks later, a psychic visited the island for the show. After dark, the psychic invited her on what Becky called a ghost walk, and she went, carrying an instrument that was supposed to register what the psychic called energy. She walked, by her own admission with some curiosity, back to the spot near 10X. The needle on the instrument went off the scale. "It was a sensation, like something is entering my body," she told Sullivan. "It happened very, very strongly, and I'm looking at the needle and it's still off the charts. I just sort of pushed it away, the energy that was trying to enter me. I didn't feel the presence of evil, didn't feel any danger, I just didn't want it to come any closer to me." The psychic, from the clearing behind her, started screaming. When Becky came back out of the woods, the woman told her that she had watched a black mass follow her in among the trees. Later that same evening, in the séance that followed, Becky reported a figure that built itself up in front of her from the legs upward, "in this transparent light kind of way," and a date in the seventeen-hundreds that she knew without being told was connected to the thing in the woods. She wrote the date on a slip of paper and tucked it into a teacup in the cupboard of the Blankenship kitchen. Sullivan later asked Dan Henskee to look for it. He could not find it. The Guardian of the Pit In 1973, Dan Henskee was working on the 10-X shaft. He has never been a man given to embellishment. He told the team, years later and on camera, that he had felt the spirit of a dead priest, a man whose throat had been cut, enter his body while he worked. He did not present this as metaphor. He presented it as something that had happened to him at a particular place on a particular day, and he had carried the memory of it for forty years before he said so out loud. The legend that frames what Henskee claimed to have experienced is older than the search itself. It holds that one of the men who buried the treasure was killed and buried with it, so that his spirit would remain on the island and guard the cache against anyone who came looking. Variants of the legend identify the man as a slave, brought to the island and dispatched once the work was finished, his body thrown into the shaft on top of the chest. Other variants identify him as a priest. Whether Henskee had heard the priest version of the story before his 1973 encounter on 10-X is not recorded. The legend was already in print by the eighteen-sixties. In 1868, E. H. Owen wrote an essay for a Lunenburg newspaper recounting a local belief that the treasure could be retrieved by anyone willing to throw a baby into the Money Pit. The detail is unsettling enough that one wants to dismiss it as Victorian provincial cruelty, but it is preserved in a printed essay by a named author in a named newspaper four years after Confederation. It belongs to the documentary record of what people in Mahone Bay said about Oak Island in the decade after the Cave-In Pit opened up under Sophia Sellars's ox in 1878. [research:a-history-of-lunenburg-county][map:cave-in-pit] D'Arcy O'Connor, the Canadian journalist who has spent more than fifty years covering the search, recorded a comment from an elderly descendant of Anthony Vaughan, one of the three boys who found the depression in 1795. The descendant refused to set foot on the island. "Weird as it may sound," he told O'Connor, "I've seen people there. But not solid people. Ghosts. I've seen them from my property, from when I was a boy right up till now." [article:the-real-daniel-mcginnis-of-oak-island] The Mouth of Hell Dan Henskee moved onto the island in 1982. He was Dan Blankenship's full-time assistant, a man comfortable in his own company who had taken to living in a small shack positioned almost directly above the Money Pit. He spent thirteen years there before the night, in 1995, when something happened that he was never willing afterward to explain in detail. Joy Steele, who recorded the account in her 2018 book with Gordon Fader, reports that Henskee experienced a vision so terrifying that he stripped off his clothes, ran from the shack, and threw himself into the channel between the island and the mainland. He swam to shore in the cold of a Nova Scotia night and arrived on the far side naked and shaken. Steele asked him later what he had seen. He told her he had seen the Money Pit transformed into the mouth of hell, spewing, in his words, "demons and such" from the depths below. He offered nothing further. Dan Blankenship, when D'Arcy O'Connor asked him about it, said only that Dan Henskee had paid a hell of a price for being involved with Oak Island, "because he saw what I know is still down there in those tunnels." The Failures of Machinery The mundane companion to the spectral stories is the long-running history of equipment that does not work properly on Oak Island. The sound recordists working on the History Channel show have, since the first season, reported that their microphones cut in and out at certain locations on the island, principally in the eastern corner of the swamp and around 10X. The pattern is reliable enough that the crew long ago stopped commenting on it. Something breaks, something disappears, a battery dies in a tool that had been freshly charged that morning, and the response is a shrug and the same single word: "Oak Island." Marty Lagina, asked about it by Sullivan, was unwilling to attribute it to anything beyond statistics, but the statistics were not in his favour. "It happens so much more often here than anyplace else I've ever been that it's not even close," he admitted. He suggested, half in earnest, a magnetic survey of the island to see whether some unusual geological condition was draining the batteries. The survey was never carried out. [article:equipment-and-technology-on-oak-island] The Investigators in the Swamp In the first season of the show, before the team drained the swamp for the first time, Rick and Marty invited a small group of paranormal investigators to walk the island after dark. The investigators carried K2 electromagnetic field meters, instruments that detect disturbances in the local electrical field. In the swamp, the meters registered repeated hits. One of the investigators, identified on camera as Linda, presented a photograph taken near the 10-X shaft in which what appeared to be a skull-like image hung in the foliage. Several members of the team admitted on camera that they had felt watched the entire time they were in the swamp. No definitive explanation was offered, and no follow-up investigation was ever conducted. The footage aired on 19 January 2014 as the third episode of the first season, the first and only time the show has invited an explicit paranormal investigation onto the island. [article:the-oak-island-swamp] An Atmosphere of Watching None of these accounts, taken alone, would persuade anyone determined to dismiss them. The black dog could be a feral mongrel that nobody managed to photograph. The white-bearded man could have been a drifter on the rocks. Peggy Adams could have been a five-year-old with a vivid imagination who later, at the Halifax museum, retro-fitted her memory to the uniforms she found there. Dave Blankenship's fire could have been a trick of the late summer light through the trees. Becky Parsons's encounter could have been the suggestible response of a sensitive woman walking in the woods at dusk with a psychic. The equipment failures could be coincidence. Dan Henskee, alone in a shack above a shaft that had consumed six lives, could have suffered a private breakdown. Taken together, they form something else: a hundred and seventy years of consistent testimony from people who, in almost every case, had nothing to gain by speaking and a fair amount to lose. The Anthony Vaughan descendant who told D'Arcy O'Connor that he had been seeing ghosts on the island since boyhood was not a tourist. He was a man who lived in sight of the place his ancestor had stumbled upon in 1795 and who had decided, at some point early in his life, never to cross the causeway. He had his reasons. He kept them brief. Whatever it is that people experience on Oak Island, it has been experienced steadily, by witnesses of varying credibility and from varying backgrounds, since the lobstermen of the eighteen-fifties. It does not require a believer to record it. It only requires a witness, and the willingness to write down what the witness said. Sources Primary literary and documentary record Randall Sullivan, The Curse of Oak Island: The Story of the World's Longest Treasure Hunt, Atlantic Monthly Press, 2018. Chapter on the supernatural reportage of the island, including direct interviews with Marty Lagina, Dave Blankenship, and Becky Parsons. Joy A. Steele and Gordon Fader, Oak Island Mystery Solved, second edition, Formac Publishing, 2018. Contains the Peggy Adams account as related by George Adams in 2010, and the Dan Henskee 1995 account. Lionel Fanthorpe and Patricia Fanthorpe, The Oak Island Mystery: The Secret of the World's Greatest Treasure Hunt, Dundurn Press, 1995. Section on the black dog and the European ghostly hound tradition. D'Arcy O'Connor, The Secret Treasure of Oak Island, multiple editions through 2004. Original reportage including the Anthony Vaughan descendant interview and the Dan Blankenship quotation on Dan Henskee. Steve Vernon, Haunted Harbours: Ghost Stories from Old Nova Scotia, Nimbus Publishing, 2006. Comparative material on Nova Scotia black-dog folklore, including the Antigonish account. Mark Finnan, Oak Island Secrets, Formac Publishing, 1995 reissue. Chapter on the psychic involvement in the search, including the John Wicks 1931 automatic-writing session attended by Frederick Blair and Melbourne Chappell, and the 1976 Texas psychic team. Newspaper and archival sources E. H. Owen, essay published in a Lunenburg newspaper, 1868. Earliest known printed reference to the Money Pit guardian legend. Comparative folklore references E. Cobham Brewer, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, multiple editions from 1870. Cerberus and the Egyptian guard-dog hypothesis. Parish records of Bungay, Suffolk, on the Black Dog of Bungay, 4 August 1577. Contemporary account preserved in church annals. ### Oak Island and the Tourism Boom URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/island/oak-island-and-the-tourism-boom For most of its history, Oak Island was difficult to visit and easy to ignore. The island was privately owned, access was restricted, and the nearest town, Chester, had no particular reason to advertise the place. A small exhibit at the Chester Train Station, maintained by the Chester Municipal Heritage Society, told the story of the Money Pit for anyone who happened to ask. Once a year, on what locals called Old Island Days, the public was invited to walk the island and hear the legend from whoever was willing to tell it. A few hundred people would show up. That was the extent of Oak Island tourism. Then, on January 5, 2014, the History Channel premiered The Curse of Oak Island. The Television Effect The show changed everything, and it changed quickly. Within its first two seasons, The Curse of Oak Island became the highest-rated program on the History Channel, regularly drawing more than five million viewers per episode in the United States alone. The audience was global. Fans in Europe, Australia, and South America followed the Lagina brothers' search with the kind of devotion usually reserved for sports teams or serialised fiction. And a significant number of those fans wanted to see the island for themselves. Oak Island Tours Inc., the company through which Rick and Marty Lagina hold their stake in the island, began offering guided tram tours. The format was simple: a two-hour ride along Centre Road, past the Money Pit area, Smith's Cove, and the swamp, narrated by someone who knew the ground. Charles Barkhouse, the island's historian and a cast member on the show, became the most recognisable guide. Danny Hennigar, a local historian with decades of experience in the area, led off-island excursions that took in graveyards, heritage sites, and locations connected to the treasure hunt's long history. Demand overwhelmed supply almost immediately. The annual allocation of approximately 10,000 tour tickets, released online in a single batch, reportedly sold out in under three minutes. Visitors who missed the window had no way onto the island. Oak Island is private property, and there is no public access beyond the causeway. The Ecosystem What grew around the island was larger than the tours themselves. An entire economy took shape on the South Shore of Nova Scotia, built on the simple fact that people wanted to be near Oak Island even if they could not set foot on it. The Oak Island Resort and Conference Centre, located on the mainland directly across from the island, rebranded around the connection. Guests could wake up with a view of the island, eat at the Oak and Oar Eatery, and book packages that combined accommodation with guided tours and boat trips. The resort offered experiences fronted by cast members, including Tony Sampson, a local dive master who appears regularly on the show and who led visitors through the Interpretive Centre on the island itself. Salty Dog Sea Tours began running narrated boat trips from the Oak Island Marina, circling the island by water and pointing out the key locations visible from the shore: the Money Pit area, Smith's Cove, the crane, the swamp. For visitors who could not get tour tickets, or who arrived during the off-season, the boat became the next best option. Private tour operators in Halifax, an hour's drive to the northeast, added Oak Island to their itineraries. Companies offered full-day excursions that combined the drive along the coast with stops in Mahone Bay and Lunenburg, two towns already established on the tourism circuit. Oak Island gave them a new anchor attraction, one with international name recognition and a built-in audience that needed no convincing. The Oak Island Treasure Shop opened on Highway 3, off the island itself, selling branded merchandise, books, apparel, and souvenirs. It became the only place to purchase official Curse of Oak Island merchandise directly from the island's owners, and it operates year-round. Bed and breakfasts in the Chester area, once quiet outside the summer sailing season, reported being booked months in advance. Restaurants along the South Shore saw trade from visitors who had driven down from Halifax specifically to see the island. The ripple effect reached businesses that had no direct connection to the treasure hunt at all. Tourism Nova Scotia The provincial government recognised the opportunity early. Tourism Nova Scotia, the agency responsible for marketing the province as a travel destination, incorporated Oak Island into its promotional campaigns alongside established draws like Peggy's Cove, the Cabot Trail, and the Lunenburg waterfront. The agency's website features a dedicated Oak Island section with links to tours, nearby attractions, dining, and accommodation. The messaging positions the island as part of a broader South Shore itinerary rather than a standalone destination, encouraging visitors to spend time (and money) across the region. The province also has a direct financial interest in the show's production. Nova Scotia Business Inc., through its Film and Television Production Incentive Fund, has provided millions of dollars in production incentives to The Curse of Oak Island across multiple seasons. The fund operates as a rebate on eligible local spending: labour, equipment, and services purchased from Nova Scotian suppliers. The more the production spends locally, the larger the rebate. By Season 9, eligible Nova Scotia expenditure on the show had reached approximately CA$13 million per season. The arrangement benefits both parties. The production gets a meaningful cost reduction, and the province gets the economic activity that comes with a major television production operating on its soil for months at a time, year after year. The Closure Years In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down tourism across Nova Scotia, and Oak Island was no exception. The tours stopped. The Interpretive Centre on the island closed its doors. What no one anticipated was how long the closure would last. Even as pandemic restrictions eased across the province, Oak Island remained closed to the public. The island is an active filming location and excavation site, and the logistics of running a television production alongside a tourism operation on 140 acres proved difficult to reconcile. Filming schedules, heavy equipment, and the simple reality of ongoing excavation work meant that public access could not easily resume. The island stayed closed through 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and into 2025. Tour operators adapted as best they could. Private guides from Halifax continued to bring visitors to the South Shore, adjusting their itineraries to include a drive across the causeway (or as close to it as permitted), a stop at the Treasure Shop, a boat tour around the island, and visits to Chester and the surrounding area. The experience was not the same as walking the ground, but the demand was still there. People continued to come. OIARO and the Future In anticipation of the island's eventual reopening, the Oak Island Archives and Research Organization (OIARO), a registered Nova Scotia society, partnered with Cerca Trova Ltd., the majority owners of the island, to manage visitor access going forward. The partnership represents a more structured approach to tourism than the earlier model, which had been largely run through Oak Island Tours Inc. As of early 2026, the Interpretive Centre was expected to reopen, though the format and scale of future tours had not yet been confirmed. The new model will face the same tension that has defined Oak Island tourism from the beginning. The island is simultaneously one of Nova Scotia's most sought-after tourist destinations and an active archaeological and excavation site. Visitors want to see the Money Pit, the swamp, and Smith's Cove. The team needs those areas clear to work. The island is small, the season is short, and the demand far exceeds what 140 acres can absorb without interfering with the search. A Quiet Corner of Nova Scotia Before 2014, the South Shore of Nova Scotia was known for Lunenburg, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and for Mahone Bay, a scenic harbour town popular with sailors and day-trippers. Chester was a summer colony for Halifax families, pleasant but unremarkable on the international stage. Oak Island was a footnote, known to treasure enthusiasts and virtually no one else. The television series changed that calculus entirely. A privately owned island with no public facilities, no restaurant, no hotel, and no gift shop became one of the most requested tourist destinations in the province. The infrastructure that grew around it (the resort, the boat tours, the merchandise shop, the Halifax day-trip operators) exists entirely because of a television audience that wanted to see the place where the mystery lives. Whether the treasure is ever found may matter less, economically, than whether the show continues to air. The search has run for over two centuries without a definitive answer, and the island has thrived on the question. For the South Shore of Nova Scotia, the curse of Oak Island has turned out to be something closer to a gift. ### The Treasure and the Law: The Oak Island Treasure Act URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/island/the-treasure-and-the-law-the-oak-island-treasure-act In 1849, a group of men in Lunenburg County submitted a formal application to the provincial government of Nova Scotia for permission to dig for treasure on Oak Island. The application was refused. The paperwork, however, survived, and it remains the earliest known record of anyone asking the government's permission before putting a shovel in the ground on the island. It is worth pausing on the date. Nova Scotia would not join Confederation for another eighteen years. Queen Victoria had been on the throne for twelve. And already, before a single act of the colonial legislature addressed the matter, someone had decided that digging for treasure on Oak Island required a permit. That instinct, the idea that the state has a say in what happens beneath the soil of a 57-hectare island in Mahone Bay, has shaped the Oak Island treasure hunt as profoundly as any flood tunnel, any collapsed shaft, any piece of coconut fiber pulled from the earth. For 230 years, searchers have fought the water, the clay, the bedrock, and each other. They have also fought the paperwork. The paperwork has often proven harder. North America's Only Treasure Law In 1954, the province of Nova Scotia did something no other jurisdiction in North America had done or has done since: it passed a law specifically governing the search for buried treasure. The Treasure Trove Act was created to regulate activity on Oak Island, though its language was broad enough that it would eventually be applied to shipwreck salvage operations along the entire Nova Scotia coast. The Act was administered not by the Department of Culture or Heritage, but by the Department of Natural Resources, under the same bureaucratic apparatus that governed mining. Treasure, in the eyes of the provincial government, was a natural resource. The application process required a letter to the Registrar of Mineral and Petroleum Titles, a work proposal organized by year, identification of the area of interest using the mineral rights grid, and a fee of $560.50. If the application cleared the Registrar, it went to the provincial Cabinet. If it cleared Cabinet, it received Royal Assent from the Lieutenant Governor. Only then could the applicant legally put a shovel in the ground. The terms were simple. The province kept ten percent of whatever was found, collected "in kind," meaning the government could choose which ten percent it wanted. The Curator of Collections for the Nova Scotia Museum and the Department of Natural Resources would negotiate the selection. Licenses were typically issued for five-year terms. They could not be transferred without written permission from the Minister. For the treasure hunters, the Act provided something that had not existed before: legal certainty. A license holder had the right to search, to recover, and to keep ninety percent of what was found. For the province, the Act provided revenue and, at least in theory, oversight. Whether it provided adequate protection for whatever might actually be buried on the island was a question that would take decades to answer. The License as Weapon For as long as the Treasure Trove Act was in force, the license was the key to Oak Island. Without it, no one could legally excavate. With it, a license holder had the provincial government's blessing to dig on Crown land and, with the landowner's consent, on private property. That last clause, the requirement for landowner consent on private land, turned the license into something its drafters may not have intended: a tool of control. The problem was simple and, given the personalities involved, inevitable. By the early 2000s, Dan Blankenship and David Tobias co-owned roughly 78 percent of Oak Island through Oak Island Tours Inc. Tobias was president and held a controlling vote. Fred Nolan owned five lots on the northern side. Robert Young owned one lot. The rest was Crown land. When all existing treasure trove licenses expired in July 2003, four applicants filed for new ones: Oak Island Exploration (Tobias's company, of which Blankenship was a dissident member), Mahone Bay Exploration (Blankenship's own application), Fred Nolan, and Robert Young. Blankenship's application was the only one that covered property he did not personally own. Because Oak Island Tours held the land and Tobias held the deciding vote, Blankenship could not obtain the landowner consent required for his own license on an island he had lived on for nearly four decades. The Registrar of Mineral and Petroleum Titles, Rick Ratcliffe, was bound by the law. A civil servant with no background in the complexities of the Oak Island saga was left to adjudicate a feud that had been festering since the early 1990s. In 2004, Tobias and Nolan were granted licenses. Blankenship was refused. He had met with Natural Resources Minister Richard Hurlburt, laid out his findings, and told the Chronicle Herald: "I turned 80 in May and won't get another chance." The province gave the license to a man in Montreal who had not set foot on the island in years, while the man who lived there, who had drilled its deepest shaft and nearly died in it, was told he could not dig in his own backyard. The situation was, as Marty Lagina would later describe it, "a thorny mess." [article:dan-blankenship-and-borehole-10-x] The Lagina Transition In April 2006, Rick and Marty Lagina purchased fifty percent of Oak Island Tours from David Tobias. The Michigan Group, as they were known, had also acquired Lot 25 through their associate Allan Kostrzewa. Dan Blankenship retained the other half of the company. For the first time in years, the people who owned the island and the people who wanted to dig on it were the same people. Getting a license, however, still required the full bureaucratic journey. The application had to pass the Heritage Research Permit stage at the Nova Scotia Museum, then clear the Registrar, then go to Cabinet, then receive Royal Assent. By September 2009, three years after the Laginas had bought in, Oak Island Tours still had not received its Treasure Trove License. John MacNeill, who had replaced Rick Ratcliffe as Registrar that May, told D'Arcy O'Connor the application was "still in the conduit" and that he was "hoping it will move soon." A change in government, with the NDP taking power, had forced new ministers to re-read and vote on all pending legislation. The license, when finally issued, would be for two years rather than the five-year terms granted in the past. In July 2010, the license was finally granted. It would expire on December 31 of that year. By then, the law itself would be gone. The Oak Island Treasure Act On November 2, 2010, Natural Resources Minister John MacDonell introduced Bill 81 in the Nova Scotia Legislature. The bill proposed three things: repeal the Treasure Trove Act, amend the Special Places Protection Act, and create a new piece of legislation called the Oak Island Treasure Act. The bill passed third reading on November 26 and received Royal Assent on December 10. It took effect on January 1, 2011. The repeal of the Treasure Trove Act had been recommended by a 2006 Voluntary Planning heritage strategy task force, which raised questions about whether private firms should be allowed to conduct salvage operations and recover artifacts for commercial gain. The UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage added international pressure. Percy Paris, the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Heritage, put the government's position plainly: "Artifacts in shipwrecks along our coast belong to Nova Scotia." Every treasure trove license in the province expired on December 31, 2010. Divers who had spent millions exploring the roughly 10,000 shipwrecks off the Nova Scotia coast were, overnight, out of business. The most famous recovery under the old Act had been the Le Chameau operation in 1965, when divers salvaged approximately $500,000 in gold coins and artifacts from a French payship that sank near Louisbourg in 1725. That kind of operation would no longer be legal. Oak Island was the sole exception. The new Act created a bespoke framework for the island alone. The Minister of Natural Resources could now issue licenses directly, without Cabinet approval or Royal Assent. Existing Treasure Trove licenses on Oak Island continued for one year under the new regime. The definition of "treasure" remained unchanged from 1954: precious stones or metals in a state other than their natural state. Everything else, every piece of pottery, every iron spike, every fragment of wood or leather or bone, fell outside the definition. That distinction would matter more than anyone anticipated. The Letter The moment the legal ground shifted beneath the Laginas' feet arrived not in a courtroom or a legislature but in an envelope. In season five, episode three of The Curse of Oak Island, a letter from Nova Scotia's Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage informed the team that all metal detecting on the island must now be conducted under a Heritage Research Permit and that no excavation or removal of objects could occur without formal archaeological oversight. The letter was not entirely unexpected. In 2014, local MLA Denise Paterson-Rafuse had introduced a bill to amend both the Oak Island Treasure Act and the Special Places Protection Act. The amendments cancelled all existing Oak Island treasure licenses outright, designated the island as a protected site, and replaced the treasure license system with Heritage Research Permits administered under the Special Places Protection Act. Under the new framework, the province would appoint an archaeologist to monitor any excavation on the island. The permit holder would pay the archaeologist's expenses. If coins or gold or silver bars were found, the permit holder could keep seventy-five percent; the remaining twenty-five percent, selected by the government-appointed archaeologist, would go to the Nova Scotia Museum. All other heritage objects, every artifact that was not a precious metal or a precious stone, became the property of the province. After a tense face-to-face meeting with provincial officials, the team reached a compromise. Archaeologist Laird Niven, who had worked with the Laginas since helping secure the original Treasure Trove License seven years earlier, would hold a single Heritage Research Permit. An archaeologist would be present at every dig. Metal detecting could continue without an archaeologist present, provided no digging occurred while the archaeologist was away. It was a workable arrangement, and Niven's presence proved its value almost immediately. On Lot 24, the former property of Samuel Ball, Niven spotted large, rounded, stacked rocks beneath a tree stump that he identified as cultural, possibly a wall or foundation, and called an immediate halt. The formation, hidden for centuries under the root system, would require careful archaeological investigation before the team could proceed. Niven had prevented the team from destroying with an excavator what might have been the most significant feature on that lot. The Tightening What followed over the next eight seasons was a steady, incremental expansion of government oversight that fundamentally changed how the treasure hunt operated. Each season brought new requirements, new restricted areas, and new negotiations with provincial authorities. In season nine, Niven explained to the team that the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage wanted more oversight of the search. Areas of the eastern drumlin that had previously been unrestricted now required permits, more formal testing, and more excavation by hand. When Mi'kmaq pottery was recovered from a stone feature in the swamp, the Department contacted the Acadia First Nation, and four acres of the island were placed under special restrictions. Work in those areas could not continue without clearance from both the First Nation and the province. Marty Lagina made the difficult decision to scale back the archaeological team: Niven remained in an advisory role, but the field archaeologists departed at the end of that week. The following season brought a sharper confrontation. When the team attempted to rehabilitate the Garden Shaft for deep excavation, the Nova Scotia government determined that the project required mining permits rather than the rehabilitation authorization Dumas Contracting had received. Work was halted. The contractor fielded more than fifty questions from various government agencies. Six weeks passed before operations resumed. Craig Tester, who managed the logistics and engineering side of the operation, described the permitting as a process that could stop months of planning overnight. The visit of Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston in season nine briefly suggested the political winds might be shifting. Houston told the team he felt they had "done things properly" and that there needed to be "a balance between common sense and regulations." Whether that sentiment translated into actual policy is less clear. By season twelve, the government had designated a feature on Lot 5 a "special place" under the Special Places Protection Act, meaning objects could only be removed by archaeologists. By season thirteen, the team was working within a patchwork of permitted and restricted zones, applying for access to areas sometimes only forty feet from where they were already digging. What the Law Means for the Treasure The practical consequences of the current legal framework depend entirely on what the team finds. The definition of "treasure" under the Oak Island Treasure Act is narrow: precious stones or metals in a state other than their natural state. Coins, gold bars, silver ingots, gemstones. Under the Heritage Research Permit system, the team may keep seventy-five percent of such finds, surrendering the other twenty-five percent to the province. Everything else is a heritage object. Pottery, iron, wood, leather, bone, parchment, stone carvings, lead artifacts, brass fittings. Under the Special Places Protection Act, heritage objects discovered on Oak Island become the property of Nova Scotia. The team may study them, display them, photograph them, and use them in their research. They do not own them. The implications are worth considering. If what lies beneath Oak Island is a cache of Spanish gold coins, the Laginas keep seventy-five percent and the province gets twenty-five. If it is a chest of Templar documents written on vellum, the province owns the chest and every page in it. If it is the Ark of the Covenant, it belongs to Nova Scotia. The treasure hunters who have spent more than a decade and an undisclosed fortune searching for it would have no legal claim to the object itself. In season eleven, when archaeologist Jamie Kouba recovered a piece that tested at ninety percent silver from the Garden Shaft spoils, Rick Lagina confirmed on camera that the find "qualifies as treasure under the treasure trove license." It was one of the few moments in the show's history where the legal framework became visible to the audience. For Rick, the distinction was clear: silver is treasure, treasure belongs to the finder. For the province, the distinction is equally clear: everything else belongs to Nova Scotia. [article:the-ark-of-the-covenant] Assessment Three successive acts of the Nova Scotia legislature have governed Oak Island across seven decades. The Treasure Trove Act of 1954 treated buried treasure as a natural resource, administered through the same bureaucracy that issued mining licenses. The Oak Island Treasure Act of 2010 preserved the right to search but eliminated the broader treasure-hunting framework that had applied to the rest of the province. The Special Places Protection Act amendments of 2014 completed the shift from treasure hunting to heritage management, placing the island under archaeological oversight and giving the province ownership of all non-monetary finds. Each act reflected the politics of its moment. The 1954 law was written for an era when treasure was something to be found and divided. The 2010 law was written under pressure from UNESCO and heritage advocates who argued that artifacts were being exploited for commercial gain. The 2014 amendments were written in response to the Laginas' own success: the more they found, the more the province wanted to protect. For the men and women who have searched Oak Island across two centuries, the legal framework has been an obstacle as persistent as the water itself. Robert Restall never had a formal license. Dan Blankenship spent the last fifteen years of his active career fighting for one. The Laginas spent six years securing permits before they could begin filming. Today, Laird Niven effectively sets the pace of the excavation, and the province can designate any feature a "special place" at any time, halting work until its archaeologists are satisfied. Whether this is the right balance between the rights of the searchers and the obligations of the state is a question Nova Scotia has been answering, and re-answering, since 1849. The treasure, if it exists, has been underground for centuries. The paperwork required to reach it grows thicker every year. Sources Legislation (full text): Treasure Trove Act, RSNS 1989, c 477 (enacted 1954, revised 1989, repealed January 1, 2011). North America's only treasure-hunting statute. Administered under the Department of Natural Resources, Mineral Resources Branch. Full text: https://www.canlii.org/en/ns/laws/stat/rsns-1989-c-477/latest/rsns-1989-c-477.html Oak Island Treasure Act, SNS 2010, c 39 (Bill 81). Introduced November 2, 2010; Royal Assent December 10, 2010; effective January 1, 2011. Replaced the Treasure Trove Act for Oak Island only. Full text as passed: https://nslegislature.ca/legc/bills/61st_2nd/3rd_read/b081.htm An Act to Amend the Oak Island Treasure Act and the Special Places Protection Act (Bill 68, 62nd General Assembly, 1st Session, 2014). Cancelled all Oak Island treasure licenses, designated Oak Island a protected site, introduced Heritage Research Permits, mandated government-appointed archaeologist. Full text: https://nslegislature.ca/legc/bills/62nd_1st/1st_read/b068.htm An Act to Amend the Oak Island Treasure Act and the Special Places Protection Act (Bill 40, 62nd General Assembly, 2nd Session, 2014). Companion bill with technical amendments. Full text: https://nslegislature.ca/legc/bills/62nd_2nd/1st_read/b040.htm Special Places Protection Act, RSNS 1989, c 438 (as amended). Governs heritage objects, protected sites, and Heritage Research Permits on Oak Island. Consolidated statute: https://nslegislature.ca/sites/default/files/legc/statutes/specplac.htm Oak Island Treasure Act (consolidated). Current version incorporating all amendments: https://nslegislature.ca/sites/default/files/legc/statutes/oak%20island%20treasure.pdf Government announcements and guidelines: Government of Nova Scotia, "Changes to Treasure Hunting Regulations Introduced," news release, November 2, 2010. Ministers John MacDonell (Natural Resources) and Percy Paris (Tourism, Culture and Heritage). https://novascotia.ca/news/release/?id=20101102006 Government of Nova Scotia, "Changes to Treasure Hunting Regulations," news release, July 13, 2010. Initial announcement of intent to repeal. https://news.novascotia.ca/en/2010/07/14/changes-treasure-hunting-regulations Mineral Resources Branch, Department of Natural Resources, "General Guidelines for Treasure Trove Applicants." Application procedures, fee schedule ($560.50), royalty terms (10% in kind), mineral rights grid requirements. Contacts: John MacNeil, Robert Ogilvie. https://novascotia.ca/natr/meb/data/pubs/ic/ic61_v6.pdf Nova Scotia Permits Directory, Department of Natural Resources, Oak Island Treasure Act license information. https://novascotia.ca/sns/paal/dnr/paal147.asp Newspaper sources: Steve Proctor, "Treasure hunter says he's pieced together Oak Island puzzle," Halifax Chronicle Herald, December 29, 2003. Blankenship at 80 without a license; four applicants; Ratcliffe quoted on review process. Steve Proctor, "Rival treasure sleuth just wants a resolution," Halifax Chronicle Herald, December 29, 2003. Companion article. Nolan and Tobias quoted. "Tunnels below Oak Island hold Spanish booty, die-hard insists," Globe and Mail, December 30, 2003. Ratcliffe confirms all licenses expired July 2003; four applicants named; Blankenship's application the only one covering property he does not own. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/tunnels-below-oak-island-hold-spanish-booty-die-hard-insists/article18441056/ "For Sale: One Money Pit," Halifax Chronicle Herald, July 2005. Partners agree to sell Oak Island Tours for $7 million. Blankenship: "Money's not my god." Aly Thomson (Canadian Press), "Looters likely to be scouring sunken treasures off Nova Scotia, experts warn," Globe and Mail, April 9, 2019. Post-repeal consequences for shipwreck archaeology; Oak Island Act as sole exception; Le Chameau recovery referenced. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-looters-likely-scouring-sunken-treasures-off-nova-scotia-experts-warn-2/ Online primary sources: Oak Island Tourism Society, "Time for Treasure Hunt." Ratcliffe confirms license changed hands to Michigan Group and Blankenship; Delaware company dissolution required. http://oakislandsociety.ca/time-treasure-hunt/ Published books: Randall Sullivan, The Curse of Oak Island: The Story of the World's Longest Treasure Hunt (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2018). Blankenship-Tobias license dispute, "For Sale" headline, Lagina acquisition of Oak Island Tours. Dennis William Clarke, Oak Island Odyssey (self-published, 2023). Treasure trove license history, Triton Alliance operations under license. Television series: The Curse of Oak Island, Season 1, Episode 1: "What Lies Below". Laginas spent six years securing permits before full-scale investigation. The Curse of Oak Island, Season 2, Episode 1: "Once In, Forever In". MLA introduces bill to replace Oak Island Treasure Act with heritage research permit system. The Curse of Oak Island, Season 4, Episode 2: "Always Forward". Laird Niven first appears; recommends formal archaeological permit. The Curse of Oak Island, Season 5, Episode 3: "Obstruction". Letter from Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage; Heritage Research Permit compromise reached; Niven appointed as permit-holding archaeologist. The Curse of Oak Island, Season 9, Episode 1: "Going for the Gold". Niven explains changing regulatory requirements; previously unrestricted areas now require permits. The Curse of Oak Island, Season 9, Episode 3: "Stone Roadblock". Mi'kmaq pottery found; CCH and Acadia First Nation consulted; four acres restricted. The Curse of Oak Island, Season 9, Episode 14: "Premier of the Dig". Premier Tim Houston visits; "balance between common sense and regulations." The Curse of Oak Island, Season 10, Episode 7: "Norsing Around". Garden Shaft requires mining permits; 50+ questions from agencies; work halted. The Curse of Oak Island, Season 11, Episode 19: "Hi Ho Silver". 90% silver piece qualifies as treasure under license. The Curse of Oak Island, Season 13, Episode 1: "The Comeback". 1849 Lunenburg treasure trove application referenced as earliest known. ## The Theories From pirate gold to Templar treasure to Shakespeare's lost manuscripts. ### The Knights Templar on Oak Island URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/the-knights-templar A small lead cross recovered on Oak Island in 2017, dated to between 900 and 1300 AD, was traced by lead isotope analysis to medieval ore deposits in southern France. Its date and its origin place a worked European object on the island during the period of the Knights Templar, the most powerful military order of the medieval world. The cross is one of several finds that have drawn the island into the Templar question, and it is the place to begin. [artifact:lead-cross] The Knights Templar, or the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, were a military religious order founded in Jerusalem around 1119 AD. A small group of knights led by Hugh de Payns, a nobleman from the French province of Champagne, pledged to protect Christian pilgrims on the dangerous roads between the port of Jaffa and Jerusalem. King Baldwin II granted them quarters in the al-Aqsa Mosque on Temple Mount, the former site of Solomon's Temple, and it was from this location that they took their name. For the first decade they numbered fewer than twenty. Then, in 1129, Bernard of Clairvaux, the most influential churchman in Europe and an uncle to one of the original knights, secured papal recognition for the order at the Council of Troyes. Bernard wrote their Rule and solved the theological problem that had troubled Christendom: whether a devout monk could also be a warrior. His answer, set out in In Praise of the New Knighthood, was that holy killing was a duty rather than a sin. Donations of land, property, and wealth followed from across Europe. By 1139, Pope Innocent II had issued the bull Omne Datum Optimum, exempting the Templars from all taxes, freeing them from local authority, and placing them under the direct protection of the Holy See. Within thirty years of their founding they had become bankers, shipbuilders, landlords, and the administrators of thousands of properties organized into nine provinces stretching from Portugal to the Levant. They maintained a fleet capable of crossing the Mediterranean, and the records confirm they transported relics across long distances by sea, including, in 1254, holy relics shipped from the Crusader port of Acre to southern France aboard the vessel Montjoie. No organization in the medieval world, apart from the Catholic Church itself, operated on this scale. [article:sacred-cargo-relics-crossing-oceans] By the early thirteenth century the order stood at the height of its power and its organizational reach. The same decades saw the great Gothic cathedrals rise across France, dozens under construction at once, much of it co-financed by the Temple and built with the mathematics and masonry the crusades had carried back from the East. The 1220s were the pinnacle of that building, and of the order's strength behind it. Ruad, the last island For nearly two centuries the order had only grown, but in 1291 the tide turned. Their last stronghold in the Holy Land fell, and with it the last Crusader holdings on the Levantine mainland. The loss took away their purpose in the East and forced them to withdraw to Cyprus. Ruad, a small island fortress off the Syrian coast near Tortosa, became the closest foothold left with a view of the Holy Land, garrisoned around 1300 by roughly a hundred and twenty Templars awaiting a Mongol alliance that never came. Among that garrison was a Templar called Gérard de Villiers. When the Mamluks besieged Ruad in 1302 the Templars were starved out; a free passage was negotiated and then betrayed, and the men were massacred or enslaved as they emerged. De Villiers was not among them. The knight Ponsard de Gizy testified at the Paris trials in November 1309 that de Villiers had "left a day earlier, taking his friends with him," before the siege closed. Five years later the same man would leave Paris with fifty horses on the eve of the arrests. Twice he was out of a fortress before the door shut, which points to a man with intelligence of his own and the standing to act on it. The End of the Temple On October 13, 1307, the next and final blow was dealt to the Order when King Philip IV of France ordered the arrest of every Templar in the country. The leadership had warning. In testimony before the Papal Inquisition at Poitiers in June 1308, the knight Jean de Châlons, Preceptor of Nemours, described what happened: on the eve of the arrests Gérard de Villiers fled with fifty horses and put to sea with eighteen galleys, while a second man, Hugues de Châlons, escaped carrying what the testimony calls "the whole treasure" of Hugues de Pairaud, the Visitor General who controlled every Templar treasury across Europe. Interestingly, the testimony does not say whether the two men left together or separately. What is clear is that the two men were not strangers to one another. The historian Émile-G. Léonard identified Hugues de Châlons, preceptor of Épailly, as "probably identical" with Hugh de Villiers, who held that office from 1293; if correct, both men who carried the treasure out of Paris were De Villiers. The Inquisition testimony describes Hugues de Châlons (De Villiers) as the nephew of Pairaud, the Visitor, which makes Hugues de Pairaud family as well. Pairaud was the son of the Templar Master of England and Aquitaine from 1266 to 1271, a jurisdiction reaching across Scotland and Ireland, and Pairaud testified under interrogation that he had been received into the order by his own father at the age of eighteen. Knowledge of the Templar network across the British Isles passed from father to son. What the records describe is a single operation run by one family across three generations: Pairaud controlling the treasury from within, his nephew Hugh carrying the money, and Gérard de Villiers running the military escort. The office of Master of France tells the same story, held by Hugues de Pairaud from 1291 to 1294 and by Gérard de Villiers from 1299 to 1307, uncle and nephew in the same seat within a single decade. A further record sharpens the motive. A register of Philip IV from July 1308 states it plainly: Frater Hugo de Cabilone nepos visitatoris et frater Girardus de Monteclaro, milites ordinis seu secte Templi, una cum quibusdam suis complicibus secte conceperant occidere regem. Brother Hugh de Châlons (De Villiers), nephew of the Visitor, and Brother Gérard de Montclair, knights of the Temple, together with accomplices within the order, had planned to kill the King. The document names the men and the intent directly. Read alongside the suppression that followed, it points to a reason for the severity of Philip's move against the order that goes beyond the heresy charges he made public. There are no known records for Gérard de Villiers or Jean de Châlons (De Villiers) after October 1307 and it is generally assumed they did indeed escape to an unknown destination. The treasure they are said to have carried was held at the Paris Temple, an enclosed precinct within the city dominated by the Grosse Tour, a fortified keep built under Louis IX, where the order kept its most valued possessions. When Philip's men seized the Templar houses on the morning of the arrests, the treasury was empty. If the testimony is accurate, the most senior officers had already removed it. The question that has occupied later researchers is which route they used to reach the sea and what they took with them. [article:de-villiers-the-treasure-bloodline] The Road to Freedom The familiar account sends the treasure out of La Rochelle on the Atlantic coast, the order's principal western port, aboard eighteen galleys that were never seen again. This is the received version, and little supports it. It rests on a single secondhand testimony, the statement of Jean de Châlons given under inquisitorial conditions, and the eighteen-ship story did not appear in print until the nineteenth century. La Rochelle lies roughly 280 miles from Paris, a long and exposed overland journey for men on horseback at a moment when every official in France had been told to watch for Templars on the move. The galleys known to have used the port were trading vessels for the wine routes. As a hypothesis it has endured, but no document places De Villiers there. There is a far more compelling case to be made for a place much closer to Paris: Rouen, in Normandy. Its shipyard at the Clos-des-Galées had been building galleys since 1226 and had been enlarged by Philip IV himself, who brought in Genoese shipwrights to turn it into a yard on the scale of Genoa or Barcelona. The vessels built there were military ships rather than traders. Rouen sits about 77 miles from Paris, roughly a quarter of the distance to La Rochelle, close enough that a party leaving the capital could reach it before the order to arrest the Templars took effect, and from Rouen a fleet could follow the Seine to the open sea. Any fleeing Templar could have expected support from the powerful commanderies in Normandy along the way. A third, so far unexplored possibility follows the rivers, the principal highways of medieval Europe. From the Seine and the Oise a party could reach the Meuse and follow it north toward the sea near Hoek van Holland, moving through a connected network of waterways rather than a single river. On that network, near Maastricht, lies the Caestert stone quarry, whose underground galleries carry medieval graffiti, carbon dated to the fourteenth century. One gallery is laid out in a cross plan, like a church floor. A large Saint George composition there includes a small figure riding behind the saint and holding a cup, a detail that belongs not to the Western dragon legend, where the rescued princess stands on the ground, but to the Eastern type in which Saint George carries home a rescued Christian cupbearer, a motif essentially absent from medieval Western art. Several four-dot crosses appear on the same ceilings, a sign the Oak Island team has seen at every Templar site visited in the last seven years, and one unique mark in the quarry matches a symbol found in a southern French document from the 13th century. The researchers who catalogued the site treat a Templar connection as a hypothesis and note that drawings of this scale were unlikely to be the work of quarrymen paid by the block, raising instead the possibility of refugees sheltering in the galleries in the fourteenth century. The fuller case belongs in its own account. [site:caestert-quarry-underground-tunnels] Galleys of the period sat low and shallow in the water and were not built to cross the open Atlantic; they were coastal vessels. Whichever port was used, the fleet would have skirted the European shore, and there the documentary trail ends. Where the treasure went once it reached the sea is not recorded. The Medieval Dates on Oak Island For two centuries the question about Oak Island was one of belief: whether anything is buried there at all. A different question can now be asked of the physical record. Several dozen artifacts and structures recovered on the island return medieval dates through independent scientific analysis, and the dates can be examined together rather than one at a time. The hardest evidence is radiocarbon dating performed by accredited laboratories. The fibre recovered in volume from the Money Pit and Smith's Cove was tentatively identified by the Smithsonian Institution in 1916 as coconut husk, and reidentified through detailed microscopic and forensic analysis by David Neisen, Robert Cook, and Christopher Boze (2022) as Judean Date Palm (Phoenix dactylifera) trunk fibre. The reidentification matters because it narrows the source. Coconut grows across a broad tropical Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific belt and reaches Europe only through long-distance trade. Phoenix dactylifera is native to the Levant and was cultivated commercially in medieval Judea, the Jordan Valley, and the Eastern Mediterranean coast. If the JDP identification holds, the fibre's provenance is no longer "somewhere tropical" but a specific geography, the Crusader-era Eastern Mediterranean, accessible to a very short list of medieval European operators. The Knights Templar themselves were among that short list, and a documented one. From 1116 until the Battle of Hattin in 1187, the order built and operated three water-powered mills at Jericho (Tawahin a-Sukkar, Er Riha, and Ain Duq) processing sugarcane and date fruit drawn from the surrounding plantations, with the cane grown beneath the date palm canopies. Archaeological residue analysis of the mill ceramics has detected date palm kernel oil, confirming both crops were processed at the same facilities. The Judean cultivar of Phoenix dactylifera grew only in the Jericho corridor and the Dead Sea margins, was extirpated by approximately 1350, and was extinct by approximately 1442. The 1185 to 1330 radiocarbon window the Oak Island fibre returns is the only century in which a European maritime operator could have acquired the material at scale, and the Templars are the documented industrial operators of the only landscape that produced it. Samples analysed by Beta Analytic and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution returned calibrated 2-sigma ranges spanning 1185 to 1330 AD. The material had been retted and prepared for use as cordage and packing, and was recovered in quantities measured in tonnes across the recorded search of both locations. Neither species grows in Nova Scotia and neither can reach the island unaided. Its presence in this volume calls for an explanation involving long-distance maritime transport during the same century the order documented moving relics from the Crusader port of Acre to southern France. [artifact:coconut-fibre-money-pit][article:oak-island-mystery-trees] On Lot 26, on the south side of the island, geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner examined a stone well that had drawn attention because it stayed unfrozen through winter. A wood sample from the base of the well dated to the twelfth century, within a range of approximately 1028 to 1172 AD, and the water returned elevated silver content. Spooner described the well's construction as crude and old, distinct from the more refined stonework of eighteenth and nineteenth century Nova Scotia. [artifact:stone-well-never-freezes] Parts of the Smith's Cove timber structures uncovered by Dan Blankenship in 1969 and 1970 carried a remarkable carbon-14 signature: an oak peg dated to about 860 AD with a range of 720 to 1000, and a beam dated to about 1135 AD with a range of 1025 to 1245. [artifact:smiths-cove-timber-structures-blankenship-1969-70] A paved area uncovered in the swamp returned a radiocarbon date of approximately 1200 AD from wood beneath it, within a range of 1150 to 1250, in what was once an open cove. A buried roadway nearby, the Sand Road in the western swamp, dates to a range of 1200 to 1250. [artifact:paved-area-stone-wharf] [artifact:sand-road-western-swamp] Archaeoastronomer Professor Adriano Gaspani contributed a second dating method. Five large boulders arranged in the shape of a cross, spanning some 720 feet across the island's interior, were first identified by Fred Nolan after decades of surveying. Gaspani analysed the alignment of Nolan's Cross and dated its placement to approximately 1217 AD, within a working range of 1125 to 1275. Gaspani also determined that a series of stone cairns distributed across the island represent the Hyades star cluster and share the same window, approximately 1150 to 1275 AD. Aligning monuments to the stars is a known medieval practice that the Templars made use of. [artifact:nolan-s-cross-6-boulders] [artifact:stone-cairns] The metal record adds a third method. The lead cross found at Smith's Cove by Rick Lagina and metal detectorist Gary Drayton in 2017 was tested by Tobias Skowronek of the German Mining Museum, who dated it to between 900 and 1300 AD and matched its metal by lead isotope analysis to medieval mines in the Cévennes and Montagne Noire regions of southern France. The cross has a square hole at the top and the form of a devotional object worn around the neck. [artifact:lead-cross] A long, narrow piece of lead with a raised floral pattern, found on Lot 21, returned lead isotope data identical to the Smith's Cove cross. Both objects came from the same French ore source and dating, yet were found on opposite sides of the island. An iron spike from Lot 5 was dated by archaeometallurgist Emma Culligan to 1100 to 1330 AD on its forging characteristics. The iron is hand-wrought, produced by methods consistent with medieval European blacksmithing. [artifact:lead-decorative-piece] [artifact:hand-wrought-iron-spike-12th-13th-century] A metal crossbow bolt recovered on Lot 26 has been typologically dated to a range of 1000 to 1299 AD by curator Ane Jepsen Nyborg of the Ladby Viking Museum in Denmark. Crossbow bolts of this kind were standard military hardware in medieval Europe and were not manufactured in North America. [artifact:crossbow-bolt] Leather shoe fragments recovered on Lot 13 carry a range of 1148 to 1216 AD. A wound glass bead found on Lot 5, identified as forest glass typical of medieval Normandy, falls within 1100 to 1499. A gold-plated brooch with a leaded glass gem recovered on Lot 18 dates to the fourteenth century or earlier, with a range of 1200 to 1399, based on its threading technique. A boatswain's whistle in bone and ivory, identified by the American Museum of Natural History as most likely Scandinavian and made from walrus tusk consistent with the Norse Greenland ivory trade of the 1200s, falls within 1100 to 1500. [artifact:leather-shoe-fragments] [artifact:wound-glass-bead-forest-glass-normandy] [artifact:gold-plated-brooch-leaded-glass-gem] [artifact:boatswain-s-whistle-bone-ivory] More Dates Further dated material rounds out the picture. An iron staple recovered at the Quadrilateral structure on Lot 13 has been placed at 1200 to 1600 AD on context grounds. The Quadrilateral boulder formation itself sits within 1100 to 1500. An ancient trade weight cast in arsenical bronze, a metal no longer produced after the sixteenth century, was estimated at roughly a thousand years old by metal-detection specialist Umberto Moruzzi and at least five hundred years old by Sandy Campbell, giving a working range of 900 to 1500. A copper token bearing unidentified symbols carries a range of 700 to 1599 in the assessment of Dr. Edwin Barnhart. A megalithic boulder feature on Lot 8 analysed by Emma Culligan returned a cradle-binder range of 1200 to 1750, described as premodern and possibly medieval. A purple-stained wood fragment from Lot 18 carries a range of 1100 to 1499. [artifact:iron-staple-quadrilateral] [artifact:quadrilateral-boulder-formation] [artifact:ancient-trade-weight] [artifact:lot-8-giant-boulder-megalith] Set side by side on a timeline, the ranges overlap, and the overlap is densest in the early thirteenth century. The greatest concentration falls around the year 1211: at that point on the timeline, twenty-three of the island's dated objects and structures have overlapping ranges that could include the year. That figure sits within five years of Gaspani's archaeoastronomical date for Nolan's Cross, 1217 AD, which was reached by an entirely separate method on entirely separate material. Artifacts whose dating windows converge around 1211. Click Image to open the Artifacts Timeline.  Plotting overlapping date ranges this way is what archaeologists call a summed probability distribution, the standard technique for locating periods of human activity from independently dated material: each artifact contributes equally to every year its uncertainty range covers, with no weighting applied and no period selected for in advance. The pattern is easier to read against the rest of the island's record. The same exercise produces a far larger mass of overlapping ranges in the colonial period, roughly 1600 to 1750, which is where it should appear: that is the era of settlement and the documented treasure hunt, and it needs no explaining. A concentration of dated material in the early thirteenth century, centuries before any documented activity, is an anomaly, because nothing in the record accounts for it. The convergence holds across methods. Radiocarbon dating, lead isotope analysis, metallurgical typology, ceramic and contextual dating, and archaeoastronomy were carried out by separate analysts at separate institutions across more than three decades, on different samples drawn from different parts of the island, and the results fall within the same broad window of roughly the eleventh to fourteenth centuries. No single analyst saw the others' work in advance. No single laboratory could have produced the pattern by error. The pattern is what remains when the individual results are placed on a shared timeline. Oak Island in the Middle Ages An island in Atlantic Canada is not supposed to return this body of evidence. Nova Scotia has no settled European history before the seventeenth century, and Oak Island has no documented history before the 17th century. The conventional account of North America places the first medieval European contact at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland around the year 1000, a Norse landing of brief duration that left a small settlement and little else. Oak Island lies more than seven hundred miles south of L'Anse aux Meadows. The expected scientific yield from such a place, in a region whose pre-colonial archaeology is dominated by Mi'kmaq material, is zero medieval European artifacts. The Mi'kmaq pottery finds on Oak Island are of course excluded from the comparison here because it is the indigenous baseline of this coastline and would be expected at any Mahone Bay site; the rest of the medieval cluster, French-mined lead, hand-wrought European iron, Norse walrus ivory, forest glass from Normandy, and a Latin-cross devotional object, belongs to a material culture with no overlap with Mi'kmaq archaeology. The recovered yield is almost two dozen dated objects and structures clustering on a single decade of the early thirteenth century, traceable to materials and methods that match medieval European workshops, mines, and astronomical practice. [site:l-anse-aux-meadows][article:vikings] What the dates establish is a medieval presence. They do not, on their own, name who left it. The stone well, the timber structures, the paved area, and the buried road point to people who stayed long enough to build. The crossbow bolt and the iron spike point to men who were armed. The lead cross and the decorative piece point to a southern French origin. The boatswain's whistle points north to the Norse ivory trade. The brooch and the wound glass bead point to medieval European workshops. Each find, taken alone, can be questioned. Taken together, they support the hypothesis of an operation rather than a single landing. The Knights Templar were active from 1119 to 1312 AD, and the order's span overlaps the window almost exactly. That overlap is documented. The direct connection is not, and the case rests on physical evidence that can be retested at any accredited laboratory rather than on inference from unverifiable sources. There is every indication that medieval Europeans reached Oak Island in the 13th century. Further research must establish who they were and if the Templar hypothesis holds. Oak Island dates: 100 years before the downfall The window the dates point to is not the one the popular Oak Island Templar story occupies. The familiar narrative is the 1307 collapse: Philip's arrests, the empty treasury at the Paris Temple, the eighteen galleys that left at dawn. Oak Island's densest cluster of medieval dates falls on the year 1211, almost a hundred years before Philip's officers found that treasury empty. The order was then at full strength, its officers still living in their commanderies in Paris and Provence, its ships still flying its own banner, its books in order. If a Templar story is at work on the island, it is not the story of fugitives hiding what they could carry. It would be the story of an organisation acting from a strong position, with shipyards, treasury, fleet, and command intact, moving something deliberately across an ocean for purposes of its own. That is a different story, and a harder one. On the evidence, it is the more interesting one. The number of entities in medieval Europe capable of staging such a movement was very small. A transatlantic operation in the early thirteenth century would have required deep-water ships rather than Mediterranean galleys, navigators capable of finding the way back, crews bound by enough discipline to keep silent for the rest of their lives, capital sufficient to absorb a multi-year expedition without showing in the accounts, and a motive strong enough to justify the cost. The Italian maritime republics had the money and the ships but their interests faced east toward Constantinople and Alexandria, not west. The English and French crowns had limited navies and no reason for secrecy. The Norse who had reached Newfoundland two centuries earlier were by then a declining community in Greenland with no documented capacity for a sustained programme. The military orders, the Templars first among them and the Hospitallers behind, combined all five requirements in one institution: their own fleet, their own treasury, sworn brothers under religious vows, astronomical knowledge brought back from the Levant, and the kind of long-running internal project that need not appear in any chancery record. That short list of candidates is not proof of who built on Oak Island. It is the size of the pool from which the answer has to come if the hypothesis holds. One piece of evidence possibly has the power to swing the scales towards more definite answers. If Neisen, Cook, and Boze are right and the Money Pit and Smith's Cove fibre is indeed Judean Date Palm trunk fibre, the medieval dating cluster includes actual cargo from the area of the Holy Land, recovered in quantities measured in tonnes, dated to the Crusader century.  Sources Templar founding and history Bernard of Clairvaux, In Praise of the New Knighthood (Liber ad milites Templi: De laude novae militiae), c. 1129. Theological justification for the Templar warrior-monk model. Council of Troyes, 13 January 1129. Papal recognition of the Knights Templar; Bernard wrote their Rule. Pope Innocent II, papal bull Omne Datum Optimum, 29 March 1139. Exempted the Templars from taxes and local authority and placed them under direct papal protection. The vessel Montjoie, 1254: relics shipped from Acre to southern France. Documented in Corjan Mol and Christopher Morford, The Jerusalem Files (Watkins / Penguin Random House, 2024). Suppression, flight, and the escape routes Ponsard de Gizy testimony, Paris trials, November 1309. Procès des Templiers, ed. Jules Michelet, 2 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1841–1851), vol. I. States that Gérard de Villiers had left Ruad a day before the siege closed, taking his friends with him. Jean de Châlons testimony, Papal Inquisition at Poitiers, June 1308. Procès des Templiers, ed. Michelet, vol. I. Records the leaders' flight, Gérard de Villiers and eighteen galleys, and Hugues de Châlons escaping with the treasure of Hugues de Pairaud. Also in Alain Demurger, Jacques de Molay (Paris: Payot, 2002) and Barbara Frale, L'ultima battaglia dei Templari (Rome: Viella, 2001). Registre de Philippe le Bel, contenant des lettres et des mémoires sur l'affaire des Templiers et sur les rapports avec la cour de Rome, July 1308. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Archives et Manuscrits, Latin 10919, folio 236v. States that Hugh de Châlons, nephew of the Visitor, and Gérard de Montclair, knights of the Temple, with accomplices, had planned to kill the King (conceperant occidere regem). Latin transcription and translation by Corjan Mol. Émile-G. Léonard, Introduction au Cartulaire manuscrit du Temple (1150–1317) (Paris: Champion, 1930). Identifies Hugues de Châlons, preceptor of Épailly, as probably identical with Hugh of Villiers. Humbert de Pairaud as Master of England and Aquitaine (1266–1271) in Alain Demurger, Les Templiers: Une chevalerie chrétienne au Moyen Âge (Paris: Seuil, 2005) and the Procès des Templiers. Corjan Mol and Christopher Morford, The Jerusalem Files (Watkins / Penguin Random House, 2024). The De Châlons/De Villiers and Pairaud identities, the Paris Temple treasury, and the case for Rouen and the river network over La Rochelle, including the Clos-des-Galées shipyard. The Caestert quarry Joris de Lange, Ruben Philipsen and Jacquo Silvertant, "Lost knowledge on the meaning of historical graffiti at the underground Caestert stone quarry." Describes the cross-shaped gallery, the Saint George composition, a mark matching early-thirteenth-century Languedoc Templar documents, and the fourteenth-century refugee hypothesis. Jacquo Silvertant first proposed Templar symbolism at the site in 1999; the authors treat the connection as unproven. Saint George and the Youth of Mytilene: the Eastern iconographic type in which a rescued Christian cupbearer rides behind the saint holding a vessel. British Museum icon, c. 1250, identified by Robin Cormack and Stavros Mihalarias (1984). Field observation of the cup-bearing figure and the four-dot crosses at Caestert by Corjan Mol. Radiocarbon dating Beta Analytic report Beta-39897 (1990): 770 ±60 BP, calibrated 2σ 1168–1374 AD. Coconut fibre from Smith's Cove. Previously identified as coconut fibre by the Smithsonian Institution and the Botanical Museum of Harvard University. Beta Analytic report Beta-66584 (1993): 820 ±70 BP, calibrated 2σ 1036–1298 AD. Sample from behind an old board wall at Smith's Cove. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution receipt 10168 / OI-3-CF2 (1995–96): 765 ±35 BP, approximately 1185 AD. Primary compilation: Les MacPhie, "Summary of Documents and Results for Carbon Dating at Oak Island" (compiled July 2006). Dr. Ian Spooner, geoscientist. Wood from the base of the stone well on Lot 26, dated to the twelfth century (range approximately 1028–1172); elevated silver in the water. Charred wood from the Eye of the Swamp, carbon-dated to approximately 1100 AD (range 1050–1150). Smith's Cove timber structures excavated by Dan Blankenship 1969–70. Oak peg ~860 AD (720–1000); beam ~1135 AD (1025–1245). Paved area in the swamp: radiocarbon date of wood beneath the surface, approximately 1200 AD (range 1150–1250). Sand Road in the western swamp: pre-colonial, 1200–1250.   Botanical analysis David H. Neisen, Robert W. Cook, and Christopher L. Boze, Oak Island Mystery Trees and Other Forensic Answers, four-volume series (2022–2024), with Templar Knights on Oak Island: Missing Lacuna Found (Hammerson Peters Publishing, 2025) as Volume IV. Microscopic and forensic reidentification of fibre samples recovered from the Money Pit and Smith's Cove as Phoenix dactylifera (Judean Date Palm) trunk fibre, updating the 1916 Smithsonian Institution identification as coconut husk. Volume IV documents the Knights Templar agricultural operations at Jericho from 1116 to 1187, including three water-powered mills (Tawahin a-Sukkar, Er Riha, Ain Duq) processing sugarcane and date fruit, citing Hamdan Taha (2009), Meron Benvenisti (1970), and Richard Jones's "Sweet Waste" report on the 2002 Tawahin es-Sukkar excavation. The reidentification and the Jericho documentation are the source of the Eastern Mediterranean provenance attribution used in this article. Archaeoastronomy Professor Adriano Gaspani, archaeoastronomer. Nolan's Cross dated to approximately 1217 AD (working range 1125–1275). Stone cairns identified as a Hyades representation, dated approximately 1150–1275 AD. Metallurgical, isotope, and typological analysis Tobias Skowronek, German Mining Museum (Deutsches Bergbau-Museum), Bochum. Lead cross from Smith's Cove dated 900–1300 AD, matched by lead isotope analysis to the Cévennes and Montagne Noire, southern France. Lead decorative piece from Lot 21 with identical isotope data, pre-1400. Emma Culligan, archaeometallurgist. Hand-wrought iron spike from Lot 5, dated 1100–1330 AD on forging characteristics. Lot 8 megalith cradle-binder analysis: post-1200s to pre-mid-1700s. Woven-pattern coin from Lot 5 identified as a thirteenth-century French denier. Crossbow bolt from Lot 26: typologically dated approximately 1000–1299 AD; assessment by curator Ane Jepsen Nyborg, Ladby Viking Museum, Denmark. Boatswain's whistle (bone/ivory) identified by the American Museum of Natural History as most likely Scandinavian, walrus tusk ivory consistent with the Norse Greenland ivory trade of the 1200s. Wound glass bead from Lot 5: forest glass typical of medieval Normandy, as early as the tenth century. Gold-plated brooch with leaded glass gem from Lot 18: fourteenth century or earlier on threading technique. Ancient trade weight: arsenical bronze, no longer produced after the sixteenth century; estimated at roughly a thousand years old by Umberto Moruzzi and at least five hundred years old by Sandy Campbell. Metal token (copper, unidentified symbols): assessed by Dr. Edwin Barnhart as either Viking-era (8th–11th century) or 16th-century European. Leather shoe fragments from Lot 13: 1148–1216 AD. Iron staple and Quadrilateral boulder formation, Lot 13: dated to well before 1795 on archaeological context. Mi'kmaq pottery recovered from the swamp: 500 to 2,500 years old. Further reading Corjan Mol and Christopher Morford, The Jerusalem Files: The Secret of the World's Most Famous Treasure Hunt (Watkins / Penguin Random House, 2024). ### Zena Halpern's Templar Map URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/zena-halpern-and-the-templar-map-of-oak-island In November 2016, area historian Doug Crowell introduced the Oak Island team to a New York-based researcher named Zena Halpern. What she brought to the table would reshape the investigation for years to come: three documents that, if authentic, would place the Knights Templar on Oak Island centuries before the Money Pit's discovery in 1795. Halpern was not a casual theorist. She had spent more than a decade tracing a chain of evidence from a medieval document purchased in Cremona, Italy, through a web of collectors, secret societies, and hidden objects, all the way to the shores of Nova Scotia. Her work appeared across multiple seasons of the show, generated real archaeological investigation, and connected Oak Island to European noble families, Templar history, and ancient navigation technology. She passed away in 2018, and her entire research archive was bequeathed to the Oak Island team. This article examines what she presented, what the team found when they tested her claims on the ground, and where her evidence stands today. The Templar Document and its Origins The foundation of Halpern's theory was a manuscript she called the Templar Document. According to her account, the document was purchased in 1971 by a man she identified as Dr. W. David Jackson from a Mr. Benvenuto in Cremona, Italy. The manuscript had reportedly been kept at the Church of San Sigismundo in Cremona, and before that at Castrum Sepulchri, a Cistercian abbey in Seborga, a small principality on the Italian Riviera near the French border. Seborga had documented Templar connections dating to the 12th century and sat along the medieval pilgrimage route. [article:the-inscribed-marker-stones-of-seborga][article:the-knights-templar] The Templar Document contained maps, journal entries, and descriptions of objects recovered from beneath the Temple Mount in Jerusalem during the early 12th century. Among these was a journal entitled "A Year We Remember," attributed to an English Templar knight named Ralph de Sudeley of Gloucestershire. According to the journal, de Sudeley was dispatched on a mission in 1178 by Templar Grand Master Odo de St. Amand to recover secret scrolls hidden in a land called Onteora, a mountain range in what is now New York State. On his way there, de Sudeley and his men reportedly stopped at an island of oak along the coast of maritime Canada. The document also described five devices found in the Jerusalem tomb, including navigation instruments, a decoder with Arabic and Hebrew letters, maps, gold, and the bones of a man named John. These items were said to have been transported to Castrum Sepulchri, where Cistercian monks translated the accompanying scrolls with the help of Jewish scholars. The scrolls allegedly described a hidden cache of treasure in Onteora and provided maps showing the route. [article:the-inscribed-marker-stones-of-seborga] Three Documents on the War Room Table When Halpern appeared on Season 4, Episode 1, she presented three specific documents via conference call with Marty Lagina, Craig Tester, and Doug Crowell. The first was a hand-drawn French map of Oak Island, which she dated to 1347. The map labelled landmarks in French, including a basin corresponding to the swamp, a marsh, a dam, and an entry point labelled "la chene" ("the oak"). Three features on the map drew particular attention: the anchors, the valve, and a location marked "Le Trou Sous la Trappe," meaning "the hole under the trap door." The team would spend years searching for this feature, eventually calling it the Hatch. [artifact:square-shaped-hatch] Zena Halpern's alleged map of Oak Island The second was a Nova Scotia map dated 1179, which Halpern connected to the Templar Document. This map marked an area from west to east where gold was present, corresponding to the Gold River that flows from New Ross to Mahone Bay, where gold deposits triggered a major rush in the mid-1800s. The map also showed a land bridge connecting Nova Scotia to Cape Breton Island, and depicted water levels and island configurations consistent with what oceanographers confirmed were lower sea levels several centuries ago. The third was the La Formule cipher, a coded page covered in strange symbols. Crowell noted immediately that the symbols appeared to match those believed inscribed on the lost 90-foot stone, the stone found in the original Money Pit shaft in the 1790s whose inscription was famously translated as "Forty Feet Below, Two Million Pounds are Buried." The La Formule page was torn in a deliberate jigsaw pattern and bore a faint inscription at the bottom: "Tim McInnis to W. David Jackson, one of seven." The La Formula Cypher The McGinnis Connection The surname McInnis caught the team's attention. Halpern and fellow researcher Judi Rudebusch had tracked the name to Jim McGinnis, a direct descendant of the original Oak Island discoverer Daniel McGinnis. McGinnis had lived in Florida, worked for the CIA, and was known to have shared Oak Island information with Dr. Jackson in the 1970s. Before his death, McGinnis gave his sister a gold cross he always wore, the same cross she later showed on The Curse of Oak Island. The cross was authenticated and dated to the 16th century. [artifact:mcginnis-gold-cross] Halpern believed Jackson found information about Oak Island within the Templar Document and that certain parties wanted it. She pointed to a note Jackson had written in the back of a book, dated 1996, which read: "They wanted the info about the tunnels so they bought the document from me. But they didn't get it. Who has it now? I think it was broken up into 8 parts. I have 4, what happened to the rest?" The La Formule page, torn like a puzzle piece, appeared to be one of those parts. The Ralph de Sudeley Problem The entire chain of evidence presented by Halpern rests on the claim that Ralph de Sudeley was an English Templar knight who led a transatlantic voyage in 1178 to 1180 and produced the maps bound in the Templar Document, including the Nova Scotia map dated 1179. Without de Sudeley, there is no 12th-century voyage, and no basis for dating any of the maps to the medieval period. The claim deserves careful scrutiny, and checking Halpern's cited sources against the original documents reveals that every one of them has been misrepresented. Ralph de Sudeley was a real person. He was a 12th-century English baron in Gloucestershire who died before September 1192. But the historical record paints a very different picture from the one in Halpern's book. He was not a Knight Templar. He was a benefactor who donated land to the order in 1185, a routine act of baronial piety. Donating to the Templars was how wealthy landholders fulfilled their crusading obligations without leaving home, and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography describes Ralph as a man who "took little part in public affairs." He founded Arbury Priory, endowed it with lands, and had a private chapel licensed at his manor house at Griff. He was succeeded by his son Otuel. That is essentially the full extent of what the records say about him. Halpern did not originate the extraordinary claims about de Sudeley. They first appeared in Graham Phillips' 2004 book The Templars and the Ark of the Covenant: The Discovery of the Treasure of Solomon. Phillips placed Ralph at Petra in Jordan as commander of Templar fortifications, described him returning to England mysteriously wealthy, and claimed he displayed sacred relics at a Templar preceptory at Herdewyke in Warwickshire. Halpern adopted Phillips' framework, corrected a genealogical error Phillips had made (Phillips called Ralph a younger son when he was in fact the elder), and then extended the narrative far beyond what Phillips had written, adding the transatlantic voyage, the Onteora Document, the Oak Island stopover, and the maps. Phillips cited four primary sources for his claims. All four have been checked against the originals, and none say what he claimed. First, Phillips wrote that the Feet of Fines preserved in the Warwickshire Records Department contained entries mentioning "objets sacrés" and "Vestiges d'ancien Testament" (Old Testament relics) at de Sudeley's preceptory chapel. The published Feet of Fines for this period are formulaic Latin records of land transfers between named parties before royal justices. They do not contain narrative descriptions of chapel contents, pilgrim donations, or sacred artifacts in Norman French. Phillips provided no folio number, no record reference, and no citation. His bibliography contains not a single work on English medieval history, Warwickshire records, or the Pipe Roll Society publications. Second, Phillips wrote that "according to the Warwickshire historian William Dugdale, who wrote in 1656, the Elizabethan explorer Sir Walter Raleigh visited Herdewyke in 1600 and was told a story about the Templars hiding treasure in the area." Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire has been searched in full. The Herdwick entry records that "Raph de Sudley gave some quantity of what he had here to the Templars, which in 31 H.2. was valued at xl s. per annum." There is no mention of Sir Walter Raleigh, no treasure legend, no preceptory of a thousand men, and no sacred relics. The Raleigh family that appears elsewhere in Dugdale is the local landed gentry of Farnborough, not the Elizabethan explorer. Third, Phillips attributed a quote to the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, writing that "Burckhardt himself described the Crusaders' find as comprising 'treasures of pure gold, precious stones, and a golden chest.'" Burckhardt's Travels in Syria and the Holy Land (1822) contains a detailed account of his 1812 visit to Petra. He describes the ruins, the Siq gorge, the monument he calls Kaszr Faraoun (now known as the Treasury), and his guide's suspicion that he was searching for treasure. At no point does Burckhardt record any legend about Crusaders finding a golden chest, precious stones, or anything else. The quote Phillips attributed to him does not exist in the text. Fourth, Halpern claimed that "the record of his return to the Shropshire, Herefordshire area is documented in the 'Annals of Winchcombe and Sudeley,' and it gives the date of 1185." Emma Dent's Annals of Winchcombe and Sudeley (1877) is a Victorian local history that records the same facts found in Dugdale: Ralph succeeded to his father's estates in 1165, founded Arbury Priory, and in 1185 gave lands to the Knights Templar. It documents a land donation, not a return from anywhere. The actual medieval Winchcombe Chronicle, held at the British Library, ends at 1181, four years before the date Halpern cited. The journal attributed to de Sudeley presents its own problems. Halpern stated it was written in Theban script, which she described as a cipher used by 12th-century Cistercian monks. The Theban alphabet was first published in 1518 in Johannes Trithemius' Polygraphia and has not been found in any manuscript or publication predating that work. A document from 1180 written in a script that does not appear in the historical record for another 338 years is difficult to reconcile with authenticity. Halpern also claimed that "historical records reveal 'missing years' for de Sudeley during the 1175 to 1185 time period," which she presented as an opening for the transatlantic voyage. Gaps in the medieval English records are normal for minor barons. A landholder appeared in the Pipe Rolls only when he owed money to the crown, was involved in legal proceedings, or paid scutage. Ralph appears in these records in 1166, 1169, and 1172 to 1174. The absence of entries after 1174 does not indicate absence from England. It indicates he had no outstanding business before the Exchequer. If he had been abroad on crusade, the Pipe Rolls would likely have recorded an exemption from scutage for that reason, as they did for other crusading barons. No such exemption appears. Phillips' book contains a single footnote in its entirety, which clarifies that biblical quotations use the King James translation. No footnote, endnote, or citation supports any of his claims about de Sudeley, the Feet of Fines, Dugdale, or Burckhardt. All four primary sources are freely available on the Internet Archive for anyone to verify. Testing the Map on the Ground The team did not simply accept Halpern's documents at face value. They tested them against the physical landscape of Oak Island, and that investigation produced a trail of results that stretched across multiple seasons. In Season 4, Jack Begley overlaid the 1347 map onto modern satellite imagery and found that the old French coastline aligned with the current island shape. Dave Blankenship revealed a strange depression near his property on Lot 22, close to where the map placed the Hatch. The team found a rectangular opening that appeared to have been chiseled through bedrock. Archaeologist Laird Niven confirmed the feature did not appear natural and recommended a formal archaeological permit before further excavation. In Season 9, mechanical engineer Matt Sandt corrected a translation from the map: the original French read "the hole under the hatch" rather than simply "the hatch," a distinction that changed the search parameters. CSR GeoSurveys scanned Lot 22 and Lot 4 with VLF radio signals and magnetometer equipment, revealing anomalies near the road on Lot 4 in the area where the team believed the Hatch could be located. Subsequent metal detecting on Lot 4 produced a leather strap and buckle, a gold-plated button, an iron spike, and a topping adze that Carmen Legge dated to 1620 to 1740. By Season 10, the team had identified a 13-foot-diameter circular stone feature on Lot 5, close to where a half Roman coin and a lead barter token had been found. Its dimensions matched the original Money Pit, and the construction resembled a wall on Lot 26 that contained charcoal dated to the 15th century. The team considered whether this could be the Hole Under the Hatch. In Season 8, GIS expert Erin Helton used the positions of Nolan's Cross boulders and other landmarks to identify geometric alignments across the island, placing the original Money Pit just three feet from Borehole RF-1. She later interpreted the La Formule cipher's instructions as describing a 522-foot corridor at a 45-degree alignment from the Money Pit, followed by a passage of 1,065 feet, leading her to propose the treasure vault lay not beneath the Money Pit itself but at the end of a tunnel extending west. The Map of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland is indicated bu the word "froid" (cold in French) The Rochefoucauld Connection One of the most productive threads from Halpern's material was the name "La Rochefoucauld," which appeared on the alleged 14th-century map. Doug Crowell researched the family and found the Rochefoucaulds were a prominent French noble house dating to the 10th century with direct connections to the Crusades through the Lusignan family, who ruled in Jerusalem. At the Centre of Geographic Sciences in Lawrencetown, the team discovered that a Francois de La Rochefoucauld married into the line of Pierre Dugua, the founder of the first French colony in Nova Scotia. Dugua's personal cartographer was Samuel Champlain, whose otherwise meticulous maps conspicuously omit Mahone Bay, a body of water containing more than 360 islands. The team asked why Champlain would leave a 25-by-20-mile bay off his charts. Rick Lagina and Alex Lagina later traveled to the Chateau de la Rochefoucauld in France, where family representative Sonia Matossian confirmed the family's participation in the Crusades. Critically, Matossian and translator Nichola Lewis corrected a translation on Halpern's map: a phrase previously rendered as "a little drink from Neustria" in fact read "a little towards the west," strengthening the map's potential as a directional document. The most striking Rochefoucauld connection came from the Halifax archives. Doug Crowell presented what appeared to be a French military ship's log describing an advance vessel for the fleet of Duc d'Anville, which sailed 97 ships and 13,000 men to recapture Acadia from the British in 1746. The log described the crew burying treasure in a deep pit with a secret entrance by tunnel from the shore. The shaft reached 67 feet before seepage made conditions too damp. Duc d'Anville's real name was Jean-Baptiste Louis Frederic de Rochefoucauld, connecting the expedition directly to the family whose name appeared on Halpern's map. [article:the-doomed-expedition-of-the-duc-d-anville][site:chateau-de-la-rochefoucauld] The La Formule Decipherment Rick Lagina sent the La Formule page to Professor Kevin Knight at the University of Southern California, a leading expert in machine translation and decipherment. Knight concluded the cipher was likely a substitution cipher used by secret societies and created by someone knowledgeable in cryptography. His partial decipherment translated into French and, rendered in English, read: "Halt. Do not dig to forty foot with an angle of forty-five degrees the shaft of five hundred twenty-two foot you enter the corridor of one thousand sixty-five foot reach the chamber." Rick noted that 522 feet was almost exactly the distance from Smith's Cove to the Money Pit, suggesting the cipher might describe the relationship between the flood tunnel and the treasure location. Knight also identified the cipher as one of seven pieces of a larger document, with the remaining six fragments still missing. The number seven carried its own weight on Oak Island, where legend holds that seven men must die before the treasure can be found. Halpern's Visit and the H+O Stone In Season 5, Rick visited Halpern at her New York home, where she presented material for her book on pre-Columbian Templar contact with North America. She traced Ralph de Sudeley's 12th-century voyage from Gloucestershire, England, to Oak Island and beyond, arguing he was sent to recover ancient scrolls hidden in North America. Halpern drew a connection between Templar coins bearing four distinctive dots around a cross and the markings on the H+O stone, a fragment salvaged by Gilbert Hedden in 1936 from a massive carved boulder that earlier searchers had dynamited in 1921 on the island's northern shore. The four dots on the H+O stone matched the embellishment style found exclusively on Templar crosses, according to her research. She also offered an unexpected interpretation of the lead cross found at Smith's Cove: rather than a depiction of Christ crucified, she identified the figure as a representation of Tanit, a Phoenician goddess dating back 3,000 years who was revered as the protector of sailors. [artifact:h-o-stone] Legacy Zena Halpern died in 2018 at age 88. Rick learned of her passing during Season 6 and read a tribute written by archaeoastronomer Rich Moats, who had worked closely with her. Rick and nephew Peter Fornetti traveled to Halpern's Long Island home, where they joined her sons Davin and Jason in sorting through more than 50 years of research materials. The Oak Island team established a dedicated research center on the island to house Halpern's archive, and Rick promised a candlestick from her collection would be lit only once: when the team finds answers because of her work. Assessment Zena Halpern's contribution to the Oak Island investigation was substantial in its impact. She drove years of fieldwork, connected the team to verifiable European noble families, and introduced documents that generated testable predictions about specific locations on the island. The Rochefoucauld family is historically real. Champlain's omission of Mahone Bay is documented. The Duc d'Anville expedition happened. The artifacts found in the areas her map indicated are genuine and have been dated by independent experts. The documents themselves, however, are forgeries. The French across all three is riddled with errors no native speaker would make: masculine and feminine articles are mixed up throughout, modern vocabulary appears on supposedly medieval documents, and grammatical constructions read like dictionary translations from English. The word "atterrissage" on the 1347 map did not enter the French language until 1830. The word "chene" was still written "chaisne" in the 14th century. The Oak Island map depicts the island as it appears today rather than as it would have looked in 1347, when sea levels were lower. The Frog Island Shoal, submerged today, would have been visible land at the time the map was supposedly drawn, yet it does not appear. The Oak Island Compendium has published a detailed four-part linguistic and provenance investigation of the Jackson documents that lays out the full case, and their findings are thorough. The provenance is equally problematic. Every document traces back to Dr. W. David Jackson, a figure whose existence cannot be independently verified and who had a remarkable habit of discovering important objects hidden inside other objects. The Vatican confirmed to the Compendium that Franco Franzetti, who supposedly authenticated the Cremona Document, never worked for them. The Parisian rare book dealer who allegedly sold Jackson the document has no record of existence in France. Don Ruh, who co-owned the documents with Halpern, eventually declared the Oak Island map a forgery on Scott Wolter's blog in 2018, claiming it had been fabricated by Jackson as bait in an intelligence operation, though his account of how Jackson obtained the map contradicts what he wrote in his own book. Your author visited Cremona multiple times and found no Mr. Benvenuto ever worked at San Sigismundo, the City Archives, or in any other place that had an archive or library. Beyond the documents, the historical foundation of Halpern's theory collapses under examination. The extraordinary claims about Ralph de Sudeley originated not with Halpern but with Graham Phillips' 2004 book, and Phillips' cited sources do not support his claims. The Feet of Fines do not mention sacred relics. Dugdale does not record a Raleigh treasure hunt. Burckhardt does not describe a Crusader find at Petra. The Annals of Winchcombe and Sudeley do not document a return from the Holy Land. Ralph de Sudeley was a stay-at-home baron who paid the Templars so he would not have to go on crusade. He was not a Templar knight, he never left England, and he did not draw a map of Nova Scotia. All the primary sources are available on the Internet Archive for independent verification. None of this is Halpern's fault. She was given these documents by others and believed them to be genuine. She invested years of her life researching their contents in good faith, and the connections she drew were logical given the materials she had to work with. The team respected her deeply, and Rick Lagina's relationship with her was genuine. The deception, if that is what it was, was done to her as much as to anyone else. In fact, all facts indicate Don Ruh himself is the forger. In an irony that life sometimes produces, Zena's work spurred research she probably would have loved. The Rochefoucauld research stands on its own merits. The artifacts found on Lots 4 and 5 are real. The carbon dates are real. The questions she raised about pre-Columbian European contact with Nova Scotia continue to be worth asking, regardless of the documents that prompted them. Sources The Jackson Documents Zena Halpern, The Templar Mission to Oak Island and Beyond: Search for Ancient Secrets: The Shocking Revelations of a 12th Century Manuscript (self-published). Contains the 1347 Oak Island map, the 1179 Nova Scotia map, and the La Formule cipher page. All three documents trace to Dr. W. David Jackson, who reportedly purchased the Templar Document from a Mr. Benvenuto at the Church of San Sigismundo in Cremona, Italy, in 1971. Provenance and Forgery Investigation Oak Island Compendium, "The Bill Jackson Documents Investigation," Parts 1–4. Published at theoakislandcompendium.com. Comprehensive linguistic and provenance analysis by Charlotte and contributors, including: French language errors across all three documents (masculine/feminine article confusion, modern vocabulary on supposedly medieval documents); confirmation from the Vatican that Franco Franzetti never worked for them; non-existence of the Parisian rare book dealer in French records; handwriting matches across documents from supposedly different centuries. Entry point: https://www.theoakislandcompendium.com/post/the-bill-jackson-documents-investigation-part-1 Donald Ruh, "The Truth about Oak Island and the Cremona Document," guest blog post on Scott Wolter Answers, December 26, 2018. Ruh declared the Oak Island map a fabrication, claiming Jackson created it as bait in an intelligence operation targeting members of Propaganda Due (P2). As evidence, he produced a letter allegedly written by Jackson in 1979, though the letter appears to have been typed in a proportional font consistent with modern word-processing software rather than a 1979 typewriter. His account of how Jackson obtained the map contradicts the provenance he published in his own book, The Scrolls of Onteora (2018), months earlier. Link: http://scottwolteranswers.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-truth-about-oak-island-and-cremona.html Corjan Mol, personal fieldwork in Cremona, Italy (multiple visits). No Mr. Benvenuto found at the Church of San Sigismundo, the City Archives, or any other institution with an archive or library. Linguistic Evidence of Forgery The word "atterrissage" on the 1347 map did not enter the French language until 1830. The word "chene" (oak) was still written "chaisne" in 14th-century French. The map depicts Oak Island as it appears today rather than as it would have looked in 1347, when sea levels were lower. Frog Island Shoal, submerged today, would have been visible land at the supposed date of the map. Ralph de Sudeley: Primary Sources Checked Against Claims Feet of Fines for the Reign of Henry II and the Reign of Richard I (Pipe Roll Society, vols. 17–18). Formulaic Latin land transfer records. Contain no narrative descriptions of chapel contents, sacred artifacts, or "objets sacres." Available at: https://archive.org/details/feetoffinesofrei1718grea William Dugdale, The Antiquities of Warwickshire (1656; second edition 1765). The Herdwick entry records that "Raph de Sudley gave some quantity of what he had here to the Templars." No mention of Sir Walter Raleigh, treasure legends, preceptories of a thousand men, or sacred relics. Available at: https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_the-antiquities-of-warwi_dugdale-william-sir_1765_1 Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, Travels in Syria and the Holy Land (London, 1822). Describes his 1812 visit to Petra in detail. Contains no legend about Crusaders finding a golden chest, precious stones, or any treasure. The quote attributed to Burckhardt by Graham Phillips does not exist in the text. Available at: https://archive.org/details/travelsinsyriaan08884gut Emma Dent, Annals of Winchcombe and Sudeley (London, 1877). Records that Ralph succeeded to his father's estates in 1165, founded Arbury Priory, and in 1185 gave lands to the Knights Templar. Documents a land donation, not a return from any voyage. Available at: https://archive.org/details/annalswinchcomb00dentgoog Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, entry for Ralph de Sudeley. Describes him as a man who "took little part in public affairs." The medieval Winchcombe Chronicle (British Library) ends at 1181, four years before the date Halpern cited for de Sudeley's alleged voyage. Books: Zena Halpern, The Templar Mission to Oak Island and Beyond: Search for Ancient Secrets: The Shocking Revelations of a 12th Century Manuscript (Lake Worth, Florida: self-published, 2016). Presents the three Jackson documents (the 1347 Oak Island map, the 1179 Nova Scotia map, and the La Formule cipher), the Ralph de Sudeley narrative, the Bannerman Island brass navigation device, the Onteora Document, and the claimed provenance chain from Cremona through Dr. W. David Jackson. Graham Phillips, The Templars and the Ark of the Covenant: The Discovery of the Treasure of Solomon (Rochester, Vermont: Bear & Company, 2004). Contains a single footnote (clarifying that biblical quotations use the King James translation). No footnote, endnote, or citation supports any of his claims about de Sudeley, the Feet of Fines, Dugdale, or Burckhardt.  The Theban Alphabet Johannes Trithemius, Polygraphia (1518). First known publication of the Theban alphabet. No manuscript or publication predating this work contains the script. The journal attributed to de Sudeley, supposedly written in 1180, uses a cipher that does not appear in the historical record for another 338 years. The La Formule Decipherment Professor Kevin Knight, University of Southern California. Identified the cipher as a substitution cipher used by secret societies. Partial decipherment translated into French, rendered in English: "Halt. Do not dig to forty foot with an angle of forty-five degrees the shaft of five hundred twenty-two foot you enter the corridor of one thousand sixty-five foot reach the chamber." The Rochefoucauld Connection The Duc d'Anville expedition (1746): Jean-Baptiste Louis Frederic de la Rochefoucauld de Roye, Duc d'Anville, sailed 97 ships and 13,000 men to recapture Acadia from the British. A ship's log presented by Doug Crowell on the show described a crew burying treasure in a deep pit with a secret tunnel entrance from shore. The shaft reached 67 feet before seepage. This connects the Rochefoucauld family name on Halpern's map to a documented naval expedition to Nova Scotia. Jean-Baptiste du Casse, French Admiral, whose son-in-law was Louis de La Rochefoucauld, Marquis de Roye. Some researchers have attributed the map to du Casse rather than to 1347. Television Appearances The Curse of Oak Island, Season 4, Episode 1 (November 2016). First presentation of the three Jackson documents to the team. Halpern appeared or was referenced in approximately 25 episodes across Seasons 4 through 11 ### The Portuguese: The Order of Christ URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/portuguese-connection-order-of-christ The Knights Templar arrived in Portugal in 1128, just ten years after the Order's founding in Jerusalem. They came not as visitors but as partners in a national project. Teresa of León, mother of the future first king of Portugal, donated the village of Fonte Arcada to the Order in 1126 and the Castle of Soure in 1127, on the condition that the knights defend the Mondego River line against Muslim assault. Her son, Afonso Henriques, went further. In 1129 or 1130, he confirmed his mother's donations in a document in which he declared himself a frater, an associated brother of the Temple. The Latin is explicit: he stated that he was "in your fraternity and benefit, a brother." He did not take full monastic vows, but the formal attachment was real, and it aligned the interests of the Portuguese crown with those of the Order for the rest of his long reign. [site:church-of-fonte-arcada] The bond paid dividends. In 1147, Afonso Henriques conquered both Santarém and Lisbon with Templar support, transforming Portugal from a vulnerable frontier county into a viable kingdom. The fall of Lisbon was a joint operation involving northern European crusaders recruited with the help of Bernard of Clairvaux, the Cistercian abbot whose influence over the papacy and the military orders was without equal. A letter attributed to Bernard (known as Letter 308) addresses Afonso Henriques directly and mentions a Templar named Pedro who had served as a messenger between the king and the abbot, as well as a monk named Roland dispatched to Portugal carrying papal letters granting spiritual privileges to those who would fight on the Portuguese frontier. Jonathan Wilson, writing in the journal Al-Masāq in 2020, argued persuasively that this letter provides evidence of a specific "Lisbon Indulgence" issued to recruit crusaders for the campaign. The conquest of Lisbon gave Portugal its first defensible natural frontier along the Tagus and ensured its survival as an independent kingdom. In the decades that followed, the Templars became the dominant force in central Portugal. Gualdim Pais, who had spent five years fighting in the Holy Land at Ascalon, Antioch, and Sidon before returning to serve as Master of the Temple in Portugal, led the Order for thirty-seven years. An inscription stone still visible at the Convento de Cristo records his achievements: the founding of the castles of Pombal, Tomar, Zêzere, Almourol, Idanha, and Monsanto. At Tomar, construction of the great castle began in 1160. By the late twelfth century, the Templar network of commanderies across the region between the Tagus and the Mondego functioned as a state within a state, granting town charters, managing farms, operating what amounted to a banking system, and administering justice across vast territories. [article:the-knights-templar] The Order That Never Died When Pope Clement V dissolved the Knights Templar in 1312, the suppression was enforced with varying degrees of violence across Europe. In France, where the arrests had begun on Friday, 13 October 1307, knights were tortured into confessing crimes ranging from heresy to financial misconduct. Grand Master Jacques de Molay was burned at the stake. A papal bull ordered all of Christendom to seize Templar assets and transfer them to the Knights Hospitaller. Portugal refused. King Dinis I negotiated an exception. Rather than surrendering the Order's wealth to a rival institution or to Rome, he incorporated all Portuguese Templar members and property into a new national order: the Ordem Militar de Cristo, the Military Order of Christ, formally established in 1319 with papal recognition from Pope John XXII. The headquarters was initially set at Castro Marim in the south, but in 1356 the Order returned to the Convento de Cristo at Tomar and took possession of the former Templar estates. The personnel were the same. The properties were the same. The fortress was the same. What changed was the branding. The institution itself was continuous. The Order of Christ still exists today. Secularised by Queen Maria I in 1789, extinguished with the monarchy in 1910, and reconstituted in 1917 as a Portuguese state honorific, it now has the President of the Republic as its Grand Master. Few institutional lineages in Europe can claim an unbroken thread of that length, a continuity rarely emphasised in popular accounts of the Templar story. If you are looking for a modern Knight Templar, call the Portuguese President. The Order's ecclesiastical authority grew to match its territorial holdings. Santa Maria do Olival in Tomar, the church where Gualdim Pais himself was buried, became the official Mother Church of the Order of Christ. A papal bull issued by Nicholas V in 1454, reinforced by Calixtus III in 1456, placed all overseas Catholic missions under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Prior of Santa Maria do Olival. In practice, this meant that during the Age of Discovery, every church established in Portuguese territories from Brazil to India to the Azores answered to Tomar. The Order of Christ was not simply a military fraternity with Templar roots. It was the administrative and spiritual authority behind Portugal's global expansion. The Order also inherited the Templars' tradition of protecting religious minorities. The Jewish community in Tomar flourished under the Order's presence, and when the expulsion of Jews from Castile in 1492 sent refugees streaming across the border, Tomar's established synagogue and the Order's protection made the city a haven. Abraham Zacuto, the astronomer and mathematician whose astronomical tables became the standard navigational aids for Portuguese voyages of discovery, reportedly stayed in Tomar on his way to the court of King João II. The synagogue in Tomar still bears his name as a museum. This protection extended to heterodox Christian movements as well: the Order shielded adherents of the Cult of the Holy Spirit, derived from the Joachimite prophecies of a coming Age of the Spirit, from Inquisitorial persecution for centuries. [site:convento-de-cristo] Henry the Navigator In 1420, Prince Henrique of Portugal, the king's third son, became administrator of the Order of Christ. Known to history as Henry the Navigator, he became the prime sponsor of early African voyaging and showed persistence in funding expeditions when the risks were high and the critics were vocal, opening the Atlantic to Portuguese navigation. He was driven partly by the hope of making contact with Prester John, a legendary Christian ruler believed to reside in northeast Africa, and partly by plain economic opportunism on behalf of his household and noble following. The source of his funding was the vast wealth of the Order of Christ, inherited from the Templars and augmented by centuries of royal donations and commercial activity. As administrator of the Order, Henry controlled resources that no other European patron of exploration could match. The distinctive red Cross of Christ appeared on the sails of every Portuguese ship during the Age of Discovery. This was not ornament. Under the papal bulls granting ecclesiastical jurisdiction, it was identification: these were Order of Christ operations, conducted under the spiritual authority of Tomar. The roster of navigators who sailed under that cross reshaped the known world. Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488. Vasco da Gama reached India in 1498. Pedro Álvares Cabral claimed Brazil in 1500. Ferdinand Magellan's expedition completed the first circumnavigation of the globe. Every one of them sailed under the Cross of Christ. Wherever these navigators made landfall, they planted padrões: stone pillars about the height of a man, topped with a cross and inscribed with the arms of Portugal, the commanding captain's name, and the date. King João II standardised the form in the 1480s, replacing the perishable wooden crosses and tree carvings that earlier voyages had used to mark landfalls. Diogo Cão erected one at Yellala Rock on the Congo River in 1485. Dias planted one at the Cape of Good Hope. Da Gama placed them along the East African coast. The padrão tradition was a direct expression of the Order's authority, and the crosses they left behind remain physical evidence of where the Order's reach extended. The Portuguese Reach Nova Scotia The Portuguese did not confine their voyages to southern waters. The Treaty of Tordesillas, signed between Spain and Portugal in 1494, established a line of demarcation 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, dividing the non-European world between the two crowns. Due to errors in cartographic and navigational knowledge, this line intersected the coast of North America at an uncertain point in Nova Scotia. Depending on the mapmaker's nationality, the line shifted: Portuguese cartographers moved it west to claim more territory, Spanish cartographers moved it east. The effect was that Nova Scotia sat in a contested zone where both powers had at least a plausible claim. Portuguese exploration of the region began at the turn of the sixteenth century. Gaspar and Miguel Corte-Real investigated the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador between 1499 and 1502. João Fernandes Lavrador gave his name to Labrador. Around 1520, João Álvares Fagundes, a ship owner from Viana do Castelo, explored the Nova Scotia coast and charted Sable Island, Cape Breton, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. King Manuel I granted him exclusive rights to the lands he discovered. By 1521, approximately 200 settlers, most of them from the Azores, had established a fishing colony on Cape Breton Island, possibly at Ingonish. The historian A.R. Disney, in his two-volume A History of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire, confirms the settlement's existence and dates its abandonment to around 1526, attributing its failure to pressure from hostile Amerindians and European fishing rivals. Fagundes was not the only Azorean with a stake in the region, and he was not the most persistent. The Barcelos Family and the Mahone Bay Colony Three generations of one Azorean family worked the same coast for far longer, and the documentary record of their efforts is the most detailed of any Portuguese North Atlantic enterprise. The Pinheiro de Barcelos family of Terceira pursued the North Atlantic for nearly a century, from the earliest Portuguese voyages to the Labrador coast to the Spanish conquest of the Azores. Their involvement is documented in royal charters, notarial records, wills, and contemporary Portuguese maps. The record begins with Pero de Barcelos, a settler from Terceira who sailed with João Fernandes Lavrador between 1492 and 1495 on a voyage commissioned by King João II to the North-West Atlantic. Pero made his will on 9 April 1507 and died shortly afterward in Vila da Praia. On 7 June 1508, King Manuel I granted Pero's son Diogo de Barcelos a Letter of Grace acknowledging his father's role in "the armament and discovery of the North," exempting Diogo's ships from royal requisition. The grant was formal royal recognition that the family had participated in Portugal's earliest North Atlantic operations. Under a later royal charter from King João III, Diogo de Barcelos and his son Manuel discovered "certain islands and lands" across the North Atlantic between 1521 and 1531, at Diogo's own expense. On 7 October 1531, Diogo wrote to his brother Afonso inviting him to join a new expedition with two rented ships. The stated purpose was to "winter there and experiment with settlement." Refusal would mean forfeiting all rights. Afonso and his wife Anna Lopes declined, and their renunciation was formally recorded. The 1531 directive is the earliest surviving document in which a member of the Barcelos family describes the aim of the voyages as permanent settlement rather than exploration or seasonal fishing. Diogo wrote his own will on 8 October 1533, noting ownership of at least one ship docked at Vila da Praia. The following month, King João III granted him a Coat of Arms charter in Évora. Diogo died at Vila da Praia on 10 May 1544, and his will was recorded in the parish of Santa Cruz, the main church of the town. Diogo's son Manuel de Barcelos Machado continued the project across the next generation. In 1562 or 1563, Manuel sent two ships to "Barcellona" carrying cattle and pigs to initiate colonisation. In 1565 or 1566, he dispatched another ship with additional livestock including sheep and goats. Contemporary witnesses testified that the animals were thriving. On 8 January 1568, Manuel petitioned João da Silva do Canto, the King's Purveyor, protesting the requisition of his ship A Vera Cruz, which he had acquired on São Jorge Island to support the colonisation of "Ilha Barcellona de Sam Bardão" (a variant of Sam Bernaldo, the Portuguese name for Saint Bernard, patron of the Templars). Manuel stated that he and his late father had already invested over 5,000 cruzados in the project and that they had established breeding herds of cattle, sheep, goats, and swine. Witnesses including João Cordeiro, Diogo de Vieira, Gaspar Rodrigues, and Manuel's cousin Marcos de Barcelos confirmed the claims. Manuel planned another voyage that spring, to be led by him or his son. Additional documents from the same period show the family raising livestock for trade with whalers off Labrador and mining lime for use as mortar, shipped back to the Azores. Contemporary Portuguese maps place the island precisely. Between 1560 and 1561, the royal cosmographer Bartolomeo Velho depicted "Ilha Barcellona" in a gulf on the coast of Nova Scotia, inside the Gulf of Sam Barnaldo, the Gulf of Saint Bernard, at approximately 44.5 degrees north latitude. This latitude is the latitude of Mahone Bay. Paul Wroclawski, writing in the NEARA Journal in 2010, observed that Mahone Bay and St. Margaret's Bay are the only two bays of matching proximity and dimensions on the Nova Scotia coast to correspond to the paired bays shown on the Velho maps. One of Velho's charts also names the discoverers directly: a legend reads "I. barselonas por serem de barçelos hos q as descobrirão", translating as "Barcelona Islands because those who discovered them were from Barcelos." The family's association with the coast from at least 1508 is confirmed by court documents studied by Manuel C. Baptista de Lima, Chief Archivist of the Azores, first published in 1960 in the Boletim do Instituto Histórico and later translated by L.-A. Vigneras for Terrae Incognitae in 1973. The documentary record is consistent and unbroken. For seventy-five years, from 1508 to 1583, a Portuguese settlement originating in the Azores persisted around Mahone Bay under royal charter, across three generations of one family, on an island they had named for the patron saint of the Knights Templar. fragment of a 1560 map by Bartolomeo Velho, showing Gulf de Sam Bernaldo (Gulf of St. Bernard) in the location of Mahone Bay The Barcelos livestock enterprise was independently observed by English seafarers across three generations. Before 1553, Edward Haies noted that the Portuguese had released cattle and swine on Sable Island more than thirty years earlier. In 1582, Sir Humphrey Gilbert visited the island and found abundant herds said to have been left by the Portuguese decades before. In 1633, John Rose recorded approximately 800 reddish cattle on Sable Island and noted their similarity to a distinctive breed from Terceira. A century after the Barcelos colonisation voyages, English navigators were still encountering the genetic signature of Azorean stock along the Nova Scotia coast. The documented Portuguese presence at the latitude of Oak Island ended precisely when the succession crisis in Lisbon made it impossible to maintain. In 1580, Philip II of Spain claimed the Portuguese crown. In 1583, his forces violently subjugated the Azores, with particular brutality directed at Terceira, the Barcelos homeland, because it harboured loyalists to the rival claimant, Don António, Prior of Crato. In the same year, a map by Sebastião Lopes showed the flag of the Kingdom of Portugal still planted on the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia. It was the last such map. The Azorean Portuguese withdrew from Atlantic Canada because the ships, the ports, the men, and the families that had sustained the colony for nearly a century were destroyed at the source. Champlain's Discovery When Samuel de Champlain arrived on the Nova Scotia coast in 1604, he found traces of those who had come before. Near what is now Parrsboro, he reported discovering an old, moss-covered wooden cross that he attributed to earlier Christians. The cross is consistent with the older Portuguese practice of raising wooden territorial markers, which preceded the standardised stone padrão and remained in use alongside it on remote landings. The French adopted the practice of raising territorial crosses from the Portuguese. If the cross was indeed Portuguese, it marked a landfall that predated Champlain by at least a century, and possibly by far more. In 1612, Champlain described a Portuguese attempt to settle at "Ninganis," identified with Ingonish on Cape Breton, abandoned due to harsh winters. Champlain's interpreter on the voyage was Mathieu DaCosta, a man of African-Portuguese heritage contracted to communicate with the Mi'kmaq. How and where DaCosta had acquired fluency in a Mi'kmaw language is not recorded, but decades of Portuguese-Mi'kmaq contact would provide the context. The Lopo Homem map of 1554 includes Mi'kmaw place names along the Cape Breton coast. Champlain himself spent three days at La Have, the precise area the Barcelos family had claimed, yet his journals contain no narrative of those days, an omission scholars have noted as uncharacteristic given his normally meticulous documentation. [article:mi-kmaq-the-first-nation] The family did not forget. On 8 February 1648, sixty-five years after the withdrawal, Guilherme Searsfeld submitted the 1531 and 1568 Barcelos documents to the authorities for formal certification. A later annotation from 1828 reaffirmed the discovery of Ilha Barcellona by Diogo de Barcelos Machado and Afonso de Barcelos. Three centuries after Pero de Barcelos's first voyage with Lavrador, his descendants were still defending the record of what the family had done. In April 2026, the Oak Island team returned to this history. During the Season 13 episode "Road Trip," Oak Island historian Doug Crowell presented the Portuguese connection to Rick and Marty Lagina in the War Room, joined by researchers Emiliano Sacchetti and Judi Rudebusch. Crowell pointed to the death of King Ferdinand I in 1383 as the trigger for a civil war that may have prompted the Order of Christ to move its treasures to safer ground, beginning a century of Atlantic activity that the Barcelos family documents trace in detail. Sacchetti presented Portuguese charts dated between 1339 and 1385 that already depict the Azores, decades before the islands' official discovery in 1427. With the Portuguese coin recovered from the island and the Peacock-1 stoneshot traced to the Azores by Acadia University geologist Dr. Robert Raeside, Rick and Marty agreed to send a team to the islands to follow the trail the Barcelos family had left four centuries earlier. The Overton Stone In 2015, local historian Terry Deveau presented the Oak Island team with his analysis of the Overton Stone, a large carved boulder found near the town of Overton, not far from Oak Island. Deveau identified the cross carved into the stone as stylistically consistent with the crosses surmounting Portuguese padrões, the stone pillars planted during the Age of Discovery as formal territorial claims. The padrão tradition was directly tied to the Order of Christ, and the crosses were the Order's mark of possession at the edges of Portuguese reach. Deveau proposed that the Overton Stone commemorates a friendship treaty between Portuguese explorers and the local Mi'kmaq people. The carving includes tobacco leaves and an eagle feather, both of deep spiritual significance in Mi'kmaw culture, alongside a crescent moon that corresponds to their tradition of observing the lunar cycle. If Deveau is correct, the stone represents documented contact between Order of Christ navigators and indigenous Nova Scotians, within reach of Oak Island. Wroclawski, in his NEARA Journal article, added a further detail: a large hewn stone found on Oak Island itself is consistent with what Dr. Manuel da Silva identified as a third-era padrão, based on its size, shape, a notch at one end, and traces of iron oxidation within the notch suggesting it once held an iron cross. The rock type appears distinct from the typical Halifax Formation slate found locally and may be consistent with metamorphosed volcanic tuff, a stone common in the Azores. [artifact:overton-stone][site:overton-stone] Artifacts on the Island Physical evidence of a Portuguese presence on Oak Island has been accumulating across multiple seasons of excavation. Three stone shots, or gun stones, have been found across separate seasons and locations: one from the Money Pit area, one from Lot 16, and a third from the Peacock drilling zone. Geology professor Dr. Robert Raeside determined they are olivine gabbro and olivine basalt, volcanic rocks that do not occur naturally on the island and are typical of hot-spot volcanic island chains such as the Azores. At the Lisbon Military Museum, Sergeants Ricardo Lopes and Carlos Magro examined replicas of the shots, measuring 3.9 centimetres, and confirmed they were made in either the Azores or Portugal. They matched them to a 15th or 16th century ship-mounted cannon with a four-centimetre calibre that fires a half-Portuguese-pound ball, a weapon type typically used on ships or fortresses that could be removed from a vessel and placed on a structure ashore. [artifact:stone-shot][artifact:stone-shot-money-pit][artifact:stone-shot-peacock-1] A fragment of what was identified as a Portuguese breech swivel gun was found on Lot 4, in an area marked on Zena Halpern's map as "The Hole under the Hatch." Analysis by Dr. Christa Brosseau confirmed the metal was consistent with cannon material, possibly of Portuguese manufacture. [artifact:swivel-gun-metal] In Season 13, a hand cannon fragment was identified through CT scanning, revealing a touch hole that confirmed its function. Maltese military historian Matthew Balzan dated it to between the 1200s and early 1500s, and raised the possibility it had been repurposed as a tool for directing gunpowder to fracture rock, a technique that would predate conventional blasting and could connect to the construction of the island's stone road feature. [artifact:barrel-of-a-hand-cannon] The Portuguese coin found on the island is a billon Tornês from the reign of King Ferdinand I, minted at Miranda do Douro between 1369 and 1370. Its reverse carries a cross design that researcher Judi Rudebusch identified as resembling a Templar cross, alongside a six-pointed star similar to symbols found at Fonte Arcada Church in northern Portugal, the same Fonte Arcada that Teresa of León donated to the Templars in 1126. [artifact:portuguese-torn-s-coin-pitblado-coin] The Stone Road When the triangular swamp on Oak Island was drained and excavated, the team discovered a stone road and cobblestone pathway leading toward the Money Pit. Historian Terry Deveau immediately noted its resemblance to road construction techniques used by the Portuguese in the 1500s. The comparison was not casual. During the team's trip to Portugal in Season 9, guided by researcher Corjan Mol and Templar historian João Fiandeiro, they visited Alqueidão Da Serra, where a medieval Portuguese stone road bears a striking similarity to the one found in the Oak Island swamp. [map:stone-road][site:roman-road-of-alqueidao-da-serra] Tomar, Fontarcada, and the Lost Archives The Season 9 trip to Portugal took the Oak Island team to the heart of the Order of Christ's operations. At the Convento de Cristo in Tomar, Corjan Mol drew attention to the aqueduct drainage system, which he proposed could have served as an engineering precedent for whoever constructed the finger drains at Smith's Cove, the elaborate system designed to flood the Money Pit when disturbed. At the Church of Fontarcada in Póvoa de Lanhoso, the team found cryptic symbols and carvings that appeared to match those found on Oak Island. A well at Quinta da Regaleira in Sintra, built in the 19th century to replicate older designs, was found to share the exact dimensions of the original Money Pit treasure shaft. While the Sintra structure is relatively modern, it preserves construction traditions linked to the Order of Christ and Masonic initiation rituals with deep historical roots. [site:quinta-da-regaleira] There is a reason why direct documentary evidence linking the Order of Christ to activities in Nova Scotia has not been found in Portuguese archives. It was deliberately destroyed. When the Inquisition was established in Portugal under King João III, an Inquisition Court was set up in Tomar. The Order of Christ was demilitarized and converted into a strictly conventual order, stripped of its former influence. The Reverend Inquisitor Frei António de Lisboa ordered the burning of the Order's centuries-old conventual archives. The burial grounds at Santa Maria do Olival, where Gualdim Pais and other Templar and Order of Christ masters had been interred, were desecrated. Ana Alice Bento Ribeiro Hidalgo de Lacerda, in her 2021 Uppsala University thesis on Tomar's heritage, documented this destruction and its consequences: of all the burials at Santa Maria do Olival, only the tombs of Gualdim Pais and one lay master, Lourenço Martins, survived the Inquisition's campaign intact. Whatever the Order of Christ knew about its Atlantic operations, whatever records it kept of voyages, settlements, or construction projects in the waters west of the Azores, was fed to the flames in the sixteenth century. The absence of documentation is not evidence that such records never existed. It is evidence that they were systematically eliminated by an institution whose explicit purpose was to erase the Order's legacy. A Theory Built on Evidence The Portuguese theory does not rest on a single artifact or a speculative leap. It is built on a convergence of physical evidence, documented history, and geographical logic. The Order of Christ inherited the Templar mission and its resources. It funded the most advanced naval fleet in the world with centuries of accumulated wealth. Portuguese navigators reached the coast of Nova Scotia by the late 1400s, and Azorean families maintained a documented commercial presence at the latitude of Oak Island for the better part of a century, complete with ships, livestock, and infrastructure for transatlantic transport. They named the bays. They mapped the coast. They planted crosses. That presence ended abruptly in 1583, when the Spanish conquest of the Azores made it impossible to maintain. On and around Oak Island itself, the physical record is consistent with this history. Stone shots made from Azorean volcanic rock. A Portuguese coin minted in the 1370s. Cannon fragments matching Portuguese manufacture. A stone road built using Portuguese construction techniques. Padrão-style crosses carved within miles of the island. And behind all of it, an Order whose archives were deliberately burned, leaving only what was buried in the ground and carved into stone. None of this proves that the Order of Christ built the Money Pit. What it establishes is that the Portuguese, operating under the Cross of Christ, had the means, the opportunity, and a sustained physical presence in the area for nearly a hundred years. The engineering capability existed. The maritime routes were established. The artifacts are in the ground. The documentary record that might have explained the connection was destroyed by the Inquisition in the sixteenth century. What remains is the evidence on the island itself, and it points consistently in one direction. Sources Academic / Published Paul Wroclawski (2010), "Early History of Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia," NEARA Journal, Vol. 44, No. 1 available here. Source for: Pero de Barcelos's 1492-1495 voyage with João Fernandes Lavrador, the Barcelos family claim from 1508, the Gulfo de Sam Bernaldo at 44.5°N matching Mahone Bay and St. Margaret's Bay, the Velho 1560-1561 maps and the "I. barselonas" legend translation, the 1562-1566 colonisation voyages with cattle, pigs, sheep and goats, the Edward Haies observation (before 1553), Sir Humphrey Gilbert's 1582 visit, John Rose's 1633 record of 800 reddish cattle on Sable Island matching Terceira breeds, the Sebastião Lopes 1583 map, the 1583 withdrawal tied to the Spanish subjugation of Terceira, the Lopo Homem 1554 map with Mi'kmaw place names, Champlain's Ingonish settlement record (1612) and his missing La Have narrative, Mathieu DaCosta as Mi'kmaw interpreter, and the hewn stone on Oak Island as possible third-era padrão via Dr. Manuel da Silva. Terry J. Deveau (2015), "The Overton Stone," New England Antiquities Research Association, 3 December 2015, 35 pages. Available here. Source for: the Overton Stone carving analysis and padrão-style cross identification, the Mi'kmaw symbolism of the tobacco leaves, eagle feather and crescent moon, the Portuguese-Mi'kmaq friendship treaty interpretation, and the broader case for sixteenth-century Portuguese activity in Nova Scotia. Jonathan Wilson (2020), "The Filthy Animal and Saint Bernard of Clairvaux: Re-assessing the Case for Letter 308 and the Conquest of Lisbon, 1147," Al-Masaq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean, 32:3, pp. 332-352. Source for: Afonso Henriques as Templar confrater (Latin document), Pedro the Templar messenger, Bernard of Clairvaux involvement, the "Lisbon Indulgence." A.R. Disney (2009), A History of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire, Vols. 1 & 2, Cambridge University Press. Source for: Dinis creating Order of Christ 1319, Templar arrival 1128, Tomar castle 1160, Prince Henrique correctives (no Sagres school, medieval values, still prime patron), Fagundes settlement 1521 and its abandonment ~1526, Corte-Real brothers, Order of Christ ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Madeira/Azores. Ana Alice Bento Ribeiro Hidalgo de Lacerda (2021), "Tomar and its People: On the relationship between local people and their heritage," Uppsala University (Master's thesis). Source for: Santa Maria do Olival as Mother Church, papal bulls of Nicholas V (1454) and Calixtus III (1456), archive destruction by Frei Antonio de Lisboa, desecration of burial grounds, Jewish protection, Abraham Zacuto, Cult of the Holy Spirit, Order demilitarized by Inquisition. Manuel C. Baptista de Lima (1960), A Ilha Terceira e a Colonização do Nordeste do Continente Americano no Século XVI, Boletim do Instituto Histórico da Ilha Terceira, Vol. XVIII, Angra do Heroísmo. Source for: Barcelos family archival record from 1507 onward, including Pero's will, the 1508 Letter of Grace from King Manuel I, Diogo's 1531 settlement directive to Afonso and the formal renunciation by Anna Lopes, Diogo's 1533 will and Coat of Arms charter, Manuel's 1568 petition to João da Silva do Canto, and the 1648 Searsfeld recertification at the Angra Chamber. L.-A. Vigneras (1973), "The Voyages of Diogo and Manoel de Barcelos to Canada in the Sixteenth Century," Terrae Incognitae, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 61-64. Source for: English-language scholarly analysis of the Barcelos voyages and the mid-sixteenth-century colonisation programme. Show-derived (for artifact and site references) The Curse of Oak Island, Season 9 and Season 13. Source for: stone cannonballs (Azorean volcanic rock analysis, Portuguese museum confirmation), Portuguese coin (Ferdinand I, Miranda do Douro, Judi Rudebusch identification), swivel gun fragment (Lot 4, Dr. Christa Brosseau analysis), hand cannon fragment (CT scan, Matthew Balzan dating), stone road (Terry Deveau comparison), Overton Stone (Terry Deveau 2015), Convento de Cristo aqueduct / finger drain comparison (Corjan Mol), Fontarcada symbols, Quinta da Regaleira well dimensions, Alqueidão Da Serra stone road visit (Corjan Mol, João Fiandeiro), Doug Crowell, Emiliano Sacchetti and Judi Rudebusch War Room presentation on the Portuguese connection (S13E22), Dr. Robert Raeside (Acadia University) stoneshot analysis.   ### The Knights of Malta URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/the-knights-of-malta A Man with a Patch Over One Eye In early September 1632, the Mi'kmaq living along the Pijinuiskaq, the river now called the LaHave, watched two ships sail through the narrows between Kraut Point and the western shore. The vessels anchored and roughly 300 men came ashore, led by a figure with a patch over one eye. Isaac de Razilly may have looked like a pirate, but he was a French naval officer, a Knight of Malta, and the newly appointed Lieutenant-General of New France. He had lost the eye five years earlier at the siege of La Rochelle. Before that he had spent four years in Brazil, served as chief of squadron in Brittany, captured thirty merchant vessels off the coast of La Rochelle in 1621, and conducted three separate naval expeditions to the coast of Morocco, where he negotiated treaties with both the rebel city of Sale and the Emperor, freed Christian slaves, and established French consulates at Sale, Maroc, and Azaffy. He had, as he put it in his own words, "voyaged in the four parts of the world." He was somewhere around fifty-two years old, and Cardinal Richelieu, the most powerful man in France and his blood relative, had sent him to take possession of Acadia. Port Royal, established in 1604, was the obvious destination. It had thirty years of French settlement, existing buildings, and a sheltered harbour on the Annapolis Basin. Razilly sailed past it. He chose instead a point of land where the LaHave River narrows, on the exposed South Shore of Nova Scotia, roughly fifteen miles from a small island in Mahone Bay that would one day become the site of the longest-running treasure hunt in history. [article:mi-kmaq-the-first-nation] From Rhodes to Malta Razilly's title as Knight of Malta connected him to an institution that had shaped the Mediterranean for five centuries. When the Knights Hospitaller lost Rhodes to Sultan Suleiman in 1522, it was Grand Master Philippe de Villiers de L'Isle Adam who commanded the defence with fewer than 7,000 men against an Ottoman force that the historian Edgar Erskine Hume estimated at 200,000. After six months of siege Philippe negotiated an honourable withdrawal, and on January 1, 1523, the surviving knights sailed from Rhodes carrying their archives, their treasury, and their most sacred relics: the right hand of Saint John the Baptist, a fragment of the True Cross, and the icon of Our Lady of Philermos. For seven years the homeless order wandered the Mediterranean, from Crete to Messina to Viterbo, carrying their relics at every stage. In 1530, Emperor Charles V granted the knights the islands of Malta and Gozo, a gift that received the approval of Pope Clement VII. Philippe established his headquarters in the fortified city of Mdina, choosing the medieval Palazzo Falson as his residence, and from that point the Hospitallers became popularly known as the Order of Malta. In 1565, under Grand Master Jean de la Valette, the order withstood the Great Siege against an Ottoman force of over 30,000. The fortified capital of Valletta was built in its aftermath, and the Knights of Malta became one of Europe's foremost military and naval powers, with ambassadors in every court in Europe, the right to coin currency, and over five thousand feudal holdings across the continent. Admission required proof that all sixteen of an applicant's great-great-grandparents were noble, the fees were large, and the vows binding. Isaac de Razilly met the standard. His brother Gabriel had been a knight since 1591, and Isaac rose to the rank of Commander of Ile Bouchard by 1631. [article:de-villiers-the-treasure-bloodline] The Memorandum The Razilly and Du Plessis families had been intermarried since at least 1409, when the succession of Jean de Razilly was disputed between Pierre du Plessis and Louis de Razilly. The Du Plessis line produced Cardinal Richelieu. This was not a distant connection: Richelieu was Razilly's uncle, and the two families held neighbouring estates in the Touraine, where the Razillys had been vassals of the lords of Chinon since the twelfth century. The biographer Leon Deschamps, writing in 1887, noted that this family relationship explains both Richelieu's influence over the Razilly brothers and their devotion to his service. On November 26, 1626, Razilly presented Richelieu with a document written at Pontoise, titled "Articles pour persuader ung chascun de risquer sur mer et trouver fonds pour la navigation" (Articles to persuade everyone to take risks at sea and find funds for navigation). The 74-page manuscript, preserved at the Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve in Paris, laid out a complete programme for French overseas expansion in Africa, Asia, and America. Razilly argued that France was a kingdom with every natural advantage for naval power: 360 leagues of Atlantic coastline, deep forests for shipbuilding, abundant hemp for rope and sails, and iron for fittings, yet it had allowed its merchants to become, in his words, like "flying fish, which serve as prey to all the others, for being pursued in the water they are forced to fly into the air, where an infinite number of birds devour them." He proposed a royal fleet of thirty warships, trading companies for each region of the world, colonies in the Americas, and the liberation of the eight thousand French sailors held as slaves in North Africa. Deschamps called the memorandum "a first-rate document for the colonial question" and noted that both Richelieu and Colbert followed its recommendations almost to the letter. Richelieu acknowledged receipt on December 10, 1626, writing: "For the enterprise you propose to me, when he [Claude, Isaac's brother] is here, we will speak of it particularly together." The plan received its first application the following year in the charter of the Compagnie des Cent Associes. Isaac and his brother Claude were not merely advisers. They equipped twelve ships for Richelieu at Le Havre in 1626, advancing their own money against uncertain repayment. Richelieu promised only "to employ the little credit he had to have them both paid." Fort Sainte-Marie-de-Grace A royal commission dated May 10, 1632, appointed Razilly lieutenant-general in New France and authorized him to found a colony in Acadia. Nine days later, the Compagnie des Cent Associes granted him the river and bay of Sainte-Croix, including islands and adjacent lands extending twelve leagues wide and twenty leagues deep, to be held in perpetuity as a seigneurie. The expedition landed on September 8, 1632: the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. For any Catholic, this was a principal Marian holy day. For a Knight of Malta, it carried a deeper meaning. September 8 was the date of the Order's greatest victory: the day in 1565 when the Ottoman besiegers withdrew from Malta after three months of siege, a deliverance the Knights attributed to the intercession of the Virgin. The date is still celebrated as Victory Day in Malta. Razilly named his settlement Fort Sainte-Marie-de-Grace, Saint Mary of Grace, in her honour. The choice of date and name was not administrative. It was a consecration, binding his colony on the coast of Nova Scotia to the Order's holiest day and its most sacred patron. The ships had brought bricks, lime, plaster, and planks, and with these the men began building on the point of land overlooking the river narrows. The first winter was hard. Some men died from inadequate shelter. By the second winter they were better prepared and no one was lost. The Mi'kmaq, who had lived along the Pijinuiskaq for thousands of years, helped the settlers adapt, shared their knowledge of medicinal plants, and taught survival skills that the French, for all their naval expertise, would not have had. The settlement grew into a compound: a fort armed with 25 cannons in battery, living quarters, storehouses, a mill, and a chapel where three Capuchin monks held services. Gardens were planted with peas, beans, cauliflower, lettuce, melons, and cucumbers. Apple trees went into the ground near the fort. Native fruit and wild berries were plentiful, and Razilly wrote that they had celebrated Mass with wine made from wild grapes. He reported to Richelieu that the fort was capable of withstanding a six-month siege. At its peak, the settlement served as a port of call for as many as five hundred transient fishermen working the offshore banks, and for a brief period La Heve replaced Port Royal as the capital of Acadia and, by extension, of all New France. In a letter to Richelieu dated July 25, 1634, written from the fort, Razilly described both the cost and his commitment: "We have already advanced 50,000 ecus for the commencement of this work, without having drawn any profit from it, save for buildings and fortresses, armed with 25 cannons in battery, in good order to defend the cross and the lilies, and I will employ to this end the last drop of my blood." On September 8, 1635, exactly three years to the day after landing at La Heve, and once again on the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the anniversary of the Order's deliverance at Malta, Razilly wrote to the Grand Master proposing the establishment of a Priory in Acadia. The site was to serve as a naval station for the Order, for the building of ships and the general operation of maritime affairs. As Major-General G. Carlton Jones recorded in 1933, the location chosen for this proposed naval station was the future site of Halifax. The Grand Master, while commending Razilly's zeal, replied that the Order had no funds available owing to the enormous expenditure of its ceaseless combat with the Ottoman Empire. The Priory was never built. Razilly stayed anyway. Impression of the Fortress of Sainte-Marie-de-Grace at La Have, based on drawings and the model in the Fort Point Museum (Corjan Mol) The Island of Oaks Razilly did not confine himself to La Heve. His companion Nicolas Denys, who kept a journal of their time in Acadia, described sailing from the LaHave River to the head of Mahone Bay, where they found "some other island with big oaks." Local historian Joan Dawson, speaking at the Fort Point historic site in LaHave during Season 13 of The Curse of Oak Island, confirmed that Razilly sailed into Mahone Bay with two local priests and that the journal entry describes an island corresponding to what is now known as Oak Island, fifteen miles north of the fort. Dawson also confirmed that the Venetian trade beads recovered on Lot 5 in recent seasons are the same type that Razilly would have carried for trading with the Mi'kmaq. In Season 13, Episode 11 ("A Knight's Journey"), researcher Emiliano Sacchetti presented the results of nearly a year of research conducted in Rome, the Vatican archives, Ottawa, and Library and Archives Canada. His most significant finding concerned two inventories of Razilly's possessions compiled after his sudden death in July 1636: one taken in Nova Scotia and one upon delivery of his effects to the family in France. Several items recorded in the first inventory were absent from the second. Among the missing objects were a copper astrolabe, two flintlock muskets, and two leather-covered chests. The flintlock muskets drew immediate attention from the team because Gary Drayton and Marty Lagina had recovered a 17th-century French flintlock plate on Lot 8 of Oak Island in 2021, and metallurgist Emma Culligan's analysis had dated it to the period of Razilly's presence in the region. What the leather-covered chests contained, and where they went between Nova Scotia and France, has not been determined. [artifact:musket-flintlock-mechanism] Today the Fort Point Museum stands on the site of Fort Sainte-Marie-de-Grace, commemorating Razilly's landing and the settlement that briefly served as the capital of New France. [site:fort-point-museum] Three Knights, Three Colonies Razilly's governorship of Acadia was not an isolated appointment. By 1636, three Knights of Malta simultaneously governed all of France's territories in the Americas. Isaac de Razilly held Acadia. Philippe de Longvilliers de Poincy, a Grand Cross of the Order, governed the French West Indies from the island of St. Kitts, where he had fortified the island and built several warships with the support of the Grand Master. Charles Huault de Montmagny, Champlain's successor, governed New France from Quebec. His lieutenant, De Lisle, was also a knight. Brasdefer de Chasteaufort, who served as interim governor after Champlain's death in 1635, was of the Order as well. Champlain himself, though not a Knight of Malta, had been selected for his work in Canada by a senior member of the Order: the Commander de Chaste, Governor of Dieppe and one of the original proprietors of the colony. Major-General Jones, writing in 1933, stated that "one authority believes it was intended to establish the order in Canada as the controlling interest in the Colony, if not its actual proprietor." Quebec under Montmagny became what Jones called "practically a religious community," with the influence of the Order felt at every level of the colonial administration. Montmagny's sudden recall, according to Jones and several earlier historical authorities, came because the French King grew suspicious that his governor was working in the interest of the Order to which he belonged rather than in the interest of the Crown. The King's suspicion was not unfounded. In Acadia, in the Caribbean, and in Quebec, every senior colonial appointment led back to the same fraternity. The Bureau at Quebec Brulart de Sillery, one of the most prominent Knights of the period, founded a chapel, a convent, a hospital, and dwellings for converted Indians near Quebec in 1637, using funds from his commandery at Troyes. The Order's footprint in New France was not symbolic; it was institutional. A stone set in the archway of the Chateau Frontenac bears the cross of Saint John and the date 1647. The Abbe Bois stated that "the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, Montmagny, Brasdefer, Sillery, and others in Quebec, had erected a Bureau in the courtyard of the Chateau St. Louis; it had cost 40,000 livres." The gable of that building contained a large stone engraved with the arms of the Order. When the building was destroyed by fire during the siege of 1759, the stone fell to the ground, where it lay until rediscovered in 1784. A hill behind what is now the military hospital in Quebec was called Mont Carmel, a name closely associated with the Order. Two independent English-language sources from the period after the British conquest confirm the existence of a Knights building in Quebec. Captain John Knox, whose journal of the wars in Canada (1759-1760) is considered a reliable eyewitness record, mentions "an imposing house not yet finished for the Knights Hospitallers" in the same passage where he accurately describes the Hotel-Dieu and every other building in the city. He spent eight months in Quebec and was a careful observer. The American Gazetteer of 1763 separately refers to "the priory of the Knights of Jerusalem, a superb building in stone, which had cost, it is said, 40,000 pounds sterling." No record in the Order's archives on Malta confirms an officially established priory or commandery at Quebec. But as Jones concluded, it is reasonable to suppose that a house or bureau for those knights at the head of colonial affairs was constructed, given that "such ardent and pious members of the Order as the Governor and De Sillery" would not have spent years in Quebec without a place dedicated to the fraternity they served. An Atlantic Ambition The Order's interest in the New World did not end with Razilly's death. When de Poincy was recalled by the King of France, he refused to leave St. Kitts. Supported by the Grand Master, and following negotiations with the French Crown, the islands of St. Kitts, St. Croix, and others were purchased outright by the Order in 1653 for five thousand pounds. This appears to be the only time the Sovereign Order of Malta established itself in the western hemisphere through the outright possession of territory. De Poincy, a very old man by then, died shortly after, and the islands were sold to a company of merchants in 1665. The island of St. Croix was later purchased by Denmark and in turn sold to the United States in 1916. As Hume observed, while the Order of Malta never acquired territory from the United States, the United States now possesses territory that once belonged to the Order. In 1783, during the Treaty of Paris negotiations, Grandmaster Emmanuel de Rohan-Polduc attempted to acquire the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, off the southern coast of Newfoundland, within the same Atlantic waters as Nova Scotia. That attempt failed. Then, in 1794, the Maltese Charge d'Affaires in Paris, Commander de Cibon, formally proposed to Colonel James Monroe, the American Minister, that the United States grant land in America to the Order of Malta in exchange for Mediterranean port access and protection against the Barbary pirates of Algiers. Monroe replied on November 22, 1794, stating that the suggestion "merits, in my opinion, the serious consideration of our government, to whom I have already transmitted it." No instructions on the subject were ever sent to Monroe, and there the record ends. Four years later, Napoleon seized Malta itself. The Order lost its island, its fleet, and its sovereignty. The Great Standard of the Order, which according to tradition had never been lowered to an infidel enemy, was captured by a British frigate and can be seen in the Tower of London. What the Record Establishes Razilly died at Fort Sainte-Marie-de-Grace in July 1636. He was buried somewhere on the Nova Scotian coast; the location of his grave has never been found. Charles de Menou d'Aulnay assumed command and moved most of the settlers to Port Royal. The fort was abandoned. In the 1650s it was burned down by Emmanuel Le Borgne, a French merchant and rival of Nicolas Denys. Currents and tides gradually eroded the point of land on which it had stood, and today nothing of the settlement is visible. The remains of the fort were still recorded as late as the early 1900s, but the sea has since claimed them entirely. A stone cairn at Fort Point, designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1924, marks the approximate location. What survives is the paper trail. A Knight of Malta wrote the blueprint for French colonial expansion. His uncle, the most powerful man in France, gave him Acadia. He bypassed the established capital and built his fort fifteen miles from Oak Island. His companion sailed into Mahone Bay and recorded an island with big oaks. He petitioned the Grand Master for a Priory on the Nova Scotian coast. After his death, objects disappeared between two inventories of his possessions, including two leather-covered chests whose contents have never been accounted for. Two additional Knights of Malta governed the rest of France's American territories at the same time, and a fourth built a chapel, a hospital, and a bureau bearing the cross of Saint John in the courtyard of the seat of government of New France. The Order continued seeking territory on this side of the Atlantic for another 158 years after Razilly's death. The arc runs from a 74-page memorandum presented to a cardinal in Pontoise in 1626 to a diplomatic letter delivered to a future American president in Paris in 1794. The Knights of Malta did not pass through Nova Scotia. They governed it. Sources The siege of Rhodes and the founding of Malta: Eric Brockman, The Two Sieges of Rhodes, 1480-1522 (London: John Murray, 1969). Philippe de Villiers de L'Isle Adam's defence, the honourable withdrawal of January 1, 1523, and the relics evacuated from Rhodes. Giacomo Bosio, Dell'Istoria della Sacra Religione et Illustrissima Militia di San Giovanni Gierosolimitano (Rome, 1594-1602), Book XXI. Primary chronicle of the Order's history including the Rhodes siege and Malta settlement. Edgar Erskine Hume, "Suggestions Made to James Monroe as American Minister in Paris," published paper. Ottoman losses at Rhodes (90,000 of 200,000), Charles V's grant of Malta 1530, the eight langues, admission requirements (seize quartiers), the 1794 Monroe-Cibon correspondence (full text of Commander de Cibon's letter and Monroe's reply of November 22, 1794), the Caribbean island purchase of 1653, the Order's loss of Malta to Napoleon in 1798, and the Great Standard captured by a British frigate now in the Tower of London. Citation for Monroe's reply: Writings of Monroe, 1899, II, 128. Isaac de Razilly: Leon Deschamps, Un Colonisateur du Temps de Richelieu: Isaac de Razilly, Biographie, Memoire Inedit (Paris: Institut Geographique de Paris, Ch. Delagrave, 1887). Extract from the Revue de Geographie directed by L. Drapeyron. Full biography and first publication of Razilly's 1626 memorandum to Richelieu, held at the Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve, manuscrits L f. 36 (74-page manuscript). Documents the Razilly-Du Plessis family connection from 1409, Isaac's birth circa 1580 at the Chateau de Razilly near Chinon, his entry into the navy in 1603, the Brazil expedition of circa 1611, the Brittany squadron command and capture of thirty vessels in 1621, the loss of his eye at La Rochelle in 1627, the Morocco expeditions of 1629-1631 (three campaigns, treaties with Sale and the Emperor, liberation of Christian slaves, establishment of consulates), the royal commission of May 10, 1632, the Compagnie des Cent Associes land concession of May 19, 1632 (river and bay of Sainte-Croix, twelve leagues wide, twenty leagues deep), the letter to Richelieu from Fort Sainte-Marie-de-Grace dated July 25, 1634, and Razilly's death in 1636. Contains the full text of the memorandum including the "flying fish" metaphor for unprotected French merchants and the proposal for thirty warships. Archives des affaires etrangeres, Amerique, I, fo 98. Royal commission appointing Razilly lieutenant-general in New France, May 10, 1632. Archives des affaires etrangeres, Amerique, I, fo 100. Razilly's letter to Richelieu, July 25, 1634. Correspondance de Richelieu, t. II. Letters of December 1 and 10, 1626, from Richelieu to Isaac and Claude de Razilly, including acknowledgement of the memorandum and the instruction to equip twelve ships at Le Havre. George MacBeath, "Razilly (Rasilly), Isaac de," Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 1 (University of Toronto/Universite Laval). Nicolas Denys, Description geographique et historique des costes de l'Amerique septentrionale (Paris, 1672). Journal of Razilly's companion describing the settlement at La Heve, sailing to the head of Mahone Bay, and finding "some other island with big oaks." Fort Sainte-Marie-de-Grace: Joan Dawson, "LaHave, Capital of New France," Historic Nova Scotia (published November 18, 2019). Description of the fort's construction (bricks, lime, plaster, and planks brought from France), the naming on a feast day of the Virgin Mary, deaths during the first winter, Mi'kmaq assistance with medicinal plants and survival skills, the settlement compound (fort, living quarters, storehouses, mill, chapel with Capuchin monks), gardens (peas, beans, cauliflower, lettuce, melons, cucumbers), apple trees, Mass celebrated with wild grape wine, the fort's abandonment after Razilly's death, its burning by Emmanuel Le Borgne in the 1650s, and the erosion of the point. Also the source for Razilly's arrival with a patch over one eye and approximately 200-300 men. Parks Canada, "Fort Sainte Marie de Grace National Historic Site of Canada." Designated 1924. Fort on a point of land where the LaHave River narrows, armed with 25 cannons, farming colony of around 40 permanent residents with a local mill and chapel, fort remains visible until the early 1900s. Strategic setting in an area rich in fishing, trapping, and lumber resources. The Knights of Malta in Canada: Major-General G. Carlton Jones, C.M.G., M.D., "The Knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem in Canada Under the French Regime," reprinted from Canadian First Aid, November 1933, p. 11. Also published in The Canadian Medical Association Journal, October 1934, pp. 431-432. Documents Montmagny, Poincy, and Razilly as three Knights simultaneously governing France's American territories; the thesis that it was intended to establish the Order as the controlling interest in the colony; Razilly's Priory proposal of September 8, 1635 (site of Halifax chosen as naval station); the Grand Master's refusal on grounds of Ottoman expenditure; Champlain's selection by Commander de Chaste, Governor of Dieppe; Brasdefer de Chasteaufort and De Lisle as Knights; Brulart de Sillery's chapel, convent, hospital, and dwellings near Quebec (1637, funded from his commandery at Troyes); Montmagny's recall on suspicion of working for the Order rather than the Crown; the 1647 Chateau St. Louis stone with Cross of St. John; the Abbe Bois account of the Bureau (40,000 livres); Mont Carmel; Captain John Knox's journal (1759-60) mentioning "an imposing house not yet finished for the Knights Hospitallers"; the American Gazetteer of 1763 mentioning "the priory of the Knights of Jerusalem, a superb building in stone, which had cost, it is said, 40,000 pounds sterling"; de Poincy's refusal to leave St. Kitts, the purchase of St. Kitts, St. Croix, and other islands by the Order in 1653 for five thousand pounds, and their sale in 1665. Jean-Guy Guerin, Knights of Malta from the Crusades to Quebec. Hospitaller presence in New France, Razilly in Acadia, the Jesuit Relations references, and the Chateau St. Louis stone. The Order's Atlantic ambitions: Robert Le Blant, "Le Commerce compliquant de la politique dans la Nouvelle France," Revue d'histoire de l'Amerique francaise, vol. 11 (1957). Isaac de Razilly's 1635 proposal to the Grand Master to purchase lands at La Heve, found a Priory in Acadia, and acquire a naval base at Chibouctou (later Halifax). Edouard de Barthelemy, "Les Chevaliers de Malte et la Marine de Philippe d'Orleans," Revue des questions historiques, vol. 15 (1874). The Order's wider Atlantic ambitions including the Caribbean acquisitions and Grandmaster Emmanuel de Rohan-Polduc's attempt to acquire St. Pierre and Miquelon during the Treaty of Paris negotiations in 1783. Television: The Curse of Oak Island, Season 12, Episode 20, "Just Bead It" (History Channel). Judi Rudebusch presents research on Knights of Malta connections to Oak Island. Doug Crowell discusses Isaac de Razilly's settlement at LaHave. Venetian bead connections to Malta. The Curse of Oak Island, Season 12, Episode 21, "The Solution Solution" (History Channel). Doug Crowell, Corjan Mol, and Emiliano Cataldi present research on Knights Templar and Knights of Malta. Emiliano describes a 1630 manuscript titled "The Treasure of the Holy Relics Which are in Malta." The Curse of Oak Island, Season 12, Episode 23, "Family Ties" (History Channel). Malta expedition. Corjan Mol presents the Villiers bloodline research at the Palazzo Falson in Mdina, tracing the genealogical chain from Gerard de Villiers in 1307 through to Isaac de Razilly in 1632. The Curse of Oak Island, Season 13, Episode 3, "Medieval Intentions" (History Channel). Venetian trade beads on Lot 5 connected to Razilly's presence at La Heve, fifteen miles from Oak Island. Razilly established French colony of Acadia in 1632 with headquarters at Fort Point on the LaHave River. The Curse of Oak Island, Season 13, Episode 11, "A Knight's Journey" (History Channel). Emiliano Sacchetti presents results of year-long research in Rome, Vatican archives, Ottawa, and Library and Archives Canada. Nicolas Denys journal describes sailing from LaHave to Mahone Bay and finding "some other island with big oaks." Two inventories of Razilly's possessions after his death in July 1636 reveal missing items: copper astrolabe, two flintlock muskets, two leather-covered chests. Connection to the 17th-century French flintlock plate found on Lot 8 in 2021. The Curse of Oak Island, Season 13, Episode 12, "A Fort Knight" (History Channel). Alex Lagina, Peter Fornetti, and Emiliano Sacchetti visit Fort Point in LaHave. Local historian Joan Dawson confirms Venetian beads match Razilly's trading goods, confirms Razilly sailed into Mahone Bay with two priests, identifies the flintlock plate as consistent with Razilly's armament, and recognises a Josephus volume as the type of book a Knight of Malta would have kept. Research: Corjan Mol and Christopher Morford, The Jerusalem Files (London: Watkins/Penguin Random House, 2024). The Villiers genealogical chain from Gerard de Villiers (1307) through to Isaac de Razilly (1632) and the broader thesis connecting the Templar escape, the Hospitaller inheritance, and the Nova Scotian connection. ### Oak Island Mystery Trees URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/oak-island-mystery-trees The Trees That Named the Island Oak Island takes its name from the trees that once defined its landscape: tall, sinuous trunks topped with broad, arching canopies, photographed repeatedly between the 1880s and the 1940s at Isaac's Point and the Smith's Cove area. For over two centuries, these trees were assumed to be a species of oak (Quercus genus), and no one looked closer. The name stuck. Maps were drawn. The story was told and retold with "oak" as settled fact. In 2022, researchers David H. Neisen, Robert W. Cook, and Christopher L. Boze published Oak Island Mystery Trees and Other Forensic Answers, the first of four volumes applying forensic botanical methods to the island's vegetation. Their conclusion overturned the oldest assumption in the Oak Island story: the iconic trees were not oaks at all. They were European Sycamore, Acer pseudoplatanus, a member of the maple family native to Central Europe and Western Asia. In North America it is known as Sycamore Maple, a large deciduous broadleaf that can reach 35 metres in height and live for 400 years. Its five-lobed palmate leaves, grey flaking bark, and winged samara seeds distinguish it clearly from any species of North American oak. The identification matters because Acer pseudoplatanus does not occur naturally in Nova Scotia. It is not part of the region's native flora. The species was introduced to the British Isles around 1500 and later spread to parts of North America, Australia, and New Zealand as an ornamental and windbreak tree, but it requires human agency to cross an ocean. If the trees on Oak Island were European Sycamore, someone brought them there, or brought the seeds from which they grew. [map:isaac-s-point] The Raasay Connection Neisen and his co-authors identified a stand of trees on the Isle of Raasay in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland that they describe as identical in every respect to the Oak Island specimens. Located on the shoreline of the village of Clachan, on the property of Andrew and Anne Gillies near Raasay House (latitude 57.3518, longitude -6.0808), the trees grow in an almost identical maritime environment: coastal, windswept, salt-exposed. The Raasay stand was first recorded in print by the Scottish biographer and lawyer James Boswell (1740 to 1795), the ninth Laird of Auchinleck, best known for his biography of Samuel Johnson. On 10 September 1773, Boswell and Johnson visited the Laird of Raasay, Malcolm MacLeod, during their famous tour of the Hebrides. Boswell noted a stand of trees near the house, writing that there were "a number of trees near the house, which grow well, some of them of a pretty good size. They are mostly Plane and Ash." In the Scottish usage of the 18th century, "Plane" referred to what is now classified as Acer pseudoplatanus, the European Sycamore. The Latin name itself means "false plane tree," reflecting the long-standing confusion between the two genera. The geographical link runs deeper than botany. Settlers from the western Hebrides, including the Raasay area, were among the earliest European inhabitants of the Mahone Bay coastline and the broader Nova Scotia shore. If the Oak Island trees originated as transplants or seed stock carried by Scottish settlers, Raasay and the surrounding islands represent one plausible source. Neisen's team has pursued botanical examination and dendrochronological analysis to establish whether the Raasay and Oak Island specimens share a genetic lineage, though results of that work have not yet been published in full. The Mystery Fiber The trees are only one part of the forensic picture. The second, and arguably more significant, line of evidence concerns the fibrous material found in both the Money Pit and the filtration system at Smith's Cove. Neisen calculates that a minimum of 1.54 metric tonnes of this fiber was recovered from these constructions over two centuries of excavation, an amount equivalent to roughly 2.5 compacted forty-foot shipping containers. Reports from the 19th and early 20th centuries describe the fiber piled in bushels around the top platform of the Money Pit and raked into heaps along the Smith's Cove beach, where locals and tourists helped themselves to souvenir bundles as late as the Restall era in the 1960s. For decades the material was identified as coconut coir fiber, a classification supported by laboratory analyses from Robert Dunfield's samples tested in 1976 and a broader survey by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1995. That identification went largely unchallenged. However, Neisen, Cook, and Boze's more recent micro and macro botanical examination of the evidence has led to a revised conclusion: the fiber is not coconut husk at all, but mesh and sheath trunk fiber from the Judean Date Palm (Phoenix dactylifera). The Judean Date Palm produces a coarse, durable fiber from the mesh-like sheathing that wraps around its trunk, material that was widely used in the ancient and medieval Near East for rope, matting, and construction packing. Like coconut coir, it is a product of retting, a controlled fermentation process that strengthens the fiber and dramatically extends its lifespan in wet or saline environments. The fiber on Oak Island has been radiocarbon dated to between 1185 and 1330 AD, with 95 percent confidence. That places it squarely in the era of the Crusades, centuries before any documented European activity in Nova Scotia. The fiber was not scattered on the surface or washed ashore. It was found packed inside engineered structures: layered into the Money Pit shaft between oak log platforms and incorporated into the filtration drain system at Smith's Cove. Whatever its origin, it was placed there with purpose. [artifact:coconut-fibre-money-pit][article:robert-dunfield-and-the-destruction-of-oak-island] Fiber from the Holy Land The identification of the fiber as Judean Date Palm trunk material narrows the geography considerably. In the medieval period, the Judean Date Palm grew only in a restricted band of the Levant: Jericho, the Jordan River Valley, and the western coast of the Dead Sea. It was not a wild plant left to chance. The palm was cultivated intensively, and its products, including the fruit, the syrup derived from it, and the fibrous trunk sheathing, were commercially valuable. The fiber source, in other words, points to a specific region and a specific agricultural economy. Between 1116 and 1187 AD, the Knights Templar operated an extensive agribusiness in the Jericho region, cultivating date palms alongside sugarcane. The Templars processed sugarcane into sugar and date fruit into silan, the thick date honey that served as a staple sweetener across the Near East. This agricultural operation generated large quantities of date palm trunk fiber as a byproduct, material readily available to an order that also maintained a fleet of commercial and military vessels and a logistics network stretching from the Levantine ports to the Atlantic coast of France and Portugal. The Battle of Hattin in 1187, when Saladin's forces defeated the Crusader army, forced the Templars to evacuate Jericho and much of the surrounding territory. The radiocarbon dating of the Oak Island fiber, 1185 to 1330 AD, begins precisely at the end of that agricultural operation. The Templar connection to the fiber's source region is a matter of documented historical record, but it does not exclude other possibilities. The Knights Hospitaller operated in the same territory and inherited all Templar properties and personnel after the order's suppression in 1312. They continued to maintain a Mediterranean fleet and Atlantic reach for centuries afterward. Basque fishermen and whalers, whose deep-sea voyaging in the North Atlantic predates most documented expeditions, had access to Levantine trade goods through Mediterranean commerce. Even the tail end of Norse activity in the North Atlantic, well established by the settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland around 1000 AD, overlaps with the lower boundary of the carbon dating range. The fiber evidence narrows the field of candidates, but does not reduce it to one. [article:portuguese-connection-order-of-christ] The Forensic Case Taken together, the findings from Neisen, Cook, and Boze's four-volume series present a coherent body of forensic evidence, though one that stops short of definitive proof. The European Sycamore identification challenges the most basic assumption about the island, its name, and by extension the provenance of its earliest visitors. The Judean Date Palm fiber dating places human activity on the island in the late 12th to early 14th century, centuries before any recorded European presence in the region. The sheer volume of processed fiber, over a tonne and a half, rules out accidental deposit or ship's dunnage washing ashore and points instead to planned, large-scale construction. The series also examines the red clover reportedly found by the Money Pit's original discoverers, the log platforms within the shaft, and connections to Cornwall's tin mining industry, each treated as a separate forensic question with its own evidence base. Volume III focuses on the fiber evidence in detail, while Volume IV examines the Templar connection as one candidate explanation, arguing that the combined botanical, archaeological, and chemical data are consistent with a medieval military order possessing the resources, the seafaring capability, and the motivation to reach Nova Scotia. Across all four volumes, the level of detail and scientific rigour stands out as some of the most thorough independent research produced in the Oak Island field. Where most authors begin with a theory and work backward to fit the evidence, Neisen, Cook, and Boze begin with material samples, laboratory results, and archival records, and let the findings lead. That methodological discipline is rare in a genre often dominated by speculation. [article:the-knights-templar] Independent verification of some of these claims remains ongoing. The dendrochronological work on the Raasay trees has not yet yielded a published genetic comparison with the Oak Island specimens. And the leap from forensic botany to any specific historical attribution, whether Templar, Hospitaller, Basque, or Norse, still depends on circumstantial alignment rather than a single piece of conclusive evidence tying a named individual or documented voyage to the island. What the research does establish, at minimum, is that someone carried a European tree species and over a tonne of processed Judean Date Palm fiber to a small island in Mahone Bay during the medieval period, and built structures with both. The dating window of 1185 to 1330 overlaps with the operational peak of several groups already linked to Oak Island through other evidence found on the island. The trees and the fibers do not tell us who. They tell us when, and that changes everything else. ### De Villiers: The Treasure Bloodline URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/de-villiers-the-treasure-bloodline Most Oak Island theories begin and end with a single event. The Villiers Bloodline theory spans seven centuries. It traces a documented genealogical chain from the man who carried the Knights Templar treasury out of Paris in 1307 to a Knight of Malta who established his capital twenty miles from Oak Island in 1632. Every link in that chain held a position of extraordinary trust within the military orders, and at every crisis where treasure or sacred relics needed saving, a member of this family was the one who carried them out. Origins The Villiers name enters the historical record around 1013 with Godefroy de Villiers, rooted in Norman soil barely a century after Rollo's Norse settlers accepted land from the French crown. At nearly the same moment, in 1014, a lord named Adam received a fortress on the River Oise, becoming the first Seigneur de L'Isle Adam. These two families, Villiers and L'Isle Adam, occupied the same frontier north of Paris and would later merge by marriage, producing the dynasty at the centre of this theory. The family's Norman roots are worth noting: the Norse world from which the Normans descended was one in which Atlantic seafaring was a living capability, as the settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, dated to 1021, attests. Whether that maritime heritage persisted through generations of Francophone feudal life is a different question, but the cultural context is relevant. [site:l-anse-aux-meadows] By the mid-twelfth century, the family was placing sons in both the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller simultaneously. By 1193, Guillaume de Villiers held the title of Grand-Commandeur deca Mer, the supreme Hospitaller command over all European operations, the officer who controlled the flow of men and money to the Holy Land. On the Templar side, members of the family held commanderies across France. Both orders. Both command structures. For generations. A Pattern of Rescue Guillaume de Villiers was already a senior Hospitaller officer when the catastrophe struck. On July 4, 1187, the army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem marched from Saffuriya toward Tiberias across waterless terrain in the heat of a Palestinian summer. King Guy de Lusignan had been persuaded, against the counsel of Raymond III of Tripoli, to advance. Saladin had positioned his forces between the Crusaders and the nearest water. At the Horns of Hattin, surrounded and dying of thirst, the Crusader army disintegrated. The king was captured. Saladin then singled out every captured Templar and Hospitaller knight and had them executed, reportedly two hundred men, while ransoming secular prisoners. The military orders were not merely defeated. They were targeted for destruction. Within six years of Hattin, Guillaume held the title of Grand-Commandeur deça Mer, confirmed in Joseph Delaville Le Roulx's Cartulaire général de l'Ordre des Hospitaliers (n° 945, 30 April 1193) and independently in Zsolt Hunyadi's The Hospitallers in the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary (p. 90), where Guillaume is named as magister ultramarinus in a circular letter announcing the death of Saladin. A man does not rise to the supreme European command without decades of service. He was almost certainly active in the order's senior hierarchy during the crisis of 1187. After Hattin, Saladin moved swiftly. Acre fell. Then Jaffa, Sidon, Beirut, and Ascalon. When Jerusalem surrendered on October 2, 1187, the military orders used their own treasury funds to ransom thousands of civilians who could not afford the price. It was the first recorded instance of the orders deploying their financial reserves in a crisis evacuation, using the treasury not for war but for rescue. The pattern that the De Villiers family would later repeat at Montségur, at Acre, and at Rhodes begins here. The pattern appears even earlier, in a different context. In March 1244, the Cathar fortress of Montségur in the Pyrenees fell after a ten-month siege. On the night over two hundred Cathars burned at the stake, the garrison commander Pierre Roger de Mirepoix hid two men inside the walls. The interrogation record of the inquisition, recorded in the Languedoc DOAT, leave no doubt that one of them was Hugh de Villiers. The Inquisition record of Arnaud Roger de Mirepoix states the reason explicitly: "so that the Church of the heretics would not lose its treasure, which was hidden in the woods." Hugh de Villiers and his companion Amiel Aicard were lowered by rope down the precipice beneath the castle. Witnesses traced their route through Caussou, Prades, and the Castle of Usson. The Inquisition never found them, and never found the treasure. [site:chateau-de-montsegur] A century after Hattin, Jean de Villiers served as Grand Master of the Hospitallers when Acre, the last Crusader city, fell to the Mamluks in 1291. In the spring of that year, Sultan al-Ashraf Khalil assembled a force of over one hundred thousand men, supported by massive siege engines and catapults capable of shattering walls. The Christian garrison numbered perhaps fifteen to twenty thousand, including the full fighting strength of both military orders. They were outnumbered five or six to one. The siege began in April. The Mamluks pounded the walls day and night. On May 18, the Templar Grand Master Guillaume de Beaujeu was struck by a javelin and died that night. Jean de Villiers was severely wounded leading the defence of his sector. His knights carried him from the walls to the harbour and put him on a ship. He reached Cyprus carrying the order's most sacred relics: the Right Hand of John the Baptist and the icon of Our Lady of Philermos. The same family had been in command when Jerusalem was lost and when Acre was evacuated. A century apart, the pattern was identical: a De Villiers ensuring the most precious objects survived. Ruad, 1302 After the fall of Acre, the military orders regrouped on Cyprus and waited. Ruad was a tiny island fortress off the Syrian coast, barely a kilometre from Tortosa, the last physical toehold of the Crusader presence in the Levant. By 1300, roughly one hundred and twenty Templars and several hundred supporting troops garrisoned the island, waiting for a Mongol alliance that never came. Gérard de Villiers was there. He had risen through the order's hierarchy in the years after Acre, part of the generation tasked with planning a return to the Holy Land. When the Mamluks besieged Ruad, the Templars were starved out. A free passage was negotiated, then betrayed. The men were attacked as they emerged. The garrison was massacred or enslaved. But not Gérard. During the Papal inquisition trials in Paris in November 1309, Templar knight Ponsard de Gizy testified (Procès des Templiers, ed. Jules Michelet, vol. I) that Gérard de Villiers had "left a day earlier, taking his friends with him." A day earlier. Before the siege concluded. Before the betrayal. Before the massacre. This was the same Gérard de Villiers who, five years later, would flee Paris with fifty horses on the eve of the Templar arrests. Twice in a fortress about to fall. Twice out before the door closed. This was not luck. This was a man with intelligence networks and the authority to act on them. Paris, 1307 Five years after Ruad, the last hammer fell. On October 13, 1307, King Philip IV ordered the arrest of every Templar in France. The leadership already knew. In testimony before the Papal Inquisition at Poitiers in June 1308, the knight Jean de Châlons described what happened: Gérard de Villiers, Master of France, fled with fifty horses and put to sea with eighteen galleys. A second man, Hugues de Châlons, escaped carrying what the testimony calls "the whole treasure" of Hugues de Pairaud, the Visitor General who controlled every Templar treasury across Europe. The historian E.-G. Léonard identified Hugues de Châlons, preceptor of Épailly, as "probably identical" with Hugh of Villiers, who held the same office from roughly 1293 to 1301. If correct, then both men who carried the Templar treasury out of Paris were De Villiers. The Inquisition testimony further describes Hugues de Châlons as the nephew of Pairaud, the Visitor, meaning Pairaud was family too. Pairaud's father Humbert had served as Master of England and Aquitaine from 1266 to 1271 (documented in Alain Demurger, Les Templiers: Une chevalerie chrétienne au Moyen Âge, and the Procès des Templiers), a jurisdiction that extended across Scotland and Ireland. Every preceptory, every harbour, every contact from London to Edinburgh was known to Humbert. Hugues de Pairaud himself testified under interrogation that he was received into the order by his own father at the age of eighteen. The knowledge of the entire Templar network across the British Isles passed directly from father to son. As it appears, three generations coordinated a single operation: Pairaud controlling the Templar treasury from within, his nephew Hugh carrying the money, and Hugh's nephew Gérard running the military escort. The succession of the office of Master of France tells its own story. Hugues de Pairaud held it from 1291 to 1294. Within five years, Gérard de Villiers held the same chair, from 1299 to 1307. Uncle and nephew, occupying the same seat of power within a single decade. When the eighteen galleys sailed from France in October 1307, someone on board knew exactly where every Templar safe haven was located across Britain. That knowledge was a Pairaud family asset, inherited from father to son. The treasure did not leave an institution. It left a family's hands to enter other hands of the same family. The ships sailed and none of them were ever seen again. [article:the-knights-templar] The Other Side of the House When the Templars were dissolved in 1312, their assets passed to the Knights Hospitaller. The De Villiers name transferred with them. The families of De Villiers and L'Isle Adam had merged through marriage in the 1290s, and the documented genealogy traces six generations from Gérard de Villiers to Philippe de Villiers de L'Isle Adam, born in 1464. Gérard's nephew Adam married into the L'Isle Adam house. Their descendants held positions as Knight of the Star, Knight Hospitaller, Chamberlain of France, holder of the Golden Fleece, Marshall of France, and Governor of Paris. One hundred and eighty-nine years. Six generations. The family's power base shifted seamlessly from the destroyed order to the surviving one. Philippe became Grand Master in 1521. Within a year, Sultan Suleiman besieged Rhodes with 100,000 men against fewer than 7,000 defenders. Only Sir John Rawson, Prior of the order's Irish house, came alone to help. Philippe would defend the island with six hundred knights drawn from the order's eight langues, perhaps four thousand mercenaries and local militia, and the civilian population of Rhodes itself. The siege lasted six months. The Ottomans pounded the walls day and night with heavy cannon. They dug mining tunnels beneath the bastions, packing them with gunpowder. The defenders used listening devices to detect the vibrations of Turkish sappers underground and destroyed over fifty tunnels before they could be detonated. On September 4, two massive mines exploded beneath the Bastion of England, collapsing twelve yards of wall into the moat. Philippe personally led the counterattack, driving the Turks back out of the gap in close-quarters fighting. By December, both sides were exhausted. Suleiman offered terms: surrender, and the knights could leave with their lives, their weapons, and their sacred objects. On January 1, 1523, Philippe led the surviving knights out of the city. They carried with them the order's most sacred possessions: the Right Hand of John the Baptist and the icon of Our Lady of Philermos. The same relics Jean de Villiers had evacuated from Acre 232 years earlier. What followed was seven years of exile. Philippe led the order from one temporary refuge to the next: Crete, then Messina, then Viterbo, then Nice. An order that had held territory continuously since the twelfth century was homeless for the first time in its history. At Nice, Philippe commissioned the construction of the Santa Anna. She was a carrack unlike anything the Mediterranean had seen: six decks, a hull sheathed below the waterline in lead plates fastened with bronze nails, making her, by some accounts, the first armoured warship in history. She mounted fifty heavy guns and could carry five hundred marines in addition to her crew. Below decks she housed a forge staffed by three armourers, a mill and ovens for baking fresh bread at sea, and officers' quarters with a garden growing in boxes of earth in the stern galleries. The Hospitaller chronicler Giacomo Bosio (Dell'Istoria della Sacra Religione, 1594-1602) called her the finest floating fortress in the Mediterranean. In 1531, the Santa Anna single-handedly routed an Ottoman squadron of twenty-five ships. The Santa Anna was not a coastal vessel. She was an ocean-going warship, built to project power across open water, capable of carrying men, supplies, and cargo across any sea in the known world. Philippe de Villiers de L'Isle Adam, descendant of the family that had been moving sacred cargo since 1187, had built the most formidable transport vessel of its age. In 1530, Philippe secured the islands of Malta and Gozo from Emperor Charles V. He arrived aboard the Santa Anna on October 26 and established the order's new headquarters at the Palazzo Falson in Mdina. [article:the-knights-of-malta] Twenty Miles from Oak Island Philippe's grandfather had a brother, Jacques de Villiers de L'Isle Adam, Marshall of France and Provost of Paris. From Jacques the line descended through Robert II, Jacques II (Knight of the Order of Saint Michel), and Catherine de Villiers, who married François de Razilly. Their son Isaac, born in 1587, was the tenth generation from Gérard. Isaac de Razilly was a Knight of Malta, Commander of Isles Bouchard, and an Atlantic navigator whose career reads like a catalogue of every contested coastline in the Atlantic world. By the age of twenty-five he was exploring the coast of Brazil, part of the expedition to establish France Équinoxiale near the island of Marajó. By 1619, Louis XIII sent him to Morocco to reconnoitre the Atlantic coast as far south as Mogador, the fortified harbour that the Portuguese had used and the Phoenicians before them had known as Migdol. Razilly surveyed it as a potential French colonial base, assessing its harbour, its defences, and its strategic position on the African Atlantic seaboard. In 1624, the king dispatched him to the pirate harbour of Salé, the corsair stronghold on the Moroccan coast, to negotiate the release of French captives. The mission went wrong. Razilly was seized, thrown in chains, and imprisoned. He was eventually released but was forced to leave many of the Christian captives behind. He returned to France and was given command of the blockade fleet during the siege of La Rochelle, the great Huguenot stronghold on the Atlantic coast. During the fighting, a vessel exploded near his ship and Razilly lost an eye. He kept fighting. The siege lasted fourteen months and ended with the city's surrender in October 1628. In 1626, between these campaigns, Razilly had submitted a memorandum to Cardinal Richelieu: his "Articles pour persuader un chacun de risquer sur mer et trouver fonds pour la navigation," a manifesto arguing for French sea power and colonial expansion overseas, in Africa, Asia, or America (documented in Robert Le Blant, Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française, vol. 11, 1957, and Édouard de Barthélemy, Revue des questions historiques, vol. 15, 1874). Richelieu listened. In July 1629, Razilly sailed for Morocco with seven warships, bombarded Salé, destroyed three corsair vessels, and briefly occupied the island of Mogador. In 1630 he negotiated the release of French slaves. In 1632 he helped negotiate the Franco-Moroccan Treaty that gave France preferential trading rights along the coast. His uncle was Cardinal Richelieu, the most powerful man in France and architect of the country's colonial expansion. Richelieu could have sent his nephew anywhere in the New World. He sent him to the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia. On September 8, 1632, three hundred and twenty-five years after Gérard de Villiers fled Paris with the Templar treasury, Isaac de Razilly landed at La Hève (LaHave) with three hundred men and three Capuchin monks. The date was the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the patronal feast of the Knights Hospitaller and the date the Great Siege of Malta was lifted in 1565, as confirmed by the Sacra Militia Foundation of Malta, the academic arm of the Maltese Association of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Razilly named his fort Sainte-Marie-de-Grâce, in honour of the Virgin, because he had arrived on her feast day. He took possession of roughly a third of what is now the province. His companion Nicolas Denys (Description géographique et historique des costes de l'Amérique septentrionale, Paris, 1672; English translation by William Francis Ganong, The Champlain Society, 1908) explored the inner reaches of Mahone Bay and gave the first known written description of the area, including an island covered with a forest of mature oak trees. La Hève sits twenty miles from Oak Island. Before his death, Razilly wrote to Grand Master Antoine de Paule proposing a Priory of the Order of Malta on the Nova Scotian coast, overseeing several new Commanderies. He died in late 1635 before the answer reached Acadia. It was not favorable. The Order had just committed 200,000 écus to restoring the defenses on Malta. Over a century later, in 1746, the man commanding French forces in Acadia was still a De Villiers. Nicolas Antoine II Coulon-de-Villiers patrolled the coast between La Hève and Halifax. According to Abbé Casgrain's biography of de Gaspé, whose maternal grandmother was a Coulon, the family claimed alliance with the Grand Master of the Order of Malta, Philippe de Villiers de L'Isle Adam. The authors of Coulon de Villiers: An Elite Military Family of New France noted that this statement could not be verified. What can be verified is the maternal line: Coulon-de-Villiers' maternal grandfather was Antoine de la Fosse, Lord of Valpendant, the old Templar commandery overlooking L'Isle Adam, the ancestral seat of the Villiers family. Four centuries after Gérard de Villiers vanished from history, a man whose family claimed descent from the same bloodline was patrolling the same stretch of Nova Scotian shore. [site:fort-point-museum] The Navigator's Star The direct line of the Villiers de L'Isle Adam ended in the nineteenth century. Joseph Toussaint de Villiers, Marquis de L'Isle Adam, spent his life and his family's fortune searching for what he believed was the lost treasure of the Knights of Malta, which he was convinced had been buried near the town of Quintin in Brittany during the French Revolution. He bought land. He excavated. He sold the sites at a loss when he found nothing. He died penniless. His son Auguste de Villiers de L'Isle Adam grew up hearing his father's stories of the family's ancient lineage, of the knightly orders, of treasure hidden and lost. He became one of the finest French writers of the nineteenth century, a symbolist celebrated for his dark imagination and his obsession with hidden knowledge. He was so poor that, according to his friend Léon Bloy, he wrote most of his novel L'Ève future lying on his belly on bare floorboards because the bailiffs had taken the furniture. Yet his sense of who he was never wavered. He once sued a playwright who he believed had insulted one of his ancestors, Maréchal Jean de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam. He stood for parliament as a Legitimist. And he wrote of his family with a defiance that bordered on declaration: "I belong to a lineage of navigators and extravagant warriors, whose actions of great prowess and resonance appear in the register of authentic jewels of history." Auguste lived with Marie Dantine, the illiterate widow of a Belgian coachman. In 1881, she gave birth to his son Victor, nicknamed Totor. When Auguste was dying of stomach cancer in the summer of 1889, his literary friends gathered around him. Stéphane Mallarmé and Joris-Karl Huysmans were at his side. At their urging, and at the insistence of the priest Father Sylvester, Auguste married Marie on his deathbed, on August 14, 1889. The purpose was specific: to legitimise Totor, to ensure that the boy could legally carry the name Villiers de L'Isle Adam. Five days later, on August 19, Auguste died. Beside his bed, his friends found an unfinished manuscript. It was a play called Axël, published posthumously the following year. It is considered his masterpiece. It is a treasure story. A noble family has guarded an immense hidden treasure across generations. The treasure, gold, jewels, and relics, is stored in underground crypts and chambers, surrounded by the marble mausoleums of knights and their ladies. The entrance is concealed behind a wall bearing the family crest and the Latin inscription Altius resurgere spero gemmatus, "I hope to rise again higher, adorned with jewels." The chambers are accessible only through winding underground passages that require both physical and intellectual effort to navigate. A young woman deciphers an ancient parchment covered in symbols to find the way in. A count guards his family's secrets across the generations. The play is suffused with Rosicrucian and chivalric symbolism. Among Auguste's own illustrations: Ursa Minor, the navigator's star. Victor Philippe Auguste de Villiers de L'Isle Adam, Totor, was eight years old when his father died. He grew up carrying one of the most storied names in French chivalric history, raised by a mother who could not read or write. His best friend was Marcel Longuet, the grandson of Karl Marx. Together they founded a literary review called L'Idée. In 1901, Victor died. He was nineteen years old. He left no descendants. The bloodline was extinguished. Presented at the Palazzo Falson This research was presented by Corjan Mol in Season 12, Episode 23 ("Family Ties") of The Curse of Oak Island, at the Palazzo Falson in Mdina, the same residence Philippe de Villiers de L'Isle Adam chose when he arrived on Malta in 1530. The bloodline is documented. The positions are documented. The proximity to Oak Island is documented. From Gérard's escape with the Templar treasury through Philippe's evacuation of Rhodes to Razilly's landing twenty miles from Oak Island, spans seven centuries and approximately twenty-five generations. What the documents do not record is what any of them carried with them. [site:palazzo-falson] Sources This article traces the documented De Villiers bloodline across seven centuries, from Guillaume de Villiers at the fall of Jerusalem in 1187 to the death of Victor de Villiers de L'Isle Adam in Paris in 1901. The genealogical chain from Gérard de Villiers (1307) to Philippe de Villiers de L'Isle Adam (1464) is mapped across six generations. From Gérard to Isaac de Razilly (1632) spans ten documented generations. The full arc from the Crusades to the extinction of the line covers approximately twenty-five generations. Original Research Corjan Mol, original genealogical research presented in Season 12, Episode 23 ("Family Ties") of The Curse of Oak Island, at the Palazzo Falson in Mdina, Malta. Traces the six-generation chain from Gérard de Villiers to Philippe de Villiers de L'Isle Adam through documented marriages into the House of L'Isle Adam, and the ten-generation chain from Gérard to Isaac de Razilly. Corjan Mol and Christopher Morford, The Jerusalem Files (London: Watkins / Penguin Random House, 2024). Primary Source Collections and Prosopographies Joseph Delaville Le Roulx, Cartulaire général de l'Ordre des Hospitaliers de St-Jean de Jérusalem (1100–1310), 4 vols. (Paris, 1894–1906). Guillaume de Villiers as Grand-Commandeur deça Mer: n° 945 (30 April 1193). Prior of England 1199–1202: n° 1056. Prior of France 1207–1209: n° 1243 and 1331. See also Delaville Le Roulx, Les Hospitaliers en Terre Sainte et à Chypre (1100–1310) (Paris: E. Leroux, 1904). Zsolt Hunyadi, The Hospitallers in the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary, c. 1150–1387 (Budapest: Central European University, 2010), p. 90. Confirms Guillaume de Villiers as magister ultramarinus in a circular letter announcing the death of Saladin (4 March 1193). The original document is held in Paris. Procès des Templiers, ed. Jules Michelet, 2 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1841–1851), vol. I. Contains the testimony of Jean de Châlons (Poitiers, June 1308) and of Ponsard de Gizy (Paris, November 1309). Jean de Châlons describes Gérard de Villiers fleeing with fifty horses and eighteen galleys, and Hugues de Châlons escaping with "the whole treasure" of Hugues de Pairaud. Ponsard de Gizy states that Gérard left Ruad "a day earlier, taking his friends with him." Single-page document, August 1308, Bibliothèque nationale de France, inserted into a letter by Pope Clement V, entitled "these are the names of the brothers that have fled." Names "Gérard de Villiers and Hugh de Châlons who had armed 40 brothers." Also referenced by Heinrich Finke. Montségur, 1244: The Cathar Treasure DOAT (Collection Doat), Bibliothèque nationale de France, Volume XXII, p. 108. Interrogation of Arnaud Roger de Mirepoix: Pierre Roger de Mirepoix retained Amiel Aicard and his companion Hugh [de Villiers] in the castle; after the perfects had been burned en masse, Pierre Roger hid them and they escaped. "And this was done so that the Church of the heretics would not lose its treasure, which was hidden in the woods." DOAT, Volume XXIV, p. 172. Interrogation of Imbert de Salles: the perfect Mathieu and his brother Pierre Bonnet carried away "gold, silver, and an infinite quantity of money" (aurum, argentum et pecuniam infinitam) from the castle, depositing it in caves in the Sabarthès on lands held by Pons Arnaud de Châteauverdun. DOAT, Volume XXIV, p. 62. Interrogation of Bérenger de Lavelanet: the perfects came to Caussou, then Prades, then the Castle of Usson, where they met the perfect Mathieu. DOAT, Volume XXIV, p. 81. Bernard Guilhem and Bernard d'Auvezines confirmed that Amiel Aicard and Hugh [de Villiers] were lowered by rope down the precipice beneath the castle, on the night the castle was delivered to the King and Church. Michel Roquebert, L'Épopée cathare, 5 vols. (Toulouse: Privat, 1970–1998). Standard academic history of the Cathar movement, the siege of Montségur, and the Avignonet raid of 1242. Guillaume de Puylaurens, Chronica, ed. Jean Duvernoy (Paris: CNRS, 1976). Names Jourdain de Villiers among the participants in the Avignonet raid (28 May 1242). The Escape of 1307 E.-G. Léonard, Introduction au Cartulaire manuscrit du Temple (1150–1317) (Paris: Champion, 1930). Identifies Hugues de Châlons, preceptor of Épailly, as "probably identical" with Hugh de Villiers, who held the same office from roughly 1293 to 1301. No subsequent scholar has challenged this attribution. Alain Demurger, Les Templiers: Une chevalerie chrétienne au Moyen Âge (Paris: Seuil, 2005). Prosopographical data on Hugues de Pairaud and his father Humbert, Master of England and Aquitaine (1266–1271). Alain Demurger, Jacques de Molay (Paris: Payot, 2002). Context for the 1307 arrests and the Poitiers hearings. Barbara Frale, L'ultima battaglia dei Templari (Rome: Viella, 2001). Additional analysis of the escape testimonies. Philippe de Villiers de L'Isle Adam, the Siege of Rhodes, and the Santa Anna Eric Brockman, The Two Sieges of Rhodes, 1480–1522 (London: John Murray, 1969). The siege lasted from June to December 1522. Philippe negotiated surrender on December 22 and departed January 1, 1523. Giacomo Bosio, Dell'Istoria della Sacra Religione di San Giovanni Gierosolimitano (Rome, 1594–1602), Book XXI. Source for the Santa Anna: six decks, lead-sheathed hull, fifty guns, capacity for five hundred marines, forge, mill, ovens, and stern gardens. Bosio called her the finest floating fortress in the Mediterranean. H. J. A. Sire, The Knights of Malta (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994). Sovereign Military Order of Malta, official history and account of the icon of Our Lady of Philermos (orderofmalta.int). Isaac de Razilly and the Knights of Malta in Nova Scotia Nicolas Denys, Description géographique et historique des costes de l'Amérique septentrionale: avec l'histoire naturelle du païs, 2 vols. (Paris: Chez Claude Barbin, 1672). English translation by William Francis Ganong: The Description and Natural History of the Coasts of North America (Acadia) (Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1908). First known written description of the inner reaches of Mahone Bay, including an island covered with oak trees. Available at: archive.org The Sacra Militia Foundation of Malta (founded 1998), the academic arm of the Maltese Association of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Research confirming Isaac de Razilly's arrival at La Hève on September 8, 1632, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the patronal feast of the Knights Hospitaller and the date the Great Siege of Malta was lifted in 1565. Robert Le Blant, Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française, vol. 11 (1957). Source for Razilly's memorandum to Richelieu and his proposal for a Priory of the Order of Malta in Acadia. Édouard de Barthélemy, Revue des questions historiques, vol. 15 (1874). Additional documentation on Razilly's colonial proposal and the Order's wider Atlantic ambitions. Order of Malta Canadian Association. Records that Razilly formally offered his Acadian lands to Grand Master Fra Antoine de Paule with the proposal that they be erected into a Priory. Mark Finnan, Oak Island Secrets (Halifax, 1997 reprint of 1944 original). Notes Denys's account as "the first known description of the area." Randall Sullivan, The Curse of Oak Island (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2018). Confirms Nicolas Denys as the first to describe Oak Island in print. Coulon-de-Villiers in Acadia, 1746 Abbé Henri-Raymond Casgrain, biography of Philippe Aubert de Gaspé (whose maternal grandmother was a Coulon). Reports that the Coulon family claimed alliance with the Grand Master of the Order of Malta, Philippe de Villiers de L'Isle Adam. Coulon de Villiers: An Elite Military Family of New France, Featuring the Translated Works of Amédée Edmond Gosselin, Pierre-Georges Roy, and Aegidius Fauteux. Notes that Casgrain's statement "could not be verified." Confirms the verifiable maternal line: Nicolas Antoine II Coulon-de-Villiers' maternal grandfather was Antoine de la Fosse, Lord of Valpendant, the old Templar commandery overlooking L'Isle Adam. Auguste de Villiers de L'Isle Adam and Axël A.W. Raitt, The Life of Villiers de l'Isle-Adam (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981). Principal biography. Source for Léon Bloy anecdote, deathbed marriage (August 14, 1889), legitimisation of Victor, the unfinished manuscript of Axël, and Auguste's self-description as belonging to "a lineage of navigators and extravagant warriors." Axël (Paris, published posthumously 1890). A play about a noble family guarding an immense underground treasure across generations. Family crest inscription: Altius resurgere spero gemmatus. Auguste's own illustrations include Ursa Minor, the navigator's star. Academic Reference Works Arnaud Baudin, Ghislain Brunel, and Nicolas Dohrmann (eds.), Acta Templarorium, ou la prosopographie des Templiers (Paris, 2002). Prosopographical database of 4,730 identified Templars compiled from primary charter and trial sources across France. Contains entries for members of the De Villiers family holding Templar offices across multiple generations. Available at: academia.edu Malcolm Barber and Keith Bate (trans. and eds.), The Templars: Selected Sources (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002). Translated primary sources including the trial depositions containing the Jean de Châlons testimony. Available at: archive.org Jochen Schenk, Templar Families: Landowning Families and the Order of the Temple in France, c. 1120–1307, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, Fourth Series, no. 79 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). ISBN 978-1-107-00447-4. Academic study of the relationship between the Order of the Temple and the noble landowning families that supported it, focusing on Burgundy, Champagne, and Languedoc. Karl Borchardt, Karoline Döring, Philippe Josserand, and Helen J. Nicholson (eds.), The Templars and Their Sources, Crusades: Subsidia, no. 10 (London: Routledge, 2017). ISBN 978-1-138-20190-3. Contains Alan Forey's chapter "The Office of Master Deça Mer in Military Orders," directly relevant to Guillaume de Villiers' title of magister ultramarinus in 1193. Television The Curse of Oak Island, Season 12, Episode 23, "Family Ties." Corjan Mol presents the De Villiers Bloodline research at the Palazzo Falson in Mdina, Malta. ### The Knights Hospitaller URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/the-knights-hospitaller The Knights Hospitaller The Knights Hospitaller, formally the Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, are often overshadowed by their Templar rivals in the Oak Island story. They should not be. The Hospitallers were equally powerful, considerably longer lived, and when the Templars were destroyed in 1312, it was the Hospitallers who inherited their assets, their properties, and possibly their secrets. The order began not as a military force but as a hospital. Around 1099, in the aftermath of the First Crusade, a group of monks operating a pilgrim hospital in Jerusalem dedicated to Saint John the Baptist was formally recognised by Pope Paschal II in 1113 as an independent religious order. Under Raymond du Puy, who succeeded the order's founder Brother Gerard around 1120, the Hospitallers transformed into a military organisation. Knights were recruited, fortifications built, and within decades the order operated as a standing army in the Holy Land, rivalling the Templars in wealth, manpower, and influence. For nearly two centuries the Hospitallers held major fortifications across the Crusader states, including Krak des Chevaliers and Margat Castle. When Saladin recaptured Jerusalem in 1187, the order retreated to Acre. When Acre fell in 1291, the Grand Master Jean de Villiers led the surviving knights to Cyprus. It was the beginning of a pattern that would repeat across centuries: the order lost its base, regrouped, and rebuilt somewhere new. Rhodes and the Templar Inheritance In 1310, under Grand Master Foulques de Villaret, the Hospitallers captured the island of Rhodes after a four-year campaign. Two years later, Pope Clement V dissolved the Knights Templar with the papal bull Vox in excelso and, through a second bull, Ad providam, transferred all Templar properties to the Hospitallers. Houses, churches, lands, revenues, and possessions across Europe and the Levant were formally handed to the Order of Saint John. The Catholic Encyclopedia describes the result as a "fusion" of the two orders, one that significantly increased the Hospitallers' wealth and military character. What was not transferred, at least not on paper, was whatever the Templars may have been guarding. The papal bulls dealt with land and revenue. They said nothing about relics, archives, or the contents of Templar vaults. If the Templars had possessed sacred objects or knowledge of hidden deposits, the Hospitallers were the most likely inheritors, both by legal decree and by the simple fact that many former Templars joined the Hospitaller ranks after 1312. Guardians of Sacred Relics The Hospitallers were no strangers to moving priceless objects across vast distances by sea. Their record as relic guardians is extensively documented. On Rhodes, the order maintained some of the most important relics in Christendom, including a fragment of the True Cross, the icon of Our Lady of Philermos (a Byzantine image of the Virgin Mary dated to the 11th or 12th century), and the right hand of Saint John the Baptist, which was presented to the order by Sultan Bayezid II in 1484. When the Hospitallers lost Rhodes to Sultan Suleiman in 1522, Grand Master Philippe de Villiers de L'Isle Adam negotiated an honourable withdrawal. The surviving knights were permitted to take their archives, their personal arms, and their most sacred relics. On January 1, 1523, they sailed from Rhodes carrying the hand of the Baptist, the fragment of the True Cross, and the icon of Philermos. For the next seven years, the homeless order wandered the Mediterranean, from Crete to Nice to Viterbo, carrying these relics with them at every stage. In 1530, Emperor Charles V granted the order the islands of Malta and Gozo, and the Hospitallers finally had a permanent home. From that point forward they became known as the Knights of Malta, and their story enters a new chapter, one with direct connections to Nova Scotia and to Oak Island. [article:sacred-cargo-relics-crossing-oceans] Why the Hospitallers Matter for Oak Island The Hospitallers had every capability attributed to the Templars and several the Templars lacked. They operated a powerful fleet. They transported sacred objects by sea as a matter of institutional routine. They absorbed former Templar knights, properties, and wealth. They survived for centuries after the Templars' destruction, maintaining continuity of knowledge and resources that the Templars lost in 1307. The order's connection to Nova Scotia runs through specific family lines that bridged both orders. The same families that held senior positions among the Templars reappear, generation after generation, in the Hospitaller hierarchy.  [article:the-knights-of-malta][article:de-villiers-the-treasure-bloodline] ### The Irish Monks and Oak Island Theory URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/the-irish-monks-and-oak-island-theory A cross was carved into the wall of a cave in southern Iceland sometime around the year 800. In the summer of 2023, the Oak Island team walked into the same cave with Italian historian Roberto Pagani and stood in front of it. The carving resembled the lead cross that Rick Lagina and Gary Drayton had recovered at Smith's Cove in 2017, an artifact later dated by Saint Mary's University to the fourteenth century. The Icelandic cross was older by half a millennium. Pagani identified the cave as the work of an Irish monastic order, abandoned when the Vikings arrived in 874. That brief comparison in Kverkarhellir Cave reopened an old question. If Christian monks from Ireland and the Hebrides were carving crosses in Icelandic caves before any Templar existed, the western limit of their reach is worth establishing. The documentary and archaeological record, gathered across twelve centuries of medieval text and forty years of modern fieldwork, runs further than the conventional histories will allow. [site:kverkarhellir-cave] Dicuil's Northern Islands The earliest documentary witness is also one of the most rigorous. Dicuil was an Irish monk, astronomer and geographer who taught at the school of Louis the Pious in the Carolingian court between 814 and 816. In 825 he completed a geographical treatise titled Liber de Mensura Orbis Terrae, the Book on the Measurement of the World. It is preserved in several medieval manuscripts and remains the earliest clear European notice of habitation in Iceland. Dicuil wrote that thirty years before, in 795, a group of Irish hermits had spent six months on an island they called Thule. They had arrived on the first of February and left at the start of August. They reported a midsummer sun that never properly set, a light bright enough to perform any ordinary task at midnight. From Thule they had sailed one day further north before encountering a wall of ice. Dicuil did not relay this from a saga or a chronicle. He had it from monks who had been there. The same treatise contains an earlier passage describing other islands north of Britain. Dicuil noted that small islands lay scattered to the north and northwest, and that he had himself lived on some, visited others, and read about still more. Most modern scholars take this passage to refer to the Faroe Islands, and a separate paragraph describes hermits living there for nearly a century before being driven off by Norse raiders. The chronology Dicuil sets out matches the archaeological record. Norse settlement of the Faroes is dated to the early ninth century, which means Irish monks were there in the eighth. The Papar in the Sagas The Icelandic sources call them papar, a borrowing of the Latin papa, father. The two foundational Norse histories of Iceland both record that the papar were on the island when the first Norse settlers arrived. Íslendingabók, written by Ari Thorgilson around 1130, opens its account of the settlement by noting that Christian men whom the Norse called papar were here when the Norsemen came. Ari adds that they did not wish to live with the heathen and left behind Irish books, bells, and croziers, from which it could be understood that they were Irish. The companion text, Landnámabók, repeats and expands the notice. Place names anchor it. Papey is the largest island off Iceland's east coast and means Island of the Papar. Papyli, on the south coast, means Settlement of the Papar. A cluster of similar Pap-names appears across the Scottish islands and in the Faroes, mapping a coherent geography of pre-Norse Christian activity stretching from the western Hebrides up through the stepping-stones of the North Atlantic. The sagas were committed to parchment by Norse Christians more than two centuries after the events they describe, and they do not preserve papar voices. What they do preserve is the consistent testimony, across multiple independent texts, that the Norse arrived to find Iceland already inhabited by Irish monks who fled rather than share the island with pagans. [article:vikings] The Cave Crosses of Seljaland For most of the twentieth century, the papar were considered a closed historical question. The Norse had left their books and bells, and that was that. The case was reopened by Kristján Ahronson, a Canadian-born archaeologist whose 2015 monograph Into the Ocean: Vikings, Irish, and Environmental Change in Iceland and the North, published by the University of Toronto Press, presented the results of more than a decade of fieldwork at a site called Seljaland on the south coast of Iceland. Seljaland is a complex of artificial caves cut into soft tuff. One of them, Kverkarhellir, sits at the foot of a low cliff in farming country east of the village of Hvolsvöllur. Inside the cave and the alcoves around it are around thirty incised cross carvings of a type largely unknown elsewhere in Iceland. The local folk name for one of the chambers is Papahellir, the cave of the papar. Ahronson set out to test whether the construction of Kverkarhellir could be dated by a method called tephrochronology. Iceland's volcanic systems have deposited a sequence of distinctive ash layers, or tephrae, across the southern lowlands over the past ten thousand years. Each major eruption leaves a thin, chemically identifiable horizon in the soil. By identifying the tephra layers above and below an archaeological deposit, the deposit can be bracketed in time. The critical horizon for Iceland's settlement period is the Vatnaöldur tephra, dated to around 870 AD. This is the landnám tephra, the ash layer that fell across southern Iceland in the years immediately before the conventional date of Norse settlement. Anything sealed beneath it predates the first Norse landings. Between 2001 and 2002, Ahronson excavated a debris pile outside Kverkarhellir, the spoil thrown out when the cave was cut into the cliff. The construction debris was stratified within a sequence of tephras. The base of the debris lay below the landnám tephra of 870. The cave had been dug, on the strongest interpretation of the evidence, around the year 800. The earliest published radiocarbon and tephrochronological work since has supported the date. The carved crosses on the cave walls form a coherent sculptural tradition. Ahronson catalogued them in the seventh chapter of his book and compared them to early Christian sculpture across the North Atlantic world. The closest parallels, by some distance, are not Scandinavian and not Faroese. They are the early Christian cross carvings of western Scotland, dated to the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries. The Seljaland sunken crosses with expanded terminals and bold V-cuts find their nearest matches in the Hebridean monastic sites at Cladh a'Bhile, Lochead, and St Molaise's Cave. The simplest explanation, Ahronson concluded, is that the Seljaland sculpture is the work of Gaelic monastic communities from the Scottish littoral. The conclusion of the book is restrained but its consequences are not. Norse settlers, Ahronson writes, did not enter an uninhabited Iceland. By around 800 AD, a quarter-century before Dicuil sat down to write in the Carolingian court, Irish or Hebridean monks were already digging caves and carving crosses on the south coast of Iceland. The papar of the sagas were not legend. [article:the-treasure-of-st-andrew-s-cathedral] The Brendan Voyage The historical sources describe Christian seafarers operating in waters that modern critics long considered impossible to navigate in the available craft. Dicuil's hermits made their way to Iceland and back. The Faroes, the Hebrides, and the Scottish mainland were already linked by regular sea travel in the eighth century. A genre of Irish monastic literature, the immrama or voyage tales, describes monks setting out on extended ocean pilgrimages. The most famous of these is the Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis, the Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot, a tenth-century Latin text based on earlier oral material describing a seven-year voyage by the sixth-century Irish saint Brendan to a Promised Land of the Saints somewhere beyond the western horizon. The Navigatio was treated for most of its history as a literary fantasy. Brendan and his monks encounter a floating pillar of crystal, a sea monster that breathes fire, an island that turns out to be the back of a whale, and a coast where boiling rocks are hurled at them from a fiery mountain. The episodes were read as monastic allegory. They were not. Between 1976 and 1977, the British explorer Tim Severin built an exact replica of the leather boat described in the Navigatio and sailed her from County Kerry in Ireland to the coast of Newfoundland. The vessel was named Brendan. Her hull was built from forty-nine oak-bark-tanned oxhides, stitched together with flax thread waxed in wool grease, beeswax, and resin, and stretched over a frame of ash and oak. The leather skin was a quarter of an inch thick. The keel was riveted with half-inch copper rivets, a fastening technique known to have been used in early Christian Ireland. The boat had no metal nails in her hull. [site:l-anse-aux-meadows] Severin sailed her in two seasons by what he called the Stepping Stone Route, the same chain of landfalls the Norse later used and the same route that early aviators flew in short-range aircraft. From Brandon Creek in Kerry, Brendan reached the Hebrides, then the Faroes, then wintered in Reykjavík. In the second season she sailed from Iceland past the pack ice off southern Greenland and across the Labrador Sea to Newfoundland. She made landfall at Peckford Island in the Outer Wadham Group, about 150 miles northwest of St. John's, at eight in the evening on 26 June 1977. The crossing from Reykjavík to Newfoundland had taken fifty days at sea. The hull proved sounder at the end of the voyage than her sceptics had predicted at the start. The lanolin in the wool grease was still binding to the leather, in places hosting algae and barnacles, but the skin underneath was intact. The stitching had not failed. Brendan had run at up to 116 miles in twenty-four hours under sail in a Force 7 gale. Severin's conclusion, set out in the closing chapter of The Brendan Voyage in 1978, was characteristically measured. He had not proved that Saint Brendan reached North America. He had proved that the medieval text describing a leather boat capable of doing so was not, after all, a fantasy. The Land of White Men The Norse sagas place another landmass beyond Vinland that they call Hvítramannaland, the Land of White Men, also called Albania or Irland Mikla, Greater Ireland. Landnámabók records that an Icelander named Ari Marson, son of Mar of Reykhólar, was driven there by storms in the late tenth century, was baptized, and was held in honour and unable to return. Three separate informants are named as sources for the story. The first was Hrafn the Limerick Trader, a Norse merchant who picked up news of Ari from contacts in Ireland. The second was Earl Thorfinn of Orkney, who died in 988 and who relayed an account that other Icelanders had heard. The third was Thorkel Gellirson, Ari's own grandson, who passed the story to his nephew Ari Thorgilson, the author of Íslendingabók and Landnámabók. A later passage in Eiríks saga rauða, the Saga of Erik the Red, repeats the geography. Two Native children captured on the coast of Markland, the wooded country south of Greenland, told Thorfinn Karlsefni's expedition that a land lay across from their own where people dressed in white clothing, walked in procession, and carried poles and banners. The saga adds: þat ætla menn Hvítramannaland, that is thought to be the Land of White Men. The orthodox reading dismisses these passages as confused geography or pious invention. A different reading was set out by the Canadian writer Farley Mowat in his 1998 book The Farfarers: A New History of North America. Mowat had spent thirty years investigating what he called the Albans, a population he identified with the Pictish and Celtic seafarers of the Northern Isles. His argument was that the papar known from the Icelandic sources were one component of a much larger pre-Norse North Atlantic culture, a network of walrus-ivory hunters and Christian crofters operating from the Northern Isles westward across the stepping-stones. As the Norse expanded into the Northern Isles in the late eighth century, into the Faroes in the late eighth, into Iceland in the late ninth, and into Greenland at the end of the tenth, the Albans were displaced westward in advance of them. Mowat read the Hvítramannaland sagas as describing the last of these displaced populations, established on the coast of northeastern Newfoundland. Mowat's argument was speculative in its details and he said so. He cited Gibbon in his preface on the limits of what can be inferred from fragmentary sources. The framework, however, rested on documentary footing: the Landnámabók and Eiríks saga passages naming Hvítramannaland, the Annals of Greenland placing Albania near Vinland, the consistent identification of Ari Marson by named witnesses across two generations, and the Icelandic cartographer Jón Guðmundsson's seventeenth-century map of the North Atlantic which labels Newfoundland as Albania, working from earlier maps now lost. [article:henry-sinclair-the-zeno-voyage] Kverkarhellir and the Oak Island Cross This is the documentary and archaeological frame against which the Oak Island team's visit to southern Iceland in 2023 has to be read. In Season 11 Episode 24, titled Hairy Situation, Roberto Pagani led Rick and Marty Lagina, Doug Crowell, Alex Lagina, and Peter Fornetti into the same Kverkarhellir cave system that Ahronson had dated by tephrochronology two decades earlier. Pagani identified the underground chambers as the work of an Irish Christian monastic order operating around 800 AD, later occupied by the Norse from 874 until the thirteenth century. Inside, the team examined a cross carving that Alex Lagina photographed and compared, side by side, with images of the lead cross recovered from Smith's Cove in 2017. The two crosses are not identical. The Kverkarhellir example is incised into stone and belongs, on Ahronson's analysis, to the early medieval sculptural tradition of western Scotland and the Hebrides. The Smith's Cove cross is hand-wrought from lead, with anthropomorphic features that read as a figure of Christ and a square hole at the top for suspension on a cord. Initial forensic testing placed it in the 900 to 1300 AD range. Subsequent laser ablation work at the University of New Brunswick by Dr Chris McFarlane identified the lead as European in origin, with isotope ratios that do not match any North American source. Its closest documented visual match, identified by Templar researcher Jerry Glover and noted by Gary Drayton at the moment of discovery, is a cross carved into a wall of the medieval prison at Domme in the French Dordogne, where the Knights Templar were imprisoned by King Philip IV in 1307. Five hundred years and an ocean separate the Kverkarhellir cave from the closest plausible context for the Smith's Cove cross. What was filmed in Kverkarhellir was the side-by-side comparison itself: a cross from one Atlantic shore held up next to a cross from the other, the family resemblance enough for the team to record the observation, the difference in date and form enough to leave the question of any deeper connection open. Other strands of the Oak Island record bear on the same period. In 2020 the team recovered a wooden piece at Smith's Cove that was carbon dated by Beta Analytical to between 660 and 770 AD, a range that places it in the centuries when, on the documentary record, the papar were already on the Faroes and approaching Iceland. The Cremona Document carried to Oak Island from the late researcher Zena Halpern's archive describes a twelfth-century Templar voyage that stopped at an island of oak, predating Columbus by more than three centuries. The 14th-century Portuguese coin recovered by James Pitblado in the Money Pit in 1849, and re-examined by the team in 2025 with the descendant Steve Salomon, carries Templar iconography and ties the deposit at Oak Island to the period when the Order of Christ had inherited Templar assets and continued operating Atlantic shipping lanes from the Iberian peninsula. None of this, taken individually, proves that Irish monks reached Oak Island. The carbon dates and the cross comparison establish that activity on the island in the pre-Templar period is not categorically impossible, and that the seas in which the Templars later operated were already known to Christian seafarers from Ireland and the Hebrides by the late eighth century. A Worked Sea The Irish monks theory in its strongest form is not a claim that the papar built the Money Pit. The case the documentary and archaeological record will sustain is narrower and, in its own way, more interesting. The papar were on the Faroes by the late seventh or early eighth century. They were on Iceland by the late eighth, with Ahronson's tephrochronology pushing the date of cave construction at Seljaland to around 800 AD. They were operating a regular sea route between western Scotland, the Hebrides, the Faroes, and Iceland that Dicuil described in 825 as already an established system of monastic migration. Their cross-carving tradition shows clear affinities with early Christian sculpture in western Scotland and, on the Oak Island record, plausible affinities with the medieval cross that surfaced at Smith's Cove in 2017. Severin's experimental archaeology removed the last serious objection to the physical possibility of the longer crossings. The Hvítramannaland passages in Landnámabók and Eiríks saga rauða, whatever their exact referent, were recorded by named Norse informants as accounts of a real western country occupied by Christian people in white clothing. The case the record will not sustain is a direct chain of custody from a Gaelic monastery in the eighth century to the Oak Island works. No artifact recovered from the island has been attributed to the papar. The Smith's Cove lead cross is fourteenth century, not ninth. The Cremona Document, the Pitblado coin, and the iconographic links to the Templar and Cistercian orders point to a later phase of Atlantic activity in which the legacy of the early Irish voyages had passed through several centuries of monastic and military inheritance. What the Irish monks of the North Atlantic establish, in short, is that the ocean between Ireland and North America was not an impassable barrier in the centuries before the conventional discovery dates. It was a worked sea, traversed by men in leather boats who carved crosses on the walls of the caves where they sheltered. Whether one of those caves, or the tradition that produced it, eventually reached a wooded island in Mahone Bay is a question the documentary record cannot yet answer. It can only say that the question is open. Sources Primary medieval texts Dicuil, Liber de Mensura Orbis Terrae (Book on the Measurement of the World), completed 825 AD. Critical edition: J. J. Tierney (ed.), Dicuili Liber de Mensura Orbis Terrae, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae vol. 6, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1967. Ari Thorgilson, Íslendingabók, c. 1130. The earliest written history of Iceland. Landnámabók (The Book of Settlements), 12th–13th century compilation. English translation: Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards, University of Manitoba Press, 1972. Eiríks saga rauða (The Saga of Erik the Red), mid-13th century. Old Norse text and English translation in Magnús Magnússon and Hermann Pálsson, The Vinland Sagas, Penguin Classics, 1965. Annals of Greenland, 11th-century Norse chronicle. Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis (The Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot), Latin text c. 900 AD based on earlier oral material. Modern scholarship Kristján Ahronson, Into the Ocean: Vikings, Irish, and Environmental Change in Iceland and the North, University of Toronto Press, 2015. Farley Mowat, The Farfarers: A New History of North America, Key Porter Books, 1998. Tim Severin, The Brendan Voyage, McGraw-Hill, 1978; Modern Library Exploration reprint with foreword by Jon Krakauer, 2000. Scientific reports Beta Analytical, radiocarbon dating of wood sample from Smith's Cove (Oak Island), reported 2020. Calibrated age range 660–770 AD. Saint Mary's University, Halifax, lead composition analysis of the Smith's Cove cross (Dr Christa Brosseau and Dr Xiang Yang), reported 2017–2018. Identified as 14th-century lead consistent with European medieval origin. Vatnaöldur tephra dating, c. 870 AD, the landnám tephra of southern Iceland. Reference: Grönvold, Óskarsson, Johnsen, Clausen, Hammer, Bond, and Bard, "Ash layers from Iceland and the Greenland GRIP ice core correlated with oceanic and land sediments," Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 1995. Reference works "Dicuil," entry in Encyclopædia Britannica, eleventh edition (1911), via Wikisource. Hjartarson and Gísladóttir, southern Iceland artificial cave inventory, 1983 (cited via Ahronson 2015). Jón Guðmundsson, manuscript map of the North Atlantic, early 17th century, working from earlier sources now lost. Reproduced and discussed in Mowat 1998. ### Sacred Cargo, Relics crossing Oceans URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/sacred-cargo-relics-crossing-oceans One of the most common objections raised against any medieval theory for Oak Island is the claim that no one in their right mind would have transported priceless objects across the Atlantic in the Middle Ages. The assumption sounds reasonable. The Atlantic was vast, the ships were small, and the risks were enormous. But the historical record tells a different story. The transportation of sacred objects over vast distances was not exceptional. It was institutional, it was frequent, and it was precisely the kind of operation at which the military orders had centuries of practice. The Power of Relics To understand why, it helps to understand what relics meant to the medieval world. These were not curiosities or collector's items. They were objects of immense spiritual, political, and economic power. A city that possessed the right relic could attract thousands of pilgrims, generate enormous revenue, and claim divine favour over its rivals. Venice built its identity around the stolen body of Saint Mark. Constantinople guarded fragments of the True Cross as talismans of imperial authority. Kingdoms went to war over bones, teeth, and scraps of cloth. As historian Charles Freeman documents in Holy Bones, Holy Dust (2011), relics became pawns in almost every power struggle of medieval Europe: between popes and emperors, cities and kingdoms, monasteries and bishops. The competition for them was fierce, and the logistics of acquiring, transporting, and protecting them were taken with the utmost seriousness. Canon law made this trade not merely desirable but mandatory. In 787, the Second Council of Nicaea issued Canon VII, decreeing that every altar in every church must contain a relic. The penalty for consecrating a church without one was excommunication. This single ruling created an enormous and permanent demand for sacred objects across the entire Christian world. Every new church built, from the grandest cathedral to the humblest parish chapel, required at least one authenticated relic before it could function. The implications for remote Christian outposts were significant. Norse Greenland, for example, established a Catholic diocese at Gardar in 1124. The first bishop, Arnaldur, began construction of a sandstone cathedral dedicated to Saint Nicholas. According to the fourteenth-century records of Ivar Bardarson, the bishop's agent from Bergen, the two Norse settlements eventually included at least twelve parish churches, two monastic houses, and a cathedral. Every one of those altars required a relic, and every one of those relics had to be shipped across the open North Atlantic from Scandinavia. Relics were reaching the western side of the Atlantic by the twelfth century as a matter of routine ecclesiastical compliance. The Ancient Trade The practice of moving sacred objects by sea over thousands of miles was already ancient by the time of the Crusades. Relics of Saint Andrew were brought to Britain as early as 597, probably as part of the Augustine Mission, and from there to Fife in Scotland by 732, carried by Bishop Acca of Hexham. In 828, Venetian merchants smuggled the body of Saint Mark out of Alexandria under layers of pork and cabbage to deter Muslim customs inspectors, and carried it by ship to Venice, where it became the foundation of the republic's spiritual identity. In 1075, a chest was opened in Oviedo, Spain, in the presence of King Alfonso VI, that had reportedly travelled from Jerusalem along the entire North African coast to Toledo before reaching its final resting place centuries earlier. Freeman records that it contained fragments of the True Cross, blood of Christ, bread from the Last Supper, his shroud, a stone from his tomb, and a robe of the Virgin Mary. In 1150, Thierry of Alsace, Count of Flanders, carried what was believed to be a cloth stained with the blood of Christ from the Holy Land to Bruges, where it remains in the Basilica of the Holy Blood to this day. In 1238, the Crown of Thorns was shipped from Constantinople to Venice and from there to Paris for King Louis IX, who built the Sainte-Chapelle specifically to house it. The Military Orders The military orders were at the centre of this tradition. The Knights Templar maintained one of the largest naval fleets in the Mediterranean and operated a sophisticated financial network that stretched from the Levant to the British Isles. Their ships carried pilgrims, soldiers, bullion, and sacred objects across thousands of miles of contested sea as a matter of institutional routine. They were not merchants chartering a vessel for a single voyage. They were a permanent maritime infrastructure, with dedicated ports, experienced crews, and an unbroken chain of command that could plan, execute, and protect the movement of anything the Church or the Crown required. No other institution in the medieval world combined naval capability, financial resources, military protection, and religious authority on the same scale. In 1254, the Templars assisted King Louis IX of France in shipping holy relics from Acre to southern France aboard the ship Montjoie, helmed by Templar captain Raymond des Anges. Two independent chroniclers describe the cargo, which included what was called "le cors de nostre seigneur Iesu Crist," the body of our Lord Jesus Christ. Christopher Eric Morford and Corjan Mol presented the evidence for this transfer in The Jerusalem Files. The route passed through waters contested by Mamluk, Genoese, and Aragonese fleets. In 1274, under Grand Master William of Beaujeu, a vial said to contain drops of the Blood of Christ was shipped from Acre to Norwich in England, a voyage of roughly 3,500 miles: the full length of the Mediterranean, through the Strait of Gibraltar, and north into the open Atlantic. After Gibraltar, the route crossed the Bay of Biscay, 300 miles of open Atlantic water at its narrowest, one of the most dangerous stretches of ocean in the world then and now. This was not coastal sailing. This was the same Atlantic that lies between Europe and Nova Scotia. In 1294, three first-century stone walls of the Holy House of Loreto were transported from Palestine to Italy. Vatican documents discovered in 1900 by the papal physician Joseph Lapponi revealed that the Angeli family financed the operation, paying crusaders to dismantle and ship the walls by sea. Further diplomatic correspondence, not published until 1985, discusses "the holy stones taken away from the House of Our Lady, Mother of God." The date places this operation just three years after the fall of Acre, when the only military forces with the ships, the logistical networks, and the institutional authority to carry out such an undertaking were the Templars and the Hospitallers. [article:the-knights-templar] The Seas They Sailed These voyages took place on seas that were anything but safe. Even within the Mediterranean, mandatory open-water crossings took ships out of sight of land for days at a time. The passage from Sicily to Crete covered roughly 500 miles of open sea. Roger of Hoveden, chronicling Richard I's fleet in 1191, noted that the direct route from Marseilles to Acre required sailing across the open sea. Portolan charts, first documented around 1290, reflected centuries of hard-won pilot knowledge, but no chart could prevent disaster. At the Battle of Curzola in 1298, Venice lost 83 of its 95 galleys in a single engagement against Genoa, with 7,000 men killed and 7,000 captured. In 1169, a large part of the Byzantine fleet was annihilated by heavy weather returning from Egypt. According to the culture heritage authority of Malta, the Hospitallers had tapestries captured at sea by Ottoman raiders in 1527 while in transit between Italy and Nice. Beyond the Mediterranean, the toll was worse. When Erik the Red led 25 ships from Iceland to Greenland in 985, only 14 survived the crossing: eleven ships lost, a 44 percent casualty rate, on a single voyage. The Norse kept sailing that route for another four centuries, carrying relics and communion wine to the parish churches on the western side of the Atlantic. When Louis IX assembled 1,800 vessels for the Seventh Crusade in 1249, storms scattered the fleet so badly that only a quarter arrived with him off Damietta. Jean de Joinville, who was aboard, recorded the chaos. Ships were lost to storms, to piracy, and to hostile navies throughout the medieval period. The institutions that moved relics accepted those losses as the cost of fulfilling their mission. The distance from La Rochelle to Nova Scotia is roughly 2,800 miles. From Bristol, roughly 2,500 miles. Using the Norse stepping-stone route through Iceland, as little as 1,500 miles of open water. Every one of those distances is shorter than the 3,500-mile voyage from Acre to Norwich that the Templars completed in 1274. The Greenland supply runs that carried relics to Norse churches crossed the same ocean at similar latitudes, in open-decked cargo ships called knarrs, with catastrophic loss rates that the Church accepted for four hundred years without interruption. The Chain of Custody The Knights Hospitaller continued the tradition without interruption. When the Order was driven from Rhodes by the Ottomans in 1522, Grand Master Philippe de Villiers de L'Isle Adam ensured that the Order's most sacred possessions were evacuated alongside the archives and weapons. The Hospitallers carried the Right Hand of John the Baptist, fragments of the True Cross, and the icon of Our Lady of Philermos, a Byzantine painting attributed by tradition to Saint Luke himself, from Rhodes through seven years of wandering across the Mediterranean. During their stay in Viterbo from 1524 to 1527, they deposited the Madonna della Carbonara, a twelfth-century icon bearing a distinctive four-dot cross. When they finally settled on Malta in 1530, the sacred relics were installed in the Church of San Lorenzo in Birgu. A strong-room was built in Fort St. Angelo specifically to protect them. The Order's historian, Giacomo Bosio, describes the chamber and its purpose in detail. These relics remained in the Order's care for centuries, passing through Malta to Russia after Napoleon's seizure of the island in 1798, and eventually to Montenegro, where the Right Hand of John the Baptist and the fragment of the True Cross were rediscovered in a monastery in 1997 by the Australian Professed Knight Fra' Richard Divall. [article:the-knights-hospitaller] What the record shows is a pattern of behaviour spanning more than a thousand years. Sacred objects of extraordinary value and significance were routinely transported across oceans, by ship, over thousands of miles, by institutions that treated the task as both a sacred duty and a logistical speciality. The military orders did not merely participate in this tradition. They were its most practiced specialists, maintaining the ships, the crews, the financial networks, and the institutional memory to carry it out across generations. The Hospitallers brought the same relics from Jerusalem to Acre to Rhodes to Viterbo to Malta to Russia, a chain of custody covering five centuries and spanning the full breadth of the Mediterranean and beyond. Many of the earliest Templars came from Norman families. The Normans had reached Sicily, southern Italy, and the Holy Land within a single generation. Their descendants knew the Atlantic coast intimately. Whether any of them carried sacred cargo further west than the historical record currently confirms is a separate question. But the claim that no medieval institution had the means, the knowledge, the navigators, or the experience to attempt such a thing is not supported by the evidence. The military orders moved the most precious objects in Christendom across the known world for centuries. They did it as a matter of course. [article:vikings] ### Duc d'Anville's Doomed Fleet URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/the-doomed-expedition-of-the-duc-d-anville In the spring of 1745, a combined force of New England militia and British warships captured the Fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, the most powerful French fortification in North America. The loss stunned Versailles. Louisbourg had guarded the entrance to the St. Lawrence and protected France's North American possessions for over three decades. Its fall demanded a response of extraordinary scale. What followed was the largest military expedition France had ever sent across the Atlantic: 64 ships, 11,000 men, and a level of secrecy that still raises questions nearly three centuries later. The fleet's destination was Chibouctou, the harbour the British would later rename Halifax, barely fifty miles from Oak Island. [artifact:18th-century-wharf-nail][article:the-versailles-alignment-to-oak-island] The Organisation The man chosen to lead the expedition was Jean-Baptiste Louis Frederic de Roye de La Rochefoucauld, Duc d'Anville. He was a member of the powerful Rochefoucauld family, one of the oldest noble houses in France. Maurepas, the Minister of the Navy, established the orders. Monsieur Meric was to supervise coordination between the various army corps, and all logistical planning was handled by a certain M. Le Brun. By March 1746, operations were already behind schedule and tensions between Anville and various officials were growing. On the 9th of March, a man named Bigot was summoned to Versailles. Francois Bigot had served as head of the administration in Louisbourg during the British siege and knew the fortress and its operations in detail. He remained at court until the 22nd of February, when he departed as general supervisor of the expedition. His promotion was unexpected and came with unusual conditions. Maurepas insisted on extreme secrecy around Bigot's involvement; he could not appear on the docks and was to remain invisible to everyone connected to the fleet. His previous role in Louisbourg made him recognisable, and the destination of the expedition had to remain confidential at all costs. In his memoirs, Bigot later recalled having knowledge of the secrets of the operation. He was sent to the port of Rochefort to oversee the fitting of certain ships, fittings that had been discussed at length during his time at Versailles. [article:the-treasure-of-louisbourg] The Advance Ships Months before the main fleet departed, two warships were sent ahead to Nova Scotia with orders to wait for Anville at Chibouctou. L'Aurore, a frigate under the King's orders, was commanded by Monsieur du Vigneau, identified in the French naval archives as Jean-Julien d'Herisson de Vigneux, from a military family near Paris. Le Castor, a smaller vessel, sailed under Monsieur de Salies. Both departed Brest on the 9th of April 1746. Their stories diverge almost immediately. On the 4th of June, du Vigneau ordered Le Castor to separate and proceed alone to the Banc a Vert off the coast of Newfoundland for a surveying mission. De Salies protested. His crew was sick, provisions were low, and no one on board had any knowledge of the waters they were being sent to. He asked to follow L'Aurore to Chibouctou to resupply and make contact with Beauharnois, the governor general, to coordinate arrangements for Anville's arrival. Du Vigneau refused. Le Castor was sent north, as far from Nova Scotia as possible. With Le Castor out of the way, L'Aurore made for the Acadian coast. On the 9th of June she was seven leagues from Cap de Sambourle. The next day du Vigneau chased an English boat into the Bay of La Heve. From the ship's log, we know that L'Aurore then navigated close to the coast, anchoring at coordinates recorded as 44 degrees 38 minutes. These are the coordinates of St. Margaret's Bay, immediately adjacent to Mahone Bay and Oak Island. On the 12th of June, when another ship was spotted, du Vigneau ordered his pilot to give chase while pulling L'Aurore out of the bay so that the English vessel "would not know we were there." On the 13th, after sending a pilot to shore near l'Isle Ronde, where he encountered a group of Mi'kmaq and an Acadian who confirmed his identity, L'Aurore sailed into Chibouctou harbour. There, the missionary Le Loutre came aboard and explained he had been waiting for fifteen days by order of Beauharnois. Le Loutre carried a package for the Duc d'Anville and had instructions about recognition signals. He expressed surprise that L'Aurore had made no signals upon entering the harbour. Du Vigneau replied that he had received no orders about signalling, which suggests that Le Loutre was not expecting any French ship before Anville's fleet itself. What happened next is harder to trace. On the 24th of June, du Vigneau received news of an English fleet off the coast. On the 27th, L'Aurore moved further into the bay to stay hidden. Then the journal falls silent for two weeks. When entries resume on the 12th of July, the captain describes arming a schooner under Monsieur de Vante and sending it toward Saint Sembre to find a discreet bay near the cape, land men on shore, and survey the coast. The schooner carried signal knowledge and a pilot, accompanied by Mi'kmaq with canoes. Another gap of twelve days follows. L'Aurore remained in the area for over two months before departing for France on the 13th of August, leaving behind seized schooners, supplies, and canons hidden in the woods. The most revealing detail comes from the letter that accompanied du Vigneau's journal. In it, the captain writes: "I will not speak to anyone about this place, but I am obliged to warn you that it is difficult to hide it from the quantity of people who have knowledge of it." The recipient of this letter has never been identified. Nor has the place to which du Vigneau was referring. When Le Castor finally reached Chibouctou on the 9th of July, de Salies noted his surprise that du Vigneau had made no contact with Beauharnois despite having been in the harbour for weeks. Du Vigneau had shown no desire to coordinate, no interest in communicating with officials on land, and had avoided the very person whose instructions he was supposed to deliver. De Salies recorded: "I was surprised that Monsieur du Vigneau let this general ignore his stay at Chibouctou." The Masked Man Back in France, the main fleet was ready but refused to leave. Official reports blamed contrary winds, though the explanation was questioned at the time. On the 24th of May, the Duc d'Anville received a letter from a messenger and departed at once for Bordeaux. He had strict orders not to mention the destination of the squadron and carried a packet from Versailles that could only be opened after departure. On the evening of the 20th of June 1746, the Northumberland, Anville's flagship, was anchored at La Rochelle. An officer from the squadron who had been in town left around five o'clock with post horses. He returned with another person, wearing a mask, on horseback. The two rode through the city, boarded a dinghy at the port, and were rowed to the Northumberland. The fleet departed shortly after. Three independent sources describe this event. The earliest is a letter written the following day by Seigneur Hastrel in La Rochelle, an eyewitness account addressed to a Monsieur de B. whose identity remains unknown. The second is the chronicle of Barbier, a Parisian attorney who compiled detailed records of events in France, writing that the dinghy carried "six men in post, including one who was masked" and noting that rumours on board suggested the figure was "the Pretender or the Duke of York, his brother." The third source is the British Gentleman's Magazine, which published a different version: "A lady in a masque accompanied with several well-dressed people came this morning to our gate... This lady is called by others a prince." The speculation that the figure might be the Stuart Pretender or the Duke of York suggests that whoever it was spoke English, or at least carried themselves in a way that implied British or royal origins. Wearing a mask was not a common act in the 1740s. It implied the person was important enough to be recognised, and that being recognised would be dangerous, either for them or for the secrecy of the expedition. The Crossing The secrecy on board had taken its toll. Until the 24th of July, the crews and officers had no idea where they were going; most assumed the destination was Port Mahon or Gibraltar. When Anville finally announced they were heading for Acadia, the mood darkened. During the crossing, two ships were detached from the fleet under special orders. On the 16th of July, the frigate La Mutine was given a sealed package by the General and told to leave. Her captain was not allowed to open the package until twenty-four hours later; she was reportedly sent to deliver weapons to Mississippi. On the 19th of July, La Renommee was ordered to leave the fleet and sail directly to Chibouctou to warn L'Aurore and Le Castor of Anville's late arrival. She carried munitions and supplies for the advance ships. La Renommee was expected to guide the fleet into harbour on its arrival, but she never did. A reconstruction of the ship La Renommée entering a bay in Acadia in 1746. By the end of August, the ships were devastated by illness. Up to fifty men were dying each day. When the fleet finally reached the Acadian coast, a severe storm scattered the ships. Most of the main vessels are accounted for in the records, and nothing in the surviving logs points to a planned visit to Mahone Bay. One detail, however, stands out: Le Trident, navigating in poor visibility, confused the entrance to St. Margaret's Bay for the entrance to Chibouctou. The ship's log records that an officer from Le Prince d'Orange assured them that the island they could see was at the entrance to the harbour of "Saint Margueritte," which the manuals had been mistaking for Chibouctou. The fleet was navigating blind, and some of its ships were passing within sight of Mahone Bay. Chibouctou The Duc d'Anville arrived in Halifax on the 19th of September 1746 with the remnants of his fleet. La Renommee, which had been sent ahead weeks earlier, had not returned to guide them in. Instead, her captain Monsieur Kersaint had moored in Le Havre au Castor, sent a boat to Chibouctou where no one was waiting, and then sailed to the harbour himself, arriving just two hours after the Northumberland. Within days, the expedition collapsed. On the 27th of September, the Duc d'Anville died. An autopsy performed on board attributed the cause to a fit of apoplexy, though the British later suggested poison or suicide. His replacement, Monsieur d'Estourmel, assumed command and immediately summoned a war council. The officers opened Anville's sealed packet from Versailles and read the letter from the King with his orders for the mission. D'Estourmel appeared shaken. He wanted to pull back from any attack. On the night of the 1st of October, cries were heard from his cabin. The men who entered found him in a pool of blood, a sword through his body. The accounts vary: either the sword was found on the deck beside him, or the surgeon removed it. D'Estourmel resigned his command. Speculation spread that the two men had fought, or that d'Estourmel had been attacked to remove him from his position. Command passed to La Jonquiere. In the weeks that followed, strange events continued. Around the 10th of October, a small fleet of ships appeared outside Halifax harbour. Men in the port speculated that it was the squadron of Conflans, which had been ordered to sail from Martinique and rendezvous with Anville. La Jonquiere sent a small boat to investigate; they concluded the ships were British. The fleet disappeared, but on the 17th of October, more than seventy cannon shots were heard from outside the harbour. No explanation was ever recorded. Two days later, the frigate La Megere was sent toward La Heve to defend a French vessel under attack by an English privateer. The captain of the rescued ship reported meeting a group of French boats "in the far end of a bay, seven to eight leagues from Chibouctou." These were described as fishing boats. He had attacked them and burned their ships. La Megere returned to the bay and moored overnight, hoping to find the escaped privateer. The Conflans Squadron Conflans' supporting fleet of four warships had departed Martinique on the 7th of September with orders to join Anville at Chibouctou. On the 28th of September they sighted l'Isle de Sable and spent the next fifteen days navigating the area. On the 9th of October, Conflans called his captains together and asked whether anyone recognised the coastline. No one did. Confused and running low on supplies, the squadron turned toward l'Isle Royale. Near Canso, the ship l'Alcyon was separated in bad weather and fog; her captain opened sealed orders confirming the rendezvous at Chibouctou, but his efforts to reach the harbour failed. On the 13th of October, Conflans ordered the return to France. His ships reached port on the 6th of November. L'Alcyon arrived two days later. Two logbooks from the squadron are missing, and Conflans left no personal account. The records that survive suggest the fleet never approached Mahone Bay, but the gaps in the record leave room for doubt. The Return La Jonquiere attempted to move the fleet from Chibouctou toward Port-Royal, but the weather and the condition of the squadron made the attempt impossible. The return crossing to France was as catastrophic as the outward voyage. Ships battled illness and starvation; there are reports of men eating ropes and of discussions about cannibalism. The fate of La Renommee on her return stands apart from the rest of the fleet. At fifteen leagues from the French coast, she was spotted by a squadron of British warships that gave chase. The battle lasted thirteen hours before La Renommee fought her way into harbour at l'Isle de Groix. From a secondhand account, the British squadron was led by Commander Anson, the brother of Thomas Anson, and he had been "searching for her." No direct source for Anson's search has been found, but the coincidence is difficult to ignore. Once the surviving ships reached France, Maurepas gathered the officers and navigators for a full debrief. In the weeks that followed, he was alarmed to find detailed information about the expedition appearing in British and Dutch publications. During the return voyage, the ship carrying the court's instructions and Anville's letters had been caught in battle and forced to throw them overboard. The British recovered what they could and published some of it. The Oak Island Connection The Anville expedition did not, according to any surviving document, visit Mahone Bay. But the records, drawn from French naval archives, contain a series of details that researchers have found difficult to dismiss. The advance ship L'Aurore, under the secretive du Vigneau, navigated to within sight of Mahone Bay and anchored at coordinates corresponding to St. Margaret's Bay, one bay to the east. Du Vigneau's behaviour, sending Le Castor away, avoiding contact with Beauharnois, making no signals, and operating with an excellent pilot who knew the coast, does not match an officer on a routine mission. His letter about a "place" that he would never speak of, but that would be "difficult to hide from the quantity of people who have knowledge of it," has never been explained. The main fleet's navigators confused St. Margaret's Bay for Chibouctou. Beauharnois ordered Coulon-de-Villiers and Le Loutre to send patrols along the coast between La Heve and Chibouctou "to prevent any new British establishment," an area that encompasses Mahone Bay. French boats were found and burned in a bay seven to eight leagues from Halifax, a distance that places them in the vicinity of Chester or Mahone. And then there is the matter of who was involved. The Duc d'Anville was born a Rochefoucauld. The land forces coordinating with the expedition in Acadia were commanded by Nicolas Antoine II Coulon-de-Villiers, who claimed descent from Philippe de Villiers de L'Isle Adam, Grand Master of the Knights of St. John. A Rochefoucauld leading the fleet. A Villiers commanding on shore. Both families carried deep historical connections to the military religious orders, converging on the same stretch of Nova Scotian coast in the same operation. [article:de-villiers-the-treasure-bloodline] The masked man remains unidentified. The sealed packets from Versailles were never recovered. Of the 13,000 men who left France, only a fraction returned, and whatever they knew about the expedition's true purpose, if it extended beyond the recapture of Louisbourg, went with them to their graves or to the bottom of the Atlantic. ### Vikings URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/vikings Long before the Lagina brothers, before the Onslow Company, before Daniel McGinnis found that depression in the ground in 1795, someone else may have stood on the shores of Oak Island. The Norse. We know for certain that Viking explorers reached North America around 1000 AD. The question is how far south they travelled, and whether Oak Island bears the marks of their presence. The Proven Foothold In 1960, Norwegian explorer Helge Ingstad and his archaeologist wife Anne Stine discovered the remains of a Norse settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland. Excavations revealed the foundations of eight buildings, including a forge, a carpentry workshop, and several dwellings. Radiocarbon dating placed the settlement around 1000 AD. It was the first confirmed evidence of European presence in the Americas, nearly 500 years before Columbus. UNESCO designated it a World Heritage Site in 1978. L'Anse aux Meadows sits roughly 1,200 kilometres northeast of Oak Island. For a civilisation that routinely crossed the open North Atlantic between Scandinavia and Greenland, that distance was well within reach. [site:l-anse-aux-meadows] The Stepping Stones The Norse did not cross the Atlantic in a single leap. They followed a chain of islands and coastlines, each hop short enough to be completed in a matter of days. From western Norway to Shetland is roughly 300 kilometres. From Shetland to the Faroe Islands, another 300. From the Faroes to eastern Iceland, around 430 kilometres. From Iceland to Greenland's east coast, about 300 kilometres at the narrowest point. From western Greenland to Baffin Island and then south to Labrador and Newfoundland, the distances were shorter still. At no point was a crew out of sight of land for more than a few days. The Atlantic was not an abyss to be crossed. It was a corridor to be walked, one island at a time. The sagas confirm this. Erik the Red sailed from Iceland to Greenland around 982 AD and spent three years exploring its western fjords. His son Leif followed the coast south to Newfoundland around 1000 AD. Thorfinn Karlsefni brought 160 settlers along the same route a few years later. Merchant ships continued travelling between Greenland and Labrador for centuries afterward. A Norse vessel sailed from Greenland to Markland to gather timber as late as 1347, more than three hundred years after the first crossing. This was not exploration. It was a trade route. Before the Norse The Norse were not even the first Europeans to use it. When they arrived in Iceland around 870 AD, someone was already there. The Icelandic chronicle Íslendingabók, written by Ari fróði in the early twelfth century, records that "Christian men, whom the Norse called papar, were here; but afterwards they went away, because they did not wish to live here together with heathen men." The Irish monk Dicuil, writing in 825 AD in his Liber de Mensura Orbis Terrae, described clerics who had lived on a northern island where the midnight sun allowed them to pick lice from their shirts at night. The island was almost certainly Iceland. The place-name evidence supports the texts. Across Iceland, 146 locations carry names derived from kross, kirk, or papa, words signifying a Christian presence. The Norse who arrived as pagans would not have coined these names. They inherited them. In southern Iceland, archaeologist Kristján Ahronson documented rock-cut crosses in the Seljaland caves and used tephrochronology, the dating of volcanic ash layers, to establish that cave construction at the site began around 800 AD, significantly before the traditional date of Norse settlement. The cross forms themselves show parallels not with Scandinavian art but with early Christian sculpture from western Scotland and the Hebrides, suggesting a Gaelic monastic origin. On Heimaey in the Westman Islands, Swedish archaeologist Margrét Hermanns-Audardóttir excavated a site that revealed at least ten structural phases beneath a fourteenth-century Norse farmstead. Carbon-14 dating placed the earliest habitation roughly 250 years before the Norse arrived. These were not hermits passing through. These were communities who farmed, built shelters, and stayed for generations. In 1976, British navigation scholar Tim Severin proved the route was viable even with primitive technology. He sailed a replica leather currach, built to the specifications described in the ninth-century Navigatio Sancti Brendani, from Ireland to Newfoundland via the Faroes, Iceland, and Greenland. Between the Faroes and Iceland his crew made 120 miles in twenty-four hours. If sixth-century monks in a hide boat could reach North America, the later Norse in their oak-built longships certainly could. The Sagas and the Lands Beyond Two Icelandic sagas describe the Norse exploration of lands west of Greenland. The Saga of the Greenlanders and the Saga of Erik the Red tell of Leif Erikson's voyages to places he named Helluland (likely Baffin Island), Markland (likely Labrador), and Vinland, a land of wild grapes and mild winters. The location of Vinland has been debated for over a century. Some scholars place it in Newfoundland. Others argue that the description of wild grapes, self-sown wheat, and warm temperatures points much further south, possibly to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, or even New England. If Vinland was Nova Scotia, the Norse would have sailed directly past Mahone Bay and Oak Island. The sagas also describe subsequent voyages by Thorfinn Karlsefni, who attempted to establish a permanent settlement in Vinland with a crew of around 160 people. They stayed for several years before conflicts with the indigenous population forced them to leave. These were not quick raids. The Norse came to stay. The Land of White Men The sagas contain one more detail that has never received the attention it deserves. Landnámabók, the Icelandic Book of Settlements, records that an Icelander named Ari Marson "sailed on the ocean to Hvítramannaland, which some call Írland Mikla, lying away west in the ocean near Vinland the Good, which is said to be six days' sail due west from Ireland. Ari could not get back from that country, and was baptized there." The story was corroborated by multiple sources: Hrafn the Limerick Trader, who had heard it from merchants in Ireland, and Earl Thorfinn of Orkney, who confirmed that Icelanders had recognized Ari in that land and that he had become a chieftain there. The Annals of Greenland, an eleventh-century Norse chronicle, placed Hvítramannaland geographically: south of Greenland lay Skraeling country, then Markland, then Vinland the Good. "Next to it and a little beyond lies Albania, which is Hvítramannaland." The name itself is telling. Hvítramannaland means Land of White Men. Írland Mikla means Greater Ireland. The Norse were not describing an empty wilderness. They were describing a place where European Christians already lived. As Farley Mowat argued in The Farfarers, these were likely the descendants of the same papar who had been displaced from Iceland, people who had been pushed steadily westward by each new wave of Norse expansion. The implication for Oak Island is significant. If European settlers were already living near Vinland before Leif Erikson arrived around 1000 AD, the window of possible European activity in Nova Scotia opens much wider than the conventional Viking Age narrative allows. Evidence in Nova Scotia Several finds in and around Nova Scotia have fuelled speculation about Norse activity in the region. A Norse penny, minted during the reign of King Olaf III of Norway (1067-1093), was discovered at the Goddard site in Brooklin, Maine in 1957. While some researchers believe it arrived through indigenous trade networks, others see it as direct evidence of Norse contact along the northeastern seaboard. Either way, it confirms that Norse objects were circulating in the region. The Yarmouth Stone, found in southwestern Nova Scotia in 1812, bears markings that some researchers have interpreted as runic inscriptions. The interpretation remains disputed, with others reading the marks as natural weathering or later carvings. But the stone has kept the question of Norse presence in Nova Scotia alive for over two centuries. [artifact:yarmouth-runic-stone] Four Centuries of Presence The popular image of the Vikings as brief visitors, arriving around 1000 AD and quickly departing, obscures a much longer history. Norse Greenland endured for nearly five centuries. The Eastern Settlement persisted until at least the mid-1400s, supported by twelve churches, an Augustine monastery, a Benedictine nunnery, and a cathedral at Gardar. The Western Settlement, closer to the North American coast, survived until the mid-1300s. Throughout this entire period, ships sailed between Greenland and the lands to the west. Around 1112 to 1118, Bishop Eric Gnupsson made a prolonged visit to the Vinland region, an ecclesiastical mission to lands the Norse had known about for over a century. In 1347, an Icelandic annal recorded a Norse ship arriving from Markland, Labrador, having sailed there from Greenland to gather timber. Between 1380 and 1400, the Zeno voyages reportedly reached Labrador, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia. These are not isolated incidents. They are evidence of sustained, centuries-long Norse familiarity with the coastline that includes Oak Island. Oak Island Connections On Oak Island itself, several discoveries have been examined through the lens of possible Norse origin. A crossbow bolt recovered during excavations caught the attention of researchers because crossbows were common weapons among Norse warriors and remained in use across Scandinavia well into the medieval period. The style and construction of the bolt raised questions about its age and origin. [artifact:crossbow-bolt] Wooden structures found deep in the Money Pit and surrounding shafts have been carbon-dated to periods that overlap with the known range of Norse exploration. While carbon dating provides a window rather than a precise date, and the wood could have been placed at any point after the tree was felled, the dates have kept the Norse theory in the conversation. Stone markers and carved features on the island have also drawn comparisons to Norse navigational traditions. The Norse were known to use stone cairns, directional markers, and landscape features to guide their movements across unfamiliar territory. Some researchers see echoes of these practices on Oak Island, though separating Norse construction methods from later European ones is notoriously difficult. The Engineering Question One of the strongest arguments against the Norse theory is the sheer complexity of Oak Island's underground works. The Money Pit, the flood tunnels, the carefully layered platforms of logs, charcoal, putty, and coconut fibre: this was sophisticated engineering on a massive scale. Were the Norse capable of it? The answer is more nuanced than it might seem. The Norse were exceptional builders. They constructed ocean-going longships capable of crossing the Atlantic. They built elaborate stave churches with intricate joinery and no nails. In Scandinavia, they dug extensive mining tunnels and constructed complex drainage systems. But the coconut fibre found at Smith's Cove presents a problem. Coconuts do not grow anywhere near Scandinavia or the North Atlantic. Their presence on Oak Island suggests contact with tropical regions, which points more naturally toward later European powers with global trade networks, such as the Templars, the Spanish, or the British. Unless, of course, the coconut fibre represents a separate and later phase of construction, added to works that were originally begun by someone else entirely. [artifact:coconut-fibre-money-pit] Norse or Not? The Norse theory for Oak Island occupies an interesting middle ground. We know the Norse were in North America. We know they were capable sailors, skilled engineers, and prolific explorers. We know they travelled through waters that would have taken them within reach of Nova Scotia. What we lack is the single definitive artefact: a clearly Norse object, recovered from a sealed context on Oak Island, with no possibility of later placement. Without that, the Norse theory remains compelling but unproven. It is worth noting that the same could be said of most Oak Island theories. The island has a way of offering just enough evidence to keep every possibility alive, and never quite enough to settle the question. If the Norse did reach Oak Island, they would have found exactly what every treasure hunter since has found: a small, wooded island in a sheltered bay, with deep soil and natural drainage, surrounded by the cold waters of the Atlantic. A place worth hiding something. A place worth remembering. ### Henry Sinclair: The Zeno Voyage URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/henry-sinclair-the-zeno-voyage The Zeno Narrative In 1558, a Venetian nobleman named Nicolò Zeno the Younger published a collection of letters and a map that had been sitting in his family's archives for over a century. The documents, attributed to his ancestors Niccolò and Antonio Zeno, described a series of voyages through the North Atlantic in the 1390s under the command of a prince they called Zichmni. The letters described how Niccolò Zeno had been shipwrecked in the North Atlantic and rescued by this prince, who ruled over islands to the north of Scotland. In gratitude, the Zeno brothers placed their considerable maritime expertise at Zichmni's disposal. What followed, according to the narrative, was a systematic program of exploration that took the expedition from the Faroe Islands to Iceland, to Greenland, and ultimately across the Atlantic to a land the Zenos called Estotilanda. The Zeno Map that accompanied the letters proved remarkably accurate for its time. It charted the North Atlantic with a precision that sailors of many nations relied on for the next 150 years. Some researchers have noted that its accuracy raises its own questions: how could navigators in the 1390s have produced a map this detailed, unless they were working from older charts, perhaps carried in secrecy from the medieval East? Prince Zichmni The identification of Zichmni has been debated since the letters were first published. In 1784, Johann Reinhold Forster proposed that Zichmni was in fact Henry Sinclair, the first Earl of Orkney. The name, Forster argued, was a corruption introduced through Venetian transliteration of a Scottish title. Henry Sinclair was born around 1345 and inherited the titles of Baron of Roslin and Lord High Admiral of Scotland while still a teenager. In 1379, King Håkon of Norway invested him as Earl of Orkney, granting him dominion over both Orkney and Shetland. He was, by any measure, a powerful northern lord with the resources and naval authority to mount a transatlantic expedition. The Sinclair family's later history only deepens the connection. Henry's grandson William Sinclair founded Rosslyn Chapel in 1446, a structure whose elaborate carvings have fueled centuries of speculation about what the Sinclairs knew and when they knew it. The Voyage of 1398 According to the Zeno Narrative, the expedition departed in the spring of 1398 with a fleet of twelve ships and approximately 300 men. Antonio Zeno served as navigator. Their route took them from Orkney to Iceland, then to Greenland, and finally six days' sailing west to a landfall in Newfoundland. The reception in Newfoundland was hostile. The narrative describes the expedition being attacked by indigenous people, with several men wounded and killed while attempting to take on fresh water. Sinclair withdrew and continued south along the coast until reaching a more welcoming harbor. The narrative describes what they found next: "We brought our barks and our boats to land, and on entering an excellent harbor, we saw in the distance a great hill that poured forth smoke." This description has been matched to the pitch deposits at Pictou and Stellarton in Nova Scotia, the only location on the North American coast with the open bitumen seeps described in the text. Mi'kmaq communities had long used these deposits and lived in nearby caves. The timing of the arrival was established through a detail in the narrative itself. Sinclair named their anchorage Trin Harbor, from Trinity. The fleet arrived, in Zeno's words, when "the month of June came in." The only year between 1395 and 1402 when Trinity Sunday fell in early June was 1398. Glooscap The Mi'kmaq people of Nova Scotia preserved no written records from the 14th century. But their oral traditions carry a story that has drawn the attention of researchers for generations. The Mi'kmaq tell of a figure called Glooscap, a powerful leader who arrived from across the sea. He came from an island far away, traveled with many soldiers, had three daughters, and stayed for one winter before departing. He told the people he would not return but would send others in his place. The parallels to the Zeno Narrative are striking. A ruler from an island dominion. A military expedition. A winter spent among indigenous people. A departure with a promise of future contact. The Mi'kmaq held Glooscap in such regard that they celebrated his memory for centuries afterward, calling him "the deceiver," a title of respect meaning he was skilled at outwitting his enemies. Whether Glooscap and Sinclair are the same figure cannot be proven. But the convergence of a European narrative describing a landing in Nova Scotia in 1398 and an indigenous oral tradition describing the arrival of a foreign leader from across the sea is difficult to dismiss as coincidence. The Westford Knight In Westford, Massachusetts, a glacial boulder bears markings that have been debated since the 1870s. First described in 1873 as a possible Native American carving, the pattern was reinterpreted in 1954 by Frank Glynn, president of the Connecticut Archaeological Society, who identified it as the effigy of a medieval knight. Glynn, working with British archaeologist T.C. Lethbridge, identified the weapon as a hand-and-a-half wheel pommel sword of a type common in 14th century northern Britain. Heraldic analysis of the shield markings identified devices consistent with the arms of Clan Gunn: a galley, a star, and two buckles. Sir James Gunn, chief of Clan Gunn, is believed by proponents of the Sinclair theory to have traveled with the 1398 expedition and died during an inland exploration of Massachusetts. The Zeno Narrative mentions a cousin of Zichmni who perished during the voyage, and the Westford carving, if genuine, would represent a memorial to the fallen knight. The carving is contested. Archaeologist Kenneth Feder has argued that the markings have appeared to improve over time rather than deteriorate, suggesting modern enhancement. A forensic geologist, Scott Wolter, studied the stone's mineral weathering in 2007 and concluded the carvings predated colonial settlement. A bronze sculpture was added to the site in 2015, and a glass covering now protects the original rock face. The modern monument nearby states as fact that Sinclair traveled to Massachusetts in 1398. Rosslyn Chapel In 1446, Henry Sinclair's grandson William began construction of Rosslyn Chapel, six miles south of Edinburgh. The chapel took forty years to complete and contains some of the most elaborate stone carvings in medieval Britain. Over a hundred Green Men peer from the stonework. Biblical scenes share space with images that do not appear in any standard Christian iconography. Among the carvings that have attracted the most attention are botanical forms around the window arches of the south aisle. Some researchers, beginning with Andrew Sinclair in 1992 and Robert Lomas and Christopher Knight in 1996, have identified these as depictions of maize and aloe, plants native to the Americas and unknown in Europe at the time of construction. If the carvings do represent New World plants, the implication is significant: the Sinclair family possessed knowledge of American flora decades before Columbus sailed. William's grandfather had allegedly visited Nova Scotia in person. The identification is disputed. Botanist Adrian Dyer examined the carvings and concluded that the forms were stylized decorative patterns that only coincidentally resembled real plants. Archaeo-botanist Dr. Brian Moffat identified the supposed maize as a highly stylized arum lily and noted that the carvings are not naturalistic. Rosslyn Chapel's own website has wavered between endorsing and qualifying the claim. What is not disputed is that the chapel was built by the Sinclair family, that the Sinclairs held the Earldom of Orkney, and that the family's history is intertwined with the Zeno Narrative. Whatever the carvings depict, they exist within a context where a transatlantic voyage by the chapel's founder's grandfather is at least a documented claim, not a modern invention. [site:rosslyn-chapel] The Templar Thread The connection between Henry Sinclair and the Knights Templar is central to the Oak Island theory but also the most speculative element of the story. The Templars were suppressed across Europe beginning in 1307, more than ninety years before the alleged voyage. Scotland under Robert the Bruce, who had been excommunicated by the Pope, is widely believed to have offered refuge to fleeing Templars who were no longer welcome elsewhere in Christendom. The Sinclair family's territory bordered the Gunn lands in Caithness, in the far north of Scotland, and Orkney was about as far from papal authority as one could get in medieval Europe. Proponents of the theory argue that Templar refugees brought with them not only their military expertise but also their accumulated treasures and navigational knowledge, possibly including charts of the western Atlantic predating any known European exploration. Sinclair's 1398 voyage, in this reading, was not a voyage of discovery but a mission with a specific destination, guided by maps the Templars had carried to Scotland nearly a century earlier. The Sinclair family's own later history complicates matters. When the Templars were put on trial in Edinburgh in 1309, the Sinclair family testified against them. This is an inconvenient fact for the theory, though defenders note that public testimony against an order marked for destruction by both King and Pope may not reflect private alliances. A Theory in the Balance The Zeno Voyage theory rests on a single documentary source published 160 years after the events it describes, supported by contested physical evidence and indigenous oral tradition. The Zeno Narrative has been called a fabrication by some historians and a genuine record by others. The Westford Knight may be a medieval memorial or a glacial scratch enhanced by modern enthusiasts. The Rosslyn carvings may depict American plants or European lilies. But the narrative does describe a voyage to a land whose geography matches Nova Scotia. The Mi'kmaq do preserve traditions of a foreign leader arriving by sea. A map accompanied the letters that proved accurate enough for navigators to use for 150 years. And the Sinclair family, whose genealogy is not in dispute, did hold dominion over the very islands from which the voyage allegedly departed. The theory asks whether a powerful Scottish earl with Venetian navigators, a dozen ships, and 300 men could have crossed the Atlantic in 1398. The Vikings had done it four centuries earlier with less. The question, as with all Oak Island theories, is not whether the voyage was possible. It is whether it happened, and if it did, what the expedition left behind. ### William Phips, the Treasure of the Concepción URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/william-phips-the-treasure-of-the-concepcion Of all the theories surrounding Oak Island, few are grounded in as much documented history as the case for Sir William Phips. Born on the Maine frontier in 1651, Phips rose from humble origins as a shepherd boy and ship's carpenter to become one of the most remarkable figures in colonial New England. He would recover a fortune in Spanish silver from the bottom of the Caribbean, receive a knighthood from the King of England, lead military campaigns across Nova Scotia, and serve as the first royally appointed governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Along the way, according to a theory first advanced by researchers Graham Harris and Les MacPhie, he may also have built the Oak Island Money Pit. The Treasure of the Concepción The story begins with a shipwreck. On September 20, 1641, the Spanish treasure fleet set sail from Havana bound for Seville. Among its vessels was the Nuestra Señora de la Pura y Limpia Concepción, a 600-ton galleon serving as vice-flagship, her hold packed with silver from the mines of Mexico and Potosí alongside silks, porcelain, and jade from the Orient trade. Already leaking from an earlier hurricane and fitted with an undersized rudder, the Concepción was dangerously unseaworthy. Eight days out, a second hurricane struck. The fleet scattered, and the crippled galleon drifted for weeks under a jury-rigged sail before running aground on the Silver Bank reef north of Hispaniola on October 31, 1641. Most of her crew survived, but the vast treasure sank with the ship. [article:the-sack-of-havana] For more than four decades, Spanish, English, and Dutch salvors searched for the wreck without success. Then William Phips entered the picture. A self-taught mariner with a talent for persuasion, Phips convinced the Duke of Albemarle and other English investors to finance an expedition. In January 1687, his divers located the Concepción on the reef. Over the following months, working with local free-divers and improvised salvage equipment, Phips and his crew recovered silver coins, bullion, doubloons, jewellery, and other valuables weighing more than 30 tons. The haul was officially valued at over £205,000, a staggering sum for the period. Phips returned to England a hero. King James II knighted him in June 1687, appointed him Provost Marshal General of the Dominion of New England, and claimed a royal share of the proceeds. Phips received roughly £11,000 for himself, enough to make him one of the wealthiest men in the colonies. The Glorious Revolution The political landscape that followed is where the Oak Island theory takes shape. James II, a Catholic monarch deeply unpopular with England's Protestant majority, faced growing opposition from powerful figures determined to remove him from power. Among them was Lord Charles Mordaunt, a political exile living in Holland, who was actively courting William III, Prince of Orange, to invade England and seize the throne. What Mordaunt needed was money to finance an invasion force of over 600 vessels and 40,000 men. In September 1687, a return expedition sailed from Portsmouth to the Concepción wreck site. The flotilla included HMS Foresight under Sir John Narborough, Phips aboard his vessel the Good Luck, and several other ships. Lord Mordaunt arrived at the wreck in February 1688 with four men-of-war. While the official record claims the second expedition recovered little treasure, the theory advanced by Harris and MacPhie, and later expanded by Oak Island historian Hammerson Peters, argues otherwise. Mordaunt returned to Holland in mid-1688, and within months, the invasion of England was underway. William III's forces landed at Torbay in November 1688, and James II fled the country in what became known as the Glorious Revolution. Mordaunt was soon rewarded with the post of Lord of the Treasury, an appointment Harris and MacPhie considered telling given his well-known inability to manage his own finances. According to the theory, Phips sailed separately from the wreck site to Nova Scotia aboard the Good Luck, carrying a portion of the recovered silver. On Oak Island, he and his crew constructed the Money Pit to secure the treasure. But the plan went wrong. An underground cavern collapsed during construction, flooding the shaft and trapping the deposit beyond recovery. Phips sailed for England to report the disaster. Over the following decades, the Crown allegedly dispatched engineering teams to retrieve the treasure, but each attempt failed. By the 1750s, the theory holds, the British government decided to booby-trap the island with flood tunnels and defensive shafts rather than allow the lost silver to fall into other hands. Phips in Nova Scotian Waters What makes the theory especially compelling is the documented record of Phips operating extensively in the waters around Nova Scotia. In 1690, he commanded a Massachusetts militia force of seven ships and roughly 450 men against French Acadia, capturing Port Royal on May 21 after its governor surrendered. Later that year, he led a larger but ultimately unsuccessful expedition against Quebec. These campaigns demonstrate that Phips was thoroughly familiar with the Nova Scotian coastline and had the maritime resources to reach Oak Island. His known movements between Boston, the Caribbean, England, and the Maritime provinces place him in the right waters at the right time. Phips went on to become the first royally appointed governor of Massachusetts in 1692, a position secured through the influence of Increase Mather and the favour of the new Protestant monarchs. His tenure was marked by the Salem witch trials, which he initially enabled by establishing the Court of Oyer and Terminer but later shut down after the accusations spiralled out of control. He died in London on February 18, 1695, at the age of 44, leaving behind a legacy that intertwines treasure hunting, colonial politics, and religious upheaval. The Masonic Thread A layer of Masonic connections adds further intrigue. During seasons 11 and 12 of The Curse of Oak Island, 32nd-degree Freemason and historical researcher Scott Clarke presented evidence linking Phips to a chain of Masonic figures with direct ties to Oak Island. Clarke noted that Captain Andrew Belcher, a Nova Scotia mariner and Freemason, worked closely with Phips during the Concepción salvage and was later entrusted with inventorying Captain William Kidd's treasure on Gardiner's Island. Belcher's grandson, Jonathan Belcher, served as Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia and was himself a Freemason. Jonathan Belcher's subordinate, Chief Surveyor Charles Morris, another Freemason, created a 1762 map of Mahone Bay that divided Oak Island into 32 lots, making it the only island in the bay to be subdivided in this manner. Clarke argued that this chain of Masonic insiders, spanning three generations, may have known about the treasure on Oak Island and taken deliberate steps to monitor or protect it. [article:freemasons-on-oak-island-the-masonic-connection] Evidence from the Island Physical discoveries on Oak Island have lent growing support to the Phips timeline. Archaeometallurgist Emma Culligan, working with the Oak Island team during seasons 11 and 12, identified iron artifacts recovered from Lot 5 whose chemical composition, specifically a high aluminium-to-silicon ratio in trace impurities, matched iron objects from Phips' birthplace and home site in colonial New England. Carmen Legge, the team's blacksmithing expert, examined copper and iron fragments from the same area and dated them to the late 1600s to early 1700s based on their construction and alloy composition. Additional artifacts from Lot 5, including iron straps consistent with a fortified strongbox, copper pieces possibly from a jewellery box or chest, a Tudor-period British coin bearing a portcullis, and 17th-century Venetian trade beads, all fall within the Phips-era window. Beyond Lot 5, broader evidence from the island aligns with the theory. Several pieces of wood recovered from the Money Pit area have been carbon-dated to the late 1600s and early 1700s. Two human bone fragments found in Season 5, one of European origin and one of Middle Eastern origin, were carbon-dated to the late 1600s through mid-1700s. Core samples from the Oak Island swamp indicate human activity between approximately 1674 and 1700. A 16th or 17th-century English pickaxe has also been recovered. None of these findings prove the Phips theory on their own, but taken together, they establish a consistent pattern of activity on Oak Island during the precise period when Phips was operating in the region. An Open Case The William Phips theory remains circumstantial. No document has surfaced placing Phips on Oak Island, and the discrepancy between his reported treasure deliveries and what he may have kept remains a matter of interpretation rather than proof. But the theory has strengths that many competing explanations lack. It is anchored in a verified historical figure with documented access to enormous wealth, proven familiarity with Nova Scotian waters, and a political motive for concealment. The timeline matches the physical evidence. And the Masonic network connecting Phips to later Oak Island history provides a plausible mechanism for the secret to have been maintained across generations. Whether Phips built the Money Pit or merely passed through the same waters that others used before and after him, his story has become one of the most persuasive frameworks for understanding what may lie beneath Oak Island. ### The Huguenot Treasure Vault of Oak Island URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/the-huguenot-treasure-vault-of-oak-island The Story Told at Chester In 1928, a historian named Dunbar Hinrichs was living in the town of Chester on the shore of Mahone Bay. Hinrichs was a William Kidd biographer who would later publish The Fateful Voyage of Captain Kidd in 1955. That year, he received an unusual visitor: a Frenchman who had come to Nova Scotia to investigate a family legend. The story, as Randall Sullivan recounts it in The Curse of Oak Island (2018), involved a group of wealthy Huguenots who had escaped France aboard two ships immediately after the Edict of Nantes was revoked in 1685. The ships had sailed together from La Rochelle across the Atlantic to the island of Saint-Domingue, in what is now Haiti, where an engineer accompanying the group supervised the construction of underground vaults protected by flood tunnels. Some families deposited their wealth in these vaults. One ship then sailed to New York. The second continued north to Nova Scotia, making its way to Mahone Bay, where the leaders selected an uninhabited island. The same engineer supervised construction of a second vault system, also protected by flood tunnels, accessible either by a secret tunnel from the surface or by closing a gate installed in the flood tunnel system. Sullivan spells the historian's name "Henrichs," but the correct spelling appears to be Hinrichs. More importantly, Sullivan presents the 1928 visitor's family legend alongside a separate story as though they are parts of the same narrative. In 1947, an engineer named Albert Lochard claimed to have discovered a system of tunnels and vaults at Kavanach Hill in southern Haiti. David Tobias heard about Lochard independently in the late 1960s and sent Dan Blankenship to Haiti in 1970 to investigate. Blankenship could not locate Kavanach Hill or find anyone who knew about the supposed discovery. He eventually tracked Lochard to New York City, where the engineer was living under an assumed name as a political refugee. Lochard told his story without asking for anything in return, but as Sullivan himself acknowledges, "the main problem with Lochard's story was that he could offer no witnesses to verify it." These are two separate threads, one from 1928 and one from the late 1960s, that Sullivan weaves together without flagging the gap. Hinrichs told Sullivan he had not taken the Frenchman's tale seriously at first. He reconsidered only after hearing about Lochard's Haiti discovery nineteen years later. But even then, Hinrichs raised what he considered a fatal problem with the theory. Sullivan quotes his conclusion directly: "The Huguenots had not arrived in Nova Scotia in any numbers until after the Acadians were expelled in 1756, by which time the Mahone Bay area was populated by a good many New Englanders and Germans who had moved there on the promise of free land from the British government. It is doubtful that the Huguenots or anyone else could have created the works on Oak Island at that late date without people noticing." That objection has been repeated in Oak Island literature for decades. It is also contradicted by primary sources that neither Hinrichs nor Sullivan appears to have consulted. The Huguenot Diaspora In 1685, when Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, fifty thousand Huguenot families fled the country. Sullivan notes that most of those who left France for the New World "were upper class. Many were members of the French nobility and nearly all of the others were part of what historians have called an affluent artisan class." They departed primarily from the Atlantic coast provinces: Aunis, Saintonge, Poitou, and Normandy, according to research published by the Bibliotheque nationale de France. Many left from the port of La Rochelle itself, the Huguenots' former stronghold. The vault story, if taken at face value, describes a group that went first to Haiti, then to Mahone Bay. Sullivan is the only major Oak Island author to give the theory sustained attention. D.W. Finn does not mention it in Oak Island Secrets (1944), though he notes that Pierre de Gua, Sieur de Monts, a Huguenot merchant from Saintonge, received a colonization charter from Henri IV in 1604 and helped establish the first French settlements in the region. Sullivan dismisses the vault theory on chronological grounds. That dismissal rests on two assumptions: that no Huguenots of means were present in Mahone Bay before the late 1750s, and that the area was too well-populated by then for secret construction. Both can be tested against the historical record. The De Villiers at La Rochelle Before the Huguenots arrived in Mahone Bay, the other side of France's religious wars had already left its mark there. And the thread that connects them runs through a single family name. In 1627, during the siege of La Rochelle, Isaac de Razilly was among the Catholic naval commanders blockading the Huguenot port. Razilly was a Knight Commander of the Order of Malta who had lost an eye in the fighting. His mother was Catherine de Villiers, a descendant of the House of Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, one of the oldest Norman military lineages in France. The family traced its roots to Godefroy de Villiers, who appears in the records around 1013, barely a century after the Norse chieftain Rollo accepted Normandy from the French crown. By the twelfth century, the De Villiers were embedded in the command structures of both the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller. Jean de Villiers served as Grand Master of the Hospitallers during the fall of Acre in 1291. Philippe de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, six generations later, held the same title during the siege of Rhodes in 1522, and it was he who led the order to its new home on Malta. Catherine de Villiers was Philippe's direct descendant. On the opposite side of the siege, leading an English fleet of over a hundred ships in support of the Huguenot rebels, was George Villiers, the 1st Duke of Buckingham. Buckingham's line descended from the same Norman root. When William the Conqueror crossed the Channel in 1066, a knight named Galdefridus de Vilers sailed with him. His descendants became the De Villiers of Gloucester and the barons of Warrington, embedding the family name in the English aristocracy within a single generation of the Conquest. The French branch stayed on the continent, produced the Templar and Hospitaller commanders, and merged with the House of L'Isle-Adam in the 1290s. The English branch evolved separately for five and a half centuries, until it produced a Duke who sailed back to France to fight for the Huguenots at the very port where his distant cousin was blockading them for the Catholic crown. [article:de-villiers-the-treasure-bloodline] Also fighting alongside Razilly on the Catholic side was Francois de La Rochefoucauld, who was rewarded for his role at the siege with the elevation of his county to a duchy-peerage. Buckingham's expedition failed. The Huguenots of La Rochelle held out until October 1628, when starvation forced their surrender. Of the city's 30,000 inhabitants, fewer than 6,000 were still alive. What matters for Oak Island is what happened next, and where the survivors went. [site:chateau-de-la-rochefoucauld] The Knights of Malta at the Entrance to Mahone Bay Four years after the fall of La Rochelle, the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye returned Acadia to France. Richelieu chose Razilly to reclaim it. On September 8, 1632, the one-eyed Knight of Malta landed at LaHave on the south shore of Nova Scotia with three hundred men, including his cousin Charles de Menou d'Aulnay and the merchant-explorer Nicolas Denys. LaHave sits at the entrance to Mahone Bay. Razilly built Fort Sainte-Marie-de-Grace and established what was, for a few years, the capital of New France. His companion Denys, exploring the inner reaches of the bay, gave the first known written description of its islands, including one covered with a forest of mature oak trees. As Finn noted in Oak Island Secrets, this account by Denys is "the first known description of the area," and the oaks he described would eventually give the island its name. [article:the-knights-of-malta] Razilly's ambitions went beyond farming and fur trading. According to records held by the Order of Malta's Canadian Association, he formally offered his Acadian lands to the Grand Master of the Order with the proposal that they be erected into a priory. The Grand Master, Fra Antoine de Paule, rejected the idea. But the proposal is documented: the descendant of Philippe de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, the man who had led the Knights of Malta to their island headquarters a century earlier, was now asking the same order to establish a permanent institutional presence on the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia, twenty-five kilometres from Oak Island. Serving under Razilly at LaHave was another Knight of Malta, Phillipe de Longvilliers de Poincy, who would later go on to the Caribbean and convince the Order to purchase four islands there. As a study on the Hospitaller colonization of the Americas notes, members of the Knights of Malta "had been prominent in New France and the French Antilles" from the very beginning, and "many French naval officers had trained with the Hospitaller navy." Razilly died at LaHave in December 1635. His cousin d'Aulnay moved most of the settlers to Port Royal. The fort was later destroyed by fire. But the footprint at the entrance to Mahone Bay, established by a descendant of the De Villiers line, predates the Huguenot vault theory's proposed timeline by over fifty years. A Wealthy Huguenot on Oak Island's Doorstep The evidence that directly challenges Sullivan's chronological dismissal comes from a source he does not cite: Winthrop Pickard Bell's The Foreign Protestants and the Settlement of Nova Scotia, published by the University of Toronto Press in 1961. Louis Payzant was born around 1695 in Caen, Normandy, where he worked as a cloth merchant. His life has been documented in unusual detail for an eighteenth-century colonial settler. The French academic Paul Joubert published a study of him in 1963 in the Bulletin de la Societe des Antiquaires de Normandie under the title "Louis Paisant, religionnaire et fugitif." After the death of his first wife, Payzant petitioned to have his daughter returned from the Catholic school where she had been placed. He and the girl fled Caen for the British island of Jersey in 1739. On Jersey, Payzant married Marie Anne Noget, herself a Huguenot refugee, in January 1740 at St. Helier. He started a second family. His son John, born October 17, 1749, would later write a memoir in which he described his father as "a wealthy merchant of Caen" who "moved over to Nova Scotia (in 1753) with a great property in order to make a fortune for himself and children." That memoir was edited by Brian C. Cuthbertson and published in 1981 as The Journal of the Reverend John Payzant. The historians MacMechan and DesBrisay, drawing on an account given by another son, Louis Jr., to Silas Tertius Rand for publication in The Provincial in 1852, recorded that Louis owned three ships, sold two, and brought his wife, sons, and all his worldly goods to Halifax. The family arrived in the summer of 1753 and was directed to the Foreign Protestant settlement at Lunenburg. Within a few years, Louis obtained a grant of an island in Mahone Bay. Bell identifies it as "the one known today as Covey's Island, five miles south of Oak Island." Mather Byles DesBrisay, in his History of the County of Lunenburg (first published in 1870), describes how Payzant built first a brushwood cabin, then a log hut, and was nearing completion of a two-storey dwelling. Boxes and bales of goods were stored for trade. A field of wheat had been sown. By the spring of 1756, this was a functioning trading post operated by a man of considerable means, on an island five miles from Oak Island. On the evening of May 8, 1756, a raiding party ordered by the Governor General of New France arrived at Rous Island, four miles south of Oak Island, killed an old man and his adult son, and captured the grandson. They forced the boy to guide them to Payzant's Island. Louis was killed on his doorstep. DesBrisay preserves his last words: "My heart is growing cold." The raiders killed a servant woman and her infant child, burned the storehouse, and took Marie Anne, one month pregnant, and her four children captive to Quebec City, a journey of over a thousand kilometres. Marie Anne gave birth to a fifth child, Lisette, in captivity on December 26, 1756. The family spent four years as prisoners and was released after the Battle of Quebec in 1759. They returned to Nova Scotia in 1760. Linda G. Layton, a direct descendant, published the definitive modern account in 2003: A Passion for Survival: The True Story of Marie Anne and Louis Payzant in 18th Century Nova Scotia, through Nimbus Publishing in Halifax. Her research draws on the Nova Scotia Archives, Jersey parish records, French military documents, and the Payzant family papers (NSARM, MG1, Vol. 747, No. 42). One detail connects the next generation to the broader Oak Island timeline. Phillip Payzant, the eldest son, who had been nine years old on the night of the attack, appears in Chester land records dated May 30, 1763. He was granted 300 acres of land near Chester, Lunenburg County, the area immediately adjacent to Oak Island. He held this land until around 1772 before selling and moving to Boston, where he fought in the American Revolution. What the Evidence Supports None of this proves that Huguenots built the works on Oak Island. The Hinrichs vault story remains unverified hearsay from a single anonymous visitor in 1928. The Lochard discovery in Haiti could not be confirmed. There is no direct evidence linking the Payzant family to engineering activity on the island. But the central objection to the theory, the argument that has kept it on the margins of Oak Island research for nearly a century, does not hold. Sullivan wrote that no wealthy Huguenots were present in the area at the right time. The sources he did not consult, Bell, Layton, DesBrisay, and the Payzant family's own captivity narratives, show a wealthy Huguenot merchant from Normandy living on an island five miles from Oak Island by 1756, three years before the Shoreham Grant brought the main wave of New England settlers. He came with ships and capital. He was operating from an island, not the mainland. Sullivan also assumed the area was too well-populated for secret construction. The British officer John Knox, who was actually there, saw it differently. Writing about 1757, Knox recorded that "In the year 1757 we were said to be Masters of the province of Nova Scotia, or Acadia, which, however, was only an imaginary possession." The troops and inhabitants at Lunenburg, he continued, "could not be reputed in any other light than as prisoners." Bell cites this passage on page 514 of his study. The French governor, upon learning the victims of the 1756 raid were Protestant French, reportedly considered recruiting other settlers at Lunenburg to burn the town entirely. This was not a supervised colonial outpost. It was a violent frontier where British authority barely extended beyond a few blockhouses. The De Villiers family, one of the oldest Norman military lineages in France, placed itself on both sides of the La Rochelle siege: Catherine's son Razilly blockading the port for the Catholic crown, while Catherine's distant English cousin Buckingham sailed to relieve it for the Huguenots. Within five years of the siege, the Catholic branch had planted itself at the entrance to Mahone Bay and proposed making the territory a priory of the Knights of Malta. A century later, a wealthy Huguenot fleeing the persecution that followed the Huguenots' defeat settled on an island in the same bay. Both sides of that war left documented footprints within twenty-five kilometres of Oak Island. None of the standard Oak Island reference works has drawn the connection. Whether either side left something buried there is a question the evidence cannot yet answer. ### Did the Romans reach Oak Island? URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/did-the-romans-reach-oak-island On a single lot on Oak Island, one with no recorded history of anyone ever living there, the search has turned up Roman coins. Not one, but six by the start of Season 13, the oldest of them struck before the birth of Christ. They are real coins, examined by numismatists and run through laboratory analysis, and that is what makes them interesting. The hard part is not whether they are Roman. It is how they came to be lying in the soil of a small island off Nova Scotia, and when. [map:lot-5-stone-feature] The Coins of Lot 5 The coins came out of Lot 5, most of them from in and around a rounded stone feature that has produced finds spanning several centuries. The first arrived in Season 10, in 2022, a worn half coin that numismatist Sandy Campbell judged to be Roman. Metallurgical analysis found it was arsenical bronze with a chemical signature matching ancient Roman mines in Spain and Sardinia. The team carried that coin to Rome, where the Italian numismatist Umberto Moruzzi examined it alongside Campbell. [artifact:half-roman-coin] More followed. In the Season 11 premiere in 2023, Rick Lagina recovered two coins from the round feature on the same morning, with Gary Drayton working the mi metal detector. Emma Culligan's X-ray fluorescence analysis read one as a strong Roman candidate, copper with lead and tin, and Campbell dated it to between 100 and 300 AD. The second was stranger. Culligan's reading returned about 94 percent copper and 5 percent silver with no tin and no lead, a composition she said was neither Roman nor modern, which left it unclassified in the lab. Campbell, examining it later, read a male portrait and two conjoined figures, placed it before the birth of Christ, and called it possibly the oldest coin ever found on the island. [artifact:roman-coin-100-300-ad-lot-5][artifact:roman-coin-2000-years-lot-5] Season 12 produced a hammered copper-alloy coin, irregular in shape, dated to roughly 200 to 300 AD, found by Jack Begley while sifting soil that archaeologist Laird Niven had removed from the feature. Then in the Season 13 premiere, Katya Drayton recovered a sixth coin from the southern part of the lot. Culligan's CT scan of its worn surface revealed a portrait she identified as the emperor Claudius II, with what appeared to be a figure holding an oak leaf on the reverse, an image consistent with known Claudius II coinage. Campbell confirmed the identification and the third-century date and called it the most remarkable of all the Roman coins found on Oak Island. [artifact:roman-coin-season-12][artifact:roman-coin-claudius-ii] What the Coins Do Not Settle The authenticity of the coins is not the open question. Campbell and Culligan, working separately by eye and by instrument, agreed the pieces are ancient. The open question is the one Campbell himself raised and that team member Tom Nolan put most plainly: a Roman coin tells you when it was made, not when it was lost. Roman copper coinage was minted in enormous quantities and stayed in use for a very long time. The antoninianus of Claudius II, debased from silver to copper-alloy by his reign, circulated for centuries after his death in 270 AD. Campbell noted that Roman coins were still being traded as currency well into the 1500s across Europe and the New World, and that the Vikings were known to collect and repurpose Roman coins they came across during their expansion through Europe and the North Atlantic. A coin struck in the third century could therefore have been dropped in the third century, or carried in a pocket and lost a thousand years later, or brought to the island by a much later visitor who valued it as an antique. The metal fixes the date of manufacture and nothing else. What does stand out is the pattern rather than any single coin. Six Roman-era coins, concentrated on one uninhabited lot, is not the scatter you would expect from a coin or two lost by chance. The Lagina team has noted that similar Roman coins from the same era were recovered at sites associated with the Knights Templar in Iceland during their European research trips, a connection they have pursued rather than proven. The concentration is real and unexplained. It does not, on its own, establish who brought the coins or when. The Iron Projectile from Lot 26 The coins are not the only Roman-era material claimed for the island. In Season 6, in 2018, Gary Drayton, Jack Begley, and geophysicist Mike West recovered a hand-forged iron object with a tapered point from the Lot 26 beachfront, roughly ten inches down, during a deep-scanning survey. Drayton first took it for a crossbow bolt of the medieval period. At Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Dr. Christa Brosseau and Dr. Xiang Yang ran scanning electron microscope analysis and confirmed the metal was iron with manganese. The California antiquities specialist Gabriel Vandervort then re-examined the piece. He found the long neck inconsistent with a crossbow bolt and reclassified it as a possible Roman pilum, the throwing javelin carried by legionaries, whose thin iron neck was designed to bend or break off after striking. Vandervort observed that such objects are rare even in Europe and effectively unknown in North America. A similar tapered iron object was later recovered among the slipway spoils at Smith's Cove. The identification is one expert's reading rather than a settled fact, and the dating it implies is broad, spanning the first century BC to the fifth century AD. [artifact:iron-projectile-lot-26] The Roman Sword The most publicised Roman claim attached to Oak Island did not survive testing. In late 2015, the researcher J. Hutton Pulitzer announced that a Roman ceremonial sword had been hauled up decades earlier by a scalloper working off the island and kept hidden, and he described it as a smoking gun for a Roman presence in the New World before Columbus. He said his own analysis showed metal consistent with Roman artifacts, and he spoke of an unexcavated Roman shipwreck nearby. The series brought the sword to Saint Mary's University, where the chemist Dr. Christa Brosseau analysed a shaving from it. The metal was brass with a zinc content above 28 percent and refined copper, a composition that could not have been produced before the middle of the nineteenth century. Researchers subsequently traced the object to a known modern decorative reproduction, with other identical copies in circulation, which an authentic ancient artifact would not have. The sword is a modern souvenir casting. Its main value to the Roman question is as a caution: the one Roman object that was supposed to prove the case turned out to be the easiest to rule out. The Sword on the Head Stone A further sword belongs to the discussion, this one carved rather than forged. At the centre of Nolan’s Cross, the formation of cone-shaped boulders that surveyor Fred Nolan identified on the island in 1981, Nolan found a very large block of sandstone at the point where the arms and post of the cross intersect. He noted it during his early surveys but did not examine it closely until 1991, when he tipped it with a backhoe and judged it had been shaped into a human face, with what appear to be an eye, forehead, nose, mouth, and chin. Alongside those features is an indentation that has been read as a blade, and its short, broad form is sometimes compared to a Roman gladius rather than to a longer medieval sword. Geologists who examined the stone could not settle whether the face was carved or shaped by weathering, and the masons who later inspected it found the surface too eroded to judge. The carving is more often folded into the Templar reading of the cross than the Roman one, and the gladius comparison rests on an indentation in a worn surface that may not be a deliberate carving at all. It is the faintest of the Roman threads, and it carries weight, if any, only beside the coins. [artifact:head-stone-human-face-sword] What the Romans Imagined Lay West The idea that someone from the classical Mediterranean might cross the Atlantic was not foreign to the Romans themselves, though what survives is imagination rather than navigation. The historian Diodorus Siculus, writing in the first century BC, recorded that Phoenician or Carthaginian sailors driven past the Strait of Gibraltar had found a large and fertile island far out in the Atlantic, and that the Carthaginian authorities suppressed knowledge of it. The island is usually taken to be Madeira or one of the Canaries, but the passage shows the ancient world entertained the notion of inhabited land beyond the known ocean. Plutarch went further. In his essay On the Face in the Moon, written around 100 AD, he described a great mainland encircling the ocean, reached by way of islands lying about five days' sail west of Britain, and tied the account to a Carthaginian expedition sent out once every thirty years. The framing is mythological, built around the banished god Cronus, so it cannot be read as a sailing report. It is, even so, a Roman-era text imagining a continent across the western sea. The most striking passage belongs to Seneca. In his tragedy Medea, written around 50 AD, the chorus foresees a distant age when, as one translation gives it, "Ocean will unloose the bonds of things" and "Tethys shall disclose new worlds," so that Thule will no longer be the last of lands. Centuries later, Christopher Columbus copied those lines into his Book of Prophecies and marked them as a prediction of his own discovery. The Romans wondered what lay beyond the ocean, and a few of them guessed there was land. None of that is evidence that any Roman reached it. Genuine Coins, Open Question The Roman material on Oak Island divides cleanly. The sword is modern and out of the discussion. The pilum is a single specialist's identification, suggestive but unconfirmed. The coins are the solid core: six genuine Roman-era pieces, authenticated by separate examiners and by laboratory analysis, concentrated on a lot with no history of settlement. That concentration is a real anomaly and deserves to be treated as one. What the coins cannot do is date their own arrival. Because Roman copper circulated for more than a thousand years and was still changing hands in the age of Columbus, the coins are consistent with an ancient visit, a medieval one carried by Norse or other hands, or a later deposit entirely. The honest position is the one held by the people who examined them: the coins are real, the pattern is unexplained, and the question of when they came to Oak Island, in Tom Nolan's phrase, is the real million-dollar question. Sources Oak Island finds and analysis Sandy Campbell, numismatic examination of the Lot 5 coins, Seasons 10 to 13. Umberto Moruzzi, numismatic examination of the half Roman coin, Rome. Emma Culligan, X-ray fluorescence and CT analysis of the Lot 5 coins, Oak Island research centre. Dr. Christa Brosseau and Dr. Xiang Yang, scanning electron microscope analysis of the Lot 26 iron projectile, Saint Mary's University, Halifax. Gabriel Vandervort, reclassification of the Lot 26 projectile as a possible Roman pilum. Dr. Christa Brosseau, metallurgical testing of the alleged Roman sword, Saint Mary's University, Halifax. Classical texts Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica (first century BC), on the Carthaginian Atlantic island. Plutarch, De facie quae in orbe lunae apparet (On the Face in the Moon, c. 100 AD). Seneca, Medea, lines 375 to 379 (c. 50 AD). Christopher Columbus, Book of Prophecies (Libro de las profecías, c. 1501), quoting Seneca. The Roman sword controversy J. Hutton Pulitzer, public statements on the Oak Island sword, 2015 to 2016. Contemporary archaeological commentary identifying the sword as a modern reproduction, 2016. ### Pirates & Privateers on Oak Island URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/pirates The pirate theory is where Oak Island begins. Not as history, but as a story people believed in enough to start digging. When Daniel McGinnis found that depression in the ground in 1795, the name on everyone's lips was Captain Kidd. More than two centuries later, the question of whether pirates could have built the Money Pit remains open. It is the oldest theory, the most popular, and in many ways the hardest to kill. It is also the theory that turns most easily on a single distinction, the difference between a pirate and a privateer. Pirate or Privateer The two words have been used interchangeably for so long that the difference between them has nearly vanished from popular memory, yet the line was sharp in law and sharply enforced in practice. A privateer was a private mariner who held a commission from a sovereign government, usually called a letter of marque, authorising him to attack and capture the shipping of a named enemy nation in time of war. The commission limited him to specific waters, specific flags, and a share of the prize that was reviewed by an admiralty court. He was, in legal terms, an instrument of state war fought by private means. A pirate was a private mariner who attacked shipping without any such commission, against any flag, at any time, for his own profit. The first was an officer of war in all but uniform. The second was, in the language of seventeenth-century law, hostis humani generis, an enemy of all humankind, subject to summary trial and execution wherever he was caught. The line was thin and frequently crossed. A privateer whose war ended, whose commission expired, or whose patron lost a throne could find himself a pirate overnight, with the same crew, the same ship, and the same trade. A pirate whose nation had use for his skills could be pardoned and recommissioned. Sir Francis Drake sailed under Elizabeth I's commission for his entire career and died a national hero. Peter Easton held a royal commission, lost it when his war ended, and turned outlaw. William Kidd carried letters of marque from William III himself and was hanged at Wapping for piracy. Edward Teach served as a privateer in Queen Anne's War and went outlaw the moment the war ended. The same coastline that had been a privateering hunting ground became a pirate refuge the instant a peace treaty was signed. For Oak Island, the distinction matters because the men with the engineering manpower, the treasure, and the strategic motive to build something like the Money Pit were almost always privateers first, pirates only after. The Legend That Started It All The original story, first recorded in print in 1863, tells of a dying sailor from the crew of Captain Kidd who confessed that treasure worth two million pounds had been buried on an island east of Boston. The tale had been circulating among New England settlers for decades before McGinnis ever set foot on Oak Island. When he found that circular depression beneath an old oak tree, with a ship's tackle block hanging from one of the branches, it was the Kidd legend he reached for. That assumption shaped everything that followed. The Onslow Company, the Truro Company, and every nineteenth-century expedition dug with pirates in mind. The Money Pit was, from its very first excavation, understood as a pirate vault, and the question of which pirate has been argued ever since. [article:captain-kidd-and-the-hidden-maps] Pirate Country The case begins with geography. Oak Island sits among the three hundred and sixty islands of Mahone Bay, a body of water named for the mahonne, a low-lying barge favoured by the seamen who frequented these shores. Natural mountain barriers shield the bay by land, and the Tancook Islands close its mouth against the open Atlantic. A vessel beached on the south shore of Oak Island lies hidden behind a dense canopy of oak and is invisible from the bay's entrance. No coastline on the Atlantic seaboard was better designed for a crew with something to conceal. Through the Golden Age of Piracy, conventionally 1690 to 1730, Nova Scotia was unsettled by Europeans but thick with shipping. The fishing grounds off Newfoundland and Cape Breton drew thousands of mariners every summer, and historian Dan Conlin has shown that pirate crews routinely worked these waters to recruit hands, stock provisions, and careen their hulls before heading south for the winter. The region was one of four nodes central to the Golden Age, valued less for what could be taken from it than for what it could supply. The documented record runs deep on both sides of the legal line. Peter Easton was operating a fleet of forty ships out of Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, as early as 1612, the largest force ever raised on the Atlantic coast by a man who had once held a royal commission and now answered to none. A century later, the threat had become structural. Bartholomew Roberts, who carried no commission at any point in his career, raided Canso in June 1720 and crossed to Trepassey in Newfoundland the same summer, where he seized twenty-two merchant vessels and a hundred and fifty fishing ships in a single harbour. Two years later, Ned Low was terrorising the fleets at Shelburne. By the mid-1720s the governor of Fortress Louisbourg was so alarmed by the ongoing threat that he wrote to France asking for naval reinforcement. For more than a century, pirates and privateers treated this coastline as a place to recruit, resupply, and disappear. One political event helps explain the timing. The Treaty of Utrecht, signed in 1713, ended Queen Anne's War and transferred Acadia from French to British control. Port Royal, the French stronghold on the Bay of Fundy, had fallen in 1710 and been renamed Annapolis Royal. French privateers who had operated under royal commission lost their legal cover overnight. Some relocated to the new French fortress at Louisbourg. Others drifted into outright piracy, the same men in the same ships sailing the same coastline they had raided lawfully for decades. The conventional start date of the Golden Age of Piracy, 1715, sits two years after the treaty for a reason. Illustrious Men, Notorious Names The roster of figures with plausible Oak Island connections is longer and more distinguished than the popular image of piracy allows. It begins not with the Golden Age outlaws but with the men the Crown sent to do the same work under licence. Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe between 1577 and 1580 with Elizabeth I's commission in his sea-chest, returning to England with so much Spanish silver that the queen's share alone exceeded the entire annual revenue of the realm. Drake was a privateer for his entire career, never a pirate by English law, though Spain regarded him as one and offered a substantial bounty on his head. He buried captured treasure in Panama and on the California coast, drew his sailing crews from the Cornish ports, and recruited his mining specialists from the tin works of the West Country. Local historian Paul Speed has argued that Drake, who is known to have raided Nombre de Dios in Panama and to have used coastal vaults to stage plunder, possessed both the engineering crews and the strategic incentive to construct something like the Money Pit. Whether Drake himself ever reached Nova Scotia waters is unproven, but his crews moved freely across the North Atlantic, and the cultural template he established, the privateer with state sanction and engineering manpower, defined the figures who followed him. [article:sir-francis-drake-the-queen-s-privateer] Captain William Kidd is the most famous name attached to the Oak Island story and the one whose legend started the digging. Kidd began his Atlantic career as a privateer, carrying letters of marque from William III to hunt French shipping and the pirates of the Indian Ocean. He was hanged at Wapping in 1701 for crimes that his defenders have argued ever since were committed within the scope of his commission. Whether Kidd died a pirate or a privateer wronged by his backers remains the oldest unsettled question in Atlantic legal history. What is certain is that he buried treasure on Gardiners Island in 1699, proof that at least one commissioned mariner did hide valuables along the Atlantic coast. His execution ensured that his name attached itself to every unrecovered hoard from Newfoundland to the Carolinas. Henry Every, the King of Pirates, held no commission of any kind. He pulled off the richest pirate raid in history when he seized the Mughal ship Ganj-i-Sawai in 1695 and then vanished completely. His treasure was never recovered, and seventeenth-century Yemeni coins consistent with his plunder have since surfaced at sites across Rhode Island and Massachusetts, proof that his crew passed through New England waters. One version of the Oak Island theory places Kidd and Every as partners in a communal bank on the island, hiding their combined fortunes in a shared vault. The communal bank theory extends further still. Beginning around 1625 and spanning into the early eighteenth century, mariners operating out of Port Royal, Jamaica, including Sir Henry Morgan (a commissioned privateer for most of his career and a colonial lieutenant governor at its end), Jean Levasseur, and Bartholomew Sharp, may have used Oak Island as a collective stash. Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, served as a privateer during Queen Anne's War and went outlaw the moment the war ended in 1714, a textbook case of the line crossed by a peace treaty. His Atlantic operations from 1716 to 1718 placed him within easy sailing of Mahone Bay, and his much-repeated boast that he had buried his treasure where none but Satan and himself could find it has anchored him to every undiscovered hoard from Carolina to Nova Scotia. Peter Easton, who Marty Lagina has named as the most likely single candidate for the Money Pit, ranks among the wealthiest mariners in history. He commanded forty ships, retired to Savoy with the title of Marquis, and was never tried, never robbed of his fortune, and never required to account for what he had buried. Easton's career spanned both sides of the legal line: royal commission first, outright piracy after. [article:peter-easton-the-pirate-admiral][article:blackbeard-the-devil-s-bargain][article:la-buse-and-the-unsolved-cryptogram] Olivier Levasseur, called La Buse, adds the most cryptic chapter. A French pirate who never held a commission worth keeping, he was hanged on Réunion in 1730, and at the gallows threw a coded cryptogram into the crowd with the cry that whoever could read it would find his treasure. The cipher has never been solved. Levasseur operated principally in the Indian Ocean, but his correspondence and crew records place him in Atlantic waters earlier in his career, and treasure hunters have linked his unsolved cryptogram to buried hoards on three continents. Bartholomew Roberts, the Welsh pirate known as Black Bart, was the most successful outlaw of the entire Golden Age, taking more than four hundred prizes in three years without ever carrying a commission. He is the only named pirate of that era with a documented mainland Nova Scotia raid: Canso in June 1720, less than two hundred nautical miles from Oak Island along the same Atlantic shore. Local Cape Breton tradition, set down in detail by David Dow in 1977 and corroborated by an independent Newfoundland source that identifies the 1720 Trepassey raider as Captain Roberts from Mira River, places a hidden careening yard of his on the Mira River, two hundred and fifty nautical miles east of Mahone Bay. If the tradition holds, Roberts maintained the closest known operating base of any Golden Age pirate to Oak Island, a working coastline he raided personally and a sheltered river he used to refit between voyages. [article:bartholomew-roberts] Sailors, Soldiers, and Specialists The standard objection to the pirate theory is engineering. The Money Pit, with its precisely layered platforms, its fills of charcoal, putty, and coconut fibre, and its apparent flood tunnel system, required skills that disorganised pirate crews did not possess. Pirates were sailors and fighters, not civil engineers. The objection holds if pirate is taken to mean a band of mutineers between raids, but it weakens sharply when the question is reframed around privateers. Privateer crews, operating under government commission, routinely included former naval officers, experienced navigators, military engineers, and tradesmen drawn from merchant and military backgrounds. Drake sailed under Elizabeth's letters of marque with Cornish miners in his hold. Easton held a royal commission before turning outlaw and kept the crews trained under that commission for years afterwards. Kidd carried letters of marque from William III himself. Blackbeard had served as a privateer during Queen Anne's War. The men who matter for Oak Island are not the rabble of fiction but mariners whose careers began under flag and whose crews carried the technical training the flag had paid for. Among ordinary crew, the skills ran wider still. The Cornish miner's pick recovered from a depth of 127 feet during William Chappell's 1931 excavation has drawn attention from theorists who note that Henry Every was known to recruit west countrymen, many of whom would have had experience working the tin mines of Cornwall. Drake's crews drew from the same labour pool a century earlier. A privateer expedition with access to military engineers, ship's carpenters, and Cornish miners could command a broader range of construction skills than the popular image of piracy suggests, and could keep a long secret if its members were bound by oath, articles of the company, and shared interest in the return. [article:the-chappell-family-and-the-vault-beneath-oak-island][artifact:cornish-miner-s-pick] The Privateer of Lot 26 For all the speculation about pirates who may have passed through Mahone Bay, only one mariner of the pirate-privateer world is documented by name as an Oak Island lot owner. Captain James Anderson, a sea captain from Fell's Point in Baltimore, took the American patriot's oath in 1776 and was commissioned as a privateer on the rebel side, made a lieutenant on a galley before receiving a command of his own. In April 1778 he defected to the British at Philadelphia and received a permit from General William Howe to procure provisions for the garrison in his own ship, his second privateering commission in two years, this one British. Captured by rebel forces in late 1779, he was imprisoned at Richmond and charged with high treason in a letter sent from the Maryland Council to Governor Thomas Jefferson. He was somehow released, fled north, and reached Halifax by 1783. The following year he joined Chester Lodge No. 9, the closest Masonic lodge to Oak Island. In 1785 he took possession of Lot 26, which he held for three years before selling to Samuel Ball in 1788. [article:samuel-ball-the-unlikely-landowner] Anderson is called a pirate by The Curse of Oak Island, which has consistently used the term to describe him across his appearances since Season 5, and by Scott Clarke, who treats him as a pirate throughout his Oak Island research and in Oak Island Odyssey. The press coverage of his rediscovery has followed that lead, with Monsters and Critics introducing him in 2020 as "Freemason and pirate: The amazing story of Captain James Anderson." The documentary record describes a different man, one who held legal commissions on both sides of the Revolutionary War and was never charged with piracy. The charge against him in Virginia was treason, the separate crime that applies when a privateer changes flag mid-war. He is the only Oak Island lot owner from the pre-Money Pit era whom the record identifies as both a Mason and a working privateer of either commission. His sea chest, preserved by descendants in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, still contains his 1791 Master Mason certificate, the 1778 purchase document for his privateer schooner Betsy, and four keys, three of which fit nothing the family has ever identified. He died in the West Indies in 1796, one year after Daniel McGinnis and his companions reported finding the depression that would become the Money Pit. If proximity to Oak Island is the measure, Roberts had the nearest pirate base and Anderson the nearest privateer deed. [article:captain-james-anderson-the-pirate-who-lived-on-oak-island] Simply Pirates The pirate theory persists because it answers the simplest problem Oak Island poses, the problem of place. Small, wooded, uninhabited, sheltered in a bay already known to pirates and privateers alike, accessible by sea but invisible from the mainland. The geography fits, and the timeline works. Carbon dating of wood and other materials recovered from the pit has returned dates ranging from the early 1600s to the mid-1700s, a window that encompasses the careers of Drake, Easton, Kidd, Every, Blackbeard, Roberts, Levasseur, and dozens of other mariners on both sides of the legal line operating in Atlantic waters. The pirate theory is the oldest explanation for Oak Island, and whatever lies beneath the island, the pirates got there first in the imagination. ### Simon Fernandes: The Azores Pirate and Oak Island URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/simon-fernandes-the-azores-pirate-and-oak-island In March 1580, a small ship called the Squirrel left England with ten crewmen aboard. She crossed the Atlantic, made a coastal reconnaissance of the North American shore, and returned in roughly three months. Her pilot was a Portuguese-born former pirate named Simao Fernandes. The Squirrel had been fitted out by Sir Humphrey Gilbert under royal authority granted by Queen Elizabeth I in 1578, and Fernandes was the most experienced Atlantic navigator in English service. His charts of the North American east coast survive in the Cotton Collection at the British Library, and one of them was used by Dr. John Dee later that same year to compile the map by which the English crown laid claim to all of North America north of Florida. Fernandes had been born in roughly 1538 on the island of Terceira in the Portuguese Azores. He was the only documented Portuguese-Azorean navigator in the Elizabethan court network at the height of England's colonial planning, and his birthplace places him at the geographic origin of the artifact evidence the Oak Island team has identified as Portuguese-Azorean. The dry-stone wall on Lot 26 was matched in 2026 by Portuguese researcher Francisco Nogueira to the construction tradition at Serreta on Terceira. The stone shots recovered from Lot 16 and the Money Pit area were identified by geology professor Dr. Robert Raeside as volcanic rocks consistent with the Azores. The Portuguese deck spike from Lot 5 was authenticated as 14th-century Portuguese by archaeologist Tiago Rodrigues at the Angra do Heroismo Museum, on Terceira itself. Fernandes is not the only figure who could explain that material on the island but he is a named figure who fits the historical window, the geographic origin, and the operational profile. This is his story. [site:serreta][artifact:rock-wall-lot26][artifact:stone-shot-money-pit] Terceira Terceira is the third-largest island of the Azores, an archipelago of nine volcanic islands roughly 1,500 kilometres west of mainland Portugal. The Azores were claimed for Portugal by Prince Henry the Navigator in 1427, and the Order of Christ, the Portuguese Templar successor founded in 1318 by King Denis, took responsibility for the colonisation. Terceira was settled by Flemish and Portuguese colonists from the 1450s onward, and by the early 1500s the island had become a strategic refuelling stop on the return voyage from the Americas. Spanish treasure fleets sailing from Veracruz and Havana routinely stopped at the port of Angra do Heroismo on Terceira's south coast before completing the crossing to Cadiz. [article:the-sack-of-havana] This is the world into which Simao Fernandes was born around 1538. The birthplace is established in the standard documentary edition of the period prepared by David Beers Quinn for the Hakluyt Society, The Roanoke Voyages 1584-1590, which draws on the Spanish diplomatic correspondence of the 1570s and 1580s and on the Madox diary of 1582 for the early biographical details. Beyond the birthdate and birthplace, the documentary record of his Azorean childhood is thin. What can be reconstructed is that he must have been bilingual by adolescence, since Spanish was the language of Atlantic navigational training, and he must have been on the move by his teens, since by his mid-twenties he had been admitted to the most exclusive maritime training institution in Europe. [article:portuguese-connection-order-of-christ] Seville and the Casa de Contratacion The Casa de Contratacion de las Indias in Seville was the Spanish Crown's master institution for Atlantic navigation, founded in 1503 by Queen Isabella I of Castile. It controlled all licensed trade with the Indies, trained the pilots who would sail the Crown's ships, and maintained the Padron Real, the master chart from which all other Spanish charts of the Atlantic were copied. Foreign pilots were rarely admitted. Fernandes was one of them. The fact of his Casa training is documented by Quinn's Set Fair for Roanoke (1985), drawing on the Spanish naval records preserved at the Archivo General de Indias in Seville. The Encyclopedia Virginia entry on the Roanoke Colonies, published by the University of Virginia Press, describes him as "the Azorean-born pirate Simon Fernandes" and credits him with the navigational expertise that drew Walsingham's interest a decade later. The training Fernandes received in Seville was the sixteenth-century equivalent of state-controlled cryptography. The Spanish Crown treated chart-making, dead-reckoning navigation, and the secrets of the Atlantic currents as protected technology. A Portuguese-Azorean pilot trained at the Casa would have known the routes home from the Indies in detail. He would have known where the convoys passed, where they wintered, and where the storms diverted them. He would, in short, have been precisely the kind of asset that an enemy of Spain would want to acquire. By the early 1570s, Fernandes had stopped serving the Spanish Crown and started raiding its shipping. The Welsh Coast The Welsh pirate John Callis operated out of the Bristol Channel through the 1570s. He attacked Spanish, French, and English shipping along the south Welsh coast, sheltered by corrupt local officials, and at his peak commanded a small flotilla of ships. He was one of the most successful pirates of the Elizabethan age before his capture and execution in 1576. Simao Fernandes was one of his men. The two raided Spanish shipping together in the early to mid-1570s, and English colonial records consistently describe Fernandes as Callis's principal navigator during this period. Callis's hanging in 1576 should have meant the gallows for Fernandes as well. The Portuguese Ambassador in London, Francisco Giraldi, was actively seeking his extradition. The charge against Fernandes was the murder of seven Portuguese sailors during one of the Welsh-coast raids. He was arrested in 1577. Quinn (1955) traces the case through the surviving Privy Council records and through Giraldi's correspondence to the Portuguese Crown: Fernandes was facing execution on piracy charges when Sir Francis Walsingham intervened. Walsingham Sir Francis Walsingham was Queen Elizabeth I's Principal Secretary and the architect of the English intelligence service. He recognised in the Portuguese pilot a strategic asset worth more than the political cost of his crimes. In 1577 he secured Fernandes's release, baptised him into the Church of England, and made him a naturalised subject of the English Crown. Fernandes acquired the nickname "the Swine" among the English, retained by biographical sources as a personal moniker rather than a contemporary slur. The Spanish Ambassador to London, Bernardino de Mendoza, wrote King Philip II of Spain in 1578 about Fernandes's new employment. The dispatch is preserved in the Archivo General de Simancas and published in volume two of the Calendar of Letters and State Papers Relating to English Affairs, Preserved Principally in the Archives of Simancas. Elizabeth, edited by Martin A. S. Hume for His Majesty's Stationery Office in 1894. Mendoza describes Fernandes as a Portuguese "thorough-paced scoundrel" who knows the North American coast intimately and has been supplying England with detailed information about it. The Ambassador's letter establishes two facts: by 1578 Fernandes was already employed in English colonial planning, and Spanish intelligence considered him a credible threat to Spain's American empire. Walsingham assigned Fernandes as pilot to Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who had received a six-year grant from Queen Elizabeth on 11 June 1578 to explore and settle, on her behalf, "remote, heathen and barbarous lands" not already claimed by a Christian prince. The original patent is preserved in the National Archives at Kew and printed in Hakluyt's Principal Navigations of 1589. Gilbert was the half-brother of Walter Raleigh. The two would become the front-of-house figures for English North American claims through the next decade. Fernandes was the technical instrument by which their voyages would be made. The Squirrel, 1580 An eleven-ship fleet under Gilbert and Raleigh set out in September 1578 with Fernandes piloting Raleigh's vessel Falcon. The expedition was an operational failure. Foul weather scattered the fleet off the coast of Africa, and only the Falcon pressed on. Raleigh and Fernandes attempted a privateering raid on Spanish shipping in the West Indies without a letter of marque, accomplished little, and returned to England without making the Atlantic crossing they had set out to perform. The 1580 voyage was the result. Gilbert understood that any permanent colony in North America would require a prior reconnaissance, and he commissioned the small frigate Squirrel for the purpose. The contemporary record preserved in Hakluyt's Principal Navigations establishes that the Squirrel carried ten crewmen and was commanded by Fernandes alone. The Encyclopedia Virginia entry on the Roanoke Colonies dates the departure to March 1580 and describes the destination as "New England to the mid-Atlantic coast." Quinn (1985) places the probable landing point on the Maine coast, though the exact location remains unknown. The voyage took roughly three months end to end. Fernandes returned with a chart of the North American east coast, which he delivered to Walsingham. The chart was passed to Dr. John Dee, the Queen's astrologer, mathematician, and confidential adviser on colonial questions, who used it as a primary source for his own 1580 map. Dee's map was prepared for Queen Elizabeth and used to justify English territorial claims to North America north of Florida, in opposition to the Spanish and French claims already on file. The chart's value as a navigational source is established by William H. Sherman in his 1995 study of Dee's colonial cartography. The Madox diary of 1582, edited by Elizabeth Story Donno for the Hakluyt Society in 1976, records that Fernandes had been trained by Thomas Harriot, Walter Raleigh's mathematician, in the newest methods of celestial navigation in preparation for the voyage. The Squirrel mission is the single best-documented voyage of pre-Roanoke English reconnaissance to North America. The ship was small enough to enter shallow harbours that larger vessels could not reach, the crew was small enough to be paid off quietly, and the pilot was experienced enough to have made the crossing twice already in Spanish service. Whatever Fernandes saw on the North American coast in the late spring of 1580, the English court took it seriously enough to draw a new map on the strength of it. An Empire built on a Pirate Chart One of Fernandes's charts survives. It is preserved in the Cotton Collection at the British Library, the manuscript collection assembled in the early seventeenth century by Sir Robert Bruce Cotton and bequeathed to the nation in 1702. It is one of the principal sources John Dee used in 1580 to compile the map by which Elizabeth I claimed North America. Researchers including Sherman (1995) and E. G. R. Taylor in her 1930 Tudor Geography describe the chart as showing the east coast of North America with particular detail on the mid-Atlantic littoral. What the chart contains, in modern terms, is the navigational basis on which English colonial law was founded. Dee's 1580 map was an instrument of state. Its purpose was to demonstrate that the lands north of Spanish Florida were uninhabited by any Christian prince and were therefore available for English settlement under the doctrine of effective discovery. Dee titled the document Britannia's Sovereign Empire and presented it to Elizabeth in person. Fernandes's chart was the underlying technical document on which the legal argument rested. Roanoke Gilbert sailed for Newfoundland in 1583 and died at sea on the return voyage, his small Squirrel lost in a storm off the Azores. The royal patent passed to his half-brother Walter Raleigh. Raleigh assigned Fernandes the same pilot's role in the 1584 reconnaissance voyage to what would become Roanoke, the 1585 colonial expedition, and the 1587 expedition that established the famous Lost Colony. The Encyclopedia Virginia treatment of the Roanoke voyages, drawing on Quinn's two-volume documentary edition of 1955 and on Karen Kupperman's Roanoke: The Abandoned Colony of 1984, is detailed and unsparing. On the 1587 voyage, Fernandes refused to take the colonists to Chesapeake Bay as Raleigh had directed, insisting instead on landing them at the previous Roanoke site on what is now North Carolina. The Encyclopedia notes that he "was the only one with experience in the region" and that his decision overruled the colonial leadership. The Lost Colony was established at the wrong site under his pilotage. The colonists, including governor John White's grandchild Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the Americas, disappeared between 1587 and White's eventual return in 1590. Fernandes himself disappears from the record after 1590. Quinn (1985) records his last documented voyage as a sortie with an English fleet to the Azores in that year, a journey from which he most likely did not return alive. The Azores in 1590 were the maritime frontier of the Anglo-Spanish War. Fleets from both nations contested the islands, and a Portuguese-Azorean pilot in English service would have been an obvious target for Spanish naval intelligence. Whether he died in action, drowned in a storm, or was captured and executed in his birthplace, the record does not say. Serreta In April 2026, a research team from The Curse of Oak Island travelled to Terceira in the Azores. The team was led by Rick Lagina, Alex Lagina, Doug Crowell, Peter Fornetti, and researcher Corjan Mol. The purpose was to compare the dry-stone walls in the Serreta region of Terceira against the wall on Lot 26 of Oak Island, which had been carbon-dated in 2023 to a single window of 1474 to 1638. The visit was significant. Serreta is a parish on the western coast of Terceira. Its construction tradition involves walls of large edge boulders bracketing a core of smaller rubble, identical to the construction Francisco Nogueira had previously identified on Lot 26 from photographs alone. Carbon dating of the Serreta walls places them at approximately 1470 to 1475, the early end of the Lot 26 window. Nogueira, working from local Azorean archives, has documented Order of Christ involvement on Terceira from the mid-15th century onward. Prince Henry the Navigator officially claimed the Azores in 1427 as the order's senior member, though documentary evidence suggests the order was operating in the islands from the mid-1300s. At the Angra do Heroismo Museum on Terceira, archaeologist Tiago Rodrigues examined three Oak Island artifacts presented by the visiting team: a stone shot, the Pitblado silver coin of Ferdinand I of Portugal minted between 1367 and 1383, and an iron deck spike recovered from Lot 5 in 2023. Rodrigues identified the spike as unmistakably Portuguese and possibly 14th century. The Lisbon Military Museum sergeants Ricardo Lopes and Carlos Magro had previously confirmed in 2022 that the Oak Island stone shots, at 3.9 centimetres in calibre, were a match for the half-Portuguese-pound ball fired by 15th and 16th century Portuguese deck guns. Geology professor Dr. Robert Raeside at Acadia University identified the stones as olivine gabbro and basalt, volcanic rocks consistent with the Azorean hot-spot chain. Fernandes was born on Terceira in roughly 1538. The Lot 26 wall and the Serreta walls both fall within his lifetime. The stone shots match the era of the cannons he would have known from his Casa de Contratacion training, and his Portuguese-Azorean origin places him at the geographic source of the volcanic stone material. The deck spike sits at the early edge of the dating, in a period when Order of Christ vessels were operating the Azorean route, but a Portuguese-trained pilot in 1580 would have been carrying ironwork of recognisable Portuguese style aboard any vessel he commanded. None of this establishes that Fernandes personally landed on Oak Island. The Squirrel voyage of 1580 reconnoitred the mid-Atlantic coast, and Maine is the northernmost landing point any source records for it. Nova Scotia is further north. What the artifact record does establish is that material with Portuguese-Azorean origins is on Oak Island, that the construction match is to Fernandes's specific birth island, and that he is the named Portuguese-Azorean navigator of the right period operating in the covert English colonial network. The Squirrel was small, the crew of ten was small, and the three-month round trip is long enough to have permitted a northward sweep beyond the documented landing point. The record does not foreclose it. Fernandes was a pirate by the legal standards of his time, since he sailed under no English commission during the Welsh-coast years and was tried for piracy in 1577. He was a privateer by the same standards from 1578 onward, since Walsingham's protection placed him in royal service. He was, above all, a navigator, and a navigator who held the chart on which English claims to the North American coast were drawn. Whether his charts also included a quiet harbour on a small island in Mahone Bay, the documentary record does not say. What it does say is that the construction style of his island of birth is on the island, and that he is the named candidate. Sources Primary Documents and Documentary Editions Dispatch of Bernardino de Mendoza, Spanish Ambassador to London, to King Philip II of Spain, 1578. Reports the imminent departure of Sir Humphrey Gilbert's expedition and identifies Simao Fernandes as a Portuguese pilot supplying intelligence on the North American coast. Held in the Archivo General de Simancas; published in volume two of the Calendar of Letters and State Papers Relating to English Affairs, Preserved Principally in the Archives of Simancas. Elizabeth, edited by Martin A. S. Hume, four volumes, His Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1894 to 1899. Letters Patent of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, dated 11 June 1578. Granted by Queen Elizabeth I, gives Gilbert six years to discover and possess "such remote, heathen and barbarous lands" as he could find that were not already claimed by a Christian prince. Original in the National Archives at Kew, State Papers Domestic series; printed in full in Hakluyt's Principal Navigations, 1589 edition. Hakluyt, Richard. The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation. First edition, London, 1589; expanded second edition, three volumes, London, 1598 to 1600. Standard scholarly edition: Hakluyt Society Extra Series, twelve volumes, James MacLehose and Sons, Glasgow, 1903 to 1905. Contains the contemporary accounts of the Gilbert and Raleigh voyages on which Fernandes served as pilot, including the 1584 reconnaissance, the 1585 colonial expedition, and the 1587 Lost Colony voyage. Quinn, David Beers, editor. The Roanoke Voyages 1584-1590: Documents to Illustrate the English Voyages to North America under the Patent Granted to Walter Raleigh in 1584. Hakluyt Society Second Series, volumes 104 to 105, two volumes. London: Hakluyt Society, 1955. The definitive primary-source edition of the Roanoke expeditions, with the Mendoza letter, the Gilbert and Raleigh patents, the Madox diary extracts on Fernandes's training under Harriot, and the full crew rosters of the 1584, 1585, and 1587 voyages. Donno, Elizabeth Story, editor. An Elizabethan in 1582: The Diary of Richard Madox, Fellow of All Souls. Hakluyt Society Second Series, volume 147. London: Hakluyt Society, 1976. Madox sailed as chaplain on the 1582 expedition that Fernandes piloted; his diary is the contemporary source for Fernandes's character, his anti-Spanish convictions, and his navigational training under Thomas Harriot. Fernandes chart of the North American east coast, c. 1580. Survives in the Cotton Collection at the British Library, London. Used by Dr. John Dee in preparing his 1580 map of Britannia's Sovereign Empire for Queen Elizabeth I. Discussed by Sherman (1995) and by Taylor (1930), cited below. Dee, John. Britannia's Sovereign Empire, manuscript map, 1580. Prepared for Queen Elizabeth to justify English territorial claims to North America north of Florida. Held in the Cotton Collection, British Library. Academic Reference Sources Quinn, David Beers. England and the Discovery of America, 1481 to 1620. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974. The standard academic reference on the early English voyages to North America, with extended treatment of Fernandes's career across the Welsh-coast pirate years, the Walsingham intervention, the 1580 Squirrel reconnaissance, and the Roanoke voyages. Quinn, David Beers. Set Fair for Roanoke: Voyages and Colonies, 1584 to 1606. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985. The accessible scholarly treatment of the Roanoke expeditions on which Fernandes served as pilot, including the 1577 arrest, the Walsingham intervention, the Casa de Contratacion training, the Maine landing of the Squirrel in 1580, and the 1590 Azores voyage from which he did not return. Kupperman, Karen Ordahl. Roanoke: The Abandoned Colony. Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman and Allanheld, 1984. Standard academic treatment of the Lost Colony, with detailed analysis of Fernandes's 1587 decision to land the colonists at Roanoke rather than at the Chesapeake site directed by Raleigh. Shirley, John W. Thomas Harriot: A Biography. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983. The standard biography of Raleigh's mathematician, with documentation of Harriot's role in training Fernandes and other English pilots in celestial navigation in the late 1570s and early 1580s. Sherman, William H. John Dee: The Politics of Reading and Writing in the English Renaissance. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995. Standard scholarly treatment of Dee's colonial cartography and his use of pilot reports, including those from Fernandes, in compiling the 1580 map of English territorial claims to North America. Taylor, E. G. R. Tudor Geography 1485 to 1583. London: Methuen and Co., 1930. Foundational work on the cartographic context in which Dee compiled his 1580 map, with discussion of the navigational sources on which the map was based. Encyclopedia Virginia, Roanoke Colonies, The. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, ongoing. Peer-reviewed academic encyclopedia entry. Detailed treatment of the Gilbert-Raleigh expeditions, with Fernandes named as the Azorean-born pilot who scouted the mid-Atlantic coast in March 1580 and who piloted the 1585 and 1587 colonial voyages, including the 1587 Lost Colony. Caution on Conflated Identity The Portuguese name Simao Fernandes is shared by several historical figures of different periods. The Azorean-born navigator who concerns this article is the one identified by Quinn (1955, 1974, 1985), Kupperman (1984), and the Encyclopedia Virginia entry on the Roanoke Colonies as the pilot of the 1580 Squirrel reconnaissance and the 1585 and 1587 Roanoke expeditions. He is not to be confused with other holders of the same name in Iberian or Cape Verdean records of the same century. ### Sir Francis Drake, the Queen's Privateer URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/sir-francis-drake-the-queen-s-privateer Between 1572 and 1596, Sir Francis Drake captured more Spanish treasure than any privateer in history. He seized mule trains loaded with silver and gold in Panama, plundered galleons off the coast of Ecuador, circumnavigated the globe aboard the Golden Hind, and played a decisive role in the destruction of the Spanish Armada. When he died of dysentery aboard his ship near Puerto Bello on January 27, 1596, his lead coffin was cast into the Caribbean Sea. It has never been recovered. The Plunder Drake was born around 1540 in Tavistock, Devon, of sturdy yeoman stock. Put to sea as a teenager under the tutelage of Sir John Hawkins, he learned early that English ships were expected by national pride, religion, and economic necessity to attack the vessels of Spain. He proved exceptionally good at it. In 1572, Drake joined the French buccaneer Guillaume Le Testu in an attack on a Spanish mule train transporting a massive shipment of silver and gold across the Isthmus of Panama. Le Testu was wounded and captured by the Spanish, who later beheaded him. Drake and his men escaped with more than twenty tons of precious metal. It was more than they could carry. They buried what they could not haul, then dragged the rest through eighteen miles of mountainous jungle to the coast, only to find their raiding boats gone and the Spanish closing in. Drake ordered his men to bury the remaining treasure on the beach, then built a raft and sailed ten miles south to reach his flagship. He later recovered both caches and returned to England a wealthy man. All subsequent stories of buried treasure, Randall Sullivan has observed, arise from these events. The Golden Hind voyage of 1577 to 1580 produced even greater prizes. Off the northwest coast of Ecuador, Drake captured a Spanish galleon carrying twenty-six tons of silver and gold along with chests of emeralds and pearls. His total haul from the circumnavigation has been estimated at half a million pounds, a sum he presented to Queen Elizabeth I, who dined with him on his ship in gratitude. In his lifetime, Drake captured more than one hundred Spanish vessels. The Spanish themselves conceded that "were it not that he was a Lutheran, there was not the like man in the world." The Tobias Theory David Tobias, the Montreal businessman who co-founded Triton Alliance with Dan Blankenship in 1969, spent decades researching the origins of the Oak Island works. In his correspondence, Tobias observed that carbon-dating of artifacts recovered from underground on the island indicated that the original construction took place during the period of Drake's second or third voyage. Tobias proposed that during one of his earlier expeditions, Drake sent one or more ships north to Nova Scotia to establish a small secret colony on what would become Oak Island. The purpose was twofold. First, Drake's early raids on the Spanish were not officially sanctioned by Elizabeth I. England was bound by a peace treaty with Spain, and transporting stolen Spanish gold back to England would have been politically dangerous. A secret depository in the New World was a practical necessity. Second, Drake needed a safe base on the North American coast where he could repair, refurbish, and reprovision his ships. In the 1570s, the only British territorial claim in the Western Hemisphere rested on John Cabot's 1497 landing in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. There is little doubt Drake had the ability, the leadership, and the loyalty of enough strong and capable men to have carried out the work. There are two windows in the historical record when Drake would have had both the time and the motive: 1573 to 1575, after the Panama raids and before the circumnavigation, and 1585 to 1587, the period between his Caribbean campaigns and the Armada crisis. During both intervals, it would have been preferable from Elizabeth's point of view for her trusted privateer to maintain a safe and anonymous store overseas rather than sail into English harbours too frequently with what was obviously stolen gold, particularly during tense diplomatic periods in England's cold war with Spain. The Cornish Miners A persistent account links Drake to a company of Cornish miners who were shipped across the Atlantic in the late sixteenth century. According to material sent to Tobias by the Baconian societies in England and the United States, Drake transported Joachim Gans (also spelled Gaunse), a Bohemian mining engineer described as Europe's foremost specialist of his day, along with a group of Cornish miners to the New World. The miners were not heard from for two years and were supposedly on Oak Island during that period. Randall Sullivan investigated this claim and found the trail inconclusive. Gans had in fact been brought to Virginia in 1584 by Sir Walter Raleigh as part of the group that founded the first English settlement on Roanoke Island. That colony lasted only two years before Drake evacuated the starving settlers and sailed them back to England. So there was a Drake connection, but no documented record of Gans being taken to any other part of North America afterward. Sullivan traced the Cornish miners story to the O'Dell House Museum in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, where diver Tony Sampson said he had read about it, but when Sullivan contacted the museum, the public information officer had never heard the account. The foremost historian of the Bay of Fundy region told him the story existed only in "fanciful histories" written about Oak Island. The claim remains unverified. What is verified is that Cornish miners of the sixteenth century possessed expertise in undersea coal mining and coastal excavation techniques that would have been directly applicable to the construction of the Smith's Cove flood tunnel and the Money Pit shaft system. Drake and Bacon One of the more layered dimensions of the Drake theory is its intersection with the Francis Bacon hypothesis. Drake's achievements brought him to the attention of Bacon, and Triton Alliance received confirmation from the Baconian societies that the two men worked closely together at times. Some of Drake's ships' logs remain missing despite having been turned over at court, and his less-publicized voyages along the North American seaboard, including the rescue of Raleigh's Roanoke colonists and a 1586 expedition northward from the Caribbean toward Newfoundland and Labrador carrying more than two hundred enslaved people for an unknown purpose, leave gaps that theorists have sought to fill. Tobias's correspondence with the Francis Bacon Foundation and the Francis Bacon Society led him to propose that Drake supervised the original construction of the Oak Island works on Bacon's behalf. Sullivan noted the chronological problem: Drake died thirty years before Bacon did. A more plausible version of the theory, advanced by Finn in Oak Island Secrets, suggests that Drake or Raleigh first discovered and used the island's natural limestone caverns to hide captured Spanish gold, and that Bacon's associate Thomas Bushell, England's chief mining engineer under Charles I and an expert in underground water channels, later extended or completed the works. Bushell crossed the Atlantic at least once, though no record of his destination or purpose has survived. According to his diaries, Bacon entrusted him with his "dearest secret." [article:francis-bacon-s-secret-island] The Lead Coffin In Season 5, Episode 7 of The Curse of Oak Island, local historian Paul Speed presented a theory in the War Room that added a new element to the Drake hypothesis. Speed argued that sixteenth-century Cornish miners, among Europe's most skilled excavators, possessed the coastal mining techniques needed to construct the island's underground tunnels and flood systems, and that Drake, who hailed from Plymouth near Cornwall, was the likeliest person to have employed them. Speed's most striking claim was that Drake himself may be buried on Oak Island in a lead coffin filled with mercury. Drake's coffin was cast into the sea off the coast of Panama and has never been found. Speed noted that Gilbert Hedden, who led excavations on Oak Island in the 1930s, recovered mercury flasks from the island's north side decades earlier. Mercury was used in the sixteenth century both for preserving documents and for embalming. What the Theory Requires The Drake theory does not rely on legend or cipher. It rests on a documented historical figure with proven access to enormous quantities of treasure, a demonstrated willingness to bury what he could not carry, documented expertise in maritime operations along the Atlantic seaboard, and a political motive for keeping captured wealth hidden from public view. It requires that Drake or men acting on his orders traveled to Nova Scotia during one of the gaps in the historical record, recognized the island's potential, and employed skilled miners to construct the underground works. Whether that journey took place remains unproven. What is established is that carbon-dating of deep underground timbers on Oak Island has returned dates consistent with Drake's period of activity, that the engineering of the flood tunnel system reflects professional mining knowledge of a kind concentrated in sixteenth-century Cornwall, and that Drake had both the resources and the reason to build exactly the kind of secure, hidden vault that the Oak Island works appear to represent. ### Peter Easton, the Pirate Admiral URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/peter-easton-the-pirate-admiral Peter Easton was born around 1570 in England, likely into a family of some social standing. By 1602 he held a letter of marque from Queen Elizabeth I, authorising him to protect the English fishing fleet off Newfoundland, then the busiest and richest fishery in the world, drawing hundreds of ships from England, France, Portugal, and the Basque country each season. Under his commission, Easton could press local fishermen into service and attack enemy vessels at will, particularly the Spanish. Marty Lagina has called Easton "a breed apart, an outlier" from the other pirates whose names have been connected to Oak Island, and the most likely pirate to have deposited treasure there. From Privateer to Pirate When James I came to the throne in 1603 and sued for peace with Spain, all privateering commissions were cancelled. Easton ignored the order and kept raiding. By 1610 he commanded a fleet of around 40 vessels stationed at the mouth of the River Avon, blockading the Bristol Channel and forcing merchants to pay protection fees to pass. The Lord Admiral, the Earl of Nottingham, dispatched a young captain named Henry Mainwaring to capture him. Mainwaring failed, and would himself turn to piracy not long after. The Newfoundland Kingdom Tipped off about the naval pursuit, Easton took his ten best ships and sailed for Newfoundland, arriving at Harbour Grace on Conception Bay in 1612. He built a fort, established his headquarters, and set about turning the colony into his personal base. He plundered 30 English vessels in the harbour of St. John's and raided French and Portuguese ships at Ferryland. His crews demanded tributes from fishing vessels on the Grand Banks. The total damage inflicted on the fishing fleets was estimated at over 20,000 pounds. The scale of Easton's operation set him apart from every pirate who followed. He recruited aggressively, taking as many as 1,500 fishermen from the Newfoundland coast, some voluntarily, others by force. He fortified Harbour Grace, Kelly's Island on the far shore of Conception Bay, and Oderin Island in Placentia Bay. He dined with Sir Richard Whitbourne, the vice admiral at St. John's, aboard his 350-ton flagship Happy Adventure, holding him for eleven weeks while attempting to recruit him. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography records that Easton "controlled such seapower that no sovereign or state could afford to ignore him and he was never overtaken or captured by any fleet commissioned to hunt him down." In 1612, while Easton was away on a Caribbean voyage, French Basque pirates captured his fort at Harbour Grace. When his fleet returned and entered Conception Bay, the Basques sailed out to intercept him. Easton defeated the Basque force, destroying their flagship and recapturing the fort. Forty-seven of his men died in the battle and are believed to be buried near Bear Cove at the mouth of Harbour Grace, where a mass grave consistent with the early 17th century was uncovered during construction work near the site of Easton's fort. Spanish Silver Easton's ambitions extended well beyond Newfoundland. While awaiting a royal pardon that never arrived, he led 14 ships and 500 men to the Azores, where he intercepted the Spanish silver fleet returning from West Indies mines. He captured the convoy and sailed the prize ships to Tunisia, where the Bey of Tunis welcomed him for the better part of a year. He also raided in the Caribbean, reportedly attacking El Morro Castle in Puerto Rico, though some historians regard this episode as embellished. Contemporary sources estimated his accumulated wealth at two million pounds in gold. The Marquis of Savoy A royal pardon had been issued by James I in February 1612, but through bureaucratic delays and Easton's constant movement, it never reached him. A second pardon was granted and again failed to arrive. By March 1613, Easton sailed to Villefranche in the Duchy of Savoy, a free port that served as a haven for pirates on the Mediterranean coast. The cash-strapped Duke of Savoy, hearing of Easton's wealth, welcomed him warmly. Easton bought a palace, set up a warehouse for his plunder, married a wealthy noblewoman, and was granted the title Marquis of Savoy. He is one of the very few pirates in history who retired rich, unpunished, and in comfort. Unlike Kidd, who was hanged, or Blackbeard, who was killed in battle, Easton spent his final years as a nobleman on the French Riviera. He remained in the Duke's service until around 1620, when he disappears from the historical record. His treasure, or whatever remained of it, was never seized, never recovered at trial, and never accounted for. [article:blackbeard-the-devil-s-bargain] The Oak Island Connection Easton's candidacy for Oak Island rests on capability. The Money Pit's construction required dozens if not hundreds of workers, and Easton commanded fleets of 40 ships while recruiting over a thousand men from Newfoundland alone. He was a former naval officer who held a royal commission, an expert tactician and navigator who built and maintained fortifications at multiple locations. His crews included men pressed from fishing fleets and merchant vessels: sailors, carpenters, and tradesmen with practical construction skills.  Easton operated from Newfoundland between roughly 1611 and 1614, placing him in Canadian Atlantic waters for an extended period. Nova Scotia lies directly between Newfoundland and the Caribbean routes he frequented. No document places Easton in Mahone Bay specifically, but his known operating range encompassed the waters around it. Carbon dating of materials from the Money Pit has returned dates as early as the 1600s, and if the oldest construction on the island predates the Golden Age, Easton fits the window. His estimated two million pounds in gold is a contemporary figure that may not account for everything he accumulated over a decade of raiding. Unlike Kidd, whose Gardiners Island deposit was recovered and catalogued, or Blackbeard, whose ships were searched after his death, no inventory of Easton's total wealth was ever taken. [article:captain-kidd-and-the-hidden-maps] The Oderin Island Parallel Oderin Island, a small horseshoe-shaped island in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, was one of Easton's known bases, fortified and visible to surveyors as late as 1713. On the north side of the island sits a pond measuring roughly 35 metres by 20 metres. According to local tradition passed down through generations of residents before the island was resettled in 1966, the bottom of the pond is lined with oak planks at a depth of 18 feet. No oak trees grow in Newfoundland. The pond sits below sea level, making it all but impossible to drain, and is said to connect to the ocean through an underwater channel. Marty Lagina and Matty Blake investigated Oderin for two episodes of Beyond Oak Island in 2022 and 2023, bringing in diver Tony Sampson to search for sunken treasure connected to Easton. The parallels to Oak Island are obvious: oak at depth where it does not belong, water infiltration from the sea, and construction that defies easy explanation. Archaeologists have raised questions about the connection, however. No historical document places Easton on Oderin, which was in French-controlled territory at the time, and the oak-bottom pond has never been excavated or scientifically examined. The story rests on oral tradition rather than archival evidence. What Remains No artefact recovered from Oak Island has been directly attributed to Peter Easton. No ship's log, crew manifest, or archival document places him in Mahone Bay. The connection is circumstantial, built on capability rather than evidence. Easton had the ships, the men, the engineering background, and the time in the right waters. He built fortifications on at least three islands. He accumulated a fortune so large that a European duke offered him a title and a palace. And unlike every other pirate whose name has been linked to Oak Island, he was never caught, never searched, and never made to account for what he had taken. ### Henry Morgan: The Lost Panama Treasure and Oak Island URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/henry-morgan-the-lost-panama-treasure-and-oak-island On the morning of 28 January 1671, the city of Panama burned. A force of roughly fourteen hundred buccaneers under the command of Henry Morgan, a Welsh privateer from Llanrhymney in Glamorgan, had crossed the Isthmus of Panama through eight days of jungle, ambush, and near-starvation to reach the wealthiest Spanish city on the Pacific coast. By nightfall the city was theirs. By the time Morgan marched his men back across the isthmus several weeks later, he had completed the largest buccaneer operation in the history of Caribbean piracy. The treasure he carried away has never been fully reconciled with the wealth Panama was known to contain. Three centuries later, that gap is the engine of every Henry Morgan theory of Oak Island. Morgan is the pirate-era candidate with the political cover, the personal force, and the documented missing fortune to fit the Oak Island picture. He was knighted by King Charles II. He served as Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica. He died with three plantations to his name and was buried with a twenty-two gun salute from ships at anchor in Port Royal harbour. He is also the pirate whose name was put forward in print, in a Nova Scotia newspaper of record, as the man who hid treasure on Oak Island. The editorial appeared in the Halifax Journal in 1932, in support of Frederick Blair's renewed syndicate. It named Morgan, and it named the Panama raid as the source of the buried wealth. [article:frederick-blair-the-man-who-held-oak-island-for-sixty-years] The Sack of Panama, January 1671 The expedition that took Panama was the largest of Morgan's career and the largest assembled by any buccaneer captain in the seventeenth century. In late 1670 Morgan, holding a privateer commission from the Governor of Jamaica, Sir Thomas Modyford, summoned the Brethren of the Coast to the rendezvous at Cape Tiburon on the western tip of Hispaniola. By December he commanded thirty-eight ships and a force estimated by Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin, who sailed with the expedition as a ship's surgeon, at around two thousand men. Other contemporary estimates ran lower. The modern consensus, drawing on the muster records reconstructed by Peter Earle in his 1981 study, places the landing force at roughly fourteen hundred. On 20 December 1670 Morgan stormed the fortress of San Lorenzo at the mouth of the Chagres River on the Caribbean side of the isthmus, opening the inland passage. He left a garrison at San Lorenzo, transferred his men to canoes and shallow-draft boats, and on 9 January 1671 began the march upriver and across the isthmus. The crossing took eight days. Spanish forces under the President of Panama, Don Juan Pérez de Guzmán, launched repeated ambushes from the forest. Morgan's men exhausted their provisions and were reduced to eating leather. By the time the buccaneers emerged onto the savannah outside the city, they had been on short rations for the better part of a week and were in no mood for negotiation. The battle outside Panama on 28 January was decisive. Pérez de Guzmán had assembled a defending force that outnumbered the attackers, including cavalry and a herd of cattle the Spanish hoped to stampede into the buccaneer ranks. The cattle ploy failed and turned back upon the defenders. Morgan's musketeers and French allies broke the Spanish infantry on open ground. The Spanish cavalry was destroyed in a single charge. By afternoon the buccaneers were in the city. What followed has been debated since 1671. Panama burned to the ground. Exquemelin attributed the fire to Morgan; later Spanish accounts also held him responsible. Morgan's own account, given before the English Privy Council in 1672, blamed Pérez de Guzmán for setting the city alight to deny his enemies its stores. The destruction was total. Panamá Viejo, the original site, was abandoned. The new city of Panama, founded several miles to the west two years later, stands on different ground entirely. The Missing Treasure The accounting problem is the part of the Panama story that keeps the Henry Morgan theories of Oak Island alive. The wealth concentrated in Panama in January 1671 was immense. The city was the receiving point for the silver of Peru, the gold of New Granada, and the goods carried up from Lima by the annual Pacific flota. Spanish records cited in Stephan Talty's 2007 biography give the population at around six thousand and the warehouses as among the richest on the Pacific rim. Three documented losses ran against Morgan's haul before he ever entered the city. Two galleons sailed from Panama Bay during the days before the buccaneers arrived, carrying the church plate, royal silver, and the principal merchants' wealth out into the Pacific. Morgan dispatched a captured barque to chase them. The pursuit failed. Mule trains had been moving inland toward the safety of Veragua and the road to Mexico City throughout the previous week. Pérez de Guzmán's order to burn the warehouses, if it was his order, took further wealth out of reach. By the time Morgan's men were sifting through the smoking ruins, a substantial part of Panama's portable treasure was either at sea, on the back of a mule, or melted into the rubble. What remained was still considerable. Exquemelin recorded the haul as 400,000 pieces of eight in coin, plate, and merchandise, plus prisoners held for ransom. The modern biographers Earle and Talty give converted values in the tens of millions of pounds in current terms, with the upper estimates running well over a hundred million when the full inventory of plate, jewellery, and ransom is included. The buccaneers spent four weeks in the ruined city collecting what they could, interrogating prisoners about hidden caches, and gathering captives for the march back. The accounting collapsed on the return. When Morgan distributed shares at Chagres in late February 1671, his men complained openly that their portions were too small. Exquemelin gives the figure as around two hundred pieces of eight per ordinary buccaneer, against expectations several times higher. The complaints were loud enough that contemporary observers, including Exquemelin and the French chronicler Charles de Rochefort, accused Morgan of having weighted the lead in the scales used to measure the share-out, and of having loaded a private cargo aboard his flagship that was never declared. The accusation was repeated in print in Exquemelin's De Americaensche Zee-Roovers, published at Amsterdam in 1678. When the English translation appeared in 1684, Morgan sued the London publisher for libel and won damages of two hundred pounds. The libel ruling did not address the underlying accounting question. It addressed the description of him as a pirate, which by 1684 he was not. Morgan slipped his anchorage at Chagres in early March 1671 without giving formal notice to the rest of the fleet. He sailed alone for Port Royal with a small group of trusted captains. The remaining buccaneers were left to make their own way home. The departure has been read in two ways. Charles Leslie's 1739 history of Jamaica described it as a prudent escape from a mutiny that was forming over the contested shares. Earle and Talty both treat it as consistent with Morgan having more aboard than he had declared. His estate at death, inventoried in Jamaica in 1688, came to five thousand two hundred and sixty-three pounds in money and goods, three working plantations, and one hundred and twenty-nine enslaved Africans. The sum is substantial for a colonial governor of the period. It does not approach the Panama treasure, even allowing for years of expense and the maintenance of a public household. The gap between the wealth that left Panama and the wealth that surfaced in Jamaica has never been closed. From Buccaneer to Lieutenant Governor Morgan's career after Panama is the unusual part of the story, and the part that gives the Oak Island theory its political plausibility. Six months before the raid, on 8 July 1670, England and Spain had signed the Treaty of Madrid in which each crown undertook to suppress private war against the other in the Americas. The treaty arrived in the Caribbean after Morgan's fleet had sailed. News of it reached Jamaica only in 1671. By the time the English government understood that the Panama raid had taken place under a commission issued in defiance of an existing treaty, the buccaneers were already at Chagres dividing their shares. The Spanish ambassador in London, Conde de Molina, lodged formal protests. King Charles II was obliged to act. In April 1672 Sir Thomas Modyford was recalled to England under arrest. In August 1672 Morgan himself sailed for England aboard HMS Welcome, not as a prisoner exactly, but under the cloud of the Spanish complaint. He arrived in London a celebrity. What followed was a public performance. Morgan was never tried. He was lodged at the home of his cousin Sir Charles Morgan, then received at court, then taken up by the Duke of Albemarle and the Earl of Carbery. His knowledge of the Spanish Caribbean and the disposition of its defences was of immediate interest to a Crown preparing for the next round of imperial competition. By late 1673 he was advising on Caribbean policy. On 23 November 1674 he was knighted by Charles II. In January 1675 he sailed back to Jamaica as Lieutenant Governor of the colony. The inversion that followed has no exact parallel in the history of piracy. Morgan, now Sir Henry, sat as a justice of the Vice-Admiralty Court in Port Royal and presided over the prosecution of his former colleagues. Buccaneers who came in under the periodic amnesties were welcomed. Those who did not, and were caught, were hanged. He held the deputy governorship under three successive governors, retaining the post through the 1680s. He was dismissed in 1683 after persistent reports of drinking and of failing to suppress unlicensed buccaneer activity, but he remained on the Jamaica Council and continued to advise the government until his death. This is the trajectory that creates the political cover for an Oak Island theory. From 1672 until his death sixteen years later, Morgan was a Crown servant, a knighted public official, and a man with documented authority over Caribbean shipping. A discreet transfer of bullion aboard a chartered or commanded vessel would have left no trace in the public record. Crown officials of his standing routinely moved private cargo on Crown bottoms throughout the period. Nothing about his position required him to account for what he had carried out of Panama beyond what he had already declared. The Brethren of the Coast The Brethren of the Coast were the loose buccaneer confederation that operated out of Tortuga, Port Royal, and after 1670 increasingly out of Petit-Goâve on the south coast of Hispaniola. The historian David Marley, in his 2010 Pirates of the Americas, describes the Brethren less as an organisation than as a working coalition of captains, French, English, Dutch, and a smaller number of Portuguese and Danish, who pooled crews, signed common articles for individual expeditions, and recognised a rotating set of senior commanders. Morgan was a senior figure within the coalition from the mid-1660s until his elevation to the deputy governorship in 1675. The Brethren held periodic general gatherings. The best-documented of these is the assembly at Roatán in the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras in early 1683, reconstructed from Spanish colonial correspondence of the period by David Marley in Historic Cities of the Americas (2005) and summarised in Angus Konstam's 2007 Pirates: An Illustrated History. The captains present at Roatán included Laurens de Graaf, the Dutch buccaneer who would lead the May 1683 raid on Veracruz; Nicholas van Hoorn; Michel de Grammont; Michiel Andrieszoon; and the Dutch buccaneer Jan Willems, better known by his nickname Yankey. Yankey Willems sailed in the mid-1680s with his fellow Dutch captain Jacob Evertson, and their joint operations carried the Brethren network into the northern colonial seaboard. The August 1688 letter from Captain Francis Nicholson, the lieutenant governor of New York, to Thomas Povey, an administrative agent for King James II, preserved in volume three of John Romeyn Brodhead's 1853 Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, records the arrest of eight men who were the remnant of "Yankey's and Jacob's company." The letter places Willems's crew at Martha's Vineyard in the summer of 1688, trading hides and elephant teeth from a Caribbean prize to Captain Andrew Belcher, master of the Boston ship Swan. One of the prize ships, the letter records, was taken on to "Port-la-Bare in Nova Scotia." The exact location of Port-la-Bare has not been recovered, but the phrasing places at least one Brethren of the Coast prize vessel in Nova Scotia waters in the summer of 1688, the same summer Morgan lay dying in Jamaica. [article:yankey-willems-brethren-of-the-coast-and-oak-island] The 1688 record matters for the Morgan question in two ways. It establishes that the Brethren network, of which Morgan had been a senior figure, reached the New England and Nova Scotia coast in operational practice as well as in theory. And it places a Brethren-affiliated cargo in Nova Scotia in the year of Morgan's death, with one of New England's most prominent merchants, Andrew Belcher, in the role of receiving fence. Belcher was the grandfather of Jonathan Belcher Jr., the Nova Scotia Chief Justice and Grand Master of Freemasons whose family later owned lots adjoining Oak Island. The thread is circumstantial. It is also documented, and it runs in the right direction. [article:freemasons-on-oak-island-the-masonic-connection] The 1932 Halifax Editorial The most direct printed assertion that Henry Morgan hid treasure on Oak Island appeared in the Halifax Journal in 1932, during a renewed phase of activity around Frederick Blair's syndicate, which held the Nova Scotia recovery licence covering the Money Pit. The editorial supported Blair's syndicate and named Morgan as the man behind the Money Pit, identifying the Panama raid as the source of the wealth and the sheltered harbours of Mahone Bay as the natural destination for a buccaneer captain looking to put a continent between his fortune and his creditors. The editorial was cited at the time by Reginald V. Harris, Blair's attorney, in his 1958 The Oak Island Mystery, the first scholarly book-length treatment of the search. Harris records the editorial in the context of Blair's working assumptions during the 1930s, and notes that the Morgan attribution drew sustained regional press attention through the decade. Lionel and Patricia Fanthorpe, in The Oak Island Mystery: The Secret of the World's Greatest Treasure Hunt, treat Morgan as the strongest of the named-pirate candidates. The Fanthorpes write that Morgan "certainly had enough cash, rank and leadership skills to have enabled him to organise an expedition on a grand enough scale to have constructed the Oak Island labyrinth," and conclude that he is "a far more probable" candidate than William Kidd. Their reasoning rests on three points that follow from the record: that the buccaneers' complaints about the Panama share-out point to a hidden surplus; that Morgan's deputy governorship gave him cover to deploy a discreet expedition; and that his dismissal in 1683 and death in 1688 cut short any plan for a later retrieval. [article:captain-kidd-and-the-hidden-maps] The 1932 editorial also surfaces in the séance literature that Blair collected. In a 1937 letter preserved among Blair's papers, a New York spiritualist named John W. Lowden reported communications from a "control" he identified as the spirit of Captain William Kidd, who named the Oak Island depositor as "James Morgan" and gave the date as 1782. Both the name and the date were wrong: Sir Henry Morgan, not James, and 1671, not 1782. Harris, reviewing the letter, observed dryly that Kidd died in 1701 and Morgan in 1688, which left neither well placed to deposit treasure in 1782. The episode is useful as colour rather than evidence. What it establishes is that by the 1930s the Morgan attribution had become attached to Oak Island firmly enough to surface even in mediumistic communications meant to bypass the documentary record. The Last Years and the Vanished Grave Morgan's final years are documented in detail by Dudley Pope's 1977 biography and by the records of the Jamaica Council preserved at the National Archives at Kew. From his 1683 dismissal until his death he lived principally at his Lawrencefield estate in the parish of St. Mary, on Jamaica's north coast, with regular returns to Port Royal. The estate ran sugar and supported a household of his Welsh extended family and his enslaved workforce. His health declined steadily through 1687 and 1688. The physician Hans Sloane, then attending the Duke of Albemarle in Jamaica and whose collection later formed the founding nucleus of the British Museum, treated him in his last illness and recorded the case in his 1707 Voyage to the Islands. Sloane diagnosed dropsy. Morgan died at Lawrencefield on 25 August 1688. The funeral on the following day was a state occasion. The coffin was carried by Council members and senior planters. The procession moved from Lawrencefield to the family vault at Palisadoes cemetery on the spit that ran out from Port Royal into Kingston Harbour. Ships at anchor in the harbour fired a twenty-two gun salute. A general amnesty was declared on the colony's authority so that Morgan's former buccaneer colleagues could come ashore and pay their respects without fear of arrest. The amnesty was honoured. The attendance list reads as the muster of a Brethren of the Coast assembly. Four years later, on 7 June 1692, an earthquake of estimated magnitude 7.5 struck Port Royal at eleven forty in the morning. Within minutes the spit on which the Palisadoes cemetery stood liquefied and slid into the harbour. Two thirds of the town followed. Approximately two thousand inhabitants were killed in the initial event, with a further three thousand lost to injury and disease over the following weeks. The cemetery and Morgan's tomb were lost beneath thirty feet of water. Marine archaeology surveys of the Port Royal site, conducted by Donny L. Hamilton and the Texas A&M Institute of Nautical Archaeology between 1981 and 1990, mapped a number of submerged structures and recovered domestic and commercial artefacts. They did not locate Morgan's coffin. The bones of the Welsh buccaneer who carried the Panama treasure into and out of recorded history are still somewhere on the floor of Kingston Harbour, or no longer anywhere at all. The Hanselmann Expedition Modern archaeology has begun to recover the physical record of Morgan's fleet. Between 2008 and 2012, an underwater archaeological survey directed by Dr. Fritz Hanselmann of the Center for Archaeological Studies at Texas State University, working with the Waitt Institute and the Patronato Panamá Viejo, conducted a series of expeditions to the mouth of the Chagres River. Five of Morgan's ships are known to have run aground on the Lajas Reef and sunk during the approach to Panama in December 1670 and January 1671. The flagship Satisfaction was among them. The expedition's stated goal was to locate the wrecks and document their cargo. In 2010 the team recovered six iron cannons from the reef. The cannons have been preliminarily identified as English-pattern guns of the period, consistent with the armament of the lost ships. In 2011 the team located and photographed a fifty-two-foot-by-twenty-two-foot section of a wooden ship's starboard hull, partially buried in the silt at a depth of around thirty feet. Among the debris associated with the hull section were unopened wooden chests. The chests were left in situ and the find site reported to the Panamanian cultural authorities, with whom the recovered material has been deposited for analysis and conservation. A small number of additional artefacts, including a chest containing wooden boxes that may have held trade goods, were also documented during the 2012 season. The Hanselmann work has been published in conservation journals and presented at meetings of the Society for Historical Archaeology. As of the most recent reports, conservation of the recovered material is continuing. The contents of the unopened chests have not yet been made public. What the work has established is that Morgan's fleet did sustain real losses at the Chagres mouth in December 1670 and January 1671, that those losses included material that had been loaded for the operation, and that some of that material is now in the custody of the Panamanian government pending full analysis. For the Oak Island question, the work cuts both ways. The Chagres losses occurred before Morgan reached Panama; the Lajas Reef wrecks went down with whatever the fleet had carried into the operation, not whatever it carried out. They do not account for the disputed Panama share-out. They do confirm, however, that the surviving and returning ships of Morgan's fleet were a smaller force than the one that had sailed from Cape Tiburon, which raises the per-ship value of whatever made it back to Port Royal. The Panama wealth that did return to Jamaica returned aboard fewer vessels and was concentrated in fewer hands. Both of those facts are consistent with the documentary record of a contested share-out. Morgan and the Oak Island Question Morgan's case for Oak Island does not rest on a physical artefact recovered from Mahone Bay. It rests on four documented points that, taken together, make him the strongest of the named-pirate candidates. First, the Panama wealth was real and was contested. Exquemelin's account of the disputed share-out at Chagres is one of the most thoroughly cross-referenced pieces of buccaneer history in the seventeenth-century record. The complaint that Morgan retained more than he declared was made by the men who had earned the shares, was repeated in print within seven years of the raid, and was answered by Morgan only through a libel suit that addressed the description of his person rather than the disposition of the goods. The gap between Panama and Jamaica is documented in primary sources. Second, Morgan's political cover from 1672 onward was unusual. A knighted Crown servant, sitting as a Vice-Admiralty judge in the Caribbean and corresponding regularly with Whitehall, had access to Crown shipping, to discreet captains, and to the routine movement of private cargo that characterised colonial trade. The operation required to move a portion of the Panama wealth out of Jamaica and into a hidden cache, anywhere on the Atlantic seaboard, was well within the practical reach of a man in his position. Third, the Brethren of the Coast network reached into Nova Scotia waters. The 1688 Nicholson letter places a Brethren prize ship at Port-la-Bare in Nova Scotia in the year of Morgan's death, in the keeping of crews affiliated with Yankey Willems and Jacob Evertson. The continuity is operational rather than evidentiary, but it removes the geographical objection that has been raised against pirate-era Oak Island theories more broadly. The men who sailed under Morgan, and the captains who succeeded him in the senior ranks of the Brethren, were demonstrably present in the waters Oak Island sits in. Fourth, the Morgan attribution is documented in print at Oak Island. The 1932 Halifax Journal editorial put his name on the Money Pit in the most direct terms possible, in the period when the Blair syndicate was actively working the site. The piece was endorsed in subsequent Nova Scotia press coverage and remains the most explicit early naming of any pirate by a regional newspaper of record in connection with Oak Island. Whatever the editorial's evidentiary weight, it is part of the Oak Island documentary record in its own right, and any account of the pirate-era theory that does not acknowledge it is incomplete. The Hanselmann expedition has begun to recover the physical traces of Morgan's lost fleet at the Chagres mouth. The Panama wealth that returned with him to Jamaica is harder to trace. The Lawrencefield estate, the Port Royal vault, and the 1692 earthquake have closed most of the documentary routes by which it might once have been recovered. What remains is the gap between the Panama Morgan attacked and the Jamaica he left behind, and the operational network through which a portion of that wealth could have moved north. The 1932 editorial named the destination. The case for Henry Morgan and Oak Island has rested there, in print and in serious consideration, for nearly a century. Sources This article draws on primary contemporary accounts of Morgan's career, the standard modern biographies, scholarship on the Brethren of the Coast and the Golden Age of Piracy in Atlantic waters, current marine archaeology of Morgan's lost ships, and the established Oak Island reference literature. Every named claim above traces to one of the following sources. Contemporary and Early Sources, 1671 to 1739 Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin, De Americaensche Zee-Roovers, Jan ten Hoorn, Amsterdam, 1678. The contemporary buccaneer's eyewitness account of Morgan's career through Panama, written by a French-born ship's surgeon who sailed with the Brethren of the Coast through the 1660s. The work passed into English in 1684 as The Buccaneers of America, published in London by William Crooke, and triggered Morgan's successful libel action against the publisher in 1685. Charles Leslie, A New and Exact Account of Jamaica, R. Fleming, Edinburgh, 1739. The first sustained Jamaican history by a colonial author, which provides the narrative of Morgan's silent departure from Chagres in March 1671 and his later civil career. Hans Sloane, A Voyage to the Islands Madera, Barbados, Nieves, S. Christophers and Jamaica, two volumes, B. M. for the author, London, 1707 and 1725. The clinical account of Morgan's final illness by the Royal Society physician who attended him in 1688. State Papers, Colonial, America and West Indies, series CO 1, The National Archives, Kew. The contemporary administrative record of Modyford's commission, Morgan's commission, the Treaty of Madrid correspondence, and the 1672 recall to London. John Romeyn Brodhead, ed., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York; Procured in Holland, England, and France, volume three, Weed, Parsons and Company, Albany, 1853. Contains the August 1688 letter from Captain Francis Nicholson to Thomas Povey describing the Yankey Willems and Jacob Evertson company and the Port-la-Bare prize ship. Modern Biographies of Henry Morgan Dudley Pope, Harry Morgan's Way: The Biography of Sir Henry Morgan 1635–1688, Secker and Warburg, London, 1977. The standard scholarly biography, drawing on the Jamaica Council records and the State Papers Colonial. Source for the final years at Lawrencefield, the funeral, the twenty-two gun salute, and the estate inventory. Peter Earle, The Sack of Panamá: Captain Morgan and the Battle for the Caribbean, Thomas Dunne Books, New York, 1981, revised as The Sack of Panamá: Sir Henry Morgan's Adventures on the Spanish Main, Thomas Dunne, 2007. The detailed military reconstruction of the 1670 to 1671 campaign, including the muster figures and the share-out dispute. Stephan Talty, Empire of Blue Water: Captain Morgan's Great Pirate Army, the Epic Battle for the Americas, and the Catastrophe That Ended the Outlaws' Bloody Reign, Crown Publishers, New York, 2007. The modern popular biography, with attention to the political context in London and the Brethren of the Coast network. Terry Breverton, Admiral Sir Henry Morgan: The Greatest Buccaneer of Them All, Glyndwr Publishing, Llanrwst, 2005. The Welsh perspective by a Pembrokeshire historian, with detail on Morgan's Glamorgan origins and family connections. Golden Age of Piracy and Brethren of the Coast Scholarship David Cordingly, Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates, Random House, New York, 1995. The standard popular history of the period, with the line between privateer and pirate examined through Morgan's career. Kris E. Lane, Pillaging the Empire: Piracy in the Americas, 1500–1750, M. E. Sharpe, Armonk, 1998. The academic treatment of the privateering economy of the Spanish Main, with substantial coverage of Port Royal as a buccaneer base. Angus Konstam, Buccaneers 1620–1700, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, 2000. The Osprey reference on buccaneer ships, weapons, and tactics, with named profiles of the Brethren captains. Angus Konstam, Pirates: An Illustrated History, Skyhorse Publishing, New York, 2007, pp. 118 to 119. Contains the documentation of the 1683 Roatán gathering of the Brethren of the Coast. David F. Marley, Pirates of the Americas, ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, 2010. Two-volume encyclopaedic reference with full entries on Morgan, Yankey Willems, Jacob Evertson, Laurens de Graaf, and the Brethren confederation. David F. Marley, Historic Cities of the Americas: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, 2005, pp. 751 to 752. Contains the operational record of Willems and Evertson in the mid-1680s and their attendance at Roatán. Marcus Rediker, Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age, Beacon Press, Boston, 2004. The standard academic treatment of the social organisation of Atlantic piracy. Marine Archaeology of Morgan's Fleet Fritz Hanselmann, "The Search for Captain Henry Morgan's Lost Fleet at the Mouth of the Río Chagres, Panamá," presented at the Society for Historical Archaeology annual conference, 2012, and published in the conference proceedings. The principal archaeological report on the 2008 to 2012 expeditions. Fritz Hanselmann, Center for Archaeological Studies, Texas State University, working with the Waitt Institute and the Patronato Panamá Viejo. Multiple field reports, 2010 to 2014, documenting the recovery of six iron cannons, the starboard hull section, and the unopened wooden chests at the Lajas Reef. Ker Than, "Captain Morgan's Wrecked Pirate Fleet Discovered Off Panama," National Geographic News, 5 August 2011. The contemporary public-record reporting of the Hanselmann recoveries, with on-site photographs of the cannon retrievals and the hull section. The journalistic record corroborating the Society for Historical Archaeology conference paper above. Donny L. Hamilton, "The Port Royal Project: A Submerged Seventeenth Century Town," Underwater Archaeology Proceedings, Society for Historical Archaeology, 1992. Reports the Texas A&M Institute of Nautical Archaeology surveys of the submerged sections of Port Royal between 1981 and 1990, which did not locate Morgan's coffin. Oak Island Reference Literature Reginald V. Harris, The Oak Island Mystery: The Secret of Oak Island, McClelland and Stewart, Toronto, 1958. Frederick Blair's attorney's contemporaneous record of the search, with reference to the 1932 Halifax Journal editorial naming Morgan and to the Lowden séance correspondence. Lionel Fanthorpe and Patricia Fanthorpe, The Oak Island Mystery: The Secret of the World's Greatest Treasure Hunt, Hounslow Press, Toronto, 1995. Argues for Morgan as the strongest of the named-pirate candidates, citing the Panama share-out anomaly and the political cover of his deputy governorship. Randall Sullivan, The Curse of Oak Island: The Story of the World's Longest Treasure Hunt, Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 2018. The standard modern history of the search, with treatment of Morgan among the candidate pirates and the broader Mahone Bay pirate context. D'Arcy O'Connor, The Secret Treasure of Oak Island: The Amazing True Story of a Centuries-Old Treasure Hunt, Lyons Press, Guilford, revised edition 2004. The long-form Oak Island history, with discussion of the pirate-era candidates and the Blair syndicate years. Scott Clarke, Oak Island Odyssey: A Masonic Quest, Nimbus Publishing, Halifax, 2023. The Belcher-Willems documentation and the 1688 Nicholson letter analysis are drawn from this work, particularly its tracing of the Brethren of the Coast operations into New England and Nova Scotia waters. Newspaper and Periodical Sources Halifax Journal, editorial supporting the Frederick Blair syndicate, 1932, naming Sir Henry Morgan as the depositor of the Oak Island treasure and identifying the Panama raid of 1671 as the source of the wealth. Cited in Harris (1958) and Fanthorpe and Fanthorpe (1995). The 1932 editorial is the documented printed assertion linking Morgan to Oak Island and is the basis for the press attention to the Morgan attribution through the Blair years. Caution on Conflated Identity The Welsh privateer Sir Henry Morgan (c. 1635 to 1688) is to be distinguished from Captain Henry Morgan of Tredegar, his cousin, named in his will as "ever-honest cozen, Mr Thomas Morgan of Tredegar" but in the wider literature sometimes given as Henry. The deputy governor of Jamaica and the buccaneer commander at Panama is one and the same person. He was knighted in 1674 and died at Lawrencefield, Jamaica, in 1688. ### Yankey Willems: Brethren of the Coast and Oak Island URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/yankey-willems-brethren-of-the-coast-and-oak-island On August 31, 1688, Captain Francis Nicholson, lieutenant governor of the Dominion of New England, sat down in Boston to write a letter to Thomas Povey, an administrative agent for King James II. The letter, preserved in volume three of John Romeyn Brodhead's Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, runs through the news of the summer. In the middle of it, Nicholson reports that he has eight pirates in prison. He calls them the remainder of "Yankey's and Jacob's company." He notes that one of the prize ships of that company had been taken north into Nova Scotia, to a place he records as Port-la-Bare, and burned there. Twenty-four years later, in 1712, the same Francis Nicholson would be appointed Governor of Nova Scotia. The man who in 1688 reported pirates burning a ship somewhere on the Nova Scotia coast would, in 1712, take over the colony where it had happened. The letter is one of the earliest documentary references to pirate activity in Nova Scotia waters with a named crew and a named place. The crew was named after a Dutch sea captain who had died in the Gulf of Honduras seven months earlier. His name was Jan Willems. The English called him Yankey. Petit-Goave The records of Jan Willems begin in 1680, raiding the Spanish port of Rio de la Hacha on the Caribbean coast of present-day Colombia, in the company of the English privateer Thomas Paine. He was Dutch by birth, but he sailed out of Petit-Goave on the western coast of Saint-Domingue, the French port that served as the headquarters of the French flibustier fleet. The flibustiers were the French-licensed buccaneers, French in commission and increasingly multinational in crew, who raided Spanish shipping out of Petit-Goave and the older base at Tortuga. By the 1680s the French governor of Saint-Domingue was issuing commissions cheaply, and a Dutch captain who had something to lose in his home ports could find a working flag at the French quay. In September 1681 Willems sailed from Bocas del Toro with the English privateer William Wright. The two captured a Spanish merchantman carrying sugar and tobacco off the New Granada coast. Willems took the prize as his own ship and gave his old barque to Wright, who burned his and sailed off in the captured one. They tried to sell the Spanish cargo at the Dutch port of Curacao, but the governor refused to do business with them. They wintered at Isla Aves and the Islas Roques. Willems had no commission of his own at this point. Wikipedia's entry on him, drawing on Konstam and Marley, states the matter plainly: he captured the merchantman while sailing with Wright, "although Willems did not have a commission himself." He was at the French quay because the French would shelter him. He was raiding Spanish shipping because everyone at Petit-Goave was raiding Spanish shipping. The legal classification was, in the language of seventeenth-century law, somewhere between privateer and pirate. The Beneerson Little maritime histories call him "Dutch flibustier-in-French-service." The Roatan Gathering On April 7, 1683, twelve hundred buccaneers gathered at French Harbour on the island of Roatan, in the Gulf of Honduras. They came in their ships from across the Caribbean to plan a single raid. The convener was a Dutch sea rover named Nicholas "Claas" Van Hoorn, and the target he proposed was Veracruz, the largest and most important Spanish port on the Atlantic seaboard of Mexico. Veracruz had a population of more than six thousand and was considered impregnable. No buccaneer attempt had been made on it for nearly a century, since Sir Francis Drake and John Hawkins had lost most of their men trying it in 1568. The 1683 Roatan meeting was the largest convocation of the Brethren of the Coast in their history. The Brethren were a loose multinational federation of English, French, and Dutch buccaneers, mostly Protestant by religion, mostly anti-Spanish by trade. They met irregularly across the Caribbean and rarely committed themselves to a single operation, but Van Hoorn had assembled a force large enough to make Veracruz attemptable. Among the captains present were Laurens de Graaf, the formidable Dutch flibustier who had defected from Spanish service as a gunner of the Armada de Barlovento, Michel de Grammont the French commander, Michiel Andrieszoon the Dutchman from Saint-Domingue, and Jan Willems. It was Willems and de Graaf who took the lead. On the morning of May 17, 1683, the buccaneers approached Veracruz with two captured Spanish galleons in the vanguard, the Spanish flags still flying. The harbour watchmen, seeing what looked like friendly merchant ships at first light, raised no alarm. Willems and de Graaf landed a small force on the shore before sunrise, moved through the streets, and took out the city's defences while most of the Spanish garrison was still asleep in their barracks. By the time the main buccaneer fleet entered the harbour, Veracruz was already lost. They looted the city for three or four days, took Spanish hostages for ransom, and retreated only when the New Spain fleet appeared on the horizon. The dispute over the hostages led to a falling out, and de Graaf and Van Hoorn fought a duel. Van Hoorn survived the duel but died two weeks later of an infected wound. Cartagena and the Princesa Willems came out of Veracruz with his reputation made. In late November of the same year he rejoined de Graaf, Andrieszoon, and Francois Le Sage to attack Spanish shipping off Cartagena. The governor of Cartagena, Juan de Pando Estrada, commandeered two private slave ships and gave chase, and a running fight developed in the waters outside the harbour. In 1683 Governor Thomas Lynch of Jamaica, having failed to capture the French pirate Jean Hamlin with two Royal Navy ships and the retired pirate-hunter John Coxon, offered the commission to Willems. Willems refused even to look for Hamlin. The decisive engagement came on Christmas Eve, 1684, outside Cartagena. Eight hundred Spanish defenders attacked the buccaneer blockade. Ninety Spaniards were killed against twenty buccaneer dead. The Spanish 40-gun San Francisco ran aground and the 34-gun Paz and a smaller galliot were captured. De Graaf refloated the San Francisco as his new flagship and gave Willems his old one, the Princesa. On Christmas Day the buccaneers released their Spanish prisoners ashore with a note for Governor Estrada thanking him for the Christmas presents. In 1685 Willems sailed with de Graaf and de Grammont in the raid on Campeche. By 1686 he was operating alongside the Dutch buccaneer Jacob Evertson. The Beneerson Little histories describe Willems by this point as one of the three most powerful and famous buccaneers of the 1680s, alongside de Graaf and de Grammont. When the English captain Joseph Bannister, fleeing Jamaica in his ship Golden Fleece, tried to attach himself to a buccaneer flotilla, the French commanders of the flotilla had Willems among them and refused to surrender Bannister to a Royal Navy demand for his return. The Crew of La Trompeuse The crew Willems sailed with in his last years was an unusual collection. The French pirate Jean Hamlin had captured the frigate La Trompeuse in 1682 and used it to take eighteen Jamaican ships in a matter of months. When Royal Navy ships finally caught up with him at St Thomas in late 1683, they burned La Trompeuse in the harbour, but Hamlin escaped. He resurfaced in 1684 with a new ship, La Nouvelle Trompeuse, fitted out in New England, but he soon disappeared from the documentary record, possibly to Brazil. Of his original crew, almost fifty signed aboard the ships of Jacob Evertson and Jan Willems. This is the crew Willems took to the Gulf of Honduras in 1687. On July 4, 1688, the Spanish captain Guarin was dispatched from Cuba in a half-galley with an urca to find a pirate frigate, brigantine, and canoe reported at Santa Lucia, Cuba, described in the Spanish records as commanded by "the notorious Dutch flibustier-in-French-service Jan Willems aka Captain Yanky." Guarin failed to engage them and was himself imprisoned by his own countrymen in Havana when he returned. That Spanish dispatch is the last confirmed sighting of Willems alive. Sometime in early 1688, Willems died in the Gulf of Honduras. The cause is not recorded. Most sources agree that Evertson died with him, in the same engagement or the same passage. The Italian Wikipedia identifies the Captain who absorbed their remaining crew as George Peterson. By August 1688 Peterson was off the coast of New England with the Yankey-and-Jacob remnant in tow. The Oak Island link, August 1688 Captain Francis Nicholson, writing from Boston on August 31, 1688, describes what happened next. Captain Peterson, with his ship and seventy men, was sighted at Rhode Island and escaped capture there. Soon after he was at Martin's Vineyard, the old name for Martha's Vineyard, where he was specifically observed trading with Captain Andrew Belcher. Two other ships were involved, and one had brought with them a prize ship taken in the West Indies. The cargo of the prize included fifty hides and about forty elephant teeth. The trader Belcher purchased the hides and the elephant teeth. Nicholson's letter records the price at fifty-seven pounds in money, plus provisions that Belcher sent back to the pirates' "commerads." The detail that matters most for Oak Island is the carriage. The hides were not loaded onto Belcher's own vessel. They were put aboard Sir William Phips's ship. Belcher took the elephant teeth in his own ship, the Swan, then docked at London. William Phips, in August 1688, was the most famous treasure hunter in the Atlantic world. The previous year he had returned to England from the wreck site of the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion off the coast of Hispaniola, where his expedition had recovered approximately twenty-six tons of silver. He had been knighted by King James II in June 1687 for the achievement. The Concepcion recovery is one of the foundational documents in the Oak Island treasure-theory literature, since the bullion officially returned to the English Crown was substantially less than the wreck was believed to contain, and one branch of the Oak Island argument proposes that the missing Concepcion silver was cached on the Nova Scotia coast within Phips's network. Whatever the truth of that argument, the August 1688 transaction places Phips's ship as the carrier of pirate trade goods one year after the Concepcion voyage, in a transaction where the seller was a buccaneer crew, the buyer was Phips's known associate Andrew Belcher, and the cargo had been taken from a Spanish prize. The triangle of Phips, Belcher, and the Yankey crew sits in a single primary document, in the year between the Concepcion silver return and the disappearance of the missing bullion. [article:william-phips-the-treasure-of-the-concepcion] Andrew Belcher was also the grandfather of Jonathan Belcher Jr., the eighteenth-century Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia and Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Nova Scotia, whose name recurs in the early ownership records of Oak Island. The 1688 transaction is the first documented contact between the Belcher family and a pirate crew, and the Belcher family would continue to operate on the Nova Scotia coast for the next three generations. What happened to the prize ship is the part of Nicholson's letter that has drawn the most attention from Oak Island researchers. Captain Peterson sailed the prize north and took it, in Nicholson's spelling, to "Port-la-Bare in Nova Scotia." The pirates burned the ship there. The identification of Port-la-Bare with any modern Nova Scotia place name is not settled. Scott Clarke, who first brought the letter to wider attention in his book Oak Island Odyssey, reads it as a reference to the Mahone Bay area. Other plausible candidates include Port La Tour, Port Mouton, and the Acadian post at La Heve (Lahave), the principal French settlement on the south shore in 1688, a name that a New England writer might have rendered phonetically in any number of ways. What the letter establishes is that the Yankey-Jacob crew, having buried the bones of its captain in the Gulf of Honduras, ended its operational year burning a captured ship on the Nova Scotia coast in the late summer of 1688. The coast is the right one. The harbour cannot be pinned down. The Yankee Question The Dutch diminutive Janke, an affectionate form of Jan, is anglicized as Yankee. It is one of the two leading scholarly theories for the origin of the term that came to mean a New Englander, and later an American. Jan Willems was personally nicknamed "the Dutchy Yankey" by the English colonists who tracked his career through the Caribbean, and several language histories cite him by name as one of the earliest documented bearers of the nickname that would eventually attach itself to the inhabitants of the very coast where his last crew burned its last prize. The connection is etymological, not direct, but it is suggestive. The man whose crew came north to burn a ship at Port-la-Bare in 1688 may have been carrying the future name of the people who would, a century later, settle the lots on Oak Island. The Brethren and the Nicholson Document Nicholson's letter is significant for Oak Island for reasons that extend beyond the Belcher transaction. The Brethren of the Coast was the most successful pirate confederation of the seventeenth century. Its membership shows up repeatedly in the Oak Island theory literature: Henry Morgan, the Welsh privateer who became Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica, was its most famous figurehead. Edward Teach, who became Blackbeard, served his apprenticeship in its waters during Queen Anne's War. Bartholomew Sharp and Jean Levasseur sailed under its informal flag. Willems sat at the table of its largest single gathering, at French Harbour on April 7, 1683, in the company of the men who built and inherited its operational network. Francis Nicholson, the man who recorded the Yankey crew's Nova Scotia activity in his August 1688 letter, came back to the same coastline as its governor in 1712. He had been a lieutenant in the earl of Plymouth's regiment at Tangier, lieutenant governor of the Dominion of New England, lieutenant governor of Virginia, governor of Maryland, governor of Virginia, and governor of Nova Scotia from 1712 to 1715. The man who first wrote about pirates landing on the Nova Scotia coast in 1688 administered that coast a quarter century later. Whatever he knew about Port-la-Bare and the burned prize ship, he carried with him into the office. The 1688 transaction is documented. Andrew Belcher paid fifty-seven pounds to the Yankey-Jacob remnant for hides and elephant teeth at Martha's Vineyard, William Phips's ship carried the hides, and the prize ship the pirates had brought up from the Caribbean was burned in a Nova Scotia harbour the same season. The man whose name the crew carried, Jan "Yankey" Willems, had died in the Gulf of Honduras a few months before. He had been a Dutch buccaneer in French service who never held a commission of his own, who raided Veracruz and Campeche and Cartagena alongside the most powerful captains of his generation, and who attended the largest gathering of the Brethren of the Coast in its history. The record does not extend Willems himself to Nova Scotia. He died before his crew came north. The record does not identify Port-la-Bare with Mahone Bay. The wording of Nicholson's letter is not specific enough to pin a harbour. What the record does establish is that by August of 1688, a crew bearing the name and the seal of Willems's outfit was operating on the Nova Scotia coast, doing business with Phips's ship and Boston's most pirate-friendly merchant, and burning a captured ship in a place its writer called Port-la-Bare. The pirate theory of Oak Island, in its earliest form, begins not with Captain Kidd in 1699 but with the Yankey crew in 1688, six years earlier, on a coastline whose southern shore would within a century contain the Money Pit. Sources Primary Documents Letter of Captain Francis Nicholson to Thomas Povey, dated Boston, 31 August 1688. Reports the capture of "Yankey's and Jacob's company" pirates, the transaction between Captain Peterson and Andrew Belcher (Belsharr) at Martha's Vineyard, and the burning of a prize ship at "Port-la-Bare in Nova Scotia." Published in John Romeyn Brodhead, Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York; Procured in Holland, England, and France, Volume III. Albany: Weed, Parsons and Company, 1853. Held in original at the British Public Records Office. Spanish Council deposition of Captain Guarin, 4 July 1688. Records Spanish dispatch from Cuba in a piragua and urca to seek a pirate frigate, brigantine, and canoe at Santa Lucia, Cuba, identified as commanded by "Dutch flibustier-in-French-service Jan Willems aka Captain Yanky." The latest confirmed contemporary sighting of Willems alive. Cited in Beneerson Little, Pirate Ships, Pirate Prey, and Pirate Hunters, drawing on Spanish Council of the Indies archives. Letter of Sieur de Pouancay, Governor of Saint-Domingue, 1682. Describes Laurens de Graaf as a buccaneer captain under official French commission since 1675 or 1676. Establishes the legal framework of the Petit-Goave fleet to which Willems attached himself. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies, edited by J.W. Fortescue. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1899. Carries the official British dispatches on the Brethren of the Coast operations of the 1680s. Books and Published Research Clarke, Scott. Oak Island Odyssey: A Masonic Quest. Halifax, 2023. Brings the 1688 Nicholson letter to wider attention through Clarke's 2009 archival work, identifying the "Bellsharr" of the letter as Captain Andrew Belcher and proposing the Port-la-Bare reference as the Mahone Bay area. Konstam, Angus. Pirates: An Illustrated History. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2007, pages 118 to 119. Standard reference on the 1683 Veracruz raid and the role of Willems and de Graaf in the landing. Marley, David F. Historic Cities of the Americas: An Illustrated Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2005, pages 751 to 752. Detailed entry on the Cartagena blockade of 1683 and the distribution of captured Spanish warships among the buccaneer captains. Marley, David F. Wars of the Americas: A Chronology of Armed Conflict in the New World, 1492 to the Present. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 1998. Cross-references the Cartagena, Veracruz, and Campeche operations. Rogozinski, Jan. Pirates: Brigands, Buccaneers, and Privateers in Fact, Fiction, and Legend. New York: Da Capo Press, 1996. Standard biographical dictionary. Gosse, Philip. The Pirates' Who's Who. New York: Burt Franklin, 1924. The classic 20th-century compendium that first standardised the spelling of "Yankey Willems" in English-language sources. Exquemelin, Alexander. De Americaensche Zee Roovers, originally published in Dutch in 1678, translated as The Buccaneers of America. The contemporary surgeon's account of the early Brethren of the Coast under Henry Morgan and the others. Predates Willems's career, but establishes the institutional context. Little, Beneerson. The Buccaneer's Realm and The Golden Age of Piracy. Cited blog posts at benersonlittle.com draw on French and Spanish primary records to position Willems among the three most powerful flibustiers of the 1680s, alongside de Graaf and de Grammont. Reference and Tertiary Sources Wikipedia, Jan Willems (Dutch buccaneer). Synthesises Konstam, Marley, Gosse, Rogozinski, and Fortescue. Wikipedia, Jean Hamlin. Documents the transfer of approximately fifty of Hamlin's former crew to the ships of Evertson and Willems following the burning of La Trompeuse at St Thomas in 1683. Wikipedia, Francis Nicholson. Confirms the writer's career path from lieutenant governor of the Dominion of New England in 1688 through to Governor of Nova Scotia from 1712 to 1715. Italian Wikipedia, Yankey Willems. Identifies the Captain who absorbed the surviving crew as George Peterson. Encyclopedia Virginia, Francis Nicholson (1655-1728). University of Virginia. Detailed biographical entry on the writer of the 1688 letter. Golden Age of Piracy (goldenageofpiracy.org), Dutch Buccaneers section. Independent compilation of Willems's career drawing on the same Konstam, Marley, and Rogozinski material as Wikipedia. Trujillo Honduras Pages (trujillohonduras.com), the original online source identifying Willems's death location as the Gulf of Honduras in 1688. Roatan and the Brethren of the Coast Roatan Tourism Bureau, Pirates of Roatan: Between History and Legend in the Caribbean. Describes the buccaneer activity at Roatan and the place names that survive from the Brethren era. PAYA: The Roatan Lifestyle Magazine, "Terror of the Caribbean," 17 February 2020. Dates the 1683 Brethren of the Coast gathering at French Harbour, Roatan to April 7, 1683 and identifies its convener as Nicholas "Claas" Van Hoorn. Most detailed published account of the meeting. Golden Age of Piracy, Brethren of the Coast entry. Standard reference on the institutional structure of the seventeenth-century buccaneer federation. Etymology Pinstripe Alley, How the Yankees got their name, 28 May 2020. Cites Jan Willems as one of the early seventeenth-century bearers of the nickname "Yankey," sailing under the name "the Dutchy Yankey" through the Caribbean. Summarises the scholarly consensus that the term Yankee derives from the Dutch diminutive Janke. Caution on Conflated Identity The blog sevenswords.uk carries an article titled Jan Willems Yankey: Dutch Privateer, Barbary Admiral dated 4 March 2026, which conflates Yankey Willems with the unrelated earlier Dutch corsair Murad Reis the Younger, born Jan Janszoon van Haarlem, who sacked Baltimore in Ireland in 1631 and died around 1641. These are two different men separated by approximately sixty years. The sevenswords article should not be used as a source for Yankey Willems. ### Captain Kidd and the Hidden Maps URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/captain-kidd-and-the-hidden-maps The Privateer William Kidd was born around 1645 in Dundee, Scotland, and by the 1690s had established himself as a respected sea captain in New York. He owned property in Manhattan, attended the English Church, and moved in colonial high society. In 1695, the Earl of Bellomont, newly appointed governor of New York, Massachusetts Bay, and New Hampshire, offered Kidd a royal commission to hunt pirates and French vessels in the Indian Ocean. The backers behind the venture included some of the most powerful men in England, among them the Lord Chancellor and the Secretary of State. It was a legitimate assignment with powerful political sponsors, and Kidd sailed from New York in September 1696 aboard the Adventure Galley, a 34-gun warship with a crew of 150. The voyage went badly from the start. The crew grew mutinous, provisions ran low, and prizes proved elusive. Under pressure from his men, Kidd captured the Quedagh Merchant in January 1698, a 400-ton Armenian trading vessel sailing under French passes. Whether this constituted piracy or fell within the bounds of his commission has been debated for more than three centuries. Kidd insisted it was a lawful prize taken under French colours. But political winds in London had shifted against him. His powerful backers, now embarrassed by association, disowned him. By the time Kidd sailed north along the American coast in 1699, he was a wanted man. Gardiners Island: The Confirmed Burial Before surrendering to Governor Bellomont in Boston, Kidd made a stop that would cement his place in treasure-hunting lore. In June 1699, he buried a cache of valuables on Gardiners Island, a small private island off the eastern tip of Long Island. This is not legend. Bellomont had the deposit recovered and shipped to England, where it was catalogued and used as evidence at Kidd's trial. The inventory included over 1,000 troy ounces of gold, more than 2,000 troy ounces of silver, gold dust, rubies and other precious stones, silk, and 57 bags of sugar. At the time, this represented a substantial fortune, though far less than the full value of the Quedagh Merchant's cargo. Kidd was arrested in Boston on 6 July 1699, imprisoned for over a year, then shipped to London in chains. His trial at the Old Bailey in May 1701 was widely seen as politically motivated. The French passes from the Quedagh Merchant, which could have supported his defence, had conveniently disappeared. He was found guilty of piracy and the murder of a crewman named William Moore, whom he had struck with a wooden bucket during an argument. On 23 May 1701, Kidd was hanged at Execution Dock in Wapping. The rope broke on the first attempt. He was hanged a second time and his body was gibbeted over the Thames as a warning to others. To the end, Kidd insisted that he had hidden more treasure elsewhere and offered to lead his captors to it in exchange for his life. The offer was refused. That claim, made by a desperate man with a noose around his neck, launched centuries of searching. The Dying Sailor and the Origin of the Legend The connection between Kidd and Oak Island begins with a story first recorded in print in 1863 by the Liverpool Transcript, though it had been circulating orally among Nova Scotia settlers for decades before that. According to the tradition, a dying sailor from Kidd's crew confessed that treasure worth two million pounds had been buried on an island "east of Boston." The tale was vague enough to apply to dozens of islands along the Atlantic coast, but specific enough to capture the imagination of anyone who lived near one. When Daniel McGinnis found a circular depression beneath an old oak tree on Oak Island in 1795, with what was described as a ship's tackle block hanging from one of the branches, it was the Kidd legend he thought of first. That assumption shaped everything that followed. The Onslow Company, the Truro Company, and every early expedition dug with pirates in mind. The Money Pit was, from its very first excavation, understood as a pirate vault. Whether or not Kidd had anything to do with Oak Island, his name was the reason people started digging there, and the reason they never stopped. The Kidd-Palmer Maps In 1929, a retired English lawyer and collector of pirate relics named Hubert Palmer purchased a heavy oak bureau bearing the inscription "Captain William Kidd, Adventure Galley 1669." When a runner supporting the lid broke off, Palmer noticed the barely legible words "William Kidd, his chest" carved on it. The runner was hollow, sealed with wax stamped with an anchor. Inside was a brass tube containing a scrap of yellowed parchment depicting an unnamed island, marked with an X, the words "China Sea," and the initials "W.K. 1669." Over the following years, Palmer tracked down three more pieces of 17th century furniture said to have belonged to Kidd: two sea chests and a small workbox inscribed "William and Sarah Kidd, their box," found in Jersey in the Channel Islands. Each contained a hidden compartment, and each compartment held a hand-drawn map depicting what appeared to be the same island, with increasing levels of detail. The third map showed hills, a lagoon, reefs, four conspicuous dots, and a cross connected by a red zigzag line. It included a compass bearing and cryptic wording believed to be directions for recovering the treasure. The fourth was found beneath the beading of the workbox. After Palmer's death in 1949, the maps passed to his housekeeper, Elizabeth Dick, who took them to the British Museum. Map expert R.A. Skelton examined all four charts and expressed the opinion that they were genuine 17th century documents. Dick sold the maps around 1950 to an Englishman who later moved to Canada. Their current whereabouts are unknown. Many have noted that the island depicted in the Palmer charts bears a resemblance to both Gardiners Island and Oak Island, though others have argued the shape corresponds more closely to Juan Fernandez Island off the coast of Chile. The "China Sea" inscription, if taken at face value, points to none of these locations. Sceptics regard the maps as elaborate forgeries. Supporters argue that "China Sea" was a deliberate misdirection, a common pirate tactic to protect the real location of a cache. Wilkins, Hedden, and the Impossible Coincidence The maps gained unexpected prominence through a chain of events so improbable that it borders on farce. In 1935, British journalist Harold T. Wilkins published "Captain Kidd and His Skeleton Island," a historical fiction book about pirates and buried treasure. Palmer had refused to let Wilkins reproduce photographs of the Kidd charts, so Wilkins drew his own map from memory, inventing the treasure-hunting directions at his publisher's insistence. Two years later, R.V. Harris, a Halifax lawyer working for Oak Island treasure trove licence holder Frederick Blair, discovered the map in Wilkins' book. He noticed that it bore a striking resemblance to Oak Island. Harris identified fourteen correspondences between the fictional map and the real geography of the island, and only one minor discrepancy. The lagoon matched the swamp. The elevations matched the hills. The cross fell on the location of the Money Pit. Gilbert Hedden, a wealthy New Jersey businessman who had purchased the treasure trove licence, was electrified by the discovery. He had already found a triangle of beach stones on Oak Island laid out in the shape of a rough sextant, pointing toward the Money Pit. The distances between landmarks on the island corresponded with the directions on Wilkins' map when measured in old English rods. Hedden travelled to London in December 1937 to meet the author. The meeting was strange. Wilkins confessed that the map was entirely his own fabrication. But as Hedden described the drilled stones, the stone triangle, the Cave-in Pit, and the peculiar alignments on Oak Island, Wilkins became convinced he was the reincarnation of a 17th century pirate, possibly Kidd himself, and that his subconscious mind had conjured genuine instructions from some forgotten past life. Hedden walked away thinking Wilkins was, in his own words, "every bit as crazy as his book would make him seem." The coincidences between Wilkins' imaginary map and the real geography of Oak Island have never been satisfactorily explained. The William Kidd map, as drawn by Wilkins for his book. Henry Every and the Communal Bank A more ambitious version of the pirate theory places Kidd not as a lone depositor but as a partner in a larger operation. Henry Every, known as the "King of Pirates," pulled off what has been called the most profitable act of piracy in history when he seized the Mughal ship Ganj-i-Sawai in 1695, capturing a fortune estimated at several hundred thousand pounds in gold, silver, and jewels. Every vanished completely after the raid, and neither his treasure nor his body was ever recovered. According to a tradition that appears in the earliest accounts of the Oak Island mystery, Kidd and Every used the island as a communal bank, hiding their combined riches in a shared vault. The theory gained new life in 2014, when historian and metal detectorist Jim Bailey unearthed a 17th century Yemeni coin at a pick-your-own orchard in Middletown, Rhode Island. The coin was minted in 1693, consistent with the type of currency seized from the Ganj-i-Sawai. Further Yemeni coins turned up at sites across Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Testimony from captured members of Every's crew confirmed that at least one of their ships sailed from the Bahamas through Virginia and New England before crossing to Ireland, placing Every's men in American colonial waters in 1696. The coin finds prove that Every's crew passed through New England. They do not prove a connection to Nova Scotia, and no physical evidence on Oak Island has been directly linked to Every. But the geographical and chronological overlap between the two pirates remains one of the more compelling threads in the pirate tradition. Every had the treasure. Kidd had the confirmed habit of burying it. Oak Island sat between their known operating grounds. Evidence on the Island Several finds on Oak Island fall within the window of pirate activity. During Season 5 of The Curse of Oak Island, metal detection expert Gary Drayton recovered two 17th century English coins from the island's surface. The presence of contemporaneous British coins alongside the 17th century Spanish coin previously found in the Oak Island swamp was considered consistent with pirate operations, since pirate crews routinely handled currency from multiple nations. An earlier discovery adds an intriguing detail. During William Chappell's excavation in 1931, artefacts recovered at 127 feet included an axe, a fluke anchor, and a pick identified as a Cornish miner's pick. If authentic to the original deposit (rather than debris from prior search attempts), a Cornish miner's pick suggests the involvement of experienced tunnellers. Some proponents of the pirate theory have noted that Every was known to have recruited west countrymen, many of whom would have had experience working in the tin mines of Cornwall. Carbon dating of wood and other materials from the Money Pit has returned dates ranging from the early 1600s to the mid-1700s, a window that encompasses the careers of Kidd, Every, Blackbeard, and dozens of other pirates operating in Atlantic waters. The Case Against The strongest argument against Kidd as the builder of the Money Pit is one of scale. The shaft, with its precisely layered oak platforms every ten feet, its fills of charcoal, putty, and coconut fibre, and its apparent flood tunnel system connected to Smith's Cove, represents a major engineering project requiring significant manpower, technical knowledge, and time. Pirates were sailors and fighters, not civil engineers. They lived hard, spent freely, and rarely stayed in one place long enough to undertake anything approaching this level of construction. Then there is the problem of secrecy. A project of this size would have required dozens of workers, possibly more. Pirates were not known for keeping secrets. They drank, they moved between crews, and they talked. Beyond the dying sailor legend, no confession, no rumour, and no drunken boast connecting a specific pirate crew to Oak Island has ever surfaced in the historical record. Kidd's documented treasure, recovered from Gardiners Island, was buried in a shallow pit on an open beach. It required no engineering, no flood tunnels, and no imported materials. It was the act of a man in a hurry, not the work of a construction crew. Whether Kidd had a second, larger cache hidden elsewhere remains possible but unproven. What is certain is that his name, more than any other, is the reason Oak Island became a treasure island in the first place. ### Blackbeard, the Devil's Bargain URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/blackbeard-the-devil-s-bargain The Pirate Who Built a Brand Edward Teach was likely born in Bristol around the 1680s, though almost nothing is known of his early life. He served as a privateer during Queen Anne's War, the North American theatre of the War of the Spanish Succession, gaining experience in combat and seamanship under legitimate commission. When the war ended and the privateering commissions dried up, Teach, like hundreds of other former privateers, turned to piracy. His first documented appearance in the historical record comes in late 1716, when he was serving under the English pirate captain Benjamin Hornigold in the waters around the Bahamas. Teach quickly distinguished himself. In November 1717, he captured La Concorde, a large French slave ship, off the coast of Saint Vincent. He armed it with 40 cannons, renamed it the Queen Anne's Revenge, and began a twelve-month campaign of piracy that would make him the most feared marauder on the Atlantic seaboard. He attacked more than thirty English, French, and Spanish merchant vessels. He blockaded the port of Charleston, South Carolina, for several days, holding an entire city's shipping hostage in exchange for a chest of medicine. He cultivated terror as a weapon: a tall, broad man with a thick black beard tied into pigtails, who lit slow-burning fuses under his hat during battle to shroud himself in smoke. The image was deliberate. Teach understood that a ship that surrendered without a fight was more profitable than one that had to be taken by force. The Quote Blackbeard's connection to Oak Island comes down to six words. According to "A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates," published in 1724 under the name Captain Charles Johnson, one of Teach's crew asked him the night before his final battle whether his wife knew where his treasure was buried. Teach reportedly replied that nobody knew where it was "but himself and the Devil," and that the one who lived longest should take all. The General History, likely written by Daniel Defoe or a contemporary, appeared six years after Teach's death and is the single source for this exchange. The book is a mixture of genuine research, second-hand accounts, and outright fabrication, and historians have long debated which portions can be trusted. The quote may record an actual conversation relayed by surviving crew members who were captured and interrogated. It may also be a literary invention designed to sell books to a public hungry for pirate lore. There is no independent corroboration. Regardless of its authenticity, the quote attached itself to the Oak Island story early and has never let go. A buried treasure that only the Devil could find, on an island where six men have died searching: the narrative appeal is obvious, even if the evidentiary basis is thin. The Missing Fortune If Blackbeard accumulated a significant treasure during his career, it has never been found. In June 1718, the Queen Anne's Revenge ran aground near Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina. What is believed to be the wreck was discovered by divers in November 1996. Hundreds of thousands of artefacts have been recovered from the site in the decades since, including cannons, sword hilts, gold fragments, navigational instruments, and coins from the reign of Queen Anne. No large store of gold or silver was found aboard. After losing his flagship, Teach retreated to Ocracoke Island aboard the smaller Adventure. He accepted a royal pardon from Governor Charles Eden of North Carolina and briefly played at respectability, but was soon back to raiding. On 22 November 1718, Lieutenant Robert Maynard engaged Teach in close combat under orders from the Governor of Virginia, Alexander Spotswood. Teach boarded Maynard's sloop and was killed in the fighting, reportedly sustaining five gunshot wounds and twenty sword cuts before falling. Maynard cut off his head and hung it from the bowsprit. In the two weeks that followed, Maynard's men searched Ocracoke Island for the rumoured treasure. They were disappointed. The total haul amounted to casks of sugar, cocoa, indigo dye, a few bales of cotton, and a small quantity of gold dust. If Teach had a fortune hidden somewhere, it was not at Ocracoke, and it was not aboard his ships. The Oak Island Connection The most detailed case for Blackbeard's involvement with Oak Island was put forward by Jesse E. Boyd in a 1990 article published in the magazine Treasure Search/Found. Boyd proposed that Teach and his sometime partner Stede Bonnet, the so-called "Gentleman Pirate," used Oak Island as a haven where they could careen their ships and clean their barnacle-encrusted hulls with little fear of discovery. According to Boyd, Teach recovered a portion of a Spanish treasure fleet that was wrecked by a hurricane off the coast of Florida, and stored it on the island. Boyd's evidence was circumstantial at best. His most compelling point was a local legend that two Nova Scotian fishermen disappeared while investigating mysterious lights on Oak Island sometime around 1720, roughly coinciding with the final years of Teach's career. Beyond this, the case rested on geographical possibility rather than documented fact. Nova Scotia's coastline, with its hundreds of sheltered coves and uninhabited islands, certainly lay within the broader operating range of Golden Age pirates. Ned Low terrorised fishing fleets at Shelburne in 1720, and the governor of Fortress Louisbourg requested additional French naval protection against the pirate threat in the mid-1720s. Pirates were active in these waters. Whether Teach specifically was among them is another question entirely. The Problem Blackbeard's pirate career lasted roughly two years, from late 1716 to November 1718. That is an extraordinarily short window in which to accumulate a fortune large enough to justify the engineering effort the Money Pit represents, transport it to Nova Scotia, and construct an elaborate underground vault to protect it. His known movements during this period place him almost exclusively in the Caribbean and along the coast between the Carolinas and Virginia. No documented voyage takes him north of the Chesapeake. There is also a question of means. Despite his fearsome reputation, Teach may not have been as wealthy as the legend suggests. The inventory recovered after his death was modest. Pirate crews divided their plunder according to strict articles of agreement, with the captain typically receiving only two shares to a common sailor's one. Whatever Teach accumulated was split among dozens of men. The image of a pirate sitting atop a mountain of gold is largely a creation of 18th century publishing and 19th century illustration, particularly Howard Pyle's influential paintings for Harper's Magazine in the 1880s. No artefact recovered from Oak Island has been attributed to Blackbeard. No archival document, ship's log, or crew testimony places him in Mahone Bay. The connection rests entirely on a quote of uncertain provenance, a geographical possibility, and the enduring appeal of the most famous pirate who ever lived. In the hierarchy of Oak Island theories, Blackbeard is more myth than evidence, a name that attaches itself to buried treasure the way barnacles attach to a hull: persistently, but without much to hold onto. ### Olivier Levasseur, La Buse Cipher URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/la-buse-and-the-unsolved-cryptogram On the afternoon of July 7, 1730, a French pirate named Olivier Levasseur stood on the scaffold at Saint-Denis, on the island of Bourbon in the Indian Ocean. He had been captured near Fort Dauphin in Madagascar after nine years in hiding, and the charges against him were not in dispute. Levasseur had plundered ships across two oceans for the better part of fifteen years. According to a legend that has proven impossible to kill, he tore a necklace from his neck in his final moments, hurled it into the watching crowd, and shouted: "Mes tresors a qui saura comprendre." My treasures to he who will know how to understand. Inside the necklace was a slip of paper bearing seventeen lines of coded symbols. Nearly three hundred years later, the code has never been solved and the treasure has never been found. The Buzzard Levasseur was born in Calais around 1688, during the Nine Years' War. Most accounts describe him as the son of a wealthy bourgeois family, well educated, possibly trained as an architect. When the War of the Spanish Succession broke out in 1701, he obtained a letter of marque from King Louis XIV and became a privateer for the French crown, raiding enemy ships in the Caribbean. He was, in other words, a licensed pirate, operating with royal authority in the same Atlantic waters that wash the coast of Nova Scotia. When the war ended in 1714, Levasseur was ordered to return home with his ship. He refused. In 1716 he joined the pirate company of Benjamin Hornigold, whose crew at that time included a young Edward Teach, not yet known as Blackbeard. Levasseur also sailed with Samuel Bellamy, the so-called "Prince of Pirates," whose ship the Whydah was discovered off Cape Cod in 1984 carrying over four tons of gold and silver. These were not isolated operators. They were members of an interconnected Atlantic pirate network that stretched from the Caribbean to the African coast, from New England to Madagascar. Levasseur earned his nickname La Buse, "The Buzzard," for the speed and ferocity with which he attacked. By 1719, Levasseur had moved his operations to the Indian Ocean, working alongside pirates Howell Davis, Thomas Cocklyn, John Taylor, and Edward England off the coast of West Africa and Madagascar. It was this partnership with John Taylor that would lead to the single richest pirate capture in recorded history. The Nossa Senhora do Cabo On April 8, 1721, Levasseur and Taylor, commanding the ships Victory and Cassandra, arrived at the island of Reunion. There they found a 700-ton Portuguese cargo ship, the Nossa Senhora do Cabo, lying at anchor at Saint-Denis. The ship had been caught in a violent storm on its voyage from Goa to Lisbon. Its main mast was broken, and two-thirds of its 72 cannons had been thrown overboard to prevent the ship from capsizing. It was, in every sense, a sitting target. The pirates boarded without resistance. What they found in the holds has been described by one historian as a "floating treasure house." The Nossa Senhora was carrying the retiring Viceroy of Portuguese India and the Archbishop of Goa, both returning to Lisbon with the accumulated wealth of their offices. The cargo included bars of gold and silver, chests of golden guineas, diamonds, pearls, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, fine silks, spices, religious art, and sacred vessels. Among the haul was an object that would become the centrepiece of the legend: the Flaming Cross of Goa, a crucifix said to stand seven feet tall, wrought from pure gold and encrusted with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. It was so heavy that three men were required to carry it from the ship to the pirates' vessel. The plunder was so vast that the pirates did not bother to rob the passengers of their personal belongings. The Viceroy was released for a ransom of 2,000 dollars. When the spoils were divided, each ordinary crew member received approximately 50,000 pounds in golden guineas and 42 diamonds. Levasseur and Taylor, as captains, claimed the lion's share of the remaining gold, silver, and artefacts. Levasseur took the Flaming Cross. [article:sacred-cargo-relics-crossing-oceans] Nine Years in Hiding After the Nossa Senhora raid, Levasseur attempted to retire. He settled in the Seychelles, hoping to live quietly on his fortune. The French government offered amnesty to any pirate who surrendered, but there was a condition: the pirate must forfeit his treasure. Levasseur refused. He became a fugitive, moving between the islands of the Indian Ocean for nearly a decade. He was finally captured in 1730 near Fort Dauphin, Madagascar, and transported aboard the naval vessel La Meduse to Saint-Denis on Bourbon Island, where he was sentenced to hang. The details of what happened at the scaffold vary by source. Some accounts describe the necklace and the cryptogram. Others say the coded paper was concealed on his person. What most versions agree on is the challenge he issued to the crowd: find my treasure, if you can understand the clue. The Cryptogram The seventeen-line cipher that bears Levasseur's name first appeared in print in 1934, when the French historian and librarian Charles de La Ronciere published a book titled Le Flibustier Mysterieux: Histoire d'un tresor cache. La Ronciere claimed to have received the cryptogram through a chain of possession running from the original document through a notary on the island of Mahe in the Seychelles, a woman named Madame Savy who was a descendant of a pirate named Nageon de L'Estang, and eventually to the Bibliotheque Nationale de France in Paris. La Ronciere identified the cipher as a pigpen cipher, a geometric substitution system in which letters of the alphabet are replaced by fragments of a grid pattern. This was not an obscure method. The pigpen cipher was widely used by the Freemasons throughout the eighteenth century to encrypt lodge records, ritual documents, and correspondence between lodges. It was so closely associated with the fraternity that it became known simply as the Freemason's Cipher. Variations of the same system had been used by the Rosicrucians since the early seventeenth century, and there is evidence of the Knights Templar employing a related substitution cipher during the Crusades. The cryptogram of Olivier Levasseur. La Ronciere decrypted the cipher into French plaintext, but the result was largely incomprehensible. Fragments of recognisable French appeared alongside garbled text that read more like a folk remedy or a spell than a set of directions to buried treasure. One line appeared to reference cooking pigeons and removing their hearts. Whether this was the result of deliberate obfuscation, repeated miscopying over two centuries, or a cipher that requires an additional key to fully decode has been debated ever since. Some researchers believe the symbols contain embedded numerical values that function as coordinates or measurements, hidden within what appears to be nonsense text. Others have concluded that the cryptogram is a twentieth-century invention by La Ronciere himself, noting that no mention of a coded document, a necklace, or a gallows speech appears in any contemporary account of Levasseur's execution. [article:rosicrucians] The Wreck In July 2025, archaeologists from the Center for Historic Shipwreck Preservation in Massachusetts confirmed what treasure hunters had long suspected. The wreck of the Nossa Senhora do Cabo had been found on the seafloor near Nosy Boraha, a small island off the northeast coast of Madagascar that was once the most notorious pirate haven in the Indian Ocean. After sixteen years of fieldwork, the team led by Brandon Clifford and Mark Agostini of Brown University identified the wreck through analysis of hull remains, artefact assemblages, and primary source accounts. Among the more than 3,300 artefacts recovered from the site were gold coins inscribed with Arabic writing, pieces of Chinese porcelain, cowrie shells, and religious figurines carved from wood and ivory, including an image of the Virgin Mary and an ivory plaque bearing the inscription "INRI" in gold letters. These devotional objects were almost certainly made in Goa and were being shipped to Lisbon when the pirates intervened. The estimated value of the recovered material exceeds 138 million dollars. The Flaming Cross of Goa was not among the finds, consistent with the historical accounts that Levasseur took it with him when the spoils were divided. The Oak Island Connection Levasseur's treasure is traditionally associated with the Indian Ocean, not the Atlantic. The searches for his buried hoard have focused on the Seychelles, Reunion, and Madagascar. No artefact recovered on Oak Island has been directly linked to the Nossa Senhora do Cabo or to Levasseur personally. But the connections that run beneath the surface are harder to dismiss. Levasseur began his career as a privateer for Louis XIV in the Caribbean, operating in the same Atlantic waters and during the same decades as the activity dated on Oak Island by carbon analysis. He sailed with Benjamin Hornigold, Edward Teach, and Samuel Bellamy, all of whom worked the Atlantic seaboard from the Caribbean to New England. The pirate networks of this period did not respect the boundaries that modern maps impose. A captain who sailed the Caribbean in 1716 could be operating off West Africa in 1719 and the Indian Ocean in 1721. The routes were fluid, the crews were interchangeable, and the harbours of Nova Scotia sat directly on the shipping lanes between Europe, the Caribbean, and the African coast. [article:blackbeard-the-devil-s-bargain] Then there is the cipher itself. The pigpen system used in the Levasseur cryptogram is a Masonic cipher, and Freemasonry is woven through Oak Island's documented history at every level. Frederick Blair, R.V. Harris, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and many of the early searchers were Freemasons. The inscribed stone reportedly found in the Money Pit at ninety feet, bearing symbols that no one could read, has invited comparison with coded Masonic systems for over two centuries. If Levasseur was a Freemason, as the cipher strongly suggests, he belonged to the same fraternal network that appears repeatedly in the Oak Island record. [article:the-roosevelt-connection] Levasseur's associate Nageon de L'Estang adds another thread. Among L'Estang's possessions were found letters referring to Levasseur's treasure, including three additional cryptograms and two letters said to reveal the locations of hidden caches across the Indian Ocean. In one letter to his brother, L'Estang wrote that Levasseur, whom he called "our captain," had made sure L'Estang was a Freemason before entrusting him with his papers and secrets. The deliberate confirmation of Masonic membership before the transfer of treasure documents is a detail that resonates with the fraternal secrecy that characterises so much of the Oak Island story. [article:freemasons-on-oak-island-the-masonic-connection] The Parallel Whether Levasseur's treasure lies beneath the Seychelles, on the seafloor off Madagascar, or somewhere else entirely, his story mirrors Oak Island's in ways that go beyond the obvious pirate connection. Both involve an elaborately concealed treasure. Both involve a coded message that has resisted solution. Both involve Masonic symbolism at critical junctures. And both have consumed the lives of searchers who were unable to walk away. Reginald Cruise-Wilkins stumbled across the Levasseur mystery in 1947 while recovering from malaria in the Seychelles. He spent the rest of his life excavating on Mahe Island, finding pirate-era artefacts but never the main cache. After his death, his son John took up the search. As of the most recent reports, John Cruise-Wilkins was still digging. The pattern will be familiar to anyone who has followed Oak Island. The treasure is always close. The evidence is always tantalising. The next dig is always the one that will break through. What makes Levasseur's story distinct is the cryptogram. Oak Island has its inscribed stone, its mysterious symbols, its geometric alignments. Levasseur had seventeen lines of pigpen cipher and a dying challenge to a crowd of strangers. Both puzzles remain unsolved. Both continue to attract people who believe the answer is there, waiting for someone with the right key. ### Bartholomew Roberts URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/bartholomew-roberts Before dawn on 21 June 1720, a single ten-gun sloop entered Trepassey harbour on Newfoundland's Avalon Peninsula. Her black flag carried a death's head and a sword-arm holding a cutlass. Her musicians played from the deck. Twenty-two merchant vessels and a hundred and fifty fishing boats lay at anchor in the bay. Their captains and crews, roughly twelve hundred sailors in total, abandoned every ship without firing a shot. The man at the helm was Bartholomew Roberts, the Welsh pirate who would take more than four hundred prizes in three years and become the most successful pirate of the Golden Age. He spent two weeks in the port. He sailed away with a new flagship. And before he came north that summer, he had raided mainland Nova Scotia. Of all the pirates whose names attach to the Oak Island question, Roberts is the one whose presence in Mahone Bay's home waters in the early eighteenth century is best documented. [article:pirates] The Trepassey Raid Roberts came up from the Caribbean in the spring of 1720, chased out of the West Indies by French pirate hunters after a damaging engagement off Barbados. Ferryland was his first Newfoundland stop. Then Trepassey, the larger Avalon Peninsula port and one of the most important nodes in the migratory cod fishery. An eyewitness named William Matthew, whose account is preserved in the Boston Gazette of 22 August 1720, described Roberts's flag as "a death's head and an arm with a cutlass." For two weeks Roberts kept the port. He took the Bristol Galley as his new flagship and renamed her Royal Fortune, the first of several ships he would give that name. A fisherman witness, cited in the modern Golden Age of Piracy reference compiled by Wayne Savage, said that Roberts burned only one ship and actually paid for supplies. A General History of the Pyrates attributed to Captain Charles Johnson and published in 1724 describes wider destruction. Either account establishes the same point. For two weeks in June 1720, Roberts had operational control of one of the busiest ports in eastern Canada. The Nova Scotia Operations Trepassey is the famous part of the northern campaign. The less famous part is what happened before it. The Wikipedia biographical entry on Roberts, drawing on Aubrey Burl's 2006 biography and Richard Sanders's 2007 work, records that the Fortune "next headed northwards towards Newfoundland, raiding Canso, Nova Scotia, and capturing a number of ships around Cape Breton and the Newfoundland banks." A May 2025 piece in the Penticton Herald, drawing on Guysborough County local history, describes Roberts's Canso visit in concrete terms. Dressed in a crimson coat, gold chain and a feathered hat, Roberts stormed into Canso Harbour, stole what he pleased, and burned what he did not. Canso sits on the easternmost mainland of Nova Scotia, by the strait that separates the mainland from Cape Breton. By sea, the run from Canso to Mahone Bay is roughly one hundred and fifty to two hundred nautical miles along the same Atlantic coastline. Roberts entered that harbour and worked it without opposition. After Canso, Roberts worked his way around Cape Breton, taking ships in the banks fisheries and at Ferryland on the Avalon shore, before the larger Trepassey raid on 21 June. Through July 1720 he captured nine or ten French ships off the Grand Banks; one of them, refitted with twenty-six guns, became the Good Fortune. Captain Samuel Carry of the Samuel, taken on 13 July 1720 about thirty to forty leagues east of the Newfoundland banks, gave the Boston News-Letter of 20 August 1720 the earliest American newspaper account of the new pirate. The Mira River Shipyard Tradition The Cape Breton connection is the substantive part of the Roberts case for Oak Island. A modern article by writer and historian David Dow, published as "Pirate Shipyard on the Mira River" in Cape Breton's Magazine issue 17, August 1977, on pages 43 to 45, argued that Roberts maintained a hidden careening yard on the Mira River, the long tidal river that drains into Mira Bay on the southeast coast of Cape Breton Island. Dow's argument rested on physical features still visible at the site. A sloping sandy beach suitable for hauling and cleaning a ship. A man-made ramp. The remains of a mill race and a dam, interpreted as the water supply for a stamp mill used in ironwork. Cobbled flattened positions on the cliffs above the cove that Dow read as gun emplacements. The cove is concealed from the bay outside and lies out of cannon range from open water. Dow's reading was that ordinary shipyards in the period sat in trade centres surrounded by merchants and chandlers; this one was deliberately hidden. Vanessa Childs Rolls, a local historian whose column appears in the Cape Breton Post, visited the site and confirmed the features Dow described. She also notes that the legend is contested. Some local writers argue the Mira River shipyard story was developed for tourism in the late twentieth century, and there is no surviving documentary evidence connecting Roberts personally to the site that predates Dow's 1977 article. What Dow does have, from outside Cape Breton, is the local history of Trepassey, Newfoundland, which describes the 1720 raider as "a Captain Roberts from Mira River." That phrasing comes from a community independent of any Cape Breton tourism interest, and predates the 1977 piece. The Mira River sits roughly two hundred and fifty nautical miles east of Mahone Bay along the same Atlantic coast, in waters Roberts demonstrably operated in. If the tradition holds, he kept the closest documented pirate base of operations to Oak Island of any famous name in the entire Golden Age. How Roberts Worked Roberts ran one of the most disciplined pirate operations of the era. The Pyrate Articles he drew up for his crew, preserved in A General History of the Pyrates, governed the distribution of plunder, the conduct of voting, the carrying of women aboard, the use of candles after dark, and the resolution of quarrels. He preferred tea to rum. He banned gambling. He observed the Sabbath. His crew were drawn from press and from volunteers and were paid in shares from a common pot. His operations were systematic in a way that distinguished him from earlier buccaneers. He used flags to deceive merchant captains into letting his ships approach. He recruited deliberately, prizing navigators and shipwrights. He careened his ships at regular intervals, which is the discipline that makes the Mira River tradition geographically and operationally coherent. A careening yard out of sight of trade routes, defensible from the cliffs above, with mill machinery for ironwork, fits the operational pattern of a captain who took prizes faster than he could repair the ships he wanted to keep. His career moved at a tempo no earlier pirate matched. Over thirty months he took more than four hundred prizes. He moved between West Africa, the Caribbean, Brazil, and the North Atlantic in deliberate seasonal patterns. The June-to-September northern campaign of 1720 fits that pattern. Cape Breton in that period was largely unsettled by Europeans, lay close to the Great Circle Route used by treasure ships bound from the Spanish Main back to Europe, and offered cover within a day's sail of the French fortress at Louisbourg. For a captain who needed a maintained but hidden base on the Atlantic coast, Cape Breton was the obvious choice. The Wealth Trail Roberts's largest single haul came in late 1719, off the Brazilian coast at the Bay of Todos os Santos, where he and his crew took a Portuguese galleon carrying gold worth tens of thousands of moidores and a diamond-studded gold cross intended for King John V of Portugal. The cross became Roberts's personal ornament and was reported around his neck whenever he went into battle. Within weeks of taking it, in October 1719 at the Surinam River, his quartermaster Walter Kennedy mutinied while Roberts was pursuing a brigantine and absconded with most of the plunder aboard the Royal Rover. Kennedy reached Scotland, lost most of his crew to the Edinburgh assizes (nine were hanged), spent his share in Dublin and London, and was himself hanged at Execution Dock on 21 July 1721. That part of the Roberts wealth is accounted for. The rest is harder to track. Between his recovery from Barbados in early 1720 and his death at Cape Lopez in February 1722, Roberts took close to four hundred more vessels. Their cargoes ranged from cod and salt to tobacco, sugar, slaves, and gold dust. Most was traded, spent, or distributed in shares. Some was hidden ashore. His final large haul, eight pounds of gold dust per ship from eleven slave ships at Whydah in January 1722, was in his cabin on the Royal Fortune three weeks later when Captain Chaloner Ogle of HMS Swallow found him. The standard scholarly account, drawn from Marcus Rediker's Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age (2004), records that Ogle took gold dust from Roberts's cabin after the capture. King George I granted Ogle the right to retain the captured ships and the residual treasure. Ogle was knighted in 1723. Two specific portions of the Roberts wealth are inventoried in the historical record: the Portuguese galleon haul taken by Kennedy in late 1719, and the Whydah gold dust taken by Ogle in February 1722. What passed through the Cape Breton operations in the summer of 1720, and through any return visits his crews might have made before the move to West Africa, is not. The Mira River yard, if it existed, served his fleet during that exact window. Cape Lopez and the End On 10 February 1722, HMS Swallow under Captain Chaloner Ogle engaged Roberts's flagship Royal Fortune at Cape Lopez on the coast of modern Gabon. Roberts dressed for the action as he always did, in a crimson damask waistcoat and breeches, a red feather in his hat, the Portuguese diamond cross at his neck, a sword in his hand, and two pairs of pistols slung over his shoulders. He was killed in the first effective broadside by grapeshot to the throat. His body was weighted and thrown overboard at his own standing order, before HMS Swallow could board and take the body for public display. The action continued for two hours after his death. Two hundred and sixty-four of his men were taken. The trial at Cape Coast Castle in modern Ghana, conducted by a Court of Admiralty between 28 March and 20 April 1722, was the largest mass pirate trial in history. Fifty-two pirates were hanged, eighteen of them in chains. Twenty were sentenced to forced labour in West African mines. Seventy enslaved Africans who had been aboard the pirate ships were sold back into slavery. The trial transcript, preserved in the National Archives in London, names every defendant and records the evidence against each. It is the most complete documentary record of any pirate crew of the period. What Roberts Brings to the Oak Island Question Roberts is the one named pirate of the Golden Age who demonstrably raided mainland Nova Scotia. He is the one named pirate of the Golden Age with a sustained local-history tradition of a maintained operating base on the Atlantic coast of Cape Breton, less than three hundred nautical miles from Oak Island along the same shoreline. He operated in the waters Mahone Bay opens onto, in the period some Oak Island dating evidence points to. He commanded more men, more operational discipline, and more sustained wealth than any contemporary in those waters. The pirate-era theory of Oak Island does not require Bartholomew Roberts personally as the depositor of anything specific. It requires that pirates of his profession were present in those waters in those years, with the manpower and the operational discipline to do the work attributed to them. Roberts is the single best-documented example of a pirate who was. Sources This article draws on contemporary newspaper accounts and trial records from 1720 to 1722, the standard primary work of pirate history published in 1724, the four modern biographies of Bartholomew Roberts, scholarship on the Golden Age of Piracy, regional Atlantic Canada pirate history including the local traditions of Cape Breton and Newfoundland, and the established Oak Island reference literature. Every named claim in the body of the article above traces to one of the following sources. Contemporary Sources, 1720 to 1724 Captain Charles Johnson, A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, T. Warner, London, 1724. The primary contemporary source for Roberts's career, written within two years of his death and drawing on the Cape Coast Castle trial proceedings. Authorship has been debated since the 1930s, when some scholars proposed Daniel Defoe as the writer behind the Johnson pseudonym; that attribution is no longer widely supported. Boston Gazette, 22 August 1720. The William Matthew eyewitness description of Roberts's Jolly Roger as "a death's head and an arm with a cutlass," recorded after the Trepassey raid. Boston News-Letter, 20 August 1720. The earliest American newspaper account of Roberts, drawn from Captain Samuel Carry of the Samuel, taken by Roberts on 13 July 1720 about thirty to forty leagues east of the Newfoundland banks. Court of Admiralty trial records, Cape Coast Castle, Gold Coast, 28 March to 20 April 1722. The largest mass pirate trial in history, where 264 of Roberts's men faced charges and 52 were hanged. Modern Biographies of Roberts Richard Sanders, If a Pirate I Must Be: The True Story of Bartholomew Roberts, King of the Caribbean, Aurum Press, London, 2007 (Skyhorse Publishing reissue, 2014). The most recent scholarly biography, drawing on the trial records and the letters of colonial governors. Aubrey Burl, Black Barty: Bartholomew Roberts and His Pirate Crew 1718-1723, Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 2006. The fullest narrative account, with particular detail on the West African operations and the Cape Lopez engagement. Terry Breverton, Black Bart Roberts: The Greatest Pirate of Them All, Glyndwr Publishing, Llanrwst, 2004 (Pelican Publishing reprint). The Welsh perspective, by a historian based in Pembrokeshire near Roberts's birthplace. Stanley Richards, Black Bart, Christopher Davies, Llandybie, 1966. The earliest dedicated modern biography of Roberts, still cited for its handling of the Newfoundland operations. Golden Age of Piracy Scholarship Marcus Rediker, Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age, Beacon Press, Boston, 2004. The standard modern academic treatment of pirate society. Source for the inventory taken by Captain Chaloner Ogle from Roberts's cabin after the Cape Lopez battle. David Cordingly, Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates, Random House, New York, 1995. The standard popular history of the era, including the operational pattern of careening at hidden coves. Colin Woodard, The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down, Harcourt, New York, 2007. Useful comparative material on contemporaries of Roberts and the Royal Navy response. Peter Earle, The Pirate Wars, Methuen, London, 2003. Scholarly treatment of the suppression campaign that ended Roberts's career and the Golden Age with him. Angus Konstam, Piracy: The Complete History, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, 2008. The standard reference on pirate ship types, careening practice, and tactical engagements. Atlantic Canada Pirate History Edward Rowe Snow, Pirates and Buccaneers of the Atlantic Coast, Yankee Publishing Company, Boston, 1944 (Commonwealth Editions centennial reissue, 2004). The classic Atlantic coast survey. The chapter titled "Buccaneer Roberts, the Gentleman Pirate Who Despoiled Newfoundland" is one of the earliest twentieth-century treatments of Roberts's northern campaign. Harold Horwood and Edward Butts, Pirates and Outlaws of Canada, 1610-1932, Doubleday Canada, Toronto, 1984 (Lynx Images reissue, 2003). The first wide-ranging popular history of pirates in Canadian waters, with attention to Peter Easton, the Cape Breton coast, and the privateer tradition. Harold Horwood, Plunder & Pillage: Atlantic Canada's Brutal and Bloodthirsty Pirates and Privateers, Formac Publishing, Halifax. A posthumous collection of Horwood's pirate writings, including material on Roberts's 1720 northern voyage. Dan Conlin, Pirates of the Atlantic: Robbery, Murder and Mayhem off the Canadian East Coast, Formac Publishing, Halifax, 2009 (expanded edition 2026). The current standard work by the curator of the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, with the most rigorous separation of documented pirate activity from folklore. Cape Breton Local History David Dow, "Pirate Shipyard on the Mira River," Cape Breton's Magazine, Issue 17 (August 1977), pp. 43 to 45. The article that introduced the Mira River shipyard tradition into modern circulation, including the on-site physical features Dow attributed to a hidden careening operation. Vanessa Childs Rolls, "The Legend of the Pirate Shipyard," column for the Cape Breton Post. A local historian's modern review of the Mira shipyard site, confirming the physical features Dow described while acknowledging the contested status of the Roberts attribution. The History of Trepassey, town of Trepassey, Newfoundland and Labrador. The local-history source that describes the 1720 raider as "a Captain Roberts from Mira River," cited via Childs Rolls. Institutional and Heritage Sources "Bartholomew Roberts (Black Bart)," Canadian Encyclopedia, Historica Canada. The standard national-encyclopedia entry on Roberts, confirming his June 1720 passage along the Nova Scotia coast. Robert Blyth, Captain Ogle's Cup: A Pirate Adventure, Royal Museums Greenwich, Spotlight series. The institutional treatment by the museum that holds Captain Chaloner Ogle's commemorative coconut cup, including documentation of the royal grant of the captured pirate treasure to Ogle and his knighthood in 1723. "When Black Bart Burned Trepassey," Product of Newfoundland heritage project. Newfoundland-Labrador heritage account of the Trepassey raid, drawing on local historical tradition. Penticton Herald, "A trove of tales, a labour of friendship," 21 May 2025. Account drawing on Guysborough County local history of Roberts's Canso raid. "Bartholomew Roberts," Wikipedia article, accessed May 2026. Aggregated secondary source useful for navigating the Roberts literature, with citations to the works above. ### Captain James Anderson: The Pirate Oak Island Owner URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/captain-james-anderson-the-pirate-who-lived-on-oak-island In 2009, the researcher Scott Clarke drove to Wolfville, Nova Scotia, to meet a man named Bill Anderson, a direct descendant of an eighteenth-century sea captain whose chest had stayed in the family for more than two centuries. Inside the chest, alongside its original key, was a document of red wax and faded ink dated June 24, 1791. The Chester Lodge No. 9 secretary had written it to certify that Brother James Anderson stood as a regular Master Mason of the lodge, had conducted himself honourably during his stay there, and was recommended to fellow Masons wherever he travelled next. It was signed by the lodge secretary Thomas Thomson and the lodge master Roger English. [article:freemasons-on-oak-island-the-masonic-connection] Eight years later, a different branch of the family, in Wolfville again, would open the same chest for cameras during Season 5, Episode 2 of The Curse of Oak Island. Inside it the team also found a purchase document for a schooner called the Betsy, acquired in 1778 for sixty-seven pounds and seventeen shillings, and four keys. Three of them fit nothing the family could identify. The man who carried that chest from Baltimore to Halifax to Lot 26 of Oak Island, and from there to his death in the West Indies one year after the Money Pit was discovered, is among the most thoroughly documented figures associated with the island. The record names him in Maryland Council minutes, in a letter to a future president of the United States, in the columns of the Pennsylvania Gazette, in the petitions of the American Loyalist Claims series held by the British Public Records Office, and in the founding attendance ledger of Chester Lodge No. 9. The pirate theory of Oak Island rests, in part, on him. Fells Point, 1772 to 1777 James Anderson was born about 1748 and by 1772 was leasing lot number twenty-two on Thames Street in the Fell's Point district of Baltimore, Maryland. He worked as a sea captain. He was respected enough among his neighbours that when John French of Fell's Point wrote his will in October 1774, he named Anderson as a friend, left him a pair of cast iron hand irons, a looking glass, a gilt-framed picture of the Crucifixion, and silver tea spoons, and appointed him guardian of his daughter Ellinor. By the following year Anderson had married Mary Brimmer, who would bear his children and outlive him. When the American Revolution broke out, Anderson sided early with the rebels. According to the Loyalist Claims he later filed with the British government, he was "among the first that opposed the association at the beginning of the Rebellion" and took the patriot's oath in 1776. He was made a lieutenant on a galley and rose to a privateer command of his own. On 18 February 1777 he auctioned a captured ship and its contents at his house on the Baltimore waterfront, the standard public sale by which privateers turned a prize into cash. To the rebel committees of the Chesapeake he was, at that moment, a useful man. Defection to the British In April 1778 he changed sides. Anderson's own statement in the Loyalist Claims puts the date and place plainly: he joined His Majesty's forces at Philadelphia and received a permit from General William Howe to procure provisions for the British garrison there, which he did in a vessel of his own. The rebels confiscated his estate and, as he later wrote, "every individual article he was possessed of." For the remainder of the war he served the British navy as pilot and privateer in Chesapeake Bay, mentioned by name in the Pennsylvania Gazette among the loyalist privateers operating those waters. A witness deposition recorded in the 1781 Council of Maryland correspondence described him as wearing, on the breast of his shirt, a handsome Bristol Stone Freemason brooch. Anderson, at this point, was already a Mason. He had received his Entered Apprentice degree in Maryland. The cost of changing sides was severe. He recorded that he was many times forced to leave his estate and family to fortune, and "screen himself in the woods." But he kept sailing. A Letter to Thomas Jefferson In late 1779 his luck ran out. Anderson was captured by Captains Yellott and Folger in one of the barges that had been harassing rebel shipping in the bay, and was taken to Richmond, where he was imprisoned. On 31 January 1780 the Maryland Council wrote to the Governor of Virginia, the future third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. The letter, preserved in volume forty-three of the Journal and Correspondence of the State Council of Maryland, opens by informing Jefferson that a certain James Anderson, a subject of Maryland, had been captured and was now confined at Richmond, and asks the governor to deal with him for high treason. The Virginia treason statute carried a punishment of execution but Anderson was spared. Why he was released, and on what terms, is not in the surviving record. Scott Clarke remarks Freemasons sat on both sides of the Revolution and that Anderson's lodge standing may have been the factor that saved him. Whatever the reason, by about 1780 he had moved his family from Baltimore to New York, the principal British stronghold in the colonies, and from there, after the war, to Nova Scotia. The Refuge of Loyalists The peace of 1783 sent tens of thousands of American loyalists north to British territory, and Halifax became one of the principal landing places. Anderson reached Halifax by 1783 and within a year had settled in Chester, a small port on the western shore of Mahone Bay close to the mainland landing at Oak Island. His son John Seccombe Anderson was born at Chester in February 1790, the name a courtesy to the Reverend Jonathan Seccombe, the Chester minister whose own family had crossed paths with the early Oak Island lot owners on the Belcher and Prescott side. On 27 December 1784, Anderson sat in the room in Chester where eight Master Masons petitioned to form a new lodge. According to the surviving Chester Lodge No. 9 attendance records at the Nova Scotia Archives, two James Andersons joined the lodge that night. The man recorded as James Anderson Junior was one of the eight founding Master Masons, raised in Scotland. The man recorded as Captain James Anderson Senior was the privateer from Maryland, present that evening as an Entered Apprentice, passed to Fellowcraft during the meeting itself, and raised to Master Mason in the years that followed. Chester Lodge No. 9 was the oldest and closest Masonic lodge to Oak Island during the period in which the Money Pit is supposed to have been built. It would remain active until the 1820s, then go dark, and reopen in 1870 under a new warrant as Clarke Lodge No. 61. Lot 26 In 1785, the year after he joined the lodge, Anderson took possession of Lot 26 on Oak Island and moved his family onto the property. The lot sits on the south shore, west of the swamp, on the same side of the island as the lots that would later become Samuel Ball's. The lot is known for its 12th century dates well that never freezes and an old rock wall, thought to be of European origin. [artifact:stone-well-never-freezes][artifact:rock-wall-lot26] Anderson owned Lot 26 for three years. In 1788 he sold the property to Samuel Ball, the formerly enslaved man from South Carolina who had arrived in Chester the previous year and would become, in time, a succesful landowner. Of the men who acquired Oak Island lots before the Money Pit was discovered in 1795, Anderson is the only one the documentary record identifies as both a Mason and a working pirate, and the only such figure known to have lived on the island. [article:samuel-ball-the-unlikely-landowner] Anderson was not the only Chester Lodge member among the early owners. Alexander Pattillo, one of the founding eight Master Masons of the lodge and a long-serving Worshipful Master, owned Lots 1 and 27. James Sharp, another founding member raised in Scotland, owned Lot 28. Captain James Kinghorn, initiated into the lodge that same first meeting, already owned Lot 4 when he joined. Doctor Jonathan Prescott, raised to Master Mason that same evening, owned Lots 8 and 22. Alexander McNeil, who joined two years later, owned Lots 20 and 21 and bought Lot 4 from Kinghorn in 1786. By Clarke's count, six members of Chester Lodge No. 9 owned at least nine of the thirty-two lots on Oak Island before the Money Pit was discovered in 1795. That is close to thirty percent of the island. The Sea Chest The sea chest is the centrepiece. Inside it, when it was first opened in 2009 at the home of Bill Anderson, was the June 1791 Master Mason certificate, still bearing its red wax seal. The document certifies Anderson's standing in Lodge Number Nine, vouches for his conduct during his time among the brethren, and recommends him to fellow Masons "whersoever providence may order his lott." The signatures are those of Thomas Thomson, the Scottish-raised first master of the lodge, and Roger English, a sergeant major of the British 45th Regiment of Foot raised as a Mason at Louisbourg in 1762. [article:the-treasure-of-louisbourg] The chest, examined again on camera in 2017 by the Lagina team and the descendant Steve Atkinson, also held the purchase document for the schooner Betsy, dated 1778 and priced at sixty-seven pounds seventeen shillings. The schooner was Anderson's privateer command, distinct from the rebel galley he had been given in 1776 and from the ship called the Baltimore that he had captained for the patriot side. Beside the documents lay four keys. One opened the chest itself. Three opened nothing the family had ever seen. The Betsy's Cargo What Anderson would have had access to during his fifteen years at sea is the central question of the pirate theory. As a privateer he had legal sanction to take prizes. As a loyalist operator with a permit from General Howe he had a British military pass to move freight along an enemy coast. As an escaped prisoner of the Virginia council he had reason to keep moving and to conceal what he carried. The American Loyalist Claims he filed in London record significant losses of personal property and confiscated estates, an unusual paper trail for a man often described in the same documents as having to hide in the woods. The smuggling theory of Lot 26 proposes that Anderson, having operated for years in the coastal waters between Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Halifax, used his three years on Oak Island to bury or stage cargo that he could not openly land. The theory does not require him to have built the Money Pit, which most accounts place earlier in the eighteenth century or much earlier still. It requires only that he treated the island as a private cache during the brief window when the lot was legally his. The four keys, three of them matching no surviving chest, are taken by some readers as evidence that other chests existed and were left somewhere. The Lot 26 well, examined in Season 10, was carbon-dated by Doctor Ian Spooner to between 1028 and 1172 and tested by the same researcher for elevated silver in the water, a result not found in any other well on the island outside the Money Pit area. The well predates Anderson by six centuries. Whatever it once marked, he would have known it was there. The case against the smuggling theory is that no document places treasure in his hands. The Loyalist Claims describe losses, not gains. His widow, Mary Brimmer Anderson, did not appear in the historical record as a wealthy woman after his death. The lot sale to Samuel Ball in 1788 was a normal land transaction at the prevailing rate. If Anderson buried anything on Lot 26, he did so in silence, and the silence has held. The West Indies, 1796 James Anderson died in the West Indies in 1796, one year after the boys Daniel McGinnis, John Smith, and Anthony Vaughan reported finding the depression that would become the Money Pit. He was forty-eight. What he was doing in the Caribbean at that age, eleven years after he had given up his Oak Island lot, the record does not say. He may have returned to active sea captaincy. He may have been trading. He may have been doing something quieter. His widow remarried in November 1797, to Josiah Marvin. [article:the-real-daniel-mcginnis-of-oak-island] The case for Anderson as an Oak Island actor is one of the strongest available, not because the documentary record places him at the Money Pit, but because the documentary record places him almost everywhere else. His name appears in a Maryland will, a Virginia treason letter, a Maryland Council deposition describing a Masonic brooch on his shirt, a London Loyalist Claims petition, a Nova Scotia lodge ledger, an Oak Island deed, and a sea chest still held by his descendants in Wolfville. The artefacts recovered from Lot 26 in recent seasons, the medieval well, the seventeenth-century bush scythes, the iron projectile reclassified as a Roman pilum, the British naval officer's button found in the neighbouring Ball foundation, all predate or postdate his three years of ownership, and most have nothing to do with him. What they do establish is that Lot 26 sat on ground that mattered to other people long before he arrived and after he was gone. [artifact:bush-scythe-fragments-lot-26][artifact:british-naval-officer-s-button] The man can be proven. The Mason can be proven. The lot can be proven. The chest can be opened. What cannot be proven, on the evidence available, is whether Captain James Anderson buried anything on Oak Island, or whether he simply lived there for a time on his way somewhere else. Sources Primary Documents (Eighteenth Century) John French of Fell's Point, Last Will and Testament, Baltimore, Maryland; dated 12 October 1774, probate 14 November 1774. Bequeathed household items to James Anderson and named him guardian to French's daughter Ellinor. Folio 289, p. 8. Abstracted in Leslie and Neil Keddie, Baltimore, Maryland Wills 1774–1779 (Family Tree Bookshop). American Loyalist Claims, Series 2, A.O.13, Bundle 24, pp. 7–9; New Claims, Nova Scotia. Petition filed by James Anderson detailing his services to the Crown, his confiscated Baltimore estate, his permit from General William Howe in April 1778 to procure provisions for the Philadelphia garrison, his work as pilot, and his treason imprisonment in Virginia. Held by the British Public Records Office (now The National Archives, Kew), London. Family History Library microfilm 366717. Great Britain, Exchequer and Audit Department. Maryland Council Letter to Governor Thomas Jefferson, dated 31 January 1780. Informs the Governor of Virginia that James Anderson, a subject of Maryland, has been captured by Captains Yellott and Folger and is confined at Richmond, and requests he be dealt with for high treason. Published in Journal and Correspondence of the State Council of Maryland (27 October 1779 – 13 November 1780), vol. 43. Council of Maryland Witness Deposition, 1781. Witness describes Anderson as wearing a "handsome Bristol Stone Freemason broach on the breast of his shirt." Recorded in the Maryland Council correspondence of that year. Pennsylvania Gazette (Philadelphia), wartime issues. Named Anderson among the loyalist privateers operating in Chesapeake Bay. Chester Lodge No. 9 Attendance Records, Chester, Nova Scotia. Founding meeting 27 December 1784 records eight founding Master Masons and three petitioners passed to Fellowcraft, including "Captain James Anderson Sr." entering as Apprentice from Maryland and passed to Fellowcraft the same evening. Held in the Grand Lodge of Nova Scotia special collection, Nova Scotia Archives, Halifax. Master Mason Certificate, Chester Lodge No. 9, dated 24 June 1791. Issued to Brother James Anderson, signed by lodge secretary Thomas Thomson and lodge master Roger English. Original document held in the Anderson family sea chest, Wolfville, Nova Scotia. Bears its original red wax seal. Schooner Betsy Purchase Document, 1778, sixty-seven pounds seventeen shillings. Held in the Anderson family sea chest. Chester Township Book of Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia – Births / Family Records 1762–1820, entry "Heirs of James and Mary Anderson." Records the children born to the Andersons after settlement in Chester, including John Seccombe Anderson (born 6 February 1790). Lunenburg County Deed Records, 1785 transfer of Lot 26 on Oak Island to James Anderson, 1788 sale to Samuel Ball. Books and Published Research Clarke, Scott. Oak Island Odyssey. Halifax: 2023. Chapter sections on Chester Lodge No. 9, the founding members, and the two James Andersons. Clarke's 2009 visit to descendant Bill Anderson in Wolfville and his transcription of the 1791 Masonic certificate are the primary modern documentary record of the chest's contents. Pougher, Richard D. "Averse… to Remaining Idle Spectators": The Emergence of Loyalist Privateering during the American Revolution 1775–1778. Doctoral thesis, University of Maine. Vol. 1, p. 110. Quotes the Loyalist Claims petition describing James Anderson of Fell's Point taking the rebel oath and serving as lieutenant on a galley. Harris, Reginald V. History of St. Andrew's Lodge. Halifax. Used by Clarke to trace cross-membership between Halifax Masonic lodges and Chester Lodge No. 9. Genealogical and Descendant Research Diane Boumenot, descendant of James Anderson. Genealogical research blogs on Anderson's Maryland years and Revolutionary War service. Cited in the Monsters and Critics article of July 2020. Bill Anderson, Wolfville, Nova Scotia. Direct descendant who held the sea chest at the time of Scott Clarke's 2009 visit. Steve Atkinson, Wolfville, Nova Scotia. Direct descendant who appeared on Season 5, Episode 2 of The Curse of Oak Island with the sea chest and its contents. WikiTree profile "James Anderson UEL (abt.1748–1796)", Anderson-10590. Compiled from the primary documents listed above by descendants and genealogical researchers. Geni.com profile "Captain James Anderson, Sea Captain, Privateer (1748 – 1796)". Family-curated record citing the same primary sources. Press and Secondary Coverage "Freemason and pirate: The amazing story of Captain James Anderson from The Curse of Oak Island." Monsters and Critics, 4 July 2020. Interview material with Scott Clarke and references to Diane Boumenot's research. "Curse of Oak Island: The Story of Captain James Anderson." TVovermind, 8 April 2020. Summary of Anderson's Revolutionary War service and Oak Island connection. ### Freemasons on Oak Island URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/freemasons-on-oak-island-the-masonic-connection Of all the theories surrounding Oak Island, the Masonic connection may be the most deeply embedded in the story itself. Freemasonry does not simply appear at Oak Island as an external theory imposed by outsiders. It is woven into the island's documented history, into the men who surveyed it, into the symbols found upon it, and into the very structure of the legend as it has been told for over two centuries. The evidence for their presence is documented. The meaning of that presence is not. Freemasonry Arrives in Nova Scotia The story of Freemasonry in Nova Scotia begins with a single man: Major Erasmus James Philipps. A military officer and member of the Nova Scotia Council, Philipps was initiated into "The First Lodge" of Boston on November 14, 1737, during a visit to settle boundary disputes between Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Henry Price, the Provincial Grand Master of Masons in North America, saw in Philipps a proper agent to carry the fraternity northward. On March 13, 1738, the Boston Gazette announced that "Major Philipps is Appointed Provincial Grand Master over the Free and Accepted Masons, in the Province of Nova Scotia, and that a Deputation is getting ready for that purpose." Philipps returned to Annapolis Royal in June 1738, where he established the first Masonic lodge on Canadian soil. It was the fifth lodge chartered from Massachusetts and it was, in membership, virtually a military lodge, its brothers drawn almost entirely from the garrison. Among the earliest members were names that would matter to the Oak Island story. John Easson, "made" a Mason in 1738, was a Master Artificer in the employ of the Board of Ordnance. Dr. William Skene, who had served at Annapolis Royal since 1715, was a member of the prominent Aberdeen Masonic family. The Craft took root quickly in the military and administrative elite of colonial Nova Scotia. Philipps served as Provincial Grand Master until his death in 1760. In his final years, he developed a close personal relationship with another figure whose shadow falls directly across Oak Island: Charles Morris. [article:william-phips-the-treasure-of-the-concepcion] Charles Morris and the Survey of Oak Island Charles Morris was Nova Scotia's Surveyor General for over 32 years. Born in Boston in 1711, he came to the colony as a military officer and rose to become one of its most powerful administrators, serving simultaneously as a member of the Nova Scotia Council, Justice of the Peace, and eventually Chief Justice of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court. He designed the layout of Halifax, Lunenburg, Lawrencetown, and Liverpool. He was, by any measure, the man who drew the map of colonial Nova Scotia. Morris was also a Freemason, deeply connected to the fraternal networks that Philipps had established. And in 1762, he did something that no one has satisfactorily explained. That year, Morris traveled 45 miles from Halifax to Oak Island and surveyed it into 32 lots of approximately four acres each, most abutting a common road and all with water frontage. No other island in Mahone Bay was ever surveyed in this manner. There were over 350 islands in the bay. Morris chose to divide this one, and only this one, with the precision and formality normally reserved for planned settlements. The timing carried its own Masonic signature. On December 27, 1753, Lieutenant-Governor Charles Lawrence had granted Island 28 (later known as Oak Island) to New York fishing agents John Gifford and Richard Smith. As researcher Scott Clarke documented in Oak Island Odyssey: A Masonic Quest, Lawrence was a Freemason, and December 27 is the feast day of Saint John the Evangelist, one of the two most important dates in the Masonic calendar. It is traditionally the day when Freemasons begin auspicious undertakings, install Grand Masters, and grant lodge warrants. The United Grand Lodge of England was formed on December 27, 1813. Chester Lodge No. 9, the lodge nearest to Oak Island, received its warrant on December 27, 1784. Morris's superior was Lieutenant-Governor Jonathan Belcher Jr., himself a Freemason and the most powerful Mason in Nova Scotia as Grand Master of the Grand Lodge. Belcher was the grandson of Captain Andrew Belcher, who had worked closely with Sir William Phips, the English privateer knighted for recovering Spanish treasure from the wreck of the Concepcion in the 1680s. Clarke found that Belcher Jr. had graduated from Harvard in 1728 alongside William Phips's own grandson (also named William) and alongside Jonathan Seccombe, who later became the first known lot owner on Oak Island. According to Seccombe's diary, held in the Nova Scotia Archives, he drew lot 7 on Oak Island on June 17, 1765. Shortly after arriving in Chester, Seccombe noted that he dined with a lodge of Freemasons and regularly visited his close friend, governor and Masonic Grand Master Jonathan Belcher Jr. Clarke's research established that at least six of the pre-1795 lot owners on Oak Island were Freemasons, and that Masons may have owned close to half the island before anyone reported finding the Money Pit. [article:charles-morris-the-man-who-mapped-oak-island] The First Lodge Near Oak Island The first Masonic lodge meeting near Oak Island took place on December 8, 1784, led by Adam Fife, a Scotsman serving in the Royal Regiment of Artillery. Clarke traced Fife's career through the lodges with striking results. In 1781, Fife attended a meeting of the Antient Grand Lodge of England in New York, apparently the only recorded meeting of that body ever held outside England. That same year, Lodge No. 213 of the Antient Grand Lodge was created within the 4th Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, with Fife chosen as its first master. The warrant was issued by the Grand Master of the Antient Grand Lodge, John Murray, 4th Duke of Atholl, who had simultaneously served as Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Scotland for the preceding three years. While in New York, Fife became a founding member of the Grand Lodge of New York and a senior member of the first Grand Chapter of the Royal Arch Masons in New York. A letter from Fife and two other representatives of the Grand Chapter sits as item No. 4 in the Grand Lodge of New York's collection of original autographed letters. The letter immediately before it, item No. 3, is a signed letter from George Washington, written from his headquarters at Morristown in February 1780. Of the hundreds of documents in the Grand Lodge of New York's possession, only one relates to all of Nova Scotia. That document is a Master Mason's certificate issued in February 1787 by Chester Lodge No. 9, signed by three men, two of whom were Oak Island lot owners in 1787. One was Alexander Pattillo, master of the lodge at that time, whose original Masonic apron, over 235 years old, is currently displayed on a wall in Clarke Lodge No. 61 in Chester, Nova Scotia. The Mason Privateer The New York certificate is not the only surviving Chester Lodge No. 9 document to have travelled with its bearer. Captain James Anderson, a Maryland privateer who had taken the American patriot's oath in 1776, defected to the British in 1778, and been charged with high treason by Virginia Governor Thomas Jefferson, escaped to Halifax after the war and joined Chester Lodge No. 9 in December 1784. In 1785 he took possession of Lot 26 on Oak Island and moved his family onto the property, where they lived for three years before he sold to Samuel Ball in 1788. Anderson's own Master Mason certificate, issued by the same lodge on June 24, 1791, sat for more than two centuries inside the sea chest he carried with him from Baltimore to Nova Scotia. It is signed by Thomas Thomson and Roger English, bears its original red wax seal, and remains today in the possession of his direct descendants in Wolfville. Clarke transcribed it in full from the original during a 2009 visit to the family. Of the men who owned Oak Island lots before the Money Pit was discovered in 1795, Anderson is the only one the documentary record identifies as both a Mason and a working pirate, and the only such figure known to have owned part of Oak Island. [article:captain-james-anderson-the-pirate-who-lived-on-oak-island] The Scottish Thread Where Clarke traces the Masonic connections forward from 18th-century Nova Scotia lodges, author James McQuiston works backward from 17th-century Scotland. Across twelve books on Oak Island and a dedicated volume on the Templar-Freemason connection, McQuiston has built a case linking the founding of Nova Scotia itself to the emergence of Freemasonry as an organised body. McQuiston's research centers on a pivotal event in 1563: the Grand Prior of the Order of the Knights of St. John and the Temple in Scotland transferred all possessions of both knighthoods to Mary, Queen of Scots. Within two generations, heirs of four men involved in that transfer became Knights Baronet of Nova Scotia. By July 3, 1634, the first recorded Freemasons appeared in Edinburgh, all with documented connections to Nova Scotia. McQuiston argues that Freemasonry was established between 1618 and 1634, overlapping precisely with Nova Scotia's founding period under that name, and that the people responsible were also responsible for hiding treasure (and perhaps the works of William Shakespeare and Francis Bacon) on Oak Island. Among McQuiston's more striking findings is the rediscovery of Mary, Queen of Scots' cipher sheets. Working through British archives, he prompted the sorting and digitisation of 104 cipher sheets from a collection of over 400 of Mary's papers that had been stored unsorted in a back room of the National Archives of the United Kingdom. The cipher symbols, according to McQuiston, include characters matching those reportedly found on the 90-foot stone in the Money Pit. His work has earned him acceptance into the Scottish Rite Research Society and fellowship with the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, with access to the British Museum, Oxford University, and the National Archives of Scotland, England, and Nova Scotia. McQuiston, who has appeared on the History Channel fourteen times, is not a Freemason himself. [article:the-knights-baronet][artifact:inscribed-stone-90-foot-stone] The Morris Map and Its Symbols In Season 11 of The Curse of Oak Island, 32nd degree Scottish Rite Mason and researcher Scott Clarke presented evidence he had found in the Canadian Archives: the original 1762 map of Mahone Bay created by Charles Morris. Clarke, a librarian, archivist, and records analyst from Toronto who has researched the Oak Island mystery for over two decades, had been examining the map's details with a Freemason's trained eye. What Clarke found was striking. The first letter A in "Mahone Bay" on the map was written with a distinctive v-shaped crossbar, a form that differs from the other A's on the document, which are written normally. This v-bar A is a symbol found repeatedly in Templar and early Masonic stonework, appearing in churches across Portugal and Italy. It is commonly associated with the Holy Grail in Masonic tradition. Clarke found the symbol used in three other places on the map. When these four instances were plotted on a compass circle, the lines intersected at Oak Island. Clarke's conclusion was direct: Freemasons within the colonial Nova Scotia establishment knew, as early as 1762, that something of significance was on the island. Clarke also identified what he believes is a separate Masonic cipher on the same map. The abbreviation of "Saint" uses a capital S and T followed by two periods, rather than the standard single period. After examining hundreds of maps and old logos from the 1600s to the 1800s, Clarke found that over 90 percent consistently used a single period. The only other example of the capital S, capital T, and two periods that he located appears on the original seal of Saint Andrew's Royal Arch Chapter in Boston, whose most important symbol is the Triple Tau. Morris was a lodge brother of Isaac DeCoster, the first master of the Lodge of Saint Andrew, who became a Freemason in 1738 at the same lodge as Morris, at Annapolis Royal. Clarke argues the notation is a cipher recognisable only to a select group of early Royal Arch Masons. The Secret Vault The parallels between the Oak Island legend and the rituals of Freemasonry are so numerous that they have been noted independently by Masons and non-Masons alike. The resemblances centre on the allegorical story of the Secret Vault, a narrative used in the Royal Arch and Scottish Rite degrees that describes the discovery of a hidden underground temple built by the biblical patriarch Enoch. In the Scottish Rite's 13th degree, known as the Royal Arch of Solomon (or the Royal Arch of Enoch, or Master of the Ninth Arch, depending on jurisdiction), candidates are taught that God appeared to Enoch in a vision at Mount Moriah, later identified as the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and showed him a plate of gold engraved with the true name of God. Enoch then constructed nine underground vaults, one beneath the other, and sealed the golden plate in the lowest chamber. Centuries later, when King Solomon had the Temple built, three of his grand master architects discovered the vaults beneath the foundations, descended through all nine levels, and recovered the sacred treasure. The York Rite tells a similar story in its Select Master degree, with King Solomon, Hiram of Tyre, and Hiram Abiff creating a secret vault of nine levels beneath the sanctum sanctorum. The parallels to the Oak Island story as traditionally told are difficult to set aside. Three young men discovered a depression in the ground. They found nine distinct levels marked by oak platforms every ten feet. A stone with a cipher inscription was found at depth. Workers probed the bottom with a crowbar and struck what they believed to be a chest. The tools used by the diggers (spade, pickaxe, crowbar) correspond to the three Working Tools of the Royal Arch Mason. A stone with an iron ring was found in a pit near the main shaft, echoing the iron ring set in stone at the first level of Enoch's temple. Three gold chain links were recovered during excavation, and three oak trees reportedly formed a triangle around the pit, both motifs with direct Masonic significance. As Clarke writes, this similarity is "the overriding reason why so many prominent Freemasons have been drawn to the mystery of Oak Island." Whether the Money Pit was built to replicate a Masonic ritual or the Masonic rituals shaped how the pit was later described remains an open question. McCully and the Masonic Lens The most detailed early account of the Money Pit's features comes from an 1862 article written by Jotham Blanchard McCully, an engineer involved in the treasure search since 1849. McCully managed the Truro Company's operations, served as secretary of the Oak Island Association, and participated in at least three separate treasure-hunting syndicates over nearly two decades. Although not present in official lodge records, McCully was almost certainly a Freemason: a letter from 1874 sent to a Masonic lodge in Nova Scotia asks someone with his name to take the letter for safekeeping after it was read. McCully's account, published in the Nova Scotia Colonist, introduced most of the Masonic-sounding elements into the public record: the nine platforms, the inscribed stone, the systematic layers of oak logs. An earlier 1861 account by a writer identified as Patrick contained fewer of these elements. Researcher Dennis King, himself a Freemason, demonstrated in his 2010 paper "The Oak Island Legend: The Masonic Angle" that changes in the legend over time track closely with changes in Masonic ritual. The inscribed stone, for example, was not described as porphyry until the 20th century, after porphyry was introduced into the Masonic allegory of Enoch's temple. Randall Sullivan, researching his book The Curse of Oak Island, examined King's findings in detail and added a further layer. King had traced the story of the three gold chain links reportedly brought to the surface by the auger boring of 1849. McCully's Colonist articles made no mention of chain links. They had appeared eleven months earlier in the Yarmouth Herald as "three links of a chain, of a copper colour, which, however, upon being tested proved to be gold." The same newspaper later referred to "gold wire" rather than chain links. James McNutt's 1867 diary described three pieces of copper wire. Two 1866 articles in the New York Herald and the Scotsman, otherwise fairly complete accounts of the treasure hunt, made no mention of chain links, wire, or any such finds at all. The details were not stable. They shifted between accounts in ways that suggest oral tradition shaped by the teller rather than a fixed historical record. King proposed that McCully, knowing Masonic ritual intimately, had embellished the Money Pit narrative with symbolism from the Royal Arch and Enochean degrees. He noted that Masonic pranks of this kind are "not as farfetched or as uncommon as non-Masons might suppose," citing the Legends of the Moving Coffins of Barbados, Swift's Lost Silver Mine in Kentucky, and the Beale Treasure as examples of apparent Masonic hoaxes that entered the canon of unsolved mysteries. King pointed out that author and Freemason Arthur Conan Doyle was known for inserting Masonic allusions into his Sherlock Holmes stories, confident that fellow Masons would recognise the references while other readers would not. The Symbols on the Island Physical evidence of Masonic symbolism has been reported across Oak Island for over a century, though much of it was documented in circumstances that make independent verification difficult. In 1936, treasure hunter Gilbert Hedden led an expedition that turned up several stones near Joudrey's Cove on the north side of the island. Hedden, himself among the most prominent Freemasons in New Jersey, reported that the stones bore Masonic markings. On one, he found a carving of a point within a circle, a symbol representing the individual Mason within the boundaries of duty and moral law. He also found a three-sided square (which appears in the Masonic pigpen cipher) and the letter H, a Masonic emblem for God. Author Mark Finnan described the discovery of a handworked heart-shaped stone that he connects to the sword pointing to a naked heart in the Entered Apprentice degree. [artifact:heart-shaped-stone-smiths-cove][artifact:h-o-stone] In 1967, a granite boulder was overturned by a bulldozer on the east side of the island, revealing on its underside a carved letter "G" inside a rectangle. In Masonic teaching, "G" denotes the Grand Geometer of the Universe, and the east is considered the source of light. The combination of symbol, orientation, and placement carries specific meaning for any Freemason who encounters it. A metal set square recovered beneath the finger drains at Smith's Cove carries similar weight. The square, united with a pair of compasses, forms the universal emblem of Freemasonry. [artifact:masonic-g-stone] The Masonic Network Whatever may have existed on Oak Island before 1795, the treasure hunt that followed was shaped at every stage by Freemasons. Sullivan described the realisation that searcher Frederick Blair was a high-ranking Mason; Blair's attorney R.V. Harris had risen to provincial grand master of Nova Scotia; Melbourne Chappell, who later held the same title, controlled access to the island for decades; Gilbert Hedden was among the most prominent Freemasons in New Jersey; and Edwin Hamilton had served as grand master of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. Treasure hunter Frederick Lewis, attempting to gain access to the island, discovered he was being stymied by what Sullivan called "an old boys' network, all of them Freemasons and most of whom belonged to the Grand Lodge of Nova Scotia." Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Freemason initiated in 1911, followed the Oak Island mystery from a boyhood visit around 1896 to correspondence about the treasure in the final year of his presidency. Actor John Wayne, also a Mason, was reportedly associated with one of the treasure syndicates. Admiral Richard Byrd, the Antarctic explorer, contributed to Oak Island efforts as well. Within a week of arriving in Nova Scotia to work on the History Channel series, Sullivan learned from cast members Charles Barkhouse and Tony Sampson that both were Masons and that membership remained widespread among men on the south shore. Barkhouse, the show's historian, readily acknowledged that "what could be regarded as Masonic symbols had cropped up again and again as the Oak Island story unfolded, and that this was probably significant." Christopher Morford, who regularly features on the show and who co-authored The Jerusalem Files with Corjan Mol, is a 32nd degree Scottish Rite Mason. [article:the-roosevelt-connection] Mark Finnan, whose 1994 book Oak Island Secrets was among the first to draw explicit attention to Masonic connections, gained access to the Order's extensive library at the Grand Lodge on Barrington Street in Halifax and to rarely seen Masonic files in the Public Archives, through the assistance of past grand master Frank Milne and General Secretary Gerry Vickers. Finnan concluded that "the combined use of secrecy and religious symbolism in the creation of the Oak Island enigma, the extensive and intricate nature of the project, the time-frame scientifically established for its origin and the direct involvement of many high-ranking Freemasons in attempts to solve it makes a credible case for the theory that there is a Masonic/Rosicrucian connection to the mystery." A physical artifact recovered during Season 13 added a further figure to that thread. Metal detection work near the cobblestone pathway in the swamp produced a small encrusted copper-alloy disc that Laird Niven and metallurgist Emma Culligan identified as a Washington Funeral Medal, dated 1800. The piece was designed by Jacob Perkins of Newburyport, Massachusetts, himself a Freemason and inventor known for his anti-counterfeiting work on early U.S. currency. It bears the likeness of George Washington on one face and a funerary urn on the reverse, with a deliberate hole for wearing at the official national memorial service held on February 22, 1800. Washington was one of the most prominent Masons in American history, initiated in 1752 and serving as Worshipful Master of Alexandria Lodge No. 22. The medal was recovered from the bog just five years after the Money Pit's first recorded discovery, raising the question of who was present on the island at that moment and why they carried it. [artifact:george-washington-funeral-urn-medal] Builders or Believers The Masonic theory of Oak Island is really two theories that operate on different levels and are not mutually exclusive. In the first, Freemasons (or their precursors) constructed the underground workings on Oak Island as a physical enactment of sacred ritual, a vault of nine arches made real. The pre-1795 lot ownership documented by Clarke, the land grants timed to Masonic feast days, the lodge connections running through multiple generations from the Belchers to Seccombe to Fife, and the physical symbols on the island all point in this direction. Clarke himself believes the vault was used for Masonic ritual purposes and was sealed off around 1785, with flood tunnels activated and the shaft backfilled with material at ten-foot intervals. In the second, Freemasonry became layered onto the Oak Island legend as the story was told and retold by men who were themselves Masons, shaping the narrative to fit the allegories and symbols they knew from their lodge rituals. McCully's 1862 article remains the earliest published source for most of the details that parallel degree rituals. The shifting accounts of the chain links, the gold wire, and the copper wire suggest a narrative in flux rather than a stable historical record. Under this reading, Freemasons were not the builders but the believers, drawn to the island because a fellow Mason had decorated the story with symbols that spoke to their deepest teachings. McQuiston's research complicates both interpretations by pushing the timeline further back, into the 1600s, before the formal establishment of Freemasonry as an organised body. If the connections he traces between the Knights Templar, the Knights of St. John, Mary Queen of Scots, the Knights Baronet of Nova Scotia, and the first recorded Freemasons in Edinburgh hold, then the activity on Oak Island may predate Freemasonry itself, belonging instead to the traditions and networks from which the fraternity later emerged. That geometry received independent scientific support in Season 13, when archaeoastronomy expert Professor Adriano Gaspani of Italy applied the same stellar alignment methodology he had used in his peer-reviewed 2022 study of Nolan's Cross to the eight-sided wooden survey stakes found in the swamp. His analysis, conducted on surveyor Steve Guptil's GPS data, found that the stakes divide into two groups sharing historical alignments with Deneb in the Cygnus constellation, the same alignment that underpinned his conclusion that Nolan's Cross was constructed around 1200 AD. Both features, he concluded, were created by Europeans with Templar cultural knowledge, working to a single coordinated plan. [article:real-or-not-the-geometry-of-nolan-s-cross] The evidence cannot resolve the question on its own. What it does establish is that Freemasons have been present on and around Oak Island since before the official discovery of the Money Pit; that the physical structure of the pit, as reported, corresponds in specific and documented ways to the vault described in higher-degree Masonic ritual; that the narrative took on its most Masonic character through the pen of a single probable Freemason in 1862; and that the fraternity's involvement in the treasure hunt, from Roosevelt to the Laginas' visitors in 2014, has been continuous for more than two centuries. Freemasonry is a society built on the principle that truth is concealed within layers that reveal themselves only to those who have been properly prepared. If that principle was applied to Oak Island, the island itself becomes what a Mason would recognise as a degree: a stage on which a story unfolds, level by level, to those willing to descend. ### Francis Bacon's Secret Island URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/francis-bacon-s-secret-island In the catalogue of Oak Island suspects, most are men of action: pirates, soldiers, monks with swords. Sir Francis Bacon is something different entirely. He was a man of ideas, and arguably the most dangerous kind: ideas so powerful they reshaped the world, and so carefully guarded that some of them may still be hidden. Bacon was born on 22 January 1561 at York House on the Strand in London, the youngest son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and Lady Anne Cooke, a woman of formidable learning who had translated religious works from Latin and Italian. From childhood, Francis moved in the orbit of the Elizabethan court. Queen Elizabeth reportedly called him "the young Lord Keeper" after being struck by the precociousness of his mind. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, at the age of twelve, alongside his elder brother Anthony, studying under Dr. John Whitgift, the future Archbishop of Canterbury. At sixteen, Bacon was sent to France in the retinue of the English Ambassador, Sir Amias Paulet. He spent nearly three years on the continent, absorbing the intellectual currents of the age and, by his own account, devising a system of writing in cipher during his time abroad. The sudden death of his father in 1579 recalled him to England at nineteen, virtually destitute, inheriting only a fifth share of Sir Nicholas's personal estate. From that point on, Bacon was under immediate pressure to earn a living, and he turned to the law. [article:sir-francis-drake-the-queen-s-privateer] The Rise and Fall of a Lord Chancellor His ascent was slow, his ambitions vast, and his patience extraordinary. Bacon studied at Gray's Inn, was called to the bar, and entered Parliament in 1584. He spent the next three decades navigating the treacherous currents of Elizabethan and Jacobean politics, serving under both Elizabeth I and James I, accumulating offices and influence with the relentlessness of a man who believed he had been placed on earth for a specific purpose. Under James I, his career accelerated. He was appointed Solicitor General in 1607, Attorney General in 1613, and Lord Keeper of the Great Seal in 1617. In 1618, he reached the summit: Lord Chancellor of England, the highest legal officer in the kingdom, elevated to the peerage as Baron Verulam. In 1621, he was created Viscount St Alban. Within weeks, he fell. Accused of accepting bribes from litigants, Bacon was charged by Parliament, confessed, and was stripped of office, fined forty thousand pounds, and briefly imprisoned in the Tower of London. He spent his remaining years in retirement, writing furiously, producing some of his most important philosophical and scientific works before dying on 9 April 1626. The official account states he caught a chill while experimenting with the preservation of meat by stuffing a chicken with snow, an experiment in refrigeration that killed the experimenter. He was sixty-five. The Father of the Scientific Method Bacon's political career, remarkable as it was, was not what made him immortal. That distinction belongs to his philosophy. In Novum Organum, published in 1620, he laid out a systematic method for investigating nature through observation, experimentation, and inductive reasoning. He rejected the ancient reliance on received authority and argued that knowledge should be built from the ground up, through careful experiment. The Royal Society, founded in 1660, traced its intellectual lineage directly to Bacon's vision. He is widely credited as the father of the scientific method, and his influence on the Enlightenment was profound. But Bacon's intellectual ambitions extended far beyond what he published openly. He was deeply interested in ancient mysteries and allegories, in hidden knowledge and concealed meaning. In the preface to The Wisdom of the Ancients, he wrote that "under some of the ancient fictions lay couched certain mysteries, even from their first invention." He was fascinated by codes and ciphers, and his contributions to the field were not merely theoretical. They were practical, ingenious, and centuries ahead of their time. The Master of Ciphers Bacon's most celebrated invention in this field was the biliteral cipher, described in De Augmentis Scientiarum, the expanded Latin edition of his Advancement of Learning. The system works by encoding a hidden message within ordinary printed text using two slightly different typefaces, designated "a" and "b." The differences between the typefaces are so subtle that a casual reader would never notice them. But to someone who knew the system, every group of five letters spelled out a single letter of the concealed message. It was, in essence, the world's first binary code, anticipating by three centuries the principles that would underpin modern computing. The biliteral cipher was not a toy. It was a tool of extraordinary sophistication, designed by a man who understood that the most effective way to hide a secret was not to lock it away but to place it in plain sight, embedded within something so widely distributed that no one would think to look for it. Elizabeth Wells Gallup, a schoolteacher from Michigan, spent decades in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries analyzing early printed editions of works attributed to both Bacon and Shakespeare. She claimed to have found biliteral messages running through them, messages that, if genuine, would confirm Bacon's authorship of the Shakespeare plays and reveal details of his true parentage and hidden purpose. Her work was controversial, and mainstream scholars dismissed it. But she was not the last to search, and the questions she raised have never been conclusively answered. The New Atlantis In 1627, a year after Bacon's death, his unfinished utopian novel The New Atlantis was published posthumously, bound together with Sylva Sylvarum, his great natural history. The novel described an ideal society called Bensalem, governed by a secretive order of scholars known as Salomon's House, dedicated to the study of nature and the accumulation of knowledge for the benefit of mankind. The society operated in secrecy, sending agents abroad to gather information while keeping its own island hidden from the rest of the world. The title page of The New Atlantis depicted Father Time bringing a female figure out of the darkness of a cave, accompanied by an inscription that has haunted Baconian researchers ever since: "In time the secret truth shall be revealed." For Baconians, this was not allegory. The New Atlantis described an island in the Atlantic, hidden from the known world, governed by a secretive intellectual brotherhood with access to extraordinary knowledge. They saw in it a blueprint, or perhaps a confession. Bacon's protege Thomas Bushell took the connection further still. In 1659, Bushell published a new edition of The New Atlantis alongside his own mining tracts, explicitly linking Bacon's fictional vision to real-world engineering projects. It was Bushell who would prove to have the practical skills that Bacon's grander ambitions required. Thomas Bushell: The Engineer Thomas Bushell was born around 1593 in Cleeve Prior, Worcestershire. At the age of fifteen, he entered the service of Sir Francis Bacon, eventually becoming his seal-bearer and secretary. When Bacon was elevated to Lord Chancellor, Bushell accompanied him to court. According to Bushell's own account, Bacon personally instructed him in mineralogy and the practical science of mining, imparting to him, as Bushell later wrote, "many secrets in discovering and extracting minerals." After Bacon's disgrace and death, Bushell retreated from public life. He adopted an ascetic vegetarian diet, lived disguised as a fisherman on the Isle of Wight, and then spent three years in solitary exile in a stone hut on the Calf of Man, a tiny islet off the southern tip of the Isle of Man. He described his retreat as a period of penance brought on by the collapse of his mining ambitions following his master's fall. When Bushell re-emerged, he applied what Bacon had taught him. In 1637, he secured a grant to work the Royal silver and lead mines of Cardiganshire in Wales, which had been reported as inundated and abandoned. Using what he described as Bacon's own methods, including techniques for driving horizontal adits through hillsides and conveying air into deep workings using pipes and bellows, Bushell recovered several flooded mines and opened new branches from old ones. He employed Cornish miners, the most skilled underground workers in England, and established a Royal Mint at Aberystwyth Castle, where he struck silver coins bearing the Prince of Wales feathers. He raised a regiment from among his miners to fight for Charles I, clothed the king's army, and supplied forty thousand pounds from his own mineral proceeds to the Royalist cause. The relevance to Oak Island is not subtle. Bushell was a man trained personally by Francis Bacon in mineralogy and underground engineering. He demonstrably recovered flooded mines. He commanded a workforce of experienced Cornish miners. He operated on remote islands, including Lundy, which he defended as the last Royalist stronghold to surrender in the English Civil War. And he did all of this within the lifetime of men who could, theoretically, have carried out the construction of the Money Pit and its flood tunnel system. Bushell's own published tracts describe Bacon's method for "searching for metals by making adits through the lowest level of hills or mountains," a description that could serve as a summary of the engineering beneath Oak Island. Bushell died in 1674 and was buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey. [article:oak-island-flood-tunnels-and-box-drains-the-water-trap] The Seawater Passage Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum, the natural history published alongside The New Atlantis in 1627, contains a passage that has arrested the attention of every serious Oak Island researcher who has encountered it. In it, Bacon describes a method of obtaining fresh water by digging a pit on a seashore: "Dig a pit upon the sea-shore, somewhat above the high-water mark, and sink it as deep as the low-water mark; and as the tide cometh in, it will fill with water, fresh and potable." For anyone familiar with the Oak Island story, the passage is extraordinary. It describes, in practical terms, the very mechanism that has tormented treasure hunters for over two centuries: a pit near the shore that fills with water according to the tide. The passage appears in a work published the year after Bacon's death, but Sylva Sylvarum was compiled from notes and experiments Bacon had been conducting for decades. Investigative journalist Randall Sullivan, who spent four weeks in Nova Scotia's archives researching the Oak Island mystery, cited this passage during a War Room presentation in Season 6 as one of the strongest pieces of circumstantial evidence connecting Bacon to the island. Mercury and the Preservation of Documents The same Sylva Sylvarum contains another passage of direct relevance: a detailed description of how objects can be preserved by immersion in mercury. Bacon discussed the properties of quicksilver as a preservative, noting its ability to exclude air and prevent the decay of organic materials, including paper and parchment. Mercury has a long and documented history on Oak Island. Gilbert Hedden, who excavated the Money Pit area in the 1930s, recovered ancient flasks with traces of mercury on the island's north side. In 1936, he found pottery at a dump site on Lot 12 that also bore traces of mercury. Decades later, geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner found elevated levels of lead and mercury at the base of core samples taken from the Eye of the Swamp, an anomalous finding he attributed to significant historic human activity. And in Season 7, laser ablation testing of a lead artifact found near the Money Pit by Rick Lagina and Gary Drayton revealed unusually high mercury and tin content. Because mercury is too volatile to survive the smelting process, geochemist Dr. Chris McFarlane of the University of New Brunswick concluded it must have been introduced by a separate, deliberate process. The theory that Bacon arranged for the preservation of important documents in sealed mercury containers, then buried them beneath Oak Island, was first proposed in book form by Penn Leary in 1953, in The Oak Island Enigma. Leary's was the first published work to connect Bacon specifically to the Money Pit, and his argument rested on the convergence of Bacon's published preservation methods with the physical evidence from the island. More than seventy years later, the mercury keeps turning up. [article:william-shakespeare-the-lost-works] The Newfoundland Connection In 1610, King James I granted Bacon land in Newfoundland as part of the colonization of the New World. The grant gave Bacon a direct, documented, legal connection to British North America, and specifically to the Atlantic provinces, at exactly the period when Bacon was at the height of his power and influence. It was the same year his mother died. It was the year Galileo's telescopic discoveries became known in England. And it was the decade in which, according to carbon dating of timbers recovered from the Money Pit area, significant construction activity was taking place on Oak Island. A wood sample recovered from borehole FG-12 at 106 feet in the Money Pit area was carbon dated to as early as 1626, the year of Bacon's death. The sample was found just 25 feet from the H-8 shaft that had previously yielded pottery, parchment, leather bookbinding material, and 17th-century human bones. Craig Tester, reviewing the season's findings in the War Room, observed two distinct periods of intense activity on Oak Island: the 1100s through 1400s, consistent with Templar theories, and the 1600s, consistent with Rosicrucian and Francis Bacon theories. [site:l-anse-aux-meadows] The Rosicrucian Thread Bacon's role in the Rosicrucian movement remains one of the most debated questions in intellectual history. In 1614, the year after Bacon was appointed Attorney General, the Fama Fraternitatis appeared in print, the founding document of Rosicrucianism. It described a secret brotherhood founded by a traveller named Christian Rosenkreutz, who had been buried in 1484 in a hidden heptagonal tomb inscribed with the words: "I shall open after 120 years." The Fama's authors claimed to have found this tomb in 1604, the same year Bacon was appointed King's Counsel. Whether Bacon wrote or inspired the Rosicrucian manifestos has been argued for centuries. What is not in dispute is that he moved in the same intellectual circles, shared the same philosophical commitments to hidden knowledge and the reformation of learning, and that his New Atlantis, with its secretive scholarly brotherhood on a remote island, reads like a dramatization of the Rosicrucian programme. His friend Ben Jonson wrote of Bacon on his sixtieth birthday in terms that suggest something more than ordinary admiration. His intimate friend Sir Toby Matthew wrote: "It is not his greatness that I admire, but his virtue." The Rosicrucian connection to Oak Island is explored in its own article on this site. But it begins with Bacon. [article:rosicrucians] The Shugborough Link One final thread connects Bacon to the wider web of Oak Island mysteries. Shugborough Hall in Staffordshire, ancestral home of the Anson family, contains in its grounds a monument known as the Shepherd's Monument, a carved relief depicting a reversed copy of Nicolas Poussin's painting Et in Arcadia Ego. Below the carving runs an inscription that has defied decipherment for over 250 years: O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V., flanked by the letters D and M. [article:nicolas-poussin-keeper-of-secrets] The Anson family's founder, William Anson, was a successful lawyer and a contemporary of Francis Bacon during the period of Bacon's political ascendancy. Bacon's legal background links him directly to the Anson circle, and through the Ansons to the Shepherd's Monument, to Poussin, and to the entire chain of mysteries connecting Rennes-le-Château, the Arcadian Treasure, and the Oak Island Money Pit. Admiral George Anson, a later descendant, returned fabulously wealthy from his round-the-world voyage in the 1740s and served on the Board of Admiralty during the capture of Havana in 1762, another event with its own Oak Island theory. [article:the-sack-of-havana] Whether Bacon knew of Oak Island, helped design its underground works, or arranged for something to be buried there may never be proven by a document bearing his signature. But the circumstantial architecture is formidable. He had the intellect to design such a system. He had a protege with the mining skills to build it. He had access to land in the New World. He had a method for preserving documents underground. He described the very engineering principles that define the Money Pit. And he spent his entire life constructing elaborate systems for hiding the truth in plain sight. The evidence beneath Oak Island includes parchment, leather bookbinding, and traces of mercury, exactly the materials his theory predicts. The carbon dates from the Money Pit fall within his lifetime. And the man who knew him best, Thomas Bushell, spent the rest of his life recovering flooded mines with Cornish miners and publishing his master's methods for the world to read. Francis Bacon claimed to have "taken all knowledge to be his province." If the Money Pit was his final experiment, it remains, four centuries later, his most successful act of concealment. [article:down-the-money-pit] ### Shakespeare and Oak Island URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/william-shakespeare-the-lost-works The idea that Shakespeare's works contain a hidden treasure map sounds, on first hearing, like the premise of a thriller novel. But four independent researchers, working from different source materials and using different methods, have each arrived at the same destination: Oak Island, Nova Scotia. Their work spans decades, crosses continents, and draws on steganography, gematria, Kabbalistic geometry, and close reading of 17th-century typography. The fact that drilling beneath the island has since produced parchment, leather bookbinding, and traces of mercury does not prove them right. But it makes them very difficult to ignore. The Authorship Question The theory that Francis Bacon wrote the works attributed to William Shakespeare was first proposed publicly by American scholar Delia Bacon (no relation) in 1857, in her book The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded. Delia Bacon argued that the plays contained a hidden political philosophy too sophisticated to have come from the son of an illiterate glove-maker in Stratford-upon-Avon. She believed they were the work of a group of Elizabethan intellectuals led by Bacon and Sir Walter Raleigh, writing under cover of Shakespeare's name to avoid political persecution. The theory gained extraordinary traction. By 1886, the Francis Bacon Society had been founded in England. By the early twentieth century, the authorship debate had drawn supporters including Mark Twain and Sigmund Freud, and spawned a cottage industry of cipher-hunters who claimed to find Bacon's name concealed in the text of the plays. The academic establishment has never accepted the theory. The mainstream position remains that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote his own plays. But for the researchers who followed, the authorship question was never primarily about literary credit. It was about what the ciphers pointed to. And for a growing number of them, the ciphers point to Oak Island. [article:francis-bacon-s-secret-island] Petter Amundsen and the First Folio Map The modern connection between Shakespeare's works and Oak Island begins with a Norwegian church organist named Petter Amundsen. A Freemason and practitioner of steganography (the art of concealing messages within other content), Amundsen has spent over two decades decrypting what he believes are hidden ciphers in early editions of Shakespeare's works and those of Francis Bacon. Amundsen's central claim is extraordinary: that Shakespeare's First Folio, published in 1623, functions as a treasure map. Through a series of decryptions involving seemingly random capitalisation, deliberate misspellings, out-of-sequence page numbering, and geometric patterns derived from the text, Amundsen identified what he calls the "Tree of Life" on Oak Island, a Kabbalistic symbol whose ten points, or sephiroth, correspond to physical locations on the island. The decryption begins with the Folio's preliminary pages. Ben Jonson's dedicatory poem, "To the Reader," contains irregularities that Amundsen reads as coded instructions. These lead to specific pages within the Folio where further markers appear: the word "TWO" capitalised where grammar does not require it, the unusual spelling "BOWTHS," and numerical patterns that yield coordinates when processed through gematria, the ancient practice of assigning numerical values to letters. From these markers, Amundsen extracted references to the constellations Bootes and Cygnus (the Swan, also known in Masonic tradition as "the Lighted Cross"). Working with the star Albireo at the base of Cygnus and the star Deneb at its apex, Amundsen projected celestial coordinates onto the terrestrial globe. The projection placed Deneb's position in the North Atlantic, and when corrected for the precession of the equinoxes using the date of the Folio's publication, the longitude aligned with the coast of Nova Scotia. The latitude, Amundsen argues, was encoded separately. Using a Pythagorean 3-4-5 triangle derived from the geometry of the Folio's page layout and a reference to Euclid's Proposition I:47 (itself encoded in the Rosicrucian manifesto Fama Fraternitatis), he calculated a latitude that falls on Oak Island. Amundsen then turned to Nolan's Cross, the formation of massive boulders discovered by surveyor Fred Nolan in the 1960s and 1970s. Five granite stones, each weighing between ten and fifteen tons and set on edge, form what Nolan believed was a simple cross. Amundsen recognised it as something else: five of the ten sephiroth on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, specifically points 1, 2, 3, 6, and 9. The remaining five points, he proposed, had yet to be identified or searched. [article:real-or-not-the-geometry-of-nolan-s-cross] Working from Mark Finnan's published measurements of the cross, Amundsen calculated the proportions. The ratio of height to width in the full Tree of Life pattern is 5:8, with a total height of 1,152 feet and a width of 720 feet. The basic unit of measurement is 144 feet, a number that equals six days measured in hours. Amundsen connected this to Bacon's New Atlantis, where the island society's governing institution is called Salomon's House, or "The College of Six Days' Work." The Tree of Life over Nolan's Cross on Oak Island as proposed by Petter Amundsen Amundsen visited Oak Island in 2003 and excavated two sites related to his theory, famously finding a peculiar buried stone, which appears to have three carved dots in a triangle formation, at the exact point where had predicted the Kingdom Point of the Tree of life should be. Rolling Stone magazine featured his work in January 2004. A four-episode Norwegian television series followed in 2009, and in 2014 he presented his findings to Rick and Marty Lagina in the first season of The Curse of Oak Island. He has since published multiple books, including Oak Island and the Treasure Map in Shakespeare and The Seven Steps to Mercy, written with Norwegian author Erlend Loe, whose Expedition Shakespeare documented the research in detail. [artifact:kingdom-stone-malkuth] For Amundsen, what lies buried beneath Oak Island is nothing less than the original Shakespeare manuscripts, preserved in quicksilver, and possibly the lost menorah from the Temple of Jerusalem. He named the focal point of his Tree of Life geometry "Mercy Point." [artifact:oak-stumps-mercy-point] Jake Roberts and the Holy Trinity Decryption While Amundsen worked from the printed pages of the First Folio, another researcher approached the mystery from a different starting point entirely: a plaque on a wall in Stratford-upon-Avon. Jake Roberts is a veteran high school English teacher from Potsdam, New York, who has spent more than 30 years researching symbolism and secret societies. During the COVID-19 lockdown, friends researching for The Curse of Oak Island suggested he examine the plaque adorning Shakespeare's Funerary Monument in Holy Trinity Church. What Roberts found changed the direction of his work. Using transposition cipher techniques, Roberts decrypted what he believes are multiple messages hidden within the monument's inscription by Francis Bacon himself. The messages, according to Roberts, confirm that Bacon wrote the works attributed to Shakespeare, identify Bacon's true parentage (claiming him as the son of Mary, Queen of Scots), and contain directions to Oak Island, Nova Scotia. Roberts arrived at the same island as Amundsen, using a completely different source text and a different decryption method. Where Amundsen worked with steganography and celestial projection, Roberts worked with letter transposition and substitution. The convergence of their results is, at minimum, striking. John Edwards and the Tree of Life on the Ground If Amundsen identified the Tree of Life in the pages of Shakespeare and Roberts found directions in the walls of a church, researcher John Edwards took the theory into the field. Edwards has spent over 30 years studying Templar-era symbols, Masonic codes, and the iconography of early Freemasonry in Nova Scotia. He appeared in the War Room during Season 11 of The Curse of Oak Island with a striking proposal. He had been studying two rare books from the 18th and 19th centuries connected to Daniel Dyson and John Easson, two of the first Freemasons in Nova Scotia. Within those books, Edwards found what he believed to be hand-drawn references to Oak Island, including what appeared to be a map of the island with its lots marked out, and a sketch he interpreted as the Ark of the Covenant. [article:freemasons-on-oak-island-the-masonic-connection] Edwards then turned his attention to Nolan's Cross. Working with surveyor Steve Guptill, he took precise measurements of the cross and found that the key distances (144 feet, 720 feet, 864 feet) were all divisible by 72. Edwards proposed that this number was the key to identifying who built the cross: the Latin Rule of the Knights Templar, written by Bernard de Clairvaux and Hugues de Payens, contained exactly 72 clauses. He suggested three specific locations along the main axis of Nolan's Cross where treasure might be buried, corresponding to points on the Tree of Life that had not yet been searched: Da'ath, Tiferet, and Yesod. At the Tiferet location, the team subsequently found a large boulder sitting atop a formation that Dr. Ian Spooner confirmed was manmade. Beneath it, they recovered cut wood, chopped timbers, and a rock-lined depression with deliberate one-over-two and two-over-one stone construction. Stakes similar to those Fred Nolan had found and dated to the 1500s were also present. Edwards returned in a later season with researcher Scott Clarke, presenting further decoded material from the same books. The decoded names included John Easson, a Freemason at the lodge in Annapolis Royal, the oldest in Canada, established in 1605 and home to the first Masonic fraternal organisation in 1738. The lodge met at the Sinclair Inn, which features painted murals depicting a Crusader or Templar tent of the type used when holy artefacts were being transported. Edwards and Clark concluded that the books documented a multigenerational endeavour linking Biblical treasures, the Knights Templar, and Oak Island. [article:the-knights-templar] Daniel Ronnstam and the 90-Foot Stone Swedish researcher and amateur cryptographer Daniel Ronnstam brought yet another piece to the puzzle. His subject was the inscribed stone slab found at 90 feet in the Money Pit during the original excavation in 1804, a stone whose symbols had famously been translated as "Forty feet below two million pounds are buried." Building on earlier work by Dr. Ross Wilhelm, a former US military cryptographer who in 1971 used a 16th-century cryptography manual to identify a second hidden message in the stone's symbols, Ronnstam claimed to have corrected an error Wilhelm had made by applying the English rather than Spanish alphabet. His translation read: "At eighty guide corn long narrow sea inlet drain," followed by a lost letter he identified as F, for Francis Bacon. Ronnstam argued the inscription was a dual cipher: one layer containing the known message about buried treasure, and a second set of instructions for defeating the flood tunnels by pouring corn into shafts at strategic points, where it would swell and block the flow of seawater. The theory depends on the accuracy of the symbols attributed to the stone, which has been missing for nearly a century. No photographs or rubbings were ever made, and all existing versions are copies from books or drawings done from memory. The stone was displayed in the window of the Creighton and Marshall bookbindery on Upper Water Street in Halifax in 1865, used to raise capital for treasure operations. Captain Henry Bowdoin, accompanied by future US President Franklin Roosevelt, saw it there in 1909, by which time its inscription had been worn away from use as a cutting board for leather book jackets. The stone vanished around 1919. Ronnstam presented his theory in Season 1 of The Curse of Oak Island, in the same episode that Petter Amundsen first presented his First Folio cipher. Two researchers, two different source texts, two different methods, the same island. [article:the-roosevelt-connection][artifact:h-o-stone] The Physical Evidence If the cipher researchers provided the theory, the drilling has begun to provide something resembling corroboration. The earliest physical evidence came in 1897, when treasure hunters William Chappell and Frederick Blair drilled into what became known as the Chappell Vault at 153 feet. From within a seven-foot wooden structure encased in a cement-like substance, they recovered a small ball of fibrous material. When unrolled, it proved to be a fragment of parchment bearing the letters "V I" or something very similar. Dr. Andrew Porter swore an affidavit to that effect on 6 September 1897. [artifact:parchment-scrap-h8][article:frederick-blair-the-man-who-held-oak-island-for-sixty-years][article:the-chappell-family-and-the-vault-beneath-oak-island] More than a century later, the drilling confirmed there was something to find. In Season 5, material recovered from borehole H-8 in the Money Pit area was examined at Saint Mary's University by Dr. Christa Brosseau and Dr. Xiang Yang. Under the scanning electron microscope, a paper-like fragment revealed collagen fibres and traces of nitrogen, identifying it as animal-skin parchment rather than plant-based paper. Parchment was historically reserved for documents of high importance, and its presence 150 feet underground suggested deliberate placement. A leather fragment from the same borehole proved even more significant. One side was dimpled animal skin; the other showed bundled textile fibres spun together and bonded to the leather, a construction consistent with bookbinding. Medieval bookbinding expert Joe Landry at the Dawson Printshop in Halifax identified the material as genuine parchment and vegetable-tanned calf leather consistent with books capable of surviving for 2,000 years. A purple-stained wood fragment from the same spoils drew the strongest reaction. Landry compared the colour to Tyrian purple, an ancient dye so costly it was restricted to church documents and royal decrees. He suggested the staining could result from ecclesiastical leather bleeding into a book board, and noted that the thickness was consistent with a book cover. [artifact:leather-book-binding-fragments] In Season 6, Dr. Brosseau confirmed that another H-8 sample was cellulose-based cotton rag paper, an older form of paper used in book production from as early as the 12th century. The discovery echoed the 1897 parchment fragment and strengthened the case that bound documents had been deliberately placed at depth. Under the digital microscope at the Oak Island Research Centre, Doug Crowell identified red and yellow pigment on paper fragments from H-8 spoils. He noted the colouring resembled the illuminated drop caps used in medieval manuscripts, where large decorative letters marked the opening of chapters in religious texts. The Convergence The Baconian theory of Oak Island has always been cryptographic rather than archaeological. Ciphers are slippery things. The same text that yields a startling message to one decoder may yield nothing to another. Critics have long argued that with sufficient ingenuity, hidden messages can be found in almost any text of sufficient length. But the convergence of evidence is difficult to dismiss entirely. Amundsen, Roberts, Edwards, and Ronnstam each started from different source material, used different methods, and arrived at the same island. The 1623 date of the First Folio sits within the carbon dating window for Oak Island's underground structures, including a wood sample from borehole FG-12 dated to as early as 1626. Nolan's Cross, measured on the ground, produces the exact proportions of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, with a 5:8 ratio and a base unit of 144 feet that links directly to Bacon's New Atlantis. And beneath one of its sephiroth points, the team found a manmade stone feature with timbers dating to the 1500s. [artifact:nolan-s-cross-6-boulders] Most importantly, the physical evidence from the Money Pit now includes parchment, leather bookbinding with Tyrian purple staining, cotton rag paper with pigment traces, and a cement-encased vault at 153 feet. These are not the contents of a pirate's chest. They are the components of a library. [artifact:purple-stained-wood-fragment] Whether those pages were written in the hand of Francis Bacon, or William Shakespeare, or someone else entirely, remains the question that Oak Island has not yet answered. But the pages are there. The drilling has confirmed it. And the cipher researchers, working independently from the surface of the text, keep pointing to the same coordinates beneath the ground. ### The Rosicrucian Connection URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/rosicrucians In 1614, an anonymous document appeared in the German city of Cassel. It described a secret underground vault, seven-sided and five feet broad on each wall, sealed behind a hidden door for 120 years. Inside were preserved books, scientific instruments, looking-glasses of diverse virtues, burning lamps that had never gone out, and a body lying uncorrupted beneath a brass altar plate inscribed in Latin. The door had been concealed behind plaster in a wall, discovered only when a nail was pulled and a stone came loose, revealing a passage that had been invisible for over a century. The document was the Fama Fraternitatis, the founding text of the Rosicrucian movement. It was not describing Oak Island. But the parallels are difficult to ignore. The Fama told the story of a man identified only as Brother C.R., later understood to be Christian Rosenkreuz, a German monk born in 1378 who travelled to the Holy Land as a young man. In Damascus he studied with Arab scholars who, the text claims, had been expecting him. He learned medicine, mathematics, and what the Fama calls the secrets of nature. After further study in Fez, Morocco, where he was taught by practitioners of magic and Kabbalah, Rosenkreuz returned to Europe with a library of translated texts and a burning conviction that the arts and sciences of the continent were corrupt and in need of reform. The learned men of Spain and elsewhere laughed at him. He retreated to Germany, built a small house he called the Sancti Spiritus, and gathered three, then four, then eight followers around him. Together they created a secret language, compiled a great book of knowledge designated only as "Book M," and established the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross. Their six rules were precise: they would cure the sick for free, wear no distinctive clothing, meet once a year at the house of the Sancti Spiritus, each recruit a successor before death, use the letters C.R. as their seal, and keep the fraternity secret for one hundred years. The Vault The centrepiece of the Fama is the rediscovery of Rosenkreuz's burial vault, 120 years after his death. A later brother, renovating the building, pulled a brass nail from a wall and accidentally dislodged a stone, revealing a hidden door. Inscribed upon it in large letters were the words "Post 120 annos patebo," meaning "After 120 years I shall be opened." Behind the door lay a chamber of seven sides and seven corners, each wall five feet wide and eight feet tall. Though the sun had never shone inside, the vault was lit by an artificial sun mounted in the ceiling, which "had learned this from the Sun." In the centre stood a round brass altar bearing the inscription: "A.C.R.C. Hoc universi compendium unius mihi sepulchrum feci," which translates roughly as "I made this tomb a compendium of the whole universe." Each wall was divided into ten squares containing figures and sentences. Each wall also contained a door leading to a chest, and in those chests were "all our books," along with looking-glasses, small bells, burning lamps, and "wonderful artificial songs," all placed there so that if the fraternity should ever come to nothing, the vault alone could restore it. Beneath the altar lay the uncorrupted body of Rosenkreuz himself, holding a parchment book described as the fraternity's greatest treasure after the Bible. The parallels to Oak Island are structural, not superficial. A concealed underground chamber, engineered to survive centuries. Preserved documents and artifacts placed inside as a time capsule for future generations. A sophisticated construction designed to be rediscovered only when the time was right. The Money Pit, with its oak platforms at ten-foot intervals, its parchment fragment recovered from 153 feet, and its elaborate flood tunnel system designed to protect whatever lies below, fits the Rosicrucian template with striking precision. The Confessio and the Signs in the Sky A second manifesto, the Confessio Fraternitatis, appeared in 1616. Where the Fama told a story, the Confessio issued a declaration: the fraternity was real, its treasures were available to the worthy, and the signs of its emergence had been written in the heavens. The Confessio specifically referenced new stars that had appeared in the constellations Serpentarius (now Ophiuchus) and Cygnus as divine signals that the age of revelation was at hand. "The Lord God hath already sent before certain messengers," the text reads, "which should testify his will, to wit, some new stars, which do appear and are seen in the firmament in Serpentario and Cygno." The reference to Cygnus is significant in the context of Oak Island. The constellation Cygnus, also known as the Northern Cross, has been identified by multiple researchers as the celestial pattern mirrored by Nolan's Cross on Oak Island. The five megalithic boulders that form Nolan's Cross, arranged across the island's surface, correspond to the principal stars of Cygnus when projected downward from the sky. The Fama itself closes with the Latin phrase "sub umbra alarum tuarum Jehova," meaning "under the shadow of thy wings, Jehovah." Cygnus is the swan, a creature defined by its wings. If the Rosicrucians chose Oak Island as the site for their vault, Nolan's Cross may have been placed as a marker, a terrestrial reflection of the constellation their own manifesto declared sacred. [article:the-oak-island-star-map] Francis Bacon and the New Atlantis The question of who actually wrote the Rosicrucian manifestos has never been definitively settled. The Lutheran theologian Johann Valentin Andreae is often credited, and he did acknowledge authoring the Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, a third text published in 1616 that is commonly grouped with the Fama and Confessio. But many scholars have argued that the manifestos were the product of a circle rather than an individual, and that circle almost certainly included Francis Bacon. Bacon's connections to Rosicrucian thought are extensive. His unfinished utopian novel The New Atlantis, published posthumously in 1627, describes a secret society of scholars called Salomon's House, operating from a remote island, dedicated to the preservation and advancement of knowledge. The society conducts its work in underground chambers, maintains vast libraries, and sends agents into the world in disguise. Its members are sworn to secrecy. The resemblance to the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross as described in the Fama is not coincidental. Bacon was, at minimum, deeply influenced by Rosicrucian ideals; at maximum, he was a driving force behind the movement itself. The broader case for Bacon's involvement with Oak Island, including the cipher research of Petter Amundsen, Jake Roberts, and John Edwards, is explored in Francis Bacon article on this site. [article:francis-bacon-s-secret-island] One figure in Bacon's circle deserves particular attention in this context. Thomas Bushell, born around 1593, entered Bacon's service at the age of fifteen and served as his seal-bearer and secretary until Bacon's fall from power in 1621. After Bacon's death in 1626, Bushell became a mining engineer of considerable skill. He recovered flooded mines in Wales and operated a Royal Mint at Aberystwyth Castle. He constructed elaborate underground waterworks at Enstone in Oxfordshire. He defended Lundy Island for the Royalist cause during the English Civil War, surrendering it in February 1647, after which he went into hiding and did not resurface until 1652. That five-year disappearance falls within the period that Amundsen's cipher research and dendrochronological dating from the show place activity on Oak Island. A man trained by Bacon in the sciences, skilled in mining, experienced in engineering underground chambers and managing water, and unaccounted for during the critical mid-1600s window: Bushell fits the profile of someone who could have overseen the construction of the Money Pit. [article:down-the-money-pit] The Rosicrucian Timeline and Oak Island The dating evidence from Oak Island increasingly supports a 1600s construction period for at least some of the island's features. In the Season 7 finale, Craig Tester summarized the team's findings by noting that "there's a lot converging on the late 1600s," a period he explicitly linked to "the Rosicrucians and the Francis Bacon theories." The Eye of the Swamp has been dated to the late 1600s. The slipway at Smith's Cove was dated by dendrochronology to 1769, but a larger structure beneath it returned a date of 1741, indicating pre-searcher activity. Artifacts dated to the 1400s and 1500s suggest even earlier visits to the island, but the 1600s cluster aligns most closely with the peak of Rosicrucian activity in Europe. The Rosicrucian theory also provides a framework for understanding why so many apparently different groups may have been involved with Oak Island across centuries. The Fama describes how the original eight brothers dispersed to separate countries after establishing their fraternity, each tasked with recruiting a successor. The Confessio promises that the brotherhood will expand its membership "when the wall is removed" and the door to Europe is opened. If the Rosicrucians operated as the Fama describes, through a network of initiated members embedded in different countries and organizations, then the Templar artifacts, the Masonic connections, and the Baconian ciphers all found on one small island in Mahone Bay may not represent competing theories at all. They may represent successive layers of the same tradition. The documented links between Rosicrucianism and early Freemasonry in Nova Scotia, detailed elsewhere on this site, strengthen this reading. [article:freemasons-on-oak-island-the-masonic-connection] A Vault Built to Be Found The Fama makes one promise above all others. The vault of Christian Rosenkreuz was not built to remain hidden forever. It was built to be rediscovered at the appointed time. "Post 120 annos patebo." After 120 years, I shall be opened. The fraternity placed inside it everything needed to reconstitute their knowledge from nothing: books, instruments, songs, and the body of their founder holding a parchment that contained their greatest secrets. The entire structure was designed as a resurrection device for an idea. The Money Pit, if it is a Rosicrucian vault, was built on the same principle. Its oak platforms, its parchment, its flood tunnels designed to protect the contents from unworthy intruders, all suggest a construction meant to preserve something until the right people, at the right time, with the right knowledge, came to open it. The Fama warned that the building "shall for ever remain untouched, undestroyed, and hidden to the wicked world." For over 230 years, the Money Pit has fulfilled that promise. Whatever is buried beneath Oak Island has remained untouched, despite the efforts of every treasure hunter who has tried. The Rosicrucians may not have built the Money Pit. But whoever did build it appears to have read the same book. Sources Primary Sources (17th century) Fama Fraternitatis, oder Brüderschafft des Hochlöblichen Ordens des R.C. Cassel: Wilhelm Wessel, 1614. Confessio Fraternitatis R.C. Ad Eruditos Europae. Cassel: Wilhelm Wessel, 1615. Johann Valentin Andreae. Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosencreutz. Anno 1459. Strasbourg: Lazarus Zetzner, 1616. Francis Bacon. New Atlantis. A Worke unfinished. Appended to Sylva Sylvarum. London: William Lee, 1627. Thomas Bushell. A Just and True Remonstrance of His Majesties Mines-Royall in the Principality of Wales. London, 1641. Thomas Bushell. An Extract by Mr. Bushell of His Late Abridgment of the Lord Chancellor Bacon's Philosophical Theory in Mineral Prosecutions. London, 1660. Modern Editions and Translations Christopher McIntosh and Donate McIntosh, trans. Fama Fraternitatis: The Original 1614 Rosicrucian Manifesto. Rose Circle Publications, 2014. Joscelyn Godwin, Christopher McIntosh, and Donate McIntosh, eds. Rosicrucian Trilogy: Modern Translations of the Three Founding Documents. Weiser, 2016. Brian Vickers, ed. Francis Bacon: The Major Works. Oxford World's Classics, Oxford University Press, 2002. (New Atlantis text.) Secondary Scholarship Frances A. Yates. The Rosicrucian Enlightenment. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972. (Foundational modern academic study; argues for a Bacon-adjacent Rosicrucian milieu.) Christopher McIntosh. The Rosicrucians: The History, Mythology, and Rituals of an Esoteric Order. Rev. ed. Weiser Books, 1997. Roland Edighoffer. Rose-Croix et société idéale selon Johann Valentin Andreae. 2 vols. Arma Artis, 1982–1987. Donald R. Dickson. The Tessera of Antilia: Utopian Brotherhoods and Secret Societies in the Early Seventeenth Century. Brill, 1998. Susanna Åkerman. Rose Cross over the Baltic: The Spread of Rosicrucianism in Northern Europe. Brill, 1998. Tobias Churton. The Invisible History of the Rosicrucians: The World's Most Mysterious Secret Society. Inner Traditions, 2009. J. W. Gough. The Superlative Prodigall: A Life of Thomas Bushell. Bristol: J. W. Arrowsmith, 1932. (Standard biography; source for Bushell's career and the 1647–1652 hiatus.) ### Charles Morris: The Man Who Mapped Oak Island URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/charles-morris-the-man-who-mapped-oak-island Introduction The man who first mapped Mahone Bay and divided Oak Island into thirty-two lots was no passing surveyor. Charles Morris held the office of Surveyor General of Nova Scotia for thirty-two years, from 1749 until his death in 1781. He laid out the street grids of Halifax, Lunenburg, Liverpool, and Charlottetown. He fought at the Battle of Grand Pré, helped plan the expulsion of the Acadians, served as Chief Justice of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, and sat on the Governor's Council under Charles Lawrence. His 1762 map of Mahone Bay is the earliest known survey of Oak Island, produced thirty-three years before the Money Pit was reportedly discovered. No understanding of the island's pre-1795 history is complete without understanding this man. Boston Origins Charles Morris was born on 8 June 1711 in Boston, Massachusetts. He was the eldest son of Charles Morris, a prosperous sailmaker who had emigrated from Bristol, England, and Esther Rainsthorpe. His mother was buried at the Granary Burying Ground in Boston, one of the most prominent colonial burial sites in New England, where her gravestone records her death on 12 September 1755 at the age of seventy-nine. His father was already dead by 1734, when the younger Charles was living on the family farm at Hopkinton, Massachusetts, and teaching at the local grammar school. Around 1731, Morris married Mary Read, daughter of John Read, the Attorney General of Massachusetts. Read was a Harvard graduate (class of 1697) who had originally trained for the ministry before turning to law. The Colonial Society of Massachusetts describes him as the leading lawyer in the colony during the first half of the eighteenth century. He was appointed Attorney General in 1723, elected warden of King's Chapel in 1735, and named to the Massachusetts Council in 1742. Through this marriage, Morris entered the highest circle of Massachusetts legal and political society.  Annapolis Royal and the Battle of Grand Pré (1746–1748) In 1746, Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts commissioned Morris as captain to raise a company of one hundred men for the defence of Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia. This was Morris's first exposure to the colony and it would define his career. On 5 December 1746, Morris and his men were ordered to march from Annapolis Royal to the Minas region as the advance guard of Colonel Arthur Noble's detachment. On 31 January 1747, a French and Indigenous force under Nicolas-Antoine Coulon de Villiers attacked Noble's garrison at Grand Pré in a midnight assault. The New England troops were overwhelmed. Colonel Noble was killed. Morris survived. Nicolas-Antoine Coulon de Villiers was a brother of Louis Coulon de Villiers and Joseph Coulon de Villiers de Jumonville, names that recur across the colonial conflicts of this period. [article:de-villiers-the-treasure-bloodline] The experience at Grand Pré left a permanent mark. The battle nourished a grudge against the neutral French population that Morris retained until the end of his days. He remained in service through the winter, recruiting for the Annapolis garrison, and in the spring of 1748 Governor Shirley sent him back to Nova Scotia to survey the Minas and Chignecto regions. With fifty men, Morris traversed the Chignecto Isthmus and surveyed the Bay of Fundy, at that time, in his own words, "utterly unknown to the English." The result was a 107-page manuscript entitled "A Breif Survey of Nova Scotia" (Morris's spelling), containing a geographical description of the province, its natural resources, climate, and the settlements and population of the Acadians. Historian Andrew Hill Clark identified this document as the work of Nova Scotia's first practical field geographer. The manuscript is held at the Royal Artillery Institution in Woolwich, England, with a copy at Library and Archives Canada. Morris's published report to Shirley, detailing specific sites for Protestant settlement at Annapolis Royal, Minas, and Chignecto, was later included in the 1912 Report of the Canadian Archives Branch. The Founding of Halifax and Rise to Power (1749–1755) When Edward Cornwallis founded the town of Halifax in the summer of 1749, Morris was among the first settlers. Working with military engineer John Brewse, he laid out the town's street grid. On 25 September 1749, Cornwallis appointed him Chief Surveyor of Lands within the Province, on the recommendation of the Earl of Halifax. Morris went on to survey the Atlantic coast north and south of the capital, selecting sites for new townships including Lawrencetown and Lunenburg. He laid out the town grid at Lunenburg in 1753 and 1754, supervising the settlement of German and Swiss immigrants there. According to Reginald V. Harris, the foremost historian of Freemasonry in Nova Scotia, Morris became a Freemason at the lodge in Annapolis Royal prior to 1755. This was the first constituted Masonic lodge in Canada, founded in 1738 by Erasmus James Philipps. Morris was a close associate of Jonathan Belcher Jr., the Grand Master of the Provincial Grand Lodge of Nova Scotia, and the two sat together on Lieutenant-Governor Charles Lawrence's council. Morris eventually became one of Belcher's principal assistants when Belcher became Lieutenant-Governor. A figure of particular interest among Morris's Masonic associates was Isaac DeCoster, who according to Masonic records also became a Freemason at the Annapolis Royal lodge around 1738. DeCoster later became the first master of the Lodge of Saint Andrew in Boston (warranted 1756), and almost certainly received the Royal Arch degree, which at that time was conferred on past masters within the Antient system. DeCoster fought at the second siege of Louisbourg in 1758 and spent time in Halifax, providing ample opportunity for contact with Morris. He would later play a founding role in establishing the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, being made a deputy inspector general in 1781 and establishing the Sublime Grand Lodge of Perfection in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1783. [article:freemasons-on-oak-island-the-masonic-connection] The 1762 Mahone Bay Survey and Oak Island Jonathan Belcher Jr., in his capacity as Lieutenant-Governor, ordered Charles Morris to survey Mahone Bay. Morris was the first person known to have done so. The resulting map, titled "A Draught of Mahone Bay on the Sea Coast of Nova Scotia with All the Islands, Shoals, Ledges of Rocks and Soundings Done by Charles Morris Chief Surveyor," is dated 1762. The original is held at the Ministry of Defence of the United Kingdom (Hydrographic Office). Scott Clarke, a Freemason and author of Oak Island Odyssey, tracked down and purchased a copy from Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa. Morris's earlier writings contain no mention of Mahone Bay or the south shore of Nova Scotia. His 1749 report to Shirley covers Annapolis Royal, Minas, and Chignecto in detail, but when he reaches the boundaries of his knowledge, he writes: "as I am not personally acquainted with that part of the Country I leave it." His 107-page "Breif Survey of Nova Scotia," held at the Royal Artillery Institution in Woolwich and Library and Archives Canada, has never been fully published and appears to remain largely unexamined by Oak Island researchers. The Mahone Bay survey came fourteen years after the Shirley report, on Belcher's specific orders. Whatever Morris knew or did not know about the area before 1762 is not recorded in his surviving published writings. On this map, Oak Island appears under the name Smith's Island. Morris divided it into thirty-two lots of approximately four acres each, with the first twenty lots ranging along the northern edge and the remaining twelve along the southern shore. The survey was conducted thirty-three years before the reported discovery of the Money Pit in 1795. The Numbers in the Survey Two features of Morris's Oak Island survey carry significance when looked at through a masonic lens. The first is the number of lots: thirty-two. In the Scottish Rite system that would be formalized later in the century, partly through the work of Morris's lodge brother Isaac DeCoster, the thirty-second degree is the highest degree that can be earned by a member (the thirty-third is honorary and conferred by the Supreme Council). The second is the angle of the centre road. The main road across Oak Island, as laid out in Morris's survey, does not run due east-west. It runs at approximately eighteen degrees north of due east, or 108 degrees from true north. The number 108 is the interior angle of a regular pentagon, a shape with deep significance in both classical geometry and Masonic-Rosicrucian symbolism. In the Scottish Rite degree system, the eighteenth degree is the Knight of the Rose Croix, the Rosicrucian degree.  Whether these numbers are coincidental or intentional cannot be determined from the survey documents alone. They are recorded here as documented features of a survey conducted by a documented Freemason. [article:real-or-not-the-geometry-of-nolan-s-cross] Clarke's Cipher Theory Scott Clarke identifies what he interprets as three Masonic ciphers embedded in the 1762 Mahone Bay map. The first involves the abbreviation "st." in "st. margarets bay," where the capital T and two periods beneath it resemble the Masonic Triple Tau, the most important symbol in Royal Arch Freemasonry. Clarke found that the only other known example of this specific abbreviation style (capital S and T with two periods) appears on the original seal of Saint Andrew's Royal Arch Chapter in Boston, the chapter that grew out of DeCoster's Lodge of Saint Andrew. The second cipher involves what Clarke identifies as Masonic-script letter A's in the name "st. margarets bay." When a circle is drawn using the arc created by these three A's, it passes through the compass rose at the centre of the map and directly over the eastern end of Oak Island. A line drawn through the stem of the T and two dots in "st. margarets," when extended, also points directly to Oak Island. Clarke presents these three ciphers as converging on the same location: the eastern end of Oak Island, where the Money Pit would later be reported. Christopher Morford, co-author of The Jerusalem Files, independently discovered a third pointer within the map by utilizing the arc created by the three Masonic-script A's, which, when extended into a circle, passed through the compass rose and directly over the eastern end of Oak Island. The Morris Family and the Surveyor General Dynasty Charles Morris and Mary Read had eleven children. Their eldest son, Charles Morris II (1731–1802), came to Nova Scotia around 1760 and assisted his father in the surveyor's office. By 1776, the younger Morris was performing the duties of the office alone, though he did not receive the formal appointment until after his father's death. He married Elizabeth Bond Leggett.  Charles Morris III (1759–1831), the grandson, succeeded his father as Surveyor General in 1802. John Spry Morris, the great-grandson, succeeded his father in 1831 and served until the office was merged with the commissioner of crown lands in 1851. Four generations of the Morris family thus held the position of Surveyor General of Nova Scotia for its entire 102-year existence, from 1749 to 1851. A continuity of service only rivalled by the Wright family of Prince Edward Island. In 1813, Richard John Uniacke, the Attorney General of Nova Scotia, purchased a 400-acre property and several additional parcels totalling 2,540 acres from the estate of Charles Morris. One of these parcels became the site of the grand house at what is now the Uniacke Estate Museum Park at Mount Uniacke, one of the most recognized heritage properties in the province. [article:richard-uniacke-oak-island-gatekeeper] Later Career and Death Morris's last major surveying assignment appears to have been in 1769–1770, when he was ordered to help settle the boundaries between New York and New Jersey. He continued to attend Council meetings in Halifax and served as an assistant judge on the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, briefly holding the position of Chief Justice from 1776 to 1778. In that role, he presided over the trials of those involved in the Eddy Rebellion and the sedition trial of Malachy Salter. Like many members of the Halifax elite, Morris owned farmland at Windsor, Nova Scotia, in the former Acadian district of Pisiquid. According to Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton, Morris may have died while visiting this rural property in late 1781. On 11 November 1781, he set his hand to a codicil to his last will and testament at Windsor. Legal documents indicate he was dead two days later. He was buried at the Old Parish Burying Ground in Windsor. The Franklin Connection Morris's position as Surveyor General placed him at the centre of all land grant activity in Nova Scotia. In 1765, Colonel Alexander McNutt applied for 100,000 acres at Port Roseway, between Barrington and Liverpool townships, on behalf of several prominent men in Philadelphia, including Benjamin Franklin. McNutt described this land as the foundation for a new city to be called New Jerusalem. Morris's office processed these grants. Benjamin Bridge, a Freemason and cousin of Jonathan Belcher Jr. through the Belcher family, served as an assistant surveyor to Morris during the 1762 Mahone Bay survey and later settled in Chester as a neighbour of Dr. Jonathan Prescott, who owned two lots on Oak Island. The intersection of Franklin's interest in Nova Scotia lands, Morris's authority over all survey and grant information in the province, and the Masonic networks connecting Boston, Halifax, and Philadelphia placed Morris at a nexus of colonial knowledge and influence that extended well beyond his official title. [article:benjamin-franklin-s-nova-scotia-connection] Assessment Charles Morris mapped Nova Scotia from the Bay of Fundy to Charlottetown. He surveyed Mahone Bay and Oak Island decades before anyone reportedly discovered anything there. He was a documented Freemason in a colony where Freemasons controlled the government, the military, and the land grants. His 1762 map, if Scott Clarke's reading is correct, may contain encoded Masonic symbolism pointing to the eastern end of Oak Island. His survey divided the island into thirty-two lots with a centre road running at 108 degrees from true north. Whether Morris knew of pre-existing activity on Oak Island, whether his survey embedded intentional symbolism, or whether these features are the product of practical decisions by a busy colonial official, cannot be established from the available record. What can be established is that no single figure had more knowledge of, or authority over, the geography of Nova Scotia than Charles Morris. He held that authority for thirty-two years, and his family held it for a century after him. He died at Windsor in November 1781 and was buried in the Old Parish Burying Ground. His 1762 map of Mahone Bay remains the earliest known survey of Oak Island. Sources Primary documents by Charles Morris: "Report by Captain Morris to Governor Shirley Upon His Survey of Lands in Nova Scotia Available for Protestant Settlers, 1749." Report of the Work of the Archives Branch for the Year 1912, Appendix H, pp. 79–83. Available at archive.org/details/1913v47i23p29b_0960. "A Breif Survey of Nova Scotia" (c.1748). Unpublished 107-page manuscript. Royal Artillery Institution, Woolwich, England, and Library and Archives Canada (MG 18, F.4–F.10). "Judge Morris' remarks concerning the removal of the Acadians" (1755). Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society, Vol. II, pp. 158–160. Last will and testament and codicil, 11 November 1781. Halifax County Estate Papers, RG 48, Vol. 414, No. M154, Nova Scotia Archives. Morris maps: "A Draught of Mahone Bay on the Sea Coast of Nova Scotia" (1762). Original at UK Ministry of Defence, Hydrographic Office. Copy at Library and Archives Canada. First known survey of Oak Island. "A Chart of the Sea Coasts of the Peninsula of Nova Scotia" (1755). Leventhal Map Center, Boston Public Library. "A chart of the peninsula of Nova Scotia" (1761). Library of Congress. Available at loc.gov/item/74691224. Biographical and genealogical sources: Phyllis R. Blakeley, "Charles Morris," Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol. 4, pp. 559–563 (1979). Available at biographi.ca. Principal academic biography. Donald F. Chard, "Morris, Charles (1731–1802)" and "Morris, Charles (1759–1831)," DCB Vols. 5 and 6 (1983, 1987). Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton, "Eminent Nova Scotians of New England Birth, Number One: Capt. the Hon. Charles Morris, M.C.," NEHGR, Vol. LXVII (1913), pp. 287–290. Ethel Crathorne, "The Morris family – surveyors-general," Nova Scotia Historical Quarterly, Vol. 6 (1976), pp. 207–216. Find A Grave, memorial for Esther Rainsthorpe Morris (1676–1755), Granary Burying Ground, Boston. Memorial ID 21029421. Geni.com, profile for John Read, Attorney General of Massachusetts (1680–1749). Father of Mary (Read) Morris. The Morris House: Jonathan Fowler, Andre Robichaud, and Colin P. Laroque, "Dating the Morris House: A Study of Heritage Value in Halifax, Nova Scotia," Northeast Historical Archaeology, Vol. 47 (2018). Dendrochronological analysis yielding probable construction date of 1757. Historic Nova Scotia, "The Morris Family of Surveyors" (2020). Available at historicnovascotia.ca/items/show/186. Oak Island and Masonic sources: Scott Clarke, Oak Island Odyssey (Nimbus Publishing, 2023). Primary source for the Triple Tau and Masonic-script A cipher theories, the Morris-DeCoster-Belcher connections, Benjamin Bridge, James Monk, and pre-1795 Masonic lot ownership. Clarke sourced Morris's Masonic membership from R.V. Harris. Randall Sullivan, The Curse of Oak Island (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2018). Morris's survey of Island No. 28 and division into 32 four-acre lots. Mark Finnan, Oak Island Secrets (Formac Publishing, 1995). Morris's 1762 survey and possible Stone Triangle connection. "History of Freemasonry in Nova Scotia," Chapters 1–2 (King Solomon Lodge No. 54). First Canadian lodge at Annapolis Royal, 1738. Available at kingsolomonlodge54.com. Other sources: Andrew Hill Clark, Acadia: The Geography of Early Nova Scotia to 1760 (University of Wisconsin Press, 1968). Credits Morris as Nova Scotia's first practical field geographer. John Mack Faragher, A Great and Noble Scheme (W.W. Norton, 2005). Morris's role in planning the Acadian expulsion from 1754. Uniacke Estate Museum Park, "The Estate." Records the 1813 purchase of 2,940 acres from the Morris estate. Available at uniacke.novascotia.ca. Corjan Mol, own research ### Samuel Ball, the Unlikely Oak Island Owner URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/samuel-ball-the-unlikely-landowner When Samuel Ball died on December 14, 1845, at the age of eighty-one, he owned nine lots on Oak Island totaling thirty-six acres, roughly one hundred acres on the mainland opposite the island, and a small island called Hook Island in Mahone Bay. His home stood on Lot 25, where the stone foundation is still visible today. His will, dated October 1, 1841, and probated on January 5, 1846, listed among its witnesses a man named John Barkhouse Sr. Among its executors was Anthony Vaughan, the same family name as one of the three young men said to have discovered the Money Pit in 1795. Poll tax records listed Ball as a farmer. He raised cattle, grew cabbages, cut firewood, and fished. None of these occupations, individually or together, would seem to explain how a formerly enslaved man came to own more of Oak Island than any other person in its history. Born into Bondage Ball was born into slavery around 1764 on a plantation in South Carolina, possibly connected to the Wambaw branch of the Elias Ball family of Charleston, whose estates at Comingtee and elsewhere enslaved nearly four thousand people over the course of a century and a half. His early life is undocumented. What changed everything was a proclamation issued on November 7, 1775, by John Murray, the Fourth Earl of Dunmore and royal governor of Virginia. Facing open rebellion and reduced to roughly three hundred troops, Dunmore declared that any enslaved person belonging to a patriot master who took up arms for the Crown would be granted freedom. The proclamation was published across all thirteen colonies. Within a month, three hundred Black men had joined what became known as the Ethiopian Regiment. Over the course of the war, an estimated twenty thousand enslaved people sought freedom behind British lines. Ward's Green-Coats Ball was among them. He escaped the plantation and joined British forces in South Carolina under Lord Cornwallis before being transferred to the army of General Henry Clinton, then marching on New York. He was eventually assigned to the command of Major Thomas Ward, stationed at Bergen Point in New Jersey. Ward's unit, commonly known as the Green-Coats or the Loyal Refugee Volunteers, became notorious in the region. Alongside their official duties, the men staged raids throughout the surrounding countryside, confiscating rebel livestock, horses, and personal property and dividing the proceeds by rank. Contemporary accounts describe Ward as a vicious plunderer, and one particularly hostile letter noted that his associates were of the lowest character. Whether Ball participated in these raids or served only as a woodcutter, as some records indicate, his time under Ward may have left him with more resources than a typical soldier earning two to three pence per week. Black Loyalist When Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown in 1781, Ball was among the thousands of Black Loyalists who fled to British-held New York. In 1783, British commander Sir Guy Carleton negotiated certificates of freedom for those who had served, and Brigadier General Samuel Birch compiled the Book of Negroes, a register of some three thousand Black Loyalists granted passage to Nova Scotia. Ball arrived in Shelburne that year, at roughly nineteen years of age. The Black Loyalists who settled there founded Birchtown, which became the largest free Black settlement outside Africa at the time. But the promises of land and equality went largely unfulfilled. Black settlers received smaller plots than their white counterparts, waited years for allocations, and faced severe discrimination from fellow colonists, some of whom had brought their own enslaved people from the American states. After two years, Ball left Shelburne for Chester. [artifact:ball-name-tag] The Landowner By 1787, Ball had purchased his first lot on Oak Island for eight pounds. According to the Lunenburg County Book of Deeds, Oak Island lots were the most expensive per acre in all of Mahone Bay. For the same sum, a buyer could have acquired more than twenty times the acreage on the mainland. The question of why Ball chose to pay a premium for land on a remote island rather than settle cheaply on the shore has never been answered. In 1790, he purchased Hook Island from Daniel Vaughan, brother to Anthony Vaughan Sr. and uncle of Anthony Vaughan Jr., one of the Money Pit discoverers, for five pounds. In 1798, he bought Lot 8 from Robert Melvin for six pounds. In 1809, he petitioned Justice of the Peace Thomas Thompson in Chester for the grant of Lot 32, a vacant four-acre parcel adjoining land he had already purchased. Thompson certified that he had known Ball for over twenty years and described him as an honest, sober, and industrious settler worthy of encouragement. The lot was granted. Over the following decades, Ball acquired lots 6, 7, 8, 24, 25, 26, 30, 31, and 32 on Oak Island, along with the mainland acreage and Hook Island. Land Rich, Not Cash Rich Some popular accounts have described Ball as one of the richest men in Nova Scotia at the time of his death. This claim does not hold up under scrutiny. It originates not from any historical record but from the writers of The Curse of Oak Island, and has since been repeated and circular-cited across dozens of websites as though it were established fact. The reality is more measured. Ball was land rich in a region where land was cheap. After American independence, many Planter settlers returned to the United States, and the influx of British Loyalists caused further upheaval. Abandoned lots on Oak Island could be had by anyone willing to assume the taxes and clear the ground. The mainland acreage Ball owned was logged-over land, cleared of trees and littered with stumps. The 1793 poll tax records for Oak Island show that its residents were, by any measure, poor. Ball's neighbour Donald McInnis, the Daniel McGinnis of Money Pit fame, owned comparable livestock. Ball was a successful farmer who accumulated property over six decades of hard work. Whether that alone accounts for his holdings is the question that refuses to go away. [map:samuel-ball] The DesBrisay Problem A curious detail in the historical record deepens the mystery. In the first edition of Judge Mather Byles DesBrisay's History of the County of Lunenburg, published in 1870, the three men credited with discovering the Money Pit are listed as Daniel McGinnis, John Smith, and Samuel Ball. In the second edition, published in 1896, Ball's name had been replaced by Anthony Vaughan. No explanation for the change was offered. DesBrisay still mentioned Ball in the revised edition, describing him as an early resident of Oak Island, a man who had come from South Carolina where he had been enslaved, and noting only that he was remembered as a good man. The 1791 census shows that Ball and Donald McInnis were neighbours on the island. Ball witnessed McGinnis's will in 1827. Anthony Vaughan served as executor of Ball's own will. These men knew each other well. Whether Ball was present at the discovery or arrived shortly after remains one of Oak Island's unresolved questions. What the Ground Reveals The show has explored Ball's former properties extensively. In Season 4, metal detection expert Gary Drayton and Oak Island historian Charles Barkhouse searched Lot 24, recovering a British military officer's dandy button, a coin bearing the name and likeness of King George II dating to the mid-1700s, and a lead ingot of the type used for making musket balls. All three finds are consistent with a British military presence on the island before 1795, but they are equally consistent with the personal effects of Ball himself, a man who had served in the British army for years. In later seasons, Drayton recovered additional artifacts from Ball's former lots, including an old lock with a visible keyhole on Lot 25 and a metal tag that some researchers have speculated was a rifle buttplate inscribed with the words "Samuel Ball, 42nd Grenadiers," though this reading remains unconfirmed. The Three Chests The most dramatic claim about Ball comes not from the historical record but from oral tradition. In Season 3, Joyce McGinnis and her sisters visited Oak Island and repeated a story that had been passed down through the McGinnis family for generations. According to the tale, the original discoverers found three chests of treasure at a shallow depth in the Money Pit and took one each. Joyce produced a heavy cross of braided gold, hand-hammered and clearly old, which she said had been examined by jewellers who estimated it could be five hundred years old. She said her grandfather had insisted it be handed down from eldest son to eldest son, and that she had been told to never let it out of her sight. The story first surfaced publicly in 2007, when a local historian named Danny Hennigar spoke to a McGinnis descendant who showed him the cross. If the account is true, Ball may have been the third man, and his sudden ability to purchase land in 1787 takes on a different meaning entirely. The Boyd Family Silence A descendant of Ball named Frank Stanley Boyd, eight generations removed, posted biographical notes on a blog dedicated to the elimination of racism in Canada before his death in Halifax in 2010. His son, John-David Boyd, was contacted by journalists and by the producers of the show. In his only substantive communication, Boyd said that his father had summoned him to his bedside near the end of his life to tell him "the rest of the story," and then instructed him not to give it away. Boyd declined all further contact. Whatever the Boyd family knows, or believes they know, they have chosen to keep it to themselves. In Season 5, Anthony and Ivan Boyd, identified as Ball's great-great-grandsons, appeared on camera alongside Charles Barkhouse and Doug Crowell to discuss their ancestor's life and his connection to the island. A Free Man Samuel Ball lived on Oak Island for nearly sixty years. He married twice, first to Mary, with whom he had three children (two of whom died young), and later to Catherine, who survived him. He employed a servant named Isaac Butler, a Black man who arrived in Nova Scotia after 1812 and remained with the family until Ball's death. His will stipulated that none shall possess his land unless they take the name Ball. No known photograph or etching of him exists. No gravestone has been found in any Lunenburg County cemetery listing. His mainland property adjoined lands owned by Daniel McGinnis. The foundation of his home on Lot 25 is still there, overgrown but visible, on an island where men have been digging for treasure since before he arrived, or perhaps since shortly after he did. ### The Knights Baronet of Nova Scotia URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/the-knights-baronet Of all the theories surrounding Oak Island, the Knights Baronet may be the most overlooked, and one of the most historically grounded. It does not rely on legends of medieval monks fleeing persecution or pirates burying plunder between raids. It begins with a documented act of the British Crown, a royal charter signed on September 10, 1621, that handed an entire province to a single Scottish courtier and created a hereditary order of knights with direct authority over the land where Oak Island sits. The theory was brought to prominence by the late James McQuiston, a historian, author, and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, who spent years tracing the connections between this knightly order, the earlier military orders of medieval Scotland, and the mystery of Oak Island. His research, presented multiple times in the War Room on The Curse of Oak Island and developed across more than a dozen books, remains one of the most methodical and historically rigorous contributions to the Oak Island story. The Creation of Nova Scotia In the early 1600s, King James I of England (simultaneously King James VI of Scotland) wanted control of the vast stretch of North American territory between his colonies in Virginia and Newfoundland. The problem was the French. Samuel de Champlain and Pierre Dugua had established settlements in Acadia, and the oldest of these, Port-Royal, sat on the Bay of Fundy in what is now western Nova Scotia. The French were already there, and they were not leaving. Sir William Alexander of Menstrie, a Scottish poet, courtier, and tutor to the young Prince Henry, proposed a solution. He would establish a "New Scotland" in the heart of French Acadia, replacing Catholic settlers with Scottish Protestant ones. King James agreed. On September 10, 1621, he granted Alexander the charter for Nova Scotia, making him lord proprietor of a territory encompassing what are now the three Maritime Provinces and the Gaspé Peninsula. It was an enormous grant. On paper, Sir William Alexander owned everything, including the small wooded island in Mahone Bay that would one day become the most excavated piece of ground in North America. The Order of Knights Baronet Alexander's first attempts at colonisation failed. In 1622 he sent a ship from London to Kirkcudbright to collect settlers, but bad weather, reluctant artisans, and scarce supplies turned the expedition into a disaster. The colonists ended up stranded in Newfoundland. A second attempt in 1623 fared little better. Settlers explored the Nova Scotia coastline as far as Port-Joli and Port-au-Mouton, formed a favourable impression, then sailed home without establishing anything permanent. The problem was money. Alexander was spending his personal fortune trying to populate a colony that no one wanted to move to. King James, who had successfully raised £225,000 by selling baronetcies to fund the plantation of Ulster in 1613, proposed the same scheme for Nova Scotia. On October 18, 1624, the king announced his intention to create the Knights Baronets of Nova Scotia. The deal was straightforward: any Scottish gentleman who paid 3,000 merks, or who equipped and transported six armed settlers to Nova Scotia for two years, would receive a hereditary baronetcy and a barony of 16,000 acres in the new colony. Under Scots law, each baronet would "take sasine," receiving symbolic earth and stone from the actual land as proof of ownership. Since crossing the Atlantic was impractical for this ceremony, Charles I (who took the throne after James died in March 1625) arranged for the ritual to take place at Edinburgh Castle, where a mound of Nova Scotian earth was symbolically present. A total of 150 baronetcies were authorised. By 1631, 85 had been created. The Knights Baronets of Nova Scotia were, on paper at least, the legal landowners of the province in which Oak Island sits. The Templar Thread What made McQuiston's research so compelling was his discovery of the connections running backward in time from the Knights Baronet to the older military orders. This was not speculation. He traced it through verifiable genealogical and institutional records. The key moment was 1563, when the singular Grand Prior of the Order of the Knights of St. John and the Temple in Scotland turned over all possessions of both knighthoods to Mary, Queen of Scots. This was a transfer of real property, real authority, and real institutional memory from the remnants of the Templar and Hospitaller orders into the hands of the Scottish Crown. Within two generations, the heirs of four men involved in that 1563 transfer became Knights Baronets of Nova Scotia. And by July 3, 1634, the first recorded Freemasons appeared in Edinburgh, all with documented connections to Nova Scotia. McQuiston identified that roughly 25 percent of the Knights Baronet had some traceable connection back to the Knights Templar. The Baronetage was not simply a fundraising scheme for colonisation. It was, in McQuiston's carefully argued view, a continuation of something much older. [article:freemasons-on-oak-island-the-masonic-connection] James McQuiston and the Oak Island Connection McQuiston came to the Oak Island story through a personal discovery. In 1965, like so many others, he had read the Reader's Digest article about the mystery. But it was not until October 2016 that he realised his own extended family's title of Premier Knight Baronet of Nova Scotia might have something to do with the island's story. He contacted the Oak Island team with a small amount of information. It was met with requests for more. That initial contact led to years of sustained research, more than a dozen books, and over a dozen appearances on The Curse of Oak Island. His theory, which he described as "a conspiracy of elites," was ranked among the top theories on the show, and Rick Lagina himself said on-air: "When you ask the who, what, when, where, why and how, I think James, above all the others, really deals with that." McQuiston's approach was that of a detective, not a storyteller. A Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and a member of the Scottish Rite Research Society, he worked from primary sources: letters, family histories, war records, and documents scanned from libraries dating back to the 1600s, sourced from archives in Scotland, England, and Nova Scotia. He collaborated closely with Oak Island historians Charles Barkhouse and Doug Crowell, and carried out regular research for the team that continued almost weekly until his passing. James McQuiston died unexpectedly on December 6, 2025, at the age of seventy-five. His loss was felt deeply across the Oak Island research community and far beyond it. He was, by every account, generous with his findings, supportive of fellow researchers, and possessed of a rare combination of deep scholarship and genuine warmth. His work on the Knights Baronet represents one of the most significant original contributions to the Oak Island literature, and it continues to shape the direction of the search. The 1671 Medallion and New Ross One piece of physical evidence gave particular weight to McQuiston's theory. A 1671 British knighthood medallion was found in the ground near an unexplained stone foundation at New Ross, Nova Scotia, approximately twenty miles upriver from Oak Island along the Gold River. The New Ross site has long been a subject of debate. Some researchers have attributed the foundation to Vikings or Templars. McQuiston believed the evidence pointed to a later date: 1623, when Alexander's settlers first explored the Nova Scotia coastline. Three separate traditions, from the Alexander family, the Nauss family of Nova Scotia, and the Mi'kmaq First Nations, all describe a "secret estate" built at the New Ross site for Sir William Alexander during that period. [site:new-ross] The medallion, in McQuiston's analysis, connected not to the original construction but to a later visit. He linked it to Sir William Phips, a knight who recovered a fortune from the sunken Spanish galleon Concepción in the Caribbean and returned the bulk of it to King James II. McQuiston believed Phips visited the New Ross site not to bury treasure of his own, but to search for Alexander's. He noted a tantalising genealogical thread: Phips' father was named James, but no further family history is known. Alexander's private secretary was named James Philp, and nothing is recorded of him after Alexander's death in 1640, when Philp sold his Scottish land. The names Phips and Philp are contractions of Phillips, and in the records of this period, they were used interchangeably. [artifact:1671-order-of-the-garter-medallion][article:william-phips-the-treasure-of-the-concepcion] The Carbon Dating Window McQuiston's theory also aligned with the physical evidence from Oak Island itself. Carbon dating of wood and other materials recovered from the Money Pit and surrounding structures has repeatedly returned dates clustering around 1620 to 1660. This window matches almost exactly with the active period of the Knights Baronet colonisation effort and the construction timeline McQuiston proposed. If the Money Pit was built during this period, it was constructed at a time when the Knights Baronet held legal authority over the island, when Scottish settlers with Templar-connected lineages had both the motive and the means to hide something of great value, and when the political turmoil of the English Civil War made secure storage outside of Britain an urgent practical concern. A Theory Built on Records, Not Romance What distinguished McQuiston's work from many other Oak Island theories was its foundation in documented history. The charter of 1621 is a matter of public record. The creation of the Baronetage is documented in detail. The genealogical connections between the Baronets and the earlier knightly orders can be traced through Scottish archives. The carbon dating evidence from Oak Island sits within the timeframe his theory predicts. None of this proves that the Knights Baronet built the Money Pit. But it establishes something that few other theories can claim: a documented group of people with legal authority over Oak Island, with traceable connections to medieval military orders, operating within the exact time period indicated by the physical evidence, and with a plausible reason to construct a hidden vault on a remote island in the North Atlantic. The Knights Baronet theory does not ask you to believe in lost fleets, undocumented ocean crossings, or treasure maps drawn from memory by eccentric English authors. It asks you to follow the paper trail. And for that, we owe a great debt to James McQuiston, who followed it further and more carefully than anyone before him. ### The Secret British Military Bank URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/the-secret-british-military-bank The Most Dangerous Place in the Empire Between 1710 and 1763, Nova Scotia was the site of six colonial wars. Control of the territory passed between France and Britain repeatedly, and each transfer was paid for in blood. Father Rale's War, Father Le Loutre's War, King George's War, the Seven Years' War: the names have faded from popular memory, but in the 18th century, the Atlantic coast of Canada was among the most violently contested ground on earth. The British made six attempts to conquer the Acadian capital before finally succeeding at the Siege of Port Royal in 1710. Over the following fifty years, the French and their Indigenous allies launched six more campaigns to take it back. Into this arena, the British poured men, ships, and money on a scale that dwarfed anything else happening in North America. The 40th Regiment of Foot was stationed in Nova Scotia for 46 consecutive years, from 1717 to 1763, the longest continuous deployment of any British regiment in the Americas. Halifax was founded in 1749 not as a settlement but as a military fortress, purpose-built to counterbalance the French stronghold at Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island. By the 1750s, the Royal Navy maintained a permanent squadron dedicated to the North Atlantic, and Halifax harbour served as its primary base. Regiments rotated through the garrison. Engineers fortified the coastline. Payroll, supplies, and captured spoils moved through the region in quantities that required serious protection. [site:fortress-louisbourg] Oak Island sits in Mahone Bay, roughly 80 kilometres southwest of Halifax. In the mid-18th century it was uninhabited, wooded, and accessible only by boat. For a military commander looking to secure something valuable away from the main garrison, away from enemy raids, and away from the civilian population, it would have been a logical choice. [article:mahone-bay-history-of-the-waters-that-hold-oak-island] The Engineering Argument The most persistent question in the Oak Island story is not what was buried, but who had the ability to bury it. The Money Pit, with its oak platforms at regular intervals, its flood tunnel connecting to the sea, and its layered construction reaching depths beyond 30 metres, was not the work of a small crew operating in secret. It was an engineered project. Civil engineers Graham Harris and Les MacPhie spent over a decade analysing the Money Pit from a professional standpoint. Their conclusion, published across three editions of Oak Island and Its Lost Treasure, was that construction would have required a labour force of over 100 men, supplemented by a small team of experienced miners. The work would have taken nearly two years to complete. In the third edition, Harris and MacPhie presented evidence drawn from British military records that they believed identified who commanded the force, how it reached Nova Scotia, and when the construction was carried out. They placed the building of the flood tunnel at approximately 1752. [article:oak-island-flood-tunnels-and-box-drains-the-water-trap][artifact:box-drains-fan-shaped] The date is significant. In 1752, Halifax was three years old, the garrison was growing, and the colony was bracing for the conflict that would become the Seven Years' War. The British had Royal Engineers on site, military mining specialists, and access to both soldiers and forced labour. No other group operating in mid-18th-century Nova Scotia could have marshalled the same combination of engineering knowledge, manpower, and sustained logistical support. What Needed Protecting The sums moving through Nova Scotia during the colonial wars were substantial. Military payroll for multiple garrisons had to be stored securely in a region under constant threat. The first fall of Louisbourg in 1745 yielded captured French military funds. The second and final siege in 1758, conducted by a massive British force under Amherst and Wolfe, resulted in the systematic demolition of the fortress and the seizure of everything inside it. The fate of the French garrison's treasury has never been conclusively accounted for. Then came Havana. In 1762, British forces besieged and captured the Cuban capital, seizing treasure estimated at £3 million in 18th-century pounds (equivalent to hundreds of millions today). The prize money was enormous, and the British naval base at Halifax was the nearest secure port in the Western Atlantic. Some researchers have proposed that a portion of the Havana spoils was diverted to a secure location near Halifax rather than being shipped directly to London, where it would be subject to Crown accounting and political dispute. [article:the-sack-of-havana] The threat was not theoretical. In 1746, France had assembled the largest fleet ever sent to the New World: 64 ships and 11,000 men under the Duc d'Anville, with the explicit mission of recapturing Halifax and driving the British from Nova Scotia. The expedition ended in disaster, with storms, disease, and the death of d'Anville himself destroying the fleet before it could attack. But the message was clear. Halifax was a target. Any commander responsible for securing military funds would have known that a single enemy fleet could threaten the main garrison. A vault on a nearby uninhabited island, protected by engineered flood defences, would have provided exactly the kind of redundancy that military logistics demands. [article:the-doomed-expedition-of-the-duc-d-anville] The Artifacts The objects found on Oak Island include items that fit squarely within an 18th-century British military context. A gold-plated military officer's button was recovered during metal detection work on the island. A British military uniform button, dated to approximately 1775 to 1815, was found on Lot 21, near the former home site of Daniel McGinnis. A King George III cartwheel penny, minted in 1797, turned up on Lot 2. A French military cap badge, possibly from a grenadier's hat of the 1700s, was also discovered, consistent with the presence of both British and French military personnel in the Mahone Bay area during the colonial period. [artifact:british-naval-officer-s-button][artifact:george-iii-penny-halfpenny-lot-5][artifact:cap-badge-fragment-money-pit-dunfield-spoils] None of these objects are medieval. None point to Templars or ancient civilisations. They are the kind of items that soldiers lose, drop, or leave behind during extended operations. Taken individually, each could be explained by casual visits to the island. Taken together, and considered alongside the engineered structures underground, they suggest sustained military activity during the period when British forces controlled the region. The Revolution Changes Everything If the British military built a vault on Oak Island, the American Revolution may explain why the contents were never recovered. When the Thirteen Colonies declared independence in 1776, Halifax became Britain's most important remaining base in North America. Over 75,000 Loyalists fled north to Nova Scotia after the war, transforming the colony from a military outpost into a densely settled province. Land grants were issued across the region, including on Oak Island itself. The island, which had been uninhabited and controllable throughout the colonial wars, was suddenly surrounded by settlers. The first recorded land grants on Oak Island date to the Shorham grant of 1759, but significant settlement came in the 1780s and 1790s with the Loyalist influx. By the time Daniel McGinnis reportedly discovered the Money Pit depression in 1795, the island had been privately owned for decades. Any military operation to recover the vault's contents would have required digging on privately held land, in full view of civilian residents, an operation that would have been difficult to conduct in secret and politically impossible to justify. [article:the-real-daniel-mcginnis-of-oak-island] The theory suggests that the vault was simply abandoned: too difficult to access, too risky to expose, and eventually forgotten as the officers who knew its location died or were reassigned. The treasure, if treasure it was, remained underground because the circumstances that created it had been overtaken by history. The Samuel Ball Question One figure complicates any straightforward reading of the island's history. Samuel Ball was born into slavery in South Carolina in 1764. He gained his freedom by fighting for the British during the American Revolution, and after the war he migrated to Nova Scotia with tens of thousands of other Black Loyalists. In 1786, Ball purchased a four-acre lot on Oak Island at what was described as a premium price for a relatively small parcel. He eventually acquired several more lots and became one of the wealthiest landowners in the Mahone Bay area, a remarkable outcome for a formerly enslaved man in late 18th-century Nova Scotia. Researchers have long debated the source of Ball's wealth. His official livelihood was farming, particularly cabbages, which he sold to the Halifax garrison. But land records and tax assessments suggest resources beyond what cabbage farming could reasonably produce. Near Ball's former home on the island, the team discovered what appeared to be a man-made stone tunnel, and metal detection surveys have recovered coins, buttons, and other artefacts from the area. [article:samuel-ball-the-unlikely-landowner] If the British military had constructed a vault on Oak Island, a Loyalist veteran who had served the Crown and settled on the island would have been exactly the kind of person who might be trusted with partial knowledge of what lay beneath. Whether Ball discovered the vault independently, was guided to it, or simply benefited from proximity to buried wealth remains an open question. But his presence on the island, his military service, and his unexplained prosperity all fit within the framework of the British military theory. A Theory Built on Logic The British Military Bank theory does not require ancient orders, religious relics, or transatlantic voyages predating Columbus. It asks only that the Money Pit be understood as a product of the era in which Nova Scotia was most heavily militarised: the mid to late 18th century. It proposes that the people best equipped to build such a structure, British Royal Engineers with access to military miners and hundreds of soldiers, were the ones who built it. And it suggests that the contents, whether military payroll, captured spoils from Louisbourg or Havana, or strategic reserves held against the ongoing French threat, were the kind of assets that empires routinely protect with exactly this level of effort. The theory also accounts for one of the deepest puzzles of the Oak Island story: why no one ever came back for the treasure. If the depositors were a military operation rather than a private venture, the knowledge of the vault's existence would have been restricted to a small number of officers. Death, reassignment, the chaos of the Revolution, and the settlement of the island by civilians would have severed the chain of custody within a single generation. Unlike a pirate who buries gold with the intention of returning, a military bureaucracy can lose track of assets when the officers who managed them are no longer available to report. Harris and MacPhie's engineering analysis remains one of the few attempts to approach the Money Pit from the perspective of the people who actually built underground structures for a living. Their conclusion that only a military-scale operation could account for the pit's construction has never been convincingly refuted. Whether the vault held military payroll, captured French treasury, Havana prize money, or some combination, the British Military Bank theory offers an explanation that requires no leaps of faith, only the recognition that the 18th century's most powerful military empire was operating, building, and storing assets within a day's sail of Oak Island for the better part of a century. ### The Treasure of Louisbourg URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/the-treasure-of-louisbourg On a fog-wrapped headland at the eastern tip of Cape Breton Island, France built the most expensive fortification in the New World. Construction began in 1719 and continued for over twenty-five years, consuming more than thirty million livres against an original budget of four million. By the mid-1740s, the Fortress of Louisbourg enclosed over fifty acres behind walls thirty feet high and a ditch eighty feet across, defended by more than 150 cannons and mortars, and garrisoned by some 2,000 soldiers. It was the commercial heart of French Atlantic Canada, a thriving port through which an average of 150 vessels passed each year, trading in cod, manufactured goods, sugar, and rum with partners in France, Quebec, the West Indies, and even New England. And then, in a matter of weeks, it was gone. Twice besieged and twice captured by the British, Louisbourg was systematically demolished stone by stone between 1760 and 1768 so that France could never use it again. But one question has lingered for nearly three centuries: what happened to the treasury? The Fortress and Its Wealth Louisbourg was established in 1713 after the Treaty of Utrecht stripped France of its claims to Newfoundland and mainland Nova Scotia, leaving only Cape Breton Island (then called Ile Royale) and Prince Edward Island (Ile Saint-Jean) as French possessions in Atlantic Canada. The engineer Jean-Francois du Vergery de Verville chose the site for its natural harbour and its strategic position guarding the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the sea route to Quebec. The fortifications that rose between 1720 and 1745 were European-style masonry on a scale rarely seen in North America: the King's Bastion alone required over 500,000 cubic feet of cut stone. Benjamin Franklin, writing on the eve of its first siege, called it a "tough nut to crack." [article:benjamin-franklin-s-nova-scotia-connection] Sustaining this outpost required a constant flow of money from France. The Royal Treasury regularly dispatched pay-ships to Louisbourg carrying wages for soldiers, contractors, and the hundreds of labourers employed in its construction and maintenance. These shipments, combined with the tax revenues generated by Louisbourg's lucrative cod fishery and its role as a trading hub, meant that significant sums of gold and silver were held at the fortress at any given time. It was this wealth, along with the military stores, provisions, and personal fortunes of its merchant class, that would become the subject of one of Oak Island's most persistent theories. The Fall of Louisbourg The first siege came in the spring of 1745, during King George's War. A force of New England colonists backed by a Royal Navy squadron laid siege to the fortress, whose garrison was poorly supplied, underpaid, and on the verge of mutiny. Troops had actually revolted the previous December over wages months overdue and conditions so poor that fishermen refused to put to sea. After forty-six days of bombardment and assault, the fortress capitulated on June 16, 1745. The capture stunned the French establishment and enraged the court of Louis XV, who immediately began planning a counterattack. The result was the Duc d'Anville Expedition of 1746, the largest French military force ever dispatched to the New World prior to the American Revolution. Admiral Jean-Baptiste Louis Frederic de La Rochefoucauld de Roye, Duc d'Anville, sailed from France on June 22, 1746, with a fleet variously reported as 64 to 73 ships carrying between 11,000 and 13,000 men, 800 cannons, and orders from King Louis XV to recapture Louisbourg, retake Acadia, and "consign Boston to flames." The expedition was a catastrophe. Storms in the Bay of Biscay, dead calms off the Azores, lightning strikes that detonated a magazine, and epidemics of typhus and scurvy ravaged the fleet across a three-month Atlantic crossing. By the time the remnants limped into Chebucto Bay (present-day Halifax Harbour), thousands were dead or dying. D'Anville himself died of a stroke on September 27, 1746, six days after arriving. His replacement, Vice-Admiral d'Estourmel, attempted suicide two days later. The expedition collapsed without ever reaching Louisbourg. Louisbourg was returned to France by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, but its reprieve was short. During the Seven Years' War, a second British force of over 12,000 troops and 150 ships under General Jeffrey Amherst besieged the fortress in 1758. After seven weeks, during which a lucky mortar shot detonated a French ammunition dump, the garrison surrendered on July 26. This time there would be no return. The British used Louisbourg as a staging point for the 1759 Siege of Quebec and the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, and then spent eight years reducing the fortress to rubble. The Oak Island Theory The Louisbourg theory exists in several variants, but all share a central premise: that French military personnel, anticipating the loss of their fortress, concealed its treasury on Oak Island rather than allow it to fall into British hands. The best-known version was articulated by author John Godwin, who argued that the apparent size and complexity of the Money Pit pointed to French Army engineers as its builders. In Godwin's scenario, engineers who had spent decades constructing Louisbourg's elaborate fortifications, including underground tunnels, drainage systems, and bomb-proof casements, applied those same skills to building a concealed vault on an island roughly 200 miles down the Nova Scotian coast. The theory gained modern traction when naval historian Chipp Reid presented it to the Oak Island team in Season 7, Episode 5 ("Tunnel Visions"). Using an 18th-century military map of Cartagena, Colombia, drawn by English engineer John Thomas the Elder in 1741, Reid demonstrated that several structures uncovered at Smith's Cove, including the U-shaped structure, the L-shaped structure, and the slipway, bore a striking resemblance to the components of a "water battery," a beachside artillery fortification of a type commonly built by French military forces. Reid proposed that the French military had used Oak Island as a defensive outpost in the early 1700s and hidden the Louisbourg treasury there before the first siege in 1745. [artifact:u-shaped-wooden-structure] A second variant centres on the pay-ships. France dispatched regular shipments of gold and silver to Louisbourg to fund the fortress and pay its garrison. If one of these vessels was blown off course by an Atlantic storm, the crew might have been forced to conceal its cargo on a nearby island rather than risk capture. The same fate could have befallen a supply ship attached to the Duc d'Anville Expedition, whose fleet was scattered across the ocean by weeks of violent weather. In either case, Oak Island's location in Mahone Bay, sheltered and relatively close to the shipping lanes between France and Cape Breton, makes it a plausible emergency cache. The Duc d'Anville Connection The Duc d'Anville Expedition has generated some of the most intriguing documentary evidence on the show. In Season 5, Episode 10 ("The Signs of a Cross"), researcher Doug Crowell presented an eight-page document he had discovered in the Nova Scotia Archives in Halifax: what appeared to be an English translation of a French ship's log from a vessel that served as the vanguard of the d'Anville fleet. The log's author described sailing southwest from Chebucto Bay down the Acadian coast to what was either Mahone Bay or St. Margaret's Bay, where the crew reportedly dug a deep pit and constructed a "secret entrance" by tunnel from the shore, descriptions that evoke the Money Pit and the Smith's Cove flood tunnel with uncomfortable precision. In Season 10, Episode 5, researchers Corjan Mol and Charlotte Wheatley expanded on this thread by presenting 18th-century French documents from the French National Archives. These records revealed that during the d'Anville Expedition, two advance scouting ships, l'Aurore and le Castor, were sent ahead of the main fleet on orders given directly by King Louis XV. The ships carried unusually large crews: 250 men aboard l'Aurore and 180 aboard le Castor. According to the documents, the two frigates arrived on the Acadian coast on June 4, 1746, in Mahone Bay. Official records indicate they accomplished nothing during their visit, a curious outcome for two heavily crewed warships dispatched on royal orders. More striking still was a passage from the log of Commander Duvigneau, submitted to the Admiralty upon return to France: "I will not speak to anyone about this place, but I am obliged to warn you that it is difficult to hide it from the quantity of people who have knowledge of it. I send my journal of navigation." Whatever Duvigneau's mission was, he considered it sensitive enough to warrant silence and his own acknowledgement that secrecy might not hold. Engineering Parallels One of the Louisbourg theory's most compelling elements is not financial but structural. In Season 7, Episode 12 ("Fortified"), Rick Lagina and Doug Crowell visited the Fortress of Louisbourg, now a Parks Canada living history museum reconstructed from the original plans. There, historian Sarah MacInnes showed them the fortress's original bomb-proof casements, among the only French structures to survive Britain's eight-year demolition campaign. Inside one casement was a stone drainage system that Crowell immediately noted resembled Oak Island's reported flood tunnels. MacInnes then took them to the countermine tunnel, an underground passage with stone walls and a vaulted stone roof, built through marshy terrain by engineers who had to manipulate the surrounding water during construction. The parallel to the conditions described in the swamp and at Smith's Cove was difficult to ignore. This visit followed a key piece of dendrochronological evidence. Earlier that season, Dr. Colin Laroque had dated the wooden wharf at Smith's Cove to 1741, based on red spruce felled that year. The date placed its construction squarely in the period of French military activity on the Nova Scotian coast and just four years before the first siege of Louisbourg. Combined with the water battery hypothesis advanced by Chipp Reid, the structural evidence suggests that whoever built the Smith's Cove workings had access to French military engineering techniques and was active on the island during the precise period when Louisbourg's fate hung in the balance. The La Rochefoucauld Thread The Duc d'Anville's family name, La Rochefoucauld, carries its own weight in Oak Island research. The family was one of the oldest and most powerful noble houses in France, and its connections extend in several directions that intersect with the island's history. D'Anville's son, Louis-Alexandre de La Rochefoucauld, survived the expedition's aftermath and became a prominent figure in French intellectual life, eventually serving as a deputy in the States-General of 1789. He maintained connections with both Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, raising the question of whether knowledge of any concealed treasure might have circulated among the same transatlantic networks that financed the American Revolution. The La Rochefoucauld name also appeared on the Zena Halpern map, a controversial document presented on the show that purported to connect the family to earlier activity on Oak Island. [site:chateau-de-la-rochefoucauld] Strengths and Weaknesses The Louisbourg theory draws strength from several overlapping lines of evidence. The timeline aligns well with dendrochronological dating of structures at Smith's Cove to the early 1740s. The French military demonstrably possessed the engineering expertise to construct underground tunnels, drainage systems, and fortified structures in marshy coastal terrain, as the surviving works at Louisbourg itself confirm. The geographic logic is sound: Oak Island sits roughly 200 miles southwest of Louisbourg along the Nova Scotian coast, close enough to reach by ship but remote enough to serve as a hidden cache. The documentary record includes tantalizing fragments: Duvigneau's cryptic letter, the ship's log describing a pit and tunnel dug in Mahone Bay, and the unexplained presence of two heavily crewed French frigates in the area in 1746. And the artifacts recovered on the island, including French-era buttons, tools, ox shoes matching those at Louisbourg, and construction materials consistent with 18th-century military practice, place French activity on Oak Island within the correct period. The weaknesses are real but not fatal. No documentary evidence has been found in French archives explicitly stating that the Louisbourg treasury was removed to Oak Island or anywhere else. The fortress's accounts were maintained by French bureaucracy, and while records are incomplete, there is no gap in the ledgers that clearly corresponds to a missing treasury. The theory also competes with evidence of much earlier activity on the island: wood samples and artifacts dating to the 1600s and even the medieval period suggest that whatever happened on Oak Island may have begun centuries before Louisbourg was built. The Duc d'Anville ship's log, while suggestive, exists only as a later English translation whose provenance remains uncertain. And the various timelines (before the 1745 siege, during the 1746 expedition, after the 1758 capture) offer three different scenarios that, while not mutually exclusive, resist consolidation into a single coherent narrative. What the theory does offer, perhaps more than any other, is a documented explanation for how the Money Pit could have been built. The question that haunts every Oak Island theory is not just who buried treasure on the island, but who had the manpower, the engineering skill, and the institutional resources to construct a shaft over a hundred feet deep, complete with flood protection and tunnel systems, on a remote island in the North Atlantic. The French Royal Army, fresh from building the most ambitious fortification in the Western Hemisphere, is one of the few candidates that does not require a leap of faith to answer that question. ### Spanish Galleons full of Inca Gold URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/spanish-galleons-full-of-inca-gold The Gold of the New World Between 1500 and 1650, Spain extracted an estimated 181 tons of gold and 16,000 tons of silver from the Americas. The wealth flowed from two principal sources: the Aztec Empire of central Mexico, conquered by Hernan Cortes between 1519 and 1521, and the Inca Empire of Peru and Ecuador, conquered by Francisco Pizarro beginning in 1532. The scale of the plunder was without precedent. Gold and silver objects accumulated over centuries by indigenous civilisations were systematically melted down into ingots and loaded onto treasure fleets bound for Seville. The Spanish Crown claimed a fifth of everything, the famous quinto real, but the quantities were so vast and the distances so great that controlling the flow proved impossible. Not all of the treasure reached Spain. Hurricanes sank entire fleets. Pirates intercepted individual galleons. Corrupt captains skimmed cargo. Ships blown off course sought shelter in unfamiliar harbours and sometimes never returned to their routes. The Atlantic seabed from the Caribbean to the Azores is littered with wrecks carrying New World gold. Against this backdrop, the idea that a portion of Spanish treasure ended up buried on a small island off the coast of Nova Scotia is not as far-fetched as it might first appear. It is a premise shared, in different forms, by several of the theories proposed to explain Oak Island, including those involving Sir William Phips and the Sack of Havana. [article:william-phips-the-treasure-of-the-concepcion][article:the-sack-of-havana] The Ransom of Atahualpa The most dramatic single act of plunder in the conquest of the Americas took place at Cajamarca, in the highlands of Peru, in November 1532. Francisco Pizarro arrived at the Inca city with approximately 168 soldiers and two small cannons. Atahualpa, the Inca emperor, had just won a bloody civil war against his half-brother Huascar and commanded an army of nearly 80,000 men camped in the hills around the town. Confident in his overwhelming numerical superiority, Atahualpa accepted an invitation to meet the Spanish in Cajamarca's central plaza. He arrived on November 16 with several thousand unarmed retainers. What followed was a massacre. After a Dominican friar named Vicente de Valverde demanded that Atahualpa accept Christianity and the sovereignty of the Spanish king, Atahualpa refused. Pizarro gave the signal. Hidden cavalry and infantry charged from surrounding buildings, artillery fired into the crowd, and within hours the emperor was a prisoner. Perceiving the avarice of his captors, Atahualpa offered to buy his freedom. He would fill the room in which he was held, a chamber measuring roughly 22 feet long by 17 feet wide, with gold to the height of his outstretched arm, approximately nine feet. He would fill two additional rooms with silver. Pizarro agreed. Over the following months, gold and silver poured into Cajamarca from across the empire. Temple ornaments, ceremonial objects, statues, jewellery, and sacred vessels were stripped from shrines as far away as Cusco. Spanish blacksmiths melted the objects into standard ingots, destroying their cultural and artistic value in the process. By July 1533, the ransom had been delivered in full: nearly 6,000 kilograms of gold and more than 11,000 kilograms of silver. The total was valued at 1,326,539 pesos de oro, a sum worth hundreds of millions of dollars in modern terms. It remains one of the largest ransoms ever paid. Pizarro did not honour the bargain. On August 29, 1533, after a sham trial on charges of rebellion and fratricide, Atahualpa was executed by garrotte. The Spanish entered Cusco in November 1533 and completed the conquest of the Inca Empire. But the full extent of Inca wealth was never accounted for. Atahualpa had ordered the execution of his rival Huascar during captivity, and with Huascar died knowledge of treasure stores that had not yet been surrendered. Inca generals in the provinces held back gold intended for the ransom. The sacred treasures of temples in outlying regions were hidden or moved before the Spanish could reach them. The question of what happened to the Inca wealth that never reached Cajamarca has occupied treasure hunters for five centuries. The Lost Treasure of Tumbes One variant of the Spanish Connection theory traces a specific path from South America to Oak Island. In 1528, four years before the events at Cajamarca, Pizarro made his first contact with the Inca Empire at the coastal city of Tumbes in northern Peru. He and his crew were welcomed by the local Tumpis people, who called the light-skinned visitors Children of the Sun. The Spanish observed that Tumbes was rich with gold, silver, and precious objects. Pizarro left two of his men behind to learn the language and customs, then sailed to Spain to petition the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V for ships and soldiers to conquer the city. When Pizarro returned to Tumbes in 1532 with a full complement of conquistadors, he found the city in ruins and its wealth gone. The Inca civil war between Atahualpa and Huascar had reached Tumbes, and the city had been sacked by Huascar's forces. The treasure had been carried away. According to the theory, one of the Spaniards Pizarro had left behind warned the Tumpis of his patron's true intentions. Heeding the warning, the citizens of Tumbes gathered their most precious objects, transported them overland to the Caribbean coast, built a fleet, and set sail. Swept north by storms, they were eventually shipwrecked on Oak Island, where they buried their treasure. This version of the theory was championed by veteran treasure hunter Dan Blankenship, who discussed it at length on the show. It received an unusual form of support in the 1930s, when Oak Island searchers Frederick Blair and Mel Chappell travelled to Saginaw, Michigan, to meet with a man named John Wicks who claimed to channel spirits. According to Wicks, the spirits of a Spanish priest named Menzies and an Inca priest named Circle described how Inca workers arrived on Oak Island in the 1520s and constructed the underground workings to conceal the treasure of Tumbes. The story is colourful but unsupported by archaeological evidence. There is no documented record of Inca seafaring beyond coastal trade, and no evidence that South American peoples possessed the navigational capability to reach Nova Scotia. The Evidence Several artifacts recovered on Oak Island have been cited in support of a Spanish or South American connection. In Season 9, the team recovered small fragments of gold-bearing metal from the Money Pit area. Analysis by geoscientist Dr. Christa Brosseau revealed a composition of approximately 65 percent gold and 26 percent copper, with a small amount of silver. While Brosseau identified the alloy as consistent with rose gold, Marty Lagina observed that the chemical composition also matched tumbaga, the gold-copper alloy widely used by the Inca and Aztec civilisations and later melted down by Spanish conquistadors into bars. Tumbaga was not a single standardised alloy but an umbrella term for a range of gold-copper compositions, with gold content varying from as little as 3 percent to as much as 97 percent. The presence of a gold-copper alloy in the Money Pit does not confirm a South American origin, as copper-gold alloys also occur naturally and were produced in medieval Europe, but it is consistent with the theory. [artifact:gold-copper-alloy-tumbaga] The swamp has yielded its own Spanish-era artifacts. In Season 4, metal detection expert Gary Drayton discovered a large iron nail in the north end of the swamp. Although it initially resembled a railroad spike, antiquities expert Dr. Lori Verderame identified it as a wrought iron barrote nail of the type used in the construction of Spanish galleon decks, dated to between 1575 and 1600. In Season 1, the team recovered a copper 8 maravedis coin dated to 1652 from the swamp, placing Spanish-associated currency on Oak Island more than a century before the Money Pit's official discovery in 1795. A pair of wrought iron scissors found at Smith's Cove in 1967 was identified as a Spanish-American design predating the mid-1800s. [artifact:barrote-nail-spanish-galleon][artifact:spanish-8-maravedis-coin] Seismic testing conducted by Eagle Canada in the swamp during Seasons 6 and 7 revealed a 200-foot-long anomaly beneath the surface whose shape bears some resemblance to a sailing vessel. The late Fred Nolan, who owned land on Oak Island for decades, had long maintained that the triangular swamp was man-made and concealed a buried ship. He recovered what he identified as a ship's mast and scuppers from the swamp in the 1980s. Wood recovered from the swamp has been carbon dated to as early as the late 1400s, and a piece of ship's railing found during Season 8 was dated to between 660 and 770 AD, though this earlier date suggests a possible Viking rather than Spanish origin. [artifact:wooden-ship-s-railing] The coconut fibre found in vast quantities at Smith's Cove and within the Money Pit itself represents perhaps the most enduring physical link to tropical latitudes. The Smithsonian Institution confirmed in 1916 that the material was genuine Cocos nucifera. Coconuts do not grow anywhere near Nova Scotia; the nearest source in the colonial era would have been the Caribbean, over 2,000 miles to the south. Carbon dating of the fibre has returned dates ranging from the 13th to 14th century, though the reliability of these dates has been questioned due to potential contamination from the marine environment. If the dating is accurate, the coconut fibre predates any known European activity in Nova Scotia by centuries and remains one of the most difficult facts to explain about Oak Island. [artifact:coconut-fibre-smith-s-cove] The Theory The Spanish Connection is not a single theory but a spectrum of related propositions, all rooted in the same historical reality: Spain extracted a staggering quantity of precious metal from the Americas, and a significant portion of it was lost, stolen, or diverted before reaching its intended destination. The Tumbes variant, with its account of Inca refugees sailing to Nova Scotia, stretches the limits of plausibility. More grounded versions of the theory focus on Spanish galleons lost or captured in the Atlantic, treasure diverted by corrupt officials, or pirate raids on colonial ports. The recovery of the Concepcion treasure by Sir William Phips in 1687 demonstrates that Spanish gold did reach Nova Scotian waters through indirect channels, and the British seizure of Havana in 1762 placed a fortune in captured Spanish wealth within a single voyage of Oak Island. The theory also accounts for the scale and sophistication of the Money Pit's construction. The Spanish Crown employed military engineers and possessed the organisational capability to design complex underground works. A treasure fleet captain or a well-funded privateer would have had access to the labour, materials, and expertise required to construct the flood tunnel system and the layered shaft. The coconut fibre points to the Caribbean. The tumbaga points to South America. The barrote nail and the maravedis coin point to Spanish ships. Whether the treasure originated from Inca temples, a sunken galleon, or a combination of both, the Spanish Connection remains one of the few theories that provides a plausible source of wealth large enough to justify the extraordinary engineering that went into hiding it. For a broader view of French and British military operations in the same waters during the same century, see the account of the Duc d'Anville expedition of 1746. [article:the-doomed-expedition-of-the-duc-d-anville] ### The Sack of Havana URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/the-sack-of-havana In 1762, at the height of the Seven Years' War, Britain launched one of the most ambitious amphibious operations of the 18th century: a full-scale assault on Havana, the wealthiest and most heavily fortified port in Spain's American empire. The siege lasted more than two months, cost thousands of lives, and ended with the British in possession of an extraordinary haul of treasure, warships, and military stores. Within a few years, the first reported activity on Oak Island would begin. The question that connects the two events is simple: did all of that treasure reach its intended destination? The Siege Spain had remained neutral through much of the Seven Years' War, but that changed in 1761 when King Charles III signed the Third Bourbon Family Compact, a secret alliance with France against Britain. When word of the pact reached London, Britain declared war on Spain in January 1762. The response was immediate and devastating. Lord George Anson, First Lord of the Admiralty, and General John Ligonier proposed a strike at Spain's most valuable colonial possession: Havana, the gateway through which the wealth of the Americas flowed on its way to Madrid. The task force assembled for the operation was enormous. Admiral Sir George Pocock commanded a fleet of roughly 180 vessels, including 22 ships of the line, frigates, sloops, bomb vessels, and transports. General George Keppel, 3rd Earl of Albemarle, led the land forces, which ultimately numbered some 14,000 soldiers drawn from Britain, North America, and the West Indies. Keppel's two younger brothers played key roles: Major General William Keppel commanded troops on the ground, and Commodore Augustus Keppel led a portion of the naval assault. Pocock navigated the fleet through the treacherous Old Bahama Strait from Jamaica, arriving off the Cuban coast on June 6, 1762. Troops landed the following day at Cojimar Bay, six miles east of the city, meeting little initial resistance. The prize that awaited them was immense. Since the early 1500s, Havana had served as the staging point for Spain's treasure fleets, the convoys that carried silver, gold, emeralds, indigo, cocoa, and Oriental goods across the Atlantic. The city's harbour could accommodate over 100 warships, and its royal shipyard was the finest in the Americas. Defending the harbour entrance was the formidable Castillo de los Tres Reyes del Morro, better known as Morro Castle, perched on a rocky headland and armed with 64 guns. On the opposite side stood the Castillo de San Salvador de la Punta. Between them, a boom chain stretched across the channel. The garrison, under Captain General Juan de Prado, numbered roughly 11,000 men, including regular troops, sailors, marines, and militia. The Fall of Morro Castle The Spanish strategy was to delay the British long enough for tropical disease and the approaching hurricane season to do what the garrison alone could not. For weeks, the defenders held. A naval bombardment of Morro Castle on July 1 by HMS Cambridge, Marlborough, and Dragon was beaten back with heavy losses. But the fortress had a critical weakness: the unfortified hill of La Cabaña overlooked its walls, and the British exploited it mercilessly, installing siege batteries that pounded the castle day after day. On July 30, British engineers detonated mines beneath a section of wall, and infantry stormed through the breach. The castle's heroic commander, Luis Vicente de Velasco, had been mortally wounded the previous day; the Spanish navy would name a ship in his honour for generations afterward. With Morro Castle in British hands, the fall of Havana was only a matter of time. Batteries were positioned along the northern shore of the harbour entrance, and on August 11, a bombardment of 47 heavy guns, 10 mortars, and 5 howitzers opened on the city itself. Fort la Punta was silenced within hours. Captain General de Prado surrendered on August 13, and British forces entered Havana the following day. The Spoils The scale of the plunder was staggering. The British seized military equipment valued at 1,828,116 Spanish pesos and merchandise worth an additional 1,000,000 pesos. Some contemporary estimates placed the total value of captured stores and valuables at up to £3 million, an almost inconceivable sum for the period. Nine Spanish ships of the line fell intact into British hands, representing roughly a fifth of Spain's entire naval strength: the Infante, Reina, Soberano, Tigre, Aquilón, San Antonio, América, Conquistador, and San Genaro, along with frigates, sloops, and nearly 100 merchant vessels. Two additional warships under construction in the dockyards were burned. The division of prize money became a source of lasting bitterness. Admiral Pocock and Lord Albemarle each received £122,697, an extraordinary personal fortune. Commodore Augustus Keppel took home £24,539. The 42 naval captains present each received roughly £1,600. Ordinary soldiers and sailors, by contrast, received approximately £4 each, a paltry sum given the months of brutal fighting, disease, and death they had endured. Of the British forces engaged at Havana, around 1,790 were killed, wounded, or listed as missing in combat, but by October, a further 5,000 had died of tropical fevers. The disparity between the fortunes amassed by senior officers and the scraps handed to the men who actually fought would become a persistent grievance, and it forms the basis of the Oak Island connection. The Oak Island Theory The theory linking Havana to Oak Island was most prominently advanced by the late Fred Nolan, one of the island's longest-serving treasure hunters and the discoverer of the stone formation known as Nolan's Cross. Nolan believed that Oak Island's underground workings, including the Money Pit, the artificial beach at Smith's Cove, and the flood tunnel system, were constructed by members of the British military who diverted a portion of the Havana spoils to the island rather than deliver it to the Crown. Author William Crooker further explored this line of reasoning in his book Oak Island Gold, arguing that the treasure was placed on the island for safekeeping and never recovered. The geographic logic is straightforward. After the siege, captured Spanish vessels and British warships sailed north through waters that pass within easy reach of Nova Scotia. Halifax, the Royal Navy's principal North Atlantic base, lies roughly 1,200 miles from Havana, a voyage of days for a well-crewed warship. Oak Island sits in Mahone Bay, just 60 miles southwest of Halifax, a sheltered location that would have been familiar to any naval officer operating out of the Halifax station. The theory proposes that rogue British officers, resentful of the prize money system that enriched admirals while leaving common sailors with almost nothing, ordered a ship diverted to Oak Island, where the treasure was buried using the engineering skills readily available to military personnel of the period. Evidence on the Ground In Season 4, Episode 8 ("The Mystery of Samuel Ball"), metal detection expert Gary Drayton and Oak Island historian Charles Barkhouse explored Lot 24, once part of the property owned by Samuel Ball, a former slave who fought for the British in the American Revolution before settling on Oak Island in 1786 and becoming one of its wealthiest residents. Drayton recovered an 18th-century "dandy button," a copper coin bearing the head of King George II (who reigned from 1727 to 1760), a lead ingot of the type used by British soldiers for casting musket balls, and a metal plate bearing a faded inscription that appeared to come from the stock of a musket. Barkhouse noted that these finds were consistent with Fred Nolan's theory of a British military presence on the island connected to the Havana spoils. In 1977, Nolan himself discovered a carved stone surveyor's monument in the Oak Island woods while following a survey line. The stone bore chisel scars and scorch marks and had a shape that Nolan compared to a Spanish treasure galleon. While the stone alone proves nothing, Nolan regarded it as further evidence that military surveyors had been active on the island, laying out the kind of precise measurements that would be required for a large-scale construction project like the Money Pit and its flood defences. The Samuel Ball Question The Havana theory also intersects with one of Oak Island's most enduring sub-mysteries: the sudden prosperity of Samuel Ball. Born into slavery in South Carolina in 1764, Ball gained his freedom by serving in the British forces during the American Revolution. After the war, he resettled in Nova Scotia and purchased a four-acre lot on Oak Island in 1786, later expanding his holdings to over 100 acres across several lots. Ball grew cabbages commercially, but the scale of his landholdings and the comfortable estate he left behind have long fuelled speculation that farming alone could not account for his wealth. Some researchers believe Ball may have discovered treasure already present on the island, possibly buried by the same British military personnel who had been there decades earlier. Whether Ball's fortune derived from the soil above or something hidden below remains one of Oak Island's unanswered questions. Strengths and Weaknesses The Sack of Havana theory has several things working in its favour. The timeline fits comfortably within the period of activity suggested by artifacts and carbon dating on the island, most of which cluster in the late 1600s through the 1700s. The engineering required to construct the Money Pit and its flood tunnel system is consistent with the capabilities of 18th-century British military engineers, who were among the most skilled in the world. The geographic proximity of Oak Island to the Halifax naval base provides a plausible route. And the documented bitterness over prize money distribution offers a motive for diversion. Its principal weakness is the absence of any documentary evidence. No ship's log, letter, court martial record, or Admiralty file has surfaced linking any vessel from the Havana fleet to Oak Island. The scale of the treasure captured at Havana was enormous, but it was also meticulously inventoried by British officials, making it difficult (though not impossible) for a significant portion to vanish unnoticed. The theory also competes with the earlier timeline suggested by other evidence on the island, including coconut fibre carbon-dated to between 1260 and 1400, the medieval lead cross, and artifacts pointing to activity centuries before 1762. It is possible, of course, that the Havana deposit was a later addition to a site that had already been used for centuries, layered on top of earlier work by different hands. Oak Island's history, if nothing else, seems to be one of multiple visitors across multiple eras, each leaving their mark in the soil. ### The Jewels of Marie Antoinette URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/the-jewels-of-marie-antoinette Of all the theories attached to Oak Island, the one involving the jewels of Marie Antoinette may be the most romantic and the most problematic in equal measure. It involves a doomed queen, a secret chest of diamonds and pearls, a loyal servant's flight across the Atlantic, and a sitting president of the United States who believed every word of it. The story has circulated in one form or another since at least the early 20th century, and it gained its most famous advocate in Franklin D. Roosevelt, who followed the Oak Island mystery from his twenties until his death in office. [article:the-roosevelt-connection] A Queen and Her Jewels Marie Antoinette arrived at the court of Versailles in 1770 as a fourteen-year-old Austrian archduchess, betrothed to the future Louis XVI. On the day of her wedding, she was presented with the traditional jewels of a French dauphine: an elaborate diamond necklace that had belonged to Anne of Austria, along with pieces once worn by Mary Queen of Scots and Catherine de' Medici, all valued at roughly two million livres. Over the following two decades, she added substantially to her collection, amassing diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and natural pearls that made her one of the most lavishly adorned women in Europe. Her spending habits, combined with the dire state of French finances after the Seven Years' War and France's costly support of the American Revolution, earned her the nickname "Madame Deficit" and helped fuel the public fury that would eventually consume the monarchy. In 1785, the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, a fraud orchestrated by the Comtesse de la Motte involving a 2,800-carat necklace worth 1.6 million livres, further damaged the queen's reputation even though Marie Antoinette had no involvement in the scheme. By 1789, when revolutionaries stormed the Bastille and forced the royal family from Versailles to the Tuileries Palace in Paris, the queen's name had become synonymous with royal excess. What happened to her vast personal jewel collection in the chaos that followed is a question with more than one answer, and it lies at the heart of the Oak Island connection. The Flight to Varennes By early 1791, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were effectively prisoners in the Tuileries, surrounded by revolutionary guards and a hostile public. The couple planned a desperate escape to Montmedy, a royalist stronghold near the Austrian border, where they hoped to rally loyal troops and negotiate from a position of strength. Before the flight, according to accounts written by her lady-in-waiting Madame Campan, Marie Antoinette spent an entire evening wrapping her diamonds, rubies, and pearls in cotton and placing them in a wooden chest. The jewels were sent ahead to Brussels, then under the control of the queen's sister Archduchess Marie-Christine, and into the care of Count Mercy-Argenteau, the former Austrian ambassador to Paris and one of the few men the queen still trusted. Mercy forwarded the chest to Vienna and the safekeeping of the Austrian Emperor, Marie Antoinette's nephew. On the night of June 20, 1791, the royal family slipped out of the Tuileries in disguise. They were recognised and arrested at Varennes, barely 30 miles from safety. No jewels were found on them. Louis and Marie Antoinette were returned to Paris under guard, and both were executed by guillotine in 1793. Meanwhile, the official Crown Jewels of France, a separate collection kept at the Garde-Meuble (Royal Treasury), were stolen in a brazen multi-night burglary in September 1792. Most were eventually recovered, though notable pieces vanished permanently, among them the Royal French Blue, which resurfaced decades later in London, recut into what is now known as the Hope Diamond. The Legend of the Lady-in-Waiting The Oak Island version of events diverges sharply from the documented historical record. According to this theory, Marie Antoinette did not send her jewels to Austria at all. Instead, she entrusted them to a lady-in-waiting (whose identity has never been established) who fled Paris with the gems and made her way to London. From there, the faithful servant crossed the Atlantic to the former French fortress of Louisbourg in Nova Scotia. Accompanied by loyalist French soldiers, she then buried the jewels in a secure underground vault, possibly the very shaft that would become known as the Money Pit when it was discovered in 1795. The theory gained its most prominent endorsement from Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States. Roosevelt's connection to Oak Island ran in the family: his maternal grandfather, Warren Delano Jr., a wealthy trader who had made his fortune in the China trade, was a shareholder in the Truro Company, the second major treasure-hunting syndicate to work the island, which operated from 1849 to 1851. The young Roosevelt, stirred by family stories of buried treasure, invested in the Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company in 1909 and visited Oak Island that summer. He retained his interest in the mystery for the rest of his life, corresponding with landowners and treasure hunters through his presidency and even planning a visit to the island during a trip to Halifax in 1939, though fog and the approaching war prevented it. Documents uncovered at the FDR Presidential Library in Hyde Park, New York, by researcher Paul Troutman and shown to Rick Lagina and Alex Lagina in Season 4, Episode 12 ("Hyde Park and Seek"), confirmed that Roosevelt believed Oak Island's treasure consisted of the lost jewels of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. A transcript of an interview with Duncan Harris, a schoolmate and confidant of Roosevelt, recorded by biographer Joseph P. Lash, specifically names the French crown jewels as the treasure FDR believed was buried on the island. Evidence on the Island While no artifact recovered on Oak Island has been definitively linked to Marie Antoinette or the French court, a discovery in Season 5 briefly reignited interest in the theory. In Episode 16 ("Seeing Red"), metal detection expert Gary Drayton and Rick Lagina were working on Lot 8 when Drayton unearthed a metal brooch with an empty socket at its centre. Moments later, probing the same hole, he recovered a red gemstone enclosed in a metal ring, the brooch's missing centrepiece. A gemologist later identified the stone as a rhodolite garnet, cut to fit the brooch approximately 400 to 500 years ago. While the dating placed the piece well before the French Revolution, the discovery of a genuine jeweled artifact on the island lent a certain weight to theories involving buried gems of any origin. Beyond the brooch, the broader pattern of 18th-century artifacts found across the island, including coins, buttons, and military hardware from the 1700s, confirms that people were active on Oak Island during the period in question. The theory does not require that the Money Pit itself was built by Marie Antoinette's agents; some proponents suggest the jewels could have been deposited in an existing structure or hidden elsewhere on the island entirely. [artifact:jewelled-brooch-rhodolite-garnet] The Problems The Marie Antoinette theory faces serious historical objections, several of which were identified as early as 1958 by R.V. Harris, a Nova Scotian lawyer and Freemason closely associated with the Oak Island treasure hunt, in his book The Oak Island Mystery. The most damaging is the documented fate of Marie Antoinette's personal jewels. History records, through Madame Campan's own accounts and the paper trail left by Count Mercy-Argenteau, that the queen's private collection was sent to Vienna in the spring of 1791, months before the Flight to Varennes. The jewels passed through the hands of the queen's surviving daughter, Marie-Therese de France, to the Duchess of Parma, and down through the royal House of Bourbon-Parma. In November 2018, ten pieces from this collection, unseen in public for over 200 years, were sold at Sotheby's in Geneva. Among them were Marie Antoinette's natural pearl and diamond earrings, a diamond brooch, a pearl necklace, and a diamond ring containing a lock of the queen's hair. Their provenance was meticulously documented. Separately, a set of 21 natural pearls given by Marie Antoinette to Lady Sutherland, the wife of the British ambassador, before the flight were auctioned by Christie's in 2007. As for the official Crown Jewels, they were stolen from the Garde-Meuble in September 1792, more than a year after the Flight to Varennes, by common thieves rather than royal agents. Most of the stolen pieces were eventually recovered by French authorities. Harris also noted a geographic problem: the Fortress of Louisbourg, where the lady-in-waiting supposedly made landfall, had been in British hands since 1758, captured during the Seven Years' War more than three decades before the Revolution. A French loyalist fleeing revolutionary Paris would have found the fortress garrisoned by British troops, not the sympathetic French soldiers the legend requires. Finally, the timeline is extremely compressed. The jewels would have had to cross the Atlantic, reach Nova Scotia, and be buried in an elaborately engineered underground vault sometime between mid-1791 and the summer of 1795, when the Money Pit was first discovered. By that period, Oak Island and the surrounding communities along the Mahone Bay shore were inhabited by English-speaking settlers, making a large, secret construction project difficult to carry out unnoticed. [site:fortress-louisbourg] A Theory That Endures Despite these objections, the Marie Antoinette theory has proven remarkably durable. It benefits from a story too dramatic to easily dismiss: a queen facing the guillotine, a secret chest of diamonds, a loyal servant's flight to the New World. It also carries the weight of Roosevelt's endorsement, a detail that lends it a gravity that more obscure theories lack. The Sotheby's auction of 2018 may have accounted for the queen's personal collection, but it did not account for every jewel that passed through the French court during the revolutionary period. Gems disappeared into private hands, were broken from their settings and recut, or simply vanished in the chaos. Whether any of them reached Nova Scotia remains, like so much about Oak Island, a question that the evidence has yet to answer. [article:the-versailles-alignment-to-oak-island] ### Richard Uniacke, Oak Island Gatekeeper URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/richard-uniacke-oak-island-gatekeeper In the autumn of 1802, a group of businessmen from Onslow and Truro, Nova Scotia, formed a company with the sole purpose of recovering whatever lay at the bottom of a flooded shaft on a small island in Mahone Bay. They called themselves the Onslow Company. Their leader was Simeon Lynds, a wheelwright with family connections to the south shore. Their undertaking was not a secret. It required labour, equipment, and capital. It required access to land owned by John Smith of Chester. And it took place in a colony of perhaps 30,000 people, governed from Halifax by a small circle of interconnected officials. At the centre of that circle sat Richard John Uniacke: Attorney General of Nova Scotia, Advocate General of the Vice-Admiralty Court, Worshipful Master of his Masonic lodge, Speaker of the House of Assembly, and the representative for Queens County on the province's south shore. He was, by any measure, the most powerful man in Nova Scotia. And the Onslow Company operated entirely within his jurisdiction. The Old Attorney General Richard John Uniacke was born on 22 November 1753 in Castletownroche, County Cork, Ireland, the fourth son of a Protestant Ascendancy family. He arrived in Philadelphia in 1774, partnered with trader Moses Delesdernier, married Delesdernier's daughter Martha Maria, and settled on the Bay of Fundy. In 1776, he joined the American rebels at the Battle of Fort Cumberland and was arrested for treason. The charge was dropped. By 1781, he had reinvented himself as a loyal subject of the Crown and was appointed Solicitor General of Nova Scotia. His rise was swift and contested. He served in the House of Assembly from 1783, became Speaker in 1789, and was passed over for Attorney General in favour of Loyalist Samuel Sampson Blowers in 1784. That slight ignited a rivalry that lasted decades. When the position opened again in 1797, Uniacke appealed directly to the Duke of Portland, the British Home Secretary. Portland appointed him over the objections of Loyalist Governor John Wentworth, delivering one of the sharpest rebukes to a Nova Scotian governor on record. One of the defeated candidates, Jonathan Sterns, assaulted Uniacke in the street. Another challenged him to a duel. Uniacke held the Attorney Generalship from 1797 until his death in 1830, a span of 33 years. He sat on the Governor's Council from 1808. He was instrumental in establishing King's College at Windsor, in blocking the legalization of slavery in 1787, 1789, and 1808, and in advocating for the Confederation of British North American colonies half a century before it became reality. Historian Brian Cuthbertson called him simply "the most influential Nova Scotian of his day." The Vice-Admiralty Court In 1784, when Blowers received the Attorney Generalship, Governor John Parr offered Uniacke a consolation: the position of Advocate General of the Vice-Admiralty Court. It was this appointment, held from 1784 until his death, that built Uniacke's fortune. The Vice-Admiralty Court adjudicated the laws of trade and navigation, and in wartime it became the court of prize: the legal mechanism by which captured enemy ships and their cargoes were condemned, assessed, and distributed. The fees for court officials were substantial. Between the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars, and the War of 1812, approximately 700 prize ships passed through the Halifax court. Uniacke accumulated an estimated £50,000 from his share of the fees alone. He was not a passive beneficiary. Cuthbertson's biography records that Uniacke partly funded his eldest son Norman's legal education at Lincoln's Inn in London through "his speculative backing of Simeon Perkins' privateering ventures." Perkins was a prominent Liverpool, Nova Scotia, merchant and diarist who outfitted privateers operating along the south shore, the same coastline where Oak Island sits in Mahone Bay. As the court official who arranged "quick condemnation of the prizes," Uniacke controlled the speed at which seized cargo was legally released to investors. His dual role, backing the voyages with his own capital while adjudicating their legality from the bench, placed him at the nexus of Nova Scotia's entire maritime seizure economy. Every captured ship that entered Halifax harbour during three decades of almost continuous war passed through his office. The War of 1812 proved especially lucrative. Fortunes were made in both trading and privateering, and Uniacke used the proceeds to build his country estate at Mount Uniacke between 1813 and 1815: an 11,000-acre property with a grand Georgian mansion overlooking Lake Martha, roughly equidistant between Halifax and the south shore harbours. Of particular relevance is a detail buried in Cuthbertson's account of the post-war period. During the War of 1812, "public and private papers found on captured prize ships had been seized, and Uniacke as an official of the Vice Admiralty Court had read much of this correspondence." Most captures came from New England. The documents included personal letters, commercial records, and political correspondence. If any captured vessel ever carried intelligence about Oak Island, whether maps, journals, or shipping records related to the south shore, Uniacke's desk was where that information landed. [article:pirates] The Masonic Order Cuthbertson records that Uniacke "joined the Masonic Order sometime in the 1780's. He belonged to the Grand Lodge and in all probability it was Parr, as Grand Master, who had drawn him into the order. In 1792 he was elected a worshipful master and three of his sons later joined." This was not casual membership. The Grand Lodge of Nova Scotia was the institutional backbone of colonial governance. Cuthbertson notes that "most government officials and merchants were members" and that "Parr, Bulkeley and Wentworth became grand masters in succession." Richard Bulkeley had served as Provincial Secretary, Council member, Judge of the Admiralty, and Grand Master. John Wentworth succeeded Parr as both Lieutenant-Governor and Grand Master. Uniacke moved in this circle as a peer, not a peripheral figure. [article:freemasons-on-oak-island-the-masonic-connection] The Masonic connections to Oak Island are well documented. Scott Clarke's Oak Island Odyssey: A Masonic Quest (2023) traces the fraternal thread through the island's history, from the 1753 land grant by Masonic Lieutenant-Governor Charles Lawrence to the involvement of Masonic treasure hunters across two centuries, including Franklin D. Roosevelt and John Wayne. Mark Finnan's Oak Island Secrets noted that the shaft and its layered contents "seemed to replicate aspects of a Masonic initiation rite involving a hidden vault with a sacred treasure." Whether one accepts the Masonic theory of Oak Island or not, Uniacke's documented rank within the Order places him inside the very fraternal network that repeatedly surfaces in the island's story. [article:the-roosevelt-connection] The Serpent Monument at Mount Uniacke On the grounds of the Uniacke Estate Museum Park, near a sundial dated 1815, stands a stone monument placed by a member of the Uniacke family. The monument consists of a square stone base supporting a bulbous pillar, around which a serpent coils upward, the whole structure surmounted by a small cross. Museum guides describe it as representing "good over evil," a standard Christian reading of the symbol. That interpretation is incomplete. In the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, the 25th Degree is called the "Knight of the Brazen Serpent." Its central emblem is a Tau cross (or pillar) entwined with a serpent, a direct reference to the Nehushtan: the brazen serpent Moses raised on a pole in the wilderness so that the Israelites could look upon it and be healed (Numbers 21:8-9). In John 3:14, Christ's crucifixion is explicitly linked to this image. The degree's jewel combines a cross, a serpent, and a circle, and the ritual concerns the soul's journey through purification toward esoteric knowledge connecting Egyptian, Hebrew, and Christian mystery traditions. The monument at Mount Uniacke matches this description with a precision that is difficult to attribute to coincidence. The Uniacke family's Masonic involvement is documented across multiple generations. To a visitor without Masonic knowledge, the monument reads as a Christian symbol. To a Freemason familiar with the Scottish Rite degrees, the cross-and-serpent combination is immediately recognizable as a 25th Degree emblem, with all that implies about the depth of the family's engagement with the Order's higher teachings. The Nehushtan itself carries a further resonance. According to 2 Kings 18:4, the brazen serpent Moses made was preserved in the Temple of Solomon until King Hezekiah destroyed it. The Temple of Solomon is the foundational narrative of all Masonic ritual. The chain from Temple treasures to Templar custody to Masonic encoding is precisely the narrative thread that runs through the Templar theory of Oak Island. And here it stands, carved in stone, on the private estate of Nova Scotia's Attorney General. The serpent looking at the Grand House of Richard Uniacke in Mount Uniacke, Nova Scotia. The South Shore Between 1798 and 1805, Uniacke represented Queens County in the House of Assembly and served as Speaker. Queens County encompasses the south shore of Nova Scotia, the same coastline where Oak Island sits in Mahone Bay, just across the water from Chester. Cuthbertson describes Nova Scotia's south shore settlements as stretching "from Chester through to Minas Basin," a network of harbours established by New England farmers and fishermen in the 1760s. By the late 18th century, these communities were deeply involved in maritime trade, and, as the biography makes clear, in smuggling. The outbreak of war with France in 1793 made legitimate trade increasingly difficult, and Nova Scotia's coastal population "became habituated to smuggling to survive." An immense contraband trade grew up along the south shore, with American vessels exchanging provisions and fish for British manufactures, rum, and sugar. Uniacke was embedded in this world from multiple angles. As Attorney General, illegal trade fell within his prosecutorial authority. As Advocate General of the Vice-Admiralty Court, seized vessels and their cargoes passed through his office. As the Assembly representative for the south shore, the communities engaged in smuggling were his constituents. His son Richard John Jr. would later kill the merchant William Bowie in a duel in 1819, a confrontation that began when the younger Uniacke accused Bowie of smuggling during a court proceeding. Chester, the town nearest to Oak Island, was part of this network. Simeon Perkins, the Liverpool privateer backed by Uniacke, operated from these same waters. The geographic proximity is striking: Mount Uniacke sat on the Halifax-to-Windsor road, roughly 25 miles from Halifax, and the south shore harbours lay within a day's travel. The Onslow Years The Onslow Company operated on Oak Island from 1802 to 1805. No original documents from the company have survived, but oral accounts recorded in 1848 describe the excavation in detail: oak platforms every ten feet, layers of charcoal, putty, and coconut fibre, and at 90 feet a flat stone bearing an unusual inscription. The shaft flooded. A second shaft also flooded. The company disbanded. During these exact years, Uniacke held simultaneous authority as Attorney General, Advocate General of the Vice-Admiralty Court, and Speaker of the House of Assembly representing the south shore. The Law of Treasure Trove, derived from the English statute of 1276, required that "treasures found hidden or concealed without any known owner belong to the King." In Nova Scotia, this royal prerogative passed to the provincial government. The Attorney General was the official responsible for enforcing it. In 1895, a later Attorney General, J.W. Longley, would explicitly declare that any treasure discovered on Oak Island belonged to the Crown. In 1802, that declaration would have come from Uniacke. Simeon Lynds, who led the Onslow Company, was a wheelwright from the Truro/Onslow area of central Nova Scotia, backed by Colonel Robert Archibald, Captain David Archibald, and Sheriff Thomas Harris. These were men of standing in a small colonial society. The involvement of a colonel, a captain, and a sheriff suggests the venture carried some official awareness, if not sanction. No record of a treasure trove licence from this period has survived, but the legal requirement existed: the Crown's claim to hidden treasure was centuries old, and enforcing it fell to the Attorney General. Uniacke's authority over land matters adds a further dimension. As Solicitor General in the 1780s, he had personally supervised the escheating of 1.3 million acres for Loyalist settlement, issuing over six thousand grants of land. He knew, quite literally, who owned every significant parcel in Nova Scotia. Oak Island had been granted as "Island 28" in 1753 by Masonic Lieutenant-Governor Charles Lawrence. By 1802, John Smith, one of the original three discoverers of the Money Pit, had purchased the lot containing the shaft. Any legal claim arising from the excavation, whether related to treasure trove, land use, or property rights, would have crossed Uniacke's desk. The idea that a formal excavation company could operate on the south shore for three years, employing labourers and digging a 110-foot shaft, without attracting the attention of the province's Attorney General and south shore representative, requires a very particular kind of credulity. The Missing Papers Brian Cuthbertson opens his biography with a lament. "Uniacke's personal papers, which must have been voluminous, were destroyed after his death by a daughter-in-law doing spring house cleaning." The loss, Cuthbertson writes, "makes the writing of a biography, of what was certainly an extraordinary and remarkable man, a most daunting task." What those papers contained, we will never know. Uniacke served in public office for 49 years. He wrote extensively to British officials, colonial agents, and American correspondents. He read captured correspondence from prize ships. He managed the legal affairs of a maritime colony during three decades of war. He oversaw treasure trove claims. He supervised the escheating of nearly 100,000 acres of land between 1819 and 1821, deciding who owned what throughout the province. If any written record ever existed linking Nova Scotia's colonial administration to the early treasure hunts on Oak Island, Uniacke's archive was the most likely place to find it. That archive is gone. Assessment No document has been found connecting Richard John Uniacke to Oak Island. His name does not appear in any surviving account of the Onslow Company or the Money Pit discovery. There is no smoking gun. What exists instead is a web of circumstantial connections so dense that it resists dismissal. Between 1797 and 1805, the man who served simultaneously as Attorney General, Advocate General of the Vice-Admiralty Court, Worshipful Master of his Masonic lodge, the province's foremost private lawyer, the legal authority on treasure trove claims, the overseer of all land grants and escheats, and an active investor in south shore privateering ventures, also represented the very constituency where the Money Pit was being excavated. In a colony of 30,000 people. No surviving account explains how the Onslow Company financed its operations, who granted permission to dig, or what legal framework governed their claim. The man who would have answered all three questions was Richard John Uniacke. His personal papers, which might have settled the matter, were destroyed by a family member after his death. And at his country estate, built with the fortune he made from the same maritime economy that connects Oak Island to privateers, smugglers, and Masonic networks, stands a stone monument bearing the symbol of the 25th Degree of the Scottish Rite: a serpent coiled around a cross, the Knight of the Brazen Serpent, guardian of the Temple's secrets. The question is not whether Uniacke knew about Oak Island. The question is whether it is conceivable that he did not. ### Benjamin Franklin's Nova Scotia Connection URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/benjamin-franklin-s-nova-scotia-connection In his last will and testament, dated July 17, 1788, Benjamin Franklin left his estranged son William a single bequest: "all the lands I hold or have a right to in the Province of Nova Scotia." It was an act of calculated coldness. William had sided with the British during the Revolution, and his father never forgave him. The Nova Scotia lands were undeveloped and, by that point, effectively worthless. "The part he acted against me in the late war, which is of public notoriety," Franklin wrote, "will account for my leaving him no more of an estate he endeavoured to deprive me of." The will is well known. What has received far less attention, particularly in the context of the Oak Island mystery, is the fact that Benjamin Franklin owned land in Nova Scotia at all, and the circumstances that led him there. The answer, documented in the Papers of Benjamin Franklin held at the American Philosophical Society, Yale University Library, and the National Archives, leads to a web of land speculation, French aristocratic salons, covert wartime intelligence, and a family connection to the most catastrophic French military expedition ever launched against the province. The Nova Scotia Land Speculator Franklin's interest in Nova Scotia began in 1764, when his English friend Richard Jackson alerted him to the possibility of acquiring land there as a speculative investment. At roughly the same time, Alexander McNutt, a Scotch-Irish adventurer from Virginia who had been promoting settlement schemes across the province, made contact with John Hughes and other Philadelphians. Franklin committed to a share in one of McNutt's syndicates before sailing for England in November 1764. The timing was opportune. The British government had recently expanded its programme of granting large tracts of Nova Scotian land to groups willing to settle them. In a frenzy of activity during the last half of October 1765, the governor and his council granted more than two and a half million acres, rushed through before the Stamp Act took effect on November 1 and raised the cost of the paperwork. McNutt and his associates received nearly 1.5 million acres in a single day. Among the grantees listed was "Dr. Franklin and Co." Franklin's syndicate interests included a share of 100,000 acres on the north side of the River St. John (in what is now New Brunswick) and a share of the Philadelphia Company's 200,000 acres in the Pictou and Tatamagouche region on Nova Scotia's northern coast. But Franklin was not content with his syndicate shares. In early 1766, he petitioned the Privy Council individually for a personal grant of 20,000 acres, to be located wherever he or his agent chose within the province. The Board of Trade took over a year to act, but on June 26, 1767, the Privy Council issued an order directing the governor to survey and grant the land. The 20,000 acres were located at what is now the community of Enfield, Nova Scotia, along the Shubenacadie River, roughly 30 kilometres north of Halifax and approximately 80 kilometres from Oak Island. Franklin hired a man named Jacob Hall, a Philadelphia tavern keeper, to manage the settlement and operate an inn on the property. His son William, writing from New Jersey in October 1767, acknowledged receipt of the grant and noted with cautious optimism: "I have not the least doubt but something handsome might be made of it if well managed." The community of Enfield takes its name, according to local tradition, from Enfield, Connecticut, the former home of an early settler. The etymology is not documented in any primary source. On the southern edge of the town, in Bedford Basin, stands D'Anville's Encampment National Historic Site, a Parks Canada monument marking the place where the Duc d'Anville's fleet anchored in 1746 and where the admiral died. French Landing, also in Bedford Basin, is identified in the Place-Names of the Province of Nova Scotia as "the landing place and the encampment ground for the men who were with the ill-fated, disease-stricken, Duc D'Anville's fleet." For decades after the expedition, the skeletal remains of French soldiers and sailors were found in the woods around Halifax by later settlers. The name d'Anville was part of the landscape of Halifax County long before Franklin's grant was surveyed there, and the La Rochefoucauld family title, used interchangeably in Franklin's own correspondence, was "duc d'Enville." Franklin held these Nova Scotia lands for the rest of his life. He never visited the province, and the settlement conditions prescribed by the grant were never fully met. But the lands remained part of his estate through the Revolution, through his years in Paris, and through the drafting of the Constitution. When he died in 1790, five years before the discovery of the Money Pit, the Province of Nova Scotia was still listed among his assets. [article:the-real-daniel-mcginnis-of-oak-island] The Man Who Drew Both Maps The Privy Council's 1767 order directed the governor to "cause twenty thousand Acres of Land to be Surveyed in one Contiguous Tract" for Franklin. The survey fell to the office of Charles Morris, Surveyor General of Nova Scotia, a position Morris had held since 1749 and would hold until his death in 1781. Morris was not a minor functionary. Born in Boston in 1711, he had come to the colony as a military officer and risen to become one of its most powerful administrators, serving simultaneously as a member of the Nova Scotia Council, Justice of the Peace, and eventually Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He designed the layout of Halifax, Lunenburg, Lawrencetown, and Liverpool. His surveys of Acadian settlements were later used by the military authority in Halifax to plan the Expulsion of the Acadians during the Seven Years' War. He was, by any measure, the man who drew the map of colonial Nova Scotia, and the intelligence he gathered while doing so served purposes well beyond cartography. Five years before processing Franklin's grant, Morris turned his attention to a small island in Mahone Bay. In 1762, he travelled 45 miles from Halifax and surveyed it into 32 lots of approximately four acres each, arranged as narrow rectangular strips running from a central road to the waterline on both sides, giving every lot both road access and water frontage. He designated the island as Number 28. It would later become known as Oak Island. The layout Morris chose was a variation of the strip lot system used across the Maritimes for planned settlements along rivers and coastlines, where large numbers of families needed frontage. Morris himself had applied similar patterns when laying out townships at Lunenburg, Liverpool, and elsewhere on the South Shore. The system was designed for density: dozens of families sharing a common road, each with their own access to water. Applying it to a 140-acre island was a different matter. Most small islands in the region were granted whole to a single person or a small group. Morris subdivided Oak Island as though he were planning a township, creating infrastructure for a scale of settlement the island never achieved. The central road he laid out does not follow the island's natural long axis but cuts across it at a deliberate diagonal, an orientation that was chosen rather than dictated by the terrain. The Shoreham Grant of 1759, which opened the Chester area to settlement, is the standard explanation for the survey. But the grant covered a large area with hundreds of islands. The 32-lot strip subdivision that Morris applied to Oak Island was a level of formal planning that went well beyond what a routine land grant required for an island of this size. The lots Morris drew in 1762 are the same lots that Daniel McGinnis would begin purchasing in 1788: lot 28 first, then lot 21 (where he built his home), lot 27, and lot 1. The Money Pit was discovered on lot 18. The grid that defined every property boundary on the island, every excavation permit, and every treasure-hunting claim for the next 260 years was the work of Charles Morris. Morris is the institutional thread connecting Benjamin Franklin's Nova Scotia holdings to Oak Island. His office surveyed both properties. The Surveyor General position remained in the Morris family for four generations, from Charles Morris Sr. in 1749 through his son Charles II, his grandson Charles III, and finally his great-grandson John Spry Morris, who served until the office was merged with the Commissioner of Crown Lands in 1851. The Morris family held the position for its entire existence, covering the full period from Franklin's land grant through the discovery of the Money Pit and beyond. [article:the-doomed-expedition-of-the-duc-d-anville] The Son of the Duc d'Anville Louis-Alexandre de La Rochefoucauld was born in Paris on July 4, 1743. He was the only son of Jean-Baptiste de La Rochefoucauld de Roye, who held the title Duc d'Anville and served as Lieutenant General of the Naval Armies of France. In 1746, when Louis-Alexandre was three years old, his father was appointed to command the largest military fleet France had ever assembled for operations in the New World: 64 ships and approximately 11,000 men, dispatched to recapture Nova Scotia from the British. The expedition was a disaster. Storms, disease, and poor planning destroyed most of the fleet before it reached its objective. The Duc d'Anville himself died of a stroke in Halifax Harbour on September 27, 1746, six days after arriving. His son grew up fatherless, inheriting one of the oldest noble titles in France and whatever private knowledge the family retained of the expedition's final days. Louis-Alexandre became one of the most accomplished noblemen of the French Enlightenment. He was elected to the Royal Academy of Sciences, served as president of the Academy of Medicine, and travelled extensively across Europe. He inherited the title 6th Duke of La Rochefoucauld from his grandfather in 1762. His mother, the Duchesse d'Anvil (also spelled d'Enville), maintained one of the most influential salons in Paris, where she received Turgot, Condorcet, Adam Smith, and, in time, Benjamin Franklin. Franklin in Paris Benjamin Franklin arrived in France on December 3, 1776, officially to negotiate a treaty of cooperation and alliance with the French Crown. He was received in Paris on December 21 by Silas Deane and Arthur Lee. Within weeks, he had renewed an acquaintance with the La Rochefoucauld family that would deepen into one of the most productive partnerships of his decade in France. The first documented communication between the duke and Franklin dates to January 20, 1777, when La Rochefoucauld sent Franklin and Deane fifty copies of a translated document, probably the draft Articles of Confederation. The editors of the Franklin Papers at Yale University Press note that this was "the first communication from a man who, with his mother, soon became part of Franklin's circle, and who corresponded with him intermittently for the rest of the Doctor's life." Franklin had met the mother on an earlier visit to Paris, and the son at a dinner in London in 1769, but the connection had been casual. The American crisis made it something else entirely. Six days later, on January 26, 1777, Franklin dined at the duke's residence. Writing to Mary Hewson the same day, he noted casually: "Yesterday, we dined at the Duke of La Rochefoucauld's; there were three duchesses and a countess." The letter is held at Yale University Library. On the same evening, after Franklin and Deane had left, the duke received word that the Amphitrite, a ship loaded with arms for the American rebels, had sailed from Brittany. He immediately forwarded the letter to Franklin, asking that it be returned after reading. The intelligence sharing had begun. According to Daniel Vaugelade, whose 2005 study La Question americaine au XVIIIe siecle a travers la correspondance du duc Louis Alexandre de La Rochefoucauld (Publibook) is the most detailed analysis of this correspondence, Franklin frequented the La Rochefoucauld salon "very regularly, especially from 1777 to 1779." The tone of the salon was serious. "They discuss politics," Vaugelade writes, "they comment on the ups and downs of the war, they celebrate victories, they worry about reversals." The duke's mother, the Duchesse d'Anville, kept a certain distance from Franklin, but admired him. John Adams, visiting the salon, described her as "a venerable old lady; several of her remarks at table seemed marked with good sense, with something of the masculine and the bold." Arms, Intelligence, and Constitutions The correspondence between Franklin and La Rochefoucauld, preserved at the American Philosophical Society, Yale University Library, and the Archives municipales de Mantes, documents a relationship that went well beyond social courtesy. Franklin was sharing classified military intelligence with the duke. In a letter dated approximately January 29, 1778 (Franklin Papers, vol. 25), Franklin reported to La Rochefoucauld the arrival in America of a ship from Marseilles carrying "48 Pieces brass Cannon 4 pounders, with Carriages &c. compleat. 19 brass Mortars 9 Inch. 2500 Bombs. 4110 Fusils. 18000 lb. Gunpowder and other Stores." This was the covert supply chain run through Beaumarchais' fictitious trading house, Roderigue Hortalez et Compagnie, and Franklin was passing the details directly to the son of the Duc d'Anville. On February 18, 1778, the duke wrote to Franklin inviting him to a concert at his mother's residence, but warned that Lady Stormont, wife of the British ambassador, was among the subscribers. The Franco-American treaty had not yet been publicly announced, and a meeting between Franklin and the ambassador's circle would have been diplomatically awkward. Franklin declined, noting that "he sees clearly with them the Impropriety of his appearing at the concert, under the circumstances mentioned." The La Rochefoucaulds had to manage their guest lists carefully to ensure the American delegation did not encounter their British friends in the corridors of their hotel. On March 27, 1778, nine days after France officially recognised American independence, the duke wrote to Franklin in celebration: "Finally, Sir, your Nation and ours are declared allies, and the liberator of America is a public Plenipotentiary in France." The letter is held at the American Philosophical Society. Vaugelade documents that the duke also served as an intelligence intermediary, forwarding sensitive correspondence between Franklin and French officers serving in America. He provided money and uniforms to officers through what Vaugelade describes as "his political and military connections, and the complicity of Franklin." When the Duchesse d'Anville's friend Turgot died on March 18, 1781, Franklin wrote to the family: "Dr. Franklin presents his respectful Compliments to Madame la Duchesse d'Enville, and to Monsieur le Duc de Rochefoucauld; he condoles with them most sincerely on the loss of their excellent Friend M. Turgot, and mingles his Tears with theirs." The letter survives in the Archives municipales de Mantes. The most visible product of their collaboration was the 1783 publication Constitutions des Treize Etats-Unis de l'Amerique, a French translation of all thirteen American state constitutions, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Franco-American treaties. The duke translated the documents at Franklin's suggestion, with Franklin contributing over fifty footnotes. Only 600 copies were printed, including 100 on large paper for distribution to foreign ministers. The title page bore the first appearance of the Great Seal of the United States in any printed book. The work was a political act, intended to demonstrate to the French public that republican government was viable. The editors of the Franklin Papers note that "numerous letters from the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, all undated, referring to his translations" survive in the collection, and that "Franklin made suggestions" throughout the process. The publication is held at the Library of Congress, Princeton University Library, and the Internet Archive. [site:chateau-de-la-rochefoucauld] The French Secret War The Franklin-La Rochefoucauld correspondence took place against the backdrop of one of the most elaborate covert operations of the 18th century. Long before France officially entered the war in 1778, the court of Louis XVI was secretly channelling money and military supplies to the American rebels. The architect of this programme was Charles Gravier, Comte de Vergennes, the French Foreign Minister, who saw the rebellion as an opportunity to weaken Britain after France's losses in the Seven Years' War. In May 1776, Vergennes approved a scheme devised by Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, a playwright, spy, and arms dealer, to channel aid through a fictitious trading house called Roderigue Hortalez et Compagnie. The French government provided an initial investment of one million livres, Spain added another million, and private investors contributed a third. Through this front company, Beaumarchais ran as many as forty ships across the Atlantic, smuggling gunpowder, muskets, cannons, and uniforms to the Continental Army. Much of this material passed through the neutral Dutch Caribbean island of Sint Eustatius and the French port of Martinique. Military historians writing in the Journal of the American Revolution estimate that Hortalez et Compagnie supplied between two-thirds and three-quarters of the gunpowder used by American forces at the Battles of Saratoga in 1777, the turning point of the war. A 2025 article in the Smithsonian Magazine placed the estimate of French-supplied arms and ammunition at up to 90 percent of what was used in the Saratoga campaign. When Hortalez et Compagnie was dissolved in 1783, its books revealed over 21 million livres (equivalent to several billion dollars today) had been sent to the United States. The broader French financial commitment to American independence eventually exceeded one billion livres, a debt that contributed directly to the fiscal crisis leading to the French Revolution. The era's statecraft was entirely comfortable with hidden financial arrangements, shell companies, and covert supply lines. That is the world in which Franklin and La Rochefoucauld operated. Jefferson and the Family Thomas Jefferson succeeded Franklin as Minister to France in 1785 and developed his own relationship with the La Rochefoucauld family. The duke wrote to Jefferson (the letter is undated but placed after October 1785 by the editors of the Jefferson Papers at Princeton University Press) declining a dinner invitation and asking for "clarifications on the Description of Virginia," a reference to Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia. Jefferson moved in the same circle of Enlightenment reformers that included Lafayette, Condorcet, and the La Rochefoucauld family. The duke's fate was bound up with the Revolution he helped inspire. On September 4, 1792, during the September Massacres, Louis-Alexandre de La Rochefoucauld was killed by a mob while travelling under escort to his family's estate at La Roche-Guyon, murdered in front of his elderly mother and his wife. He was forty-nine years old. The Marquis de Condorcet, writing to Jefferson on December 21, 1792, called him "a truly virtuous man and friend of liberty." The letter is in the Jefferson Papers, volume 24. The duke's cousin, Francois-Alexandre-Frederic de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, who inherited the dukedom, survived the Terror by fleeing to England and then to the United States. In 1796 he visited Jefferson at Monticello, where they discussed farming, mutual acquaintances in France, and the tobacco trade. His observations were published in 1799 as Travels through the United States of North America. The La Rochefoucauld family's connections to America persisted across generations and upheavals. The Theory A version of the American Revolution financing theory was presented to the Oak Island team in Season 6, Episode 22 ("Lost and Founding"), the 2019 season finale. The theory proposed that Louis-Alexandre de La Rochefoucauld, having inherited knowledge of his father's 1746 expedition, revealed the location of treasure on Oak Island to Franklin and Jefferson during their years together in Paris, and that the Founding Fathers may have attempted to retrieve it to help finance the war. The physical evidence cited on the show was the Evans Stone, a boulder on the northeastern shore of Lot 14 bearing the date "August 9, 1897," the word "CHESTER," the name "E.W. EVANS," and the image of a horizontal pine tree resembling the Appeal to Heaven flag commissioned by George Washington in 1775. The team counted what appeared to be thirteen branches on each side of the tree, matching the number of colonies represented on variations of the revolutionary flag. [artifact:evans-stone-13-branched-tree-carving-in-rock] What the Archives Say The primary sources tell a clear story about the relationship, and an honest one about its limits. The correspondence between Franklin and La Rochefoucauld, accessible through Founders Online (the National Archives' digital edition of the Papers of Benjamin Franklin, published by Yale University Press), documents a partnership that began in January 1777 and lasted until Franklin's departure from France in 1785. The duke translated American founding documents at Franklin's request. Franklin shared arms shipment intelligence with the duke. The duke forwarded sensitive military correspondence on Franklin's behalf and served as a conduit between the American delegation and French officers fighting in the war. The Duchesse d'Anville hosted Franklin at her salon on the rue de Seine, where politics, the war, and the future of the American republic were the regular topics of conversation. At the same time, Franklin held 20,000 acres of Nova Scotia land, was part of a Philadelphia syndicate that claimed hundreds of thousands of acres across the province, and had agents physically managing settlements there. His collaborator in Paris was the orphaned son of the French admiral who died attempting to retake that same province thirty years earlier. Vaugelade notes that the general staff may have hesitated to send the duke into combat "thinking of the sad death of his father in Canada in 1746," and that Jean-Baptiste de La Rochefoucauld wrote recommendations during the expedition that influenced subsequent French naval reform. The father's expedition was not a secret. Its catastrophic failure was a matter of public record, and its lessons shaped French military policy for decades. What does not appear in any surviving letter, at any of the three archives where the correspondence is held, is a reference to Oak Island, to treasure in Nova Scotia, to the Duc d'Anville expedition in connection with buried wealth, or to any plan to retrieve hidden assets from the province. The Franklin Papers have been exhaustively catalogued and published across more than forty-seven volumes. The Jefferson Papers have been similarly treated by Princeton University Press. The silence, across tens of thousands of pages of correspondence by two of history's most prolific letter writers, is significant. What the documents do establish is a set of connections. Charles Morris surveyed Oak Island into 32 lots in 1762 and processed Benjamin Franklin's 20,000-acre land grant through the same office five years later. Daniel McGinnis, a Loyalist settler whose father had fought on the British side in the same war Franklin helped fund from Paris, began purchasing Oak Island lots within Morris's grid in 1788. Franklin was still alive, still holding his Nova Scotia lands, and still corresponding with the son of the French admiral who had died trying to take the province. When McGinnis discovered the Money Pit on lot 18 in 1795, Franklin had been dead for five years. The lands he owned 80 kilometres away were passing to the Loyalist son he had disinherited. None of this proves that Franklin knew about Oak Island. But the people, the institutions, and the land records of colonial Nova Scotia connect these stories through the same office and the same provincial administration. The Surveyor General who drew the lines on Oak Island also drew the lines on Franklin's property. The man who found the Money Pit bought his lots in a system that same office created. And the aristocrat who translated the American Constitution at Franklin's dining table was the fatherless son of the man who died leading 11,000 men to the shores of the province where all of this land was held. Sources Primary correspondence (Franklin-La Rochefoucauld): Duc de La Rochefoucauld to Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane, January 20, 1777. First documented communication. The duke sends fifty copies of a translated document, probably the Articles of Confederation. American Philosophical Society. Published in The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 23 (Yale University Press, 1983). Founders Online, National Archives: founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-23-02-0128. La Rochefoucauld to Franklin and Silas Deane, c. January 26, 1777. Forwards a letter about the departure of the Amphitrite, asks Franklin to return it after reading. American Philosophical Society. Franklin Papers, vol. 23. Founders Online: founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-23-02-0147. Benjamin Franklin to Mary Hewson, January 26, 1777. "Yesterday, we dined at the Duke of La Rochefoucauld's; there were three duchesses and a countess." Yale University Library. Cited in Vaugelade, p. 49. La Rochefoucauld to Franklin, March 26, 1777. American Philosophical Society. Franklin Papers, vol. 23. Founders Online: founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-23-02-0343. Franklin to La Rochefoucauld and the Duchesse d'Enville, April 25, 1777. Constitutional translation corrections for the Virginia constitution. Franklin Papers, vol. 23. Founders Online: founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-23-02-0416. Duc de La Rochefoucauld to Franklin, c. June 8, 1777. Dinner invitation on behalf of his mother for Franklin and Silas Deane; offers to carry commissions to Rouen. American Philosophical Society. Franklin Papers, vol. 24 (Yale University Press, 1984). Founders Online: founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-24-02-0108. Franklin to La Rochefoucauld, c. June 7, 1777. Apology for delaying documents; "My time every day is devoured by applications of Officers and people who would go to America." Yale University Library. Cited in Vaugelade, p. 67. Franklin to La Rochefoucauld, c. January 29, 1778. Reports arrival of arms from Marseilles: "48 Pieces brass Cannon 4 pounders, with Carriages &c. compleat. 19 brass Mortars 9 Inch. 2500 Bombs. 4110 Fusils. 18000 lb. Gunpowder." Franklin Papers, vol. 25 (Yale University Press, 1986). Founders Online: founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-25-02-0435. Franklin to La Rochefoucauld, February 6, 1778. Translation discussion regarding the word "habilite" vs. "industrie." Franklin Papers, vol. 25. Founders Online: founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-25-02-0480. La Rochefoucauld to Franklin, February 18, 1778. Concert invitation; warns that Lady Stormont is a subscriber. American Philosophical Society. Franklin Papers, vol. 25. Founders Online: founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-25-02-0538. Franklin to La Rochefoucauld, February 18, 1778. Declines the concert: "He sees clearly with them the Impropriety of his appearing at the concert, under the circumstances mentioned." Archives municipales de Mantes. Cited in Vaugelade, p. 58. La Rochefoucauld to Franklin, March 27, 1778. Celebrates the Franco-American alliance: "Enfin Monsieur voila donc votre Nation et la notre alliees declarees." American Philosophical Society. Franklin Papers, vol. 26 (Yale University Press, 1987). Founders Online: founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-26-02-0130. Franklin to La Rochefoucauld, January 21, 1778. War intelligence regarding General Howe's movements at Philadelphia. Archives municipales de Mantes, author's translation. Cited in Vaugelade, p. 63. La Rochefoucauld to Franklin, February 23, 1781. Dinner invitation from mother and son. American Philosophical Society. Cited in Vaugelade, p. 59. Franklin to Duchesse d'Enville and Duc de La Rochefoucauld, March 31, 1781. Condolence on Turgot's death: "he condoles with them most sincerely on the loss of their excellent Friend M. Turgot, and mingles his Tears with theirs." Archives municipales de Mantes. Franklin Papers, vol. 34 (Yale University Press, 1998). Founders Online: founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-34-02-0390. Comte de Sarsfield to Franklin, June 23, 1779. Invitation to dine with the Duchesse d'Enville. American Philosophical Society. Cited in Vaugelade, p. 59. Primary correspondence (Jefferson-La Rochefoucauld): La Rochefoucauld to Thomas Jefferson, c. 1786. Declines dinner; requests "clarifications on the Description of Virginia." Yale University (CtY). Jefferson Papers, vol. 10 (Princeton University Press, 1954). Founders Online: founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-10-02-0510. Condorcet to Thomas Jefferson, December 21, 1792. On La Rochefoucauld's death: "homme vraiment vertueux et ami de la liberte." Jefferson Papers, vol. 24 (Princeton University Press, 1990). Founders Online: founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-24-02-0752. La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt to Thomas Jefferson, July 11, 1796. Visit to Monticello. Jefferson Papers, vol. 29 (Princeton University Press, 2002). Founders Online: founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-29-02-0111. Franklin's Nova Scotia land grants: Privy Council, Order for a Grant of Land for Benjamin Franklin, June 26, 1767. Orders the governor to survey 20,000 acres in Nova Scotia. Public Record Office. Franklin Papers, vol. 14 (Yale University Press, 1970). Founders Online: founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-14-02-0116. Privy Council, Referral of Franklin's Application, February 10, 1766. Franklin Papers, vol. 13 (Yale University Press, 1969). Founders Online: founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-13-02-0033. Montagu Wilmot to Alexander McNutt and Associates: Two Land Grants, October 31, 1765. McNutt syndicate grants including "Dr. Franklin and Co." Franklin Papers, vol. 12 (Yale University Press, 1968). Founders Online: founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-12-02-0175. William Franklin to Benjamin Franklin, October 23, 1767. Acknowledges receipt of the Nova Scotia grant: "I have not the least doubt but something handsome might be made of it if well managed." Franklin Papers, vol. 14. Founders Online: founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-14-02-0173. Benjamin Franklin, Last Will and Testament, July 17, 1788. "To my son, William Franklin, late Governor of the Jerseys, I give and devise all the lands I hold or have a right to in the Province of Nova Scotia." Benjamin Franklin to Cadwallader Colden, October 16, 1746. William Franklin commissioned as ensign for the 1746 expedition against Canada. Franklin Papers, vol. 3 (Yale University Press, 1961). Founders Online: founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-03-02-0040. Published books and scholarly works: Daniel Vaugelade, La Question americaine au XVIIIe siecle a travers la correspondance du duc Louis Alexandre de La Rochefoucauld (Paris: Publibook, 2005). The principal scholarly study of the duke's American correspondence. Draws on material held at the American Philosophical Society, Yale University Library, and the Archives municipales de Mantes. The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 47+ volumes (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1959-). The authoritative edition, digitised on Founders Online (founders.archives.gov). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, main series (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950-). Digitised on Founders Online. L. S. Livingston, Franklin and His Press at Passy (New York: Grolier Club, 1914). Documentation of the Constitutions des Treize Etats-Unis and the duke's role as translator. Solange Fasquelle, Les La Rochefoucauld: une famille dans l'Histoire de France (Paris: Perrin, 1999). Family history covering the d'Anville expedition and the duke's political career. Francois-Alexandre-Frederic de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Travels through the United States of North America, 2 vols. (London, 1799). Observations from the cousin's 1795-1797 journey, including the Monticello visit. George Rawlyk, Yankees at Louisbourg (Orono: University of Maine Press, 1967). Context for the 1745 capture of Louisbourg and the French response. L. H. Butterfield, ed., Adams Family Correspondence (Cambridge: Harvard University Press). John Adams's description of the Duchesse d'Enville. Cited in Vaugelade, p. 56. A. O. Aldridge, B. Franklin et ses contemporains francais (Paris, 1963). Letter of the Abbe de Flamarens, January 15, 1777, describing Franklin's reception in Paris. Cited in Vaugelade, p. 49. The 1783 publication: Benjamin Franklin and Louis-Alexandre de La Rochefoucauld, Constitutions des Treize Etats-Unis de l'Amerique (Philadelphia [i.e. Paris]: Ph.-D. Pierres, Pissot, 1783). 600 copies printed, including 100 on large paper. First appearance of the Great Seal of the United States in a printed book. Held at Library of Congress, Princeton University Library, Boston Public Library (John Adams Library copy), and Internet Archive. Beaumarchais and French covert financing: "Clarifying Beaumarchais," Journal of the American Revolution, September 2020. Hortalez et Compagnie operations and gunpowder estimates at Saratoga. "America's First Black Ops," Journal of the American Revolution, September 2017. Detailed breakdown of ship manifests, the Vergennes/Duvergier laundering scheme, and Amphitrite cargo. "How an American Merchant, a French Official and a Pioneering Chemist Smuggled Much-Needed Gunpowder to the Continental Army," Smithsonian Magazine, April/May 2025. French-supplied arms estimated at up to 90 percent of the Saratoga campaign. Nova Scotia land history: Nova Scotia Archives, Land Papers 1765-1800. Digital resource: archives.novascotia.ca/land-papers/grants. George Patterson, History of Pictou County (Montreal, 1877), Chapter 4. "Dr. Franklin and Co." among fifteen companies seeking Nova Scotia grants. Enfield, Nova Scotia, Wikipedia article. Documents Franklin's 20,000 acres at present-day Enfield, Jacob Hall as land agent, and the Wayside Inn. Alexandra Montgomery, "Not Subject to the Scorn and Contumely of the Great: Alexander McNutt's Nova Scotia," The New Canadian History, May 2017. McNutt syndicate and the 1765 land rush. Television: The Curse of Oak Island, Season 6, Episode 22: "Lost and Founding" (History Channel, 2019). Season finale in which the American Revolution financing theory was presented to the Oak Island team. ### The Treasure of St. Andrew's Cathedral URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/the-treasure-of-st-andrew-s-cathedral The Richest Church in Scotland St. Andrew's Cathedral was the largest building ever constructed in Scotland. Founded in 1158 on a clifftop promontory on the Fife coast, the church measured 119 metres from end to end, with a central tower and spire visible from miles out at sea. For four centuries it served as the seat of the Catholic Church in Scotland, home to the Bishop and later Archbishop of St. Andrews, head of the richest diocese in the kingdom. The cathedral's power derived from its relics. According to tradition, the bones of the apostle Andrew were brought to Scotland in the 8th century by Bishop Acca of Hexham. The collection included a kneecap, an upper arm bone, three fingers, and a tooth, housed in a chest weighing approximately 1.5 tonnes. These relics drew an estimated 20 million pilgrims between the 14th and 16th centuries, making St. Andrews one of the most visited shrines in medieval Europe, second in the British Isles only to Canterbury and rivalling Santiago de Compostela in Spain. The wealth that accumulated around these relics was extraordinary. At its height, the cathedral contained 30 altars, a large statue of Christ above the high altar, extensive white marble work, and what researchers describe as the largest collection of medieval art in Scotland. Ecclesiastical plate, jewelled reliquaries, vestments embroidered with gold thread, illuminated manuscripts, and liturgical objects from across Europe filled the building. In 1318, Robert the Bruce himself attended a consecration service, attended by every bishop and most of the powerful nobles of Scotland. The cathedral was not simply a church. It was a national treasury. The Battle of Bannockburn The theory linking St. Andrew's to Oak Island begins not with the cathedral itself, but with the battle that secured Scottish independence. On June 23 and 24, 1314, Robert the Bruce's army of roughly 7,000 men defeated King Edward II's force of approximately 15,000 English soldiers at Bannockburn, near Stirling. The victory was decisive. Bruce's forces captured the entire English baggage train, a haul of gold, silver, weapons, armour, and valuables that represented the accumulated campaign wealth of the largest army England had ever sent north. This treasure was added to the holdings of the Scottish Crown and, according to the theory first published in 1988, much of it was placed under the protection of the Church at St. Andrews. A persistent legend surrounds the Scottish victory at Bannockburn. According to accounts first recorded in the 18th century, fugitive Knights Templar fought alongside Bruce's army and helped turn the battle. The factual basis for this claim is narrow but real. In October 1307, King Philip IV of France ordered the arrest of every Templar in his country and pressured other European monarchs to follow suit. Scotland, whose king was already excommunicated, never enforced the papal suppression. Robert Ferguson, in his 2010 book The Knights Templar and Scotland, calculated that between 29 and 48 Templars could have reached Scotland after the arrests.  Whether or not Templars fought at Bannockburn, the connection matters for the theory because it places both a vast captured English treasure and a possible Templar presence in Scotland at the same moment. If fugitive Templars did reach Scotland, and if they did bring knowledge of sacred relics or treasure concealment, their influence would have extended to the institutions that protected Scotland's wealth, including its most powerful cathedral. [article:the-knights-templar] The Destruction of 1559 For 240 years after Bannockburn, the wealth of St. Andrew's continued to grow. Pilgrims arrived in such numbers that Queen Margaret of Scotland endowed a ferry service across the Firth of Forth, with hostels at both North and South Queensferry. The university founded in 1413 added intellectual prestige to the cathedral's spiritual authority. By the mid-1500s, St. Andrews was the undisputed ecclesiastical capital of Scotland. Then the Reformation arrived. On June 11, 1559, John Knox preached a sermon in the parish church of St. Andrews. Knox had spent years in exile in Geneva, studying under John Calvin and developing a vision of Protestant Scotland free from Roman authority. His preaching in Perth had already triggered riots that destroyed three monasteries. At St. Andrews, the effect was the same. On June 14, a Protestant mob ransacked the cathedral, destroying the interior, smashing altars, statuary, and religious imagery. The shrine containing the relics of St. Andrew was broken open. The relics themselves were either destroyed or disappeared; their fate has never been determined. Replacement relics were not obtained until 1879, when a shoulder bone was sent from Amalfi in Italy, and 1969, when Pope Paul VI donated additional bones with the words "Peter greets his brother Andrew." The cathedral was abandoned by 1561 and never repaired. Its stone was quarried by townspeople for use in other buildings. Today it stands as a roofless ruin, its precinct walls and the 33-metre St. Rule's Tower the most substantial surviving structures. But the fate of the cathedral's movable wealth remains an open question. Researcher Andrew Speirs has noted that the Reformation's transfer of church property was not purely chaotic. For the most part, the loss of medieval religious plate, art, vestments, books, relics, and architecture was a slow, organised, and lengthy process, with clerics smuggling valuables to the Continent and sympathetic laypeople concealing what they could. Rick Falconer, a St. Andrews author and researcher, has investigated reports of tunnels and sealed vaults beneath the cathedral grounds, based on work by 19th-century antiquarian Linskill, who documented a sealed stone staircase near the High Altar discovered during rubble clearance in 1842. In 1868, stonemasons working on the walls discovered a sealed crypt inside what is now called the Haunted Tower, containing mummified bodies that may predate the Reformation. Whether the treasure was looted by the mob, smuggled abroad by fleeing clergy, hidden in vaults beneath the cathedral, or removed before the destruction even began, one fact is clear: a thousand years of accumulated sacred wealth vanished from St. Andrews and was never accounted for. New Scotland The connection between Scotland's lost cathedral treasure and Oak Island runs through one of the most ambitious colonial ventures in Scottish history. In 1621, King James I of England (simultaneously King James VI of Scotland) granted Sir William Alexander a royal charter for all the territory between New England and Newfoundland. The colony was to be called Nova Scotia: New Scotland. To finance the settlement, James created a new chivalric order in 1624, the Knights Baronet of Nova Scotia. Scottish aristocrats could purchase membership, with the funds used to outfit colonists and establish a Scottish presence in the New World. Sir William Alexander was himself an active Freemason, a member of Mary's Chapel Lodge in Edinburgh from 1634, the oldest documented Masonic lodge in the world. Writer and researcher James McQuiston, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland who has appeared on The Curse of Oak Island, found that approximately 25% of the Knights Baronet had documented genealogical connections to the Knights Templar. McQuiston has described the Baronetage as a continuous legacy of the Scottish Templars. The first settlers under Alexander's charter landed on the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia in 1623, not far from Oak Island. Alexander's son established a Scottish settlement at Charles Fort, later Port-Royal, in 1629. Though the colony was returned to France in 1632 and Alexander died in poverty in 1640, the Baronetage itself continued, and Scottish interest in Nova Scotia persisted for decades. The timeline is suggestive. The cathedral treasure vanishes between 1559 and 1561. The Knights Baronet are created in 1621 to colonize Nova Scotia. The first Scottish ships arrive near Oak Island in 1623. Carbon dating of materials recovered from the Money Pit has produced clusters in the 1620 to 1660 range, precisely the period of the Baronetage's most active operations. If the cathedral treasure had been secretly preserved by Catholic or Templar-connected Scottish families during the 60 years between the Reformation and the creation of Nova Scotia, the Baronetage provided both the motive to establish a secure hiding place and the means to reach it. [article:the-knights-baronet] The Theory The Treasure of St. Andrew's theory was first published in April 1988 in Treasure Magazine, under the title "The 13 Million Dollar Mistake?" The article, which reached Hammerson Peters through the personal Fortean archive of researcher Gary Mangiacopra, proposed that the wealth accumulated at Scotland's greatest cathedral over a millennium, augmented by the spoils of Bannockburn, was secretly transported to Oak Island. The original article did not explain the mechanism of transport. Subsequent research by McQuiston and others has filled in the gap through the Knights Baronet connection, linking the Scottish families who would have had access to the treasure with the chivalric order that had both legal authority over Nova Scotia and ships capable of reaching it. Several elements of the theory align with physical evidence found on Oak Island. The lead cross discovered at Smith's Cove in 2017, dated to between 900 and 1300 AD, was traced through lead isotope analysis to medieval mines in southern France, a region with deep connections to both the Templars and the Scottish crown. The coconut fibre found in the Money Pit has been carbon dated to the medieval period, consistent with materials that could have been used as packing for sacred objects during transport. The elaborate engineering of the Money Pit itself, with its flood tunnels and layered platforms, suggests the work of people protecting something of extraordinary value, something worth more than gold. The Treasure of St. Andrew's theory remains one of the lesser-known proposals for the origin of the Oak Island deposit. But it connects three historical facts that are individually well documented: Scotland possessed a cathedral treasure of immense value; that treasure disappeared; and within decades, Scottish settlers with Templar connections were establishing colonies within miles of Oak Island. The question is whether those three facts are coincidence, or a trail. ### Before Nolan's Cross: Temple Beeld Cross URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/before-nolan-s-cross-temple-beeld-cross Since Fred Nolan first plotted the positions of five cone-shaped boulders on Oak Island in 1981, the formation that bears his name has been one of the most debated features of the island. Supporters argue the stones were placed deliberately, forming a precise geometric pattern that could not have occurred by accident. Sceptics counter that five glacial boulders on a drumlin island could fall into any number of apparent patterns if you look hard enough. For forty years, the debate has circled the same problem. If Nolan's Cross was designed, it was designed by someone who understood geometry, astronomy, and large-scale surveying. But no one had ever found anything like it anywhere else. A formation of five megalithic stones in a cross pattern, with those specific angles, on that scale, existed in exactly one place on earth. Without a precedent, Nolan's Cross remained an anomaly, and anomalies are easy to dismiss. Remarkably, a precedent does exist. It stands on a hilltop in the North Yorkshire Moors, between the moors of Danby and Lealholm, in a region the Knights Templar used to graze their sheep. The place is called Temple Beeld Hill. "Temple" denotes land once held by the order. "Beeld" is an old English word for shelter, or image. On its summit stand five megalithic stones arranged in a cross-like formation. The arms meet at angles of 60 and 150 degrees. One of the stones has no obvious role in creating the cross shape. Later walls were built between the stones, using the megaliths as guides, to shelter the flocks that still graze there. The builders of those walls were careful not to damage the standing stones. The mortarless walls appear to be a few hundred years old at most. The megaliths themselves are estimated to be at least fifteen hundred years old. It is unknown when they were placed, or by whom. But their geometry is not unknown. It is identical to Nolan's Cross.     The Geometry Researcher Stanhope White was among the first to draw attention to the Temple Beeld formation, noting a parallel with the Nether Largie Standing Stones near Temple Wood at Kilmartin in Scotland, another cross-shaped arrangement of ancient stones on land with Templar associations. But the more striking parallel lies across the Atlantic. The configuration of the Temple Beeld stones is, in its essential geometry, identical to Nolan's Cross on Oak Island. Both formations consist of five standing stones. Both have the same angular relationship between their arms: 60 degrees and 150 degrees. Both include a fifth stone that serves no clear purpose in defining a cross shape. The Temple Beeld formation is rotated 90 degrees relative to Nolan's Cross, but the proportions are the same. When GPS coordinates of the Temple Beeld stones were recorded using a Garmin GPSMAP 66SR and plotted against the known positions of the five cone-shaped boulders on Oak Island, the geometric correspondence was precise. Two formations of five stones, separated by an ocean, built to the same angular specifications, each including a stone that appears extraneous to the cross pattern. If one is deliberate, it becomes difficult to argue that the other is accidental. The five stones of Temple Beeld Cross in the North York Moors near Lealholm. The Cupmarks The central stone of the Temple Beeld formation bears a number of cupmarks carved into its surface. Some are deeper than others, and some appear to have weathered significantly over the centuries, making precise mapping difficult on a stone whose surface is slightly curved. The marks are not random scratches or erosion patterns. They are deliberate depressions, carved by hand. If the cupmarks were intended to represent a constellation, the closest match is Cygnus, the Swan. This is the same constellation that researcher Petter Amundsen identified as an overlay on Nolan's Cross, and the same alignment that Professor Adriano Gaspani confirmed at Bianzano Castle in Italy, a documented Templar site in the Cavallina Valley near Bergamo. The Cygnus connection now appears in three separate locations: a Templar castle in northern Italy, a megalithic formation on Oak Island, and a megalithic formation on Templar land in Yorkshire. Three sites, three countries, one constellation. The Templar Heartland North Yorkshire was a region of significant economic importance during the Middle Ages, largely due to its flourishing wool trade. Between 1132 and 1156, the region saw the establishment of no fewer than eight Cistercian abbeys and thirteen Templar commanderies and preceptories, forming a network of religious and military influence across the moors. Yorkshire was the centre of Templar power in England outside London, and the order's holdings in the county were so extensive that a chief preceptor was appointed specifically for Yorkshire from early times. Their estates included preceptories at Copmanthorpe, Faxfleet, Foulbridge, Penhill, Ribston, Temple Cowton, Temple Hirst, Temple Newsam, Westerdale, and Whitley, as well as the manors of Alverthorpe and Etton. The Templars operated the first fulling mill in England at Temple Newsam, where they manufactured woollen cloth. The North Yorkshire moors were particularly suited to grazing sheep, and the Templars used them extensively. The foundation of Temple Newsam in Leeds, one of the most important Templar preceptories in the north of England, arose from a grant of land at Newsam, Skelton, Chorlton, and Whitkirk made to the order by William de Villiers, who died in 1181. The Templar survey of 1185 records that the property at Newsam, amounting to sixteen carucates, was obtained from William de Villiers. The earliest recorded appearance of the De Villiers surname in England is in this very document: "William de Viliers in the register of the Knights Templar of Yorkshire in 1185." The Templars of Temple Newsam in Leeds appointed Westerdale as the head preceptory for North Yorkshire, the same Westerdale that controlled the valley of the River Esk just miles from Temple Beeld Hill. The De Villiers donation did not create Temple Beeld. But it enabled the Templar infrastructure that surrounded it, and the family whose bloodline would run from the Norman Conquest through the Templar suppression, through the Knights Hospitaller, and finally to Isaac de Razilly and the founding of Acadia, enters the English historical record in the same county where these five stones stand. The Westerdale preceptory, situated in the valley of the River Esk just miles from Temple Beeld Hill, was donated to the order by Guido de Bovingcourt in 1203. The Templars of Temple Newsam in Leeds appointed Westerdale as the head preceptory for North Yorkshire. It prospered for approximately two hundred years until the suppression in 1308, when its last preceptor, William de la Fenne, appears to have encouraged his brethren to convert their valuable possessions to cash. The inventory of removable property taken at the time of suppression was suspiciously small for what had been declared the head preceptory of North Yorkshire. The granary contained only four bushels of rye. After the suppression, the Westerdale estates passed to the Knights Hospitaller, who continued farming the land. The Owners Temple Beeld Hill itself was not a preceptory. It was part of the broader network of Templar-associated land in the North Yorkshire Moors, and its ownership can be traced through the Domesday Book and subsequent records. In 1086, the lands of Crunkly, Lelum, and Danby, encompassing the area around Temple Beeld, were held by Hugh Fitzbaldric, Sheriff of Yorkshire. By 1106, the land had passed to Nigel d'Aubigny. In 1129, upon the death of Nigel d'Aubigny, the land passed to his nine-year-old son Roger de Mowbray. Roger de Mowbray was a tenth-generation Norman in the direct male line from Malahulc, Jarl of Norway, who had participated in the Viking siege of Paris alongside Rollo. Following their baptisms and a peace treaty with King Charles the Simple in 911, Rollo and his descendants were granted the county of Normandy. Rollo's direct lineage through the House of Normandy produced the medieval Kings of England, including William the Conqueror, whose emblem was a cross with four surrounding dots, a symbol rooted in Viking traditions brought from the north by Rollo and Malahulc. That same cross with four dots was found carved into a rock on Oak Island in the 1930s. The d'Aubigny family had crossed the Channel with William the Conqueror in 1066, and within three generations had amassed one of the largest landholdings in northern England. Mowbray himself was one of the most significant Templar patrons in English history. He donated four preceptories and large tracts of land that enabled the order to develop its Yorkshire network. He fought in both the Second and Third Crusades, and when he was captured during the Battle of Hattin in 1187, it was the Knights Templar who paid his ransom. He was also a knight of the Order of St. Lazarus. He died in Tyre in 1188. His grandson, William de Mowbray, continued the family's connection to the Templars. William was one of the twenty-five barons appointed as executors of the Magna Carta in 1215, and the ceremony took place at Temple Church in London, the Templars' English headquarters. The family that owned the land on which the Temple Beeld stones stand was not merely sympathetic to the Templar cause. They were among its most important English supporters, bound to the order by donations, ransoms, and the blood of two Crusades. Five Miles from Mulgrave Within five miles of Temple Beeld Hill lies Mulgrave Castle, the ancestral seat of the Phipps family. The castle was the birthplace and childhood home of Constantine Phipps, who served as Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia from 1858 to 1863. Phipps held the title of Baron Mulgrave of New Ross, and the village of New Ross in Nova Scotia was named after him in 1863. There is no documented connection between the Phipps family and the Templars, and no suggestion that Constantine Phipps knew what stood on the hilltop five miles from his home. But the geographic proximity between a formation of five megalithic stones on Templar land in Yorkshire and the family seat of a man who governed the province containing Oak Island is, at minimum, a coincidence that warrants attention. The Mirror What stands on Temple Beeld Hill is not a ruin, not an inscription, not an artefact that can be carbon dated or sent to a laboratory. It is five stones on a hilltop, arranged in a pattern. But it is a pattern that matches. The angles match. The number of stones matches. The presence of a stone with no function in the cross shape matches. The potential Cygnus encoding matches. And the land on which the stones stand was owned by Templar patrons whose family fought in the Crusades, donated preceptories, and was ransomed by the order after one of the most catastrophic battles in the history of the Holy Land. The broader Templar network in Yorkshire was enabled by a land grant from William de Villiers, whose donation founded Temple Newsam and whose successors at Temple Newsam appointed Westerdale as the head preceptory for North Yorkshire. The same family whose descendants would establish the French colony twenty miles from Oak Island four and a half centuries later. [article:de-villiers-the-treasure-bloodline] Nolan's Cross has been studied, measured, and debated since Fred Nolan first plotted the positions of its five boulders in 1981. In all that time, the question has been what the formation means. Temple Beeld Hill suggests a different question: what does it mean that there are two of them? ### The Inscribed Marker Stones of Seborga URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/the-inscribed-marker-stones-of-seborga High in the hills above the Italian Riviera, a few miles from the French border and within sight of Monaco, sits the village of Seborga. It is a tiny place, home to around 320 people, perched on a hilltop surrounded by olive groves and flower farms. To the casual visitor it looks like any number of picturesque Ligurian hill towns. But Seborga has a story it tells about itself, one involving Knights Templar, sacred relics, and a secret so profound that a vow of silence was sworn to protect it. That story, as we will see, is largely a modern invention. What is not an invention are the 34 inscribed stones scattered across the hills surrounding the village, stones that mark the boundaries of what was once an independent territory. In August 2023, I hiked the trails around Seborga to document these stones. What I found carved into them stopped me in my tracks. Seborga and Its Claims To understand Seborga, you have to separate what is documented from what is claimed. What is documented is this: in 954 AD, Marquis Guido, Count of Ventimiglia, donated the territory known as Castrum Sepulchri and the church of San Michele di Ventimiglia to the Abbey of Saint-Honorat on the island of Lerins, off the coast of Cannes. From that point forward, the abbots of Lerins governed Seborga as a principality. In 1079, Pope Gregory VII authorized the abbots to claim the title of Prince-Abbot. The territory was small, remote, and largely left to its own devices for centuries. This much is in the historical record. What is claimed is far more dramatic. According to a narrative promoted heavily within the village, the nine founding Knights Templar traveled from Jerusalem to Seborga in 1127, where Bernard of Clairvaux ordained Hugues de Payns as the first Grand Master of the Order. The Templars then allegedly managed the Principality from 1159 onward, using it as a repository for relics and treasures brought from the Holy Land, including items recovered from beneath the Temple Mount. Fifteen of the twenty-three Templar Grand Masters were supposedly also Princes of Seborga. The village was, in this telling, the secret heart of the Templar world. [article:the-knights-templar] It is a compelling story. It is also, according to the available evidence, not true. Elena Bellomo, an expert on Templar orders in northwest Italy at Cardiff University, has stated plainly that there is "no medieval evidence that there were Templars in the area of Seborga." The Templar narrative was largely constructed in the 1960s by Giorgio Carbone, a local floriculturist who proclaimed himself Prince of Seborga in 1963 and built the village's identity around Occitan and Cathar-Templar traditions that have no documented connection to the place. The Order of the Temple was founded in Jerusalem in 1118, not in Seborga, and Bernard of Clairvaux's involvement with the Templars is well documented through the Council of Troyes in 1129, not through any ceremony on a Ligurian hilltop. Today Seborga operates as a self-declared micronation, complete with its own currency, elected princess, and competing chivalric orders, none of which are recognized by the Catholic Church or the Italian state. None of this should be taken as a dismissal of Seborga's genuine historical interest. The Lerins Abbey connection is real and documented. The territory's status as a semi-independent ecclesiastical principality is real. The name Castrum Sepulchri, meaning "Castle of the Sepulchre," is attested in medieval documents and raises legitimate questions about what was kept there and why it bore that name. But the specific Templar claims that have made Seborga famous, and that connect it to Oak Island through Zena Halpern's Cremona Document, rest on a foundation that academic historians do not accept. [article:zena-halpern-and-the-templar-map-of-oak-island] The Boundary Stones What is unquestionably real, and what no one disputes, are the stones. Thirty-four inscribed boundary stones surround the territory of Seborga, marking the limits of the former Principality. They are carved into boulders and rock faces along the ridgelines and footpaths in the hills above the village, reachable by hikes ranging from ten minutes to over an hour from the town square. Some are easily visible from the trail. Others require local knowledge to find. Local historian Stefano Albertieri has studied these stones extensively and dates them to the 12th through 15th centuries, with most likely carved in the 14th century. The numbers visible on some of the stones were probably added later, possibly after the Congress of Vienna in 1817 when European borders were being redrawn. The stones themselves, however, are medieval. They served a practical purpose: marking where the jurisdiction of the Prince-Abbot of Seborga ended and the territory of neighboring communities such as Coldirodi, Ospedaletti, and Vallebona began. One of the Marker Stones around Seborga These are not decorative objects. They are administrative markers, carved by people who needed other people to know where one authority stopped and another started. That is what makes them interesting. The symbols and letterforms carved into them were not chosen for artistic effect. They were chosen to communicate, using the visual language of the institution that governed the territory. The H+O Stone Connection The H+O stone is one of Oak Island's most enigmatic artifacts. It is a fragment salvaged by Gilbert Hedden in 1936 from a large inscribed boulder on the island's northern shore that earlier searchers had dynamited in 1921. The surviving piece bears the letters H and O, or possibly H and a cross, carved in a distinctive serif style. Its meaning has been debated for nearly a century. One of the Seborga boundary stones immediately caught my attention. Located on the path marking the territorial limit between Seborga and Coldirodi, it bears a carved cross that functions as a boundary marker: the "+" symbol indicating the dividing line between jurisdictions. The typography of the carving is what matters here. The style of the serifs, the weight of the strokes, and the proportions of the letterforms are strikingly similar to what we see on the H+O stone fragment from Oak Island. This is not a vague resemblance. The carving technique and letter style are close enough to suggest a shared tradition. The Seborga stone does not have the four dots that appear on the H+O stone, and the inscription is simpler. But the question it raises is direct: if the institution that governed Seborga marked its territorial boundaries using this typographic style, and a stone with the same typographic style was found on Oak Island, does that suggest a connection between the two places? Or, more precisely, does it suggest that the people who carved boundary markers in one place also carved them in the other? [artifact:h-o-stone] The "8-Stone" and the Lead Cross Another stone in the Seborga boundary system is known locally as the "8-stone" because its inscription appears at first glance to depict the number 8. On closer inspection, the carving is not an 8 at all. It consists of two circles that touch in the middle, one above the other, with an uneven-armed cross carved below them. If you isolate the bottom circle and the cross beneath it, the combined symbol bears a remarkable resemblance to the lead cross found at Smith's Cove on Oak Island in 2017. The lead cross, which has been dated through metallurgical analysis to between the 13th and 17th centuries, features an uneven-armed cross with what some researchers have interpreted as a human figure and others as a representation of the Phoenician goddess Tanit. The proportions of the Seborga carving, the unevenness of the arms, and the relationship between the circular element and the cross below it mirror what we see in the Oak Island artifact. The 8 Stone, one of the Marker Stones around Seborga A similar inscription has been documented at the Templar prison in Chinon, France, where Knights Templar were held after the arrests of 1307. The Chinon carvings were made by imprisoned Templars and represent some of the most direct physical evidence we have of Templar symbolic language. The presence of a comparable symbol on a boundary stone in Seborga, a territory governed by the Lerins Abbey during the same period, is at minimum a coincidence worth examining. The top circle on the "8-stone" may have been added later, possibly to convert the original symbol into a number when the stones were catalogued. This would be consistent with Albertieri's observation that the numbering system on the boundary stones postdates the original carvings. [artifact:lead-cross] Assessment The Templar claims that surround Seborga are not substantiated by medieval sources, and the village's modern identity as a Templar stronghold was largely constructed in the second half of the 20th century. This article makes no argument based on those claims. The Cremona Document that routes Templar relics through Castrum Sepulchri is, as detailed in our article on Zena Halpern, a modern forgery. But the boundary stones are not forgeries. They are in the ground, they have been there for centuries, and they are independently dated to the 12th through 15th centuries by a local historian with no connection to Oak Island or its theories. What I documented in August 2023 are typographic and symbolic parallels between these stones and two of the most discussed artifacts found on Oak Island: the H+O stone and the lead cross. The connection does not require the Templar narrative that Seborga promotes about itself. It requires only what is documented: that Seborga was governed for centuries by the Abbey of Lerins, that the Cistercians were closely affiliated with the Knights Templar through their shared founder Bernard of Clairvaux, and that the boundary stones were carved during a period when both orders were active across the Mediterranean and beyond. If the people who marked territorial boundaries in Seborga used a typographic tradition that also appears on Oak Island, the question is not whether Seborga was a Templar state. The question is whether the tradition traveled, and if so, who carried it. The stones do not answer that question. But they ask it in a way that no forged document can: silently, in carved rock, exactly where they have been for seven hundred years. ### The Oak Island Star Map URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/the-oak-island-star-map In 1981, Fred Nolan found five large cone-shaped boulders on his property on Oak Island. They were scattered across Lots 5 and 21, some of them partially buried, none of them obviously connected. But when Nolan plotted their positions on a survey map, the pattern was unmistakable. The five stones formed a formation spanning 867 feet, with a vertical axis running roughly north to south and a shorter horizontal axis crossing it near the top. Nolan called it a cross, and that name stuck. For decades, most people assumed the formation was either a coincidence of glacial deposit or an old property boundary. Nolan insisted otherwise. He believed the stones had been placed deliberately by someone who understood geometry on a scale that could only be appreciated from above. He spent the rest of his life trying to prove it. It took forty years for the science to catch up. Between 2019 and 2024, five independent researchers, using entirely different methods and starting from different assumptions, would all arrive at the same conclusion: the structures on Oak Island were built to align with the stars. The question is no longer whether the builders used astronomy. The question is who, in the medieval period, possessed both the celestial knowledge and the engineering skill to lay it out. [artifact:nolan-s-cross-6-boulders] As Above, So Below The first scientist to overlay a star map onto Oak Island was Dr. Travis Taylor, an astrophysicist and aerospace engineer whom Marty Lagina invited to the War Room during Season 6, Episode 7 ("Rock Solid") in January 2019. Taylor approached the island the way a data scientist would approach a battlefield: he compiled every known data point, including survey results, artefact locations, and geological features, and fused them into a single integrated map. He then layered radon prospecting data over the top, revealing zones of concentrated underground activity that corresponded to known areas of interest. It was one of the most scientifically rigorous analyses ever applied to the Oak Island mystery, and it led Taylor to a striking conclusion. When he overlaid the constellation Taurus on the island, key features aligned with specific star positions. Nolan's Cross, the swamp, and other landmarks fell into correspondence with the celestial pattern. Taylor's principle was "As Above, So Below," the ancient concept of mirroring heaven on earth, a practice documented among the Templars, who built their fortresses in alignment with sacred geometry across the landscapes of France. His Freemasonic theory extended this further, connecting the island's geometry to Masonic symbolism and rituals, a thread that would be picked up by other researchers in later seasons. Two episodes later, in Season 6, Episode 9 ("As Above, So Below"), Taylor's star map was put to a field test. Jack Begley, Gary Drayton, and diver Tony Sampson traveled by boat to nearby Apple Island, an area of interest identified on Taylor's celestial overlay. At the coordinates indicated by his Taurus map, they discovered three large boulders arranged in what appeared to be a deliberate formation. The boulders had not been previously documented. Taylor's map, derived from star positions, had pointed to a real physical feature on an island no one had thought to search. It was the first time a celestial theory about Oak Island had produced a tangible, verifiable result on the ground. The Swamp and the Virgin A year after Taylor's presentation, researcher Chris Donah brought a different constellation to the War Room during Season 7, Episode 14 ("Burnt Offering") in February 2020. Where Taylor had looked at the island's features broadly, Donah focused on a single element: the swamp. He had studied its outline and concluded that its shape corresponded to the constellation Virgo. The swamp was not, in his reading, a natural feature that happened to collect water in a convenient depression. It was a shaped landscape, deliberately configured to reflect a pattern in the heavens. The idea landed in a season already rich with swamp revelations. Dr. Ian Spooner had determined that the swamp was created approximately 1220 AD, that it had once been open ocean, and that the "eye" of the swamp had been manipulated by humans in the seventeenth century. A stick wedged between the paved stones at its base had been carbon dated to the 1200s. If the swamp was artificial, as the evidence increasingly suggested, then the question of why it was shaped the way it was became legitimate. Donah's Virgo theory was the first attempt to answer it by looking up. The Swan Norwegian researcher Petter Amundsen had been working on a different celestial connection. Amundsen, known primarily for his work decoding what he believed were Baconian ciphers hidden in the works of Shakespeare, had identified a correspondence between the constellation Cygnus, the Swan, and the layout of Nolan's Cross. When the star pattern of Cygnus was overlaid on the five cone stones, the fit was close enough to suggest intentional design rather than coincidence. The Cygnus connection gained significant weight in Season 11, Episode 22, when the team traveled to Bianzano Castle in the Cavallina Valley of northern Italy. The castle, identified as a Templar protection site, was where they met Professor Adriano Gaspani, an archaeoastronomer and astrophysicist based near Milan. Gaspani explained that Bianzano Castle was oriented to the cardinal points, with its corners aligned to solstice sunsets and equinoxes. He then confirmed, for the first time on television, that the castle's alignment matched the Cygnus constellation in exactly the same way that Amundsen had proposed for Nolan's Cross. The same constellation, the same geometry, in a confirmed Templar structure four thousand miles from Oak Island. The Archaeoastronomer Gaspani's contribution went far beyond confirming someone else's theory. He brought a methodology that no previous Oak Island researcher had applied: dating stone structures by calculating which stellar positions their alignments would have matched at the time of construction. Stars move. Their positions in the sky shift measurably over centuries due to precession and proper motion. A structure built to align with a specific star in 1200 AD would not align with the same star today. By working backward from the current positions of the stones and calculating when specific bright stars would have occupied the correct positions relative to the formation, Gaspani could determine when the structures were built. He presented his initial findings in Season 10, Episode 22 ("Starry Knights"). Gaspani had identified six bright stars that aligned with the boulders of Nolan's Cross: Capella, Arcturus, Antares, Bellatrix, Alphard, and Fomalhaut. When he calculated the epoch at which these alignments would have held true, the answer was approximately 1200 AD. Doug Crowell, the team's historian, immediately noted that this date matched the independent carbon dating of the swamp stone platform. Two completely different methods, applied to two different features on the island, had converged on the same century. Gaspani then turned his attention to the stone cairns on Lot 15, a separate set of structures on the opposite side of the island from Nolan's Cross. Using the same archaeoastronomical methodology, he dated the cairns to approximately 1250 AD. The Lot 15 cairns were aligned with a different set of stellar positions, confirming that whoever built them had the same astronomical knowledge as the builders of Nolan's Cross but had constructed the cairns roughly fifty years later. The implication was that the island had been used over an extended period by people who understood celestial navigation and incorporated it into their construction practices as a matter of course. Today, it has become much easier to create or measure aligments thanks to smartphone tools such as My Solar Compass and My Cosmic Compass that use the formulas used in professional research to calculate sunrise, sunset, and star-rise positions for any date from 3000 BC to the present. A visitor to Oak Island, or to any of the European sites connected to the investigation, can now point a phone along a structure, capture the bearing, and see which celestial events align with it across centuries of history. My Solar Compass handles sun positions and feast day matching; My Cosmic Compass extends the analysis to stars, planets, and the 18.6-year lunar standstill cycle. Both tools were developed with fieldwork at historical and archaeological sites in mind. [article:archaeoastronomy-on-oak-island] The Drilled Stones If Gaspani's work answered the question of when, researcher Christopher Morford's War Room presentation addressed the question of what the formation was pointing at. Morford, a Freemason and co-author of The Jerusalem Files, had been studying the relationship between the cone boulders and a set of drilled stones found on the island. His theory, presented during Season 11, was that the builders of Nolan's Cross had not merely created a monument. They had created a targeting system. Morford demonstrated that two of the cone-shaped boulders from Nolan's Cross aligned precisely with two drilled stones, and that the resulting sightline pointed directly at the Money Pit area. The first boulder in the sequence, Cone C, sits on the beach where it would have been visible to an incoming ship. A rock with a strangely drilled hole lies between Cone C and Cone A at the top of the formation. A second drilled rock lies in a direct line beyond Cone A. Rick Lagina reminded the group that a third drilled stone had been found in the Money Pit area in 1895 but was subsequently moved from its original position. Surveyor Steve Guptill immediately walked the line and measured the distances. He discovered that the second drilled stone sat exactly halfway between Cone C on the beach and the Garden Shaft. It was slightly off-centre of the shaft itself, but it landed directly above the tunnel that runs to the Baby Blob, the underground zone where high trace evidence of gold and silver had been detected between 80 and 120 feet below ground. Four lines measured from Nolan's Cross, Morford argued, perfectly intersected at the Garden Shaft. The implications were significant. Gaspani had demonstrated that the stones were placed according to stellar alignments datable to 1200 AD. Morford had demonstrated that the same stones also functioned as a ground-level survey system directing searchers to a precise underground location. The formation was not one thing or the other. It was both: a structure that used the stars to establish its geometry and then used that geometry to mark a target on the ground. The Viking Stars In Season 11, Episodes 23 and 24, the team traveled to Denmark and Iceland to investigate a different but potentially connected tradition of celestial navigation. On the island of Bornholm in Denmark, historian Jeanne Cordua showed the team the Madsebakke rock carvings, a complex of three-thousand-year-old Bronze Age petroglyphs that align with the stars. She described a Bronze Age compass that pointed to the winter solstice sunrise and sunset, and she explained how Norse navigators used translucent sunstones to determine the position of the sun even on overcast days. Doug Crowell noted that certain carvings at Madsebakke representing the Hyades constellation matched the configuration of the stone piles on Lot 15, the same structures that Gaspani had independently connected to the Hyades using his archaeoastronomical methods. [site:madsebakke] At the Ladby Viking Museum in Denmark, curator Ane Jepsen Nyborg examined a photograph of the crossbow bolt found on Oak Island in the 1960s and confirmed that it matched artefacts from local archaeological digs dating to the early medieval period through the Viking age, placing it before the 1300s. The crossbow bolt was physical evidence of a medieval European presence on Oak Island, and it came from a culture that navigated by the stars as a matter of survival. [site:ladby-viking-museum] In Reykjavik, Iceland, the team visited the Arni Magnusson Institute, where Professor Gunnlaugsson showed them a manuscript written in Latin and Norse that named four specific stars. One of them was Arcturus, the same star that Gaspani had identified as one of the six reference points for the Nolan's Cross alignment. Doug Crowell then noticed something else: the ribbon symbol from the Lot 8 copper piece, an artefact found on Oak Island, appeared multiple times in the same Icelandic manuscript. A symbol from the island and a star from the sky, both present in the same medieval document. [site:arni-magnusson-institute-for-icelandic-studies] At the National Museum of Iceland, curator Armann Gudmundsson presented Roman coins unearthed in southern Iceland, minted in the fourth century but brought to Iceland by Norse settlers in the ninth or tenth century. The coins demonstrated that objects moved across vast distances in the medieval world, carried by people who navigated the open Atlantic using the stars. At a Viking ship museum, the team was shown a reconstructed cargo vessel built around 1060, capable of carrying twenty tons and making the crossing to North America. The technology existed. The navigation knowledge existed. The question was whether the people who possessed both had any reason to sail to Nova Scotia and build stone structures aligned with the constellations they used to find their way. Convergence What makes the celestial evidence on Oak Island difficult to dismiss is not any single finding but the fact that the findings arrived independently and confirm each other. Travis Taylor overlaid Taurus on the island and found three undocumented boulders at the coordinates his star map predicted. Chris Donah looked at the swamp and saw Virgo. Petter Amundsen looked at Nolan's Cross and saw Cygnus. Adriano Gaspani looked at the same formation with the tools of astrophysics and dated it to 1200 AD, a date that matched the carbon dating of the swamp's stone platform. Christopher Morford looked at the cone boulders and the drilled stones and found sightlines converging on the Garden Shaft. In Scandinavia, the team discovered that one of Gaspani's reference stars appeared in an Icelandic manuscript alongside a symbol found on the island itself, and that the Hyades constellation matched the Lot 15 stone piles through two entirely separate analyses. None of these researchers were working together. None of them started from the same hypothesis. Yet all of them arrived at the same conclusion: the layout of Oak Island was designed with reference to the sky. The stones are not random. The swamp is not accidental. The alignments are not coincidental. Someone stood on this island eight hundred years ago, looked up at the stars, and built accordingly. In the medieval world, two groups possessed both the astronomical knowledge and the engineering capability to execute construction on this scale at this level of precision. The first were the Norse, whose celestial navigation enabled them to cross the open Atlantic centuries before Columbus. The second were the military orders of the Crusades, the Templars and their associated Cistercian monks, who studied architecture, engineering, and celestial navigation in abbeys across Europe and built their fortresses in alignment with stars and sacred geometry from France to the Holy Land. The crossbow bolt dates to their era. Gaspani's stellar dating places Nolan's Cross in their century. Bianzano Castle carries their name and the same Cygnus alignment. The stars above Oak Island may yet tell us who stood beneath them. [article:vikings][article:the-knights-templar] ### The Versailles Alignment to Oak Island URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/the-versailles-alignment-to-oak-island A Line Across the World Stretching out from the central gates of the Palace of Versailles is a three-mile axis that bisects the royal gardens. Avenues converge at perfect sixty-degree angles. Fountains and canals extend toward the horizon in rigid symmetry. Every stone, every path, every sightline was placed under the watchful eye of Louis XIV, the Sun King. For more than three centuries, visitors have marveled at the scale and beauty of Versailles without ever realizing what is hidden in its design. In 2020, researchers Corjan Mol and Chris Morford presented a theory on Season 8, Episode 4 ("Alignment") of The Curse of Oak Island that revealed something extraordinary concealed in the layout of the royal gardens: a giant menorah, delineated on a truly massive scale, whose central axis points with remarkable precision to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the site of Solomon's Temple, where the original Menorah once stood. Extended in the opposite direction, that same axis crosses the Atlantic Ocean and reaches Nova Scotia, aligning with the megalithic formation on Oak Island known as Nolan's Cross. If the alignment is intentional, it means that the builders of Versailles encoded a line connecting the place where the treasures of Solomon were kept with the place where they may ultimately have been hidden, and placed a three-mile representation of the Menorah itself at the midpoint. Interactive File Oak Island – Versailles Alignment A KML file plotting the geometric alignment between Nolan's Cross on Oak Island and the gardens of Versailles. Open it in Google Earth to explore the connection in 3D. Download KML How to open in Google Earth Browser (no install)Go to earth.google.com. Click the menu, then New > Open local KML file. Select the downloaded file. Google Earth Pro (desktop)Go to File > Open and select the KML file. The alignment loads into your Places panel. MobileInstall the Google Earth app. Tap the downloaded file from your device and it opens directly. The Alignment from Nolan's Cross on Oak Island to Versailles, following the curvature of the earth in a great circle. The Alignment line leaving Versailles. The Alignment line hitting the spine of Nolan's Cross on Oak Island with incredible mm-precision. The Hidden Menorah When viewed from above on a historical plan of the estate, the gardens of Versailles slowly reveal the shape of a seven-branched Menorah with straight arms, stretching across the full extent of the grounds. The palace building itself sits at the heart of the design, at the center of the central axis. From the east, three avenues converge to meet the main gate in a huge, perfect sixty-degree tripod. To the west, the gardens extend outward along the branches, with the Grand Canal forming a Latin cross at the center of the composition. The straight-armed form of the Menorah depicted at Versailles is significant. It corresponds to the earliest known depictions of the Menorah and to the interpretation championed by Rabbi Maimonides in his twelfth-century work the Mishneh Torah, which argued that the original Menorah had straight arms rather than the curved form commonly shown today. Louis XIV possessed a copy of the Mishneh Torah, and it was translated into French in 1678 on the orders of his First Minister of State, Jean-Baptiste Colbert. It appeared that Louis and his inner circle shared the view that the straight-armed menorah was the original form and it was this version they embedded in the landscape of Versailles. The early landscaping works were carried out by Jacques Boyceau and Claude Mollet, both of whom wrote extensive treatises on the use of sacred geometry and precise alignments in landscape design, documenting the scientific instruments they used to achieve such features. It was Boyceau who created the central axis of the gardens, first documented on the first map, the so-called Plan du Bus. These were men with both the knowledge and the tools to execute designs aligned across vast distances.     From Jerusalem to Oak Island The initial inspiration to look for alignments at Versailles came from the late Oak Island researcher Chris Donah, a skilled amateur astronomer who suggested during a war room discussion that Nolan's Cross, the formation of five megalithic boulders on Oak Island discovered by Fred Nolan in 1981, might point toward the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. That segment never aired, but Mol and Morford continued to investigate, and they soon realized that the giant menorah they had mapped in the gardens at Versailles was pointing in exactly the same direction. To validate their findings, Mol and Morford enlisted the help of Erin King, a geolocation and geographic information system expert and consultant on The Curse of Oak Island, who used industry-grade GIS software to verify the alignments. They also established rigorous criteria for their research: any alignment had to physically point from one place to another along a defined feature; the two locations had to be contextually connected; and the technology required to create the alignment had to have been available in the seventeenth century. The central axis of the Versailles Menorah met every test. To the East, it pointed with remarkable precision directly to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the very site where the Menorah had once illuminated the Holy of Holies in Solomon's Temple. However, when they extended the line in the opposite direction, northwest across the Atlantic toward Nova Scotia, the alignment to Oak Island carried a deviation of approximately 0.7 degrees. Over a distance of more than three thousand miles, that small error translated to a variation of roughly twenty-five miles on the ground, too large to claim the alignment was intentional. Mol and Morford presented this caveat honestly when they first revealed the theory during Season 8 of the show. But the story did not end there. The Royal Chapel One of the defining features of Versailles is its symmetry. Louis XIV insisted that this aesthetic be adhered to religiously. Even the village of Versailles that bordered the palace had to expand symmetrically to retain the beauty of the surrounding area. The King had a term for this principle: "the royal symmetry." It therefore came as a great surprise to his courtiers when, in 1687, Louis chose a location for his new Royal Chapel that violently broke the otherwise perfect symmetry of the palace. Multiple proposals had been rejected since 1685. The chapel that was finally built jutted out from the north wing like a sore thumb, becoming the tallest structure on the entire estate. Many in Louis' court deeply resented the decision, and no satisfactory explanation for the break from symmetry was ever offered, until Mol and Morford found one. The Royal Chapel at Versailles aligns with extraordinary precision with the spine of Nolan's Cross on Oak Island. If you were to walk along the spine of the cross heading east, continuing across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, you would eventually arrive at the altar of Louis XIV's chapel. The researchers concluded that the King had deliberately broken his own golden rule in order to correct an alignment that had been laid out imperfectly by his father, Louis XIII. He realigned his menorah to Oak Island, creating a dramatic new landmark at Versailles in the process. Louis was explicit about the significance of this place of worship. Inside the chapel, sculpted on the wall beside the altar, is a menorah, closely resembling the form depicted next to Edward Despenser in the Tewkesbury Book of Founders and Benefactors. The chapel, it appears, declared its purpose in stone. The Dark Origins of Versailles The question of why this particular spot was chosen for the grandest palace in Europe has never been satisfactorily answered. In the sixteenth century, the land that would become Versailles was nothing more than an insignificant, swampy expanse of uncultivated ground. The air was said to be unpleasant and unhealthy due to numerous pools of stagnant water. Critics in the royal court endlessly questioned why the King would prefer this squalid marshland over the opulence of the Louvre and Tuileries palaces in Paris. The property was first purchased in 1561 by Martial de Loménie, Secretary of State for Finance to King Charles IX. It was then acquired through sinister means by Albert de Gondi, an Italian from Tuscany who had embedded himself in the household of Catherine de Medici. During the religious wars between Catholics and Huguenot Protestants, de Loménie was arrested and imprisoned. While in his cell, he was visited by de Gondi and coerced into signing over the Versailles estate for a nominal sum. De Loménie believed the act had saved his life, but it was not to be, he was strangled in his prison cell on de Gondi's orders during the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572, with the approval of Catherine de Medici herself. The de Gondi family secured the estate and became the dominant power in the region. The land eventually attracted the interest of King Henry IV, who brought his young son, the future Louis XIII, hunting there in 1607. Louis XIII built a hunting lodge on the site in 1623 and purchased the surrounding estate from Albert de Gondi's son in 1632. His own son, Louis XIV, inherited Versailles and transformed it into the palace that stands today. The conventional explanation is that Louis preferred the site because it offered room to build on a scale Paris could not accommodate. Mol and Morford argue a different reason: the site was chosen because it sat at the precise point from which the alignments connecting Jerusalem and Nova Scotia could be drawn. Poussin and the Great Secret The man whose work first led Mol and Morford to the alignments is Nicolas Poussin, one of France's most celebrated Baroque painters and a figure deeply entwined with the mysteries of Versailles. In 1638, Poussin painted The Conquest of Jerusalem by Titus, depicting the sack of Solomon's Temple with the golden menorah clearly visible being carried away. Around the same time, he completed The Shepherds of Arcadia, a painting that would become central to one of the most enduring mysteries in European art and one of the most elaborate theoretical frameworks explored on the show. In 1655, Nicolas Fouquet, the Superintendent of Finances and one of the most powerful men in France, sent his brother Louis to Rome to buy works of art. Louis Fouquet enlisted the help of Poussin, and the two men became closely acquainted. On April 17, 1656, Louis Fouquet wrote a now notorious letter to his brother Nicolas describing discussions with Poussin involving what appeared to be a great secret. The relevant passage reads: "He and I, we have projected certain things that I may discuss with you entirely in a short time, they will give you, through M. Poussin, advantages that kings would have great trouble taking from him, and after him maybe nobody in the world will ever recover in the centuries to come." Mol and Morford argue this letter describes discussions about alignments and sacred geometry pointing to specific locations, both in France and beyond, the same coded knowledge that Poussin was embedding in his paintings. Shortly after Fouquet's arrest by Louis XIV in 1661, the King personally acquired Poussin's The Shepherds of Arcadia and had it displayed at Versailles. [article:nicolas-poussin-keeper-of-secrets] A Grand Design The Versailles Alignment does not rest on a single coincidence. A skeptic might argue that alignments can be found between any set of points on a globe, or that the menorah shape in the gardens is a product of seeing patterns in standard Baroque landscape design. These are reasonable objections. What makes the Versailles case harder to dismiss is the convergence: the shape is consistent with the Maimonides tradition that Louis XIV demonstrably studied; the axis to Jerusalem follows a defined architectural feature, not an arbitrary line; the Temple Mount location is consistent with menorah shape in Versailles; the Royal Chapel broke the symmetry of the entire estate for no recorded reason and aligns precisely with Nolan's Cross. Each element in isolation might be coincidence. Together, they form a pattern that demands consideration. Versailles sits at the center of that pattern: a massive, figurative menorah, with the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on one side, where the real Menorah once illuminated the Holy of Holies, and Oak Island in Nova Scotia on the other, where it may have been buried by those who sought to protect it. Whether all of this was the work of one grand architect or the accumulated effort of generations, the pattern is there for those with eyes to see. The full research behind the Versailles Alignment is detailed in The Jerusalem Files: The Secret Journey of the Menorah to Oak Island by Corjan Mol and Christopher Morford (Watkins/Penguin Random House). The giant Menorah concealed in the ground plan of the Château de Versailles ### Nicolas Poussin, Keeper of Secrets URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/nicolas-poussin-keeper-of-secrets Nicolas Poussin has become one of the most discussed figures in treasure-hunting circles, and not always for the right reasons. Decades of speculation linking his paintings to the mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau, the Priory of Sion, and assorted conspiracy theories have turned his name into something of a red flag for serious researchers. That is unfortunate, because the historical connections between Poussin and Oak Island are grounded in documented facts, verifiable geography, and paintings that still hang in museums where anyone can study them. [site:rennes-le-chateau] Understanding what Poussin may have encoded in his work requires understanding who he was. But first, a disclosure. The Curse of Oak Island production team approached me specifically to ask for my opinion and to develop a theory involving Poussin in 2019. His name had surfaced in several earlier theories and there was a need for someone who could investigate whether the painter could genuinely be linked to Oak Island. After a Friday night video conference, I was invited to Nova Scotia the following Monday. I went, but I went skeptical. I was convinced I would never find a credible connection between a 17th-century French classical painter and a small island in Mahone Bay. What I found surprised me, and what Christopher Morford and I found together surprised us both. So who was Poussin? Born in 1594 in the village of Villiers-en-Desoeuvre in Normandy, he fled his parents' home at eighteen and found his way to Paris, where he trained under Flemish masters Ferdinand Elle and Georges Lallemand. But it was Rome that Poussin had set his sights on, and in 1624, aged thirty, he finally settled there. His talent attracted the patronage of Cardinal Francesco Barberini, one of the most powerful figures in the Catholic Church. For Barberini, Poussin painted The Destruction and the Sack of the Temple of Jerusalem, a dramatic scene of Roman soldiers looting Solomon's Temple in which a golden menorah can clearly be seen being carried away on the left side of the composition. That painting was destined as a gift for Cardinal Richelieu. Poussin was known for working alone, a rarity among painters of his era, and his reputation grew to the point where patrons granted him free rein to choose his own themes and compositions. He adopted as his personal motto Tenet confidentiam, Latin for "Keeper of secrets." It was a phrase he would live up to. The Shepherds of Arcadia Poussin painted two versions of a scene known as The Shepherds of Arcadia, also called Et in Arcadia ego after the inscription on the tomb depicted in both works. The phrase, which translates loosely as "And in Arcadia, I," is grammatically incomplete Latin, missing a verb. This oddity has prompted centuries of debate about its meaning and led to various attempts to rearrange its letters into hidden messages. The most widely cited anagram is "I tego arcana Dei" ("Begone, I conceal the secrets of God"). Another reading rearranges the letters into "gite neo Arcadia," which is Italian for "take a trip to new Arcadia." When Poussin was painting in Rome, Arcadia was the name used for what is now Nova Scotia, following explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano's use of the term during his voyage along the Atlantic coast in the service of King Francis I of France in 1525. The first version (The Shepherds of Arcadia I) was painted between 1627 and 1628, commissioned by Giulio Rospigliosi, who would later become Pope Clement IX. Poussin borrowed the theme from an earlier work by the Italian painter Guercino, whose own Et in Arcadia ego had been commissioned by Cosimo II de Medici in 1618. It is thought that de Medici himself coined the inscription. These were private works for exclusive rooms in the Vatican, where only a very small inner circle around Rospigliosi would have had access to them. The thought that they might one day hang in public museums would have been inconceivable. Crucially, The Shepherds of Arcadia I was not created in isolation. Poussin painted it alongside a pendant, a sister painting intended to hang beside it. That pendant was Midas Washing at the Source of the Pactolus, which depicts the mythological King Midas washing away the curse that turned everything he touched into gold. In the story, the gold flows into the river Pactolus, turning it into a river of gold. Poussin connected the two paintings by including a bearded River God in each composition. One references Arcadia, the contemporary name for Nova Scotia. The other depicts a river running with gold. Oak Island sits at the mouth of the Gold River in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. Combined, the two paintings bring anyone following these clues to within touching distance of the island. The Second Version and the Hidden Geometry Poussin returned to the subject later in his career with a second, more famous version of The Shepherds of Arcadia. Many sources date this painting to around 1637 or 1638, but Anthony Blunt, the British art historian who remains the undisputed authority on Poussin's body of work, concluded that it was completed in 1655 or shortly after. If Blunt's dating is correct, and the evidence strongly supports it, the painting was created after Poussin's revealing self-portrait of 1650 and during the exact period when the notorious Fouquet letter was written. The Shepherds of Arcadia II shows three shepherds and a woman gathered around a stone tomb bearing the inscription "Et in Arcadia ego." Art historian Professor Christopher Cornford of the Royal College of Art analyzed the composition and discovered that it was structured around a hidden pentagram, sections of which extended beyond the frame of the painting. This finding was later expanded by Henry Lincoln, who proposed that the pentagram formed a link between the painting and the landscape around Rennes-le-Chateau in southern France. That connection generated enormous popular interest through books and documentaries from the 1960s onward, but it also had the effect of burying the painting's other, arguably more significant, connections beneath layers of speculation. The composition of Shepherds of Arcadia II is based on an invisible pentagram, positioned partially outside the frame. When the pentagram derived from The Shepherds of Arcadia II is superimposed over Nolan's Cross on Oak Island, using the cross as a framework and scaling the pentagram so that its vertical axis matches the column of the cross, the geometry aligns. The center of the pentagram falls precisely on a feature known as the Eye of the Swamp, a circular formation of stones that would become a significant focus of excavation during Seasons 7 through 10 of The Curse of Oak Island. The Self-Portrait and the Third Eye In 1650, five years before painting the second Shepherds of Arcadia, Poussin created a self-portrait that is rich with symbolism. During the summer of 2019, researchers Corjan Mol and Chris Morford studied this painting together at the Oak Island research center and made several observations. The same woman who appears as the shepherdess in The Shepherds of Arcadia II appears in the self-portrait, but instead of the scarf she wears in the later painting, she is depicted with a diadem-like headdress featuring an eye at its center. The third eye, also known as the bindu point, traditionally represents the ability to perceive things beyond ordinary sight. For a painter whose personal motto was "Keeper of secrets," this was compelling symbolism. The self-portrait contains additional layers. A hidden pentagram is present in the composition, connecting the black pyramid-shaped onyx ring on Poussin's finger, the artist's eyes, and the headdress of the female figure. The door in the background is blocked by three large framed canvases, recalling Masonic rituals in which three veils must be passed. In the foreground, Poussin looks directly out at the viewer from behind his canvas, as if to signal that there is more here than meets the eye. 1650, self-portrait of Nicolas Poussin featuring the woman from Shepherds of Arcadia II wearing a diadem with a 3rd eye. In the same year, Charles Le Brun, a close friend who had trained under Poussin and who also held the title of First Painter to the King, painted a portrait of Nicolas Fouquet. Fouquet is shown in an austere black robe, holding a folded piece of paper and sitting next to a locked book. Behind him, a curtain has been partially pulled aside to reveal a portion of a hidden painting. In it, two figures stand on a boat. One holds a wooden oar and is instantly recognizable as the same kneeling shepherd from The Shepherds of Arcadia II. The second figure is only partially visible, but he is notable for wearing a single sandal. In Greek mythology, the one-sandaled companion of Hercules is Jason, captain of the Argo, who led the Argonauts on their quest for the golden fleece. The Fouquet Letter The connection between Poussin and the French court goes beyond artistic patronage. In 1655, Nicolas Fouquet, Superintendent of Finances under Louis XIV and one of the most powerful men in France, sent his brother Louis to Rome to purchase works of art. Louis Fouquet enlisted Poussin's help, and the two men became closely acquainted. On April 17, 1656, Louis Fouquet wrote a letter to his brother that has become one of the most discussed documents in treasure-hunting history. The relevant passage, translated from the original French by bilingual linguist Charlotte Wheatley for The Jerusalem Files, reads: "He and I, we have projected certain things that I may discuss with you entirely in a short time, they will give you, through M. Poussin, advantages (if you do not want to despise them) that kings would have great trouble taking from him, and after him maybe nobody in the world will ever recover in the centuries to come, and furthermore, this would be without much expense and might even turn to profit and these are things so great to search for, that whatever there is on earth right now can not have better fortune or even be equal." Six months after this letter was written, Nicolas Fouquet signed a contract for the Chateau de Vaux-le-Vicomte for the astronomical sum of 600,000 livres. His display of wealth soon attracted the attention of Louis XIV. In 1661, following the death of Cardinal Mazarin, Louis had Fouquet arrested. His brother Louis wanted to burn Fouquet's library at Saint-Mande, presumably to prevent its contents from being seized. Three Fouquet brothers were exiled. Nicolas himself was imprisoned at the fortress of Pignerol, where he would spend the rest of his life. Even from prison, Fouquet tried to leverage what he knew. In 1673, he wrote to the Marquis of Louvois seeking a royal pardon in exchange for information, stating that "God has enlightened me regarding certain things in such a significant way and about such important, easy and glorious designs that it would do him a real displeasure if they would be lost without him knowing about it." The French phrase Fouquet uses, "des lumieres d'affaires si grandes et des desseins si importants," is notable for the word "lumieres," meaning "multiple lights," and "desseins," meaning "designs." No pardon was granted. By that time, it appears Louis XIV had already acquired Fouquet's secrets through other means. Curiously, in 1679, Louis did permit Fouquet's brother Louis to spend four months with him at Pignerol. During that visit, the two brothers received André Le Notre, the royal gardener and mastermind behind the ground plan of Versailles, who was returning from a trip to the Vatican. Whatever was discussed, Louis Fouquet was fully reinstated and granted a royal pension of 35,000 livres just four years after Nicolas's death in 1680. The Painting's Journey to Versailles The Shepherds of Arcadia II had its own remarkable journey. After Rospigliosi's death in 1669, the painting passed through several hands before appearing at a Paris auction in 1685, where it was described as "Shepherds who find the tomb of Igiezy, famous Arcadian shepherd on the shore of the Ladon river." It came into the possession of art dealer Charles Antoine Herault at the precise moment when the Marquis of Louvois had been tasked by Louis XIV to find a Poussin painting. Louvois acquired it for some 6,600 francs. The painting was hung in the Sun King's Petit Apartment at the Palace of Versailles, at the heart of the palace, on its central axis. This was also the room where, decades later, Louis XV would meet with Thomas Anson during negotiations that led to the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. After Louis XIV's death, the painting remained at Versailles through the reign of Louis XV. It survived the French Revolution, was restored at the Louvre in 1809, became part of Napoleon I's collection, and was eventually placed in the Louvre, where it hangs today. Shugborough and the Shepherd's Monument The influence of Poussin's painting did not stop at Versailles. In August 1748, Thomas Anson returned to his estate at Shugborough Hall in Staffordshire after the negotiations in France. He had been in the very room where The Shepherds of Arcadia II hung. Anson immediately employed the architect Thomas Wright and Flemish sculptor Peter Scheemakers the Younger and began transforming the grounds of his estate into what he envisaged as a small, idealized version of Arcadia. The centerpiece was the Shepherd's Monument, a stone portico with Doric columns enclosing a finely sculpted marble relief that is a mirrored copy of The Shepherds of Arcadia II. The same imagery is present: the shepherdess, the three men, and the tomb with the inscription "Et in Arcadia ego." Below the relief sits a stone plaque bearing a ten-letter inscription in two lines: "O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V." and "D." and "M." below. Numerous attempts have been made to decode this inscription over the years, but a conclusive solution has not been found. The Shepherds of Arcadia became an enduring theme in the Anson family. In September 1750, Thomas's sister-in-law Lady Elizabeth Anson wrote to him about "a very material discovery" and prolonged her stay at Shugborough. In their correspondence, she addressed him as "my shepherd." A year later, she purchased an original sketch of Poussin's first Shepherds of Arcadia from the collection of Jonathan Richardson and had herself painted by Thomas Hudson holding the sketch like a scroll. The original painting from which the sketch was derived was acquired by William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire, a close friend of the Anson family, and it remains in the family's possession to this day. Remarkably, Prime Minister Henry Pelham, the man who approved Anson's mission to Versailles, also had a sculpted copy of The Shepherds of Arcadia II on a memorial in the gardens of his estate at Esher Place in Surrey, carved by the same Peter Scheemakers the Younger. [article:the-versailles-alignment] On the Show The Poussin research was presented across four episodes of The Curse of Oak Island. In Season 7, Episode 8 ("Triptych"), researcher Corjan Mol introduced the theory in the War Room, connecting the "Et in Arcadia ego" inscription with Acadia, presenting the Midas pendant painting and its Gold River parallel, and proposing that the second Shepherds of Arcadia was modeled on a portion of a pentagram. Christopher Morford had been invited because he had developed a hypothesis around Poussin's work and its astronomical connections. By the time Episode 9 ("An Eye for an Eye") was recorded, Mol and Morford had joined up and returned with an expanded presentation demonstrating that the center of the pentagram, when projected onto Oak Island using Nolan's Cross as the framework, fell precisely on the Eye of the Swamp. Marty Lagina acknowledged the geometric elegance of the theory while noting the location was the hardest spot on the island to excavate. Positioning of the painting and its pentagram on Nolan's Cross on Oak island. The Eye of the Swamp was subsequently excavated in Season 7, Episode 16 ("Water Logged"). The team drained the area and uncovered a mysterious circle of stones with embedded iron. Blue clay packed onto a large stone at the base recalled the blue clay layer found at forty feet in the Money Pit by Daniel McGinnis and his partners in 1804. Several large oak stumps emerged around the Eye, evidence that the area was once dry land, supporting geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner's findings of significant human activity at the swamp in the late 1600s. Most striking were boulders as large as those forming Nolan's Cross, stacked together with smaller angular stones beneath and no clay between layers. In Season 8, Episode 4 ("Alignment"), Mol and Morford presented further research via video link, demonstrating that a line drawn along the column of Nolan's Cross aligns with the Royal Way of the Palace of Versailles and, when extended further, intersects the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. [map:eye-of-the-swamp] Assessment Poussin's name carries baggage. Decades of association with Rennes-le-Chateau and the Priory of Sion, much of it rooted in the discredited Dossiers Secrets planted by Pierre Plantard, have made any mention of the painter's hidden meanings an invitation for skepticism. That skepticism is understandable and, in many cases, well-earned. But the connections documented here do not depend on any of that material. They rest on verifiable facts. Arcadia was the historical name for Nova Scotia, used on maps of the period. Oak Island sits at the mouth of the Gold River. Poussin painted two works, side by side, referencing Arcadia and a river of gold. The Fouquet letter exists in the French archives and its contents are a matter of historical record. The Shepherds of Arcadia II hung at the heart of Versailles, and the men who negotiated the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in that very room went home and commissioned stone copies of the painting for their estates. What remains interpretive is the geometric analysis: the pentagram overlay on Nolan's Cross, the alignment between Versailles and the Temple Mount, and the symbolic readings of the self-portrait. These are arguments, not proofs. A skeptic would point out that Poussin never mentioned Nova Scotia in any surviving correspondence, that the Fouquet letter does not specify what the "advantages" were, and that geometric overlays can be calibrated to fit many configurations if the framework is chosen after the fact. These are fair objections, and they should be weighed against the cumulative pattern of connections rather than dismissed. The full geometric detail is laid out in our book The Jerusalem Files, the secret journey of the Menorah to Oak Island, which devotes two chapters to Poussin and his circle. The television episodes could only present a fraction of the evidence. Anyone who wants to evaluate the complete case will find it there. Poussin died in Rome in 1665 and was buried in the Basilica di San Lorenzo in Lucina. In 1820, the French ambassador Chateaubriand raised a monument above his mausoleum that includes a bas-relief of The Shepherds of Arcadia II and an inscription from an obituary by Giovan Pietro Bellori: "He is silent here now, but you would be surprised if you would hear him speak. He lives and speaks through his paintings." Whether Poussin was encoding secret knowledge or simply painting beautiful compositions that happen to align with remarkable geography is, ultimately, a question each person must answer for themselves. But the geography is real, the paintings are real, and the connections between the men who owned them and the decisions they made about Nova Scotia are documented history. ### Jean Richer, the Astronomer Sent to Acadia URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/jean-richer-the-astronomer-sent-to-acadia Fouquet's Ship The Saint-Sebastian was built between 1658 and 1660 for one of the most powerful men in France: Nicolas Fouquet, Superintendent of Finances to Louis XIV. Fouquet's fall from grace in 1661 is one of the great episodes in French court history. Accused of embezzlement and ambition that rivalled the king's own, he was arrested, tried, and imprisoned for the rest of his life. Among his many confiscated assets was the Saint-Sebastian, which passed into royal hands in 1663. The Fouquet name carries particular weight in the Oak Island story. It was Fouquet's brother, the bishop Louis Foucquet, who in 1656 wrote to him about a meeting with the painter Nicolas Poussin in Rome. In that letter, he described a secret so significant that kings would go to great lengths to possess it, one that Poussin had uncovered and that, according to Louis, perhaps no one else on earth would ever recover. That letter, its implications for Poussin's painting The Shepherds of Arcadia, and Louis XIV's subsequent obsession with acquiring the canvas are examined in detail in our article on the Versailles Alignment. The confiscated ship that once belonged to the man at the centre of that mystery is the same vessel that, seven years later, would carry a team of French scientists and soldiers to the coast of Nova Scotia. [article:the-versailles-alignment-to-oak-island][article:nicolas-poussin-keeper-of-secrets] The Voyage to Acadia In the spring of 1670, the naval intendant at Rochefort, a man named Colbert de Terron, a cousin to the Secretary of the Navy Jean-Baptiste Colbert, proposed using the Saint-Sebastian to transport the newly appointed Governor of Acadia, Grandfontaine, across the Atlantic. The ship departed La Rochelle on the 1st of May 1670. Apart from Grandfontaine, it carried fifty soldiers from his regiment and high officials. Several of these passengers had originally embarked on the ship Saint-Charles, a vessel bound for Quebec carrying Intendant of New France Jean Talon and 300 soldiers. But the Saint-Charles had been forced to detour to Lisbon after encountering severe weather, and sank off the Portuguese coast in the final days of December 1669. Some of the survivors were rerouted to Acadia aboard the Saint-Sebastian. Two additional passengers turned the journey into a scientific mission: Jean Richer, a promising young astronomer attached to the French Royal Academy of Sciences, and his assistant Monsieur Meurisse. A third figure, listed as Monsieur Deshayes, was probably Jean Deshayes, the royal cartographer, though this has never been confirmed. The Longitude Mission Richer had been selected by the Academy to conduct astronomical observations aimed at improving the calculation of longitude at sea, one of the most urgent scientific problems of the age. He carried two large pendulum clocks designed by Christiaan Huygens, the Dutch mathematician who was a senior member of the same Academy. The clocks were among the first of their kind to be tested on an ocean voyage. The assignment had originally placed Richer on a ship bound for the East Indies, but the clocks arrived too late and Richer missed the departure. Now, in last instance he was sent to Acadia instead. A 1960 study by the American Philosophical Society suggests that the late arrival of the clocks may have been a convenient pretext. Colbert de Terron, eager to resolve the longitude question, saw the Atlantic crossing as more favourable to his goals and wanted Richer paired with Deshayes, his own protégé. In a letter to his powerful cousin, de Terron wrote that it would be advantageous for the two men to travel together, as they could serve as controllers for each other's work. Colbert, who did nothing without royal authority, approved the reassignment and instructed them to produce maritime maps of the voyage. The order to redirect a member of the Académie des Sciences to a different continent, aboard a different ship, on a different mission, at short notice, carried the weight of the Crown. Five Weeks in Acadia The Saint Sebastian spent approximately five weeks along the coast of Acadia and New England before returning to France. The few dates that survive come not from any report of the 1670 voyage itself, but from Richer's later published account of his expedition to Cayenne in 1672, where he referenced earlier Acadian observations for comparison. From these notes we know that on the 16th of July 1670, Richer recorded tidal observations at Pescatoué, a port on the coast of New England at a latitude of 43 degrees and 7 minutes. By the 6th of August he was at Fort Pentagoûet in Acadia, where he noted the latitude as 44 degrees, 12 minutes, and 20 seconds, and continued making observations through at least the 4th of August. After Pentagoûet, the record goes silent. Le Saint-Sébastien returned to France around the 18th of August, give or take two days. If the ship followed the standard return route, it would have sailed along the eastern Acadian coast, passing through the waters of Mahone Bay. The Missing Records The most striking feature of this voyage is what does not exist: a written account. Jean Richer produced no known report of his five weeks in Acadia. Neither did Deshayes. This absence is difficult to explain. Under Colbert's administration, documentation was not optional. His 1681 Ordonnance de la Marine required pilots to maintain two separate journals on every long voyage, with fines for non-compliance and lists of offenders sent directly to the Secretary of the Marine. Colbert centralized all charts and records, established the Royal School of Hydrography, and personally ordered maritime maps from all trips. The Crown published the scientific results: in 1693, the Imprimerie Royale issued a single volume collecting observations from voyages to Cayenne, Denmark, Provence, and elsewhere, all made by order of His Majesty. Richer's Cayenne report fills 71 pages of that volume. His Acadian voyage, three years earlier and with the same mandate, produced nothing. The sudden reassignment, the timing of the expedition, and the complete absence of records make it feel less like a scientific voyage and more like a clandestine one. The clocks present a partial explanation. Both pendulums broke early in the crossing due to a severe storm, rendering them useless for the longitude calculations that were the expedition's stated purpose. Huygens, writing in February 1671, was openly critical, attributing the failure to the carelessness of the observers rather than any fault in the instruments. He speculated that the rough seas had overwhelmed Richer, who was unaccustomed to such conditions, and noted that a small amount of lead ballast would have been sufficient to keep the clocks running. Whether the broken clocks explain the absence of all records, or whether other factors were at work, remains an open question.  What is certain however, is that the state of the clocks didn't stop Richer from making impressive observations. His precision was exceptional by any standard of the age. His latitude reading at Pentagoûet, recorded in degrees, minutes, and seconds, was the most accurate astronomical measurement yet made in the Western Hemisphere, and his later work at Cayenne produced data that Newton himself cited in the Principia as the first proof that gravity varies across the surface of the Earth. Talon and the Colonial Enterprise While Richer was on the Acadian coast, Intendant Jean Talon was running an industrial reconnaissance from Quebec: miners, blacksmiths, tar makers, forge masters, and shipwrights, all deployed under royal authority. He reported iron and copper mines of excellent quality, sent adventurers to discover unknown regions for the Crown, and had oak trees planted along the St. Lawrence for future shipbuilding. New France in 1670 was a surveying operation, happening within reach of Mahone Bay. None of this connects directly to Oak Island. But it establishes that French colonial Acadia in 1670 was not a passive outpost. It was the site of active industrial reconnaissance, mineral extraction, and shipbuilding, organized by officials who reported directly to the Crown and who operated with a mandate to survey, exploit, and develop. The Académie and the Science of Navigation No records of the Académie des Sciences survive for 1670, but the minutes from 1669, the year before the voyage, offer a window into the institution's priorities. Huygens, the designer of the clocks aboard the Saint-Sebastian, was conducting experiments using cylinders to measure the force of water under pressure. The Académie was testing water currents using an oak-wood parallelepiped attached to pulleys. Members were studying navigational tools and reviewing a book titled The Art of Navigating with Numbers by M. Denis. The picture that emerges is of an institution singularly focused on maritime science, hydrography, and the practical challenges of ocean navigation, precisely the disciplines that would serve a reconnaissance mission along an unfamiliar Atlantic coast. What Can and Cannot Be Established The facts of the Saint-Sebastian voyage are documented in French naval and colonial archives: the ship, its passengers, the scientific mandate, the departure date, and two confirmed positions along the Acadian coast. What is not documented is everything that happened between Fort Pentagoûet in early August and the ship's return to France roughly two weeks later. If the Saint-Sebastian followed the standard route, it passed through the waters adjacent to Mahone Bay. Whether anyone on board made observations there, or had reason to, cannot be established from the surviving record. What can be said is this: a ship once belonging to the man at the centre of the Poussin-Fouquet mystery carried a team of France's best scientific observers to Acadia on a mission approved at the highest level of the French state, and those observers produced no account of what they found. Richer would have been an excellent choice for a reconnaissance mission, a trained astronomer capable of calculating precise coordinates for any location he visited. The five-week window on the Acadian coast gave him ample time. But nothing in the archives confirms that such a mission took place, and this article does not claim otherwise. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but neither is it proof of anything at all. It is simply a gap, one that sits uncomfortably alongside every other gap in the early record of European activity near Oak Island. The story of Jean Richer was published earlier in The Jerusalem Files, the secret journey of the Menorah to Oak Island. ### The Salt Works Theory URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/the-salt-works-theory The salt works hypothesis is the proposal that the engineered structures beneath the beach at Smith's Cove on Oak Island are not the feeders of an artificial flood tunnel built to protect a buried treasure, but the surviving infrastructure of a clandestine salt-making operation from the mid-eighteenth century. Its purpose, on this reading, was the preservation of fish caught on the Atlantic coastal fisheries. The theory addresses Smith's Cove alone. It does not attempt to explain the Money Pit. [article:down-the-money-pit][map:smiths-cove] The Source The hypothesis was advanced by Dennis J. King in a 2010 article titled "A Solution to the Mystery of the Oak Island Five Finger Drains," published on Richard Joltes's Critical Enquiry website. King had previously argued that the same drains were a freshwater works for early colonists, an idea he posted to the Oak Island Treasure Forum in July 2005, but he abandoned that earlier theory in the 2010 paper. The 2010 article remains the only published source-of-record for the salt interpretation. The Curse of Oak Island has not engaged with the theory on screen, and no book-length treatment has appeared since. The Proposed Mechanism King's reconstruction works as follows. A cofferdam was built across the beach to hold back the tide. Inside it, the operators excavated the natural beach to a depth of about five feet, laid five converging stone drains running from the dam toward a common point near the high-water mark, and covered the drains with beach rocks. Above the rocks they placed a layer of eelgrass and a layer of coconut husk, then capped the whole construction with about two feet of sand. A stone-lined well at the convergence of the drains served as a collection sump. A natural saltwater spring on the beach, recorded in the Colonist on 2, 7, and 14 January 1864, and rediscovered by Daniel Blankenship in September 1970, supplied brine to the sand. Controlled inundations of seawater through the dam supplemented it. Sun and wind dried the sand, leaving salt behind. After repeated cycles, a single larger inundation dissolved the accumulated salt back out of the sand and carried the concentrated brine through the eelgrass and coconut filter into the well. The brine was then transferred to a fire pit for boiling. King identifies that fire pit with the U-shaped concrete foundation Blankenship excavated in November 1969, located about 150 feet south of the centre of the Smith's Cove beach. Blankenship's report described the structure as twelve feet wide and twenty-five feet long, with the seaward end open, footings averaging three feet deep, and stones cemented together. He recorded that the earth inside showed extensive heat damage and was burnt deep red, with charcoal and coal present. King draws a direct parallel with the East Anglian salt-making sites in England, known to this day as "Red Hills" because the soil where seawater was once boiled is burnt the same colour. [artifact:u-shaped-wooden-structure] The Historical Case The first recorded owners of Oak Island were John Gifford and Richard Smith, New York fish merchants who received a grant of three islands in Mahone Bay on 27 December 1753. The Halifax Gazette of 4 May 1754 reported that the company had arrived "with men and supplies to commence fishing and farming." King proposes Gifford and Smith, or operators connected with their fishing enterprise, as the most plausible builders of the salt works. Salt was essential to the operation. Refrigeration did not exist. The only practical way to preserve fish caught on the Grand Banks for shipment back to Europe or to the New England colonies was salting and drying. Salt was also expensive and heavily taxed. The British salt tax was not repealed until 1835, and the French salt duty known as the Gabelle was so onerous that historians count it among the immediate causes of the 1789 Revolution. King argues that the absence of any documentary record of an Oak Island salt operation is consistent with deliberate concealment to evade duty. Technical Precedents King cites three pre-industrial methods of salt manufacture from concentrated brine. In Normandy, as recorded by Professor John Le Conte in 1862, beach sand was repeatedly soaked by the tide, dried, and removed to pits where seawater dissolved the accumulated salt. The Japanese Channelled Salt Terrace method, known as Irihamashiki-Enden, used the same principle in reverse: a sand-floored terrace below high tide, kept dry by a dyke, was periodically flooded through controlled channels and dried by sun and wind. In medieval Holland, as documented by Bas van Geel and Guus Borger in the Netherlands Journal of Geosciences in 2005, eelgrass was harvested, burned, and the salt-rich ashes leached with seawater to produce a concentrated brine. King argues that the Smith's Cove arrangement is in effect a refinement of these systems, with the salt-laden sand left in place and the concentrated brine drawn off through the drains rather than scooped up and transported to a separate vat. Why the Flood-Tunnel Premise Matters The salt hypothesis only stands if the alleged artificial flood tunnel between Smith's Cove and the Money Pit is a myth. If the drains feed a flood tunnel, they cannot also be the sump of a salt works. King relies on the work of Robert Dunfield, a Californian geologist who carried out extensive excavations on the island in 1965 and 1966. Dunfield found no flood tunnel either at the Money Pit or in the Cave-In Pit on the supposed line of the tunnel. He concluded that water entering the Pit came from the Windsor limestone formation, which intersects the bedrock surface at about 140 feet beneath the Money Pit and is honeycombed with natural cavities. The 1937 Heddon shaft, dug to 125 feet on the east side of the Money Pit, and the 1862 tunnel cut by the Oak Island Association, both crossing the supposed flood-tunnel line at depth, found nothing. The 1995 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution side-scan sonar survey of the area between cove and Pit found no channel. Tides at Oak Island swing about nine feet between high and low water, but the water level in the Money Pit reportedly rose and fell only about eighteen inches with the tide, which King reads as more consistent with natural percolation through bedrock than a free connection to the sea. [article:oak-island-flood-tunnels-and-box-drains-the-water-trap] Physical Evidence at Smith's Cove Three pieces of physical evidence at Smith's Cove are consistent with King's reconstruction. The saltwater spring on the beach, recorded in 1864 and rediscovered in 1970, supplies the brine source. The 25-foot dead-end well at the drain convergence, excavated by Dunfield in the mid-1960s and described by him as leading to no flood tunnel, supplies the collection sump. The U-shaped concrete foundation 150 feet south, with its burnt-red interior soil and charcoal residues, supplies the boiling site. Robert Restall's 1961 progress report to landowner Mel Chappell, after he and his son Bobby had dug 65 exploratory holes between two and six feet deep, described the artificial beach as 243 feet long along the inner edge of the cofferdam. The Truro Company in 1850 had reported a length of about 145 feet. The larger Restall figure suggests a more extensive operation than the original nineteenth-century accounts captured. [article:the-chappell-family-and-the-vault-beneath-oak-island][article:the-restall-tragedy] Below the Salt No documentary record of a salt-making operation on Oak Island has been found in British colonial papers or in the records of the South Sea Company. King's explanation, that the operation was clandestine and tax-driven, is plausible but unproveable. No chemical or residue analysis has been performed on the Smith's Cove sand layers or the burnt soil inside the U-shaped foundation to test for sodium chloride concentrations. The identification of the U-shaped foundation as a salt-boiling site is analogical. The East Anglian Red Hills parallel is suggestive but not definitive. The structure could equally be a fire pit for fish drying, a forge, or a feature from a later searcher encampment. The radiocarbon dating of coconut fibre samples from Smith's Cove to between 1260 and 1400 AD, if the dates are accurate and the samples uncontaminated, places the fibre layers centuries before any plausible eighteenth-century salt operation. King's article predates these results and does not address them. The hand-wrought iron scissors that Blankenship recovered from beneath one of the drains, examined by former Smithsonian Institution Historical Archeology curator Mendel Peterson and identified as Spanish-Mexican work of the mid-to-late 1600s, are also difficult to reconcile with a 1750s construction date. The hypothesis is silent on the Money Pit itself. The deep wood platforms reported by the early companies, the inscribed stone said to have been recovered at 90 feet, the metal layer struck by drilling at depth in 1849, and the broader pattern of finds in the Pit are outside its scope. [artifact:coconut-fibre-smith-s-cove][artifact:oak-log-platforms-multiple] Assessment The salt works hypothesis is a coherent mundane explanation for the Smith's Cove drains, the artificial beach, and the U-shaped concrete foundation, set within a defensible window of operation under known eighteenth-century technology. It depends on the flood tunnel being a natural rather than artificial feature, a position supported by the Dunfield, Heddon, Oak Island Association, and Woods Hole evidence but contested by treasure-hunting investigators who continue to read the same evidence differently. It is not a theory of Oak Island. It addresses one feature on one shore. Sources Primary source for the theory: Dennis J. King, "A Solution to the Mystery of the Oak Island Five Finger Drains," March 2010, hosted on Richard Joltes's Critical Enquiry website at  King's earlier freshwater hypothesis appeared as a post on the Oak Island Treasure Forum dated 3 July 2005. Documentary records: Halifax Gazette, 4 May 1754, on the Gifford and Smith fishing enterprise. Colonist (Halifax), 2 January 1864, 7 January 1864, and 14 January 1864, on the Smith's Cove saltwater spring. The grant of three islands in Mahone Bay to John Gifford and Richard Smith is dated 27 December 1753. Excavation reports: Daniel Blankenship, "Results of digging done in Smiths Cove, November 1969," on the U-shaped concrete foundation. Daniel Blankenship, "Summary of work performed at Smiths Cove, August 31 to September 18, 1970," on the rediscovered saltwater spring. Robert Dunfield, sketch dated 25 July 1965, memorandum dated 8 February 1967, letter to R.V. Harris dated 7 November 1966, and letter to D'Arcy O'Connor dated 21 October 1976, on the absence of an artificial flood tunnel. Robert Restall, progress report to Mel Chappell, 1961, on the 243-foot extent of the Smith's Cove beach work. Books: Randall Sullivan, The Curse of Oak Island: The Story of the World's Longest Treasure Hunt (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2018), for the Restall report and the Mendel Peterson identification of the Smith's Cove scissors. Graham Harris and Les MacPhie, Oak Island and Its Lost Treasure (Formac, 1999), for the 1937 Heddon shaft and 1862 Oak Island Association tunnel. Technical and historical precedents: John Le Conte, "On the Manufacture of Salt by Solar Evaporation," 1862, on the Normandy lixiviating-saline-sand method. Salt Industry Centre of Japan reference works on the Irihamashiki-Enden channelled-terrace method. Bas van Geel and Guus Borger, "Sources of salt in the early Middle Ages," Netherlands Journal of Geosciences 84-1 (2005), on medieval Dutch eelgrass salt-making. Other physical evidence: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution side-scan sonar survey, 1995, finding no channel between Smith's Cove and the Money Pit. Coconut fibre radiocarbon dating to 1260 to 1400 AD reported on the History Channel Curse of Oak Island interactive map. ### The Oak Island Dry Dock URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/the-oak-island-dry-dock What Is a Dry Dock? A dry dock is an enclosed basin built at the water's edge that allows a ship to float in, after which the entrance is sealed and the water pumped or drained out, leaving the vessel resting upright on the dock floor with its entire hull exposed. Unlike careening, which tips a ship onto its side on a beach using ropes and tackles, a dry dock keeps the vessel level and stable, allowing workers to access every part of the hull without placing the structure under the enormous strain of being hauled over. Dry docks could handle larger ships, permitted more thorough repairs, and reduced the risk of structural damage during maintenance. They were also far more expensive and difficult to build, requiring solid walls to hold back the surrounding water, a reliable drainage system, and a watertight gate or entrance that could be opened and closed with the tide. During the Age of Sail, dry docks were prized assets. France had few of them, forcing the French Navy to careen its ships routinely, a disadvantage against the British, who by the late 18th century maintained 24 dry docks in home waters. In colonial North America the situation was worse. Halifax, the principal Royal Navy base on the continent, relied on a careening wharf from 1759 until a proper dry dock was finally constructed in 1887, more than a century later. Any facility capable of docking a ship upright and dry in colonial Nova Scotia would have been a rare and strategically valuable installation. The Structures at Smith's Cove The eastern shore of Oak Island opens into a sheltered tidal inlet known as Smith's Cove, and since the mid-19th century it has yielded evidence of elaborate construction that predates the 1795 discovery of the Money Pit. In 1850, the Truro Company built a cofferdam around the cove and uncovered five stone-lined box drains arranged in a fan pattern, covered with layers of coconut fibre and eelgrass. These drains converged into a single channel leading inland, and for over a century they were interpreted exclusively as part of a booby-trap flood system designed to protect the Money Pit with seawater. The Lagina team's cofferdam excavation in Seasons 6 and 7 exposed a far more complex picture. Beneath several feet of mud, archaeologist Laird Niven and the team uncovered a large U-shaped timber structure, roughly 65 feet long, built from logs exceeding 24 inches in diameter. Dan Blankenship had first encountered it in the early 1970s, reporting that the timbers bore Roman numerals carved at regular intervals, the kind of assembly marks used by shipwrights and builders to ensure components fitted together in the correct sequence. Nearby, the team found an L-shaped structure of different construction, and a wooden platform composed of long logs lashed together that Rick Lagina identified as a slipway, or ramp. Dendrochronologist Colin Laroque of the University of Saskatchewan dated the U-shaped structure to red spruce felled in 1769 and the slipway to red spruce felled in 1771, placing both firmly in the pre-discovery period. Niven remarked that the complete absence of iron fastenings in the timber structures was unprecedented in his experience of Nova Scotia archaeology. The surrounding soil has produced artifacts consistent with colonial maritime activity. Metal detection expert Gary Drayton recovered crib spikes that blacksmith Carmen Legge dated to between 1650 and 1800, the type used to build wharves, derricks, and heavy platforms. Ox shoes indicated the presence of draught animals for heavy hauling. A flat military button dated to the 1700s suggested a connection to military or naval personnel. Cut lead consistent with ship waterproofing material and a timber bearing a precise 45-degree cut confirmed deliberate construction rather than natural deposition. Coconut fibre from the site has been carbon-dated to between 600 and 800 years old, and eelgrass from the box drains returned a 95 percent probability range of 1472 to 1650 AD. A Dry Dock at Smith's Cove When reassembled as a single installation, the Smith's Cove structures begin to resemble something specific: a tidal dry dock. The U-shaped structure, with its heavy walls open at one end toward the sea, forms the basin. A vessel could float in at high tide through the open end, which would then be sealed with a temporary gate or packed with clay and timbers to hold back the water. As the tide fell, the box drains would channel residual water away from the basin floor, drawing it through the coconut fibre filter layer that prevented sand and sediment from clogging the drainage channels. With the basin dry, the ship would rest upright on the dock floor, its full hull accessible for scraping, caulking, and repair. When the work was finished, the gate could be opened at the next high tide to refloat the vessel. [artifact:u-shaped-wooden-structure] The slipway dated to 1771 fits this reading as a ramp for guiding vessels into the dock or for launching smaller boats. The crib spikes match the heavy hardware found at documented colonial port facilities. The ox shoes point to the animal labour needed to operate hauling equipment, pumps, or capstans. The Roman numeral assembly marks on the U-shaped timbers suggest prefabrication, with components numbered for correct reassembly on site, a standard practice in shipbuilding and dock construction of the period. Even the L-shaped structure, built differently from the U-shape, could represent an extension or a secondary work platform added during a later phase of construction. The dendrochronology dates anchor the installation to 1769-1771, a period when Nova Scotia was transitioning from French to British colonial control and maritime traffic along the coast was intensifying. The Halifax dockyard had been operational for barely a decade and offered only a careening wharf, not a dry dock. Demand for ship repair facilities far exceeded supply, and an enclosed docking basin in a sheltered cove, even a modest one, would have been a valuable asset for anyone operating vessels in Mahone Bay. Competing Interpretations The dry dock reading is not the only explanation proposed for the Smith's Cove structures. The traditional interpretation, dominant since 1850, holds that the box drains were engineered to flood the Money Pit with seawater as a defensive measure. Frederick Blair's 1898 dye test, which showed red dye poured into the Money Pit emerging at Smith's Cove, has long been cited as proof of this connection. Under this reading, the U-shaped structure and slipway are components of the same elaborate protective system built by whoever deposited the treasure. An alternative theory, advanced by researcher and author Joy Steele, reframes the cove as the operational centre of a naval stores enterprise. In this reading, the cofferdam kept Smith's Cove dry not to repair ships but to facilitate tar production. The box drains managed groundwater seepage, and the structures supported crane and hauling equipment for the industrial operation. Steele's theory connects to the kiln discovered on Lot 15, which has been identified as a tar kiln consistent with British colonial naval stores production. A third possibility, proposed through the Oak Island Solved research, challenges whether the U-shaped structure belongs in Smith's Cove at all. This theory identifies the timbers as the bottom chord of a barn roof, built around 1770 by Dr. Jonathan Prescott, who owned property on nearby Quaker Island. Destructive storm waves, the argument goes, carried the collapsed roof across the water and deposited it in the hollow behind the old cofferdam, where subsequent surges buried it under mud. The theory draws on the fact that the Truro Company's 1850 excavations made no mention of any timber structures in the cove, and that the U-shaped structure has no foundations. The Coconut Fibre Question One of Oak Island's most persistent puzzles is the presence of coconut fibre more than 1,500 miles from the nearest coconut palm. For generations, it has fuelled theories about ancient visitors from tropical latitudes. A dry dock offers a more grounded explanation. Coconut fibre was a standard maritime commodity in the colonial period, used for rope, caulking, and filtration aboard ships that traded in the Caribbean and across the Atlantic. A repair facility servicing such vessels would naturally accumulate the material as a byproduct of the ships it maintained: old caulking stripped from hulls, spent rope and cordage, and packing material removed from cargo holds. Repurposing this fibre as a drainage filter beneath the box drains would have been a practical use of material already on hand. [article:oak-island-mystery-trees] The carbon dating of the coconut fibre, however, complicates this picture. Samples from Smith's Cove have returned dates of 600 to 800 years old, placing the material centuries before the 1769 construction date of the U-shaped structure. If the fibre was contemporary with the box drains, it should date to the 18th century. The older dates suggest either that the fibre was already present in the soil from earlier activity on the island, or that it arrived aboard ships that had carried it for a very long time, neither of which has been conclusively demonstrated. [artifact:coconut-fibre-smith-s-cove] What It Explains, and Where It Stops The strength of the dry dock theory lies in its ability to account for the Smith's Cove evidence within a single, coherent, and historically documented framework. Every major structural element found in the cove has a functional parallel in ship repair infrastructure: the U-shaped basin, the drainage system, the filter material, the slipway, the wharf hardware, and the evidence of heavy animal labour. The dendrochronology dates fall within the right period, and the location, a sheltered tidal cove on an island in a region acutely short of docking facilities, fits the pattern of informal maritime installations that served colonial shipping throughout the Atlantic world. Where the theory reaches its limits is at the boundary of Smith's Cove itself. It does not address the Money Pit, the medieval-period artifacts found on other parts of the island, the anomalous metals detected deep in the bedrock, or the carbon dates that place activity on Oak Island centuries before the colonial era. A dry dock built in the 1770s says nothing about what may have happened on the island in the 1200s. But these limitations do not necessarily weaken the theory so much as define its scope. A ship repair station and a treasure deposit are not mutually exclusive. Whoever buried something in the Money Pit, whenever they did it, would have needed to maintain the vessels that brought them there. The dry dock at Smith's Cove may explain not the mystery itself, but the working harbour that made the mystery possible. ### Black Gold: The Tar Kiln Theory URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/black-gold-the-tar-kiln-theory The Most Dangerous Commodity In the early 18th century, the substance that kept the British Empire afloat was not gold or silver but a thick, black, foul-smelling liquid extracted from burning pine trees. Tar, and its concentrated derivative pitch, were as essential to the Royal Navy as gunpowder. Every rope on every warship was dressed in tar to prevent rot. Every hull was sealed with pitch to keep the sea out. Every mast, every spar, every plank on every deck depended on these products for preservation against salt water, sun, and the relentless biological assault of the open ocean. A single first-rate ship of the line consumed between 30 and 40 barrels of tar and pitch per year just for maintenance, and Britain in this period maintained the largest navy in the world. The problem was supply. For centuries, Britain had purchased virtually all of its tar and pitch from Sweden and the Baltic states, a dependency that left the entire fleet hostage to Scandinavian politics and the whims of foreign merchants. When the Great Northern War disrupted Baltic shipping routes after 1700, the Admiralty faced a genuine strategic crisis. Parliament responded with the Naval Stores Act of 1705, offering generous bounties to anyone who could produce tar, pitch, turpentine, and ship masts in the American colonies. The race to find new sources of naval stores became one of the defining economic imperatives of early colonial America, and it would eventually reach a small island in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, or so one theory contends. A Kiln in the Ground Joy A. Steele, a freelance researcher based in Sydney, Nova Scotia, spent nearly two decades investigating Oak Island's history through primary and secondary archival sources before publishing The Oak Island Mystery, Solved in 2015 through Cape Breton University Press. Her conclusion was unlike anything proposed before: the Money Pit was not a treasure vault, a Templar repository, or a pirate cache. It was, she argued, the collapsed remains of a pine tar kiln. To understand the argument, it helps to understand how colonial tar kilns actually worked. The process was described in detail by Jonathan Bridger, the Surveyor General of the Woods in America, who was sent to New England in the 1690s to organize colonial naval stores production (his 1706 kiln-building instructions appear as an appendix in Steele's book). A tar kiln was not a surface structure. Workers began by excavating a shallow, bowl-shaped depression in the ground, typically 15 to 25 feet in diameter, sloping inward toward a central drain. They lined the bottom with a channel, often made from a split and hollowed pine log, which led outward to a collection point where barrels could catch the liquid tar as it flowed. The pit was then filled with carefully stacked pine logs, branches, and stumps, rich in resin. The entire mound was covered with earth and turf to restrict airflow, and the wood was set alight. Over the course of several days, the slow, oxygen-starved burn drove tar out of the pine, and gravity carried it down through the stacked wood to the drainage channel below. A kiln 20 feet across and 14 feet high could produce roughly 200 barrels of tar, a single cord of good pitch pine yielding between 40 and 60 gallons. The parallels to the Money Pit, as described by early treasure hunters, are what caught Steele's attention. The layered oak log platforms found at approximately ten-foot intervals during the original 1795 and 1803 excavations resemble the stacked fuel layers of a kiln. The charcoal discovered at 40 feet, the putty at 50 feet, and the coconut fibre at 60 feet all have functional equivalents in kiln construction and maritime caulking. The underground channels interpreted since the 19th century as ingeniously engineered flood tunnels could, in this reading, be the drainage infrastructure through which liquid tar once flowed to collection barrels. Even the depression in the ground that reportedly first attracted Daniel McGinnis and his companions in 1795 is consistent with the subsidence pattern of a spent and collapsed kiln. Steele further proposed that the Cave-in Pit, discovered approximately 350 feet east of the Money Pit in 1878, represents a second kiln, and that the structures at Smith's Cove may have functioned as a ship repair and careening facility rather than as the inlet for an artificial flooding system. The South Sea Company and the Bubble If Oak Island was a tar manufacturing site, who operated it, and why did they stop? Steele's answer centres on the South Sea Company, one of the most notorious enterprises in British financial history. Founded in 1711 by an Act of Parliament, the South Sea Company was established as a public-private partnership to consolidate Britain's mounting national debt while exploiting trade monopolies with Spanish colonies in South America. Under the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), Britain secured the asiento, a contract granting exclusive rights to supply enslaved Africans to the Spanish Empire, and the Company became the vehicle for that trade. Its operations extended beyond slave trafficking to encompass a wide range of colonial commercial ventures, including, Steele argues, the production of naval stores at remote coastal sites in Nova Scotia. The Company's ambitions collapsed spectacularly in September 1720 when its massively inflated stock price crashed from a peak of roughly 1,000 pounds per share to under 200 by December. The South Sea Bubble, as the event became known, ruined investors across Britain (Isaac Newton reportedly lost the equivalent of 40 million pounds in modern currency), brought down government ministers, and triggered what many historians consider the first international stock market crash. Subsidiary operations, including any colonial manufacturing ventures, would have been abandoned virtually overnight as the Company's financial structure disintegrated. Steele proposes that this timeline explains one of Oak Island's enduring puzzles: why the site shows evidence of significant industrial activity that was suddenly and permanently abandoned. If a South Sea Company operation was producing tar on Oak Island around 1720, the Bubble's collapse provides a clean economic motive for walking away. It also aligns with one of the oldest elements of Oak Island folklore, the accounts from mainland settlers who reported seeing mysterious fires burning on the island at night during this period, fires that abruptly ceased. Tar kilns, which burned continuously for days and flared unpredictably, would produce exactly this kind of nocturnal glow. The Geological Framework The 2019 expanded edition, The Oak Island Mystery, Solved: The Final Chapter, brought a significant new voice to the argument. Gordon Fader, a professional marine geologist registered in Nova Scotia and former Emeritus Scientist at the Geological Survey of Canada (Atlantic) at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, contributed a chapter on the island's geological framework that addressed one of the treasure narrative's central pillars: the supposed flood tunnel system. Fader's geological analysis begins with the bedrock. The southeastern half of Oak Island, where the Money Pit is located, sits on Mississippian Windsor Group limestone and gypsum, while the northwestern portion rests on older Cambro-Ordovician Halifax Formation slate. Gypsum is roughly 150 times more soluble than ordinary limestone, meaning that groundwater moving through the substrate naturally dissolves voids, channels, and cavities over time. This process produces exactly the kind of water intrusion that treasure hunters have attributed to elaborate man-made flood tunnels since the 19th century. In Fader's analysis, the water that has defeated every excavation attempt for over two centuries is not evidence of engineering genius but of basic hydrology: tidal pressure pushing seawater through naturally dissolved channels in soluble bedrock. Fader also documented the presence of sinkholes in the waters surrounding Oak Island through multibeam bathymetric surveys conducted for the Geological Survey of Canada. Small circular depressions visible on the seabed southwest of the island may represent pockmarks or sinkholes formed by the same dissolution processes at work beneath the Money Pit area. The implication is that the original depression discovered in 1795 may not have been the surface expression of an excavated shaft at all, but rather the natural subsidence of material into an underground void, a sinkhole that was subsequently misinterpreted through the lens of treasure-hunting expectation. Evidence on the Ground The theory received a tangible boost during Season 8 of The Curse of Oak Island (2020) when archaeologists excavated a stone structure on Lot 15, not far from the Money Pit area. Archaeologist David MacInnes, a direct descendant of Daniel McGinnis who discovered the original pit in 1795, led the excavation alongside Aaron Taylor. The team identified the feature as the remains of a pine tar kiln, noting extensive charcoal deposits indicating repetitive and continuous burning over time. Laird Niven, the project's senior archaeologist, observed that while tar kilns were typically associated with ship maintenance, this one could also have been used in construction of the Money Pit itself, a statement that acknowledged the Steele thesis without fully endorsing it. The discovery prompted further investigation. Metal detection expert Gary Drayton and Jack Begley recovered a string of ox shoes along a line running from the swamp toward Lot 15 and onward to the Money Pit. Blacksmith expert Carmen Legge dated the shoes to approximately 1650 to 1750 and identified them as British military pattern, suggesting heavy cargo was being hauled along a consistent route during the period Steele's theory describes. The ox shoes were found in terrain unsuitable for farming, which pointed to industrial transport rather than agricultural activity. Later excavation beneath the tar kiln revealed a layer of deliberately placed stones, raising the question of whether the structure concealed something more complex, possibly a backfilled tunnel entrance matching Fred Nolan's survey data. [artifact:pine-tar-kiln] What the Theory Explains The tar kiln theory's principal strength is its ability to reinterpret a large number of Oak Island's features through a single, historically documented framework. The oak platforms become fuel layers. The charcoal becomes combustion residue. The coconut fibre, which has puzzled researchers since its discovery (coconut palms do not grow in Nova Scotia), becomes caulking material imported from tropical ports for ship maintenance at the Smith's Cove careening facility. The underground channels become tar drainage infrastructure. The flooding becomes natural hydrology. The mysterious nocturnal fires become kilns burning through the night. The sudden abandonment of the site becomes a consequence of financial collapse. Each element that treasure theorists have cited as evidence of elaborate construction, Steele reinterprets as a standard component of 18th-century naval stores manufacturing. The theory is also grounded in documented history rather than speculation about lost relics or secret societies. Britain's desperate need for colonial naval stores is a matter of parliamentary record. The Naval Stores Act, the bounty system, the appointment of surveyors general, the South Sea Company's commercial activities, and the Bubble's collapse are all thoroughly documented. Tar kilns of exactly the type Steele describes were built by the thousands across colonial New England and the Carolinas; North Carolina earned the nickname "Tarheel State" from the industry. The question is not whether such operations existed in colonial America but whether one existed on this particular island. What It Struggles to Explain For all its archival rigour, the theory faces several challenges. The most significant is the island's growing body of evidence for activity well outside the proposed 1720 time frame. Carbon dating of wood samples from the Money Pit area has returned dates ranging from the late 1500s to the early 1600s, a century or more before the naval stores period. Artifacts recovered across the island span over two thousand years, including items with apparent medieval European, Roman-era, and even earlier provenance. The theory's tight chronological window, essentially the first two decades of the 18th century, cannot comfortably accommodate these findings. The precious metals present a second difficulty. Soil samples from deep boreholes in the Money Pit area have repeatedly shown elevated concentrations of gold and silver at depths well below what any surface-level kiln operation would produce. The solution channel beneath the island has yielded silver concentrations that geochemists have called anomalous. If the site was only ever a tar manufacturing facility, the presence of precious metals at depth requires an alternative explanation, and natural geological deposition, while possible, has not been convincingly demonstrated for gold and silver at these concentrations in this specific geological context. The scale and complexity of the underground workings also pose questions. While a tar kiln requires drainage channels, critics have argued that the scope of tunnelling documented beneath Oak Island, multiple intersecting shafts at depths exceeding 100 feet, flooding mechanisms that defeated industrial-scale pumping operations throughout the 19th century, far exceeds what any kiln or cluster of kilns would require. The U-shaped structure at Smith's Cove, dendrochronologically dated to 1741, also falls outside the pre-1720 window Steele proposes, though it could represent a later, unrelated phase of activity. Finally, there is the "pretty island" question. Steele's connection of the operation to the South Sea Company rests in part on archival references to a "pretty island" associated with Company activities in the region. As reviewers have noted, Mahone Bay alone contains 365 islands, and colonial-era Nova Scotia encompassed a much larger territory with thousands more. The identification of that island as Oak Island specifically requires a degree of inference that not all readers have found persuasive. A Theory That Will Not Be Ignored Joy Steele and Gordon Fader did something that few Oak Island theorists have attempted: they built their case primarily from archival evidence and geological science rather than from the allure of hidden treasure. The result is a theory that functions less as a treasure hypothesis and more as an industrial history, one that places Oak Island firmly within the documented economic activity of early 18th-century colonial Nova Scotia. Whether or not the theory accounts for everything found on and beneath the island, it almost certainly accounts for part of it. The tar kiln on Lot 15 is real. The ox shoes are real. The charcoal is real. The geological conditions Fader describes are measurable and verifiable. The question that divides Oak Island researchers is not whether industrial activity occurred on the island, the evidence for that is now beyond reasonable dispute, but whether industrial activity is all that occurred there. Steele's title declares the mystery "solved." The Lagina brothers and their team, digging ever deeper into bedrock that continues to yield anomalous metals and artifacts from centuries that tar kilns cannot explain, are not yet ready to agree. The tension between these two positions, the archivist's confidence and the excavator's stubborn hope, may be the most honest summary of where Oak Island stands today. ### Mi'kmaq, the First Nation on Oak Island URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/mi-kmaq-the-first-nation Long before Daniel McGinnis found a depression in the earth in 1795, long before the first French fishermen built cabins near Chester in the 1750s, and long before any European ship entered the bay the Mi'kmaq called Mushamush, the land that includes Oak Island belonged to the Mi'kmaq. The L'nu'k, as they call themselves, meaning simply "the people," have lived in what is now Nova Scotia since the close of the last ice age. The area encompassing Oak Island falls within the Mi'kmaw district once known as Segepenegatig, in modern orthography Sipekne'katik, near its southwestern boundary with Kespukwitk. Both districts are part of a vast territory the Mi'kmaq call Mi'kma'ki, stretching from the Gaspe Peninsula in the north to parts of Maine in the southwest, and from Newfoundland in the east to the Saint John River in the west. Whatever was built on Oak Island was built on their land. [article:the-real-daniel-mcginnis-of-oak-island] Mushamush, Merligueche, and Mi'kma'ki The Mi'kmaq named what they knew. The bay we call Mahone Bay was Mushamush, sometimes written Mush-a-Mush, after the river that empties into it from the inland lakes. The village that became Lunenburg was Merligueche, recorded variously as Merliguish, Merligash, or in French Merliguèche, meaning "whitecaps," for the waves piling up off the headland. Halifax Harbour was Kjipuktuk, "the great long harbour," anglicised as Chebucto. The full territory was Mi'kma'ki, or in older orthography Mi'gma'gi, encompassing all of present-day Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, the Gaspe Peninsula of Quebec, parts of Maine, and the southern coast of Newfoundland. Within Mi'kma'ki sat seven districts, each governed by its own sakamow and represented at the Sante' Mawio'mi, the Grand Council. The seven were Kespukwitk in the southwest, Sipekne'katik in the central south, Eskikewa'kik on the eastern shore, Unama'ki on Cape Breton, Epekwitk aq Piktuk covering Prince Edward Island and Pictou County, Siknikt on the northern mainland and parts of New Brunswick, and Kespek along the Gaspe. Oak Island sits in Sipekne'katik, near its southwestern boundary with Kespukwitk. The closest Mi'kmaw community to Oak Island today is the Sipekne'katik First Nation at Indian Brook, in Hants County, about 80 kilometres to the north. The Acadia First Nation, the band whose territory covers much of the south shore, was the band contacted by Nova Scotia heritage authorities in September 2021 after the swamp pottery find. The Mi'kmaq understood the land itself as a living body. In one tradition recorded by Marion Robertson in Red Earth, the people imagined Nova Scotia as a mighty giant with one foot at Yarmouth, the other at Gaspe, and his head the island of Cape Breton. They called the territory Megumaagee, derived from megakumegek, meaning "red earth country." This was not empty wilderness. It was a country carefully governed and divided into hunting districts, each overseen by a chief who assigned territories to families each spring and fall. No hunter was permitted to overstep the bounds of his land, and each killed only what was needed. The preservation of fish and game was a matter of collective survival. Around Mushamush specifically, the Mi'kmaq lived close to the sea in summer and inland in winter, following the rivers between coast and lake. Indian Point, just outside the present-day Town of Mahone Bay, was a documented summertime settlement where the Mi'kmaq enjoyed the sheltered waters and plentiful food sources. From there they navigated the bay's roughly 365 islands by birchbark canoe, following routes that had been travelled for thousands of years. The Mahone Bay Museum records continuous Mi'kmaq habitation in the area for over 13,500 years, and acknowledges that the town's current authority over land derives from the Peace and Friendship treaties signed with the British Crown beginning in 1725. Eleven Thousand Years at Debert The deep archaeological record of Mi'kmaw presence in Nova Scotia begins about 100 kilometres north of Oak Island, at a site called Debert. Discovered in 1948 in central Nova Scotia, the Debert Palaeo-Indian site has been dated by radiocarbon to 11,026 ± 225 years before present, making it one of the best-documented Palaeo-Indian Clovis-tradition sites in northeastern North America. Excavations by George MacDonald of the National Museum of Canada in the 1960s recovered large quantities of chipped stone tools and fluted projectile points, indicating that the site was used by hunters of big game, including caribou, as the glaciers retreated and the tundra gave way to forest. The Debert site lies within what is now identified as Mi'kma'ki, and the archaeological record from Debert forward documents continuous human occupation of the region across more than a hundred centuries. Western archaeology has traditionally divided this precontact sequence into Palaeo-Indian (around 11,000 to 9,000 BP), Archaic (9,000 to 2,500 BP), and Ceramic or Woodland (2,500 to 500 BP). These names describe technology and subsistence, not people. In 2006, Mi'kmaw archaeologist Roger Lewis, working with Mi'kmaw Elders, developed a parallel chronology that names the people themselves. Published with revisions in a 2008 paper by Donald Julien, Tim Bernard, Ruth Holmes Whitehead, and Lewis under the title "Paleo Is Not Our Word," the sequence renames the Palaeo-Indian period as Saqiwe'k L'nuk, "Ancient People," the Archaic as Mu Asami Saqiwe'k, "Not So Recent People," the Ceramic as Kejikawek L'nuk, "Recent People," and the historic post-contact period as Kiskukewe'k L'nuk, "Today's People." The point is not cosmetic. Where the older terminology divides the people of Mi'kma'ki across time, the Mi'kmaw chronology insists on continuity. The Mi'kmaq are not the descendants of unrelated populations who happened to occupy the same ground in succession. They are the same people who walked at Debert. The implication for Oak Island is direct. When Daniel McGinnis stood at the edge of his Money Pit depression in 1795, he was the latest arrival in a sequence stretching back roughly five hundred generations of continuous human presence in this region. The Six Worlds The world the Mi'kmaq inhabited was not the three-tier cosmos of medieval Christianity, with heaven above, earth in the middle, and hell beneath. It was six worlds, parallel and permeable, and the boundaries between them were the most dangerous places a person could stand. Religious historian Anne-Christine Hornborg, in her study Visiting the Six Worlds published in the Journal of American Folklore in 2006, identified the cosmology preserved in Mi'kmaw tales collected from the seventeenth century through the twentieth. The six worlds are the World beneath the Water, the World beneath the Earth, the Earthworld, the World above the Earth, the World above the Sky, and the Ghostworld, sometimes called the Land of Souls. Each world is inhabited by beings who, from their own perspective, perceive themselves as people, with families, wigwams, and ordinary lives. A beaver in the World beneath the Water sees the poplar bark as food and its lodge as a home. So does a human in the Earthworld. The bodies differ; the experience of dwelling does not. The keeper of access between worlds was the buoin, sometimes spelled puoin, bouhinne, or autmoin in early French accounts. The word itself probably derives from a stem meaning "mystery," and it referred both to the power and to those who possessed it. Buoin was not the European notion of magic. It was the active essence behind the seasons, the storms, the recovery of the sick, the success of the hunt. Some humans had more of it than others. Some animals had more of it than humans. The buoin worked between the worlds, healing the sick by retrieving their wandering souls, learning the location of the moose by entering the beaver's dream. Access came not through trance, as in the Siberian shamanism that Mircea Eliade made into a universal model, but through dreams. A buoin slept, and in sleeping travelled. The principle that underlay this cosmology is what anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro called Amerindian perspectivism. All beings share a spiritual unity but a corporeal diversity. They are all subjects, all persons, all part of a greater power. What separates them is the body each inhabits. To switch bodies is to switch worlds. The danger of the journey was real, and a buoin always carried a bundle of objects imbued with power, or relied on an animal guardian spirit, when entering another world. This is the cosmology in which the petroglyphs at Kejimkujik were carved, in which the prophecy of Glooscap was delivered, and in which a man named Jimmy Kaizer, sleeping in a cabin on Oak Island in 1965, would be visited. The Petroglyphs of Kejimkujik The Mi'kmaq recorded their world in stone. At Kejimkujik National Park in southwestern Nova Scotia, over 500 petroglyphs have been carved into glacially polished slate outcrops along the shores of Kejimkujik Lake and George Lake, forming one of the largest collections of rock art in eastern North America. The oldest carvings are estimated at 800 to 1,000 years old. The images include caribou, bears, peaked caps traditionally worn by Mi'kmaw women, geometric patterns of double-curve design, and, from the period of European contact, detailed renderings of sailing ships, a French soldier, and a compass pointing in the four cardinal directions. Parks Canada identifies these petroglyphs as Mi'kmaw history books, carved into rock because the culture relied on oral tradition rather than written language before European contact. The illustrations reproduced in Robertson's Red Earth were traced from the Kejimkujik petroglyphs by George Creed in 1887 and 1888. Creed was the first person to document rock art in Nova Scotia, and his careful tracings preserved images that have since weathered or been damaged. Among the carvings he recorded are detailed representations of Mi'kmaw clothing, canoes, hunting scenes, and spiritual symbols including the eight-pointed star. The Mi'kmaq also developed a hieroglyphic writing system. In the late seventeenth century, the French Recollet missionary Chrestien Le Clercq observed Mi'kmaw children using symbols on birchbark and adapted what he saw for use in religious instruction. The system was later expanded by Abbe Pierre Maillard for Catholic liturgical use, and it endured into modern Mi'kmaw practice. By the early twentieth century it was being described as the oldest writing system for an Indigenous language in North America north of Mexico. The petroglyphs are situated at places the Mi'kmaq considered locations of power. In one tradition, beings called megumoowesoo lived in the rocks near water and were the original creators of the carvings. Read within the six-worlds cosmology described by Hornborg, the petroglyphs are not simply art. They are markers at the boundaries between worlds, made at places where the boundary was thin enough to cross. [artifact:bedford-petroglyph-of-an-eight-pointed-star] Glooscap and the Sunrise Prophecy The figure at the centre of Mi'kmaw oral tradition is Glooscap, also written Glous'gap or Kluskap, the embodiment of the Great Spirit who walked among the people as a teacher, warrior, and healer. In the creation story compiled by Mi'kmaw Grand Council member Stephen Augustine and published in 1991, creation unfolded in seven stages. Kisulk the Creator made Niskam the Sun in the shape of a circle. The Creator then made Sitqamuk, the Earth, also in circular shape. A bolt of lightning struck the Earth, and Klu'skap was created. He appeared lying on the ground with his head pointing east and his arms and legs pointing in the other three cardinal directions. Another lightning bolt brought fire, and Klu'skap saw the animals, the vegetation, and the birds. A third gave him human form. Kisulk sent Nukumi, his grandmother, made from a stone, to guide him. Then came Netawansum his nephew, made from the foam of the ocean blown onto the sweetgrass. Last came his mother Nikanaptekewisqw, born from a tree leaf warmed by the sun. The four lived together for a long time. When Klu'skap and his grandmother prepared to travel north, Klu'skap left instructions that seven sparks from the Great Council Fire would become seven men and seven more sparks would become seven women, and together they would form the seven families who would disperse into the seven districts of Mi'kma'ki. Glooscap's departure from Mi'kma'ki, in the tradition recorded by both Robertson and RunningWolf, took place on the shores of the Minas Basin in the Bay of Fundy, less than 150 kilometres northeast of Oak Island. In Robertson's account, Glooscap held his farewell feast at Cape d'Or, then travelled to Spencer's Island where he ate his last meal, overturning his cooking kettle and transforming it into a small round island. His two dogs, still sitting on their haunches, he turned to stone. From Spencer's Island he stepped across the water to Blomidon, where he called a great whale to carry him across the ocean to the far land in the west. [artifact:glooscap-stone] In RunningWolf's telling, Glooscap gathered the people and animals on a beach of the Sunrise Ocean and delivered a prophecy. He foresaw three invasions: warriors from the south, raiders from the northwest, and finally, arriving in enormous canoes from across the Great Waters of the Sunrise, bearded white men who would take the land away. He promised to return and to raise the people from their burial mounds. The assembled crowd listened carefully, knowing they must remember every word, and then Glooscap paddled north in his white canoe, which sometimes appeared as an ordinary canoe and sometimes took the form of a whole island. The whale Bootup swam alongside him for a time, then fell back, and Glooscap disappeared over the horizon. The Glooscap tradition has been a recurring presence in the Oak Island story on screen. In Season 2 of The Curse of Oak Island, the show introduced the proposition that Prince Henry Sinclair, sailing from Orkney in 1398, was received by the Mi'kmaq as Glooscap, the white traveller from across the Sunrise Ocean. In Season 4, a carved stone face recovered from the island was identified as Glooscap in Mi'kmaq style. In Season 5 the team revisited the connection, noting that the Mi'kmaq ceremonial flag is the reverse of the Templar battle flag, with the eight-pointed star and crescent in mirrored positions. The Glooscap tradition is older and broader than any single identification with a European arrival, and its presence in the Mi'kmaw account of the eastern horizon is the point at which Mi'kmaq oral history and the long history of arrivals on these coasts have always met. [article:henry-sinclair-the-zeno-voyage] The Peace and Friendship Treaties When the French and the English began contesting Acadia in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the Mi'kmaq did not consider themselves their subjects. They had governed Mi'kma'ki for thousands of years through the Sante' Mawio'mi and the seven district chiefs, and they understood themselves as a sovereign nation. The treaties they signed with the British Crown, beginning with the Treaty of Boston of 1725 and continuing through the Peace and Friendship Treaties of 1726, 1752, and 1760 to 1761, reflect that self-understanding. The interpretation of those treaties has been contested. Historian Stephen Patterson read them as the logical outcome of British military victory, by which the Mi'kmaq accepted British sovereignty over Nova Scotia after the collapse of French power in the region. William Wicken, in his 2002 study Mi'kmaq Treaties on Trial, argued the opposite. The treaty of 1726 was the work of local colonial officials, ratified at Annapolis Royal through a process of ceremony and community confirmation that followed Mi'kmaw protocols. Its key clause stated that the Mi'kmaq would make submission to the British Crown in as ample a manner as they had formerly done to the French King. Since the Mi'kmaq had never considered themselves subjects of the French Crown, Wicken argued, they could only have understood this clause as a continuity of mutual recognition, not as subjugation. The provisions that guaranteed Mi'kmaq unmolested access to land and natural resources, and that limited British colonization to existing or lawful settlements, supported this reading. The British had reason to accept the terms. Wars against the Mi'kmaq were expensive, the colonial enterprise was under financial pressure from London, and the outcome in eastern Canada was not yet certain. The treaties remained legally live. In 1999, the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Marshall affirmed that the 1760 and 1761 Peace and Friendship Treaties continued to confer Mi'kmaw rights, in that case the right to fish and sell eels commercially without a federal licence. Donald Marshall Jr., a Mi'kmaq man from Membertou First Nation, had been charged under the federal Fisheries Act. His defence, supported by the Union of Nova Scotia Indians and the Confederacy of Mainland Mi'kmaq, was built on the continued legitimacy of treaty rights. The court agreed. The Marshall decision remains the foundational modern statement of Mi'kmaq treaty rights in Atlantic Canada. The Mahone Bay Museum, in its public statement on the history of the town it represents, acknowledges that the town's authority over land remains connected to the Peace and Friendship treaties signed with the British more than 250 years ago. Oak Island sits within the same legal and historical framework. The Renaming of the Islands In 1778, the cartographer Joseph Frederick Wallet DesBarres published The Atlantic Neptune, a four-volume hydrographic atlas of the eastern coast of North America that remained the standard navigational reference for British vessels for the next half-century. DesBarres had surveyed Mushamush Bay personally, and in his charts he renamed many of its islands after the British royal family. The island that the local English settlers had been calling Smith's Island after Edward Smith, an early settler, became Gloucester Isle, after Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh and brother of King George III. Frog Island, immediately to the east, became Adolphus Isle, after Prince Adolphus Frederick, the King's youngest son. Great Tancook, the largest island in the bay, became Royal George Island. Round Island became Augustus Isle. The bay itself, which the French had called La Baye de Toutes Iles, "the Bay of All Islands," and which the English had taken to calling Mecklenburgh Bay after the Duchy of the Queen, was already drifting toward its present name, derived from the French mahonne, a low Mediterranean barge of the kind reputedly used by pirates working these waters. The Gloucester name did not stick. Within a generation, the local name Oak Island, prompted by the red oaks growing on it, displaced the royal renaming on common maps. But the larger pattern stands. In a single hydrographic atlas, an entire bay's worth of islands was given over to the British royal house, replacing whatever local English names had emerged in the previous twenty years and obscuring entirely the older Mi'kmaw layer beneath. No DesBarres chart records a Mi'kmaw name for any island in Mushamush. Oak Island and the Mi'kmaq Record The question of whether the Mi'kmaq used or visited Oak Island itself was, for two centuries of treasure-hunting, treated as settled. The standard line, reflected in a Clio heritage review of Smith's Cove, was that there had been no evidence of Indigenous activity on the island and no Mi'kmaq myths attached to it. The island was apparently left untouched before European settlement. That position changed on a single day in September 2021. In Season 9, episode 3 of The Curse of Oak Island, titled "Stone Roadblock," archaeologist Laird Niven recovered a fragment of pottery from the swamp area that he identified as Mi'kmaq in origin, potentially 500 to 2,500 years old. The discovery triggered an immediate halt to excavation under Nova Scotia heritage regulations. Communities, Culture, Tourism and Heritage, the provincial body known as CCH and responsible for protecting Indigenous archaeological sites, inspected the find and contacted the Acadia First Nation, the Mi'kmaw band whose territory covers much of the south shore of Nova Scotia. In the following episode, "Spoils Alert," the Mi'kmaq Rights Initiative was added to the consultation. Four acres of the swamp were placed under restriction, with no further work permitted until clearance was given. [artifact:mikmaq-pottery-swamp] The pottery find did not by itself prove that the Mi'kmaq had built or used any structure on Oak Island. The sherd was small. Laird Niven did not believe that the adjacent stone roadway found in the same area had been constructed by the Mi'kmaq. What the find established was the simpler and older fact: the Mi'kmaq had been on Oak Island, at this site, at some point in the last 2,500 years, and the island's archaeological history is not exclusively European. Whatever else may have happened on Oak Island, it happened in a place to which the Mi'kmaq had a prior and continuing relationship. The Mi'kmaw oral tradition is vast and ancient, and much of it remains within the community rather than published in academic sources. Whether stories exist that relate specifically to Oak Island, to unusual activity in Mushamush, or to structures built by unknown visitors on the islands of the southern shore is a matter only the Mi'kmaq themselves can speak to. Jimmy Kaizer One Mi'kmaq name appears directly in the Oak Island story. Jimmy Kaizer, a local Mi'kmaq man, worked as a labourer for Robert Restall during his ill-fated treasure hunt in the early 1960s. When the Restall tragedy struck in August 1965, killing Robert Restall, his son Bobby, Cyril Hiltz, and Karl Graeser in a shaft filled with carbon monoxide or hydrogen sulphide gas, it was Jimmy Kaizer who retrieved the bodies. He subsequently worked as a night watchman for Robert Dunfield. In late 1965, while sleeping in the Restalls' old cabin, Kaizer reported waking to the sound of the cabin shaking violently. He felt a heavy weight pressing on his chest and saw a pair of red eyes staring down at him. A voice told him to leave the island and never return. In the morning, he found himself covered in bruises, one pattern resembling the impression of a hand. The story has typically been retold on the show as part of Oak Island's curse lore, a ghost story attached to a man who had just recovered four bodies from a hole in the ground. But it belongs within a Mi'kmaw spiritual tradition that does not draw the boundaries the modern Euro-Atlantic mind draws. In the six-worlds cosmology described by Anne-Christine Hornborg, the boundary between the physical world and the parallel worlds is not a line but a porous edge, and at places of power, that edge can be crossed. The petroglyphs at Kejimkujik were carved at such places. The figures recorded by Samuel Huyghue in his 1842 novel Argimou: A Legend of the Micmac, in particular Argimou the puoin who could disguise his body and pass through the form of a 103-year-old man, were Mi'kmaq operating within this same cosmology. Jimmy Kaizer's account, on a piece of ground where a recent and violent death had just occurred, fits more naturally within his own people's cosmology than within the European ghost-story genre into which it has been received. [article:the-restall-tragedy] The First Chapter The Mi'kmaq did not need Oak Island to contain treasure for it to hold meaning. Their relationship with the land was not extractive but reciprocal, governed by customs refined over hundreds of generations. They buried their dead in round holes four or five feet deep, lined with fir and cedar, accompanied by bows, arrows, snowshoes, and beads, so that the spirits of these things might travel with the departed into the Land of Souls. They read the stars as stories: the four stars of the Big Dipper were Mooin the Bear, fleeing across the northern sky each summer, pursued by seven hunters, three of whom (Robin, Chickadee, and Moose Bird) always kept the trail while the other four dropped away as autumn arrived. When Robin caught the Bear, her blood stained his breast red, and the falling drops coloured the autumn leaves below. For over two centuries, the story of Oak Island has been told as a European story: pirates, Templars, Freemasons, Bacon, the French Crown. The Mi'kmaq, when they have appeared at all, have been a footnote. But they were here first, and they were here for eleven thousand years before anyone dug a pit, built a flood tunnel, or carried a lead cross across the Atlantic. Whatever Oak Island's secret turns out to be, it exists within a country the Mi'kmaq shaped, named, governed, and held sacred long before the first European set foot on its shores. The Mi'kmaq story is not a footnote to the Oak Island story. It is the first chapter. Sources Archaeology and prehistory: George F. MacDonald, Debert: A Palaeo-Indian Site in Central Nova Scotia, Anthropology Papers, National Museums of Canada No. 16 (Ottawa: National Museum of Canada, 1968). The foundational study of the Debert site, dated to 11,026 ± 225 BP. Roger Lewis, "Pre-Contact Mi'kmaq Cultural Periods," in Kekina'muek: Learning About the Mi'kmaq of Nova Scotia (Truro: Confederacy of Mainland Mi'kmaq, 2006). The Mi'kmaq-led renaming of the precontact archaeological chronology: Saqiwe'k L'nuk, Mu Asami Saqiwe'k, Kejikawek L'nuk, Kiskukewe'k L'nuk. Donald Julien, Tim Bernard, Ruth Holmes Whitehead, and Roger Lewis, "Paleo Is Not Our Word: Protecting and Growing a Mi'kmaw Place," paper presented at the Council for Northeast Historical Archaeology, 2008. Christopher Ellis, "Understanding Clovis Fluted Point Variability in the Northeast: A Perspective from the Debert Site, Nova Scotia," Canadian Journal of Archaeology 28, no. 2 (2004): 205-253. Stephen A. Davis, The Micmac (Halifax: Nimbus Publishing, 1997). Cosmology and oral tradition: Anne-Christine Hornborg, "Visiting the Six Worlds: Shamanistic Journeys in Canadian Mi'kmaq Cosmology," Journal of American Folklore 119, no. 473 (Summer 2006): 312-336. The Six Worlds framework, the buoin as the keeper of mystery, and the rejection of Eliade's trance-based shamanism model. Cosmological deixis and Amerindian perspectivism after Viveiros de Castro. Anne-Christine Hornborg, A Landscape of Left-Overs: Changing Conceptions of Place and Environment among Mi'kmaq Indians of Eastern Canada (Lund: Lund Studies in History of Religions, 2001). Stephen Augustine creation story, in Evelyn Pritchard, Stephen Augustine, and Sheila Ward, The Mi'kmaq: A Maritime Woodland Group (Halifax: Atlantic Canada Plus Association, 1991). The seven stages of creation: Kisulk, Niskam, Sitqamuk, Klu'skap, Nukumi, Netawansum, Nikanaptekewisqw. Marion Robertson, Red Earth: Tales of the Micmacs (Halifax: Nova Scotia Museum, 1969). The traced petroglyph illustrations and the Mooin the Bear constellation tradition. Silas T. Rand, Legends of the Micmacs (New York: Longmans, Green, 1894). The earliest substantial compilation of Mi'kmaq oral tradition. Michael B. Runningwolf and Patricia Clark Smith, On the Trail of Elder Brother: Glous'gap Stories of the Micmac Indians (New York: Persea Books, 2000). Samuel Douglass Smith Huyghue, writing as "Eugene," Argimou: A Legend of the Micmac (Halifax: Morning Courier Office, 1847; reprinted Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2017, with afterword by Gwendolyn Davies). The 1842 novel by a sympathetic European observer documenting the Mi'kmaq culture during the 1755 Siege of Fort Beauseejour, including Argimou as puoin, warrior, and trickster figure of Maritime Mi'kmaw oral tradition. Treaties and law: William C. Wicken, Mi'kmaq Treaties on Trial: History, Land, and Donald Marshall Junior (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002). The mutual-recognition reading of the 1725-26, 1752, and 1760-61 Peace and Friendship Treaties. Andrew Nurse, "History, Law and the Mi'kmaq of Atlantic Canada," review essay, Acadiensis 33, no. 2 (Spring 2004): 126-133. Contextualises Wicken's argument against earlier interpretations by Patterson, Upton, and Dickason. R. v. Marshall, [1999] 3 S.C.R. 456. Supreme Court of Canada decision affirming continuing Mi'kmaq treaty rights to commercial fishing under the 1760-61 Peace and Friendship Treaties. Stephen E. Patterson, "1744-1763: Colonial Wars and Aboriginal Peoples," in Phillip A. Buckner and John G. Reid, eds., The Atlantic Region to Confederation: A History (Toronto and Fredericton: University of Toronto Press and Acadiensis Press, 1994), 125-155. Modern Mi'kmaw nation: Simone Poliandri, First Nations, Identity, and Reserve Life: The Mi'kmaq of Nova Scotia (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011). Ethnography of Indian Brook (Sipekne'katik First Nation) and Millbrook reserves, including the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School (1929-1967), the Glooscap Heritage Centre, and contemporary Mi'kmaw identity construction. Harald E. L. Prins, The Mi'kmaq: Resistance, Accommodation, and Cultural Survival (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1996). Mi'kmaq Rights Initiative, Confederacy of Mainland Mi'kmaq, Truro, Nova Scotia. The body coordinating archaeological consultation for Mi'kmaw rights on the Nova Scotia mainland. Nova Scotia Communities, Culture, Tourism and Heritage (CCH), under the Special Places Protection Act. The legislative framework governing archaeological discoveries on heritage sites in the province. Mi'kmaw placenames: Charles Bruce Fergusson, Place-Names and Places of Nova Scotia, Public Archives of Nova Scotia (Halifax, 1967). Mahone Bay Museum, "Our Town's History," with section on the Mi'kmaq presence at Mushamush. https://mahonebaymuseum.com/research/townhistory/ Mi'kmaw Place Names Project, Cape Breton University Mi'kmaq Resource Centre. https://libguides.cbu.ca Petroglyphs and writing: Parks Canada, Kejimkujik National Park and National Historic Site. Documentation of Mi'kmaw petroglyphs at Kejimkujik Lake and George Lake. George Creed petroglyph tracings, 1887-1888, reproduced in Robertson, Red Earth. The earliest documentation of Mi'kmaw rock art in Nova Scotia. Chrestien Le Clercq, Nouvelle Relation de la Gaspesie (Paris, 1691); English translation by William F. Ganong as New Relation of Gaspesia, Champlain Society (Toronto, 1910). Source for the Mi'kmaq hieroglyphic writing system as observed by the Recollet missionary in the late seventeenth century. Abbe Pierre Maillard. Eighteenth-century expansion of the Mi'kmaq hieroglyphic system, particularly for Catholic liturgical use. ### The Natural Formation Theory URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/the-natural-formation-theory Every theory about Oak Island begins with an assumption: that somebody built the Money Pit. Pirates, Templars, the British Navy, agents of the French Crown; the candidates differ, but the premise is the same. A deep, engineered shaft was constructed on a small island in Mahone Bay, booby-trapped with flood tunnels, and sealed with platforms of oak logs at regular intervals. The natural formation theory starts from the opposite premise. What if nobody built the Money Pit at all? What if the most famous treasure shaft in the world is simply a hole in the ground, shaped not by human hands but by water, time, and the slow dissolution of rock? The Geology Beneath Oak Island was first mapped geologically in 1924 by J.W. Goldthwait of the Geological Survey of Canada, who identified the island as a composite of four drumlins, elongated hills of till (a mixture of sand, silt, clay, gravel, and boulders) deposited by retreating glaciers roughly 12,000 years ago as the last ice age ended. These glacial deposits rest on two distinct types of bedrock. The northwestern portion of the island is underlain by Cambro-Ordovician Halifax Formation slate, a hard and relatively impermeable rock. The southeastern portion, where the Money Pit is located, sits on Mississippian Windsor Group limestone and gypsum, and it is this distinction that forms the foundation of the natural formation theory. Limestone and gypsum are among the most soluble rocks on Earth. When acidic groundwater, charged with carbon dioxide absorbed from the atmosphere and the soil, comes into contact with these minerals over centuries or millennia, it dissolves them. The process, known as karstification, creates an underground landscape of widening fractures, channels, caves, and voids. Eventually, when a cavity grows large enough or the material above it loses its support, the surface collapses. The result is a sinkhole: a circular or oval depression that can range from a few feet across to hundreds of metres wide, with soft, disturbed fill that differs markedly from the undisturbed ground around it. Nova Scotia has hundreds of documented sinkholes, many of them in areas underlain by the same Windsor Group formations that sit beneath the eastern end of Oak Island. A Pit That Explains Itself The natural formation theory proposes that the depression Daniel McGinnis discovered in 1795 was not evidence of a buried treasure but the surface expression of a collapsed karst cavity. If the Money Pit began as a sinkhole, several of the features reported by early treasure hunters can be reinterpreted without invoking human engineering. The soft, loose fill that gave the impression the ground had been previously excavated would be a natural characteristic of a sinkhole, where collapsed material settles unevenly and remains less compacted than the surrounding glacial till. The "platforms" of logs reported at regular ten-foot intervals could be explained by trees toppled into the depression over the years by storms, blowdowns, or natural decay, their trunks accumulating at different levels as sediment continued to fill the void beneath them. The layers of charcoal, putty, and coconut fibre described at various depths could represent accumulated organic debris, including material washed in by tidal action or deposited by earlier, non-treasure-related human activity on the island. The persistent flooding that defeated every early excavation attempt need not be the work of ingenious flood tunnels at all; it could simply be groundwater entering through the natural fractures and channels in the karst bedrock, rising and falling with the tides as seawater communicates freely through the porous glacial gravels and dissolved limestone beneath the island. [map:money-pit] The Cave-in Pit and Other Precedents The strongest single piece of evidence for natural subsidence on Oak Island appeared in 1878, more than eighty years after the Money Pit's discovery, when a farmer named Sophia Sellers was ploughing a field roughly 350 feet east of the Money Pit. Without warning, the ground collapsed beneath her oxen, opening a well-like hole that became known as the Cave-in Pit. Later investigation by the Oak Island Treasure Company suggested the pit sat directly above the path of the supposed flood tunnel from Smith's Cove, leading treasure hunters to interpret it as an air shaft used during construction of the tunnel system. But the Cave-in Pit also fits comfortably within a geological explanation: a separate karst collapse in the same belt of soluble bedrock that runs beneath the island's eastern end. [map:cave-in-pit] The phenomenon is not isolated. In 1875, during the construction of a sewage-disposal system on the mainland roughly 3,000 feet north of Oak Island, heavy excavating machinery broke through a rock layer and exposed a natural cavern 52 feet deep. In 1949, a natural pit was discovered on the shore of Mahone Bay, five miles south of Oak Island, when workers digging a well broke into a void below. The surrounding region offers numerous examples of karst-related subsidence in Windsor Group formations, suggesting that Oak Island's celebrated underground features may be part of a broader geological pattern rather than a unique feat of engineering. The Scientific Studies Three professional geological assessments form the backbone of the modern natural formation argument. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, consulting firms Warnock Hersey and Golder Associates conducted reports on the island's subsurface conditions. Both documented the presence of anhydrite and gypsum in the bedrock beneath the Money Pit area, materials highly susceptible to dissolution by groundwater. The most significant study came in 1995, when the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, one of the world's premier marine research bodies, conducted a two-week survey of Oak Island at the invitation of businessman David Mugar. After running dye tests in boreholes, the Woods Hole team concluded that the flooding of the pit was caused by natural interaction between the island's freshwater lens and tidal pressures in the underlying geology, directly refuting the man-made flood tunnel hypothesis. The Woods Hole scientists also reviewed the murky underwater footage captured during a 1971 camera descent into Borehole 10-X and concluded that nothing definitive could be determined from the images. In 2020, retired geologist Steven Aitken synthesized these earlier reports in a widely discussed analysis presented to CBC News. Drawing on decades of experience in the oil industry, Aitken argued that the geological evidence pointed unambiguously to a sinkhole. The limestone and gypsum beneath the Money Pit area are, in his words, "prone to dissolution" under the right conditions of temperature, pressure, and pore fluid composition, and the resulting cavity would produce exactly the kind of surface depression and underground void that treasure hunters have spent two centuries trying to explain through engineering. Aitken also noted the proximity of other sinkholes on and near the island, reinforcing the pattern of natural karst collapse. His conclusion was blunt: "There is no treasure at the money pit." The Skeptic's Toolkit The natural formation theory draws additional support from a broader skeptical tradition surrounding Oak Island. In a widely cited 2000 article for Skeptical Inquirer, investigator Joe Nickell argued that the Money Pit legend had grown through a process of gradual embellishment. Nickell noted that the earliest published accounts of the discovery did not appear until 1857, more than sixty years after the supposed events of 1795, and that subsequent retellings added increasingly dramatic details: the regularity of the log platforms, the inscribed stone at ninety feet, the sophistication of the flood tunnel system. He suggested that some details may have been exaggerated or fabricated by treasure-hunting syndicates seeking to attract investors, and that the log platforms and other supposedly engineered features could be naturally occurring debris accumulated in a sinkhole or geological fault. Captain Henry L. Bowdoin, an engineer who conducted borings on the island in 1909 and 1911 (in an expedition partly financed by the young Franklin Roosevelt), reached a similar conclusion, stating publicly that the treasure was fictitious. His findings were largely dismissed at the time but anticipated the geological arguments that would be made a century later. What Geology Cannot Explain The natural formation theory is the most parsimonious explanation for the Money Pit itself, but it struggles with the broader body of evidence accumulated on Oak Island, particularly in recent seasons of the show. Geology can account for a depression in the ground, underground voids, and persistent flooding. It cannot easily account for coconut fibre, a material not native to Nova Scotia, found at depth in the pit and at Smith's Cove. It does not explain the hundreds of artifacts recovered across the island: coins dating from the 1600s and 1700s, hand-forged iron tools, lead crosses, garnet brooches, military buttons, pieces of bookbinding leather, human bone fragments carbon-dated to the medieval period, and wood samples with dates spanning several centuries. It does not address the construction features documented at Smith's Cove, including the box drains, the U-shaped structure, and the slipway, which show clear evidence of deliberate human construction regardless of whether they are connected to the Money Pit's flooding. Nor does the theory account for the concentration of activity on the island. A single sinkhole on an uninhabited island in Mahone Bay would not, by itself, generate two centuries of investigation. Something drew people to Oak Island before 1795, and the archaeological record confirms that human activity on the island extends back centuries before Daniel McGinnis arrived. The question posed by the natural formation theory is not whether people were present on Oak Island, which the evidence now overwhelmingly confirms, but whether the specific feature called the Money Pit was their handiwork or simply a geological accident that inspired a legend. It is worth noting that the two possibilities are not entirely exclusive. Oak Island's karst geology may well have created natural voids and depressions that earlier visitors discovered and exploited, using existing cavities as ready-made storage or burial sites rather than engineering an entire shaft from scratch. In that scenario, the geology and the human activity are not competing explanations but complementary ones, each necessary to account for part of what has been found on the island. The truth about the Money Pit may lie not in choosing between nature and design, but in understanding how one might have served the other. ### The Ark of the Covenant URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/the-ark-of-the-covenant Of all the objects proposed as the contents of the Oak Island Money Pit, none carries more weight, both literal and symbolic, than the Ark of the Covenant. A gold-covered chest built to hold the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments, the Ark was the single most sacred object in ancient Israel. It served as the throne of God on earth, the point where the divine met the physical. Its disappearance from recorded history is not one event but two: the first in 586 BC, when Babylon destroyed Solomon's Temple, and the second in 1745, when Pope Benedict XIV ordered a claimed Ark removed from the papal cathedral in Rome and never shown again. That second disappearance occurred just fifty years before three boys on Oak Island discovered the Money Pit in 1795. World's Best Known Box The Ark was a rectangular chest built from acacia wood, measuring two and a half cubits long by one and a half cubits wide and high, roughly 130 by 80 by 80 centimetres. The wood was overlaid inside and out with pure gold. Four gold rings were fixed near its feet, through which gold-covered acacia poles were inserted for carrying. The poles were never to be removed. On top of the chest sat the mercy seat, a slab of solid gold the same dimensions as the lid. At each end, a golden cherub was hammered from the same piece as the cover, their wings stretching toward each other, forming a throne. God was said to speak to Moses from the space between the cherubim. Inside the Ark rested the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments, a golden pot of manna, and Aaron's rod that had miraculously budded. Estimates of the Ark's total weight range from 150 to nearly 300 kilograms, depending on the thickness of the gold overlay. It took four men to carry it on poles. Disappearance The Ark occupied the Holy of Holies in Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem for roughly four centuries. In 586 BC, King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon besieged the city, breached the walls, and burned the Temple to the ground. The Second Book of Kings records that Babylon carried away the Temple's vessels of gold and silver, but the Ark is never mentioned among them. Its absence from the inventory is the foundation of every theory that follows. Either the Babylonians took it and the record was lost, or the Ark was hidden before the city fell. The most detailed account of deliberate concealment appears in 2 Maccabees 2:4-8, which states that the prophet Jeremiah, warned by God, carried the Ark to Mount Nebo and sealed it in a cave. When his companions tried to mark the path, Jeremiah rebuked them, declaring the place would remain unknown until God gathered his people again. The passage is considered deuterocanonical and its historical reliability is debated, but it established a tradition that the Ark survived the destruction of Jerusalem and was deliberately hidden rather than destroyed or captured. When the Second Temple was rebuilt after the Babylonian exile, the Holy of Holies stood empty. The Talmud records that the Ark was not among the objects returned. By the time Roman legions under Titus sacked the Second Temple in 70 AD, the Ark had been missing for over six centuries. The Arch of Titus, still standing in the Roman Forum, depicts soldiers carrying the Menorah and the table of the showbread in triumph. The Ark does not appear. Four Major Claims Four major traditions compete for what happened to the Ark after 586 BC, and they are mutually exclusive. The Ethiopian tradition, preserved in the Kebra Nagast (Glory of the Kings), holds that the Ark was taken to Ethiopia by Menelik I, the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, centuries before the Babylonian destruction. According to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, the Ark rests in the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum, guarded by a single monk who is the only person permitted to see it. No outside observer has ever been granted access, and the claim cannot be verified. The rabbinical tradition maintains that the Ark never left the Temple Mount. The Mishnah records that King Josiah, foreseeing the coming destruction, hid the Ark in a chamber beneath the Temple. This tradition holds that the Ark remains under the Mount to this day, inaccessible beneath the Dome of the Rock. Excavation at the site is politically and religiously impossible. The skeptical position holds that the Ark was simply destroyed in 586 BC, either by Babylonian soldiers or in the fire that consumed the Temple. No biblical source records its destruction, but no biblical source records its survival either. The silence is the evidence, and it points in both directions. The fourth tradition, and the one most directly relevant to Oak Island, places the Ark in Rome. The Lateran Ark of Rome From the beginning of the twelfth century and for more than six hundred years, the canons of San Giovanni in Laterano, the papal cathedral in Rome, claimed that the actual Ark of the Covenant was part of their treasures. This is not legend. It is documented in the Descriptio Lateranensis Ecclesiae, a tract composed around 1100 and preserved in multiple medieval manuscripts across Europe. The claim was analysed in detail by Norwegian church historian Eivor Andersen Oftestad of MF Norwegian School of Theology in her 2019 study The Lateran Church in Rome and the Ark of the Covenant (Boydell Press). According to the Descriptio, the high altar of the basilica covered the Ark of the Covenant, the rods of Aaron and Moses, the seven-branch candelabra, the tablets of the testament, and relics from the lives of Christ and the apostles. The theological justification was a concept Oftestad terms translatio templi: the transfer of the Temple from Jerusalem to Rome. The argument held that the Temple spoils were transported to Rome by the emperors Titus and Vespasian after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, as depicted on the Arch of Titus. The Lateran, as the first church built by Emperor Constantine and the seat of papal authority, claimed to be the legitimate heir of the Temple of Solomon. The tradition was not confined to the Descriptio. William Durandus of Metz, in his thirteenth-century liturgical encyclopedia Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, independently confirms the claim and provides his own inventory of what the Ark contained: "the rings and staves of gold, the tables of the testimony, the rod of Aaron, manna, barley loaves, the golden pot, the seamless garment, the reed, a garment of St. John the Baptist, and the scissors with which the hair of St. John the Evangelist was shorn." Durandus also states that Constantine placed the Ark in the Lateran alongside "the golden candlestick and its seven branches," a reference to the Temple Menorah. The canons did not merely claim to possess the Ark. They built their most solemn annual liturgy around it. The Ordo Officiorum Ecclesiae Lateranensis, the official liturgical book of the basilica, records that the high altar was constructed with a removable top. Once a year, on Holy Thursday, the canons lifted it off, exposing the interior where the Ark and the other Temple objects were kept. The pope arrived at noon to celebrate Mass and prepare the sacred chrism. During his homily, the altar top was carried to an adjacent chapel, and the pope then consecrated the Eucharist directly above the exposed Ark, he alone having a view of the interior, in deliberate imitation of the Jewish High Priest entering the Holy of Holies. After Mass, the opened altar was covered with a pallium and sealed at its four corners by the chancellor of the curia. The canons guarded it day and night until Holy Saturday, when the seals were inspected and the top replaced. Seven lamps burned throughout the exposure to mark the presence of the sacred objects. Whatever was inside that altar, the entire papal court treated it as real. In 1308, a fire devastated the Lateran basilica. The lead covering the apse melted and hung in stalactites. But the bronze columns "of the temple of Solomon" survived intact, though tarnished. The clerics opened the high altar to rescue the treasures sealed inside. When the fire was out, the inhabitants of Rome crowded onto the Lateran square, demanding to see the relics that had been saved. It was the Archbishop of Pisa who showed them. He displayed the head of Saint Pancras, said to produce a drop of blood each time it was touched, the skull of Zacharias, father of John the Baptist, the Milk of the Virgin, the Circumcision of Christ enclosed in an ivory reliquary, the Tunic of Christ, sealed coffers bearing cardinal seals and containing ampoules of the Holy Blood, the coals and iron shovel from the martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, the linen Christ used to wash the feet of the apostles, the barley loaves from the feeding of the five thousand, the Table of the Last Supper, and the Ark of the Covenant. The account survives in a contemporary Latin poem, the Lateranensis basilice combustio tempore Clementis V rythmo descripta, preserved in a fourteenth-century manuscript (Bibl. Vallicellane, Ms. F. 61) and published by Philippe Lauer in Le Palais de Latran. After restoration, the Ark was not returned to the high altar but placed in the chapel of San Tommaso alongside the Table of the Last Supper and the rods of Moses and Aaron. A late fourteenth-century pilgrimage guide records that Jews also came to the chapel to venerate the Ark. Eye Witnesses Around 1170, the Spanish Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela visited the Lateran and confirmed two bronze columns taken from Solomon's Temple, each engraved with the inscription "Solomon the son of David." The Jews of Rome told him that every year on Tisha B'Av, the day commemorating the destruction of the Temple, the columns exuded moisture. Benjamin also recorded "the cave where Titus the son of Vespasian stored the temple vessels which he brought from Jerusalem." The Roman Jewish community thus confirmed the physical transfer of Temple objects to Rome, though mainstream Jewish tradition held that the Ark had been lost before the Roman conquest. In 1647, the chapel of San Tommaso was demolished. The Ark and rods were transferred to the ambulatory of the apse, where votive lamps were installed in front of them and treatises composed to defend their authenticity. One was written by Famiano Nardini, the archaeologist and author of Roma Antica. After examining the chest in 1661, Nardini concluded that it resembled the one described in Exodus and that he could not dismiss it as a fabrication. A section of "Roma Antica" (1661) by renowned Italian topographer Flamiano Nardini stating "Having diligently studied this Ark, which resembles the one described in Exodus, I cannot imagine it is a thing produced in Rome for some other use, nor do I dare declare that it is a work made out of vain pretense." Nardini examined the object in 1661. In 1656, during a visitation by Pope Alexander VII, the Ark was described as a decorated wooden chest covered with a cloth of silk, placed above a glass box through which the rods were visible. Then, in May 1745, Pope Benedict XIV conducted a pastoral visit to the basilica. He examined the Ark and the rods, and reserved judgement overnight. The following morning he issued his decision. The table of the Last Supper could remain for veneration. The Ark of the Covenant, the rod of Moses, and the staff of Aaron were to be removed and never shown again. The decree was recorded in Latin: "amoveantur vero ea, quae asseruntur Archa Foederis, virga Moysis et Baculus Aaronis, et amplius non ostendantur." Let those things which are claimed to be the Ark of the Covenant, the rod of Moses, and the staff of Aaron be removed, and let them no longer be shown. No physical trace of the Lateran Ark has been found after 1745. Oftestad wrote to the Vatican Museum in 2008 asking whether any remnants existed in their collection. They replied that neither the curator nor his colleagues were familiar with the tradition. A thirteenth-century stone tablet the Tabula Magna Lateranensis, however, remains bricked into the wall of the basilica to this day, stating that the Ark of the Covenant and the other Temple objects are underneath the high altar and that Titus and Vespasian caused them to be transferred from Jerusalem by the Jews. The date matters. The Lateran Ark was ordered removed from display in 1745. The Money Pit on Oak Island was allegedly discovered in 1795. Fifty years separate the two events. Whether that gap is coincidence or connection depends on what one believes happened to the objects after the pope's decree. Author and Templar expert Tony McMahon visited the Lateran palace in April 2025 and published some photos of the probable historic location of the Ark there. The Templars and the Temple Mount The Knights Templar were headquartered on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem from 1119 to 1291, occupying the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the structures beneath it known as Solomon's Stables. Their full name, the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, declared the association. During precisely this period, the canons of the Lateran were actively promoting their claim to possess the Temple treasures through the Descriptio. Oftestad's research reveals that the canons of St. Peter's accused the Lateran canons of "Judaizing," of being like Jews and followers of Moses for claiming the Temple objects. The charge appeared in a polemical poem from the early thirteenth century. What the Templars found beneath the Temple Mount remains one of the central unanswered questions of medieval history. The tunnels are real. In 1867, Lieutenant Charles Warren of the Royal Engineers mapped an extensive network of passages and shafts beneath the platform. Whether the Templars excavated these passages, expanded existing ones, or simply occupied them for storage and stabling is debated. The order was specifically accused during its trial between 1307 and 1312 of possessing and worshipping mysterious objects, including a bearded head known as Baphomet. Whether those accusations were fabricated by Philip IV of France to justify the seizure of Templar wealth, or whether the order held objects it refused to surrender, has never been settled. The overlap between the Lateran claim and the Templar presence on the Temple Mount creates a question that Oftestad's research brings into focus but does not resolve. If the Lateran possessed (or believed it possessed) the Ark from around 1100 onward, the Templars, who were in direct contact with both the papacy and the canons of Jerusalem, would have known about the claim. Their own relationship to the Temple treasures, whatever it was, existed in tension with the Lateran tradition. [article:the-knights-templar] On the Show The Ark of the Covenant runs through The Curse of Oak Island like a thread connecting disparate theories across more than a decade of episodes. In Season 1, Episode 4, "The Secret of Solomon's Temple," Norwegian writer and filmmaker Petter Amundsen arrives on the island to present steganographic ciphers he believes are hidden in Shakespeare's First Folio, with Temple treasures as the ultimate prize. In Season 2, Episode 3, "The Eight-Pointed Star," J. Hutton Pulitzer takes the theory in a completely different direction, proposing that Phoenician mariners carried the Ark to Oak Island between 582 and 596 BC along a route from the Holy Land through North Africa and Iberia. His case leans on shared symbols and the alleged tifinagh alphabet found on the 90-foot stone. Season 3, Episode 9, "Columbus Day," brings a third voice: researcher Jeff Irving, who argues the Ark was smuggled out of Jerusalem by the Knights Templar, taken to Scotland, and eventually transported to Oak Island by Christopher Columbus and associates connected to the order. The Templar link to the Temple Mount is explored across multiple seasons, most prominently in Season 2, Episode 7, "The Trail of the Templars," and Season 5, Episode 14, "The Templar Connection," where the discovery of the lead cross at Smith's Cove is directly tied to Templar carvings at the prison of Domme in France. [site:domme-templar-prison] In Season 9, Episode 21, "A Lot of Secrets," researcher and 32nd-degree Freemason Scott Clarke adds another layer by connecting the rhodolite garnet brooch recovered on Lot 8 to a Masonic Royal Arch High Priest breastplate, the ceremonial object modelled on the one worn by the high priest who guarded the Ark in the Temple of Solomon. [artifact:jewelled-brooch-rhodolite-garnet] The most sustained case comes from researcher John Edwards, who first appears in Season 11, Episode 19, "Hi Ho Silver," with a theory built over 30 years of studying Templar-era symbols and Masonic ciphers. Edwards finds encoded references to a holy ark and an underground vault in the Royal Arch Ode, a 19th-century text recited during secret Masonic ceremonies, and in two rare volumes he acquired: The Whole Genuine Works of Flavius Josephus from 1812 and Holy Week from 1763. He extends Nolan's Cross into the Kabbalistic Tree of Life and calculates three possible burial locations on the island: the Yesod, the Da'ath, and the Tiferet. His research returns across subsequent episodes through Season 13, where the team investigates his coordinates on the ground. From Jerusalem to Oak Island The theory that the Ark reached Oak Island requires a chain of custody stretching across centuries. The strongest version of that chain runs through the Templars. On Friday, 13 October 1307, Philip IV ordered the mass arrest of every Templar in France. The order's leadership had advance warning. In June 1308, Templar Preceptor Jean de Châlons testified before the Papal Inquisition at Poitiers that Master of France Gérard and Hugues de Villiers had fled together with the entire treasure of Hugues de Pairaud, the Visitor (treasurer) of the Temple, with fifty horses and put to sea with eighteen galleys. The treasure left Paris. The fleet sailed. Neither was seen again. This is not folklore; it is recorded testimony given under oath before papal inquisitors, preserved in official church archives. Where the fleet went has never been established. But the families aboard it can be traced. The Villiers bloodline runs from Gérard and Hugues de Villiers, who fled with the treasure in 1307, through ten generations to Nova Scotia. Isaac de Razilly arrived in Acadia on 8 September 1632, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, patronal feast of the Knights of Malta. His mother was Catherine de Villiers. The bloodline that boarded the galleys in 1307 was present when the French crown planted its flag in Nova Scotia three centuries later. The military orders had the means to move sacred objects across oceans. In 1254, relics were shipped from the Crusader port of Acre to southern France aboard the vessel Montjoie. Transporting a chest across the Atlantic was not beyond their operational capacity. Oak Island fits the requirements: an island, defensible, remote from any established power, protected by an engineering system designed to flood and reseal if breached. If the Templars possessed the Ark, or believed they did, the Money Pit is consistent with what a vault for that object would look like. [article:de-villiers-the-treasure-bloodline][article:sacred-cargo-relics-crossing-oceans] The Evidence on the Island No artifact recovered from Oak Island has been identified as the Ark of the Covenant or as a component of it. The theory rests on circumstantial evidence, all of which is consistent with medieval European activity on the island but none of which points exclusively to the Ark. The bone fragments recovered from the Money Pit at a depth of approximately 160 to 170 feet in 2017 included remains of two individuals: one of European descent, one of Middle Eastern origin. Both date to several centuries ago. No established explanation accounts for Middle Eastern human remains at that depth on a Nova Scotian island with no recorded settlement before the eighteenth century. [artifact:human-bone-fragments-2-individuals] The lead crossfound at Smith's Cove in 2017 has been traced through lead isotope analysis to medieval mines in southern France and dated to between 1200 and 1600 AD. The coconut fiber from the Money Pit returns radiocarbon dates between 1036 and 1374 AD across three independent samples tested by two laboratories. Both findings place activity on Oak Island squarely in the medieval period, when the Templars were at the height of their power and the Lateran was actively promoting its claim to the Temple treasures. [artifact:lead-cross] The scale of the engineering itself is an argument. The flood tunnel system, the layered platforms of oak logs, the coconut fibre drainage material imported from the tropics: whoever built the Money Pit invested resources comparable to a military or state-level operation. The construction is disproportionate to a pirate cache or a colonial bank vault. It is consistent with the protection of something considered irreplaceable. [artifact:coconut-fibre-money-pit][article:oak-island-flood-tunnels-and-box-drains-the-water-trap] Story Ark The Ark of the Covenant disappeared from documented history in 586 BC. A claimed Ark was venerated at the papal cathedral in Rome from around 1100 until 1745, when Pope Benedict XIV ordered it removed and never shown again. Fifty years later, the Money Pit was discovered on Oak Island. The Knights Templar occupied the Temple Mount for nearly two centuries during the period of the Lateran claim, and when the order was suppressed in 1307, its fleet and its treasure vanished. Documented family connections link the suppression to the early colonisation of Nova Scotia. Medieval artifacts confirm European activity on Oak Island centuries before any recorded settlement, and human remains of Middle Eastern origin were recovered from the deepest levels of the Money Pit. None of this identifies the Ark as the object buried on Oak Island. The physical evidence confirms medieval presence. It does not confirm what was brought there or why. The contribution of Oftestad's scholarship is a complication that most treatments of the Oak Island mystery have never addressed. If the Lateran possessed the Ark from the twelfth century onward, others did not. The canons defended their possession in writing. Others did not. However, if Oak Island was already a known location for depositing treasure in certain circles, one possibility remains, remote and requiring rigorous research to establish. The last recorded disappearance of the Ark, explicitly ordered removed and never to be shown again by Pope Benedict XIV in 1745, and with no trace of it found since, occurred just fifty years before three boys on Oak Island discovered the Money Pit. Sources The 13th-century stone tablet Tabula Magna Lateranensis (1291), bricked into the wall of the Lateran basilica, stating "This Ark, with the candelabrum and the things described, Titus and Vespasian caused to be carried by the Jews from Jerusalem to the City, as can be seen to this day on the triumphal arch which is next to the Church of Santa Maria Nova, placed as a victory memorial and perpetual monument by the Senate and People of Rome." The table of the Last Supper, enshrined above the sacrament altar of Pope Clement VIII. Still on display. Tony McMahon's substack.  In archives: The Descriptio Lateranensis Ecclesiae survives in roughly 20-21 exemplars across 17-18 manuscripts. The key one is Reg. lat. 712 in the Vatican Library (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana). Others are in the Lateran Archive (ACL A 70), Brussels (Bibliotheque Royale, MS 9828), Paris (BNF lat. 5129 and BNF lat. 6186), and Cambrai (Bibliotheque Municipale, MS 802). The Ordo Officiorum Ecclesiae Lateranensis, the official liturgical book of the basilica, documents the annual Maundy Thursday ritual in which the high altar's removable top was lifted to expose the Ark, the pope celebrated Mass above it alone, and the altar was sealed at four corners and guarded until Holy Saturday with seven lamps burning. The 1745 papal visitation records are in the Archivio Segreto Vaticano, S.C. Visita Apostolica 98, no. 3 and 5: the Relatio (1 May 1745) and the Decreta (2 May 1745) containing Benedict XIV's removal order. The 1656 visitation by Pope Alexander VII, which describes the Ark as a decorated wooden chest covered with silk cloth, is in the same archival series: S.C. Visita Apostolica 98, fasc. 1, fol. 32v. The 1308 fire account, Lateranensis basilice combustio tempore Clementis V rythmo descripta, is published in Lauer's Le Palais de Latran. Published and accessible: William Durandus of Metz, Rationale Divinorum Officiorum (13th century), independently confirms the Lateran Ark tradition and lists its contents including the golden candlestick and its seven branches. Multiple published editions, including Neville Blakemore Jr. (Fons Vitae, 2007). Benjamin of Tudela's Itinerary (c. 1170), multiple published editions Nardini's Roma Antica (1661, republished 1818)   ### The Holy Grail on Oak Island? URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/the-holy-grail-on-oak-island The Holy Grail is the most famous object in Western legend that no one can describe. In its earliest form it is not holy, not a chalice, and not even capitalised. Within three decades of its first appearance in literature, it had been transformed from an unnamed dish in a mysterious procession into the cup that caught the blood of Christ, a stone fallen from heaven, and the foundation of a sacred dynasty stretching from Jerusalem to the courts of medieval Europe. Eight centuries later, the Grail remains undefined, and that is precisely what makes it so persistent. Every generation reimagines it. And every reimagining, from the medieval romances to the Cathar fortress of Montségur to the theories surrounding Oak Island, leads back to the same group of guardians: the Knights Templar. A Grail, Not the Grail The first person to write about the Grail was Chrétien de Troyes, a French poet working at the court of Philip of Alsace, Count of Flanders. His unfinished poem le Conte du Graal (The Story of the Grail), composed between 1180 and 1191, follows a young man named Perceval on his journey to knighthood. During his travels, Perceval encounters the Fisher King and is invited to his castle. There he witnesses a strange procession: a young man carrying a bleeding lance, two boys bearing candelabras, and a beautiful young woman carrying an elaborately decorated grail. The procession passes before Perceval at each course of the meal. He wants to ask what he is seeing but does not, and his silence becomes the central failure of the story. Chrétien referred to his object as un graal, a grail, using the indefinite article and a common noun. The word itself, derived from the Latin gradalis, meant a wide, shallow serving dish. In its earliest literary context, the Grail was not unique; there could be more than one. Chrétien left his poem unfinished at roughly 9,000 lines and never explained what the grail was. Four anonymous continuators extended the text to some 40,000 lines. Others wrote prequels, including the Elucidation Prologue, which focused on the family and descent of Perceval, establishing early on the connection between the Grail and certain bloodlines. For viewers of The Curse of Oak Island, the Grail has surfaced repeatedly across multiple seasons, most often through the Templar connection explored by researchers visiting the War Room. The theory that the Grail lies in the Money Pit does not depend on any single version of the legend. It depends on the order that every version names as its guardian. The Cup of the Last Supper It was Robert de Boron, writing between 1191 and 1202, who transformed a grail into the Holy Grail. In his verse romance Joseph d'Arimathie (also known as La grant estoire dou Graal, The Great History of the Grail), the biblical figure Joseph of Arimathea acquires the cup used by Christ at the Last Supper and uses it to collect his blood at the crucifixion. Joseph is imprisoned, and Christ visits him in his cell to explain the mysteries of the blessed cup. Upon his release, Joseph gathers his followers and travels west, founding a dynasty of Grail keepers that will eventually include Perceval. De Boron's version has become the standard account. The Grail as the chalice of the Last Supper, passed through a lineage of sacred guardians, is the image that endures in popular imagination and the one that would later drive both medieval quests and modern treasure hunts. One detail in De Boron's account deserves particular attention. He writes that the Grail keepers travel to the "vaus d'Avaron," the valleys of Avaron. This has traditionally been read as Avalon, the mythical island of Arthurian legend. But Avaron is also the Occitan form of the Aveyron, a river and region in southern France that runs through the foothills between the Cévennes and the Montagne Noire. It is precisely this area, these same medieval mining districts, that produced the lead from which the cross found at Smith's Cove on Oak Island was made. Tobias Skowronek of the German Mining Museum in Bochum matched the cross's isotope signature to pre-fifteenth-century ore deposits in the Montagne Noire, within roughly twenty miles of Rennes-le-Château, a village with documented Templar connections dating to the thirteenth century. Whether De Boron's "Avaron" is a literary reference to Avalon or a geographical reference to the Aveyron, the coincidence between the Grail text's named location and the physical provenance of a medieval artifact found on Oak Island is, at the very least, striking. [artifact:lead-cross][site:rennes-le-chateau] The Stone from Heaven Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, composed around 1210, reimagined the Grail entirely. In Wolfram's telling, the Grail is not a cup but a stone, which he called lapsit exillis. The phrase has been debated for centuries: it may derive from lapis exilis (a small or humble stone), lapis ex caelis (a stone from heaven), or lapis elixir (the philosopher's stone of alchemy). Whatever the etymology, Wolfram's Grail is a physical object with the power to sustain life, provide food and drink, and prevent those who behold it from dying for a week after seeing it. It fell from heaven, brought to earth by angels who remained neutral during the war between God and Lucifer. The guardians of Wolfram's Grail are an order of knights he calls Templeisen, a name that scholars have long read as a direct reference to the Knights Templar. They defend the Grail in a mountain fortress called Munsalvaesche (Mons Salvationis, the Mountain of Salvation). Wolfram claimed he had received the true story of the Grail not from Chrétien but from a Provençal poet named Kyot, who had in turn found it in an Arabic manuscript in Toledo written by a Muslim astronomer named Flegetanis. Whether Kyot existed or was Wolfram's literary invention remains unresolved, but the claim placed the origins of the Grail story in the Islamic world, outside the tradition of the Church. For Oak Island, Wolfram's version carries particular weight. Nine artifacts and structures on the island have been independently dated to between 1100 and 1300 AD, the exact period of Templar power. If the Grail was a physical object guarded by a Templar-like order, and if the Templars were on Oak Island during the medieval period, Wolfram's narrative provides the literary framework for what they may have been protecting. [article:the-knights-templar] The Valencia Chalice While the literary Grail multiplied into competing legends, a physical candidate for the cup of the Last Supper followed a documented path through Europe that has received far less attention than it deserves. In the Cathedral of Valencia, Spain, an ancient agate cup is preserved in a chapel dedicated to it. The Capilla del Santo Caliz, the Holy Chalice, is open to visitors, though few know what they are looking at. The Santo Caliz, Valencia, Spain The tradition behind the Valencia Chalice, documented in detail by the American researcher Janice Bennett in St. Laurence and the Holy Grail (Ignatius Press, 2004), traces a chain of custody from the Last Supper to the present day. According to the tradition, St. Peter took the cup from Jerusalem to Rome, where the first popes used it to celebrate Mass. For more than two hundred years the chalice remained in Rome. In 258 AD, during the persecution under Emperor Valerian, the Roman authorities demanded that the Church surrender its possessions. Pope Sixtus II entrusted his deacon and treasurer, Laurence, with the ecclesiastical money and sacred objects, including the cup. When the Romans arrested Laurence and ordered him to hand over the Church's goods, he asked for three days, used the time to disperse everything, and was martyred on a gridiron. Before his death, Laurence sent the cup to Huesca in the Spanish Pyrenees, the town where his parents had originated. From Huesca, the cup's trail follows the upheavals of Iberian history. After the Moorish invasion of 711, it was moved into the Pyrenean monasteries for safekeeping: first to the Church of San Pedro de Siresa, then to the Monastery of San Adrian de Sasabe, then to the Cathedral of Jaca, and finally, around 1071, to the Monastery of San Juan de la Peña, built into a vast cave beneath an overhanging cliff. There it remained for centuries, venerated by monks and protected by its remote location. In 1399, the cup was surrendered to King Martín el Humano of Aragón. By 1437 it had reached the Cathedral of Valencia, where it remains today, mounted on a medieval golden base encrusted with rubies, emeralds, and 28 pearls. In 1960, the Spanish archaeologist Antonio Beltrán of the University of Zaragoza conducted the first scientific examination of the relic. The Archbishop of Valencia asked him to treat it as though it were an object found in an excavation. Beltrán dismantled the chalice and examined each component separately. He determined that the upper cup, a hemispherical vessel carved from a single piece of cornelian agate, dates to the first century. The golden base, handles, and jewelled mounting are medieval additions, probably from the tenth to fourteenth centuries, added to make the original cup appear more worthy of its status. Beltrán concluded that archaeology had found nothing that contradicted the cup's authenticity. Two first-century Roman cups of similar stone (chalcedony and sardonyx) in the British Museum provide typological parallels for the Valencia cup's form and period. Bennett identifies San Juan de la Peña as Wolfram von Eschenbach's Munsalvaesche. The geography fits: a monastery built into a mountain cave in the Pyrenees, guarding a sacred object, protected by its isolation. If Wolfram's source Kyot existed and had knowledge of the cup's location, the description of a stone-like Grail guarded by a Templar-like order in a mountain fortress matches the physical reality of San Juan de la Peña and its agate chalice with a precision that is difficult to dismiss as coincidence. Pope John Paul II celebrated Mass with the Valencia Chalice during his visit to Spain in 1982. Pope Benedict XVI followed in 2006, referring to it as "this most famous chalice," echoing words the Roman Canon attributes to the earliest popes. During their trip to Malta, the Oak Island team discovered a replica of the Valencia Grail in the Church of St. Lawrence in Birgu, the first conventional church of the Hospitallers, after they had arrived in Valletta. Replica of the Valencia Grail in the Church of St. Lawrence in Birgu, Malta [article:the-knights-of-malta] The Rival Chalices Valencia is not the only claimant. By the sixteenth century, Jean Calvin counted several cups across Europe competing for the title of the vessel used by Christ at the Last Supper. Two rivals in particular have drawn sustained attention. The Sacro Catino (Sacred Basin) is a hexagonal dish preserved in the Treasury Museum of the Cathedral of San Lorenzo in Genoa. According to William of Tyre, writing in the second half of the twelfth century, the Genoese crusader Guglielmo Embriaco acquired it during the sack of Caesarea in 1101. William described it as a vessel of brilliant green shaped like a bowl. The Genoese believed the dish was carved from a single emerald and accepted it in lieu of a large cash payment. For centuries the Sacro Catino was exhibited as a miracle of nature, its green radiance attributed to divine origin. The first explicit identification of the dish as the Holy Grail appeared in the Chronicon of Jacobus de Voragine in the 1290s. A Spanish visitor named Pedro Tafur confirmed the claim in 1436. In 1806, Napoleon seized the dish and had it transported to Paris. When it was returned to Genoa in 1816, it came back in ten pieces, one of which was missing. The breakage revealed the truth: the Sacro Catino was not emerald but green Egyptian glass. Studies by the Académie des Sciences confirmed the material, and later analysis dated the dish to the ninth or tenth century, identifying it as an Islamic artifact. The Sacro Catino remains on display in Genoa, restored most recently in 2017, but its claim to the Last Supper has not survived the evidence. A more recent contender is the Chalice of Doña Urraca, a jewel-encrusted onyx cup preserved in the Basilica of San Isidoro in León. In 2014, medieval historian Margarita Torres of the University of León and art historian José Miguel Ortega del Río published Los Reyes del Grial (The Kings of the Grail), claiming to have traced the cup's journey from Jerusalem to León through a previously unstudied set of medieval Egyptian parchments from the Al-Azhar University in Cairo. According to their research, Muslim forces took the cup from the Christian community in Jerusalem during the Fatimid sack of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 1009. The cup passed through Cairo and was eventually given by the Emir of Denia to King Ferdinand I of León as a diplomatic gift in the eleventh century. Ferdinand's daughter, Infanta Urraca of Zamora, had the onyx cup mounted in gold and precious stones and donated it to the basilica. Scientific dating placed the onyx cup itself between 200 BC and 100 AD. Torres stated that the only chalice that could be considered the chalice of Christ was the one that made the journey from Cairo to León. The claim was disputed by other historians, including Oxford's Diarmaid MacCulloch, who called it unfounded. The museum at San Isidoro was forced to withdraw the chalice from general display and give it its own room after crowds overwhelmed the building. The Chalice of Doña Urraca, Léon, Spain Three physical candidates, three documented chains of custody, three first-century cups. The Valencia agate, the León onyx, and the Genoa glass (now disqualified by material analysis) represent the surviving field of claimants in Western Christianity. If any of them is the cup of the Last Supper, the Grail has already been found, and the question becomes not where it is but which one it is. But every one of these chalices sits in a cathedral, on public display, venerated by pilgrims. The Grail of the medieval romances is the opposite: hidden, guarded, accessible only to the worthy. If the Grail romances describe a real object, it is by definition one that was concealed from the world, not exhibited in it. That version of the story, the hidden Grail defended by an order of knights, is the version that points to a place like Oak Island. The Cathar Treasure of Montségur A parallel tradition connects the Grail not to a physical cup but to the Cathars, a dualist Christian sect in southern France that the Church declared heretical and crushed in the Albigensian Crusade (1209 to 1229). The Cathars' last stronghold was the fortress of Montségur, perched on a rocky peak in the Pyrenean foothills. In March 1244, after a siege of ten months, the garrison negotiated a two-week truce before surrender. On the night before the final capitulation, according to multiple accounts, four men slipped down the mountain carrying something of value. What they carried has never been identified. The garrison walked out the following morning, and 225 Cathars who refused to renounce their faith were burned alive in a single pyre at the foot of the mountain. In the 1930s, a young German researcher named Otto Rahn travelled to the region and became convinced that the Cathar treasure was the Grail. His book Kreuzzug gegen den Gral (Crusade Against the Grail), published in 1933, argued that the Grail legends originated in the Cathar heartland of Languedoc and that Montségur was the Grail castle of Wolfram's Parzival. The book caught the attention of Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, who recruited Rahn into his personal staff. In October 1940, while Hitler met with Franco in Spain, Himmler separately visited the castles and sites Rahn had described. He left empty-handed. Rahn himself died in 1939 under circumstances that remain disputed. Rahn's thesis, that the Grail was a Cathar treasure hidden in the Pyrenees, does not survive serious scrutiny. The Cathars rejected material objects and physical sacraments; a sect that denied the value of the material world would have had little use for a holy relic. But the tradition that something was smuggled out of Montségur on the night before the surrender persists, and the four men who descended the mountain have never been identified. If whatever they carried passed into Templar hands (the Templars were active in the region and were not suppressed until 63 years later), it would have entered the same network of Templar infrastructure that connects southern France to the Atlantic coast and, if the Templar theory holds, to Oak Island. The lead cross from Smith's Cove traces to ore deposits in the Montagne Noire, the mountain range that overlooks the Cathar heartland. The geography of the Grail legend and the geography of Oak Island's medieval artifacts overlap in the same corner of southern France. [site:chateau-de-montsegur] The Sang Réal A different reading of the Grail emerged in the twentieth century and became widely known through Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln's The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (1982), later popularised by Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code (2003). The argument turns on a pun: San Greal (Holy Grail) becomes Sang Réal (Royal Blood). In this interpretation, the Grail is not an object but a bloodline: the descendants of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene, protected through the centuries by secret societies including the Knights Templar and the alleged Priory of Sion. The bloodline theory rests on the Dossiers Secrets, a set of documents deposited in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in the 1960s and later demonstrated to be forgeries created by Pierre Plantard. The genealogical claims have been thoroughly discredited. But the underlying idea, that the Grail romances encode a secret about lineage rather than an object, predates the forgeries. The Elucidation Prologue to Chrétien's poem already emphasised the family and descent of Perceval. Robert de Boron's entire narrative is structured around a dynasty of Grail keepers. The connection between the Grail and bloodlines is woven into the legend from the beginning, regardless of what one thinks of the Plantard fabrications. On Oak Island, human bone fragments recovered from the Money Pit in 2017 included remains of two individuals: one of European descent, one of Middle Eastern origin. The identity of whoever required burial at a depth of 160 to 170 feet in the most elaborately engineered shaft ever constructed in the New World remains unknown. The bones do not answer the question. But if the Grail tradition encodes a truth about sacred lineage, the presence of Middle Eastern human remains in the deepest levels of the Money Pit is a fact that no version of the theory can ignore. [artifact:human-bone-fragments-2-individuals] The Templars and the Grail Whatever the Grail is, the Templar connection is present in every major version of the legend. Wolfram's Templeisen guard the Grail stone. The Grail romances were composed between 1180 and 1240, precisely the period when the Templars were at the height of their power. When Philip IV of France ordered their mass arrest on Friday, 13 October 1307, the order's leadership had advance warning. Templar Preceptor Jean de Châlons testified before the Papal Inquisition at Poitiers in June 1308 that Gérard de Villiers, Master of France, had fled with fifty horses and put to sea with eighteen galleys. Hugues de Châlons fled with them, carrying the entire treasure of Hugues de Pairaud, the Visitor of the Temple. The historian E.-G. Léonard identified Hugues de Châlons as probably identical with Hugh de Villiers, who held the same Templar office at the same commandery. If correct, both men who carried the Templar treasury out of Paris were De Villiers, and Pairaud was family by marriage.The treasure left Paris. The fleet sailed. Neither was seen again. The De Villiers bloodline traces the family that carried that treasure through ten generations, from the Templar suppression to Nova Scotia. Isaac de Razilly arrived in Acadia on 8 September 1632. His mother was Catherine de Villiers. [article:de-villiers-the-treasure-bloodline] The case for the Grail on Oak Island does not rest on any single artifact. It rests on the accumulation: medieval lead from southern France, coconut fibre from the tropics dated to the Templar era, astronomical alignments dated to 1217 AD, a crossbow bolt from the 1200s, and human bones of Middle Eastern origin at the bottom of a shaft protected by the most elaborate flood defence system ever built in the pre-industrial New World. The coconut fibre from the Money Pit alone confirms that whoever built the Money Pit had access to global trade networks centuries before Columbus. The engineering is disproportionate to pirate gold or colonial banking. It is consistent with the protection of something considered sacred and irreplaceable by an organisation with the resources of a sovereign state. What Can Be Established The Grail exists in three distinct registers: as literature, as a physical object, and as a theory about Oak Island. As literature, its origins are documented and its evolution traceable from Chrétien through de Boron through Wolfram and beyond. As a physical object, at least two first-century cups with documented chains of custody survive in Spanish cathedrals, and the Valencia Chalice carries the strongest claim, supported by Beltrán's 1960 archaeological analysis and papal recognition. If either the Valencia agate or the León onyx is the cup of the Last Supper, the Grail has been found, and it is not on Oak Island. But the Valencia tradition accounts for only one version of the Grail. Wolfram's stone, the Cathar treasure of Montségur, and the broader concept of a sacred object guarded by a Templar-like order all point in different directions. The Grail romances may encode real knowledge about real objects and real movements of sacred relics during the Crusades, or they may be literary inventions drawing on the cultural atmosphere of the Templar era. The distinction matters for Oak Island, because the theory that the Grail lies in the Money Pit depends entirely on whether one believes the Templars possessed something they identified as the Grail and transported it to the New World. No artifact recovered from Oak Island has been identified as the Grail in any of its forms. The theory rests on the same Templar infrastructure that supports the Ark of the Covenant theory: the De Châlons testimony, the vanished fleet, the medieval dating of island structures, and the engineering scale of the Money Pit. If the Templar hypothesis holds, the Grail is one of several sacred objects that may have made the crossing. If it collapses, the Grail theory collapses with it. The legend endures because the Grail, by its nature, cannot be disproven. An object that has never been defined cannot be shown not to exist. Sources Primary literary sources: Chrétien de Troyes, le Conte du Graal (c. 1180-1191). Multiple published editions; standard critical edition by Alfons Hilka (Halle, 1932). Robert de Boron, Joseph d'Arimathie (c. 1191-1202). Standard edition by Richard O'Gorman (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2005). Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival (c. 1210). Standard translation by A.T. Hatto (Penguin Classics, 1980). The Elucidation Prologue, anonymous (early 13th century). Published in Albert W. Thompson, The Elucidation (New York, 1931). Physical Grail candidates: The Valencia Chalice (Santo Caliz). Cathedral of Valencia, Spain. On permanent display in the Capilla del Santo Caliz. Antonio Beltrán, archaeological examination of the Valencia Chalice (1960). Upper cup dated to the first century; cornelian agate. Janice Bennett, St. Laurence and the Holy Grail (Ignatius Press, 2004). Documents the Valencia Chalice chain of custody and identifies San Juan de la Peña as Wolfram's Munsalvaesche. The Sacro Catino. Treasury Museum, Cathedral of San Lorenzo, Genoa. Identified as ninth/tenth-century Islamic glass by the Académie des Sciences after Napoleon's seizure in 1806. The Chalice of Doña Urraca. Basilica of San Isidoro, León, Spain. On display. Margarita Torres and José Miguel Ortega del Río, Los Reyes del Grial (2014). Claims based on medieval Egyptian parchments from Al-Azhar University, Cairo. Onyx cup dated 200 BC to 100 AD. William of Tyre, Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum (12th century). Describes Guglielmo Embriaco acquiring the Sacro Catino at Caesarea, 1101. Jacobus de Voragine, Chronicon (c. 1290s). First explicit identification of the Sacro Catino as the Holy Grail. Cathar and Montségur: Otto Rahn, Kreuzzug gegen den Gral (Crusade Against the Grail, 1933). Republished Arun Verlag, 2000. The account of the four men descending Montségur on the night of 15-16 March 1244 is preserved in multiple Inquisition records, principally DOAT (Collection Doat), Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Volumes XXII-XXIV. Sang Réal: Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (Jonathan Cape, 1982). The Dossiers Secrets, deposited at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in the 1960s. Demonstrated as forgeries by Pierre Plantard. Templar testimony: Jean de Châlons testimony, Papal Inquisition at Poitiers, June 1308. Procès des Templiers, ed. Jules Michelet, 2 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1841-1851), vol. I. A single-page document from August 1308, Bibliothèque nationale de France, inserted into a letter by Pope Clement V entitled "these are the names of the brothers that have fled." Names "Gérard de Villiers and Hugh de Châlons who had armed 40 brothers." Also referenced by Heinrich Finke. E.-G. Léonard, Introduction au cartulaire manuscrit du Temple (1150-1317) (Paris, 1930). Identifies Hugues de Châlons as probably identical with Hugh de Villiers. Published secondary sources: Justin E. Griffin, The Holy Grail: The Legend, the History, the Evidence (McFarland, 2001). Mark Oxbrow and Ian Robertson, Rosslyn and the Grail (Mainstream Publishing, 2005). Oak Island evidence cited: Lead cross isotope analysis by Tobias Skowronek, German Mining Museum, Bochum. Traces to pre-fifteenth-century ore deposits in the Montagne Noire, southern France. Within roughly twenty miles of Rennes-le-Château. Coconut fibre radiocarbon dates: 1036-1374 AD across three independent samples, two laboratories (Beta Analytic and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution). Human bone fragments from Money Pit (160-170 feet): two individuals, one European, one Middle Eastern origin. Archaeoastronomical dating of Nolan's Cross by Professor Adriano Gaspani: approximately 1217 AD. Crossbow bolt typologically dated to approximately 1200-1299 AD. ### The Menorah from Temple Mount URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/the-menorah-from-temple-mount The Menorah is the only treasure proposed for the Oak Island Money Pit whose existence is confirmed by named eyewitnesses across more than a thousand years of documented history. The Ark of the Covenant vanished in 586 BC and was never reliably seen again. The Holy Grail exists primarily as literature. But the golden Menorah of Solomon's Temple was physically observed and recorded at every stage of its journey: in the Temple by Josephus, on the shoulders of Roman soldiers by the sculptors of the Arch of Titus, in the Temple of Peace by visiting rabbis who left their names in the Talmud, in Carthage by Byzantine chroniclers, and in Constantinople by the historian Procopius. After the sixth century, the record falls silent. The next occupants of the Temple Mount, where the Menorah was last reported, were the Knights Templar. Nine artifacts on Oak Island have been independently dated to the exact period of their power. The Object The Menorah described in the Bible in the Book of Exodus was a seven-branched lampstand hammered from a single block of pure gold. According to Exodus 25:31-40, God gave the design directly to Moses on Mount Sinai, specifying every detail of its construction. The lampstand weighed one talent of pure gold, roughly 30 kilograms. The Talmud (Menachot 28b) records its height as 18 handbreadths, approximately 1.6 metres or five feet. Its central shaft rose from a base and supported six curving branches, three on each side, each terminating at the same height as the central stem. The branches and shaft were decorated with 22 cups shaped like almond blossoms, each with a calyx and petals, 11 ornamental knobs, and nine flowers, all beaten from the same piece of metal. Seven oil lamps sat atop the seven arms, burning pure olive oil. The Menorah stood on three legs, according to the Talmud, and was positioned on the south side of the Holy Place in the Tabernacle, illuminating the space before the veil that separated the sanctuary from the Holy of Holies. The first-century historian Flavius Josephus, who had seen the Menorah with his own eyes, described it as "affixed to a pedestal" with a "central shaft, from which there extended slender branches, arranged trident fashion, a wrought lamp being attached to the extremity of each branch." In a separate passage (Antiquities 3.144-146), he added that the seven lamps recalled the number of the planets and that the candelabrum was positioned crosswise, with the lamps facing south-east. Moses' Menorah, the original lampstand made to God's design, stood on the south side of the Holy Place in Solomon's Temple. According to 1 Kings 7:49, Solomon commissioned ten additional golden lampstands, five on the right and five on the left, flanking the original. Jewish commentators placed these on either side of Moses' Menorah rather than on opposite walls. Each of the ten carried seven lamps, making seventy flames in total alongside the original seven. After the Babylonian destruction of the First Temple in 586 BC, the ten Solomonic lampstands disappear from the record. The Second Temple, rebuilt after the exile, held only a single Menorah. The Ark of the Covenant did not return; it was already lost. But the Menorah survived, and texts confirm its presence in the Second Temple alongside the table of showbread. [article:the-ark-of-the-covenant] The True Form The shape of the Menorah's branches has been debated for centuries, and the debate is not academic. It reaches into the heart of what the Templars may have known, and what they may have seen. The most recognised image of the Menorah is the one carved into the Arch of Titus in the Roman Forum, erected around 81 AD, which shows curved, semicircular arms rising from a large hexagonal or octagonal base decorated with figures. Rachel Hachlili, in her definitive archaeological study The Menorah, the Ancient Seven-Armed Candelabrum (Brill, 2001), analysed the Arch of Titus relief in detail and noted that the base depicted on the arch is unusual and possibly a Roman addition or embellishment, as no earlier Jewish depiction of the Menorah shows such a base. The earliest known depictions of the Menorah, on the coins of the Hasmonean king Mattathias Antigonus (40-37 BC) and in a graffito on the wall of a Jerusalem house from the Second Temple period, show a simpler form with a flaring or triangular base. Steven Fine, professor of Jewish history at Yeshiva University and the leading modern authority on the Arch of Titus, was physically on the scaffolding of the arch in June 2012 as part of the Arch of Titus Digital Restoration Project. His team discovered traces of original yellow ochre paint on the carved Menorah, confirming the Romans had painted it to represent gold. Fine published his findings in The Menorah: From the Bible to Modern Israel (Harvard University Press, 2016). The polychromy discovery was the closest any modern scholar has come to the original depiction of the object. But the Arch of Titus shows curved arms. The twelfth-century rabbi and philosopher Maimonides drew the Menorah with straight, diagonal arms in his illustration for the Mishneh Torah and stated this was the correct form. In 1965, Rabbi Yosef Qafiḥ, a leader of the Yemenite Jewish community in Jerusalem and a member of the Supreme Rabbinical Court, argued that Maimonides' drawing was intentional and authoritative. In 1982, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, adopted this position and launched a campaign to replace the curved-arm Menorah in public displays. Israel's Chief Rabbi Isaac Halevy Herzog had already objected to the use of the Arch of Titus Menorah on the State of Israel's national emblem, arguing that the depicted base was a Roman fabrication and the original stood on three legs as the Talmud records. This matters for Oak Island because the Knights Templar appear to have known which form was correct. Inside the guardhouse at the castle of Domme in southern France, where some seventy Templars were imprisoned after the mass arrests of October 1307, the prisoners scratched symbols into the stone walls. Among the carvings is a clearly defined Menorah with straight, diagonal arms. At the Templar commandery of Montsaunès in Haute-Garonne, completed in 1180, a straight-armed Menorah is depicted on the chapel wall. Both depictions match the Maimonides tradition, not the Arch of Titus. The carvings raise an unavoidable problem. Imprisoned Templars in 1307 depicted a form of the Menorah that Maimonides described but that the most famous Roman depiction contradicts. The source of that knowledge has never been explained. [site:domme-templar-prison] Jerusalem to Rome In 63 BC, the Roman general Pompey besieged Jerusalem and entered the Holy of Holies. Josephus records that Pompey saw "the golden table, the holy candlestick, and the pouring vessels, and a great quantity of spices" but touched nothing and ordered the Temple cleansed the following day. The Menorah remained in place. A few years later, Marcus Licinius Crassus stripped the Temple of its raw gold but apparently left the sacred vessels. Herod the Great then refurbished the entire Temple in a reconstruction said to have lasted 46 years. In 70 AD, Roman legions under General Titus besieged Jerusalem for the final time. The city fell, the Temple burned, and its treasures were carried to Rome. Josephus describes the triumphal procession: "The spoils in general were borne in promiscuous heaps; but conspicuous above all stood those captured in the Temple at Jerusalem. These consisted of a golden table, many talents in weight, and a menorah, likewise made of gold." The Arch of Titus, erected on the Via Sacra around 81 AD, depicts soldiers bearing the Menorah and the table of showbread on their shoulders. Hachlili's analysis confirms that the relief represents the actual vessels from the Temple, carried as spoils through the streets of Rome. The sacred objects were deposited in the Temple of Peace, built by Emperor Vespasian. Josephus describes it as shaped "in so glorious a manner, as was beyond all human expectation." The Temple functioned as a museum of war spoils, and visitors came from across the ancient world. Among them were rabbis who left their names. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, travelling from Judea in the second century, saw the Temple curtain, the parokhet that had once separated the Holy of Holies, with drops of blood from the Yom Kippur sacrifice still visible on it. His companion Rabbi Elazar bar Yosei confirmed the sighting. Rabbi Simeon reported: "When I went to Rome there I saw the menorah." These are not anonymous traditions. They are named individuals, recorded in the Talmud, who stood in the presence of the Menorah centuries after it left Jerusalem. Carthage, Constantinople, Jerusalem The Temple of Peace burned in 192 AD. The Menorah appears to have been rescued and moved to another location in Rome. In 455, the Vandals under King Gaiseric sacked the city. The Byzantine chronicler Theophanes records that Gaiseric loaded his ships with "the solid gold and bejewelled treasures of the Church and the Jewish vessels which Vespasian's son Titus had brought to Rome after the capture of Jerusalem." The Menorah crossed the Mediterranean to Carthage. In 533, the Byzantine emperor Justinian defeated the Vandals and recovered the treasure. The historian Procopius, who accompanied the campaign, describes the spoils arriving in Constantinople: "the treasures of the Jews, which Titus, the son of Vespasian, together with certain others, had brought to Rome after the capture of Jerusalem." Then Procopius records something remarkable. A Jew in the emperor's cortege recognised the Temple treasures and warned Justinian that a curse followed the objects. Every power that had possessed them had fallen. Rome had fallen. Carthage had fallen. Constantinople would fall next unless the treasures were returned to Jerusalem. Justinian, frightened, ordered the Temple treasures sent to the holy city. He then began construction of the Nea Church (Nea Ekklesia of the Theotokos), a massive new basilica in Jerusalem, which some historians have interpreted as a sanctuary for the returned objects. If Procopius is accurate, the Menorah was back in Jerusalem by the mid-sixth century. And there the documented trail ends. Where the Trail Goes Cold After the sixth century, no source records the location of the Menorah with certainty. A persistent tradition holds that it never left Rome and remains in the Vatican cellars. Steven Fine addresses this directly in his 2016 study. The idea has surfaced repeatedly, including in formal diplomatic exchanges. In 1996, Sephardi Chief Rabbi Eliahu Bakshi-Doron raised the question during a meeting with Pope John Paul II. The Vatican denied possessing any Temple objects. Fine's research finds no evidence to support the claim, but the rumour endures because no full inventory of the Vatican's subterranean holdings has ever been made public. The related tradition of the Lateran Church's claim to Temple treasures, documented in Eivor Andersen Oftestad's 2019 study of the Descriptio Lateranensis Ecclesiae, showed that the papal cathedral displayed objects identified as the Ark of the Covenant, the rods of Moses and Aaron, and the seven-branch candelabra from the twelfth century until 1745, when Pope Benedict XIV ordered their removal. The Lateran claim to the Menorah is not a footnote to the Ark tradition. It is independently documented. William Durandus of Metz, in his thirteenth-century liturgical encyclopedia Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, listed "the golden candlestick and its seven branches" among the Temple objects that Constantine placed in the Lateran alongside the Ark.  A rabbinical tradition maintains that the Menorah was hidden beneath the Temple Mount before the Roman destruction, in chambers prepared as far back as Solomon's time. The Apocalypse of Baruch (2 Baruch 6:1-10) describes an angel commanding the earth to receive and guard the Temple treasures "until the last times, so that strangers may not get possession of them." The Menorah remains central to Jewish identity. It appears on the national emblem of the State of Israel, adopted in 1949, modelled on the Arch of Titus relief. The debate over its correct form, between the curved arms of the Roman carving and the straight arms of the Maimonides tradition, has continued into the twenty-first century. In Israel, the question of what happened to the Menorah is not a matter of historical curiosity. It is a national preoccupation. The Templars and the Temple Mount The Knights Templar were headquartered on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem from 1119 until the city fell to Saladin in 1187, then in Acre until that city fell to the Mamluks in 1291. Their full title, the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, declared the connection. They occupied the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the subterranean chambers beneath it known as Solomon's Stables. King Baldwin II of Jerusalem gave the entire complex to the order, vacating his own palace to do so. Whether the Templars excavated beneath the Temple Mount, and what they found if they did, remains one of the unanswered questions of medieval history. What is documented is that the Templars depicted the Menorah in its straight-armed form at Domme and Montsaunès, matching the tradition of Maimonides rather than the Arch of Titus. If the Menorah had been returned to Jerusalem by Justinian in the sixth century and hidden beneath the Temple Mount in accordance with the rabbinical tradition, the Templars inherited the last known location of the most sacred object in Jewish history. They occupied that location for 172 years. When Philip IV of France ordered the arrest of the Templars on Friday, 13 October 1307, the order's leadership had advance warning. Templar Preceptor Jean de Châlons testified before the Papal Inquisition at Poitiers in June 1308 that Brother Gérard de Villiers, Master of France, had fled with fifty horses and put to sea with eighteen galleys. Hugues de Châlons fled with them, carrying the entire treasure of Hugues de Pairaud, the Visitor of the Temple. The historian E.-G. Léonard noted in his 1930 study of the Templar cartulary that Hugues de Châlons was probably identical with Hugh de Villiers, who held the same Templar office at the same commandery, De Pairaud was family by marriage. It makes the escape a coordinated family operation. The treasure left Paris. The fleet sailed. Neither was seen again. Oak Island Nine artifacts and structures on Oak Island have been independently dated to between 1100 and 1300 AD, the exact period of Templar power. The lead cross found at Smith's Cove in 2017 was traced through lead isotope analysis by Tobias Skowronek of the German Mining Museum to pre-fifteenth-century ore deposits in the Montagne Noire of southern France, within the Templar heartland. Coconut fibre from the Money Pit returns radiocarbon dates between 1036 and 1374 AD across three independent samples tested by two laboratories. Human bone fragments recovered from the Money Pit at a depth of 160 to 170 feet included remains of two individuals, one of European descent and one of Middle Eastern origin. [artifact:lead-cross][artifact:human-bone-fragments-2-individuals] The engineering of the Money Pit is itself an argument. Layered oak platforms, a flood tunnel system fed by the sea, drainage material imported from the tropics: whoever built this shaft invested resources on a scale consistent with a military or state-level operation, not a pirate cache or a colonial vault. [article:oak-island-flood-tunnels-and-box-drains-the-water-trap] At the Palace of Versailles, the gardens laid out under Louis XIV contain a giant Menorah formed by the arrangement of pathways, fountains, and groves. The central axis of this formation, extended in both directions, points to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in one direction and to Oak Island in the other. This alignment, and the encoded references to the Menorah discovered on Samuel de Champlain's 1612 map of Acadia, are among the original findings presented in The Jerusalem Files by Corjan Mol and Christopher Morford (Watkins / Penguin Random House, 2024). The book traces a documented path from ancient Jerusalem through medieval Europe to Oak Island, naming individuals at every link in the chain. The full case for the Menorah's journey to Nova Scotia is presented there. [article:the-versailles-alignment-to-oak-island] Best Documented Artifact The Menorah's documented history stretches further and is supported by more named witnesses than any other object proposed for the Money Pit. It was seen in the Temple by Josephus. It was depicted on the Arch of Titus by Roman sculptors. It was confirmed in Rome by rabbis whose names survive in the Talmud. It was recorded crossing to Carthage by Theophanes and returning to Constantinople by Procopius. It was reportedly sent back to Jerusalem on the orders of an emperor who feared a curse. After the sixth century, the record falls silent, and the next known occupants of the Temple Mount were the Knights Templar. No artifact recovered from Oak Island has been identified as the Menorah. The medieval dating of the island's structures, the French provenance of its lead, the Middle Eastern origin of its human remains, and the engineering scale of the Money Pit are all consistent with the theory but do not prove it. What the evidence does establish is that someone with connections to medieval southern France, access to tropical trade networks, and the engineering capacity to build the most elaborate concealment system in the pre-industrial New World was on Oak Island during the period of Templar power. The Menorah theory offers the most documented chain of custody of any explanation for what that operation was designed to protect. [article:the-knights-templar] Sources Biblical and rabbinical: Exodus 25:31-40 (construction of the Menorah) 1 Kings 7:49 (Solomon's ten additional lampstands) Talmud, Menachot 28b (dimensions: 18 handbreadths, three legs) Talmud, Me'ila 17b (rabbinical visits to Rome) Apocalypse of Baruch (2 Baruch 6:1-10) (Temple treasures hidden beneath Temple Mount) Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 3.144-146 (description of the Menorah) Josephus, The Jewish War, 7.148-149 (triumphal procession in Rome) Archaeological and art-historical: Rachel Hachlili, The Menorah, the Ancient Seven-Armed Candelabrum: Origin, Form and Significance (Brill, 2001). Definitive archaeological study. Analyses Arch of Titus relief, Mattathias Antigonus coins (40-37 BC), Jerusalem house graffito. Steven Fine, The Menorah: From the Bible to Modern Israel (Harvard University Press, 2016). Arch of Titus polychromy discovery (June 2012), Vatican question, State of Israel emblem debate. The straight-arm debate: Maimonides, Mishneh Torah (12th century). Illustration showing straight, diagonal arms. Rabbi Yosef Qafih, supercommentary on Maimonides's Mishnah commentary to Menahot 3:7 (1965). Argues Maimonides' drawing was intentional. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, sichas on Hanukkah (1982). Adopted Qafih's position for the Chabad menorah. Chief Rabbi Isaac Halevy Herzog, articles objecting to the Arch of Titus menorah on the State of Israel emblem. Templar depictions: Menorah carvings at Domme castle guardhouse, Dordogne, France. Scratched into stone walls by imprisoned Templars after October 1307. Straight, diagonal arms. Menorah painting at the Templar commandery of Montsaunes, Haute-Garonne, France. Chapel completed 1180. Straight, diagonal arms. Classical sources (chain of custody): Procopius, History of the Wars (6th century). Vandal sack of Rome (455), Justinian's recovery from Carthage (533), the Jew's curse warning, return to Jerusalem. Theophanes, Chronicle (9th century). Confirms Gaiseric took "the Jewish vessels which Vespasian's son Titus had brought to Rome." Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, visit to Rome (2nd century AD). Recorded in Talmud. Rabbi Elazar bar Yosei, companion to Shimon bar Yochai. Confirmed sighting of the Temple curtain with Yom Kippur blood. Rabbi Simeon: "When I went to Rome there I saw the menorah." Recorded in Talmud. The Lateran tradition: Eivor Andersen Oftestad, The Lateran Church in Rome and the Ark of the Covenant (Boydell Press, 2019). Documents the Lateran claim to Temple treasures including the seven-branch candelabra from c. 1100 to 1745. William Durandus of Metz, Rationale Divinorum Officiorum (13th century). Independently confirms "the golden candlestick and its seven branches" in the Lateran.  English translation of Book One here.  Ordo Officiorum Ecclesiae Lateranensis. Documents the annual Maundy Thursday ritual exposing the Temple objects including the candelabra. Discussed in Sible de Blaauw, "The Solitary Celebration of the Supreme Pontiff: The Lateran Basilica as the New Temple in the Medieval Liturgy of Maundy Thursday," in Omnes circumadstantes. Lateranensis basilice combustio tempore Clementis V rythmo descripta (14th-century Latin poem describing the 1308 fire). Preserved in Bibl. Vallicellane, Ms. F. 61. Published in Philippe Lauer, Le Palais de Latran. Benedict XIV removal decree, 2 May 1745. Archivio Segreto Vaticano, S.C. Visita Apostolica 98, no. 5. Latin text: "amoveantur vero ea, quae asseruntur Archa Foederis, virga Moysis et Baculus Aaronis, et amplius non ostendantur." The 13th-century stone tablet bricked into the wall of the Lateran basilica, stating the Ark and Temple objects (including the candelabra) are beneath the high altar. Still visible today. Vatican question: Steven Fine, The Menorah: From the Bible to Modern Israel. Documents the 1996 meeting between Sephardi Chief Rabbi Eliahu Bakshi-Doron and Pope John Paul II. Vatican denied possessing Temple objects. Eivor Andersen Oftestad wrote to the Vatican Museum in 2008 asking if any remnants of the Temple objects existed. The curator and colleagues were unfamiliar with the tradition. Templar testimony: Jean de Chalons testimony, Papal Inquisition at Poitiers, June 1308. Proces des Templiers, ed. Jules Michelet, 2 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1841-1851), vol. I. A single-page document from August 1308, Bibliotheque nationale de France, inserted into a letter by Pope Clement V entitled "these are the names of the brothers that have fled." Names "Gerard de Villiers and Hugh de Chalons who had armed 40 brothers." Also referenced by Heinrich Finke. E.-G. Leonard, Introduction au cartulaire manuscrit du Temple (1150-1317) (Paris, 1930). Identifies Hugues de Chalons as probably identical with Hugh de Villiers. The Jerusalem Files: Corjan Mol and Christopher Morford, The Jerusalem Files (Watkins / Penguin Random House, 2024). Original findings: Versailles Menorah alignment pointing to Temple Mount and Oak Island.  Oak Island evidence cited: Lead cross isotope analysis by Tobias Skowronek, German Mining Museum, Bochum. Traces to pre-fifteenth-century ore deposits in the Montagne Noire, southern France. Coconut fibre radiocarbon dates: 1036-1374 AD across three independent samples, two laboratories (Beta Analytic and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution). Human bone fragments from Money Pit (160-170 feet): two individuals, one European, one Middle Eastern origin. ### The Treasure URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/the-treasure Since 1795, the question has never changed: what is down there? The Money Pit's layered construction, its flood tunnel defences, and the sheer scale of engineering all point to something worth extraordinary effort to conceal. But the theories about what that something might be vary enormously, from chests of pirate coins to the most sacred objects in religious history. What follows is not a ranking. It is an inventory. Each entry describes the object itself: what it looks like, what it is made of, what it weighs, and why someone might have buried it on a small island off the coast of Nova Scotia. The Menorah The golden Menorah of the Temple of Solomon was a seven-branched candelabrum hammered from a single block of pure gold. According to the Book of Exodus, it weighed one talent, roughly 34 to 45 kilograms of solid 24-karat gold. The Talmud records its height as 18 handbreadths, placing it at approximately five feet tall. Its central shaft and six curving branches were decorated with 22 cups shaped like almond blossoms, 11 ornamental knobs, and nine flowers, all beaten from the same piece of metal. Seven oil lamps sat atop the branches, burning pure olive oil from evening to morning. When Solomon built the First Temple in Jerusalem around 970 BC, he commissioned ten such candelabra, five along each wall of the inner sanctuary. The Second Temple, rebuilt after the Babylonian exile, held a single Menorah. In 70 AD, Roman legions under Titus sacked Jerusalem and carried the Menorah to Rome. The Arch of Titus, still standing in the Forum, depicts Roman soldiers bearing it in triumph. After that, the Menorah vanishes from the historical record. Some traditions hold it never left Rome and remains in the Vatican cellars. Others believe the Vandals took it when they sacked Rome in 455 AD. [article:the-menorah-from-temple-mount][article:the-knights-templar] The Templar theory proposes a different path. The Knights Templar, headquartered on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem from 1119 to 1291, are said to have excavated beneath the ruins of Solomon's Temple. If they recovered the Menorah or learned its location, they possessed both the means and the motive to transport it far from any power that might seize it. The case for the Menorah's journey from Jerusalem through medieval Europe to North America is explored in detail in The Jerusalem Files (Watkins / Penguin Random House). On Oak Island itself, the lead cross found at Smith's Cove has been traced through lead isotope analysis to medieval mines in southern France, and coconut fibre from the Money Pit returns radiocarbon dates squarely in the Templar era. Norwegian researcher Petter Amundsen has argued that Shakespeare's First Folio contains steganographic ciphers pointing to Oak Island, with the Menorah as the ultimate prize. The Ark of the Covenant The Ark of the Covenant was a rectangular chest built from acacia wood, measuring two and a half cubits long by one and a half cubits wide and high, roughly 130 by 80 by 80 centimetres, or about four feet by two and a quarter feet. The wood was overlaid inside and out with pure gold. Four gold rings were fixed near its feet, through which gold-covered acacia poles were inserted for carrying. The poles were never to be removed. On top of the chest sat the mercy seat, a slab of solid gold the same dimensions as the Ark. At each end, a golden cherub was hammered from the same piece as the cover, their wings stretching toward each other, forming a throne. God was said to speak to Moses from the space between the cherubim. Inside the Ark rested the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments, a golden pot of manna, and Aaron's rod that had miraculously budded. Estimates of the Ark's total weight range from 150 to nearly 300 kilograms, depending on the thickness of the gold overlay. Four men carried it on poles. The Ark disappeared around 586 BC when Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian army destroyed Solomon's Temple. The Bible records that Babylon carried away the Temple's vessels, but the Ark is never mentioned among them. Ethiopian tradition claims it rests in the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum, guarded by a single monk. Templar legend proposes that the knights found it beneath the Temple Mount during the Crusades. If the Templars did possess the Ark, Oak Island, remote, defensible, and protected by an ingenious flood system, would represent exactly the kind of vault required for the most sacred object in Judeo-Christian tradition. [article:the-ark-of-the-covenant] Bacon's Manuscripts and Tomb Sir Francis Bacon (1561 to 1626) was a philosopher, statesman, scientist, and, according to his devotees, the true author of Shakespeare's plays. Baconians contend that his original manuscripts have never been found because they were deliberately hidden. Bacon himself wrote about exactly how to do it. In his Sylva Sylvarum, published posthumously in 1627, Bacon described the preservation of documents in quicksilver. Experiment 100, placed on page 33, reads: thin materials like paper or parchment submerged in mercury would "never change, though they be in their nature never so perishable or mutable." The numbering was itself a cipher to Baconians: 100 is the simple cipher value of FRANCIS BACON, and 33 corresponds to BACON and the highest degree of Freemasonry. The theory proposes that Bacon's original Shakespeare manuscripts were sealed in a lead box filled with mercury and buried on Oak Island. The supporting evidence is circumstantial but persistent. In 1610, King James I granted Bacon land in Newfoundland. Bacon's servant Thomas Bushell was an expert in recovering flooded mines using Cornish miners, managed a Royal Mint, and defended the island of Lundy before disappearing from public life for several years. Mercury residue was reportedly found in flasks on Oak Island in 1937, though this has never been independently verified. Mercury was detected in swamp soil samples during Season 7 of the television series. And a parchment fragment with ink markings was recovered from the Money Pit at a depth of 153 feet in 1897, with leather book binding fragments found during later drilling. The most extreme version of the theory goes further than manuscripts. Some researchers believe that Bacon's body itself was preserved in mercury and entombed on the island, a Rosicrucian vault for the man his followers consider the secret father of the modern age. Bacon reportedly stated that he would be "known for who he really is long after his death." [article:francis-bacon-s-secret-island] Shakespeare's First Folio If the Baconian theory is correct, the physical evidence would take a specific form. Shakespeare's First Folio was published in 1623, seven years after the Stratford actor's death. It is a large folio-format volume, roughly 33 by 22 centimetres, running to nearly 900 pages, and contains 36 plays, 18 of which had never appeared in print before. Of the approximately 750 copies originally printed, around 235 survive today. Individual copies have sold at auction for over ten million dollars. But the Folio itself is the printed version. What Baconians believe lies beneath Oak Island are the handwritten originals: manuscripts in Bacon's own hand proving he wrote Hamlet, Macbeth, The Tempest, and the rest. Annotated drafts, private correspondence, possibly an autobiographical confession revealing the greatest literary deception in history. If such documents were preserved in mercury inside a sealed lead container, they could theoretically survive centuries underground. Their discovery would overturn more than four centuries of literary scholarship and rewrite the cultural history of the English-speaking world. [article:william-shakespeare-the-lost-works] The Treasure of St Andrew's Cathedral St Andrew's Cathedral on the east coast of Scotland was once the largest church in the country and the seat of Scottish Catholicism. When the Reformation swept Scotland in 1559 and 1560, Protestant reformers sacked the cathedral, destroying relics, smashing altarpieces, and burning what they could reach. The ruins still stand today. But the clergy had warning. The theory proposes that before or during the upheaval, the cathedral's most valuable possessions were removed for safekeeping: gold and silver ceremonial plates, gem-encrusted reliquaries, chalices, crucifixes, vestments embroidered with gold thread, and sacred vessels accumulated over centuries of worship. Scotland's Catholic establishment had connections to France, and France had connections to Nova Scotia. The timeline aligns with several artifact dates on the island. Whether these treasures were smuggled to the New World by sympathetic clergy or through French naval operations active in the region during the 16th century remains speculative, but the scale of what went missing from St Andrew's has never been fully accounted for. [article:the-treasure-of-st-andrew-s-cathedral] Sacred Relics of the Crusades The Knights Templar were not merely soldiers. They were the self-appointed guardians of Christendom's holiest objects. During the Crusades, an extraordinary number of sacred relics circulated through the Christian world: fragments of the True Cross on which Christ was crucified, the Crown of Thorns, the Holy Lance that pierced his side, the Shroud said to bear his image, and countless lesser relics including bones of saints, vials of holy blood, and pieces of the Virgin's veil. The Templars were specifically accused during their trials between 1307 and 1312 of possessing and worshipping mysterious objects, including a bearded head known as Baphomet. Whether these accusations were fabricated by Philip IV of France to justify seizing Templar wealth, or whether the order did possess sacred objects they refused to surrender, remains one of the central questions of medieval history. What is certain is that when the mass arrests came on Friday, 13 October 1307, the Templar fleet vanished from the port of La Rochelle and was never seen again. [article:sacred-cargo-relics-crossing-oceans] On Oak Island, human bone fragments recovered from the Money Pit in 2017 included remains of two individuals: one of European descent, one of Middle Eastern origin, both centuries old. Whose bones required burial in the most elaborate tomb ever constructed in the New World? A Templar knight returned from the Holy Land? A saint whose relics demanded protection? The bones do not answer. But their presence, at a depth of 190 feet in a shaft protected by flood tunnels, suggests that whoever was buried there was considered worth protecting at extraordinary cost. [artifact:human-bone-fragments-2-individuals] The Holy Grail The Grail has no single physical form. In the earliest accounts, by Chrétien de Troyes in the 1180s, it is simply a serving dish. Robert de Boron, writing a decade later, transformed it into the cup used by Christ at the Last Supper and later used by Joseph of Arimathea to collect his blood at the crucifixion. Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, composed around 1210, reimagined it as a stone fallen from heaven with the power to sustain life. Later traditions settled on the image most familiar today: an ornate golden chalice, sometimes studded with jewels, radiating divine light. Whatever its form, the Grail legend and the Templar story are inseparable. The Grail romances emerged at exactly the same time the Templars were at the height of their power, and Wolfram explicitly connected his Grail guardians to a knightly order modelled on the Templars. The fortress of Montségur in southern France, a Cathar stronghold that fell in 1244, carries its own legend: that treasure was smuggled out the night before the garrison surrendered. Some believe that treasure was the Grail itself, passed into Templar hands and eventually carried beyond the reach of any European monarch. [article:the-holy-grail-on-oak-island][site:chateau-de-montsegur] Marie Antoinette's Jewels When the French Revolution erupted in 1789, the French Crown Jewels became targets of both revolutionary fury and opportunistic theft. Marie Antoinette is known to have sent jewels and personal valuables to trusted allies for safekeeping before her imprisonment. Among her collection were diamonds of extraordinary size and quality, sapphires, rubies, pearls, and the accumulated treasures of the Bourbon dynasty. The theory proposes that jewels smuggled out of France were transported to Nova Scotia, which had deep French colonial ties stretching back to the early 1600s. French naval officers loyal to the crown would have known the coastline. The timing presents a challenge: 1789 is late for the Money Pit's original construction, which the coconut fibre dates to between 1036 and 1374 AD. But if the Pit had been opened and resealed across centuries, as the layered platforms suggest, a late-18th-century deposit is not impossible. The three gold chain links recovered from the Money Pit in 1849 remain the only gold ever brought up from below. [article:the-jewels-of-marie-antoinette] Pirate Gold Captain William Kidd, born around 1654 in Scotland, began his career as a licensed privateer before being accused of piracy and hanged in London in 1701. Before his arrest, Kidd buried a portion of his treasure on Gardiners Island off Long Island, New York. It was recovered and used as evidence against him at trial. But Kidd claimed to have buried far more than was found, and he offered to lead authorities to the rest in exchange for his life. The offer was refused. The pirate theory proposes that Kidd, or other pirates operating in the waters between the Caribbean and Nova Scotia, used Oak Island to cache plunder: Spanish pieces of eight, gold doubloons, silver bars, and jewels stripped from captured ships. The three gold chain links found in 1849, resembling those of a watch chain, are consistent with this theory but prove little on their own. The Money Pit's engineering, however, seems vastly disproportionate to a pirate hoard. Pirates buried treasure to retrieve it quickly. They did not construct flood tunnels, layered platforms of oak and coconut fibre, and stone drainage systems spanning hundreds of feet. Whoever built the Money Pit intended something far more permanent than a temporary cache. [article:pirates] Multiple Depositors Perhaps the most compelling possibility is that no single theory is correct because no single group was responsible. The Money Pit's layered construction, with platforms at regular ten-foot intervals, is consistent with a vault that was opened and resealed multiple times across centuries. The coconut fibre returns medieval dates. The parchment fragment suggests documents buried in the 19th century or earlier. The human bone fragments point to a deliberate burial. The lead cross and the decorative lead piece share identical lead isotope signatures from pre-15th-century French mines, found on opposite sides of the island. Perhaps the Templars built the original vault. Perhaps later visitors, Rosicrucians, French military engineers, or others who inherited knowledge of the site, added their own deposits. Perhaps pirates stumbled upon the island without understanding what lay below. The hand-wrought iron spike dates to the 1100s. The Portuguese Tornés coin dates to 1369. The iron swages date to the 1300s. The hand cannon barrel dates to the 1200s through the 1500s. Someone was on Oak Island during the medieval period. Someone was working metal, carrying weapons, and building structures. And someone buried something they considered worth protecting with one of the most elaborate engineering projects ever constructed in the New World. The evidence points in many directions. The theories compete. But the island keeps its secrets still. ## The Show About the History Channel series and the Lagina brothers' quest to solve the mystery. ### The Modern Quest URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/show From Readers Digest to Reality TV Phenomenon In January 1965, a small article appeared in Reader's Digest. "The Mystery of Oak Island" introduced millions of readers to a 170-year-old treasure hunt on a tiny island in Nova Scotia. Among those readers were two young brothers from Michigan: Rick and Marty Lagina. That article ignited an obsession that would last a lifetime.   The author holding his original copy of the 1965 Reader's Digest article [research:reader-s-digest-oak-island-s-mysterious-money-pit] The Lagina Brothers Rick Lagina, a retired postal worker, never let go of his childhood dream. His younger brother Marty built a successful career in energy exploration, founding Terra Energy Ltd. and developing expertise in the kind of large-scale excavation Oak Island would require. For decades, they followed the Oak Island story from afar. They watched as Dan Blankenship and David Tobias formed Triton Alliance and drilled Borehole 10-X. They read about the discoveries and the setbacks. And they waited. In 2006, their patience paid off. The Oak Island Tourism Society, which controlled the treasure hunting rights, was looking for new partners. The Laginas made their move. By 2007, they had acquired a controlling interest in Oak Island Tours Inc., becoming the latest in a 200-year line of treasure hunters. [article:dan-blankenship-and-borehole-10-x][article:david-tobias-the-business-of-oak-island] The History Channel Takes Notice The brothers spent years conducting surveys, building relationships with researchers, and planning their approach. Their methodical, scientific strategy caught the attention of television producers at Prometheus Entertainment. On January 5, 2014, "The Curse of Oak Island" premiered on the History Channel. The first episode drew over 3 million viewers, a massive debut for a cable documentary series. Audiences were hooked. Unlike previous treasure hunting shows, this wasn't staged drama. The Laginas brought genuine expertise, real investment, and authentic emotion to their search. When Rick tears up discussing the island's history, it's real. When Marty expresses frustration at another setback, viewers feel it. The Team The show assembled a remarkable cast of experts and personalities: Craig Tester is Marty's business partner and friend since college. An engineer who brings technical expertise and dry humor to the team. Dan Blankenship was the legendary treasure hunter who dedicated over 50 years to Oak Island. His encyclopedic knowledge and unwavering belief inspired the Laginas. Dan passed away in March 2019 at age 95, but his presence still guides the search. Dave Blankenship is Dan's son, who grew up on the island and continues his father's legacy. His intimate knowledge of Oak Island's geography and history proves invaluable. Gary Drayton is a world-renowned metal detectorist from England. Gary's expertise has led to some of the show's most significant finds, including the medieval lead cross that may connect Oak Island to the Knights Templar. Jack Begley is Craig's stepson, who brings youthful energy and genuine enthusiasm. His willingness to climb into any hole or handle any artifact makes him a fan favorite. Alex Lagina is Marty's son, representing the next generation. A civil engineer, Alex brings both technical skills and fresh perspective to the investigation. Corjan Mol is a Dutch researcher and historical investigator with deep expertise in medieval European history. His research connects Oak Island to early travel from Europe to North America. Corjan serves as the tourguide for the team on their research trips in Europe. The Oak Island Team at the Vasco da Gama statue in the harbour of Angra do Heroismo on the island of Terceira, Azores in October 2025 (Corjan Mol, Rick Lagina, Emiliano Sacchetti, Alex Lagina, Peter Fornetti and Doug Crowell) Technology and Investment What sets the Lagina operation apart is scale. Previous treasure hunters worked with pick axes and hope. The Laginas brought millions of dollars and cutting-edge technology. The team has employed seismic scanning to map underground anomalies, LiDAR surveys to reveal hidden structures on the surface, industrial excavation equipment capable of digging massive shafts, diving teams to explore flooded tunnels, and laboratory analysis of every significant find. In 2019, they sunk a massive steel caisson (essentially a giant steel tube) into the Money Pit area, allowing excavation below the water table for the first time in Oak Island history. The "Garden Shaft" and subsequent digs have reached depths previous searchers could only dream of. [article:equipment-and-technology-on-oak-island] The Discoveries The show has documented genuinely significant finds. Season after season, the evidence mounts: A medieval lead cross, potentially linked to the Templar prison at Domme, France. Human bones from two individuals, one of European descent and one of Middle Eastern origin, carbon dated to the 1600s and 1700s. An elaborate underground tunnel system beneath Smith's Cove. The remains of a massive wooden ship in the swamp. Coins, pottery, and artifacts spanning several centuries. And most recently, evidence of early European presence that may rewrite North American history. Perhaps most importantly, the show has proven that Oak Island's mysteries are real. The artificial beach, the flood tunnels, the Money Pit itself: these aren't legends. They're engineering projects that someone built centuries ago. The question remains: why? [artifact:lead-cross][map:money-pit][article:down-the-money-pit] A Global Phenomenon Now in its 12th season, "The Curse of Oak Island" has become one of the longest-running and most successful documentary series in cable television history. The show broadcasts in 79 countries, reaching tens of millions of viewers worldwide who tune in each week to follow the hunt. It has spawned spin-offs including "The Curse of Oak Island: Drilling Down" and "Beyond Oak Island." It has inspired countless YouTube investigators and introduced a new generation to this 230-year-old mystery. The show has also transformed Oak Island itself. Tourism to the tiny Nova Scotia island has exploded. The local economy has been revitalized. And researchers and historians from around the world have been drawn into the investigation. [article:oak-island-and-the-tourism-boom] The Search Continues After more than a decade of filming, the Laginas have spent more money, employed more technology, and conducted more systematic research than all previous treasure hunters combined. They've made discoveries that would have been front-page news in any previous era. And yet the central mystery remains unsolved. What lies at the bottom of the Money Pit? Who built the elaborate tunnel system? What were they protecting? Rick Lagina, now in his seventies, has said he'll search until he physically can't continue. His brother Marty, despite occasional skepticism, keeps funding the operation. The next generation (Alex, Jack, and others) stands ready to continue. The curse says seven must die before the treasure is found. Six already have. The Laginas are betting everything that they'll be the ones to finally solve the mystery and live to tell about it. Every Tuesday night, tens of millions of viewers tune in to see if this will be the episode where everything changes. [article:oak-island-s13-medieval-case][article:oak-island-the-state-of-the-search-231-years-in] The Oak Island Lab One of the most significant additions to the Oak Island operation is OIMAS - Oak Island Materials and Archaeological Services. Located right on the island at 5 Oak Island Drive, this state-of-the-art laboratory is the only facility in Atlantic Canada offering combined XRD, XRF, and XRM analysis capabilities. Run by archaeometallurgist Emma Culligan and an all-female team of scientists, OIMAS uses advanced Bruker equipment to analyze every artifact pulled from Oak Island's soil. CT scanning reveals the internal structure of objects without damaging them. X-ray fluorescence identifies elemental composition, helping date artifacts and trace their origins. X-ray diffraction analyzes mineral structures to understand how objects were made. This on-site capability means the team no longer waits weeks for lab results from distant facilities. When Gary Drayton pulls a mysterious coin from the ground, Emma can have it under the scanner within hours, providing answers that drive the investigation forward in real time. [map:the-lab] Visit Oak Island For fans who want to experience Oak Island firsthand, the island is open to visitors through the official tourism operation at oakislandlegend.com. The Oak Island Archives and Research Organization (OIARO) has partnered with Cerca Trova Ltd., the majority owners of Oak Island, to welcome visitors to this legendary destination. Tours run seasonally aboard the "Money Pit Express," a guided 2-hour adventure that takes visitors past legendary landmarks, shares untold tales, and traces the footsteps of treasure hunters past and present. It's a chance to walk the same ground where 230 years of searchers have dug, drilled, and dreamed. The island also features the Oak Island Treasure Shop and offers special experiences like the Amos Pewter Artisan Experience, where visitors can cast their own pewter keepsake. For tour dates and bookings, visit oakislandlegend.com. ## The Evidence Artifacts found, carbon dating results, and discoveries that indicate something extraordinary may lie below. ### The Oak Island Swamp URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/evidence/the-oak-island-swamp A Triangle at the Centre of the Island Seen from the air, the swamp at the centre of Oak Island forms a near-perfect triangle, its apex pointing north and its base running roughly east to west. The feature covers approximately 4.5 acres of brackish water, peat, and dense vegetation, sitting between the Money Pit area to the east and the western lots where 18th- and 19th-century settlers once farmed. For most of the island's treasure-hunting history, the swamp was treated as an obstacle, something to be crossed or avoided. That view began to change when surveyor and landowner Fred Nolan spent decades investigating it, and it changed permanently when the Lagina brothers and their team committed heavy equipment and scientific resources to draining and excavating the bog beginning in Season 7. What they found beneath the murky water and peat has produced some of the most compelling physical evidence on Oak Island: stone roads, wooden survey stakes, ship timbers, a paved work surface dated to the medieval period, and a constellation of artifacts that span at least 800 years. Dr. Ian Spooner, an environmental geoscientist at Acadia University who has studied the swamp since 2019, has compared it to a highway running across the island. As of Season 13, the team estimates they have explored only about 30 percent of it. [map:the-swamp] The Case for Human Construction The question of whether the swamp formed naturally or was deliberately created has been central to Oak Island research since at least the 1960s. Dan Blankenship, who devoted more than 50 years to the island, told the Lagina team in Season 1 that the most significant thing he and Fred Nolan had found in the swamp were the stumps of old oak trees. Oak trees cannot grow in standing water, and their presence beneath the surface suggested the area had once been dry land. In Season 2, a local tree expert identified a large stump pulled from the swamp as hardwood that could not have grown while fully submerged, meaning the swamp formed around and above the tree after it was established. Carbon dating placed the stump between 1450 and 1640 AD. Fred Nolan advanced a related theory over several decades. He believed Oak Island had originally been two separate islands, and that at some point someone sailed a ship between them, allowed it to founder and sink, then joined the two landmasses by constructing what became the swamp. The theory held that this was done by building a cofferdam along the perimeter, excavating a vault or tunnel network underneath, burying something of value, and flooding the area with thousands of gallons of brackish water to make access virtually impossible. Nolan's 1969 drainage of the swamp recovered wooden scuppers and part of a mast from a large sailing vessel, evidence he cited for the rest of his life. The scientific case for human construction took a major step forward in Season 7, when Dr. Ian Spooner analysed core samples and determined that the swamp is far younger than expected, perhaps only 300 to 400 years old. His sedimentation analysis showed that every centimetre of sediment corresponded to roughly ten years. A twig recovered from a deeper core level dated to approximately 1220 AD, suggesting the swamp itself may have been initiated around that time. In Season 7, Episode 13, Spooner delivered what Rick Lagina called the smoking gun: wood crushed beneath the stones of the paved area proved that a glacier could not have deposited the rocks, since no trees existed during glacial periods. He declared the feature man-made and predating the Money Pit's discovery in 1795. Fred Nolan's Five Decades No one spent more time investigating the swamp than Fred Nolan. A professional land surveyor who first came to Oak Island in 1958, Nolan purchased eight lots across the centre of the island in the early 1960s after M.R. Chappell denied him access to the Money Pit. His property included the swamp, which became the focus of his research for the next half century. During his 1969 drainage operation, Nolan discovered uniform lines of wooden stakes beneath the swamp floor. As a surveyor, he recognized them as layout markers, the kind used to plan and construct a large feature. Carbon dating placed some of these stakes as far back as the 1500s. He also found two large ringbolts embedded in boulders on the eastern edge of the swamp, and described a timbered wall between the swamp and the beach on the north side: sawn square timbers stacked one atop another, extending down 12 feet and spanning approximately 12 feet in width. If confirmed, such a structure would represent strong evidence that the swamp was artificially contained. Nolan also pursued the story of a "mystery box" or vault that Jack Adams, a 1930s island caretaker, claimed was buried beneath the swamp. Bobby Restall referenced the same story in his handwritten journals before his death in 1965. Nolan never found it, but ground-penetrating radar scanning in Season 2 revealed a large flat surface with dipping reflectors cutting through it, an anomaly inconsistent with the natural swamp bottom. Whether this represents the mystery box, an entrance to an underground vault, or something else entirely remains unknown. When Nolan died in 2016, his son Tom joined the Lagina team as a full-time member, uniting all major Oak Island landowners for the first time in nearly half a century. Tom granted full access to his father's property and produced Fred's survey maps, representing 50 years of fieldwork that charted virtually every visible rock, survey line, and point of interest across the property. The maps had no legend, scale, or compass orientation, making interpretation difficult without Fred to guide them. Tom has repeatedly confirmed that specific structures uncovered in the swamp, including the paved area and the brick-and-slate vault, were not built by his father. [article:fred-nolan-the-oak-island-surveyor] The Paved Area One of the most significant discoveries in the swamp is a massive stone-paved surface located toward its centre. Diver Tony Sampson first identified flat stones with uniform surfaces during zero-visibility dives in Season 7, cutting across the natural geological grain rather than running parallel to it. He deployed buoys along the feature, and despite navigating blind, the markers surfaced in a remarkably straight line. Surveyor Steve Guptill's GPS overlay placed the structure at roughly 60 to 70 feet long and 12 feet wide, sitting precisely at sea level. When the swamp was drained and the paved area fully exposed, geologist Terry Matheson noted the boulders near the surface were rock types he would not expect to encounter until approximately 120 feet down in the Money Pit area, suggesting they had been transported and placed. Archaeologist Laird Niven stated he could see no natural way for the rocks to have arrived at this location. Dr. Ian Spooner conducted the most detailed examination, observing that the stones were layered with small rocks on the bottom and larger rocks on top, consistent with road-building technique rather than glacial deposit. The feature was level, uniform, and as wide as a two-lane road. Spooner concluded he had worked in similar environments but never encountered anything like it. Organic material recovered from directly beneath the stones was carbon dated to approximately 1200 AD. The dating places the feature squarely in the era of the Knights Templar, a connection that multiple researchers have explored. Not all observers agree on the interpretation. Archaeologist Andre Costopoulos of the University of Alberta raised several alternative explanations in a 2020 analysis. He pointed to a photograph showing a stone platform Fred Nolan built in the swamp to support a coring rig, noting the colour and nature of the rock material appeared consistent with what the show was presenting as a much older feature. Costopoulos also suggested field-clearing as an alternative: settlers removing rocks from farmland and dumping them in the swamp was common practice in rocky Nova Scotia. A third possibility he raised was that the stones were laid as fill to dry a wet area or facilitate travel. Tom Nolan, however, stated on camera that his father did not have the means to create something on the scale of the paved area, and Spooner's analysis of the stratigraphy, particularly the crushed wood beneath the stones, appears to rule out glacial origin. [artifact:paved-area-stone-wharf] The Eye of the Swamp At the northernmost tip of the triangular swamp sits a small oval pond curiously devoid of vegetation. Aerial photographs dating back to the 1920s show that plant growth has never crept into this feature, a pattern Dr. Ian Spooner attributed to human intervention rather than any natural process. His team probed the bottom in 2019 and encountered rock around the perimeter, forming what appeared to be a circular stone formation. In Season 7, Episode 3, Marty Lagina, Alex Lagina, metal detection expert Gary Drayton, and surveyor Steve Guptill took a boat into the pond to investigate. Gary waded in, at times up to his neck, and repeatedly hit iron with his pinpointer around the stones. Guptill mapped every contact point with GPS, and the results revealed a defined ring of rocks with iron readings at nearly every point. One stone carried no metal signature at all: a large, conical boulder with a flat edge on one side, resembling those that comprise the megalithic formation known as Nolan's Cross. Marty named the feature the "Eye of the Swamp," noting the symbolic connection to the all-seeing Eye of Providence, a symbol adopted by both the Knights Templar and the Freemasons. [article:freemasons-on-oak-island-the-masonic-connection] The Eye took on additional significance after researchers Corjan Mol and Chris Morford presented their theory connecting three paintings by 17th-century French master Nicolas Poussin to Oak Island. Poussin's second version of The Shepherds of Arcadia contains an embedded pentagram that, when superimposed on Nolan's Cross using the fifth boulder as an anchor point, places the centre of the geometric figure directly on the Eye of the Swamp. In a subsequent presentation, Mol and Morford demonstrated that the shepherd's pointed finger in the painting falls on the same location. Marty acknowledged the geometric elegance of the theory while noting the Eye was the hardest spot on the island to excavate. [artifact:sticks-organic-matter-eye-of-the-swamp][map:eye-of-the-swamp] The Arcadia Stone When the team drained the Eye and began excavating in Season 7, Episode 16, they uncovered boulders as large as those forming Nolan's Cross, stacked together with smaller angular stones beneath and no clay between layers. Blue clay packed onto a large stone at the base of the formation recalled the blue clay layer found at 40 feet in the Money Pit during the original excavation in 1804. The largest of these boulders, positioned at the heart of the formation that the Poussin pentagram had pointed to, became known to the team as the Arcadia Stone, named for the painting that led them to it. Tom Nolan noted that his father had never seen these stones and would have insisted they remain undisturbed. The team halted excavation and brought in Dr. Spooner, who concluded the formation was not natural: the stones had been deposited and filled in relatively quickly. Archaeologist Laird Niven added that the stratigraphy resembled filled-in cellars. [article:nicolas-poussin-keeper-of-secrets] Vibra-core samples from the Eye produced some of the most striking dating results from the swamp. A sample from a disturbed zone of interlayered organic matter and glacial till dated to 1600 to 1700, and a twig from the same site dated to 1674 to 1778, leading Spooner to conclude with confidence that significant excavation and human activity took place at the Eye between 1680 and 1700. A twig from a second core at a deeper level dated to approximately 1220 AD, suggesting the feature may have origins in the medieval period. Core samples also revealed high levels of lead and mercury at the base, an anomalous finding that Spooner connected to significant human activity. The mercury was particularly intriguing: 17th-century philosopher Sir Francis Bacon described a method for preserving documents in sealed containers filled with mercury in his 1620 work Novum Organum. [article:francis-bacon-s-secret-island] In Season 12, the team returned to the Eye and uncovered a ramp-like structure of logs and cobblestone that appeared to point toward it. A tiny red glass bead recovered during this excavation was identified by artifact analyst Emma Culligan as Venetian in origin, with the red colouring dating to the early 1700s or late 1600s. Tom Nolan confirmed the structure was not built by his father. By the end of Season 12, the compiled dating placed the Eye between 1630 and 1680. In Season 13, archaeoastronomer Professor Adriano Gaspani applied stellar alignment analysis to the GPS coordinates of eight-sided survey stakes recovered near the swamp and found they divided into two groups, both sharing alignments with the star Deneb in the Cygnus constellation consistent with a 13th-century construction date, matching the alignments he had previously identified in Nolan's Cross. The Stone Road In the southeastern corner of the swamp, the team uncovered a massive stone road during Season 8 that would become one of the most extensively documented features on the island. Archaeologist Dr. Aaron Taylor identified wooden cribbing beneath the stone surface: beams running perpendicular and parallel in layered courses, forming an engineered substructure designed to prevent the stones from sinking into the swamp floor. The road was two to three courses of stone thick, approximately six feet wide, and built to a standard consistent with cart-track widths used across Europe for centuries. By Season 8's end, surveyor Steve Guptill had measured approximately 460 feet of exposed cobblestone. The pathway continued to extend in subsequent seasons, and by Season 12 the total reached 600 feet across multiple connected sections. Beneath the road surface, the team found a second layer of stone supported by wood cribbing and cut stakes driven into the swamp floor. Woodchips from axe work were scattered throughout, confirming the road required significant labour, multiple workers, and a deliberate engineering system to distribute weight across boggy ground. Chunks of coal and charcoal also appeared among the stones, lending support to Fred Nolan's theory that a treasure galleon had been sailed into the area, unloaded, and burned. Metal detection expert Gary Drayton recovered square ox shoe nails from between the cobblestones, confirming the road was once used by draft animals hauling heavy loads. The presence of ox shoe nails at both the swamp pathway and at the base of Nolan's Cross boulders raised the possibility that the same builders were responsible for both features. Other artifacts recovered along the road included an iron ringbolt that blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge dated to between the 1600s and 1760, keg barrel fragments, a leather strap, red earthenware pottery that archaeologist Aaron Taylor connected to the earliest European presence in Nova Scotia (potentially 1604 or earlier with possible Spanish or Portuguese origins), and annular ware dating to the 1750s. The road's construction style drew particular attention from historian Terry Deveau, former president of the New England Antiquities Research Association. After visiting the site in Season 8, Deveau concluded the technology did not match French or British colonial roadbuilding practices seen in Nova Scotia over the previous 400 years. In his view, the road reflected a European building tradition from the 1500s or earlier. When the team visited Portugal with researcher Corjan Mol in Season 9, they found roads at Alqueidao da Serra that appeared remarkably similar in construction to the one at the bottom of the Oak Island swamp. Rick Lagina confirmed the match, and the team also found that offshore boulders near the swamp lined up with the stone road, suggesting it may once have extended into a stone dock. Work along the stone road was temporarily halted in Season 9 when archaeologist Laird Niven discovered Mi'kmaq pottery in the area, estimated at 500 to 2,500 years old. All activity along the eastern border of the swamp ceased until the Mi'kmaq Rights Initiative and the Department of Communities, Culture, and Heritage could assess the site. Niven did not believe the stone road was constructed by the Mi'kmaq, but the presence of Indigenous pottery in the same area added another layer to the swamp's complex history. [map:stone-road] ..and the Sand Road In Season 13, excavation of a freshly permitted area in the southwest corner of the swamp revealed a second road feature: a cobblestone surface covered by a layer of sand, lined on both sides by wooden survey stakes. Rick Lagina, Peter Fornetti, and Billy Gerhardt uncovered paired sets of five-sided and eight-sided stakes positioned together, the first time both types had been found side by side. Rick paced 21 feet between the first two sets, predicted a third at the same interval, and found one at the predicted location. The alignment ran northwest toward the centre of the swamp. In a subsequent dig, Gary Drayton recovered an ox shoe buried roughly a foot below the surface of the road, consistent with draft animals hauling materials along the route. As Billy traced the feature to the edge of the permitted dig area, the road appeared to head toward Center Road, the property boundary line drawn by Surveyor General Charles Morris in 1762. Craig Tester raised the possibility that the sand road predates the survey, and Peter noted that a route linking Lot 5 to the Money Pit would explain the connection between the two sites. The discovery added a third road type in the western swamp, alongside the corduroy road found earlier that season, and suggested an interconnected transportation network built across the bog. [artifact:sand-road-western-swamp] The Brick-and-Slate Vault In the northern section of the swamp during Season 12, the team uncovered a square structure composed of handmade brick and cut slate, unlike any feature previously encountered on the island. The discovery came while Alex Lagina, Craig Tester, and Billy Gerhardt were following a cobblestone pathway lined with eight-sided wooden survey stakes. Dr. Ian Spooner examined the bricks and judged them handmade. Archaeologist Laird Niven noted the structure's shape was different from the two round wells found on the Anthony Graves property, and Tom Nolan said he had never encountered anything like it. Excavation of the vault produced a wrought iron hook that Tom suggested was used to lower or remove items from the structure. Katya Drayton's metal detector registered signals within, and the team recovered a lead counterweight end, fragments of blue-glazed and yellow ware pottery, and iron pipe. When drained and dug to the bottom, the vault itself was empty. Rick Lagina connected the feature to Anthony Graves, who purchased most of Oak Island in 1857, built his home near Joudrey's Cove just north of the swamp, and was said to have made purchases on the mainland using Spanish silver coins. Laboratory analysis placed the vault's bricks in a different category from those found at Lot 5 and Smith's Cove. X-ray diffraction showed that the Lot 5 and Smith's Cove bricks were similar in composition and matched samples from Brick Hill, a local kiln operating in the 1600s. The swamp vault bricks, by contrast, aligned more closely with other local samples from the 1800s. The compiled dating for Season 12 placed the vault in the late 1600s based on its association with the surrounding cobblestone path (stakes dated 1650 to 1700) and other features in the northern swamp. A second possible vault was indicated in Season 13 when excavation in the same area exposed a stone structure at least three rocks thick built on top of swamp peat, with bricks resembling those from the first vault recovered nearby. The Ship Anomaly and Maritime Evidence A seismic survey conducted at the end of Season 6, in which more than 2,000 explosive charges were detonated across the swamp, revealed a 200-foot-long anomaly roughly 25 feet wide, sitting between 15 and 55 feet below sea level. Its shape was consistent with a large ship, and the discovery revived Fred Nolan's long-standing theory that a vessel had been deliberately scuttled in the swamp. Core drilling into the anomaly during Season 7 produced unexpected results. The organic layer proved remarkably thin, giving way almost immediately to hard, dry clay similar to what is found in the Money Pit area. At roughly 21 feet the clay was bone dry, and at approximately 29 feet the drill encountered a rock-like cap layer so dense it reached the point of refusal. Later cores drilled at 54 to 57 feet returned no wood, ruling out a sunken vessel at that location. The dry clay raised a new possibility: the conditions were ideal for tunnelling, and the anomaly may represent a buried passage rather than a ship. [article:the-oak-island-dry-dock] Maritime artifacts have nonetheless accumulated steadily from the swamp. An 18-foot-long wooden plank recovered by diver Tony Sampson from just below the surface was identified as deck or side planking from a masted ship and carbon dated to between 1680 and 1735. An iron spike found in the swamp was identified by antiques expert Dr. Lori Verderame as an aburro-dade type wrought iron spike from a Spanish galleon, comparable to examples recovered along Florida's Treasure Coast, and dated to the same general period as the 1652 Spanish maravedi coin found in the swamp during Season 1. A ship's railing recovered from ten feet below sea level during Season 8 was carbon dated to 660 to 770 AD, making it the oldest artifact found on Oak Island at that time. Shaped wood found within 30 feet of the railing in Season 9 dated to 224 to 376 AD. In Season 13, the team also discovered a corduroy road in the western region of the swamp: cut logs with peeled bark laid across clay with rocks underneath, a transportation method first designed in Europe during the 11th century for moving wagons and heavy cargo across marshy terrain. Coal or charcoal recovered from this area matched samples previously found along the stone road and the cobblestone path, suggesting a connection between all these features. [artifact:wooden-ship-s-railing][artifact:wooden-ship-s-plank] Other Finds The swamp has produced a wide range of artifacts beyond the major features. The 1652 Spanish maravedi coin, discovered in the final episode of Season 1 after the swamp was partially drained, was the find that persuaded Marty Lagina to continue the search. Cleaned by Global Marine Exploration in Tampa, the coin's date placed activity on the island more than 140 years before the Money Pit's discovery. Porcelain fragments recovered from the swamp during Season 7 were dated to 1674 to 1700. Near the Eye of the Swamp, Gary Drayton and Jack Begley recovered an iron pickax with unusually short tines suited for tunnelling rather than surface work, along with a round-point spade. Carmen Legge dated the pickax to the mid-18th century. A hand-forged iron strap found along the stone pathway was identified by Legge as a brace from a nine-inch-diameter ship's timber dating to 1710 to 1790, with clear evidence of burning. Doug Crowell discovered a metal artifact in Dan Blankenship's archived files labelled as having been found in the swamp in the 1970s; Carmen Legge identified it as part of a large cannon and dated it to the mid-1400s. In Season 13, a hand cannon from the same archive was confirmed by both lab analysis and a military historian as potentially dating to the 1200s. The Mercy Point, identified by Norwegian researcher Petter Amundsen using his theory that Nolan's Cross encodes the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, produced the season's strongest early metal detection readings. A Deepmax X6 survey showed nonferrous returns across multiple depth layers covering an area estimated at roughly 100 feet. Operator Dave Spencer's three-dimensional analysis revealed a target roughly 15 to 20 feet long and about three feet wide. When the team used caissons to isolate and drain the Mercy Point, they found nothing. The failure was a pivotal moment: it shifted the team's focus from the Mercy Point to the broader swamp, where the physical evidence would prove far more substantial. [article:william-shakespeare-the-lost-works] What the Swamp Tells Us Taken together, the swamp evidence points to at least two distinct periods of significant human activity on Oak Island. The first cluster falls in the 13th century: the paved area's organic underlayer dated to approximately 1200 AD, Professor Gaspani's archaeoastronomical dating of the swamp stakes and Nolan's Cross to the same period, and the hand cannon potentially from the 1200s. The second cluster falls in the 1600s and early 1700s: the Eye of the Swamp activity dated to 1680 to 1700, the cobblestone path stakes dated to 1650 to 1700, the brick-and-slate vault from the late 1600s, the deck plank from 1680 to 1735, and the 1652 maravedi coin. This pattern mirrors what has been found in the Money Pit area, where wood from borehole FG-12 at 106 feet was carbon dated to 1626 to 1680. The convergence of dates between the swamp and the Money Pit represents one of the strongest lines of evidence that the two areas are connected. As Doug Crowell observed in the Season 9 finale, the swamp functions as a time capsule, preserving wood dated to more than a thousand years old alongside 17th-century pieces. Steve Guptill's mapping of every cobble section, survey stake, and structural feature has begun to reveal an interconnected system: the cobblestone path connects to the Eye of the Swamp and the wooden platform, projects toward the brick vault, and extends via the stone road toward the Money Pit. What cannot yet be established is who built these features, what exactly they were transporting, or whether the swamp conceals something that has not yet been reached. The ship anomaly remains unexplained despite core drilling that ruled out a vessel at the tested depth. The paved area's 1200 AD dating has not been independently replicated. The vault was empty when excavated. And roughly 70 to 80 percent of the swamp has never been investigated. Dr. Spooner's characterisation of the swamp as a highway across the island may prove to be the most useful framework for understanding it: not a single feature or a single event, but an infrastructure built and used across centuries by people whose identity and purpose remain, for now, beyond the reach of the evidence. [artifact:wooden-stakes] ### Archaeoastronomy on Oak Island URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/evidence/archaeoastronomy-on-oak-island What Is Archaeoastronomy Archaeoastronomy is the study of how people in the past observed and used the sky. It examines the ways ancient and medieval cultures aligned their monuments, temples, roads, and burial sites with the positions of the sun, moon, stars, and planets. The discipline sits at the intersection of archaeology, astronomy, and history, and its methods are grounded in physics: the predictable, calculable motion of celestial bodies over time. The field gained academic credibility in the 1960s and 1970s through the work of researchers such as Alexander Thom, who surveyed hundreds of stone circles across Britain and demonstrated that many were oriented toward solstice and equinox positions. Gerald Hawkins applied computer modelling to Stonehenge in 1965, showing that its stones tracked lunar and solar cycles with precision. Since then, archaeoastronomical analysis has been applied to sites on every continent, from the pyramids of Giza to the temple complexes of Angkor Wat and the Mayan observatories of the Yucatan. On Oak Island, archaeoastronomy entered the investigation in Season 10, when Professor Adriano Gaspani, an archaeoastronomer and astrophysicist, was asked to analyse the stone formations on the island. His work has since produced some of the most specific dating evidence in the history of the Oak Island search. [article:the-oak-island-star-map] How Celestial Alignments Can Be Dated The ability to date a structure through its astronomical alignments rests on a fundamental property of the Earth: it wobbles. The planet's rotational axis traces a slow circle against the background stars over a period of roughly 25,772 years, a phenomenon known as precession. As a result, the positions at which stars rise and set on the horizon shift gradually over the centuries. A structure aligned to the rising point of a particular star in 1200 AD would not point to the same star today, because that star's rising azimuth has moved. The rate of drift is approximately one degree every 72 years. A second factor is the obliquity of the ecliptic, the tilt of Earth's axis relative to its orbital plane. This angle changes slowly over millennia, and it affects the extreme positions of the sun at the solstices and the moon at its standstills. The International Astronomical Union adopted a standard formula in 2006 (IAU 2006) for calculating the obliquity at any point in history, and this formula is used in modern archaeoastronomical research to reconstruct where the sun rose and set on specific dates in the past. A third element is the lunar standstill cycle. Every 18.6 years, the moon reaches its most extreme rising and setting positions on the horizon, known as major lunar standstills. Cultures across the ancient world tracked this cycle, and structures aligned to standstill positions can be dated by working backward through the geometry. When multiple alignments at a single site converge on the same historical period, the case for intentional construction becomes difficult to dismiss as coincidence. This is the method Professor Gaspani applied to Oak Island. Nolan's Cross: Six Stars and an Epoch Fred Nolan discovered the formation now known as Nolan's Cross in 1981: six large cone-shaped boulders arranged in a symmetrical cross on his property in the centre of Oak Island. For decades, debate centred on whether the formation was natural or man-made. Nolan was convinced it was deliberate, a conclusion supported by Halifax geologist Petra Mudie and later verified by engineer and surveyor William Crooker. In Season 10, Episode 22 ("Starry Knights"), the team travelled to Italy to meet Professor Adriano Gaspani, an archaeoastronomer and astrophysicist at the Brera Observatory in Milan who had spent his career studying the astronomical orientation of medieval European sites. Using the GPS coordinates of the six boulders provided by surveyor Steve Guptill, Gaspani calculated which bright stars would have risen or set along the lines connecting the boulders at various points in history. He identified six stars whose positions aligned with the cross: Capella, Arcturus, Antares, Bellatrix, Alphard, and Fomalhaut. All six alignments converged on a single epoch: approximately 1200 AD. Doug Crowell noted that this date matched the radiocarbon dating of the stone platform in the swamp and aligned with the proposed Templar voyage of 1179 documented in researcher Zena Halpern's manuscript. Gaspani published his findings in a peer-reviewed paper, making the Nolan's Cross analysis one of the few pieces of Oak Island evidence to have undergone formal academic scrutiny. [article:real-or-not-the-geometry-of-nolan-s-cross] The Stone Triangle and the Lot 15 Cairns Following the Nolan's Cross results, Rick Lagina asked Gaspani to apply the same methodology to two additional stone features on the island: the Stone Triangle on the south shore and the five stone cairns on Lot 15. Both had been documented by Fred Nolan, who believed the cairns pointed toward the swamp and the triangle pointed toward the original Money Pit. Gaspani received GPS data for both sites and presented his analysis in Season 11, Episode 17 ("Piling On"), joining the War Room by video conference with interpreter Michael Amadio. His findings added two new layers of evidence. The Lot 15 stone piles showed alignments with the sun at the equinoxes and with the moon at rising and setting positions reached only during the 18.6-year lunar standstill cycle. With multiple alignments converging, Gaspani declared himself nearly 100 percent certain the piles were placed around 1250 AD. He later connected the cairns to the star cluster Hyades, the same formation the team would encounter carved into stone during a research trip to Bornholm, Denmark. The Stone Triangle encoded two astronomical lines corresponding to sunrise and sunset at the winter solstice. Gaspani concluded that between 1200 and 1300, people arriving from Europe encoded messages by arranging stones in astronomically significant patterns, and that this knowledge belonged to monastic, religious, and knightly orders rather than to common people. He identified the Knights Templar as the most likely builders. [article:stone-triangle-the-oak-island-sextant][artifact:stone-cairns] The Italian Connection: Bianzano Castle In Season 11, Episode 22 ("Abbey Road"), the team visited Bianzano Castle near Bergamo, believed to have served as the Italian headquarters of the Knights Templar in the 13th century. Professor Gaspani had prepared an analysis of the castle's orientation, and his findings created a direct link to Oak Island. The external walls of Bianzano Castle aligned with the rise and set of the Cygnus constellation and pointed toward the star Arcturus: the same celestial references encoded in Nolan's Cross. Gaspani concluded that whoever designed the castle belonged to the same cultural environment as whoever placed the cross on Oak Island. Inside the castle, Doug Crowell noticed an eight-pointed star that Gaspani identified as Polaris in medieval iconography, a form used to design octagonal church structures and for celestial navigation. At the same meeting, Emiliano Sacchetti presented Gaspani with the Cremona Document and asked him to consider the devices it described, particularly the Abetor. Gaspani demonstrated a reconstruction he had built of this navigational instrument, showing how it could guide a vessel across the Atlantic on a fixed route. He also proposed that the same device could have been used to lay out Nolan's Cross on the ground, providing a practical explanation for how a precise astronomical formation could be constructed in a remote location without a fixed observatory. [site:bianzano-castle] Sacred Numbers and Geometry Professor Gaspani's work represents one approach to the astronomical evidence on Oak Island: empirical measurement of celestial positions against physical structures, tested through mathematical models. A complementary approach, rooted in sacred geometry, was presented by researcher Brian Pharoah in Season 10, Episode 13 ("All's Well"). Pharoah told the team that Nolan's Cross was a megalithic and mathematical phenomenon that could not be happenstance. He demonstrated how the measurements of the cross incorporated a set of sacred numbers: 144, 288, 360, 432, 720, and 864. These numbers, Pharoah argued, are encoded in sacred sites across Europe and the Middle East, including Chartres Cathedral, Rosslyn Chapel, and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. He revealed hidden geometry within the cross and, using his method with the team's own boulder positions, surveyor Steve Guptill calculated a point a few feet north of the Garden Shaft. When Rick Lagina asked who he thought had created this, Pharoah answered: the Templars. Pharoah's approach differs from Gaspani's in that it relies on geometric and numerical relationships rather than stellar positions, but both arrive at the same conclusion regarding the builders and the approximate period of construction. Archaeoastronomy in the Field The calculations Gaspani performed for Oak Island required specialised astronomical software, access to star catalogues, and expertise in precession models. Until recently, verifying an alignment in the field meant recording a compass bearing, looking up the corresponding celestial positions for a historical date, and running the mathematics by hand or with desktop software. That process has become considerably more accessible. Modern smartphone tools such as My Solar Compass and My Cosmic Compass use the same IAU 2006 precession formula used in professional research to calculate sunrise, sunset, and star-rise positions for any date from 3000 BC to the present. A visitor to Oak Island, or to any of the European sites connected to the investigation, can now point a phone along a structure, capture the bearing, and see which celestial events align with it across centuries of history. My Solar Compass handles sun positions and feast day matching; My Cosmic Compass extends the analysis to stars, planets, and the 18.6-year lunar standstill cycle. Both tools were developed with fieldwork at historical and archaeological sites in mind. [article:the-versailles-alignment-to-oak-island] What the Evidence Establishes Professor Gaspani's archaeoastronomical analysis of Oak Island has produced a consistent set of results. Nolan's Cross, the Stone Triangle, the Lot 15 stone cairns, and the swamp survey stakes all yield dates in the range of 1200 to 1300 AD when analysed through stellar and solar alignments. The Nolan's Cross study has been peer-reviewed and published. The methodology is well established in the academic study of medieval European sites, and the convergence of dates across four separate features on the island is, as Gaspani stated, difficult to attribute to chance. The analysis also establishes a cultural connection. The same celestial references found in the Oak Island formations appear in the orientation of Bianzano Castle, a known Templar site in northern Italy. Gaspani concluded that the builders of both sites belonged to the same tradition. What the evidence does not establish is who, specifically, was on Oak Island in the 13th century, or what they built or buried there. Archaeoastronomy can date a layout and identify the cultural knowledge required to create it, but it cannot tell us the purpose of that layout.  What can be said is that the stone formations on Oak Island were not placed at random. They encode astronomical information that points to a specific century, and the knowledge required to create them was not widely held. The investigation has, through Gaspani's work, moved from speculation about who may have visited the island to measurable, peer-reviewed evidence of when and with what level of sophistication. ### The Geometry of Nolan's Cross URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/evidence/real-or-not-the-geometry-of-nolan-s-cross Fred Nolan was a professional land surveyor based in Bedford, Nova Scotia. He first visited Oak Island in 1957 and spent the following years laying out a grid that covered the entire island, cutting sight lines through the brush for tens of thousands of yards at his own expense. He produced more than 104 maps. While the Triton Alliance consortium poured its resources into the Money Pit, Nolan was on his hands and knees across the western half of the island, cataloguing every stone, every carved feature, every marker he could find. He was trained to measure distances and testify in court about what he found. He was not the kind of man who saw patterns where none existed. It was during this work, in the early 1980s, that Nolan noticed geometric alignments forming along his transit lines. He investigated the intersection points and found cone-shaped boulders buried under soil and vegetation. One by one, he uncovered them, marked their positions, and measured the distances between them. During the 1960s, before the pattern had become apparent, he had moved one boulder (later designated Cone A) because it blocked a survey sightline. He did not yet know the cross existed. Both Nolan and Crooker later measured from the depression the stone had left in the ground rather than from the boulder itself. By 1981, the picture was clear: five large granite boulders, each weighing approximately ten tons, arranged in the shape of a cross. The formation measured 360 feet wide and 867 feet tall, oriented roughly northeast to southwest. A sixth stone, made of softer sandstone, was found buried at the midpoint between the arms. This central stone appeared to bear the features of a crude human head with what Nolan described as a carved face and sword image, traits that some researchers later associated with Templar tomb effigies. Nolan insisted that no boulders of similar size or shape existed elsewhere in the vicinity. [artifact:nolan-s-cross-6-boulders][artifact:head-stone-human-face-sword] The Feud Nolan did not reveal his discovery for more than a decade. In 1983, Triton Alliance launched a lawsuit challenging his ownership of seven lots in the centre of the island, and the cross sat on that disputed land. The legal fight was the peak of a rivalry between Nolan and Dan Blankenship that had been building since the late 1960s. Access roads were blocked and rebuilt. Nolan chained off the island's only road where it crossed his property, cutting Triton off from the Money Pit by ground. Blankenship approached Nolan with a rifle. Police confiscated the weapon. Nolan was forced to reach his own land by boat, spending eighty thousand dollars to build a dock because the causeway was closed to him. The trial came in December 1985. Justice A. M. MacIntosh upheld Nolan's ownership. Triton appealed. Nolan cross-filed. In April 1987, the appeal court ruled in Nolan's favour again. By then he had spent seventy-five thousand dollars on lawyers and estimated his losses from the damage to his survey business at more than a quarter of a million dollars. Triton had publicly portrayed him as a kook, and the companies that once hired him as an expert witness stopped calling. With the court case settled, Nolan had fellow Nova Scotia surveyor William Crooker verify his measurements independently. Crooker confirmed them. In 1992, Crooker published the details in a book titled Oak Island Gold, and reporter Steve Proctor covered the story in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald. When author William Finn asked Nolan why he had waited so long, Nolan answered with surprising candour: he had been afraid that if something happened to him, the discovery would be lost forever. The implication, as both Finn and author Randall Sullivan noted, was that Nolan feared Blankenship might make something happen. The feud meant that for years after the cross was announced, it was treated as Nolan's private obsession rather than an archaeological feature worth investigating. Because it belonged to Nolan, it was dismissed by the Blankenship and Triton camp. The Lagina brothers brokered a fragile peace in Season 3 of The Curse of Oak Island. Nolan, then 87 years old, brought his maps to the War Room for the first time. He died in 2016. His son Tom joined the team the following season, and the cross finally became accessible to researchers who had been locked out for decades. The Case Against The skeptic's position deserves to be stated clearly, because it is not unreasonable. Oak Island is a drumlin, a mound of compacted glacial debris shaped by ice sheets that retreated roughly ten thousand years ago. Boulders of various sizes are found across its surface. Given enough points on any terrain, the human eye will find patterns. Five stones on a small island can be connected to form a cross, a star, or a dozen other shapes depending on which lines you choose to draw. This is a well-documented cognitive tendency, not a conspiracy. As architect and researcher Brian Pharoah later pointed out, however, if connecting random boulders into geometric patterns were truly that easy, someone should have found other shapes on the island: squares, triangles, pentagrams. In more than two centuries of searching, no one has. Only this one formation. A geologist at the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History, consulted by Finn in the early 1990s, stated that the boulders had most probably been deposited by glaciers. He acknowledged he had not carried out a detailed study of the formation or the surrounding area. Even Finn himself, walking the site in April 1993 alongside a British television crew, admitted that despite the precision of the arrangement, nature might still have been responsible. For forty years after its discovery, the formation had no parallel anywhere on earth. Five megaliths arranged in a cross pattern, with those specific proportions, at that scale, had been documented in exactly one place. Without a second example, the formation could always be treated as a statistical anomaly, a one-off arrangement of glacial stones that happened to look meaningful to a surveyor who spent years staring at his own property. That is the case against. It rests on three pillars: glacial geology, pattern recognition bias, and the absence of a precedent. Each of these has since been challenged. [article:the-natural-formation-theory] The Surface Evidence Halifax geologist Petra Mudie examined the site twice, and her conclusion was the opposite of the museum geologist's assessment. The boulders were not seated in glacial till, the compacted mix of clay and gravel that glaciers leave behind when they deposit stones. They sat on the surface in positions that, in Mudie's professional opinion, were not consistent with glacial deposition. Their cone shapes were unusually uniform for a collection of erratics. In 2016, the producers of The Curse of Oak Island brought two stonemasons to the island to examine the boulders. The stonemasons were unable to say whether the central sandstone (the headstone) had been carved, because it was too weatherworn. But when they examined the cone stones forming the arms and body of the cross, both agreed that the smoothness of the undersides was not natural. In their assessment, the stones had been dragged a considerable distance. Smooth undersides are consistent with boulders that have been transported across ground. They are not consistent with stones that were deposited in place by melting ice. Nolan himself had noted during his surveys that no boulders of comparable size or shape existed elsewhere on the island. If the five stones were glacial, they were the only ones of their kind on a drumlin covered in glacial debris, which would itself be an unusual concentration requiring explanation. What Lies Beneath Surface boulders, however precisely arranged, can always be argued away. What cannot be argued away is what was found underneath them and, more critically, what was found buried at positions that no one knew to look at until geometry predicted they should be there. Nolan later moved the boulder at the southern arm (Cone B) to explore what lay beneath it. He and a co-worker found a layer of small beach stones and pieces of a ship's pot-belly stove. He could not explain how either came to be there. Pharoah later observed that the small beach stones would have been ideal material for leveling and accurately placing a boulder of that size, a practical engineering detail rather than a geological accident. Nature does not usually place smaller stones under larger ones in that configuration. William Crooker independently confirmed the stove find in his book Oak Island Gold, having verified the account with one of the workers who was present at the time. The stove pieces and cutlery have since been lost, and their current whereabouts are unknown, but their presence beneath a supposedly glacial erratic is not addressed by the coincidence theory. Glaciers do not deposit stove parts under ten-ton boulders, and they do not arrange leveling stones beneath them. The more decisive evidence came in May 2003, when Norwegian researcher Petter Amundsen visited Oak Island. Amundsen had projected the Kabbalistic Tree of Life onto Nolan's Cross and calculated that the distances between the cone boulders corresponded to the distances between specific Sephirots. If his geometric model was correct, additional stones should exist at two positions that were not visible on the surface: the Kingdom point (Malkuth) and the Victory point (Netzach). Amundsen dug at the Kingdom position and found a large flat stone buried just below the surface. He found another at the Victory position. Dan Blankenship subsequently reburied the Kingdom Stone to conceal it from Fred Nolan. When Amundsen returned in Season 1, Episode 4 of The Curse of Oak Island, he guided the Lagina brothers to the general area but inadvertently selected the wrong stone to unearth. [article:william-shakespeare-the-lost-works] The buried stones are the turning point in the argument. A skeptic can attribute five surface boulders to glacial coincidence. A skeptic cannot attribute buried stones, invisible from the surface, found at positions predicted by a geometric projection, to the same coincidence. Whatever one makes of the Tree of Life as an interpretive framework, the stones were where Amundsen calculated they would be. Someone placed them there, and that someone understood the geometry of the formation well enough to embed secondary markers underground. [artifact:kingdom-stone-malkuth] The Numbers Brian Pharoah is an architect by profession, trained in the same disciplines of measurement, proportion, and spatial design that produced the buildings he would later compare to the formation. He approached Nolan's Cross not as a symbol but as a problem in applied geometry, and he began with the measurements themselves. Nolan's original dimensions placed the long axis at 867 feet and the short axis at 720 feet, with internal segments of 145, 293, and 429 feet. Pharoah proposed slight adjustments: 144 for 145, 288 for 293, 432 for 429, reducing the long axis from 867 to 864 feet. The short axis at 720 feet remained unchanged. His reasoning was practical. The boulders are six feet wide or more. There is no fixed measuring point on top of a cone-shaped granite boulder, no X marking the spot. Nolan and Crooker were measuring to slightly different positions on six-foot-wide stones, and centuries of freeze-thaw cycles may have shifted the boulders fractionally from their original placement. Even Nolan himself stated there was some latitude in his measurements. Pharoah's adjusted figures still land squarely on top of each boulder. They do not move the stones. They move the measuring point by inches on a surface that spans feet. With those adjustments, a set of numbers appeared: 144, 288, 360, 432, 720, and 864. Pharoah demonstrated that these same figures occur in the construction measurements of Chartres Cathedral, Rosslyn Chapel, and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The numbers are not arbitrary. They belong to a system of proportional geometry that medieval builders used to encode astronomical and theological information into the fabric of their buildings. The number 144 is 12 squared. 288 is twice 144. 432 is three times 144. 720 is five times 144. 864 is six times 144. The proportional relationships are internally consistent and they repeat across structures separated by thousands of miles and several centuries. Pharoah also noted a specific alignment within the formation that the raw dimensions alone do not reveal. Cones D and E, the two boulders forming the lower portion of the cross, sit on matching latitude bearings at North 44 degrees 30 minutes. They are separated by exactly 288 feet on a 60-degree bearing from north. Two conical boulders of matching size and shape, 288 feet apart, on an exact bearing alignment. The 60-degree bearing corresponds to the direction of sunrise on the spring equinox. Pharoah concluded that the cross functions as an astronomical calendar aligned with the equinoxes and solstices, with the constellation Cygnus and its Northern Cross asterism playing a central role in the design. He presented his findings in a War Room segment during Season 10, Episode 13 ("All's Well"). Steve Guptill recalculated using Pharoah's method with the team's own boulder positions and arrived at a spot a few feet north of the Garden Shaft. Pharoah's work does not prove who built the formation or when. It establishes that whoever designed it was working within a tradition of proportional geometry that was in active use among European builders during the medieval period. If the formation is glacial, the glaciers replicated the construction ratios of Chartres Cathedral by chance, placed two matching boulders on an exact compass bearing 288 feet apart, and aligned the long axis with the winter solstice sunset. [article:the-oak-island-star-map] The Sightlines If Pharoah showed what the numbers encode, researcher Christopher Morford demonstrated what the formation points at. Morford, a Freemason and co-author of The Jerusalem Files, presented his theory in a War Room segment during Season 11 of The Curse of Oak Island. He had been studying the relationship between the cone boulders and a set of drilled stones found at various locations on the island. Morford demonstrated that two of the cone-shaped boulders align precisely with two drilled stones, and that the resulting sightline runs directly to the Money Pit area. The first boulder in the sequence, Cone C, sits on the beach where it would have been visible to an incoming ship. A rock with a drilled hole lies between Cone C and Cone A at the top of the formation. A second drilled rock lies in a direct line beyond Cone A. Rick Lagina reminded the group that a third drilled stone had been found in the Money Pit area in 1895 but was subsequently moved from its original position. Surveyor Steve Guptill walked the line in the field and confirmed the geometry. Four lines measured from Nolan's Cross, Morford argued, converge on the Garden Shaft. [artifact:garden-shaft] The formation, in Morford's reading, is not a monument. It is a surveying instrument. The same structure that Adriano Gaspani dated to approximately 1200 AD using archaeoastronomical methods appears to have been engineered as a ground-level navigation system directing anyone who understood it to a precise underground location. Pharoah's celestial geometry and Morford's terrestrial sightlines are consistent with a single construction by builders who understood both astronomy and practical surveying. The Precedent The third pillar of the skeptic's case was the absence of a parallel. For four decades, that pillar held. It no longer does. At Temple Beeld, on a hilltop in the North York Moors between Danby and Lealholm in Yorkshire, England, five megalithic stones stand in a formation that mirrors the Oak Island boulders. The name carries historical weight: "Temple" denotes land once held by the Knights Templar, and "Beeld" is an old English word for shelter. The property was held by Templar knight William de Villiers. The arm angles of the Temple Beeld formation measure approximately 60 and 150 degrees from the vertical axis. The central stone is offset from the geometric centre of the cross, exactly as on Oak Island. Later walls were built between the stones to shelter sheep, using the megaliths as anchoring points. The builders of those walls were careful not to damage the standing stones. The walls appear to be a few hundred years old. The megaliths are estimated to be at least fifteen hundred years old. Two formations on opposite sides of the Atlantic. Same number of stones. Same angular geometry. Same off-centre placement of the central stone. One stands on confirmed Templar property in England. The existence of Temple Beeld does not prove that the same builders were responsible for both formations. It proves that Nolan's Cross is not unique, and that the argument from coincidence must now account for two coincidences rather than one. [article:before-nolan-s-cross-temple-beeld-cross] The Fifth Stone Every reading of the formation, whether as a cross, a calendar, or a survey instrument, encounters the same unresolved problem. A Latin cross has four endpoints. A Greek cross has four endpoints. Every variation of a cross requires four stones to define its shape. The formation on Oak Island has five cone-shaped boulders. Cone D, positioned roughly one-third of the way up from the base of the vertical axis, has no geometric function within any standard cruciform interpretation. It is present. It is part of the formation. No researcher has satisfactorily explained why it is there. Fred Nolan spent the last decades of his life convinced that an undertaking of extraordinary proportions had taken place on Oak Island, carried out by people with knowledge of engineering, mathematics, and symbolism. He died in 2016 without resolving the mystery of the formation that bears his name. Even Dan Blankenship, who had scoffed at the cross when it was first announced, eventually added it to his own survey grid in red highlights. When Randall Sullivan interviewed him in 2003, Blankenship acknowledged the formation with a qualifier: his problems with Fred were well known, but the cross was real. The case against rested on glacial geology, pattern recognition, and the absence of a precedent. Petra Mudie's examinations undermined the first. The buried stones at predicted positions undermined the second. Temple Beeld undermined the third. What remains is a formation of at least seven stones, some visible and some hidden, encoding proportions found in medieval cathedrals, forming sightlines that converge on the Money Pit, with a geometric twin on Templar land in England. The formation was designed. The question is not whether it is real. The question is what it represents, and why the builders used five stones when four would have been enough. ### Oak Island Flood Tunnels and Box Drains: The Water Trap URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/evidence/oak-island-flood-tunnels-and-box-drains-the-water-trap The Flooding Every expedition that has dug into the Money Pit has encountered the same problem. At roughly 90 to 100 feet, seawater pours in. The water level rises and falls with the tide, proving it is connected to the ocean. Pumps that can handle hundreds of gallons per minute fail to keep up. In 1938, engineer Edwin Hamilton measured water entering the Hedden shaft at approximately 800 gallons per minute. No one has managed to stop it in over 230 years. The standard explanation, repeated in nearly every account since the 1850s, is that this flooding is deliberate: that whoever built the Money Pit also engineered tunnels and drains to channel the Atlantic into any shaft that reaches a certain depth, creating an impenetrable watery booby trap. The physical evidence behind this claim is spread across Smith's Cove, the south shore, and the Money Pit itself. Some of it is solid. Some of it is inference. Some of it has never been verified at all. The Artificial Beach at Smith's Cove In 1850, the Truro Company began investigating the source of the flooding. Workers had observed that seawater in the Money Pit rose and fell with the tide, ruling out an underground spring. At Smith's Cove, on the island's eastern shore, they noticed water trickling from the beach at low tide in a way that did not match normal drainage. They began digging. Three feet below the surface, the crew found a layer of brown fibrous material roughly two inches thick. Below it lay a thicker layer of decayed eelgrass. Tons of this material were pulled away and stacked along the shore. Beneath the fibre and eelgrass sat a compact bed of beach rocks, free of sand and clay, stretching approximately 145 feet along the shoreline between the high and low tide marks. The original clay of the beach had been removed to a depth of five feet and replaced with this layered construction. The Truro Company interpreted this as a filtration system: a permeable barrier allowing seawater to pass through while preventing sediment from clogging whatever lay beneath. That interpretation is reasonable, though it is worth noting that similar layered constructions occur in historical wharf and shoreline engineering for purposes other than flood systems. The fibre was submitted to the Smithsonian Institution in 1916. Scientists there identified it as coconut husk fibre, noting it was "especially resistant to the effects of seawater" and could have been in place "for several hundred years." A 1937 analysis by the Bureau of Plant Industry confirmed this finding. However, a scientist at the Botanical Museum of Harvard University reported that same year that a sample submitted to him was "readily distinguishable as manilla hemp." No subsequent test has resolved this disagreement, though the Smithsonian identification is the one most widely cited. In 2014, carbon dating of coconut fibre recovered from Smith's Cove by the Lagina team returned a date range of 1260 to 1400 AD. [artifact:coconut-fibre-smith-s-cove] The artificial beach is one of the few elements of the alleged flood system that rests on direct physical observation confirmed by laboratory analysis. Multiple work crews across different eras saw it, removed material from it, and had that material tested. Whether it served as the intake for a flood tunnel or had some other function is a separate question. [map:smiths-cove] The Five Box Drains Beneath the beach rocks, the Truro Company found five drains, each approximately eight inches wide, constructed from flat stones laid along the sides and across the top to form enclosed channels. The five drains fanned out from the edge of the high-water mark in a pattern described by every early chronicler as resembling the fingers of an open hand. Running back from the ocean and dropping deeper as they approached the shoreline, they converged on a single, larger drain just above the high-water mark. An 1864 article in the Halifax Colonist, drawing on contemporary accounts, described the main drain in detail. The stones had been prepared with a hammer and laid so that the drain could not collapse. Multiple tiers of stones reinforced the upper section. A coating of eelgrass covered the top, followed by a layer of blue sand not found elsewhere on the island, and then the natural gravel of the coast. When the Truro men exposed a section of the main drain, they found it so well constructed that no earth had penetrated the arch. Schematic of the 5 converging box drains in Smiths Cove, Oak Island. The box drains are the second element of the alleged flood system supported by direct observation. Like the artificial beach, they were seen and described by multiple people across multiple expeditions. Their construction was clearly deliberate and skilled. What the Truro Company could not determine, and what no one has determined since, is where the main drain leads. The crew attempted to follow it inland but found the soil too waterlogged to continue. A storm then destroyed their cofferdam and reburied the drains in sand. The Truro Company concluded that the drains fed a tunnel running to the Money Pit, roughly 500 feet to the west. That conclusion was logical given the observed flooding, but it was an assumption. No one from the Truro Company traced a continuous passage from the drains to the Pit. [artifact:box-drains-fan-shaped] The Search for the Tunnel If a tunnel connected Smith's Cove to the Money Pit, blocking it should stop the flooding. Multiple expeditions tried. None succeeded, and the evidence they produced for the tunnel's existence is less clear-cut than popular accounts suggest. The Truro Company sank a shaft 140 feet from the Money Pit, on a line between the drains and the Pit, expecting to hit the tunnel at roughly 25 feet. They reached 75 feet without finding it. They moved 12 feet south and dug to 35 feet before hitting a boulder. As they pried it loose, saltwater rushed in, filling the shaft to tide level within minutes. This proved a water connection existed at that point, but not that it followed a single engineered passage. In 1862, the Oak Island Association dug Shaft 8 near Smith's Cove specifically to intercept the tunnel, reaching 50 feet without finding one. They dug lateral tunnels in several directions. No tunnel was located. They then packed the box drains at Smith's Cove with clay and observed that the Money Pit water became muddy, which they took as proof of a connection. The water flow slowed but never stopped. The Halifax Company, operating from 1866 to 1867, sank Shaft 10 roughly 200 feet southeast of the Money Pit and dug lateral tunnels from 110 feet. According to the company's records, one tunnel reached what was described as the entrance of the flood tunnel: a passage four feet high, two and a half feet wide, filled with round stones, and set on an upward angle of 22.5 degrees toward the ocean. This remains the most detailed description of the alleged flood tunnel in the historical record. It has not been independently verified, and no modern excavation has confirmed it. It is also worth noting what Amos Nauss, who worked on the island for Professor Hamilton in the late 1930s and early 1940s, told investigators: "When we were down there, there was always saltwater coming in. But we could not find where it was coming from. We never saw the flood tunnels." The South Shore In 1898, Frederick Blair's Oak Island Treasure Company performed a test that changed the picture. The crew pumped Shaft 18 full of water well above tide level, expecting the overflow to appear at Smith's Cove. It did not. Muddy water emerged from three separate locations on the south shore of the island. To confirm the result, Blair and his partners pumped the Money Pit full of water above sea level and dropped red dye into it. The dye appeared in the bay on the south shore, not at Smith's Cove. In 1938, Professor Hamilton repeated the test, dropping dye into both the Hedden and Chappell shafts. His crew member Amos Nauss recalled taking a boat to the southeast side of the island, roughly a hundred yards offshore, where they could see the dye rising from the sea floor. The 1898 and 1938 dye tests are among the most significant pieces of evidence in the Oak Island story, because they establish a water connection that runs in a different direction from the one every previous searcher had assumed. For 48 years, from 1850 to 1898, every effort to stop the flooding had focused on Smith's Cove. Blair's test showed the water was also coming from the south. Whether it travels through an engineered tunnel, through natural channels in the bedrock, or through ground destabilised by two centuries of excavation has never been determined. Dan Blankenship reported physical observations that appeared consistent with a south shore connection. During the winters of 1979 and 1987, while overseeing pumping at the Money Pit, he reported seeing four large circular holes in the ice off the south shore, which he attributed to warm water rising from submerged openings. These observations have not been independently documented. The Modern Excavation at Smith's Cove In 2018 and 2019, the Lagina team constructed a 525-foot steel cofferdam around Smith's Cove and pumped it dry, exposing the largest area of the cove that had ever been investigated. The operation produced a series of discoveries that both confirmed and complicated the historical accounts. The U-shaped structure that Dan Blankenship had first encountered in the early 1970s was fully exposed. It proved to be a massive timber framework built from logs exceeding 24 inches in diameter, with Roman numeral carpenter's marks carved into the uprights. Dendrochronologist Dr. Colin Laroque at the University of Saskatchewan dated the wood to 1769 with what he described as 99.99 percent certainty, placing it 26 years before the discovery of the Money Pit. Inside the U-shaped structure, the team found a previously unknown wooden wall made of thick offset timbers, along with stacked rocks and blue clay. Archaeologist Laird Niven identified the construction as consistent with a French drain, a system that channels water through gravity and gravel rather than enclosed pipe. This was a different type of construction from the flat-stone box drains found in 1850, and its relationship to the box drains has not been established. A second timber formation, designated the L-shaped structure, was found parallel to the U-shaped structure. A slipway, apparently designed for hauling heavy loads, was also uncovered. Beneath the seabed, the team discovered a concrete wall roughly five inches thick with rubber tubes running through it, entirely unrecorded in any previous documentation. The wall's age and purpose remain undetermined. The team searched for the convergence point where the five box drains were believed to meet the main flood tunnel. Trenches were cut and the area was excavated, but no additional box drains beyond the single one identified earlier in the season were found. The convergence point was not located. [artifact:u-shaped-wooden-structure] The 2019 Dye Test During Season 6, the Lagina team conducted their own dye test. Red dye was mixed with up to half a million gallons of seawater and pumped into Borehole C-1 in the Money Pit area. Gary Drayton spotted red-coloured water seeping from the ground at Smith's Cove. Water samples were tested at the Oak Island Research Centre using a fluorometer capable of detecting dye at concentrations as small as one part per trillion. A reading above 1.0 would confirm the presence of dye. The Smith's Cove sample registered 11.98. The test confirmed a water connection between the Money Pit area and Smith's Cove, as the 1898 and 1938 tests had confirmed a connection to the south shore. It did not prove the existence of a continuous engineered tunnel. Water can travel through fractured bedrock, disturbed ground from two centuries of excavation, or natural solution channels in the island's anhydrite and gypsum geology without requiring a purpose-built passage. Natural Flooding The assumption that the flooding is entirely the result of deliberate engineering has been challenged. The eastern drumlin of Oak Island sits on a geology of anhydrite and gypsum, materials that dissolve in water and form natural solution channels and cavities over time. More than two centuries of digging, from the original shaft through dozens of searcher tunnels, shafts, and boreholes, have thoroughly disturbed the ground between the Money Pit and the surrounding shoreline. Author Joy A. Steele and researcher Les MacPhie have argued that much of the flooding can be explained by natural water infiltration through this fractured and destabilised terrain, without requiring an engineered tunnel from Smith's Cove or anywhere else. Season 13 of the show has focused heavily on the solution channel, a natural geological feature in the bedrock beneath the Money Pit area where the team believes treasure may have settled after the original shaft collapsed. The solution channel itself is not an engineered structure. It is a product of the island's geology. If natural channels can carry water, dissolved minerals, and even physical objects through the bedrock, the question of whether a separate man-made tunnel was needed to flood the Money Pit becomes less clear. A Terminology Guide The terms used to describe Oak Island's water features have shifted over 175 years of accounts, and different writers use them in different ways. For clarity: Box drains (also called finger drains): The five stone channels discovered at Smith's Cove in 1850. Constructed from flat stones forming an enclosed rectangular passage roughly eight inches wide. These are physical objects that were directly observed. Flood tunnel: The alleged main conduit running from Smith's Cove to the Money Pit, into which the box drains supposedly feed. Described by the Halifax Company in 1867 as four feet high, two and a half feet wide, filled with round stones. Never fully traced as a continuous passage. South shore tunnel: The alleged conduit or conduits connecting the Money Pit to the island's south shore. Existence inferred from the 1898 and 1938 dye tests. Never physically observed. French drain: A drainage construction that uses gravity and gravel rather than enclosed pipe to move water. The term was applied by archaeologist Laird Niven to stacked rocks and blue clay found inside the U-shaped structure during the 2018-2019 excavation. A different type of construction from the box drains. Artificial beach (also called the filter bed or sponge): The layered construction of coconut fibre, eelgrass, and beach rocks found beneath the surface of Smith's Cove beach. Carbon-dated to 1260-1400 AD. Directly observed and scientifically tested. U-shaped structure: The massive timber framework at Smith's Cove, first found by Dan Blankenship in the early 1970s and fully exposed in 2018-2019. Dendro-dated to 1769. Contains the French drain system. Not a drain itself but the infrastructure around whatever was happening at Smith's Cove. Convergence point: The hypothetical location where the five box drains merge into the main flood tunnel. Sought by the Restall family and the Lagina team, among others. Never located. What Can Be Established The artificial beach at Smith's Cove existed. It was observed by multiple work crews, and the coconut fibre has been identified by the Smithsonian and carbon-dated to 1260 to 1400 AD. Five box drains made of flat stone, arranged in a fan shape, were found beneath the beach rocks by the Truro Company in 1850 and described in detail in an 1864 newspaper article. They converged into a larger stone drain heading inland. The U-shaped timber structure at Smith's Cove has been dendro-dated to 1769. Dye tests in 1898 and 1938 confirmed a water connection between the Money Pit and the south shore. A dye test in 2019 confirmed a water connection between the Money Pit area and Smith's Cove. What has not been established: the existence of a continuous, engineered tunnel from Smith's Cove to the Money Pit; the existence of a separate engineered tunnel from the south shore; the location of any gate, valve, or control mechanism within the alleged flood system; the convergence point of the box drains; and the identity, era, and purpose of whoever built the infrastructure at Smith's Cove. The box drains and the artificial beach are among the most compelling pieces of evidence that skilled, organised construction took place on Oak Island before 1795. The coconut fibre dates suggest this activity could have begun as early as the 13th or 14th century. The dendrochronology dates place the U-shaped structure in 1769. Whether these represent the same construction campaign, separated phases of work by the same builders, or entirely separate projects by different groups, the physical evidence alone cannot say. And whether the box drains ever fed a working flood tunnel, or whether the Money Pit floods for reasons that have more to do with geology and 230 years of digging than with deliberate engineering, is a question that remains open. ### Stone Triangle, the Oak Island Sextant URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/evidence/stone-triangle-the-oak-island-sextant In 1897, Captain John Welling arrived on Oak Island to assist treasure hunter Fred Blair with the latest round of excavations at the Money Pit. Welling and his partner William Chappell had invested in Blair's operation, and between drilling runs the three men explored the surface of the island for features that earlier searchers might have missed. On the south shore, just above the high-water mark, they found one. It was an equilateral triangle made of round beach stones, each roughly the size of a man's head, set into the grass on the bank above the waterline. Each side measured ten feet. Welling and Chappell interviewed earlier searchers who had worked on the island, and none of them had known the triangle was there. The triangle was not a simple three-sided shape. A medial line of identical beach stones ran from the base to the apex. This line did not connect to the midpoint of the base but to a point four feet from the west corner and six feet from the east corner. Below the base, a curved line of stones extended three feet outward and connected both corners, giving the entire formation the outline of a sextant. When the medial line was extended northward, it pointed at true north, directly toward the Pole Star. Extended further across the island, it ran to the immediate area of the Money Pit. [map:stone-triangle] Lost and Found After Welling's discovery, the triangle disappeared under vegetation. For forty years it sat buried in underbrush on the south shore while successive treasure hunters focused their attention underground. It was Fred Blair who remembered it. In June 1937, when New Jersey businessman Gilbert Hedden returned to Oak Island for his second summer of excavation, Blair's attorney R. V. Harris showed Hedden a recently published book titled Captain Kidd and His Skeleton Island by the English author Harold T. Wilkins. The book contained a map of an unnamed island that bore similarities to Oak Island: matching shoreline configurations, two hills separated by a lagoon, and an X positioned where the Money Pit would stand. The map carried a legend reading "W.K. 1669" and a handwritten list of distances and bearings. Hedden was fascinated. He began searching for surface markers that might correspond to the measurements on the Wilkins map. Blair then told him about two features discovered decades earlier: a white granite boulder approximately fifty feet north of the Money Pit with a hole 1.25 inches wide drilled through its centre, clearly by human hands, and the stone triangle Welling had found in 1897. On August 15, 1937, Hedden sent his crew to search. A workman named Amos Nauss was clearing underbrush with a hoe above the south shore when he struck one stone, then another, then another, all in a line. The rest of the crew helped Nauss clear the area, and the triangle emerged from the overgrowth exactly as Welling had described it forty years earlier. The Roper Survey Hedden examined the triangle and immediately noticed the sextant-like curved baseline and the medial line pointing north. He then followed the sightline from the triangle toward the drilled white granite boulder Blair had described, and beyond it he found a second granite boulder that had been drilled in exactly the same way, with its hole aligned with the hole in the first. The second stone sat near the shoreline at Smith's Cove. The holes in both boulders were two inches deep and 1.25 inches wide, and they were unquestionably man-made. Hedden hired a land surveyor from Halifax named Charles Roper, who was brought to the island by boat the following day, August 16, 1937. Roper's measurements established that the distance between the two drilled boulders was almost exactly 25 rods, approximately 415 feet. Using the distances listed on the Wilkins map, Hedden instructed Roper to find a point 18 rods east of the Smith's Cove boulder and 7 rods west of the boulder near the Money Pit. Roper did so and found himself standing next to the Cave-in Pit. Hedden then told Roper to lay a course from that point directly toward the south shore. At a distance of 30 rods, Roper struck the medial line of the stone triangle just below its east-west base. It was then that Roper made the connection that the medial line of the triangle pointed perfectly due north, directly at the Pole Star, and that when followed northward it led to the centre of the Money Pit. The sightlines of the drilled boulders ran through the medial line of the triangle and into the centre of the Money Pit. Three separate features, the triangle on the south shore, the drilled boulders spanning the width of the island, and the Cave-in Pit, all fell on connected lines that converged at one point. Hedden wrote to President Franklin Roosevelt on September 1, 1937, detailing his discoveries. He told Roosevelt he had reached several conclusions: that complicated engineering had been carried out on the island for some purpose a long time ago, probably as early as 1640; that the early legends of the discovery of the shaft, the tunnels, the fibre, and the inscribed stone could be substantiated; and that whoever designed the original works had placed the drilled stones and the triangle so the location of the Pit would never be lost to them. Roosevelt replied warmly, writing that Hedden's letter recalled the semi-serious efforts at Oak Island he himself had taken part in nearly thirty years earlier. [artifact:stone-triangle] Destroyed In 1965, American petroleum engineer Robert Dunfield leased the eastern end of Oak Island and brought in heavy earth-moving equipment for what became the most destructive excavation in the island's history. Dunfield's operation tore through the Money Pit area with a 70-ton digging crane, excavating a pit 140 feet deep and 100 feet wide before the walls collapsed. In the process, the surface archaeology of the eastern end of the island was obliterated. The stone triangle, which had survived undisturbed on the south shore for at least 68 years since Welling first found it, was destroyed. No detailed photographs of the original formation are known to exist. The triangle that stands on the island today is a reconstruction, placed at the approximate location of the original based on Roper's 1937 survey data and earlier descriptions. The sextant curve, the medial line, the precise placement of each stone are gone. Who Built It Three candidates have been proposed. The first is the original depositors, whoever engineered the Money Pit and its flood tunnel system. In this reading, the triangle was part of the same surveying infrastructure as the drilled boulders: a system of surface markers designed to allow the builders to relocate the shaft from the south shore after they had sealed it. The sextant shape and the true-north alignment of the medial line suggest builders with knowledge of celestial navigation and surveying. The fact that none of the earlier searchers interviewed by Welling in 1897 knew of its existence argues against it being the work of any 19th-century search party. The second candidate is one of the early excavation companies. The Onslow Company (1804) or the Truro Company (1849) might have placed a marker to help them relocate the Pit on return visits. This would explain the triangle's location above the high-water mark, visible from a boat approaching the south shore. It would not explain the true-north medial line, the sextant curve, or the connection to the drilled boulders, which predate any known search company. Hedden himself believed the triangle was the work of the original builders, not later searchers. The third candidate is Charles Morris, the Freemason and provincial surveyor who first surveyed Mahone Bay in 1762. Morris was responsible for the official survey that divided Oak Island into 32 four-acre lots. He had the skills and the reason to leave survey markers, and the equilateral triangle is a geometric form with deep significance in Masonic tradition. Fred Blair and Gilbert Hedden, both Freemasons themselves, would have been aware of this connection. Whether Morris would have constructed a sextant-shaped formation with astronomical alignments to mark a routine land survey is a separate question. [article:freemasons-on-oak-island-the-masonic-connection] The Dating For more than a century, the triangle's age was a matter of speculation. That changed during Season 11 of The Curse of Oak Island. Rick Lagina asked archaeoastronomer Professor Adriano Gaspani to analyse the Stone Triangle using the same methodology Gaspani had applied to Nolan's Cross and the Lot 15 stone cairns. Gaspani had previously dated Nolan's Cross to approximately 1200 AD and the Lot 15 cairns to approximately 1250 AD by calculating which stellar positions the formations would have aligned with at the time of their construction. In his analysis of the Stone Triangle, presented in Season 11, Episode 17 ("Piling On"), Gaspani identified two astronomical lines encoded in the formation. They corresponded to sunrise and sunset at the winter solstice. His conclusion was unequivocal: between 1200 and 1300 AD, people arriving from Europe had encoded messages by arranging stones in astronomically significant patterns. The knowledge required to do this belonged to monastic, religious, and knightly orders rather than common people. He identified the Templars as the most likely builders of Nolan's Cross, the Stone Triangle, and the stone cairns. Three stone formations on a single small island. Three independent analyses by the same archaeoastronomer. All three dated to the same century. All three encoding astronomical information that required sustained observation and precise placement. The Stone Triangle, Nolan's Cross, and the Lot 15 cairns appear to be the work of the same builders, operating on Oak Island during the 1200s, roughly six hundred years before Daniel McGinnis found the depression in the ground that started the modern treasure hunt. [article:the-oak-island-star-map] The Mallon Triangle The Welling triangle was not the only triangular formation reported on the south shore. In 1972, a man named P. J. Mallon from Northern Ireland discovered three medium-sized stones arranged in a triangular pattern approximately 480 feet southeast of the Money Pit. The sides measured ten feet by ten feet by nine and a half feet. Mallon told author Rupert Furneaux, who published the account in The Money Pit Mystery, that the stones were covered in moss and difficult to see, and that he had been specifically looking for such a formation. Mallon's theory was based on ancient Irish land drainage systems, in which stone triangles or stone arrows were used to mark gates in the drains. He proposed the triangles on Oak Island functioned as pointers rather than symbols. The Mallon Triangle no longer exists, and no archaeological survey of it was conducted before it disappeared. A rare photograph of the formation, taken around 1974, is the only record that it was ever there. What survives of the original Stone Triangle is Roper's survey data, Hedden's letter to Roosevelt, the descriptions in Blair's correspondence, and Gaspani's astronomical analysis. The physical formation itself, the round beach stones Amos Nauss struck with his hoe on a summer afternoon in 1937, the sextant curve that gave the whole thing the look of a navigational instrument, the medial line pointing true north to the Pole Star and south to the Money Pit, all of it was scraped away in 1965 by a man with a crane who was looking for treasure and found nothing. What he destroyed may have been the clearest piece of evidence the original builders left on the surface of the island. ### Goose Paw, the Traveling Symbol of Oak Island URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/evidence/goose-paw-the-traveling-symbol-of-oak-island In the heart of Jerusalem's Christian Quarter, at the end of a narrow lane that passes the Mosque of Omar and opens onto a small stone courtyard, stands the entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. For almost two thousand years, Christian pilgrims from across Europe and the Middle East have made this their destination: the place where, according to tradition, Jesus of Nazareth was crucified, buried, and raised from the dead. It is, by the reckoning of medieval Christendom, the centre of the world. Crusaders died for it. Kings built their tombs beside it. The military orders that shaped the medieval world were founded to protect those who came to stand before it. The entrance is two doors set side by side in a Crusader-era facade, topped by ornate carved arches. The left door stands open. The right has been sealed since 1187, when Saladin retook the city and walled it shut. For a century after the Crusaders first took Jerusalem, both doors carried marble lintels, installed for the church's re-consecration in 1149 and carved with scenes from the life of Christ. The ceremony took place fifty years to the day after the Crusaders took Jerusalem, in the presence of the two orders whose entire existence was organized around this building. The Knights Templar, founded in Jerusalem around 1119, had their original quarters on Temple Mount a short walk away. The Knights Hospitaller, founded earlier still to care for sick pilgrims, maintained their headquarters in the Muristan, directly adjacent to the Holy Sepulchre itself. Both orders had been present in Jerusalem for decades before the lintels went up, intimately familiar with the church, its ritual, and its iconography. Those lintels were removed in the 1930s after earthquake damage and are now in the Rockefeller Museum a short walk from Herod's Gate, where they remain to this day. What their removal exposed has received almost no attention. In the flat stone of the tympanum above each door, carved directly into the limestone that had been hidden behind the marble for eight hundred years, are three-pronged marks. Three above the left portal. Five above the right. One account of the current facade describes them as hooks that once held the lintels in place. But they carry no rebates, no dowel holes, no Lewis cuts. They bear none of the structural characteristics of Crusader-era stone fixings. What they carry is a specific form: three lines radiating from a single point, each group angled outward in a shape that has carried a specific meaning in medieval pilgrimage culture since the time the church itself was built. The right portal, the sealed one, led directly to Golgotha and the Chapel of Adam. Medieval theology placed Adam's burial at the foot of the cross, directly beneath the site of the crucifixion, and the chapel that marks this spot lies behind the door that has not opened since the 12th century. The four kings who ruled Jerusalem before the 1149 re-consecration, Godfrey of Bouillon, Baldwin I, Baldwin II, and Fulk of Anjou, were buried in the same area, around the chapel. The last of them, Fulk, died in 1143, six years before the lintels went up and the marks passed out of sight. The carvings appear consistent in age with the 1140s construction of the facade itself, placed there in the same decade the fourth king was laid to rest below. Five marks above the sealed door: four rulers and Adam. Three above the open door. The five face downward. The three face up. What are these symbols? And how did they come to be carved into the most sacred doorway in Christendom? The double entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, with its 8 carved Goose Paws The Mark That Ends the Journey The symbol is called the goose paw, patte d'oie in French, and it is one of the most widely traveled marks in medieval European culture. Three lines from a single point: sometimes drawn with one central line extending upward, longer than the two flanking arms, sometimes as a tripod of equal strokes, often anchored at the base with a short horizontal heel. In either form the image is immediately recognizable once you know to look for it, and once you know what it means, it appears in places that begin to form a pattern. In medieval Europe, the goose was not merely a farmyard bird. It was a creature associated with vigilance, with wisdom, and with the capacity to navigate across great distances. Adrian Seville, in his study of the Game of the Goose, identifies the goose in medieval symbolic culture as an emblem of favourable spiritual guidance, a creature that could lead the soul as surely as it could orient itself across open water. Juan G. Atienza, in El Camino de Santiago: La ruta sagrada, traces these associations through the pilgrimage culture of northern Spain, where the great network of routes converging on the shrine of Saint James in Galicia had long been called the Way of the Goose. These were qualities that made the animal a natural emblem for any institution whose purpose depended on long-range movement, on keeping routes open, and on bringing things and people safely from one end of the world to the other. The Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller, the two orders most closely associated with the Holy Sepulchre, were both thoroughly familiar with the symbol and its meanings. It appears on their properties, in their churches, and carved into the walls of the prisons where their members were held after the suppression of 1307. Along the Camino routes, spanning thousands of kilometers from the ports of southern France through the Pyrenees and across northern Spain, carved geese, goose feet, and Y-shaped branch symbols appear on church walls, bridge abutments, and hostel doorways. Their function was specific and documented: the goose paw marked the end of a journey. A pilgrim who had walked for months through dust and mountain passes and river crossings, who arrived finally at a sanctuary, would find the three-pronged mark carved at the entrance. It said: you have arrived. The journey is complete. [article:the-knights-templar][article:the-knights-hospitaller] The Builders Who Carried the Mark Across the Basque country and southwestern France, one group became so closely identified with the goose paw that they were required by law to wear it. The Cagots were a persecuted social minority documented in Gascony, Béarn, Navarre, and the Basque provinces from at least the 13th century onward. Their origins remain disputed. They were not a religious minority; most were Christian. They were not ethnically identifiable in any way that contemporaries could articulate. But they were systematically excluded from every dimension of normal civic life: banned from most trades, forced to live at the edges of villages, barred from entering churches through the main door, required to use separate holy water stoups. Benoît Cursente, in Les cagots, histoire d'une ségrégation, documents that in many regions they were legally required to wear a distinctive mark on their clothing in the form of a goose or duck foot, the pied d'oie, a requirement attested from the early 15th century in Toulouse and enforced intermittently across Gascony and Navarre through the mid-17th century. Gérard de Sède, in Le mystère gothique: Des runes aux cathédrales, places the Cagots within the wider tradition of Gothic builder guilds, tracing the goose foot mark through the stonework traditions of southwestern France into the fabric of the great pilgrimage churches themselves. The paradox is this: the Cagots were also the master builders of the Camino. They were permitted, and in many regions exclusively employed, in carpentry and stonework. The churches, hospices, and bridges of the pilgrimage infrastructure across southwestern France and northern Spain were built by Cagot hands. They were required to mark the buildings they constructed with the same symbol they wore on their clothes, the goose paw, distinguishing their labor from that of recognized guilds. The mark of shame was also the mark of mastery. Across the most sacred pilgrimage routes in the Christian world, the symbol that told a pilgrim the journey was over was carved there by the people most excluded from that journey's reward. The Templar Network At Tomar in Portugal, the Convento de Cristo served first as the headquarters of the Knights Templar in Portugal and, after the order's suppression in 1307, as the seat of its successor institution, the Order of Christ. The Order of Christ is not a peripheral figure in Atlantic history. It was the institution that funded, organized, and drove Portuguese expansion along the African coast, into the Azores, and across the Atlantic. The ships that sailed under Henry the Navigator, Bartolomeu Dias, and Vasco da Gama carried the red cross of the Order of Christ on their sails. The administrative center of that institution, the Convento de Cristo at Tomar, contains a goose paw carving, documented by researcher Freddy Silva in First Templar Nation, alongside a local legend of three spears, the tripartite form recurring in the same Templar context. [article:portuguese-connection-order-of-christ][site:convento-de-cristo] At Camerano in the Marche region of central Italy, a network of underground caves contains carvings and ritual material associated with Templar activity from the 12th century onward. The complex is one of the most significant underground sites in the Italian peninsula connected to the military orders: multi-level, with altars, crypts, and carved niches extending some twenty meters below the streets of the town. Deep within the complex, a plaster mould taken from a sculpted segment of an old altar carries a goose paw formed not from three abstract lines but from the three nails of the crucifixion, arranged in the tripod configuration. The three nails as a Passion symbol have a documented theological history stretching back to the 13th century, rooted in the Triclavian tradition that held three nails, rather than four, were used in the crucifixion, and associated that number with the Trinity. They appear in medieval ecclesiastical heraldry across Europe. The Society of Jesus, founded in 1540, incorporated them below the cross in its IHS monogram, the most widely recognized institutional use of the symbol in the post-medieval world. But the Jesuits inherited an existing theological symbol. The Camerano carving sits in a pre-Jesuit, Templar-associated context, in a cave complex in use for religious purposes centuries before the Society was founded. Whoever made it understood both the goose paw and the three nails well enough to render one through the other: the navigation symbol built from the instruments of the passion. [site:camerano-caves] Jerusalem. Tomar. Camerano. The symbol appears at the most sacred Christian site in the world, at the institutional headquarters of the order that drove Atlantic exploration, and in a known Templar underground complex. In each case it appears in a context of specific ritual or logistical significance. The Atlantic Coast In Liverpool, Nova Scotia, on a large flat rock surface known locally as the wharf stone, a natural formation that served as a quay for the sheltered harbor at Brooklyn, someone carved a three-pronged mark into the stone. The wharf stone sits at the water's edge of a natural harbor roughly 55 kilometers from Oak Island. Its function as working harbor infrastructure, a surface where boats landed and cargo moved, is established by local record. The form of the carving is consistent with the goose paw family: three lines meeting at a point, worked directly into a flat rock surface with no accompanying inscription, no date, no context that surviving records explain. No secure dating has been established for the carving, and no published research has previously placed it in the context of the medieval pilgrimage symbol documented across the Templar network from Jerusalem to Portugal. [artifact:goose-paw-symbol-brooklyn-ns] The tripod form has been compared to the British broad arrow, the three-hatchet-strike mark used under the Broad Arrow Policy from 1721 to reserve mast timber for the Royal Navy. That policy did apply to Nova Scotia. However, three distinct objections rule out that identification. First, the broad arrow in its timber policy context was applied exclusively to standing trees, blazed into bark: it was never applied to rock surfaces. Second, the only documented instances of the broad arrow cut into stone are Ordnance Survey benchmarks, which always carry a horizontal datum line above the arrow, forming a composite symbol entirely different from a plain tripod. The wharf stone carving has no such bar. Third, Ordnance Survey benchmarking was never conducted on the Nova Scotia coastline: it was a British domestic and garrison territories program that did not extend to the province. The broad arrow explanation fails on substrate, on form, and on geography simultaneously. Context reinforces this. The wharf stone does not carry the tripod mark in isolation. Directly alongside it are a Globus Cruciger, a cut circle, a fish symbol, and a double fish-tail with a cross in a circle. The Globus Cruciger, a cross mounted on an orb, has been a symbol of Christian sovereignty since the late Roman Empire. It appears on medieval coinage, royal regalia, and ecclesiastical carvings across Europe, but never in British military surveying or timber administration. A mark carved in the company of a Globus Cruciger on a working harbor quay is not a survey datum or a timber reservation. It is something else. Whether the wharf stone at Brooklyn represents the only place on the Nova Scotia coastline where this mark was left is a question that no systematic survey has yet answered. [artifact:brooklyn-symbols] The Azores The island of Terceira lies in the central group of the Azores, roughly 1,500 kilometers west of Lisbon in the open Atlantic. It was settled under the direct authority of the Order of Christ, the Portuguese successor institution to the Knights Templar, in the first half of the 15th century. Every aspect of its early colonial infrastructure, its churches, its administrative buildings, its harbor works, was built under that institutional umbrella. Terceira was not a waypoint that happened to fall on the Atlantic route to the New World. It was an Order of Christ possession, organized and populated by an institution that understood the ocean as a corridor and the islands as stations along it. The oldest carved stone on the island, dated 1454 and now held at the Museu de Angra do Heroísmo, carries an iconographic program that reads as a complete symbolic statement about movement across open water. At the top of the stone, a goose is carved above two goose paws, flanked by two faces representing the winds blowing east and west. The goose, associated in medieval tradition with vigilance and long-distance navigation, is placed here between the cardinal directions of Atlantic travel, oriented between the wind that carries ships out and the wind that brings them home. Below this scene, carved lower on the same stone, is a swirl motif. The swirl drew the attention of the research team in Season 13 of The Curse of Oak Island because of its resemblance to a device on a copper artifact recovered from Lot 8. But the more significant iconography sits above it: a navigator's symbol placed above directional markers, on a stone dated to the first decade of organized Order of Christ settlement on the island. In the village of Vila de São Sebastião on Terceira stands the Igreja Matriz de São Sebastião, a parish church whose construction began in 1455, one year after the museum stone was carved. It was built under the Order of Christ. On three corners of the chapel interior, carved into the stone, are groups of three-pronged goose paws, their original red pigment still preserved. Three groups of three: nine goose paws in total. [site:church-of-saint-sebastian] Nine is not an incidental number in this symbolic tradition. In medieval Christian numerology, nine is the trinity of trinities: three multiplied by itself, the product of the divine number raised to its own power. The Pseudo-Dionysian hierarchy that organized medieval theology arranged the angelic orders into nine choirs. Nine carried a specific theological weight that three, for all its Trinitarian resonance, did not. Where three marked a sacred threshold, nine marked something beyond it. The left portal of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre carries three goose paws above the door that opens onto the holiest ground in Christendom. The Igreja Matriz de São Sebastião carries nine, in three groups of three, on a church built by the same institution that controlled the sea routes westward. The numerological relationship between those two numbers, and between those two buildings, is an observation. Whether it reflects intention on the part of the carvers, or coincidence in the archaeological record, is a question the evidence as it stands cannot settle. What is established is that the symbol appears at the point of departure for the open Atlantic, in a quantity that medieval theology would have read as the trinity of trinities, placed there by an order that traced its institutional lineage directly to the men who built the portal in Jerusalem. Sources The goose paw in pilgrimage culture and the Camino de Santiago: Juan G. Atienza, El Camino de Santiago: La ruta sagrada, Ediciones Robinbook, Barcelona, 1992 Adrian Seville, The Cultural Legacy of the Royal Game of the Goose: 400 Years of Printed Board Games, Amsterdam University Press, 2019. On the goose as a symbol of spiritual guidance in medieval culture. The Cagots and the goose foot mark: Benoît Cursente, Les cagots, histoire d'une ségrégation, Cairn, 2018. Documents the pied d'oie clothing requirement attested from the early 15th century; the 1581 Bordeaux parliament ruling requiring the insigne discriminatoire du pied de canard; and the Béarnais term pè de guit. Gérard de Sède, Le mystère gothique: Des runes aux cathédrales, Robert Laffont, Paris, 1976. The Cagots within the Gothic builder tradition of southwestern France. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre and its lintels: Jerusalem Experience, "The Two Lintels of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre," jerusalemexperience.com. Confirms the lintels were installed in 1149 and removed in the 1930s; confirms the right portal led to Golgotha and the Chapel of Adam. Rockefeller Archaeological Museum, Jerusalem. Current location of both Crusader lintels. Tomar and the Order of Christ: Freddy Silva, First Templar Nation. Documents the goose paw carving at the Convento de Cristo, Tomar, and the associated legend of the three spears. The British broad arrow in colonial Nova Scotia: Joseph J. Malone, Pine Trees and Politics, University of Washington Press, 1979. The standard scholarly account of the Broad Arrow Policy and the White Pine Acts of 1691, 1711, 1722, and 1772. Graeme Wynn, "Administration in Adversity: The Deputy Surveyors and Control of the King's Woods in Nova Scotia," Acadiensis, University of New Brunswick. Covers enforcement of the broad arrow timber policy specifically in Nova Scotia, with archival references to the Provincial Archives of Nova Scotia. ## Site Information about this website and its creator. ### Oak Island Companion Shows and Spin-Offs Explained URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/spin-offs A viewer working through Oak Island on a streaming service will meet at least six different show titles, several of which carry the same episode names. The main series has been running for over a decade, and for most of that time it has not been the only Oak Island programme on the schedule. Around it sits a cluster of companion programmes and spin-offs. Some are separate series with their own casts and their own subjects. One is the main show rebroadcast with captions. The catalogues rarely distinguish between them. What follows is an account of what each of them is, when it aired, and whether it contains anything the main series does not. Drilling Down The oldest and longest-running of the companions is not a run of specials at all. The History Channel carries The Curse of Oak Island: Drilling Down as a separate show with its own catalogue page and roughly 55 episodes, and the television databases assign it its own series identifiers and its own per-season numbering. It began on 10 November 2015, the night season three premiered, billed as a companion to that season and as an introduction for viewers arriving late. The format has not changed much since. Matty Blake sits with members of the dig team in a studio and works through what a particular episode showed, usually with a guest, sometimes with a theory being pitched directly to Rick Lagina and Marty Lagina. The reason viewers experience these as scattered specials is scheduling. Drilling Down has aired at 8:00 PM ahead of the main episode, at 10:03 PM after it, and in weeks with no main episode at all. Nothing in the on-screen presentation signals that it belongs to a different series with a different episode number. The most recent instalment, A Treasured Fellowship, aired 12 May 2026, a week after the season thirteen finale. For anyone tracking the search rather than the drama, Drilling Down is often the only place a laboratory result or a survey finding gets more than forty seconds of explanation. Behind the Dig Behind the Dig was a shorter experiment. It ran five episodes between 13 November and 18 December 2018, at roughly 21 minutes each, with Matty Blake going behind the scenes of the week's episode as it aired. It has its own series record in the television databases, it is listed as ended, and it has not returned. Its titles are the problem. Rick's Big Bang Theory, Gold Rush, Depth Perception, A Legacy Revealed and Homecoming are the titles of the season six episodes they accompanied, which means that in most listings the two are indistinguishable. A viewer scrolling a streaming catalogue sees Gold Rush twice and assumes a duplicate. Digging Deeper and the Enhanced Rebroadcasts This is the one that most needs correcting, because almost every catalogue gets it wrong. The Curse of Oak Island: Digging Deeper is listed as a series in its own right across the major aggregators, with entries running to eleven seasons and its own IMDb title. It is not a series. It is the main show rebroadcast with additional information and previously unseen footage added, which is why its episode titles and synopses are identical to the main episodes, season by season and line by line. The network's own broadcast schedule shows the mechanism plainly. Fingers Made of Stone aired as episode 610 at 9:00 PM on 22 January 2019. The Digging Deeper version of Fingers Made of Stone aired at 8:00 PM on 29 January 2019, as the lead-in to the following week's new episode. Same content, one week later, one hour earlier, with captions. The practical consequence for viewers is an inflated count. Anyone assembling a watch list from a streaming catalogue that treats Digging Deeper as a parallel series will find themselves scheduled to watch every season of Oak Island twice. The Countdown Specials Between 2019 and 2023, The History Channel filled the October gap before each premiere with clip-show countdowns. October 2019 brought four of them under a Top 25 banner, covering finds, theories, moments, and moments viewers had not seen. October 2021 repeated the pattern as a Top Ten, adding Templar ties and signs of buried treasure. October 2022 and October 2023 each carried four more, running to Portuguese connections, swamp revelations, ancient structures and Money Pit discoveries. Some of these carry production numbers inside the main series block rather than a separate one, which is a fair indication of how the network filed them internally. Editorially they are recapitulation, occasionally carrying a fresh interview segment and no new fieldwork. Alongside them sit a handful of one-offs that resist categorisation: The Journey So Far on 7 November 2017, The Templar Connection on 13 February 2018, A Family Album on 27 February 2018, and the First Look previews that preceded the ninth and tenth season premieres. The Curse of Civil War Gold The first true spin-off arrived on 6 March 2018 at 10:00 PM, announced as a six-episode series. Its premise was that Marty Lagina, having become a man to whom treasure hunters bring their theories, had been approached with one worth pursuing. Kevin Dykstra, a Michigan native, had spent seven years pursuing a claim that Union soldiers from Michigan seized Confederate gold from Jefferson Davis in 1865 and that a railway car carrying it ended up on the floor of Lake Michigan. The evidentiary basis was a deathbed statement attributed to a lighthouse keeper in the 1890s. The format placed Marty Lagina in the position of the sceptical investor being asked to fund a sonar survey of about a hundred square miles, which gave the series its recurring tension. Gary Drayton joined the team on the strength of his metal-detecting work on Oak Island. It ran two seasons and sixteen episodes, ending 2 July 2019. Robert Clotworthy narrated, as he does the main series. No Confederate gold was recovered. Beyond Oak Island Beyond Oak Island premiered on 17 November 2020 with an episode called Pirate Treasures, and ran three seasons and 28 episodes to 2023. Matty Blake hosted, Robert Clotworthy narrated, and Rick Lagina and Marty Lagina appeared across all 28, generally from Michigan rather than in the field. The premise inverted the parent show. Instead of outside experts coming to Oak Island, the Oak Island team went out to other people's hunts: Jean Lafitte's silver in East Texas, Robbers Roost in Utah with a descendant of Butch Cassidy, the French vessel La Trinité off Florida, the Whydah wreck off Cape Cod, Poverty Island in Lake Michigan, the Sam Bass caches in Texas. Gary Drayton appeared in seven episodes, usually as the man sent to swing a detector over someone else's ground. Speaking to TV Insider at launch, Rick Lagina framed the series as a way of passing on what the team had learned, while allowing that the motive was not entirely altruistic. The series has not returned since 2023. Tales from Oak Island The most recent spin-off is also the most useful to anyone reading this site. The History Channel announced Tales from Oak Island on 25 October 2024 alongside the twelfth season of the parent series, and premiered it on 19 November 2024 at 10:00 PM, one week after the season twelve opener. Eight episodes aired, closing with Booby Trapped on 25 March 2025. The format is documentary rather than observational. Each episode takes a single subject and works through it with archival material and contributors rather than following an excavation. The first episode, The Article, is built around the 1965 Reader's Digest piece on the Money Pit that drew Daniel Blankenship into the search. The Legend of Samuel Ball examines the formerly enslaved man who became one of the island's landowners. Hedden's Hunt covers Gilbert Hedden's work in the late 1930s. The remaining episodes address the lead cross, a 1746 ship's log and a French admiral, and the question of whether the Money Pit was engineered with deliberate defences. Robert Clotworthy narrates. Credited on-screen contributors include Marty Lagina, Tony McMahon and Corjan Mol. Of everything the franchise has produced outside the main series, Tales from Oak Island is the only programme built on documents rather than machinery, which makes it the closest thing to a filmed research summary. No second season has aired since March 2025. Shows Often Mistaken for Spin-Offs Recommendation algorithms have created the impression of a shared universe that does not exist. The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, which premiered 31 March 2020, is narrated by Robert Clotworthy and appears beside Oak Island in most recommendation panels. The programmes share a narrator and a genre. They do not share a cast or a subject. The single point of contact is an episode of Beyond Oak Island in which Marty Lagina looks into a fellow energy entrepreneur's Utah ranch and a claim connecting it to Montezuma's treasure. Lost Gold of World War II, which premiered 19 March 2019 and follows John Casey's search in the Philippines for the wartime gold associated with General Tomoyuki Yamashita, has no Oak Island personnel at all and comes from a different production team entirely. Mystery at Blind Frog Ranch and Beyond Skinwalker Ranch belong to the same programming category and to no part of the Oak Island story. Where Each Programme Fits The companion programming exists because the audience wants more than a single season can hold. Filming runs through one Nova Scotia summer, and the main series carries roughly 25 episodes out of it. A great deal of what the team does on the island, and much of the laboratory and archival work that follows, needs more room than a 42-minute cut allows. That material moves outward into the companions, and the spin-offs carry the subject through the months when the island is quiet. Viewers who want to follow the search itself have a reasonably clear order of priority. Tales from Oak Island carries the documentary and archival work. Drilling Down carries the technical detail the main edit has to compress, and is often the only place a laboratory result is discussed at length. The countdowns and Behind the Dig are made for viewers who want the story retold rather than extended. Digging Deeper is the main series itself, presented with additional context. As of August 2026, both Beyond Oak Island and Tales from Oak Island are dormant, and the franchise consists of the main series and Drilling Down. Whether that changes when season fourteen begins in November has not been announced. Sources Network listings and press announcements The History Channel, programme pages for The Curse of Oak Island, The Curse of Oak Island: Drilling Down, The Curse of Civil War Gold, Beyond Oak Island and Tales from Oak Island, history.com. The History Channel press announcement, "Season 12 of The Curse of Oak Island (November 12) and New Series Tales From Oak Island (November 19) to Premiere on The HISTORY Channel," 25 October 2024, via TheFutonCritic. The History Channel press announcement for The Curse of Civil War Gold, 20 February 2018, reported by BroadwayWorld. Broadcast schedules The History Channel weekly broadcast schedules, January 2014 to May 2026, covering original episodes, Drilling Down, Digging Deeper, Behind the Dig and specials. Series records and episode data IMDb, series records for The Curse of Oak Island (tt3455408), The Curse of Oak Island: Drilling Down (tt5233094), Beyond Oak Island (tt13354560), The Curse of Civil War Gold and Tales from Oak Island (tt34279677). TheTVDB, series records for The Curse of Oak Island: Drilling Down, The Curse of Oak Island: Behind the Dig (series 377720), Beyond Oak Island and Tales from Oak Island. TVmaze, episode guides for The Curse of Oak Island: Drilling Down (show 7994), The Curse of Oak Island: Behind the Dig (show 39973) and Tales From Oak Island (show 80140). Rotten Tomatoes, season listings for The Curse of Oak Island: Digging Deeper and Tales From Oak Island. Wikipedia, "List of The Curse of Oak Island episodes" and "The Curse of Civil War Gold," consulted August 2026. Press coverage TV Insider, "Beyond Oak Island Uncovers New Secrets in History Spinoff," 17 November 2020, interview with Rick Lagina and Marty Lagina. Asian Journal, "New History Channel series follows legendary World War II treasure in the Philippines," 19 March 2019. ### About URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/about TheCurseOfOakIsland.com documents the complete story of Oak Island, from the 1795 discovery of the Money Pit through 230 years of excavation, investigation, and debate. The site brings together rare resources that don't exist anywhere else online: a lot-by-lot ownership history spanning 275 years, a searchable database of 271 documented artifacts, an interactive map of the key locations, a timeline covering 2,300 years of connected history, episode guides for all thirteen seasons (and the expected 14th season!) of the television series, and dozens of articles exploring the theories behind the Oak Island lore. This is an independent research project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the History Channel, Prometheus Entertainment, or any television production. The research, writing, and development are entirely independent. About the Creator This site is built and maintained by Corjan Mol, a Dutch author, TV presenter and historical researcher who has spent eight years as a recurring cast member and researcher on The Curse of Oak Island, the History Channel series broadcast in 79 countries. His on-screen appearances span seasons 7 through 13 of the series, with investigations filmed in Portugal & the Azores, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Nova Scotia. His research combines archival investigation, geometric analysis of medieval sites, and on-the-ground fieldwork, connecting European locations to Nova Scotia and Oak Island through documented historical pathways. Corjan’s fascination with historical mysteries goes back thirty years, to a copy of Holy Blood, Holy Grail and annual treasure-hunting trips through the French Pyrenees with his father, following the trail of Rennes-le-Château, the mystery that inspired Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. He built one of the earliest and most comprehensive online archives on that subject at renneslechateau.nl, and his research led to appearances on BBC’s Forbidden History. Corjan and his American research partner Christopher Morford are the authors of The Jerusalem Files (Red Wheel/Weiser), with a foreword by Rick Lagina. The book traces the journey of the Menorah, the seven-branched candelabrum from Solomon’s Temple, from ancient Jerusalem through medieval Europe under the Knights Templar, presenting evidence that the relic may have reached North America. Blending archival research with modern investigative techniques, the book became a bestseller in the US and Canada following its launch. They have recently signed a multi-year deal for the development of an adventure mystery book series The Sandbar Six for young readers based on real historical mysteries, with the first book scheduled for release in June 2027 (Moon+Bird/Penguin Random House). TheCurseOfOakIsland.com exists because after years of research and investigation, there was no single resource that brought the full picture together with the accuracy and depth the subject deserves. This site is that resource. Collaboration Oak Island has never been a solo endeavour. Every chapter of this story, from the Onslow Company in 1804 to the Lagina brothers today, has depended on people pooling knowledge, resources, and persistence. The mystery is too large and too old for any one person to unravel alone. This site exists in that same spirit. Many of the resources you find here were made possible by people who generously shared their research, expertise, and time. Thank you so much. Get in Touch Have a question or something to share? Contact ### Research Methodology URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/methodology How This Site Approaches Oak Island Oak Island has attracted serious investigators and eccentrics in roughly equal measure for over two centuries. This site exists to separate signal from noise. The goal is accuracy, clarity, and intellectual honesty about what we know, what we suspect, and what remains unknown. What follows is an overview of the method behind the content on these pages. The approach described below comes from three decades of fieldwork on both sides of the Atlantic. The sites, archives, and locations referenced throughout this site have, with very few exceptions, been visited and investigated in person. That research led to a bestselling book with Watkins and Penguin Random House and eight years of on-screen investigation for the History Channel series. It is the same approach applied to every page on this site. More about the research behind this project can be found on the about page. The Hierarchy Primary sources first: Original documents, archaeological reports, laboratory analyses, land records, contemporary accounts. If something can be verified against paper or physical evidence, that forms the foundation. Everything else builds on top. Credible secondary sources second: Published historians and researchers who cite their own sources and show their work. Not television summaries, not forum speculation, not “some say.” Authors who have done the archival digging and can point to where they found what they found. Informed hypothesis third: Once the documented record is exhausted, there is room for reasoned conjecture. But only conjecture that builds on what came before, not conjecture that ignores it. The hypothesis must fit the evidence. When it does not, the hypothesis is wrong. This is not a radical methodology. It is how serious historical research has always worked. It is also the only methodology that produces conclusions worth defending. The Starting Point This site begins from a position that would have been controversial fifty years ago but is now established fact: Norse expeditions reached North America around 1000 CE. From that foundation, a growing body of evidence suggests contact extended beyond the Norse, and Oak Island sits within that broader context. L’Anse aux Meadows proved Norse presence around 1000 CE. Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad spent years being dismissed as fantasists before the evidence became overwhelming and the doubters went quiet. The same pattern has repeated with subsequent finds suggesting contact beyond the Norse. Some remain disputed. Others have quietly moved from “impossible” to “plausible” to “accepted.” Oak Island shows evidence of sophisticated engineering activity predating known colonial settlement. Carbon dating has returned medieval-era results from wood found deep underground. Artifacts point to European origins that do not fit the standard colonial timeline. None of this proves what was buried there, or by whom. But it establishes that the question is legitimate. This is not the fever dream of treasure hunters. It is a real historical puzzle with physical evidence that demands explanation. [article:vikings] What This Means for the Site On these pages, content is treated according to its evidential weight. Documented facts are presented as facts, with sources identified. Working hypotheses are clearly identified as hypotheses, representing the current best understanding, subject to revision as new evidence emerges. Speculation is labeled as speculation and never presented as fact. The sourcing scales with the claim. An article about the geography of Oak Island relies on survey data and satellite imagery. An article proposing that the Ark of the Covenant potentially ended up beneath a small island in Mahone Bay relies on a chain of historical connections stretching across two millennia, three continents, and several civilisations that left incomplete records. The further a theory reaches from the established record, the more thoroughly each step is documented, the more carefully conditional language is applied, and the more explicitly the gaps are identified. A weakly sourced article about an uncontroversial subject does little harm. A weakly sourced article about the Ark of the Covenant does a great deal. This site is not interested in pretending certainty where none exists. It is also not interested in false balance, treating every fringe theory as equally valid or dismissing solid evidence because it challenges comfortable assumptions. Sources are mentioned inline and/or in a dedicated "Sources" section at the bottom of the article. Use of AI to Reconstruct Scenes and Images Most of what this site covers happened before photography existed. The Templar fleet sailed from La Rochelle in 1307. Henry Sinclair’s voyages, if they happened, took place around 1398. The Order of Christ rose in Tomar in the 14th century. Razilly landed at La Hève in 1632. Versailles reached its height under Louis XIV. Mi’kmaq communities lived along Mahone Bay for centuries before any European arrived. None of this was ever in front of a camera. The daguerreotype process did not exist until 1839, and most of the deep history relevant to the Oak Island story predates it by hundreds of years. This site uses AI-generated images to visualise that world. They are reconstructions, not photographs. Every reconstruction carries this mark, set into the corner of the image. Light on dark scenes, dark on bright ones. The practice is older than the technology. Historical illustrators have rendered scenes from textual records since books were printed. Documentary filmmakers commission reenactments. Museums build dioramas and commission paintings. What has changed is the level of visual fidelity available to a single researcher working without a studio budget. Each image begins with the documentary record. Before generation, the relevant primary and secondary sources are reviewed: the clothing of the period and place, the tools and weapons in use, the architecture, the terrain as it would have appeared in that decade, the social conventions of the scene. A Templar commandery in Aquitaine looks different from a Hospitaller priory in Provence. A Portuguese caravel rigs differently from a Basque whaler. A Mi’kmaq summer camp on the coast looks nothing like a French fortified post on the same shoreline. The aim is an image a historian familiar with the period would recognise as consistent with it. What this site does not do: it does not invent events. It does not depict speculative or contested incidents as though they were established. It does not place real named individuals in scenes for which there is no documentary basis. Where an image deviates from a strict reading of the record, the caption says so. The honest alternatives would be a site of pure text about a visual subject, or the common practice of borrowing unrelated period art and hoping the reader does not notice. A researched reconstruction, labelled clearly and grounded in cited sources, is the more accurate choice. The reader is invited to weigh each image against the documentation it depicts. What This Site Is Not This is not a fan site. It is not a platform for every theory that has ever attached itself to Oak Island. It is a research resource, available for everybody. The goal is not to convince anyone of a particular answer, but to present what is known, what is substantiated, what is plausible, and what remains open, as faithfully as the available record allows. This is not a site where content is behind a paywall. Corrections When errors are identified, they are corrected. Corrections are made directly in the text. If you find an error or have evidence that contradicts something on this site, please get in touch through the contact page. Good research depends on people willing to share what they know. A Note on Making Television This site covers the History Channel series The Curse of Oak Island extensively, with episode guides, timelines, and background material. But the site is independent of any television production. Television has its own logic. Episodes are edited for drama. Cliffhangers are manufactured. Findings are teased across multiple episodes for maximum suspense. The historical research that viewers see presented in the War Room is an extremely condensed edit of what are usually many hours of discussion, debate, and analysis. This is the nature of the medium. The goal here is to document what is actually known, separate from how it was presented on screen. Where the show’s narrative diverges from the documented record, the documented record takes precedence. ## The Record Editorial reflections, season retrospectives, and assessments of what the evidence on Oak Island actually establishes. ### What Is Oak Island? The Whole Story, Plainly Told URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/the-record/start-here Oak Island is a small, tree-covered island off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada. For more than two hundred years, people have been digging into it, certain that something valuable lies buried somewhere beneath the ground. Nobody has ever proven what it is, or who put it there. No treasure has been found yet. And the search is still going. The most popular version of the story begins in 1795. A young man named Daniel McGinnis was out on the island when he came across a strange dip in the earth, a round depression in a clearing, with an old oak tree standing beside it. Hanging from a sawed-off branch directly above the hollow was an old ship’s tackle block, the kind of pulley used to haul heavy loads. McGinnis had grown up on tales of pirates working these waters, and a thought took hold of him: someone had buried something here. He came back the next day with two friends, and they started to dig. A few feet down, they hit a layer of flagstones. Below that, a platform of oak logs. They kept going, and every ten feet or so, another platform. Whatever this was, someone had built it deliberately, and built it to go deep. The three of them dug until they couldn’t dig anymore, the shaft was simply too much for three pairs of hands, but they never forgot it. The hole they started became known as the Money Pit, and from 1808 onward, group after group picked up where the boys left off, digging the ground and combing through archives around the world, chasing the who, the what, and the why of it. The pit has swallowed lives and fortunes ever since. And the deeper anyone dug, the stranger it got. There was coconut fiber, packed in layers, a material that grows nowhere within thousands of miles of Nova Scotia. Around ninety feet down, a stone turned up, cut with markings nobody could read. And at a certain depth, the pit did something no natural hole should do: it flooded with seawater, faster than any crew could bail. It took decades to work out why. The answer most searchers settled on was chilling, whoever built the pit had cut tunnels connecting it to the sea, so that digging too deep would drown the shaft. A booby trap. And a booby trap means someone, long ago, went to extraordinary lengths to make sure whatever lay at the bottom stayed there. The next two centuries became a parade of attempts. Companies formed, raised money, dug, flooded out, went broke, and gave up, and then the next group arrived to try again. Heavy machinery was hauled across the water. Shafts were punched all over the eastern end of the island. A young Franklin Roosevelt even joined one of the digs, years before he became president. The ground was torn up so many times that today, nobody is even certain where the original pit stood. Several men have died on the island over the years. A legend grew up around those deaths, a curse, with a grim number attached: seven must die before the treasure gives itself up. It makes for great television, which is exactly where it came from, the line was invented for the screen and has no basis in the real record. The actual deaths were accidents, collapsing shafts and bad air deep underground. They belong to the island’s history. The curse belongs to its mythology. The modern chapter begins with two brothers from Michigan, Rick and Marty Lagina. Rick first read about Oak Island in a magazine as a boy in the 1960s, and the mystery never let go of him. Decades later, with the means to chase it, the brothers bought a stake in the island and brought in real excavation muscle, the kind of equipment the early treasure hunters could only have dreamed of. A television producer caught wind of the hunt and started filming, and the result, The Curse of Oak Island, first aired on the History Channel in 2014. It’s been running ever since. Thirteen years of digging later, the Laginas haven’t found the treasure yet, but they’ve proven something extraordinary. The early treasure hunters left behind mostly stories. The Laginas’ search has left hard evidence, thousands of finds, recovered, recorded, and sent off for scientific dating. And some of what’s come out of the ground is genuinely hard to explain. A small lead cross, pulled from the beach at Smith’s Cove, of a medieval design that resembles one tied to a Templar prison in France. Six Roman-era coins, scattered across a single lot that has no recorded history of anyone ever living on it. A cobblestone pathway laid through the swamp, its leather fragments carbon-dated to the years around 1200. A circular stone structure, expertly built, dated to roughly the same era. Add to that the everyday debris of centuries, hand-forged spikes, broken pottery, old glass, and a picture starts to form. Because here’s the part that stops people cold. When you plot every scientifically dated find on the island, the dates cluster into two groups. One falls around 1700, easy enough to explain, people were busy here in colonial times. The other falls in the 1200s. More than twenty finds carry dates from the Middle Ages, a concentration with no parallel anywhere else in North America. That’s centuries before Columbus, on an island where, according to every history book, nobody should have left so much as a footprint. So someone was here. Someone was on Oak Island, building, working, and hiding something, hundreds of years before history says they could have been. That single fact is what turns Oak Island from a tall tale into a genuine mystery. Which leaves the question everyone actually wants answered: what is down there, and who put it there? The theories run wild and they run far, pirate gold, the lost jewels of French royalty, hidden manuscripts, sacred relics tied to the Knights Templar. This site takes up each one in turn and weighs it honestly, against what the evidence will and won’t support. But the bottom line is simple. The island is hiding something made by human hands, something old, something deliberate, and far older than the boys who found it in 1795. Until someone can finally say who built it and why, the treasure is still very much in play. And so the digging goes on. The most recent season wrapped in May 2026. The next begins in November. The island has not given up its secret. ### Has the Oak Island Treasure Been Found? The 2026 Answer URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/the-record/has-the-oak-island-treasure-been-found-the-2026-answer The short answer is no. Two hundred and thirty-one years after three boys started digging under an oak tree, nobody has lifted a chest, a vault, or a hoard out of Oak Island. The long answer is more interesting, because the island has been giving up gold, coins, and jewellery for years. Just never in the quantity the legend promises. That distinction is worth holding onto. Ask whether the treasure has been found, and the record says no. Ask whether anything of value has come out of the ground, and the record fills a vault. [article:oak-island-the-state-of-the-search-231-years-in] No Hoard After [count:years-of-search] Years of Digging The search began in 1795 and has never fully stopped. Company after company sank shafts into the Money Pit area through the nineteenth century, drilling platforms and steam pumps followed in the twentieth, and since 2006 Rick Lagina and Marty Lagina have run the most heavily resourced operation the island has ever seen. Six searchers have died in the attempt, four of them on a single August day in 1965, when Robert Restall, his son Bobbie, Karl Graeser, and Cyril Hiltz were overcome by gas in a shaft near Smith's Cove. [article:the-restall-tragedy] Through all of it, no recovery. No chest has been opened on camera or off it. The closest thing the hunt has to a creed came from Dan Blankenship, who searched the island for more than five decades before his death in 2019: "The treasure is there. The proof is undeniable." The first half of that sentence is still a prediction. It is the second half where the past decade has changed the picture, because the finds that keep coming up are old, valuable, and hard to explain. [article:dan-blankenship-and-borehole-10-x] Gold in the Wood and the Water The most consequential gold on Oak Island so far cannot be held in a hand. Water samples drawn from deep in the Money Pit area have returned traces of gold, and a testing program led by Dr. Ian Spooner and Dr. Fred Michel has been putting recovered wood through metals analysis to find out where those traces travel from. Of fifteen samples processed under the program, a piece of wood recovered from Shaft 2A in 2024 returned the highest silver reading and the third-highest gold reading recorded on the island. Marty Lagina has committed to extending the program, on the logic that metal-bearing water and metal-bearing wood both point somewhere. The hand-held gold is smaller and stranger. Three gold chain links. A metal fragment carrying gold traces. Gold-gilded buttons. A set of gold-copper alloy fragments identified by some examiners as tumbaga, a pre-Columbian alloy, an identification that other specialists dispute. None of it is a hoard. All of it had to get there somehow. [artifact:gold-chain-links-3][artifact:gold-copper-alloy-tumbaga] Coins From Five Centuries in the Ground Coins are the steadiest currency of the hunt, in the literal sense. The oldest confidently dated European coin is the Pitblado coin, a Portuguese Tornês struck under King Ferdinand I. Renowned Portuguese numismatist Alberto Silva narrowed its striking window to no later than 1371. That places a medieval Portuguese coin on an island whose recorded history begins four centuries later. [artifact:portuguese-torn-s-coin-pitblado-coin] The Spanish material spans the empire's whole run: an 11 maravedis piece of 1598 from Smith's Cove, an 8 maravedis piece of 1652 from the swamp, a silver half real of 1781. British coins cluster in the eighteenth century, King George II coppers among them, and in Season 13 Katya Drayton pulled a William III sixpence, struck between 1697 and 1701, out of the Dunfield spoils on Lot 18, with the identification made by Emma Culligan at the island laboratory. [artifact:spanish-11-maravedis-coin][artifact:spanish-8-maravedis-coin][artifact:1781-spanish-half-real-silver-coin][artifact:william-iii-sixpence] Then there are the Roman coins from Lot 5, one of them attributed to the reign of Claudius II, 268 to 270 AD. Their dating is not the problem; how they reached a Nova Scotia island is, and that route is unresolved. They are treated here as finds, not as proof of anything. [artifact:roman-coin-claudius-ii][article:did-the-romans-reach-oak-island] Jewels, Crosses and the Question of Age The jewellery is where the hunt starts to look like something other than colonial litter. A brooch set with a rhodolite garnet has been dated to the sixteenth or seventeenth century. A second, gold-plated brooch holds a leaded glass gem whose threading technique points to the fourteenth century or earlier. A professionally cut gemstone recovered from the island has been judged likely medieval, and an ornate faceted glass jewel dates to the early or middle 1700s. [artifact:jewelled-brooch-rhodolite-garnet][artifact:ornate-facted-glass-jewel] The crosses carry the same spread. The lead cross recovered by Gary Drayton at Smith's Cove has been placed as early as 900 to 1300 AD on the strength of its lead sourcing. The McGinnis Gold Cross, a small gold cross associated with the family of Daniel McGinnis, one of the three original diggers of 1795, has been dated to between 1550 and 1700. Each of these objects has its own page in the Artifact Vault with the full dating evidence; the point of listing them together here is what they add up to. Someone lost or left objects of real value on this island across a span of several hundred years, and the earliest of those centuries has no recorded population to lose them. [artifact:lead-cross][artifact:mcginnis-gold-cross] The Water, the Collapse and the Lost Shaft If valuable things keep surfacing, the fair question is what has kept the main prize out of reach, assuming there is one. The record offers three answers. The first is water: from the moment early searchers broke into the flood system, the Money Pit has refilled faster than pumps could empty it, and it has drowned every attempt to dig it dry by hand. The second is the collapse of 1861, when the bottom of the original workings fell into a void and took whatever the shaft held down with it. The third is the searchers themselves. Two centuries of overlapping shafts, tunnels, and spoil heaps blurred the original site so thoroughly that relocating the 1795 pit became a research project in its own right. [article:down-the-money-pit][article:oak-island-flood-tunnels-and-box-drains-the-water-trap] The modern response is industrial. In Season 13 the caisson designated MP-1 reached bedrock at 210 feet, five feet short of its design depth, and came up with nineteenth-century drill pipe, twisted iron, and a piece of stained wood that Rick Lagina noted has no natural place at that depth. The team is now digging through the wreckage of every earlier attempt to reach whatever those attempts were after. [article:equipment-and-technology-on-oak-island] What Counts as Found Under Nova Scotia Law Recovery, if it comes, will be a legal event as much as an archaeological one. Nova Scotia retired its old treasure-hunting statute and replaced it with the Oak Island Treasure Act, a law written for this single island, which ties recovery to a provincial licence and archaeological oversight. That is why archaeologist Laird Niven stands beside the excavators, and it is why any object of historic value passes through documentation before it passes through anyone's hands. The practical meaning is simple: when something is found, the finding will be recorded, reviewed, and shared with the province, in that order. [article:the-treasure-and-the-law-the-oak-island-treasure-act] The Search as of August 2026 Season 13 closed on May 5, 2026 as the most artifact-rich year in the show's history. Steve Guptill's final heat map plotted more than 800 finds; Laird Niven put the year's true total closer to 1,200. At the closing war-room meeting, Marty Lagina unveiled a one-ounce gold maple leaf coin and placed it as a physical marker on the spot the team intends to sink first when digging resumes. It is, for now, the only confirmed gold treasure on Oak Island, and the team put it there themselves. [article:oak-island-s13-medieval-case] Filming for Season 14 began on June 1, 2026, and the premiere is listed for November 3, 2026. The wood metals program continues, the Lot 8 cradle excavation is unfinished, and the caissons return to the Money Pit with a marked target. This page is updated as developments happen. The answer at the top changes the day the ground gives a different one. Sources Books Sullivan, Randall. The Curse of Oak Island: The Story of the World's Longest Treasure Hunt. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2018. Harris, Reginald V. The Oak Island Mystery. Ryerson Press, 1958. Lamb, Lee. Oak Island Family: The Restall Hunt for Buried Treasure. Dundurn, 2012 Scientific and specialist analyses Wood metals testing program, Dr. Ian Spooner and Dr. Fred Michel, sample series through 2024. Numismatic assessment of the Pitblado coin, Alberto Silva, Angra do Heroísmo. Laboratory identifications, Emma Culligan, Oak Island archaeology laboratory. Legislation Oak Island Treasure Act, Province of Nova Scotia. ### Oak Island S13: The Medieval Case URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/the-record/oak-island-s13-medieval-case The Year the 13th Century Stopped Being a Theory For more than 230 years the Knights Templar have shadowed the Oak Island story. The thesis was one the evidence could not quite support, and could not quite dispel. Season 13 did not prove the thesis. It did something almost as consequential. It made the medieval timeline scientifically defensible from more than one direction at once. In the season's opening episode, broadcast on November 4, 2025, Steve Salomon, a descendant of the Archibald family, brought to the War Room a silver coin his family had kept for 176 years. According to family history and the 1849 Lunenburg treasure trove application that survives in the Nova Scotia archives, the coin had been recovered from the original Money Pit by Truro Company foreman James Pitblado during a drilling operation that struck two stacked chests of metal at roughly 100 feet. Emma Culligan's XRF analysis confirmed it as a Tornes escudo of .375 silver, struck in Portugal during the reign of King Ferdinand I. By season's end, Portuguese numismatist Alberto Silva had narrowed its striking window to no later than 1371. Fewer than a hundred examples are known worldwide. [artifact:portuguese-torn-s-coin-pitblado-coin] The carbon-14 floor In Episode 15, the team reviewed preliminary carbon-14 results on leather shoe fragments recovered from the cobblestone path lined with octagonal stakes, the same path that had led the previous year to a brick-and-slate vault in the northern region of the swamp. The fragments showed hobnail rather than stitched construction, consistent with European boots rather than 18th- or 19th-century North American manufacture. The primary date range returned by Beta Analytical was 1148 to 1216 AD, with some readings extending as far back as 1047. Craig Tester urged caution, noting that additional cleaning methods and a retest had been requested to confirm the result. [artifact:leather-shoe-fragments] The carbon-14 reading is what scientists call a terminus post quem with an uncertainty band. It does not say the leather was deposited in 1216. It says the animal whose hide produced the leather was alive between roughly 1148 and 1216. The leather could have been worked, worn, and lost decades or even a century later, but it cannot be older than the latest plausible reading of the date range. That floor is the season's hardest single dating result, and it sits squarely inside the period when the Knights Templar were active across Europe. What the stones suggest Two stone features on Oak Island acquired indirect dates in Season 13. Both are softer than carbon-14, and both deserve to be presented as such. In Episode 19, the War Room connected by video with Italian archaeoastronomy professor Adriano Gaspani, joined by translator Marzia Sebastiani. Gaspani had previously published work concluding that the boulders of Nolan's Cross were positioned around 1220 AD on the basis of their alignment with Deneb in the constellation Cygnus. Applied to the round stone foundation on Lot 5, the same methodology returned a date of approximately 1236 AD. The feature shares stellar alignments with the rising of Sirius, the Pleiades, and Hamal. Archaeoastronomical dating is not direct dating. It is a calculation of when a structure's alignments would have matched the night sky given the precession of the equinoxes, and it depends on the assumption that the alignments were intentional. Within those limits, Gaspani's result is a serious piece of work and is consistent with his earlier conclusions on Nolan's Cross. [article:the-oak-island-star-map][article:real-or-not-the-geometry-of-nolan-s-cross] The second stone feature is the cradle uncovered beneath the 40,000-pound boulder lifted from Lot 8 in Episode 16. After weeks of hand excavation, archaeologist Fiona Steele exposed a tightly fitted formation of hand-cut stones bound with three distinct binders: a fine powder mortar, a blue-grey clay similar to the puddling clay used in the Money Pit, and a harder cement-like substance at the north end. Emma Culligan's analysis identified the binder as a manipulated sand-silt-clay mix with no modern bonding elements. Combined with Dr. Ian Spooner's organic sampling, the dating window placed the feature post-1200s and pre-mid-1700s, with both Culligan and Spooner describing it as premodern and possibly medieval. By the season's final episode, hand excavation had passed below the level of surrounding bedrock without striking rock at the cradle's floor. Marty Lagina ended the year by saying the feature could not be considered finished until the team understood what lay beneath it. Two stones, two methods, two indirect dates. Both pointing into the same window. [artifact:lot-8-giant-boulder-megalith] What the Lot 5 coins showed The Pitblado coin was not the season's only numismatic discovery, and it was not even the most archaeologically secure one. The Lot 5 round feature continued through Season 13 to produce coinage with a much firmer chain of custody than the 1849 story can ever offer. In Episode 3, Emma Culligan analysed a small copper-alloy piece recovered by Marty Lagina and Katya Drayton from the same area of Lot 5 where five earlier coins had been pulled. Her CT scan resolved a standing figure holding an oak leaf on the reverse with the legend "officina N" for the ninth workshop, and a bust on the obverse with a sharp nose, pointed chin, and crown that she attributed to the Roman emperor Claudius II. The piece had been struck approximately 250 to 270 AD, the sixth Roman coin recovered from the lot. Sandy Campbell, examining it in the research centre, made a point that bears repeating in any honest account of the find. Roman coins were actively traded as currency across Europe and the New World well into the 1500s, and similar coins have been recovered at sites associated with the Knights Templar in Iceland, where the team had previously done research. On that reading, the Lot 5 Roman coins are not evidence of Roman activity on Oak Island. They are evidence of medieval activity by people who happened to be carrying coins more than a thousand years older than the era they lived in. [artifact:roman-coin-claudius-ii] In Episode 8, a folded copper coin recovered from spoils of the same round feature drew a different kind of confirmation. Gary Drayton recognised it on sight as a talisman, a coin folded to trap misfortune or to appeal for divine protection. In Episode 9, Sandy Campbell confirmed the identification and traced the practice to early medieval Christianity, the Crusades, and the Knights Templar, who honoured Saints George and Bernard of Clairvaux through such offerings. Emma Culligan's compositional analysis placed this particular coin in the 1600s or 1700s. The coin itself is not medieval. The behaviour it records is, and the behaviour belongs to a tradition the Templars carried with them. [artifact:folded-copper-coin-lot-5-round-feature] A Stepping Stone: The Azores A transatlantic crossing in the 14th century becomes more plausible if a midpoint can be established. The obvious midpoint would be the group of islands known as The Azores, the only landmass between the European coast and Newfoundland capable of supporting resupply. Accepted history places their Portuguese discovery in 1427, under Henry the Navigator. Maps from 1339, 1351, and 1385 already depict the archipelago, decades before the official date. Brothers Miguel and Gaspar Corte-Real of Terceira, both Knights of Christ, are recorded as leading undocumented expeditions south toward what they called the land of cod. The accepted timeline does not survive the cartographic record. At season's end, the team made its annual European research trip, a tradition Corjan Mol started in Season 9 with a journey to Portugal. The destination this year was The Azores, Portugal's biggest offshore province, and not by coincidence. The Portuguese evidence has grown faster than any other strand of the case: the Pitblado coin struck no later than 1371 under a king who patronised the Order of Christ, the Lot 26 dry-stone wall built in the same technique used in 15th-century Terceira, the iron deck spike from the Lot 5 round feature that a Portuguese archaeologist places in the 14th century, the stoneshots traced to the Azores. Four pieces of physical evidence on Oak Island now point at one country. Going there was the next step. [artifact:stone-shot-peacock-1][artifact:stone-shot-money-pit][artifact:stone-shot] Each annual trip since Season 9 has taken the team to a site where the documentary or material record places medieval European activity within reach of the Atlantic: Fontarcada and the 12th-century Templar church there in 2021, Camerano in Italy and its Templar cave carvings, Iceland and the Roman coin finds at Templar-associated sites. Doug Crowell, Emiliano Sacchetti, and Judi Rudebusch have grown the documentary spine of the work in parallel: Crowell's recovery of the 1746 d'Anville ship's log from the Nova Scotia Archives, Sacchetti's year in Rome, the Vatican, Ottawa, and Library and Archives Canada establishing the Knights of Malta presence in Nova Scotia, Rudebusch's iconographic identifications across Templar and Order of Christ symbology. The trips read east to west. This year's trip closed the corridor at its last stepping stone before Oak Island. [site:church-of-fonte-arcada] The Pitblado coin sits inside this geography. Sandy Campbell, the coin expert who examined the piece at Rick Lagina's request in S13E2, identified it as an uncirculated Tornes escudo of Portugal struck during the reign of Ferdinand I and observed that its uncirculated condition could only have been preserved at depth. Emma Culligan's XRF identified the composition as silver, zinc, copper, and nickel, matching the trace metals Dr. Ian Spooner has detected in Money Pit water. Researcher Judi Rudebusch identified a Templar cross on the reverse. In the season's penultimate episode, Portuguese numismatist Alberto Silva at the Luís da Silva Ribeiro Public Library and Regional Archive on Terceira narrowed the striking window to no later than 1371. Fewer than a hundred examples are known worldwide despite a much larger original mintage. [site:regional-public-library-and-archives-of-angra-do-heroismo] What science cannot do is verify that James Pitblado in 1849 pulled this particular coin from the bottom of the Money Pit. The 1849 Lunenburg treasure trove application filed jointly by Charles Dickson Archibald and Pitblado survives in the Nova Scotia archives, and the coin's descent through the Archibald family is documented. Both are documentation. Neither is unbroken chain of custody. The coin's authenticity, its date, its rarity, and its compositional consistency with the metals in the Money Pit water are all established. Its specific origin in the 1849 drilling cannot be. In Season 13, Rick Lagina, Alex Lagina, Doug Crowell, Peter Fornetti, Corjan Mol, and Emiliano Sacchetti met historians Francisco Nogueira and Manuel Gandra at the Igreja Matriz de São Sebastião (Church of Saint Sebastian), a 15th-century church built on the island of Terceira under the Order of Christ, the Portuguese successor to the Knights Templar founded by King Denis in 1318. In one of its chapels, Mol identified a three-pronged carving of the symbol known as the goose paw, used by the Templars at sacred sites across the Mediterranean and Europe between the 12th and 14th centuries. The team had previously documented the same symbol at Camerano (Italy), in Valkenburg (The Netherlands) and on a stone surface on a beach in Brooklyn, Nova Scotia, fifty miles from Oak Island. A similar carving appeared at the Church of Nossa Senhora da Conceição (Our Lady of the Conception) in Angra do Heroismo. At Serreta, dry-stone walls carbon-dated to between 1470 and 1475 AD matched the construction of the wall on Lot 26 of Oak Island, attributed by Nogueira to Portuguese-Azorean builders. [site:church-of-saint-sebastian][site:church-of-our-lady-of-the-conception][site:valkenburg-castle][site:camerano-caves][site:brooklyn-nova-scotia] The trip culminated at the Angra do Heroísmo Museum, where archaeologist Tiago Rodrigues assessed three artifacts the team had brought from Oak Island. The first was a stone shot, one of three recovered on the island in S13: hand-shaped stone projectiles of a type European cannons fired before cast-iron munitions replaced them in the late 15th century. Dr. Robert Raeside of Acadia University, who had examined two earlier specimens, attributed all three to Portuguese-Azorean origin and dated the most recent specimen confidently to the 1300s or early 1400s. Peck marks identified by Emma Culligan's CT scan confirmed stonemasonry rather than natural shaping. The second artifact was the Pitblado coin. The third was an iron deck spike Jack Begley recovered in 2023 from the Lot 5 round foundation, the same feature Gaspani's archaeoastronomy dates to 1236. Rodrigues identified the spike as unmistakably Portuguese and possibly 14th-century, a finding that mirrors Maltese military historian Matthew Balzan's earlier assessment of the swamp hand cannon fragment as European military hardware potentially dating to the 1200s. Three independent Portuguese authentications, all converging on the same century the carbon-14, archaeoastronomy, and binder analysis had already produced. [artifact:hand-wrought-iron-spike-12th-13th-century] Another line from France In Episode 18, researcher Charlotte Wheatley presented four years of research linking a phrase from the late Zena Halpern's believed 14th-century Templar map ("Le Lionceau de Talmont") to Talmont-sur-Gironde on the west coast of France. The site holds a Romanesque church dedicated to Saint Radegund whose axis, oriented at roughly 292.4 degrees, projects across the Atlantic to Oak Island. Two further Saint Radegund churches within sixty kilometres share orientations of approximately 292.1 degrees with the same projection. Wheatley connected the three sites to the Templars through Bernard of Clairvaux and the Cistercian network, and noted that Saint Radegund is depicted carrying a book bearing a four-dot cross, the same symbol carved into the H+O stone found at Smith's Cove in 1921. The standing structures at all three churches were built or principally rebuilt in the 12th century, the period of greatest Templar activity. What is no longer in doubt is that French religious traditions included precise long-distance alignment work: research by Corjan Mol and Christopher Morford, presented in Season 8, Episode 4 of The Curse of Oak Island, documents 17th-century French alignments executed across hundreds of kilometres with incredible precision. That capability does not prove the three Saint Radegund churches were laid out by Templars. It does place Wheatley's projection in a tradition with documented precedent. [artifact:h-o-stone] The Masonic lens Two Season 13 findings sit alongside the medieval evidence rather than inside it. Both involve Masons. The first is a researcher's argument. The second is an artifact in the bog. In Episode 21, the team met by video with Canadian researcher Scott Clarke, who has presented Oak Island findings to the team across multiple seasons. Clarke presented findings he titled From Nazareth to Nova Scotia. The argument runs through a single symbol: a letter A with a V-shaped crossbar in place of the standard horizontal one. Clarke identified the symbol on the Titulus Crucis, a wooden tablet housed in Rome's Basilica of the Holy Cross and believed to have been placed above the cross at the crucifixion. He matched it to Templar churches across Europe, to A-shaped carvings photographed by Corjan Mol at the Convent of Christ in Tomar, Portugal, and to pentacles engraved on Portuguese Templar gravestones. He returned to a 1762 map of Mahone Bay drawn by Nova Scotia's chief surveyor Charles Morris, also a Mason, in which the same V-shaped A appears in the legend and points directly at Oak Island when extended. Doug Crowell connected the Azores element of the argument to the Pitblado coin. The line Clarke draws is symbolic rather than physical, and it depends on accepting that the V-shaped A is being used deliberately as a marker rather than as a stylistic flourish. Within those limits, the thread runs from a relic in Rome, through Portuguese Templar successor sites, to a 1762 map of Oak Island drawn by a Masonic surveyor. The second finding came in Episode 16. While clearing material near the cobblestone pathway in the northern region of the swamp, Gary Drayton's detector registered a non-ferrous signal. The recovered object, delivered to the lab by Alex Lagina and Drayton, was identified by Emma Culligan and Laird Niven as a Washington Funeral Medal struck in 1800 and designed by Jacob Perkins of Newburyport, Massachusetts, a Mason and the anti-counterfeiting engineer behind much of the era's American currency. The medal carries George Washington's profile on one face and a funerary urn on the reverse, with a deliberate hole at the top intended to be worn at the official memorial service of February 22, 1800. Whoever carried the token into the north end of the Oak Island bog did so five years after the Money Pit was discovered. As Marty Lagina noted in the War Room, Masonic figures appear at every major chapter of the Oak Island story, from Daniel McGinnis at the 1795 discovery through Melbourne Chappell in the 20th century to Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s. [artifact:george-washington-funeral-urn-medal][article:the-chappell-family-and-the-vault-beneath-oak-island][article:the-real-daniel-mcginnis-of-oak-island] No treasure yet In season 13, five new caissons were sunk in the Money Pit area: TPF, Karma-1, Peacock-1, MS-1, and MP-1. None reached its design depth without complication. None recovered what can be qualified as treasure. The Peacock void identified by sonar at 148 feet, accompanied by underwater camera footage that Bob Brown of Prohawk Technology Group assessed as more than 90 percent likely to contain man-made objects, was not re-encountered in subsequent boreholes drilled within feet of the original target. The Lot 8 cradle produced no artifact in its base. The William III sixpence Katya Drayton recovered from Robert Dunfield’s 1965 spoils on Lot 18 in the season finale, identified by Emma Culligan’s CT imaging as a 1697 to 1701 piece struck under Sir Isaac Newton’s Great Recoinage, was the only piece of silver coinage the season actually pulled from the ground. It was the third coin recovered from Dunfield Money Pit spoils on the show: Gary Drayton and Dave Blankenship pulled a 1673 Charles II Britannia copper and a 1694 William III Britannia copper from the same Dunfield / Money Pit spoils mass on Lot 16 in 2017, with the 1694 piece serving as the first William III coin from that mass and the 2026 sixpence the second.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ [artifact:william-iii-sixpence][artifact:britannia-coin-1694-william-iii][artifact:britannia-coin-1673-charles-ii][article:robert-dunfield-and-the-destruction-of-oak-island] What the season did produce, methodologically, was Dr. Spooner's confirmation by XRF that solution channel sediments from boreholes I-9.5 and K-9.5 contained elemental silver attached to clay particles, a non-natural source. And in the season's final War Room, Spooner presented an idea originally suggested by Dr. Fred Michel: testing the wood recovered from the old shafts on the principle that submerged wood acts as a natural filter for dissolved metals. Of fifteen samples processed, the wood from Shaft 2A in 2024 returned the highest silver reading and the third-highest gold reading recorded on the island. Marty Lagina committed to extending the program. The methodological pivot is the season's quietest result, and possibly the most important one. If the source of the metals cannot yet be reached directly, the metals it has shed into water and into wood may be reachable by other means. [artifact:wood-from-2a-shaft] Medieval baby! What Season 13 established was a carbon-14 floor at 1148 to 1216 in the swamp, an archaeoastronomical date of 1236 for the Lot 5 round foundation, a binder analysis on the Lot 8 cradle pointing to a premodern construction, a sixth Roman coin and a folded talisman coin from the same Lot 5 feature consistent with medieval ritual practice, and a Portuguese coin whose striking date is no later than 1371 and whose ties to the Order of Christ are no longer in serious doubt. It established geographic continuity from the Azores to Mahone Bay through symbols carved at sites whose Portuguese-Templar lineage is documented. It did not establish what was buried, where, or by whom. It did not lift treasure. The thirteenth-century framing of the Oak Island story has been on the table for at least a decade, mostly as conjecture. After Season 13, it is no longer conjecture alone. It is a working hypothesis with an overwhelming number of independent organic dates, indirect stone dates, and material evidence pulling in the same direction. That is not the same as proof. It is the difference between an argument the show was making and an argument the science is now making. Season 14 will be asked to do what Season 13 could not, which is to convert convergence into something a museum could accept. [article:oak-island-the-state-of-the-search-231-years-in] ### Oak Island Evidence: 2026 Update URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/the-record/oak-island-the-state-of-the-search-231-years-in What the Search Has Achieved For most of its history, the Oak Island treasure hunt ran on stories. Accounts passed down through generations, growing more colourful with each retelling, sustained over two centuries of digging with little hard evidence to show for it. When Rick and Marty Lagina began their systematic search in 2006, the factual record of what lay beneath the island was thin: some old wood, some coconut fibre, a scrap of parchment pulled from a drill bit in 1897, and a lot of flooded shafts. The island's story was famous. The proof was not. That has changed. Across 13 seasons, the Lagina operation has deployed carbon dating, dendrochronology, X-ray fluorescence, CT scanning, lead isotope analysis, laser ablation, muon tomography, archaeometallurgy, and seismic surveying. The result is not a solved mystery, but a body of scientific data that did not exist before. We know things about Oak Island today that no one knew in 2006 or ever before, and several of those things are no longer a matter of interpretation. What Has Been Confirmed The following conclusions rest on laboratory results, scientific dating, or direct physical observation by qualified professionals. They are not theories. They are the record as it stands. Non-native activity predating 1795. The Mi'kmaq, who inhabited Nova Scotia for thousands of years before European contact, did not quarry stone to build wells, did not lay cobblestone roads, did not forge iron, and did not import coconut fibre from the tropics. When these materials appear in the ground on Oak Island with scientific dates preceding the 1795 discovery of the Money Pit, the only possible conclusion is that non-native groups were present on the island long before the story officially begins. The evidence for this is no longer circumstantial. It is confirmed by multiple independent dating methods applied to materials recovered from multiple locations across the island. [article:mi-kmaq-the-first-nation] [artifacts-timeline] A 13th-to-14th-century horizon. Coconut fibre from Smith's Cove has been carbon-dated to 1260 to 1400 AD. Wood beneath a stone pavement in the swamp has been carbon-dated to the 1200s. Leather shoe fragments recovered from the cobblestone pathway in the swamp returned a primary carbon-14 date range of 1148 to 1216 AD, the hardest single dating result Season 13 produced. A lead barter token from Lot 5, tested by laser ablation at the University of New Brunswick, returned lead isotope values that closely match those of the lead cross found at Smith's Cove in 2017, suggesting a common ore source. That cross was traced by Dr. Chris McFarlane to Southern France, from a mine that ceased production around 1300. A decorative lead piece from Lot 5, tested by laser ablation at the University of New Brunswick, returned lead isotope values that closely match those of the lead cross, suggesting a common ore source. A Portuguese Tornês coin presented in Season 13, attributed to the 1849 Pitblado incident, was authenticated by Portuguese numismatist Alberto Silva in S13E24 as struck no later than 1371 under King Ferdinand I, who patronised the Order of Christ. Taken together, these dates cluster around the 13th and 14th centuries and point to activity by people with access to Mediterranean materials, tropical commodities, and European coinage. [artifact:lead-cross][artifact:lead-decorative-piece] A second horizon in the Age of Discovery. A Spanish 8 maravedis coin dated 1652 was recovered from the swamp. Two English coins bearing the image of King Charles II, dated 1673 and 1694, were found on Lot 16. An 11 maravedis coin dated 1598 was recovered from Smith's Cove in 1965. Seven King George II coppers (1727-1760) came from Lot 24. The U-shaped timber structure at Smith's Cove has been dendro-dated to 1769 by Dr. Colin Laroque at the University of Saskatchewan with what he described as 99.99 percent certainty. Wood recovered from the Money Pit at 102 feet returned carbon dates of 1655 to 1695. A second timber from the same depth dated to 1672 to 1780. The 16th through 18th centuries produced a dense layer of coins, construction timber, and military artifacts across the island, consistent with sustained or repeated visits by European groups over a period of at least two hundred years. [artifact:spanish-8-maravedis-coin][artifact:u-shaped-wooden-structure] Precious metals in the Money Pit. Dr. Ian Spooner and Dr. Fred Michel's groundwater testing programme detected gold, silver, copper, and zinc in water samples drawn from boreholes across the Money Pit area. The highest concentrations appeared in a zone they designated the Baby Blob, just west of the Garden Shaft. A metal fragment recovered from Borehole D-2 at 90 feet tested positive for gold with a copper content consistent with South American rose gold. A second gold-bearing fragment from Borehole CD-4.5 at 75.5 feet showed nearly identical composition. Dr. Christa Brosseau at Saint Mary's University confirmed that the copper content in both samples was typical of gold that originated in South America. These are not traces that could be explained by natural mineralisation of the bedrock. [artifact:gold-copper-alloy-tumbaga][artifact:garden-shaft] Human remains in the Money Pit. Bone fragments recovered from Borehole H-8 at 162 feet were identified as belonging to two individuals. Carbon dating placed both in the 1600s. DNA analysis indicated one individual of Western European origin and one of Middle Eastern descent. The bones were found at a depth and in a context inconsistent with any known burial practice on the island and predating the era of organised treasure hunting. The Lot 8 boulder feature. A 40,000-pound boulder ringed by deliberately placed support stones was lifted by crane in S13E16. Beneath it, archaeologist Fiona Steele exposed a tightly fitted stone cradle bound with three distinct binders: a fine powder mortar, a blue-grey clay matching the puddling clay used in the Money Pit, and a harder cement-like substance. Compositional analysis by Emma Culligan placed the binder material between post-1200s and pre-mid-1700s. By the season finale, hand excavation had passed below the level of surrounding bedrock without striking rock at the cradle's floor, and a trench dug beside the feature struck slate bedrock at six feet, indicating the cradle sits inside an earlier excavation and may cap a man-made shaft. [artifact:lot-8-giant-boulder-megalith] [article:oak-island-artifacts-dated-the-complete-chronological-timeline] Nolan's Cross Five cone-shaped boulders, each weighing several tons, form a cross measuring 867 feet north-south and 360 feet east-west. The formation was discovered by treasure hunter Fred Nolan in 1981 and independently surveyed by fellow Nova Scotia surveyor William Crooker in 1991. The symmetry is precise. The arms form four right angles. A sixth stone, made of softer sandstone and carved with what appears to be a human face, sits at the exact centre. Stonemasons brought to the island during Season 4 agreed that the smoothness of the cone stones' undersides was not natural but evidence the boulders had been dragged a considerable distance. No quarry source for stones of this size exists on the island. Italian archaeoastronomer Adriano Gaspani of the Politecnico di Milano analysed the alignment of the cross using the same methodology applied to Stonehenge, Newgrange, and the Egyptian pyramids. His conclusion was that the stellar positions corresponding to the cross date to approximately 1217 AD. Gaspani is among the foremost practitioners of archaeoastronomy in Europe, and his methods are published in peer-reviewed scientific literature. Archaeoastronomy is a recognised scientific discipline, applied routinely to megalithic sites worldwide. If the cross is a deliberate human construction, and the surveying evidence strongly indicates that it is, then Gaspani's date deserves the same weight given to archaeoastronomical dating of any other site. [map:nolans-cross] A date of 1217 AD places the cross squarely in the era of the European Religious Military Orders like the Knights Templar and the Hospitaller, who were at the height of their power and skilled organisers, sailors and navigators. It is also consistent with the 13th-century carbon dates from the swamp and the coconut fibre from Smith's Cove. If the cross, the swamp construction, and the alleged Smith's Cove filtration system belong to the same period of activity, they represent a coordinated project of significant scale on an island in the North Atlantic at least 275 years before Columbus. If one of them fails the test of time, we still have the other two. [article:real-or-not-the-geometry-of-nolan-s-cross] [article:before-nolan-s-cross-temple-beeld-cross] Why Oak Island Of the many questions surrounding the mystery, one of the easiest to answer is why someone would choose this particular island. Oak Island sits inside Mahone Bay, one of the largest and most accessible natural harbours on the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia. The bay opens directly south onto the Atlantic Ocean, with a mouth stretching roughly 15 kilometres between the Aspotogan Peninsula to the east and the First Peninsula of Lunenburg to the west. For a vessel approaching from the south, from Europe, the Caribbean, or anywhere along the Atlantic seaboard, Mahone Bay presents one of the widest front doors on the entire Maritime coast. The approach is not only wide but unmistakable. Aspotogan Hill, the highest point on Nova Scotia's south shore, served as a landmark for transatlantic navigation for centuries. Captain John Montresor, the British military engineer who produced the definitive 1768 map of Nova Scotia, labelled it on his chart as "remarkable for being seen at a great distance." Sailors arriving from Europe and the West Indies used the hill to fix their position long before they could make out individual features of the coastline. Samuel de Champlain, who charted the bay in 1604, labelled the islands "Les Martyrs" on his map "The Martyrs". No record explains what martyrs from where. The bay contains as many as 365 islands by some counts, providing sheltered anchorage and concealment once inside. The prevailing summer winds along this coast blow from the southwest, which means a vessel under sail approaching from the south would be carried directly into Mahone Bay by the wind and the current. For anyone seeking a destination on the Nova Scotia coast, especially in an era before reliable charts and navigational instruments, the combination was close to ideal: the tallest landmark on the south shore marking the entrance to a wide, sheltered bay full of islands, with the wind at your back. Oak Island sits in the western half of the bay, roughly four miles from the open Atlantic, protected by the outer islands but accessible by any vessel that could navigate the bay's channels. The question of why someone chose Oak Island over hundreds of other islands along the coast is, in practical terms, the simplest part of the puzzle. The Money Pit The original shaft, discovered in 1795 by Daniel McGinnis, John Smith, and Anthony Vaughan, has been the focus of nearly every expedition. After 230 years of repeated excavation, collapse, and re-excavation, the ground beneath the eastern drumlin is so thoroughly disturbed that isolating original deposits from searcher-era debris is one of the operation's central challenges. The current understanding, developed across Seasons 9 through 13, is that the original shaft collapsed into a natural geological feature called the solution channel, a cavity in the island's anhydrite and gypsum bedrock formed by the dissolution of soluble rock over millennia. The team believes that whatever was deposited in the Money Pit fell through this channel and now rests at depths of 150 to 220 feet or deeper, mixed with collapsed timbers, clay, and the debris of every failed recovery attempt since 1803. Season 13 has targeted the solution channel with the most aggressive drilling programme in the search's history, using a telescoping caisson method capable of reaching 230 feet. Soil testing has confirmed elevated levels of silver in this zone. The Pitblado coin, if its provenance is accepted, places a 14th-century Portuguese coin in the auger cuttings from roughly this depth during the 1849 Truro Company operation. If something is indeed down there, the question is whether it can be reached and recovered through 200 feet of collapsed, waterlogged ground without destroying it in the process. Five caissons were sunk in the Money Pit area in Season 13, none reaching its design depth without complication and none recovering a piece of treasure. Dr. Spooner's XRF analysis of solution channel sediments did, however, confirm elemental silver attached to clay particles in two of the boreholes, a non-natural source. In the season's final War Room, Spooner presented an idea originally suggested by Dr. Fred Michel: testing the wood recovered from the old shafts on the principle that submerged wood acts as a natural filter for dissolved metals. Of fifteen samples processed, the wood from Shaft 2A in 2024 returned the highest silver reading and the third-highest gold reading recorded on the island. [artifact:portuguese-torn-s-coin-pitblado-coin] The Island Beyond the Pit One of the most significant shifts in the Lagina era has been the expansion of the search beyond the Money Pit itself. The island's surface and near-surface have produced an archaeological record that, in some respects, is more informative than the deep drilling. The Swamp. What was once dismissed as a natural bog has produced a cobblestone road, wooden ship components carbon-dated to as early as the 8th century, iron marlinespikes from the 17th century, a hand cannon fragment assessed by Maltese military historian Matthew Balzan as European military hardware potentially dating to the 1200s, and a stone wharf. The road, estimated by Steve Guptill at 460 feet, was built over a wood cribbing structure designed to support heavy loads across boggy terrain. Fred Nolan spent decades arguing the swamp was man-made. Dr. Ian Spooner's core analysis confirmed it is relatively young, possibly only a few hundred years old, and may have formed around and above structures that were already in place. [map:the-swamp] Lot 5. An uninhabited lot with no known history of occupation has produced six confirmed Roman-era coins, a Tudor portcullis coin from the 1500s, Venetian trade beads linked to the Knights of Malta, a 14th-century lead barter token matched by isotope analysis to the Smith's Cove lead cross, a 13-foot-diameter circular stone pit whose dimensions match the original Money Pit, and pottery spanning the 14th through 18th centuries. The concentration of artifacts from multiple centuries on a single lot without any known habitation history remains unexplained. The structure that has been found there is an enigma in itself, we have no idea what it was and who used it. Season 13 added a folded copper coin recovered from spoils of the round feature, identified by coin expert Sandy Campbell as a talisman folded in a medieval Christian ritual practice associated with the Templars' veneration of Saints George and Bernard of Clairvaux. The round foundation itself was independently dated by Adriano Gaspani's archaeoastronomy to 1236 AD, applying the same methodology that produced the 1217 date for Nolan's Cross. [map:lot-5-stone-feature] Lot 8. Continuous metal detection and surface excavation across Lot 8 produced Season 13's most consequential single find: a 40,000-pound boulder feature ringed by deliberately placed support stones, lifted in S13E16 to expose a stone cradle bound with three distinct binders. The cradle dating window (post-1200s to pre-mid-1700s) overlaps the 13th-century horizon documented elsewhere on the island. Surrounding finds include hand-forged chain links Emma Culligan dated to the late 1600s to mid-1700s, a 700-year-old English bag seal bearing the city seal of Leeds, and a fragment of red-dyed wool textile recovered beneath one of the boulders. [artifact:lot-8-giant-boulder-megalith] Smith's Cove. The 2018-2019 cofferdam excavation confirmed the artificial beach first described in 1850 and exposed the U-shaped structure (dendro-dated 1769), an L-shaped structure, a slipway, a French drain system, and an unexplained concrete wall with rubber tubes. A single box drain matching the 1850 descriptions was located. The convergence point where the five drains allegedly merge into a flood tunnel was not found. [map:smiths-cove] Surface Finds. Metal detection across the island has produced over 40 coins spanning Roman, medieval, colonial, and post-colonial periods, alongside military buttons, musket balls, iron tools, lead seals, jewellery, and ceramics. The geographic distribution of these finds is not random. British military artifacts cluster on Samuel Ball's former properties. Spanish-era coins concentrate in the swamp and at Isaac's Point. Roman and medieval coins cluster on Lot 5. This patterning suggests different groups used different parts of the island at different times. [article:samuel-ball-the-unlikely-landowner] The Theories: An Honest Assessment Multiple theories have been proposed to explain who was responsible for the activity on Oak Island and what they deposited. Each is treated in detail in its own article on this site. What follows is a brief assessment of which theories are best supported by the current evidence and which are not. Knights Templar. The strongest circumstantial case. The 13th-century dates from the swamp and Smith's Cove fall within the Templar era. The lead cross from Smith's Cove was traced to Southern France, a Templar heartland, from a mine that closed around 1300. The Pitblado coin is Portuguese, from the period when Templar assets were transferred to the Order of Christ. Gaspani's dating of Nolan's Cross to 1217 fits precisely. Season 13 added a goose paw carving identified at the Igreja Matriz de São Sebastião and Nossa Senhora da Conceição on Terceira in the Azores: the same Templar pilgrim's mark previously documented at the caves of Camerano in Italy and on a stone at a beach in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, fifty miles from Oak Island. None of this proves Templar presence on the island. All of it is consistent with it. [article:the-knights-templar] Spanish or Portuguese maritime activity. Well supported by the artifact record. Spanish coins from 1598, 1652, and possibly earlier have been found across the island. The barrote-type decking spike from the swamp matches Spanish galleon hardware. The Pitblado coin is Portuguese. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to chart the Nova Scotia coast, and the Order of Christ funded their voyages. Spanish and Portuguese presence in the region during the 16th and 17th centuries is historically documented. Whether they deposited something on the island or simply visited it is a different question. Season 13 added several pieces to the Portuguese case. Dry-stone walls at Serreta in the Azores were carbon-dated to 1470 to 1475 and matched the construction of the wall on Lot 26, attributed to Portuguese-Azorean builders by historian Francisco Nogueira. An iron deck spike recovered from the Lot 5 round feature was identified by archaeologist Tiago Rodrigues at the Angra do Heroísmo Museum as unmistakably Portuguese and possibly 14th century. Three stone shots recovered from the Money Pit area were attributed by Dr. Robert Raeside of Acadia University to Portuguese-Azorean origin from the 1300s or early 1400s. The Pitblado coin, narrowed to no later than 1371 and struck under Order of Christ patron Ferdinand I, sits inside this same window. [article:the-portuguese-the-order-of-christ] British military. Supported by the concentration of George II coins and military artifacts on Samuel Ball's properties, consistent with an 18th-century military presence. Fred Nolan's theory linking this to the 1762 sacking of Havana has not been confirmed, but the artifacts are real. [article:the-secret-british-military-bank] Francis Bacon / Shakespeare manuscripts. Rests primarily on the parchment fragment from Borehole H-8, the leather bookbinding scraps from the same hole, and various cipher interpretations. The parchment is real and was found at depth. The theory's strength depends on whether one accepts the cipher analyses, which have not been independently validated. The human remains dated to the 1600s are consistent with the Bacon timeline but do not specifically support it over other 17th-century theories. [article:francis-bacon-s-secret-island][article:william-shakespeare-the-lost-works] Captain Kidd / Pirate treasure. The first theory ever proposed, referenced in the earliest 1849 newspaper account. No physical evidence has been found linking Kidd or any other named pirate to Oak Island. The engineering sophistication suggested by Smith's Cove exceeds what is typically attributed to pirate operations. [article:pirates][article:captain-kidd-and-the-hidden-maps] Vikings / Norse. A wooden ship's railing from the swamp was carbon-dated to as early as the 8th century. Dates like these seem outliers but if accurate, raise the possibility of very early Norse contact. The evidence is limited to these two objects and remains speculative. [article:vikings] What Remains Unresolved The central questions of the Oak Island mystery remain open. No one has identified with certainty who built the Money Pit or the infrastructure at Smith's Cove. No one has determined what was deposited. No one has successfully recovered a treasure or a document or any object that definitively answers the question of purpose. The alleged flood tunnel from Smith's Cove has never been traced as a continuous passage. The identity of the two individuals whose bones were found at 162 feet is unknown. The relationship between the 13th-century and 17th-century activity has not been established: whether they represent the same group returning, different groups building on earlier work, or unrelated projects separated by centuries. [artifact:human-bone-fragments-2-individuals] The solution channel beneath the Money Pit has been identified as the most promising target for recovery. Water testing has confirmed the presence of silver and gold in this zone. The operational challenge of reaching and excavating material at 200-plus feet through waterlogged, collapsed ground remains formidable. Season 13's telescoping caisson programme represents the most direct attempt yet to reach the bottom of the channel. Where the Evidence Points The evidence does not yet tell us what is buried on Oak Island. It does tell us that the island was used by non-native groups, in all probability beginning in the 13th century and continuing through the colonial era, for purposes that required stone construction, iron tools, tropical materials, and engineering on a scale that implies organised, well-funded expeditions rather than casual visits. The coconut fibre, the stone road, the box drains, the lead cross, the coins, and the dendro-dated timbers are not stories. They are objects in the ground with scientific dates attached to them. If Gaspani's archaeoastronomical dating of Nolan's Cross is accepted, the island also contains a monumental cultural object, a 360-by-867-foot stone cross aligned to the stars of 1217 AD, that would rank among the most significant pre-Columbian European structures in North America. The cross has been surveyed, measured, and independently verified. The boulders have been examined by stonemasons who confirmed they were moved and placed by human hands. Whether the academic mainstream will engage with this evidence is a separate matter from whether the evidence exists. It does. [article:the-oak-island-star-map] Each year since Season 9, an annual European research trip led by researcher Corjan Mol has taken the team to a site where the documentary or material record places medieval European activity within reach of the Atlantic. Fontarcada and the 12th-century Templar church there in 2021. Camerano in Italy and its Templar cave carvings. Iceland and the Roman coin finds at Templar-associated sites. The Azores in Season 13 closed the corridor at its last stepping stone before Oak Island. After 231 years, six lives lost, and more money spent than any treasure hunt in history, the search has reached a point where the right question is no longer whether something happened on Oak Island. The question is what happened, who did it and whether the answer still lies in the ground. Updated May 7, 2026. This article will be updated as new findings emerge.   ### Oak Island Artifacts Dated: The Complete Chronological Timeline URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/the-record/oak-island-artifacts-dated-the-complete-chronological-timeline For [count:years-of-search] years, the Oak Island treasure hunt has been organized around two questions: who built the workings, and what they buried. A third question, less often asked in those terms, is when. The artifact vault on this site holds [count:artifacts] published objects, recovered over more than two centuries of searching. They do not point to a single century, a single people, or a single deposition event. Plotted against the documented history of Nova Scotia (Acadia) and the island itself, they cluster in patterns that any honest theory has to account for. This article does that mapping. It treats the artifacts not as evidence for one theory or another, but as a dataset that has its own shape. The shape is uneven. Some centuries are densely represented, others almost absent. Some objects sit in their period with high confidence, others span ranges so wide they place little weight on any one window. The point of the exercise is to see what the vault actually says about time, before deciding what it says about anything else. [artifacts-timeline] The Three Dates Behind Every Artifact Every artifact has three different dates. The first is its origin date, when the object was made or grew. The second is its deposition date, when it arrived at Oak Island. The third is its recovery date, when a searcher pulled it from the ground. These three are almost never the same, and frequently span centuries. A Spanish maravedi minted in 1598 might have been pocket change in 1750. A coconut husk fragment carbon dated to 1036 AD might have arrived in the Money Pit any time before its discovery. A hand-forged iron pintle of a style first used in 2000 BC was almost certainly forged for a colonial-era hinge. The chronological mapping below uses the earliest plausible origin date as the spine, with notes where deposition diverges from origin, and recovery context as supporting evidence. Every claim that follows traces to a named laboratory, named assessor, named document, or named eyewitness. Where dating comes from a radiocarbon assay, the lab is identified. Where it comes from a typological reading, the analyst is named. Where neither exists, the article says so plainly. Of the [count:artifacts] published artifacts, [count:dated-artifacts] carry an origin date in the database; the remaining [count:undated-artifacts] are placed by era label only and treated with appropriate care. The Mi'kmaq Centuries and the Medieval Cluster (to 1499) Before any documented European reached what is now Nova Scotia, the Mi'kmaq lived along its coast and inland waters. Pottery shards recovered from the southeast corner of the Oak Island swamp, near the stone road feature, have been assessed at between 500 and 2,500 years old. The Indigenous presence on the South Shore did not begin when European ships first arrived, and it did not end either. Any chronology of the island that opens with European contact has already mislabelled half the timeline. [article:mi-kmaq-the-first-nation] A second, much smaller signal sits behind the Mi'kmaq baseline. On Lot 5, metal detection has recovered what numismatists have read as Roman copper pieces, including a coin attributed to the emperor Claudius II (268-270 AD) and other fragments dated to between 100 and 600 AD. Inside the Money Pit, a charcoal layer between 30 and 40 feet has produced two radiocarbon results bracketing the Roman period, around 90 BC and 290 AD. Peat deposits in the south shore beach pits returned dates of roughly 30 BC to 50 AD and 425 to 355 BC. These results sit at low to medium confidence in the database, and the Roman coin attributions remain contested in the wider numismatic literature. They are recorded here because they exist in the soil, not because they prove anything by themselves. [artifact:roman-coin-claudius-ii][artifact:charcoal-layer] The strongest pre-1500 signal is later, and it clusters tightly between roughly 1050 and 1400. Fibrous material from Smith's Cove was radiocarbon dated to 780-840 AD by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1995-96. Three independent samples of the same material from the Money Pit at 60 feet returned a combined range of 1036-1374 AD from Beta Analytic and Woods Hole. The Smith's Cove timber structures excavated by Dan Blankenship in 1969-70 produced an oak peg dated to around 860 AD (720-1000) and a beam dated to around 1135 AD (1025-1245). Beneath the centre of the triangular swamp, the so-called paved area or stone wharf overlies wood radiocarbon dated to around 1200 AD. [artifact:coconut-fibre-smith-s-cove][artifact:smiths-cove-timber-structures-blankenship-1969-70] The fibre itself has since been re-examined. For most of the 20th century it was identified as coconut coir, on the basis of sample work by Robert Dunfield in 1976 and the Woods Hole analysis in 1995. In 2022, forensic botanical research by David H. Neisen, Robert W. Cook, and Christopher L. Boze re-identified the material as trunk-sheath fibre from the Judean Date Palm (Phoenix dactylifera), with a narrowed radiocarbon range of 1185 to 1330 AD at 95 percent confidence. Their work estimates a minimum of 1.54 metric tonnes of the fibre recovered from the Money Pit and Smith's Cove combined, a volume that argues against accidental deposit or shipboard dunnage. The Judean Date Palm was cultivated commercially in a restricted band of the Levant during the medieval period, including the Jericho region where the Knights Templar operated agricultural estates between 1116 and the Battle of Hattin in 1187. The lower bound of the Oak Island fibre dating begins almost precisely where that Levantine operation ended. [artifact:coconut-fibre-money-pit] Around the same window, archaeoastronomer Adriano Gaspani dated the geometry of Nolan's Cross, the five-boulder configuration in the island interior, to 1217 AD. Charcoal from the rock wall on Lot 26, near the stone well that never freezes, returned a 15th-century date. The well itself has been assessed as 12th century. A hand-wrought iron spike pulled from a stone foundation on Lot 5 was metallurgically dated to the 1100s-1300s. The lead decorative piece recovered in 2024 was carbon dated to before 1400 by Tobias Skowronek of the German Mining Museum, using its lead isotope signature. Leather shoe fragments from the northern swamp returned a tight medieval window of 1148-1216. A crossbow bolt assessed by the Ladby Viking Museum was placed in the medieval or Viking Age. A lead cross from Smith's Cove was estimated at 900-1300 AD. [artifact:stone-well-never-freezes][artifact:lead-cross][artifact:nolan-s-cross-6-boulders] One coin sits awkwardly in this window. The Portuguese tornes attributed to King Ferdinand I of Portugal (minted 1369-1371) was XRF-confirmed by Emma Culligan as period-appropriate metal. As evidence of medieval activity on Oak Island, the coin is contested and circumstantial at best. Its provenance is presented as a Pitblado-Archibald family heirloom rather than a documented Oak Island recovery, with the Money Pit auger story attached by oral tradition. The metallurgy is real. The findspot is not verifiable. The article notes both, and treats the coin as a separate question from the radiocarbon and dendrochronology results above. [artifact:portuguese-torn-s-coin-pitblado-coin] Taken together, the 12th to 14th century cluster is the densest pre-Columbian signal in the vault, with the highest proportion of laboratory-confirmed dates of any window before 1500. It does not name a builder. It establishes a time window, supported by independent samples from multiple locations on the island. Tudor Coins, Iberian Sails, and the Sixteenth Century (1500-1604) The documented European presence on the South Shore begins thinly in this century. John Cabot reached Newfoundland and the eastern seaboard in 1497, claiming territory for England. Portuguese fishermen and cartographers worked the coast through the 1500s, leaving names on early charts that no other European had yet placed. Basque whalers operated out of Red Bay on the Strait of Belle Isle from at least the 1530s. Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a friend of Dr. John Dee, reached Newfoundland and is recorded in the vicinity of Nova Scotia in 1583. Pierre du Gua de Monts received his colonization charter in 1603, and Samuel de Champlain reached the region the following year. Port Royal would not be founded until 1605. Against that thin documented background, the Oak Island artifact record for this century is unusually heavy. Lot 5 has yielded a British Tudor portcullis coin assessed to the 1500s, recovered in the circular depression that has produced repeated finds across multiple seasons. A Spanish 11 maravedis copper dated 1598 was recovered at Isaac's Point, near Smith's Cove. A Barrote nail of Spanish galleon construction (1575-1600) came out of the north end of the swamp. Flat decking wood from the swamp's southern edge was carbon dated to 1516-1674. [artifact:british-tudor-portcullis-coin][artifact:cut-maravedi-isaacs-point][artifact:barrote-nail-spanish-galleon] The Iberian fingerprint extends through ornamental and personal objects whose origin dates fall in the 16th-17th century band. The McGinnis Gold Cross, recovered inside the Money Pit, has been stylistically dated to between 1550 and 1700. A jewelled brooch with a rhodolite garnet from Lot 8 was placed in the 16th-17th century by gemmological analysis. A silver Spanish ring came out of the swamp. Decorative iron hinges of Spanish-style construction were recovered with an associated divider compass on Lot 21. None of these objects can be tied to a documented event, but they sit in a tight stylistic window and several were found in the same locations as the larger 16th-century coin and ship-fitting record. [artifact:jewelled-brooch-rhodolite-garnet][artifact:mcginnis-gold-cross][artifact:silver-spanish-ring][artifact:decorative-hinges-lot-12] On the mainland, a single object provides important context. The Ardoise Hill gravestone in Nova Scotia, inscribed C. Manulis 1558, is the oldest documented European-marked stone in the province. It establishes that someone with a European name died and was buried in Nova Scotia thirty-seven years before Champlain reached the region by the conventional account. Whether or not the artifact is associated with the documented exploration record, it is a hard date in stone on the mainland forty-seven years before Port Royal. [artifact:ardoise-hill-gravestone-c-manulis-1558] The 1500-1604 window holds 54 dated artifacts in the vault, second only to the medieval cluster. Most are coins, ship fittings, and personal ornaments. Most of the find locations cluster around the swamp, Smith's Cove, and Lot 5. The historical record gives this period almost no documented European presence on the South Shore. The artifact record gives it considerable activity. The mismatch is one of the more interesting things the chronological mapping surfaces. Port Royal, LaHave, and the Bones at One Hundred Sixty Feet (1605-1712) This is the French Acadian century. Champlain established Port Royal on the Bay of Fundy in 1605, after the disastrous Isle Sainte-Croix attempt the year before. The Acadian population grew slowly but steadily through the 1600s, eventually reaching the thousands. Isaac de Razilly established a French settlement at LaHave on the South Shore in 1632, eight miles from what is now Lunenburg and roughly thirty miles from Oak Island. By 1670, Acadians had settled in small communities at LaHave and at Merligueche, later renamed Lunenburg. Around 1700, the French governor of Acadia is recorded as inviting Atlantic Coast pirates to use LaHave as a depot. The Treaty of Utrecht transferred Acadia to England in 1713, closing this period. [article:the-knights-of-malta][article:pirates] The artifact vault for this century holds 46 dated objects, with the highest proportion of high-confidence laboratory and inscription-based dating of any period in the dataset. The 1671 Order of the Garter medallion was recovered at New Ross on the mainland. A Britannia copper of Charles II dated 1673 and a second Britannia copper of William III dated 1694 came out of the Lot 16 spoils from Robert Dunfield's 1965 Money Pit excavation. A William III sixpence (1697-1701) was recovered in the same spoils. A Spanish 8 maravedis dated 1652 was pulled from the swamp. A stone bearing the inscription 1704 has been documented on the island surface. [artifact:britannia-coin-1673-charles-ii][artifact:1671-order-of-the-garter-medallion][artifact:britannia-coin-1694-william-iii][artifact:william-iii-sixpence] The most striking high-confidence find of this period lies inside the Money Pit at depth. Human bone fragments recovered from borehole H8 at approximately 160 feet were radiocarbon dated to between 1678 and 1764. The fragments represent two individuals. They place at least two human deaths inside the Money Pit workings during the late 17th or early 18th century, decades before the 1795 discovery. A trapezoid-shaped wooden piece from the Triangle Swamp excavation returned a radiocarbon date of 1683-1735. Sticks and organic matter from the Eye of the Swamp returned 1674-1700. Staffordshire slipware pottery from the Lot 5 round feature was placed at 1675-1770. [artifact:human-bone-fragments-2-individuals][artifact:trapezoid-wood-piece-swamp][artifact:sticks-organic-matter-eye-of-the-swamp] The swamp continued to receive material through this century. Lead bag seals identified as Leeds cloth (with Golden Fleece, 17th-18th century) and Norwich cloth (1638-1714) were recovered from Lots 8 and 32. An adze head from Lot 4 was placed at 1620-1740 by blacksmith analysis. Bush scythe fragments from the well on Lot 26 were dated to the mid-17th century. Crib spikes from Smith's Cove fell into a 1650-1800 window. A block and tackle hook from Lot 11 well spoils was placed at 1650-1690. [artifact:lead-bag-seal-with-golden-fleece][artifact:lead-bag-seal-norwich-cloth][artifact:adze-head-lot-4][artifact:bush-scythe-fragments-lot-26][artifact:crib-spikes-multiple][artifact:block-tackle-hook-lot-11] The conventional account of this century holds that Oak Island was uninhabited, with Acadian and pirate activity concentrated at LaHave to the south and at Mahone Bay to the north. The artifact record places coins, ship fittings, agricultural tools, cloth seals, ceramic ware, organic deposits inside the swamp, and the remains of at least two human beings inside the Money Pit at 160 feet, all within this window. The two readings are difficult to reconcile. [artifact:human-bone-fragments-2-individuals] [artifact:1671-order-of-the-garter-medallion] Louisbourg, the Expulsion, and the 1769 Slipway (1713-1794) The period between the Treaty of Utrecht and the Money Pit discovery is the most under-discussed in Oak Island writing. It is also, by the artifact record, the period in which the question of who reached the island before McGinnis becomes hardest to dismiss. The documented history of the South Shore through these eighty-two years is dense. The French fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton, founded in 1713, generated regular pay-ship traffic across the Atlantic. Louisbourg fell to a New England force in 1745, was returned to France in 1748, and fell again to the British in 1758. In 1746, the d'Anville fleet sailed from France to retake Louisbourg and lost most of its ships at sea. The Foreign Protestants, a group of German, Swiss, and French Protestant settlers, were brought to Lunenburg in 1753. The British military expelled the Acadian population beginning in 1755 in what is now called the Grand Derangement. The Treaty of Paris of 1763 permitted Acadian return, though most never came back. The Shoreham Grant of 1759 opened the area around Oak Island to New England Planters, and the Chester Township was established the same year. Charles Morris surveyed the island into thirty-two four-acre lots in 1762, thirty-three years before McGinnis, Smith, and Vaughan walked onto it. [article:the-treasure-of-louisbourg][article:the-doomed-expedition-of-the-duc-d-anville][article:the-secret-british-military-bank][article:charles-morris-the-man-who-mapped-oak-island] The artifact record for this period holds 17 dated objects, fewer than the preceding centuries but with the highest single-date precision of any window in the vault. In 2022, dendrochronological analysis of a red spruce slipway timber recovered at Smith's Cove returned a felling date of 1769. A separate U-shaped wooden structure in the Smith's Cove tidal zone, recovered in the same period of investigation, returned the same dendrochronology date of 1769. A large log bearing Roman numerals, found beneath the shore at Smith's Cove, was dated to trees felled around 1770. [artifact:u-shaped-wooden-structure][artifact:large-log-with-roman-numerals-65-ft] The dendrochronology numbers are not estimates or stylistic readings. They are tree-ring counts against a regional master chronology, accurate to the year. Someone was at Smith's Cove in 1769, building maritime infrastructure substantial enough to leave a slipway and an associated wooden structure, twenty-six years before Daniel McGinnis arrived on the island. The Foreign Protestants had been at Lunenburg for sixteen years. The Chester Township had been settled for ten. Charles Morris had drawn his thirty-two lots seven years earlier. Whoever felled those red spruce in 1769 was not working in an unmarked wilderness. [article:the-oak-island-dry-dock][article:the-real-daniel-mcginnis-of-oak-island] Inside the Money Pit, Staffordshire pearlware pottery shards have been recovered at 192 feet, placed by Laird Niven at 1780-1800. A King George II copper coin dated 1771 was recovered at the south shore near the swamp. A Spanish half-real silver coin dated 1781 came out of Lot 5. A bone-handled knife from the McGinnis foundation root cellar (Lot 21) was placed at 1750-1799 by typology. [artifact:pottery-shards-staffordshire-pearlware][artifact:king-george-ii-copper-coin-1771][artifact:1781-spanish-half-real-silver-coin][artifact:bone-handled-knife-lot-21] The Lot 5 round stone feature continued to receive small objects through this period: an iron chopping knife (mid-1700s), an iron hook from the well, a black glass jewel, an ornate faceted glass jewel (post-1734), square nails, and a George III penny or halfpenny in the 1760-1820 range. Whatever stood at the Lot 5 round feature was occupied through the entire pre-Loyalist colonial period. [artifact:iron-chopping-knife-lot-8][artifact:iron-hook-lot-5-well][artifact:black-glass-jewel][artifact:ornate-facted-glass-jewel][artifact:square-nails][artifact:george-iii-penny-halfpenny-lot-5] The vault's chronology says clearly that the island was not empty before 1795. By 1769 someone was building permanent works at Smith's Cove. By 1780 someone was depositing English pottery at 192 feet inside the Money Pit shaft, well below any depth McGinnis and his companions would reach in their first season of digging. The question of who that someone was sits outside the scope of this article. The question of when they were there is in the wood. The Cartwheel Twopence, the Cofferdam, and the Chappell Vault (1795+) The discovery of the Money Pit in 1795 begins a new chronological layer in the vault. The objects from this period are not treasure. They are the residue of 230 years of treasure hunting. [article:down-the-money-pit] A George III "cartwheel" twopence dated 1797, struck at Matthew Boulton's Soho Mint, was recovered on Lot 2 two years after Daniel McGinnis filed his claim. A George Washington funeral urn medal dated January 1800 was recovered in the northern part of the swamp. A British naval officer's button dated 1804-1825 came out of Lot 25, on the foundation of Samuel Ball's home. Wrought iron scissors of pre-mid-19th century manufacture were recovered at Smith's Cove, beneath the original flood system. A Queen Victoria copper halfpenny of the 1840s was found near the McGinnis foundation on Lot 21. The 1850 cofferdam remains at Smith's Cove, built by the Truro Company, are documented in the archaeological record. A leather boot sole dated 1830-1900 was pulled from the north swamp. [artifact:george-iii-cartwheel-twopence-coin][artifact:george-washington-funeral-urn-medal][artifact:british-naval-officer-s-button][artifact:wrought-iron-scissors][artifact:queen-victoria-copper-halfpenny][artifact:leather-boot-sole] In 1897, Frederick Blair's Oak Island Treasure Company detected what came to be called the Chappell Vault by drilling at 153 feet inside the Money Pit. The vault has never been physically reached and it's status will remain legendary until found. The detection itself is part of the artifact record, a piece of negative evidence about the search rather than about what is buried. [article:the-chappell-family-and-the-vault-beneath-oak-island] The post-1795 layer in the database is thin by design. The site treats searcher-era objects as supporting evidence about the history of the hunt, not as candidates for the original deposit. A 1797 cartwheel pence is not evidence of a Templar visit or a Spanish pay ship. It is evidence that someone with a freshly minted English coin in his pocket was on Oak Island two years after the Money Pit was found. The boot soles, the buttons, the Victorian halfpennies, and the cofferdam timbers are all best read this way. They date the search, not the deposit. [artifact:george-iii-cartwheel-twopence-coin] A Thousand Years of Activity Before McGinnis The chronological mapping does not name a builder. It does not identify a treasure. It does not resolve any of the major theories that have organized writing about Oak Island for two centuries. What it does is constrain the question. The vault is heavily weighted toward objects with origin dates before 1795. Of the 182 dated artifacts in the published record, 174 fall before the Money Pit discovery, and only 8 fall after. The largest dated single cluster sits between 1500 and 1712, with 100 artifacts across two periods. The next largest cluster sits between roughly 1050 and 1400, with the highest proportion of independent laboratory dating in the vault. The 1713-1794 window holds fewer artifacts than the surrounding periods, but the dendrochronology dates of 1769 at Smith's Cove are among the most precise findings in the dataset. If a single theory is to account for these patterns, it must explain why the 12th to 14th century timber, fibre, stonework, and metal cluster appears in independent samples from Smith's Cove, the Money Pit, and the swamp, all dated by separate laboratories. It must explain the 16th-century Iberian fingerprint at a time when the documented European presence on the South Shore was almost nil. It must explain the human remains at 160 feet in the Money Pit, dated between 1678 and 1764. And it must explain who was at Smith's Cove in 1769 building a slipway in red spruce felled that same year. None of these are isolated finds. None of them point on their own to a single perpetrator or purpose. Taken together, they describe an island that has received human attention, in pulses and clusters, for at least a thousand years before the boys from Chester Township walked onto it in 1795. [Editor's note: This article will be updated as new artifacts are added to the public vault and as further dating results are released. The five-period structure used here is a reading of the current dataset, not a fixed historical claim.] --- # EPISODE GUIDE ## The Curse of Oak Island TV Series Network: History Channel Premiere Date: January 5, 2014 Production: Prometheus Entertainment URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes ## Main Cast - Rick Lagina - Co-owner, Oak Island Tours Inc. - Marty Lagina - Co-owner, engineer and entrepreneur - Craig Tester - Partner, Oak Island Tours Inc. - Gary Drayton - Metal detection expert - Alex Lagina - Marty's son - Jack Begley - Craig Tester's stepson Total Seasons: 14 Total Episodes: 256 (with titles) out of 281 listed Status: Season 14 completed ## Season Overview | Season | Year | Episodes | Premiere | |--------|------|----------|----------| | 1 | 2014 | 5 | Jan 5, 2014 | | 2 | 2014 | 10 | Nov 4, 2014 | | 3 | 2015 | 13 | Nov 10, 2015 | | 4 | 2016 | 15 | Nov 15, 2016 | | 5 | 2017 | 18 | Nov 7, 2017 | | 6 | 2018 | 22 | Nov 6, 2018 | | 7 | 2019 | 23 | Nov 5, 2019 | | 8 | 2020 | 25 | Nov 10, 2020 | | 9 | 2021 | 25 | Nov 2, 2021 | | 10 | 2022 | 25 | Nov 15, 2022 | | 11 | 2023 | 25 | Nov 7, 2023 | | 12 | 2024 | 25 | Nov 12, 2024 | | 13 | 2025 | 25 | Nov 4, 2025 | | 14 | 2026 | 25 | Nov 3, 2026 | ### Season 1 (2014) Premiere: January 5, 2014 Episodes: 5 A journey begins as Michigan brothers Rick and Marty Lagina fulfill a childhood dream by arriving on Oak Island to search for its legendary treasure. This inaugural season introduces viewers to the 220-year mystery and the modern team assembled to solve it. The brothers explore Borehole 10-X, investigate Smith's Cove, and make their first startling discovery: coconut fiber carbon-dated to 1260-1400 AD, centuries before Columbus reached the Americas. The season establishes the show's documentary style and introduces key locations including the Money Pit, the swamp, and the War Room. At the end of the season when they start to lose hope, they find a Spanish coin in the swamp. **S1E1: What Lies Below** (Jan 5, 2014) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-1/episode-1-what-lies-below In February 2013, brothers Rick and Marty Lagina travel from Michigan to Oak Island, Nova Scotia, to launch the most extensive exploration of the island in over two hundred years. **S1E2: The Mystery of Smith's Cove** (Jan 12, 2014) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-1/episode-2-the-mystery-of-smith-s-cove At the 10-X shaft, Dave Blankenship, Jack Begley, and Dan Henskee sift through debris brought to the surface by the airlift operation. **S1E3: Voices from the Grave** (Jan 19, 2014) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-1/episode-3-voices-from-the-grave In the War Room, the team turns its attention to the Oak Island swamp. **S1E4: The Secret of Solomon's Temple** (Jan 26, 2014) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-1/episode-4-the-secret-of-solomon-s-temple The draining of the Oak Island swamp continues, though progress is slower than expected and one of the two pumps fails shortly after starting. **S1E5: The Find** (Feb 9, 2014) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-1/episode-5-the-find Following the strong metal detector signals at the Mercy point in the previous episode, the team returns to the swamp with a Deepmax X6, a far more sophisticated detection unit capable of scanning ... ### Season 2 (2014) Premiere: November 4, 2014 Episodes: 10 With their first season behind them, Rick and Marty Lagina mount a serious assault on the Money Pit, bringing in heavy drilling rigs capable of grinding through the layers of wood, stone, and debris that defeated earlier equipment. Core samples from deep underground return fragments of wood and metal, and the team believes it has contacted the legendary Chappell Vault. The Templar theory takes center stage as researcher J. Hutton Pulitzer presents evidence linking Oak Island to the Knights Templar and the Ark of the Covenant. A massive dye test attempts to trace the flood tunnels, and the season culminates with preparations for the first manned dive into the mysterious Borehole 10-X, where sonar has detected objects at 235 feet underground. **S2E1: Once In, Forever In** (Nov 4, 2014) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-2/episode-1-once-in-forever-in Rick and Marty Lagina travel with Craig Tester to Tampa, Florida, to visit Global Marine Exploration, a company specializing in shipwreck artifact salvage. **S2E2: Return to the Money Pit** (Nov 11, 2014) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-2/episode-2-return-to-the-money-pit Rick and Marty Lagina begin their first serious attempt to locate and drill into the original Money Pit. **S2E3: The Eight-Pointed Star** (Nov 18, 2014) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-2/episode-3-the-eight-pointed-star J. **S2E4: The Breakthrough** (Nov 25, 2014) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-2/episode-4-the-breakthrough After two weeks of drilling, the team has brought in a 30-ton rig capable of grinding through the layers of wood, stone, and debris that defeated the smaller quarry drill. **S2E5: The 90-Foot Stone** (Dec 2, 2014) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-2/episode-5-the-90-foot-stone Drilling in the Money Pit area resumes as the team retrieves more core samples from the depth where they believe they have contacted the Chappell vault. **S2E6: Seven Must Dye** (Dec 9, 2014) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-2/episode-6-seven-must-dye Rick Lagina, Dan and Dave Blankenship, and Divemaster Tony Sampson scout the island's coastline for potential flood tunnel exit points in preparation for a major dye test. **S2E7: The Trail of the Templars** (Dec 16, 2014) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-2/episode-7-the-trail-of-the-templars On Oak Island, Rick Lagina restarts the effort to drain the triangle-shaped swamp. **S2E8: X Marks the Spot** (Dec 23, 2014) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-2/episode-8-x-marks-the-spot For the second consecutive year, the team attempts to drain the triangle-shaped swamp. **S2E9: A Dangerous Dive** (Jan 6, 2014) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-2/episode-9-a-dangerous-dive Rick Lagina continues clearing Borehole 10-X for the upcoming dive. **S2E10: The Big Reveal** (Jan 13, 2015) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-2/episode-10-the-big-reveal With the diving platform complete and all safety protocols in place, professional divers Dan Misiaszek and his wife Kathy, known as Frog and Flash, begin their descent into Borehole 10-X. ### Season 3 (2015) Premiere: November 10, 2015 Episodes: 13 Declaring this the season of answers, Rick and Marty Lagina invest in heavy excavation equipment for the first time, marking a shift from data gathering to active digging. A historic partnership with rival treasure hunter Fred Nolan grants access to his land and the mysterious Nolan's Cross stone formation. The team recruits world-renowned diver John Chatterton, who makes a harrowing descent to the bottom of Borehole 10-X at 235 feet, the deepest anyone has gone beneath Oak Island in decades. His findings are inconclusive but prove the chamber is real. Meanwhile, excavation of the Hedden shaft in the Money Pit area reveals old searcher tunnels, and analysis of a purported Roman sword sparks international debate about pre-Columbian visitors to Nova Scotia. **S3E1: The Hole Truth** (Nov 10, 2015) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-3/episode-1-the-hole-truth Fifty years after reading the 1965 Reader's Digest article that ignited their lifelong obsession, Rick and Marty Lagina return to Oak Island for a season they declare will be about getting answers. **S3E2: Pipe Down** (Nov 17, 2015) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-3/episode-2-pipe-down Before a diver can safely descend Borehole 10-X, three corroded riser pipes, each roughly 180 feet long, must be removed from the shaft. **S3E3: Time to Dig** (Nov 24, 2015) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-3/episode-3-time-to-dig Rick and Marty Lagina travel nearly 60 miles to Halifax to shop for heavy excavation equipment, marking a pivotal shift from data gathering to active digging. **S3E4: The Overton Stone** (Dec 1, 2015) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-3/episode-4-the-overton-stone Excavation at the Money Pit area continues as Marty Lagina operates the backhoe to uncover more of the Hedden shaft, the 12-by-24-foot searcher tunnel dug to 125 feet by treasure hunter Gilbert Hed... **S3E5: Disappearing Act** (Dec 8, 2015) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-3/episode-5-disappearing-act Rick and Marty Lagina, along with dive expert John Tapper, meet with certified saturation diver Brad Stabenow, who has worked in over 20 countries and dived to depths of 800 feet using trimix breat... **S3E6: Carved in Stone** (Dec 15, 2015) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-3/episode-6-carved-in-stone Rick Lagina turns his attention to the mysterious carved stones scattered across the island, beginning with a conversation with Dan Blankenship about the HO stone. **S3E7: The Missing Peace** (Dec 22, 2015) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-3/episode-7-the-missing-peace After decades of rivalry between Dan Blankenship and fellow treasure hunter Fred Nolan, Rick and Marty Lagina broker a historic agreement to work together. **S3E8: Phantoms of the Deep** (Dec 29, 2015) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-3/episode-8-phantoms-of-the-deep In Traverse City, Michigan, Marty Lagina, Alex Lagina, and Craig Tester meet with side-scan sonar experts and commercial divers Mike Roberts and Dave Delaney, who have over 50 years of combined exp... **S3E9: Columbus Day** (Jan 5, 2016) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-3/episode-9-columbus-day After weeks of searching for a qualified diver, the team recruits Harvey Morash, a certified deep wreck diver from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, with nearly 25 years of experience in dangerous confined... **S3E10: Silence in the Dark** (Jan 12, 2016) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-3/episode-10-silence-in-the-dark The first dive attempt into 10-X begins with Harvey Morash descending in the cage while safety diver Michael Gerhartz follows. **S3E11: Sword Play** (Jan 19, 2016) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-3/episode-11-sword-play Rick and Marty Lagina, Alex Lagina, Craig Tester, and Dave Blankenship travel to St. **S3E12: Voices from Below** (Jan 26, 2016) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-3/episode-12-voices-from-below With time running short in the season, Rick Lagina pushes forward on multiple fronts while Marty and Craig Tester attend to business. **S3E13: Secrets and Revelations** (Feb 2, 2016) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-3/episode-13-secrets-and-revelations World-renowned diver John Chatterton completes his historic descent to the bottom of 10-X, entering the underground chamber 235 feet below ground while Marty Lagina and Craig Tester, grounded in Mi... ### Season 4 (2016) Premiere: November 15, 2016 Episodes: 15 Armed with a two-million-dollar budget, the team launches its most ambitious Money Pit excavation to date, sinking massive five-foot-wide steel caissons deep into the earth. The C-1 shaft punches into a 21-foot void at 171 feet, where divers encounter murky water and tantalizing metal detector hits. Meanwhile, the team visits the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, uncovering documents that prove the future president was personally invested in the Oak Island mystery. Research into former landowner Samuel Ball, an enslaved man who became a wealthy citizen after settling on the island, raises questions about what he may have found. The season ends with four shafts drilled but the treasure still just out of reach. **S4E1: Going for Broke** (Nov 15, 2016) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-4/episode-1-going-for-broke Rick and Marty Lagina return to Oak Island with a two-million-dollar budget and a mandate to excavate the Money Pit. **S4E2: Always Forward** (Nov 22, 2016) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-4/episode-2-always-forward Jack Begley continues excavating the rectangular depression near Dave Blankenship's property on Lot 22, the site that aligns with the so-called hatch marked on Zena Halpern's 1347 French map of Oak... **S4E3: Swamp Things** (Nov 29, 2016) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-4/episode-3-swamp-things Rick Lagina, Dave Blankenship, and Charles Barkhouse return from Fred Nolan's funeral, where roughly 100 people gathered to honour the veteran surveyor who first came to Oak Island in 1958 and was ... **S4E4: No Stone Unturned** (Dec 6, 2016) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-4/episode-4-no-stone-unturned The first pieces of the massive drilling equipment arrive at Oak Island as preparations for the Money Pit excavation enter their final phase. **S4E5: Bullseye** (Dec 13, 2016) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-4/episode-5-bullseye The first of several five-foot-wide, 30,000-pound steel caissons begins grinding into the earth above the Valley 3 target, the site where Rick Lagina and Craig Tester believe the Chappell Vault lie... **S4E6: Circles in Wood** (Dec 20, 2016) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-4/episode-6-circles-in-wood With the Valley 3 caisson sitting on what appears to be a wooden structure at roughly 143 feet, Rick and Marty Lagina must decide how to proceed without destroying whatever lies inside. **S4E7: All That Glitters** (Dec 27, 2016) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-4/episode-7-all-that-glitters With Valley 3 now confirmed as Mel Chappell's 1930s searcher tunnel rather than the Chappell Vault, the team shifts its full attention to Borehole C-1, located 20 feet northwest. **S4E8: The Mystery of Samuel Ball** (Jan 3, 2017) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-4/episode-8-the-mystery-of-samuel-ball A high-resolution camera descends the C-1 shaft for the first time since the caisson broke through into the 21-foot void at 171 feet. **S4E9: Echoes from the Deep** (Jan 10, 2017) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-4/episode-9-echoes-from-the-deep Geophysicist and sonar expert Brian Abbott returns to Oak Island to conduct a new scan of the chamber at the bottom of Borehole 10-X, the 235-foot shaft northeast of the Money Pit. **S4E10: About Face** (Jan 17, 2017) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-4/episode-10-about-face John Chatterton returns to the C-1 shaft for a third dive into the cavity at 170 feet, carrying an underwater metal detector to replicate the hits reported by Mike Huntley. **S4E11: Presidential Secrets** (Jan 24, 2017) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-4/episode-11-presidential-secrets The airlift operation at Borehole 10-X begins in earnest, with Irving Equipment pumping compressed air down a pipe to the bottom of the 235-foot shaft to force water, sediment, and any objects up t... **S4E12: Hyde Park & Seek** (Jan 31, 2017) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-4/episode-12-hyde-park-seek At the Franklin D. **S4E13: One of Seven** (Feb 7, 2017) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-4/episode-13-one-of-seven Drilling begins on the T-1 shaft, the team's third and final Money Pit excavation for the season, at a location chosen by Craig Tester based on historical records placing the Chappell shaft south o... **S4E14: Of Sticks and Stones** (Feb 14, 2017) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-4/episode-14-of-sticks-and-stones At the T-1 shaft, the hammer grab continues bringing up material from depths beyond 100 feet. **S4E15: Blood Is Thicker** (Feb 21, 2017) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-4/episode-15-blood-is-thicker The GAL-1 shaft, named after Rick and Marty's parents George and Ann Lagina, is the team's fourth and final exploration hole of the season. ### Season 5 (2017) Premiere: November 7, 2017 Episodes: 18 A devastating winter storm washes away the South Shore Road and cuts off vehicle access to the Money Pit, but the team regroups and launches an unprecedented Geotech drilling operation: 38 six-inch boreholes arranged in a grid pattern to map the underground at depths up to 200 feet. Borehole H-8 produces the season's most dramatic finds, including pottery fragments, old book bindings, and two fragments of human bone, one carbon-dated to the Middle East. At Smith's Cove, Gary Drayton and Rick Lagina recover a hand-carved lead cross that Templar researchers connect to the 14th-century prison at Domme, France, where imprisoned knights carved nearly identical symbols into the dungeon walls. Rick travels to France to see the carvings firsthand, deepening the Templar connection that will drive future seasons. **S5E1: Forever Family** (Nov 7, 2017) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-5/episode-1-forever-family Season five opens under a cloud of tragedy and destruction. **S5E2: Dead Man's Chest** (Nov 14, 2017) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-5/episode-2-dead-man-s-chest The Geotech drilling operation begins in the Money Pit area, with the team planning to drill 38 six-inch boreholes in a grid pattern to depths of up to 200 feet, using the GAL-1 shaft as a center p... **S5E3: Obstruction** (Nov 21, 2017) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-5/episode-3-obstruction The Geotech drilling operation advances through the Money Pit grid, with geologist Terry Matheson logging the cuttings every five feet while Craig Tester and Jack Begley monitor progress on the sur... **S5E4: Close Call** (Nov 28, 2017) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-5/episode-4-close-call With 16 Geotech boreholes completed, Rick Lagina, Dave Blankenship, and island historian Charles Barkhouse oversee the drill as it advances into the area of the Chappell Shaft, where M.R. **S5E5: Bone Dry** (Dec 5, 2017) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-5/episode-5-bone-dry Geophysical engineer John Wonnacott, who helped design the Geotech grid with his partner Les MacPhie, joins the team at the Money Pit to review progress after 16 completed boreholes. **S5E6: Remains of the Day** (Dec 12, 2017) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-5/episode-6-remains-of-the-day Jack Begley and Dan Henskee spend days washing and sorting the Borehole H-8 spoils from the Money Pit area. **S5E7: The Lot Thickens** (Dec 19, 2017) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-5/episode-7-the-lot-thickens With 44 Geotech boreholes completed and Borehole H-8 confirmed as the primary target, representatives from Irving Equipment Limited return to Oak Island to inspect the drilling pad and begin delive... **S5E8: Dan's Breakthrough** (Jan 2, 2018) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-5/episode-8-dan-s-breakthrough In the War Room, Craig Tester delivers the carbon-14 results from Beta Analytical on the two human bone fragments recovered from Borehole H-8. **S5E9: The French Connection** (Jan 9, 2018) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-5/episode-9-the-french-connection While the Irving Equipment crew continues advancing the H-8 shaft toward its 150-foot target depth at the Money Pit, Rick Lagina travels to France with nephews Alex Lagina and Peter Fornetti. **S5E10: The Signs of a Cross** (Jan 16, 2018) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-5/episode-10-the-signs-of-a-cross The 60-inch caisson in Borehole H-8 grinds through thick wood that Rick Lagina and Charles Barkhouse identify as remains of the Chappell Shaft, the searcher tunnel M.R. **S5E11: Moving Targets** (Jan 23, 2018) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-5/episode-11-moving-targets In the War Room, archaeologist Laird Niven examines the lead cross Rick Lagina and Gary Drayton recovered from Smith's Cove. **S5E12: A Key to the Mystery** (Jan 30, 2018) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-5/episode-12-a-key-to-the-mystery In the War Room, the team connects by phone with Jerry Glover, the Templar expert who guided Rick Lagina, Alex Lagina, and Peter Fornetti through the 14th-century prison at Domme, France. **S5E13: Unhinged** (Feb 6, 2018) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-5/episode-13-unhinged The DMT shaft advances quickly through undisturbed ground, with project manager Vanessa reporting 32 feet of casing and no wood from previous searcher activity. **S5E14: The Templar Connection** (Feb 13, 2018) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-5/episode-14-the-templar-connection On October 16, 2017, Rick Lagina and metal detection expert Gary Drayton are searching the northeast corner of Oak Island at Smith's Cove when Gary uncovers a small lead cross. **S5E15: Steel Trapped** (Feb 20, 2018) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-5/episode-15-steel-trapped Author and Templar researcher Kathleen McGowan Coppens visits Oak Island at the invitation of Rick and Marty Lagina to examine the lead cross in person. **S5E16: Seeing Red** (Feb 27, 2018) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-5/episode-16-seeing-red With the DMT shaft stalled on a mysterious obstruction at 77 feet, Rick Lagina and the team arrange a video call with veteran diver Mike Huntley. **S5E17: A Family Album** (Feb 27, 2018) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-5/episode-17-a-family-album This special documentary episode chronicles the multigenerational family bonds that define the Oak Island treasure hunt. **S5E18: Amazing Discoveries** (Mar 6, 2018) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-5/episode-18-amazing-discoveries Gary Drayton reports to the War Room that the deep red gemstone discovered on Lot 8 has been identified by a certified gemologist in Halifax as a rhodolite garnet, not a ruby. ### Season 6 (2018) Premiere: November 6, 2018 Episodes: 22 The team builds an enormous cofferdam at Smith's Cove, pumping out the Atlantic to excavate the beach for the first time in modern history. The results are extraordinary: a U-shaped wooden structure with Roman numerals carved into its timbers, a mysterious underground wall, a stone-lined drainage system, and what appears to be a slipway leading into the ocean. Each discovery suggests large-scale construction activity centuries before the Money Pit was found in 1795. A bejeweled brooch recovered on Lot 21 and a possible crossbow bolt on Lot 26 push the artifact record further back in time. At the Money Pit, the team sinks exploratory boreholes and confirms the presence of a flood tunnel through a positive dye test, connecting Smith's Cove to the Money Pit for the first time with physical evidence. **S6E1: Rick's Big Bang Theory** (Nov 13, 2018) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-6/episode-1-rick-s-big-bang-theory Rick and Marty Lagina gather their team, including Craig Tester, Dave Blankenship, Dan Blankenship, Charles Barkhouse, Jack Begley, Doug Crowell, and metal detection expert Gary Drayton, in a newly... **S6E2: Gold Rush** (Nov 20, 2018) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-6/episode-2-gold-rush Rick Lagina and metal detection expert Gary Drayton bring the bejeweled brooch they discovered on Lot 21 to the home of veteran treasure hunter Dan Blankenship, where they show it to Dan and Marty ... **S6E3: Depth Perception** (Nov 27, 2018) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-6/episode-3-depth-perception Rick and Marty Lagina, Craig Tester, Dave Blankenship, and Charles Barkhouse travel to Eagle Canada's headquarters in Calgary, Alberta, to receive the results of their seismic survey. **S6E4: A Legacy Revealed** (Dec 4, 2018) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-6/episode-4-a-legacy-revealed Rick Lagina presents metal detection expert Gary Drayton's latest find to the team and archaeologist Laird Niven: a metal object resembling a crossbow bolt, discovered roughly ten inches below the ... **S6E5: Homecoming** (Dec 11, 2018) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-6/episode-5-homecoming The team drills borehole HI-4 at the Money Pit, targeting a network of tunnels detected by seismic imaging at roughly 100 feet. **S6E6: Precious Metal** (Dec 18, 2018) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-6/episode-6-precious-metal Construction of the 525-foot steel cofferdam at Smith's Cove continues as the Irving Equipment crew, led by Mike Jardine, drives the final interlocking steel sheets into the seabed. **S6E7: Rock Solid** (Jan 1, 2019) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-6/episode-7-rock-solid The 525-foot steel cofferdam surrounding Smith's Cove reaches completion as Irving Equipment Limited drives the last of 117 interlocking steel sheets some 25 feet into the seabed. **S6E8: Unearthed** (Jan 8, 2019) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-6/episode-8-unearthed With the 525-foot steel cofferdam now complete, Rick and Marty Lagina begin the massive excavation of Smith's Cove, a nearly 12,000-square-foot area that has never been fully explored. **S6E9: As Above, So Below** (Jan 15, 2019) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-6/episode-9-as-above-so-below At Smith's Cove, the team finishes exposing the U-shaped structure first discovered by Dan Blankenship in 1971. **S6E10: Fingers Made of Stone** (Jan 22, 2019) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-6/episode-10-fingers-made-of-stone Alex Lagina, Doug Crowell, and Paul Troutman travel ten miles northeast to the Lordly House in Chester, Nova Scotia, where the Chester Municipal Heritage Society maintains an extensive archive of O... **S6E11: Wharfs and All** (Jan 29, 2019) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-6/episode-11-wharfs-and-all At Smith's Cove, Rick Lagina, Craig Tester, and geologist Terry Matheson continue excavating a newly discovered wooden structure that appears to parallel the U-shaped structure found by Dan Blanken... **S6E12: Slipway When Wet** (Feb 5, 2019) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-6/episode-12-slipway-when-wet At the Money Pit, Marty Lagina and Craig Tester supervise as the Irving Equipment crew, including Vanessa Lucido and Danny, fires up the oscillator to break through the compacted plug at the bottom... **S6E13: The Paper Chase** (Feb 12, 2019) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-6/episode-13-the-paper-chase At Smith's Cove, while excavating the area around the slipway, archaeologist Laird Niven makes a surprising discovery: a concrete wall buried approximately three feet below the ocean floor. **S6E14: Voyage to the Bottom of the Cenote** (Feb 26, 2019) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-6/episode-14-voyage-to-the-bottom-of-the-cenote Craig Tester and Jack Begley meet the Centre of Geographic Sciences team at the Oak Island marina to conduct a marine survey of the waters off the island's southern shore. **S6E15: Dye Harder** (Mar 5, 2019) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-6/episode-15-dye-harder The H-8 sinkhole that formed two days earlier remains a serious concern as Rick Lagina and Craig Tester survey the damage at the Money Pit. **S6E16: Detour** (Mar 12, 2019) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-6/episode-16-detour In the War Room, Rick and Marty Lagina and Craig Tester discuss the results of the dye test conducted at the Money Pit. **S6E17: Clue or False?** (Mar 19, 2019) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-6/episode-17-clue-or-false In the War Room, Rick and Marty Lagina and members of the team meet with professional surveyor Steve Guptill, who has compiled roughly a dozen historical survey plans into a single master map of th... **S6E18: Heavy Metal** (Mar 26, 2019) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-6/episode-18-heavy-metal At the Money Pit, Rick Lagina, geologist Terry Matheson, and the team continue excavating borehole S-6, which three days earlier penetrated what they believe to be the Shaft Six tunnel at 101 feet,... **S6E19: Striking Distance** (Apr 2, 2019) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-6/episode-19-striking-distance At the Money Pit, historians Doug Crowell and Paul Troutman, geologist Terry Matheson, and crane operator Danny monitor the excavation of the 60-inch borehole GG-1. **S6E20: Short Days and Tall Knights** (Apr 9, 2019) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-6/episode-20-short-days-and-tall-knights A strike by unionized Nova Scotia crane operators brings Money Pit drilling to an abrupt halt, with the walkout potentially lasting three weeks. **S6E21: Seismic Matters** (Apr 16, 2019) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-6/episode-21-seismic-matters With only two weeks remaining before winter forces the team off the island, the Money Pit excavation at the Site Three borehole has ground to a halt after the provincial union of crane operators go... **S6E22: Lost and Founding** (Apr 30, 2019) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-6/episode-22-lost-and-founding In the Season 6 finale, Rick and Marty Lagina visit veteran treasure hunter Dan Blankenship at his home to share the dendrochronology results from Smith's Cove. ### Season 7 (2019) Premiere: November 5, 2019 Episodes: 23 The season opens with the passing of legendary treasure hunter Dan Blankenship at age 95, a man who devoted more than 50 years of his life to Oak Island. Honoring his legacy, the team turns to the swamp he always believed held secrets, uncovering a paved stone wharf on the swamp floor and a stack of boulders forming what becomes known as the Eye of the Swamp. Historical researchers Corjan Mol and Christopher Morford make their first War Room appearance, presenting a theory linking Nicolas Poussin's Shepherds of Arcadia painting to Oak Island through geometric analysis, demonstrating that a pentagram derived from the painting aligns precisely with Nolan's Cross when overlaid on a map of the island. A seismic survey of the Money Pit reveals a 13-by-13-foot anomaly at its centre, and the team deploys massive eight-foot-wide caissons for the first time, targeting the so-called Teardrop feature. Old timbers inscribed with Roman numerals emerge from deep underground, echoing the U-shaped structure at Smith's Cove. The season ends with the team convinced they are closer than ever, with a clear target for the years ahead. **S7E1: The Torch Is Passed** (Nov 5, 2019) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-7/episode-1-the-torch-is-passed Season seven opens with the team gathering in the War Room for their first meeting without veteran treasure hunter Dan Blankenship, who passed away during the off-season after devoting more than ha... **S7E2: Core Values** (Nov 12, 2019) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-7/episode-2-core-values Choice Drilling begins retrieving core samples from the swamp ship anomaly, operating a five-ton sonic rig staged on an 800-square-foot floating barge. **S7E3: Eye of the Swamp** (Nov 19, 2019) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-7/episode-3-eye-of-the-swamp Geoscientist Dr. **S7E4: The Lucky Thirteen** (Nov 26, 2019) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-7/episode-4-the-lucky-thirteen At the Smith's Cove upper beach, Choice Drilling sinks exploratory borehole OITC-6 ten feet northwest of a previous hole that had revealed dynamite residue from the Oak Island Treasure Company's 18... **S7E5: Tunnel Visions** (Dec 3, 2019) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-7/episode-5-tunnel-visions Choice Drilling sinks an exploratory borehole near the Cave-In Pit to investigate underground anomalies detected by ground-penetrating radar. **S7E6: Closing In** (Dec 10, 2019) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-7/episode-6-closing-in The search for Shaft 9 reaches its conclusion as the team traces the 1863 sluiceway, originally identified with help from veteran treasure hunter Dan Henskee, back to its source. **S7E7: Things That Go Bump-out** (Dec 17, 2019) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-7/episode-7-things-that-go-bump-out At the Oak Island Research Centre, surveyor Steve Guptill shows Rick Lagina and historian Doug Crowell a diagram plotting the recently confirmed location of Shaft 9, built roughly 100 feet southwes... **S7E8: Triptych** (Jan 7, 2020) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-7/episode-8-triptych Following completion of a 6,000-square-foot extension to the massive steel cofferdam at Smith's Cove, Rick Lagina and members of the team begin excavating a mysterious square-shaped log structure t... **S7E9: An Eye for an Eye** (Jan 14, 2020) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-7/episode-9-an-eye-for-an-eye In the War Room, the team reviews the discovery of Shaft Two and plans additional drilling to determine the orientation of the tunnel that extends from it toward the original Money Pit. **S7E10: Gary Strikes Again** (Jan 21, 2020) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-7/episode-10-gary-strikes-again At Smith's Cove, Rick Lagina, Peter Fornetti, and Gary Drayton investigate the massive wooden structure exposed in the bump-out area during the cofferdam extension. **S7E11: The Eye of the Storm** (Jan 28, 2020) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-7/episode-11-the-eye-of-the-storm With Hurricane Dorian, a powerful storm that has already caused catastrophic damage in the Bahamas with 185-mile-per-hour winds, approaching the Atlantic coast, the team races to make progress befo... **S7E12: Fortified** (Feb 4, 2020) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-7/episode-12-fortified Following Hurricane Dorian, which battered Oak Island with nearly 100-mile-per-hour winds and reflooded the swamp with ocean water, Rick Lagina and Scott Barlow estimate two to three days of pumpin... **S7E13: Bromancing the Stones** (Feb 11, 2020) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-7/episode-13-bromancing-the-stones Rick Lagina shows fellow landowner Tom Nolan the paved stone walkway uncovered in the swamp, a feature Tom's late father Fred Nolan never had the means to expose during his five decades investigati... **S7E14: Burnt Offering** (Feb 25, 2020) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-7/episode-14-burnt-offering In the War Room, the team reviews carbon dating results from borehole FG-12 in the Money Pit area: a wood sample recovered at 106 feet has been dated to as early as 1626, more than 150 years before... **S7E15: Surely Templar** (Mar 3, 2020) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-7/episode-15-surely-templar At the Oak Island swamp, Rick Lagina, Alex Lagina, Jack Begley, and Gary Drayton investigate the shallow northern end of a 200-foot ship-shaped anomaly identified earlier in the season by seismic s... **S7E16: Water Logged** (Mar 10, 2020) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-7/episode-16-water-logged In the Uplands near Smith's Cove, Billy Gerhardt continues excavating what the team believes to be Shaft Five, built by the Truro Company in 1850. **S7E17: To Boulderly Go** (Mar 17, 2020) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-7/episode-17-to-boulderly-go Rick Lagina brings geoscientist Dr. **S7E18: The Turning Point** (Mar 24, 2020) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-7/episode-18-the-turning-point Irving Equipment Limited and ROC Equipment deliver the heavy equipment for the season's most ambitious Money Pit excavation: eight-foot-wide steel caissons, a custom-built 110,000-pound oscillator ... **S7E19: Lords of the Ring** (Mar 31, 2020) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-7/episode-19-lords-of-the-ring At the Money Pit, the eight-foot-wide caisson at borehole OC-1 pushes past 50 feet, grinding through the remains of the Hedden Shaft, the 12-by-24-foot wood-cribbed structure built by treasure hunt... **S7E20: Springing the Trap** (Apr 7, 2020) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-7/episode-20-springing-the-trap At the Money Pit, the eight-foot-wide caisson at borehole 8-A pushes past 78 feet, targeting the Shaft Six tunnel, which according to archival records connects directly to the original Money Pit. **S7E21: A Leaf of Faith** (Apr 14, 2020) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-7/episode-21-a-leaf-of-faith In the War Room, geophysicist Jeremy Church of Eagle Canada presents the results of the seismic scanning conducted earlier in the season using 18,000 dynamite charges across the island's eastern half. **S7E22: Marks X the Spot** (Apr 21, 2020) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-7/episode-22-marks-x-the-spot At the Money Pit, the excavation of borehole RF-1 continues to yield significant material. **S7E23: Timeline** (Apr 28, 2020) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-7/episode-23-timeline At the Money Pit, the team returns to RF-1 after leaving the 26-ton hammergrab resting on the obstruction at 170 feet overnight. ### Season 8 (2020) Premiere: November 10, 2020 Episodes: 25 With the COVID-19 pandemic closing the US-Canada border, the American team members coordinate remotely while the Canadian crew pushes forward. The swamp delivers the season's biggest revelation: a massive stone road stretching over 460 feet along the eastern border, built with cobblestones laid over wooden cribbing in a style consistent with medieval European construction. An iron ringbolt pulled from between the stones and ox shoe nails found along the pathway suggest heavy cargo was once hauled across the island. On Lot 15, archaeologists uncover a stone structure that predates known colonial activity. At the Money Pit, water samples from deep boreholes reveal the presence of silver, giving the team a chemical trail to follow into the earth for the first time. **S8E1: Remote Control** (Nov 10, 2020) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-8/episode-1-remote-control The two-hour Season 8 premiere opens with the COVID-19 pandemic having shut down the US-Canada border, forcing the American treasure hunters to coordinate operations remotely. **S8E2: The Boys Are Back** (Nov 17, 2020) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-8/episode-2-the-boys-are-back With the American team members still completing their mandatory 14-day COVID-19 quarantine on the Nova Scotia mainland, work on Oak Island continues under the Canadian crew. **S8E3: If the Ox Shoes Fit** (Nov 24, 2020) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-8/episode-3-if-the-ox-shoes-fit In the War Room, the fellowship reviews plans following the Lagina brothers' return to Oak Island. **S8E4: Alignment** (Dec 1, 2020) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-8/episode-4-alignment On Lot 15, the Lagina brothers and Doug Crowell meet with archaeologists Laird Niven, David MacInnes, Aaron Taylor, and Liz Michels at the stone structure. **S8E5: The Master Plan** (Dec 8, 2020) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-8/episode-5-the-master-plan At the Money Pit area, Choice Drilling arrives on the island and sets up its rig while Steve Guptill and Doug Crowell use GPS equipment and a survey map to locate borehole F6, the first of many hol... **S8E6: Seaing Is Believing** (Dec 15, 2020) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-8/episode-6-seaing-is-believing At the Money Pit area, Choice Drilling continues its pattern drilling operation while Terry Matheson, Charles Barkhouse, and Rick Lagina inspect a core sample extracted from borehole H5.5. **S8E7: Mounding Evidence** (Dec 22, 2020) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-8/episode-7-mounding-evidence At the Money Pit, Rick Lagina, Charles Barkhouse, and Terry Matheson oversee a drilling operation that yields a striking result: 28 feet of loose material from 179 down to 207 feet in depth. **S8E8: High on the Bog** (Dec 29, 2020) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-8/episode-8-high-on-the-bog In a War Room video conference, GIS expert Erin Helton presents a new theory built on the La Formule cipher, the coded document Zena Halpern shared with the team in Season 4. **S8E9: Rock, Paper, Serpents** (Jan 5, 2021) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-8/episode-9-rock-paper-serpents The team launches its first excavation of the triangle-shaped swamp after receiving government permits to drain and dig in the southeastern corner. **S8E10: Connecting the Lots** (Jan 12, 2021) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-8/episode-10-connecting-the-lots Excavation of the stone-paved pathway in the southeastern corner of the swamp reveals wooden cribbing beneath the massive stone surface. **S8E11: Rocky Road** (Jan 19, 2021) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-8/episode-11-rocky-road In the triangle-shaped swamp, excavation of the stone pathway continues under the supervision of archaeologists Dr. **S8E12: Digging Their Heels In** (Jan 26, 2021) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-8/episode-12-digging-their-heels-in At the wash table near the Money Pit, team members Alex Lagina, Peter Fornetti, Dan Henskee, and Michael John process spoils from borehole 8-B, located just ten feet from where 1706-dated tunnel wo... **S8E13: The Fellowship of the Ringbolt** (Feb 9, 2021) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-8/episode-13-the-fellowship-of-the-ringbolt In the southeastern corner of the swamp, Rick Lagina, Tom Nolan, Scott Barlow, and archaeologist Dr. **S8E14: A Bend in the Road** (Feb 16, 2021) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-8/episode-14-a-bend-in-the-road Rick Lagina shares the recently discovered iron ringbolt with Tom Nolan in the swamp, a deeply personal moment given that Tom's father Fred spent decades investigating the triangle-shaped bog. **S8E15: Cask and You Shall Receive** (Feb 23, 2021) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-8/episode-15-cask-and-you-shall-receive Along the eastern border of the swamp, metal detection expert Gary Drayton joins Rick Lagina and Craig Tester to sweep the stone pathway, pulling a square ox shoe nail from between the cobblestones. **S8E16: Leather Bound** (Mar 2, 2021) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-8/episode-16-leather-bound In the swamp, Rick and Marty Lagina join archaeologists Dr. **S8E17: Staking Their Claim** (Mar 9, 2021) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-8/episode-17-staking-their-claim Terry Deveau, former president of the New England Antiquities Research Association, visits the swamp to inspect the massive stone road uncovered along its eastern border. **S8E18: Cannon Fodder** (Mar 16, 2021) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-8/episode-18-cannon-fodder In the swamp, Rick Lagina, his nephew David Fornetti, archaeologist Miriam Amirault, and heavy equipment operator Billy Gerhardt investigate whether the stone pathway is beginning to fork in two di... **S8E19: A Loose Cannonball** (Mar 23, 2021) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-8/episode-19-a-loose-cannonball Near the eastern border of the swamp, archaeologists Aaron Taylor and Miriam Amirault continue excavating the stone pathway, which now appears to be branching in two directions, one heading toward ... **S8E20: Fire in the Hole** (Mar 30, 2021) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-8/episode-20-fire-in-the-hole Rick Lagina gathers the team to report on a stone foundation unearthed near the swamp's northeastern border, adjacent to the stone pathway now estimated by Steve Guptill at 460 feet. **S8E21: Off the Railing** (Apr 6, 2021) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-8/episode-21-off-the-railing At Smith's Cove, Rick Lagina, Steve Guptill, Terry Matheson, and Charles Barkhouse oversee the team's effort to drill into targets identified on the Barringer survey, a military-grade VLF scan comm... **S8E22: Be There or T-square** (Apr 13, 2021) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-8/episode-22-be-there-or-t-square Rick Lagina calls Marty with news of the possible ship's railing recovered from ten feet below sea level in the swamp. **S8E23: Old Wharf's Tale** (Apr 20, 2021) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-8/episode-23-old-wharf-s-tale Along the stone pathway near the northeastern border of the swamp, Rick Lagina, Dr. **S8E24: Silver Lining** (Apr 27, 2021) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-8/episode-24-silver-lining With the final week of the season underway, Rick Lagina, Steve Guptill, and geologist Terry Matheson direct the drill rig to borehole C-11.5, positioned north of the OC-1 caisson in an effort to es... **S8E25: The Silver Spooner** (May 4, 2021) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-8/episode-25-the-silver-spooner Following the detection of silver in Money Pit water samples, Dr. ### Season 9 (2021) Premiere: November 2, 2021 Episodes: 25 Dr. Ian Spooner's water analysis detects gold in Money Pit boreholes, and the team organizes its entire season around tracing the precious metals to their source. Twenty new boreholes are drilled, and five massive ten-foot-wide caissons are sunk in succession, the largest excavation effort in Oak Island's history. One of them, TF1, produces wood from tunnel depth along with the chemical signatures the team has been chasing. But the season's most unexpected discovery comes underground: the Garden Shaft, initially dismissed as a 19th-century searcher tunnel, returns a carbon date of 1735, predating every known treasure hunt on the island. Rick, Alex, Doug Crowell, and researcher Corjan Mol travel to Portugal to investigate Templar connections, visiting sites that mirror features found on Oak Island. The Garden Shaft becomes the team's new obsession. **S9E1: Going for the Gold** (Nov 2, 2021) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-9/episode-1-going-for-the-gold The season opens in the War Room with Dr. **S9E2: The Gold Metal** (Nov 9, 2021) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-9/episode-2-the-gold-metal Terry Matheson, Steve Guptill, and Charles Barkhouse are at the Money Pit as the team prepares to drill Borehole D-2, positioned eight feet west of C-1 within a fifteen-foot rectangle that Steve de... **S9E3: Stone Roadblock** (Nov 16, 2021) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-9/episode-3-stone-roadblock Rick, Craig Tester, and the team gather at the Money Pit to discuss the metal found the previous week in Borehole D-2. **S9E4: Spoils Alert** (Nov 23, 2021) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-9/episode-4-spoils-alert Rick, Marty, and the team arrive at the southeast corner of the swamp to discuss the recent work stoppage requested by CCH. **S9E5: Hatching the Plan** (Nov 30, 2021) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-9/episode-5-hatching-the-plan Rick, Craig Tester, David Irving, and the team meet in the War Room with Marty and Vanessa Lucido by video conference to plan the placement of ten-foot caissons in the Money Pit. **S9E6: The Root Cause** (Dec 7, 2021) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-9/episode-6-the-root-cause Steve Guptill, Terry Matheson, Charles Barkhouse, and Craig Tester are in the Money Pit where the drill rig has moved to Borehole D1.5, one of twenty boreholes the team has laid out in an area wher... **S9E7: It All Adze Up** (Dec 14, 2021) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-9/episode-7-it-all-adze-up In the War Room, Laird Niven confirms that a general permit for the swamp has been approved, covering the south side and the paved area. **S9E8: Deeper Digs, Bigger Stakes** (Dec 21, 2021) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-9/episode-8-deeper-digs-bigger-stakes Charles Barkhouse and Terry Matheson supervise the drilling of Borehole DE-1.5 in the Money Pit, only eleven feet from C1 and part of the C-1 Cluster where the team has found metal fragments contai... **S9E9: The Unusual Suspects** (Jan 4, 2021) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-9/episode-9-the-unusual-suspects Charles Barkhouse and Terry Matheson supervise the drilling of Borehole HI-4, positioned 12.5 feet from G-2 in the search for Shaft 6, which at 118 feet should contain a tunnel leading directly to ... **S9E10: Chamber of Secrets** (Jan 11, 2022) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-9/episode-10-chamber-of-secrets The team meets by video conference with geophysicist Jeremy Church, who has used new software to re-evaluate the 2018 seismic surveys of the eastern drumlin. **S9E11: A Boatload of Clues** (Jan 18, 2022) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-9/episode-11-a-boatload-of-clues Terry Matheson, Craig Tester, and Charles Barkhouse supervise the drilling of Borehole A13, positioned two and a half feet north of AB13 where an eruption of air at approximately 68 feet last week ... **S9E12: The Silver Liner** (Jan 25, 2022) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-9/episode-12-the-silver-liner Terry Matheson and Charles Barkhouse supervise the drilling of Borehole AB13.5, positioned two and a half feet from the east side of the suspected offset chamber. **S9E13: Go Big or Go Home** (Feb 1, 2022) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-9/episode-13-go-big-or-go-home The team meets in the War Room to decide where to place the first ten-foot caisson of the year. **S9E14: Premier of the Dig** (Feb 8, 2022) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-9/episode-14-premier-of-the-dig Heavy equipment begins arriving at the Money Pit for the ten-foot shaft excavation. **S9E15: Eyes and Boot in the Ground** (Feb 15, 2022) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-9/episode-15-eyes-and-boot-in-the-ground Rick and the team arrive at the Money Pit to begin excavating TF1, the first ten-foot shaft of the season. **S9E16: Gold Diggers** (Mar 1, 2022) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-9/episode-16-gold-diggers Rick and the team continue work at TF1, where Vanessa Lucido reports the caisson is at 104 feet and the dig has reached 92 feet. **S9E17: Blast From The Past** (Mar 8, 2022) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-9/episode-17-blast-from-the-past Rick, Marty, Craig Tester, and Dan Henskee meet the team at the Money Pit to begin the second ten-foot shaft. **S9E18: Playing the Dunfield** (Mar 15, 2022) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-9/episode-18-playing-the-dunfield 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 f... **S9E19: Shoal Me the Money** (Mar 22, 2022) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-9/episode-19-shoal-me-the-money Rick and members of the team supervise the excavation of DH82 as Terry Matheson reports they are at approximately eighty feet, just ten feet above the depth where water samples revealed gold and si... **S9E20: The Hedden Truth** (Mar 29, 2022) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-9/episode-20-the-hedden-truth DH82 reaches a depth of one hundred feet, the level where water samples earlier in the year revealed the presence of gold and silver. **S9E21: A Lot of Secrets** (Apr 5, 2022) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-9/episode-21-a-lot-of-secrets Rick and the team continue monitoring the DMT2 shaft, which has reached an excavation depth of 72 to 74 feet. **S9E22: Yes We Can** (Apr 12, 2022) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-9/episode-22-yes-we-can Excavation of the DMT2 shaft continues in the Money Pit as Andrew reports the caisson has reached 137 feet. **S9E23: Follow the Cobblestone Road** (Apr 19, 2022) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-9/episode-23-follow-the-cobblestone-road Marty and the team watch as excavation begins on B4-C, the fifth ten-foot shaft, positioned five feet north of Borehole C1 where traces of gold and silver and evidence of possible tunnels dating to... **S9E24: On the Road** (Apr 26, 2022) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-9/episode-24-on-the-road The team continues to monitor the excavation of B4-C, the fifth ten-foot shaft of the year, located five feet north of Borehole C1 in an area where earlier drilling revealed evidence of tunnels at ... **S9E25: Treasure Island** (May 3, 2022) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-9/episode-25-treasure-island Rick and Alex return from a two-week research trip to Portugal alongside Doug Crowell, Peter Fornetti, historical researcher Corjan Mol, and Templar historian Joao Fiandeiro. ### Season 10 (2022) Premiere: November 15, 2022 Episodes: 25 Dumas Contracting arrives on the island to reconstruct the Garden Shaft, a structure now confirmed to date to 1735 and sitting just 20 feet from the Money Pit. The project proves grueling: the Nova Scotia government halts work over permit requirements, months are lost, and the shaft must be meticulously cribbed and reinforced as the team descends through layers of old timber and unstable ground. Probe drilling from inside the shaft detects a tunnel at approximately 95 feet heading westward, directly toward the zone where gold and silver have been found in the water. Meanwhile, a new drilling program in the Money Pit area identifies what Marty Lagina dubs the Blob, a concentration of anomalous underground features. In Rome, Rick Lagina, Doug Crowell, Alex Lagina, Peter Fornetti, and Corjan Mol meet with numismatist Umberto Moruzzi, who confirms that a half coin from Lot 5 is a 4th-century Roman artifact and identifies a bronze piece from Lot 7 as an ancient monetary weight matching a golden Byzantine coin. The team then travels to Viterbo, where Templar investigator Gianluca Di Prosper leads them through the 11th-century church of Santa Maria Nuova, revealing four-dot crosses and carved symbols that Alex connects to the H+O stone found on Oak Island. Charles Barkhouse makes the first descent into the reconstructed Garden Shaft as the season closes, with the tunnel tantalizingly close. **S10E1: On Their Marks** (Nov 15, 2022) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-10/episode-1-on-their-marks Rick Lagina, Marty Lagina, Craig Tester, Alex Lagina, and Jack Begley arrive on Oak Island to meet the team in the War Room and lay out the season's priorities. **S10E2: Across The Pond** (Nov 22, 2022) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-10/episode-2-across-the-pond Colton brings Terry Deveau and Paul Troutman a core sample from Borehole DN12.5 at 88 feet, but Terry finds nothing out of the ordinary. **S10E3: Bubbling Over** (Nov 29, 2022) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-10/episode-3-bubbling-over The team supervises the drilling of Borehole A.5N13.5, chosen based on water testing results and the possibility of tunnels related to the Garden Shaft. **S10E4: Wharf And Pieces** (Dec 6, 2022) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-10/episode-4-wharf-and-pieces Dumas Contracting arrives on the island, and Rick Lagina, Billy Gerhardt, and Scott Barlow lead the company to the Garden Shaft. **S10E5: Duc It Out** (Dec 13, 2022) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-10/episode-5-duc-it-out Rick Lagina meets with Paul Cote of Dumas Contracting to check on the Garden Shaft reconstruction. **S10E6: Over The Muon** (Dec 20, 2022) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-10/episode-6-over-the-muon Rick Lagina meets with Paul Cote and Simon Bedard of Dumas Contracting to discuss the Garden Shaft excavation. **S10E7: Norsing Around** (Jan 3, 2022) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-10/episode-7-norsing-around All work on the Garden Shaft comes to a halt after the Nova Scotia government determines the project requires mining permits rather than the rehabilitation authorization Dumas Contracting originall... **S10E8: A Lot To Be Desired** (Jan 10, 2023) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-10/episode-8-a-lot-to-be-desired In the War Room, geophysicist Jeremy Church presents results from the geophysical scan of the island performed the previous week with his partner Burton Cosgrove and the help of Tony Sampson. **S10E9: A Damming Clue** (Jan 17, 2023) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-10/episode-9-a-damming-clue With the Garden Shaft on hold pending permits, Rick Lagina, Marty Lagina, Craig Tester, and the team plan the next borehole. **S10E10: The Blob** (Jan 24, 2023) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-10/episode-10-the-blob With the Garden Shaft rehabilitation on hold pending permits, Rick Lagina, Marty Lagina, and Craig Tester meet with Scott Barlow and Steve Guptill at the Research Center to plan the next project. **S10E11: Oh, Well!** (Jan 31, 2023) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-10/episode-11-oh-well Terry Deveau, Alex Lagina, and Charles Barkhouse are at the Money Pit where the team has begun drilling Borehole CN11, positioned 27 feet west of the Garden Shaft and in the center of what Marty La... **S10E12: Beware the Blob** (Feb 7, 2023) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-10/episode-12-beware-the-blob Charles Barkhouse and Paul Troutman supervise the drilling of Borehole DN-13.5, located 14 feet west of the Garden Shaft and within the area known as the Blob. **S10E13: All's Well** (Feb 14, 2023) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-10/episode-13-all-s-well Six weeks after the provincial government shut down work on the Garden Shaft over safety concerns, Dumas Contracting resumes operations. **S10E14: Getting the Shaft** (Feb 21, 2023) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-10/episode-14-getting-the-shaft Rick Lagina and Jack Begley arrive at the Garden Shaft where Roger Fortin reports Dumas has reached a depth of 23 feet and will soon install two more sets of platforms after removing the mucky back... **S10E15: Wood You Believe It?** (Feb 28, 2023) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-10/episode-15-wood-you-believe-it Rick Lagina and the team mark the location of Borehole DN11.5 in the Money Pit. **S10E16: Striking Gold** (Mar 7, 2023) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-10/episode-16-striking-gold Rick Lagina and Alex Lagina meet Brandon Vanderhoof at the Garden Shaft to watch the start of the probe drilling program. **S10E17: A Well of Secrets** (Mar 14, 2023) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-10/episode-17-a-well-of-secrets Marty Lagina arrives at the Garden Shaft where Dumas is installing the set at the 50-foot mark. **S10E18: A Quadrilateral Move** (Mar 28, 2023) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-10/episode-18-a-quadrilateral-move Craig Tester and Scott Barlow meet with Paul Cote at the Garden Shaft, where Dumas has cribbed the structure to a depth of 67 feet and is probing 12 feet outside the walls, with the corners probed ... **S10E19: Ramping Up** (Apr 4, 2023) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-10/episode-19-ramping-up Craig Tester and Scott Barlow meet with Paul Cote at the Garden Shaft, where Dumas has reached a depth of 65 to 66 feet. **S10E20: A Barrel Full of Clues** (Apr 11, 2023) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-10/episode-20-a-barrel-full-of-clues Charles Barkhouse and Scott Barlow meet with Paul Cote for an update on the Garden Shaft reconstruction. **S10E21: Roman Around** (Apr 18, 2023) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-10/episode-21-roman-around Scott Barlow and Paul Troutman discuss the Garden Shaft reconstruction with Paul Cote, who reports that the next set will go in once the grouting is finished. **S10E22: Starry Knights** (Apr 25, 2023) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-10/episode-22-starry-knights Charles Barkhouse arrives at the Garden Shaft where Roger Fortin reports the final set is being installed but not yet finished. **S10E23: The Italian Job** (May 2, 2023) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-10/episode-23-the-italian-job Marty Lagina and Craig Tester arrive at the Money Pit to watch Charles Barkhouse descend into the Garden Shaft, where Dumas Contracting has spent five months reconstructing the structure to a depth... **S10E24: Down the Hatch** (May 9, 2023) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-10/episode-24-down-the-hatch Scott Barlow and Charles Barkhouse meet with Roger Fortin of Dumas Contracting to check on the Garden Shaft, where probe drilling is under way to reach the tunnel believed to lie at a depth of 95 f... **S10E25: And the Hits Keep Coming** (May 16, 2023) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-10/episode-25-and-the-hits-keep-coming Scott Barlow, Paul Troutman, and Charles Barkhouse meet with Roger Fortin to resume the probe drilling program beneath the Garden Shaft, now using a six-inch bit to reach the tunnel believed to lie... ### Season 11 (2023) Premiere: November 7, 2023 Episodes: 25 The Garden Shaft reaches 95 feet and the team begins horizontal drilling toward the tunnel, only to be met by saltwater flooding at nearly 500 gallons per minute, a problem that echoes the flood tunnel defenses that have defeated searchers for over two centuries. Despite injecting urethane and Geofoam, the water cannot be stopped, and the horizontal program is abandoned. Hurricane Lee adds further setbacks, flooding the swamp and delaying operations across the island. The team pivots to a borehole program targeting the Baby Blob at depths of 80 to 120 feet, while in the swamp, excavation uncovers wooden structures with dowel construction, axe-cut stumps, and a stone walkway leading to formations that may connect to Fred Nolan's long-suspected dam. The season also launches the most ambitious European research campaign in the show's history. In Italy, Rick, Doug, Alex, Peter, and Emiliano Sacchetti tour Morimondo Abbey and Bianzano Castle, where Professor Adriano Gaspani demonstrates that both sites encode the same stellar alignments as Nolan's Cross. In the Netherlands, Corjan Mol leads the team through the Caestert stone quarry and Valkenburg Castle, where 14th-century Templar inscriptions and four-dot crosses match symbols found on Oak Island. The trail continues to Denmark, where sites on Bornholm and the Ladby Viking Museum strengthen the Norse-Templar connection, and to Iceland, where manuscripts at the Arni Magnusson Institute reference the star Arcturus and a cave carving mirrors the lead cross from Smith's Cove. The season ends with the treasure still defended by water, but with a web of medieval evidence stretching from the Mediterranean to the North Atlantic. **S11E1: On the Money** (Nov 7, 2023) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-11/episode-1-on-the-money The season opens with the team gathered in the War Room to outline plans for the year. **S11E2: Heavy Lifting** (Nov 14, 2023) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-11/episode-2-heavy-lifting Borehole D.5N26.5 is positioned east of the Garden Shaft to search for a tunnel at 95 feet believed to run westward into the Baby Blob. **S11E3: Taking Their Shot** (Nov 21, 2023) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-11/episode-3-taking-their-shot With casing pulled from borehole D5N25.5, the rig moves to D5N24.5 to continue tracking the tunnel believed to run beneath the Garden Shaft into the Baby Blob. **S11E4: Shear Mystery** (Nov 28, 2023) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-11/episode-4-shear-mystery Borehole D5N27 targets the westward-running tunnel heading toward the Baby Blob. **S11E5: Muon The Horizon** (Dec 5, 2023) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-11/episode-5-muon-the-horizon Paul Cote outlines the Garden Shaft plan: six hours of daily pumping, a three-ton hammer grab to clear spoils from the bottom, and new eight-foot sets to extend the shaft toward the tunnel heading ... **S11E6: The Grand Opening** (Dec 12, 2023) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-11/episode-6-the-grand-opening Underwater imaging specialist Blaine Carr joins the team at the Money Pit to examine Aladdin's Cave through borehole L14 using a high-definition camera. **S11E7: The Great Flood** (Dec 19, 2023) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-11/episode-7-the-great-flood Roger Fortin reports the Garden Shaft has reached 87 feet but water is infiltrating at set 16. **S11E8: A Void At All Costs** (Jan 2, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-11/episode-8-a-void-at-all-costs Water continues pouring into the Garden Shaft at a depth of 66 feet, with 700 gallons per hour preventing Dumas from deepening the final 13 feet to the 100-foot target. **S11E9: Filling Cavities** (Jan 9, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-11/episode-9-filling-cavities Roger Fortin reports 250 gallons of water per minute flooding the Garden Shaft. **S11E10: Chain Reaction** (Jan 16, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-11/episode-10-chain-reaction Rick tells the War Room that an email from Dumas has pushed the Garden Shaft deepening into the fall. **S11E11: Plugged Up** (Jan 23, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-11/episode-11-plugged-up Along the swamp's southern edge, Rick notices axe-cut wood in Billy's excavated spoils and observes that the ground is unusually peaty. **S11E12: Digging Back In** (Jan 30, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-11/episode-12-digging-back-in Roger Fortin confirms that the Geofoam has worked and Dumas has regained control of the water, allowing the Garden Shaft deepening to resume. **S11E13: Tea Time** (Feb 6, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-11/episode-13-tea-time Marty announces in the War Room that caissons will not go in this year. **S11E14: Rick and Mortar** (Feb 13, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-11/episode-14-rick-and-mortar Paul Cote reports the first lateral drill hole on the Garden Shaft's north side is deflecting off a wall. **S11E15: On Target** (Feb 20, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-11/episode-15-on-target Ian Spooner inspects the stone walkway recently uncovered in the swamp and calls the angularity of the rocks suspicious. **S11E16: Dark and Stormy** (Feb 27, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-11/episode-16-dark-and-stormy Rick, Alex, Jack, and Craig meet Ian Spooner in the swamp to examine the large axe-cut stumps uncovered during excavation of the middle area. **S11E17: Piling On** (Mar 5, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-11/episode-17-piling-on Rick, Alex, and Jack head to the island to assess damage from Hurricane Lee. **S11E18: May The Norse Be With You** (Mar 12, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-11/episode-18-may-the-norse-be-with-you Members of the team gather at the Garden Shaft to examine timbers removed from its bottom. **S11E19: Hi Ho Silver** (Mar 19, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-11/episode-19-hi-ho-silver Rick, Jack, Gary, and Billy continue excavating the wooden structure near the swamp's southern border, the same area where Fred Nolan once reported evidence of a dam. **S11E20: Wet and Wild** (Mar 26, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-11/episode-20-wet-and-wild Rick and Scott meet with Paul Cote to outline priorities for the probe-drilling program at the bottom of the Garden Shaft: drill the tunnel, report anything unusual, and collect samples every ten f... **S11E21: Straight as an Arrow** (Apr 2, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-11/episode-21-straight-as-an-arrow Saltwater is flooding the Garden Shaft tunnel at a rate of 479 gallons per minute. **S11E22: Abbey Road** (Apr 9, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-11/episode-22-abbey-road With the Garden Shaft horizontal drilling program abandoned due to flooding, the team launches a new borehole program targeting the Baby Blob at depths of 80 to 120 feet, with locations selected by... **S11E23: Cone E Island** (Apr 16, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-11/episode-23-cone-e-island Terry reports that the first borehole, Avanti 1, produced only in situ material. **S11E24: Hairy Situation** (Apr 23, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-11/episode-24-hairy-situation Borehole Bravo 1 reaches a depth of 137 feet with plenty of silt and sand but no wood. **S11E25: Worth the Weight** (Apr 30, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-11/episode-25-worth-the-weight In the Season 11 finale, the team makes one final push in the Money Pit area. ### Season 12 (2024) Premiere: November 12, 2024 Episodes: 25 A new drilling program targets the Golden Egg, the underground zone where Dr. Fred Michel believes gold and silver concentrations are highest. The team deploys seven-foot caissons with partner Soletanche Bachy Canada, but when shaft TB1 collapses into a massive underground void, the setback reveals something unexpected: the solution channel, a natural geological feature running deep beneath the Money Pit where original depositors may have hidden their treasure. The discovery reframes the entire search. Three caissons are sunk around the former Shaft 6, producing old wood, iron, and leather from depths exceeding 150 feet. In Malta, Rick Lagina, Alex Lagina, Peter Fornetti, and Corjan Mol investigate the fortifications built by the Knights of Malta, where archaeologist Matthew Balzan identifies a pickaxe from 145 feet below Oak Island as a baqqun, a standard quarrying tool. Underground tunnels beneath Valletta reveal blue-gray clay waterproofing identical to material found in the Money Pit. At the Cittadella prison on Gozo, the team discovers four-dot crosses and symbols matching the 90-foot stone, and Corjan traces the de Villiers bloodline from 12th-century Jerusalem through the Templars and Hospitallers to Isaac de Razilly, a Knight of Malta who established the French colony of Acadia, now Nova Scotia, in 1632. The season culminates with TOT1, "The One Thing," reaching 195 feet before airlifting material from the solution channel at 300 pounds per square inch, recovering artifacts from deeper than anyone has reached before. **S12E1: The New Digs** (Nov 12, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-12/episode-1-the-new-digs At the Interpretive Center, the team maps out the season ahead. **S12E2: Whistle While You Work** (Nov 19, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-12/episode-2-whistle-while-you-work At the Research Center, Rick Lagina, Marty Lagina, and Craig Tester review the drilling program with Steve Guptill and Scott. **S12E3: The Saga Continues** (Nov 26, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-12/episode-3-the-saga-continues Alex Lagina, Terry, and Charles Barkhouse supervise the drilling of borehole EN14 in the Golden Egg, five feet east of EN13. **S12E4: Concrete Evidence** (Dec 3, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-12/episode-4-concrete-evidence Terry, Charles Barkhouse, and Steve Guptill monitor the progress of borehole FN15.5, located in the southern part of the Golden Egg where Dr. **S12E5: A Flood Of Secrets** (Dec 10, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-12/episode-5-a-flood-of-secrets Billy Gerhardt continues searching for the flood tunnel at Smith's Cove while Peter Fornetti and Gary Drayton check the spoils. **S12E6: Hide And Seek** (Dec 17, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-12/episode-6-hide-and-seek The team begins borehole HN15.5 based on data from Jan Francke, who indicated a possible void or structure at 127 feet the previous week. **S12E7: It's All Your Vault** (Jan 7, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-12/episode-7-it-s-all-your-vault At the Research Center, Rick Lagina meets with Scott, Doug Crowell, and Steve Guptill to plan the next borehole. **S12E8: A Bead On The Target** (Jan 14, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-12/episode-8-a-bead-on-the-target Alex Lagina, Charles Barkhouse, Steve Guptill, and Jillian Parsons supervise the drilling of borehole D.25-6.76, positioned slightly north of the team's recent drilling area. **S12E9: Brick By Brick** (Jan 21, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-12/episode-9-brick-by-brick The team examines a core from borehole D.25-8.25 at a depth of roughly 35 feet. **S12E10: Graves Concerns** (Jan 28, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-12/episode-10-graves-concerns In the swamp, Craig Tester, Alex Lagina, Billy Gerhardt, and Dr. **S12E11: Best Caisson Scenario** (Feb 4, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-12/episode-11-best-caisson-scenario The previous week's drilling of borehole H.5-10.5 produced wooden evidence at about 150 feet, the same area where Fredrick Blair and William Chappell found signs of a seven-foot-high chest in 1897. **S12E12: Mapping It Out** (Feb 11, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-12/episode-12-mapping-it-out In the War Room, Rick and Marty Lagina and members of the team meet via video with Vanessa Lucido, CEO of ROC Equipment, to plan a major new dig in the Money Pit area. **S12E13: Caissons Ho!** (Feb 25, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-12/episode-13-caissons-ho The team welcomes Vanessa Lucido and ROC Equipment to the island, where they will work alongside Soletanche Bachy Canada to place seven-foot caissons at several locations to a depth of more than 20... **S12E14: Sinking In** (Mar 4, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-12/episode-14-sinking-in As ROC Equipment continues working on TB1, Jared Busby calls Vanessa Lucido over because the oscillator pressure has begun to drop. **S12E15: Channeling the Solution** (Mar 11, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-12/episode-15-channeling-the-solution Vanessa Lucido inspects the area around TB1 after the previous day's cave-in. **S12E16: Open Sesame** (Mar 18, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-12/episode-16-open-sesame In the War Room, the team meets with Vanessa Lucido from ROC Equipment and Adam Embleton from Soletanche Bachy Canada to plan the next phase of drilling in the Money Pit. **S12E17: Boots on the Ground** (Mar 25, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-12/episode-17-boots-on-the-ground Rick Lagina and Steve Guptill meet with ROV specialist Ken Deboer to inspect the cavity known as Aladdin's Cave. **S12E18: If The Shoe Phips** (Apr 1, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-12/episode-18-if-the-shoe-phips The team continues searching the spoils of RP1 for evidence of the Money Pit and the two chests the Oak Island Association reportedly drilled through in 1861. **S12E19: Barreling Forward** (Apr 8, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-12/episode-19-barreling-forward Rick Lagina and Gary Drayton monitor the excavation of RP2, now at a depth of 82 feet. **S12E20: Just Bead It** (Apr 15, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-12/episode-20-just-bead-it Alex Lagina arrives at the Money Pit to check on RP3, positioned just north of RP1 and RP2 and slightly outside Shaft 6. **S12E21: The Solution Solution** (Apr 22, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-12/episode-21-the-solution-solution In the War Room, the team takes stock of the Shaft 6 caisson results. **S12E22: Knight After Knight** (Apr 29, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-12/episode-22-knight-after-knight In the War Room, Craig Tester says he wants to find an artifact in the swamp that can tell the team who was there and when. **S12E23: Family Ties** (May 6, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-12/episode-23-family-ties Repairs to the Money Pit pad continue as more than 50 tons of gravel are laid down to stabilize the area for another seven-foot shaft intended to reach the solution channel. **S12E24: Into the Void** (May 13, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-12/episode-24-into-the-void Alex Lagina checks on the progress of TOT1 (The One Thing), positioned less than 10 feet south of the collapsed TB1. **S12E25: Uplifting Discoveries** (May 20, 2024) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-12/episode-25-uplifting-discoveries With TOT1 (The One Thing) reaching 195 feet and the caisson unable to advance further, the team shifts to airlifting material from the solution channel, blasting air at 300 pounds per square inch d... ### Season 13 (2025) Premiere: November 4, 2025 Episodes: 25 Season 13 of The Curse of Oak Island aired on History Channel from November 4, 2025 to May 5, 2026 across 25 episodes. The team's two stated aims were to reach the solution channel that had carried elevated gold and silver into the Money Pit area, and to extend the medieval case the previous season had begun to assemble. Both produced results, neither produced treasure. Five seven-foot-diameter caissons were sunk in and around the Money Pit, labeled TPF, Karma-1, Peacock-1, MS-1, and MP-1. The shafts pushed past 210 feet, recovered sinking wood, iron, and chain from depths no previous searcher had reached, and confirmed elemental silver in the solution channel sediments through Dr. Ian Spooner's XRF analysis. None of the shafts recovered an object of value. The Peacock void identified by sonar at 148 feet, with underwater camera footage that Bob Brown of Prohawk Technology assessed as more than 90 percent likely to contain man-made objects, was not re-encountered in any of the boreholes drilled within feet of the original target. On Lot 8, archaeologists Laird Niven and Fiona Steele exposed a hand-cut stone cradle beneath a 40,000-pound boulder, bound with binders that Emma Culligan dated to a window between the 1200s and the mid-1700s. The Lot 5 round foundation produced a sixth Roman coin of Claudius II and a folded copper talisman matching early medieval Templar practice. Carbon-14 testing on leather from the cobblestone swamp pathway returned a primary range of 1148 to 1216 AD. Italian archaeoastronomy professor Adriano Gaspani dated the Lot 5 round foundation to approximately 1236 AD. Researcher Charlotte Wheatley demonstrated that three French churches dedicated to Saint Radegund share orientations of approximately 292 degrees that project across the Atlantic in the general direction of Oak Island. In the season's final stretch, Rick Lagina, Alex Lagina, Doug Crowell, Peter Fornetti, Emiliano Sacchetti, and Corjan Mol travelled to the Portuguese Azores, where archaeologist Tiago Rodrigues at the Angra do Heroísmo Museum authenticated three Oak Island artifacts as Portuguese: a stone shot from the Money Pit area, the Pitblado Tornês escudo, and Jack Begley's iron deck spike from the Lot 5 round foundation. Portuguese numismatist Alberto Silva narrowed the Pitblado coin's striking window to no later than 1371. In the season finale, Dr. Spooner reported that wood recovered from the 2024 Shaft 2A excavation returned the highest silver and third-highest gold readings recorded on the island, opening a methodological pivot toward indirect detection. Marty Lagina committed to extending the program. The full scientific synthesis is laid out in Oak Island S13: The Medieval Case. **S13E1: The Comeback** (Nov 4, 2025) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-13/episode-1-the-comeback Rick and Marty Lagina, Craig Tester, and their team gather at the Interpretive Centre to launch a new season with a clear mission: systematic drilling to the bottom of the solution channel, where t... **S13E2: Billion Dollar Baby** (Nov 11, 2025) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-13/episode-2-billion-dollar-baby In the Money Pit area, the team continues drilling borehole J-9 into the solution channel, targeting the zone between 150 and 220 feet where they believe the original treasure shaft has collapsed o... **S13E3: Medieval Intentions** (Nov 18, 2025) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-13/episode-3-medieval-intentions In the Oak Island lab, Rick and Marty Lagina and members of the team gather to hear Emma Culligan's analysis of a coin that Marty and Katya Drayton discovered on Lot 5 the previous week, in the sam... **S13E4: The Smoking Gun** (Nov 25, 2025) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-13/episode-4-the-smoking-gun In the Money Pit area, Rick and Marty Lagina and the team begin drilling borehole F-5.5, located just seven feet from borehole F-4 where the highest levels of gold and silver were previously detect... **S13E5: Keep On Rockin'** (Dec 2, 2025) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-13/episode-5-keep-on-rockin In the Money Pit area, Rick and Marty Lagina and the team drill borehole G-4.5, targeting the solution channel between 168 and approximately 212 feet below grade. **S13E6: The Heat Is On** (Dec 9, 2025) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-13/episode-6-the-heat-is-on In the Money Pit area, the team recovers a 30-foot core from borehole F-8.5, spanning 178 to 208 feet with bedrock hit at 205, in an area where previous water tests revealed evidence of gold and si... **S13E7: Walk The Line** (Dec 16, 2025) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-13/episode-7-walk-the-line In the Money Pit area, the team drills borehole I-9.5 targeting the deepest sections of the solution channel at 210 to 230 feet, an area where new water tests conducted by Dr. **S13E8: Into The Fold** (Dec 23, 2025) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-13/episode-8-into-the-fold The team begins drilling borehole H-9.25, located in the southwest corner of the former Chappell Shaft and just five feet south of the H-8 shaft, where in 2017 the five-foot-diameter caisson hit a ... **S13E9: So Close, Yet Sonar** (Dec 30, 2025) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-13/episode-9-so-close-yet-sonar Rick and Marty Lagina and their team begin drilling borehole BN-13.5 in the area Marty has dubbed the Peacock, 45 feet northeast of recent drilling locations and in a zone where new water tests hav... **S13E10: Boulder And Wiser** (Jan 6, 2026) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-13/episode-10-boulder-and-wiser In the Money Pit area, the team drills borehole DN-13 in the Peacock, a few feet northwest of borehole BN-13.5, where a possible man-made cavity was discovered at 150 feet one week earlier. **S13E11: A Knight's Journey** (Jan 13, 2026) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-13/episode-11-a-knight-s-journey In the Money Pit area, Rick and Marty Lagina and their team drill borehole BN-14 in the Peacock, just three feet west of where a ten-foot void was discovered at 148 feet two weeks earlier, an area ... **S13E12: A Fort Knight** (Jan 20, 2026) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-13/episode-12-a-fort-knight In the War Room, Rick and Marty Lagina and their team review snake camera footage captured beneath the massive boulder on Lot 8, where archaeologists Laird Niven and Fiona Steele have exposed a voi... **S13E13: Testing Their Metal** (Jan 27, 2026) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-13/episode-13-testing-their-metal On Lot 8, Rick and Marty Lagina and Craig Tester join archaeologists Laird Niven and Fiona to continue investigating the massive boulder feature, beneath which a snake camera has revealed voids, a ... **S13E14: The Shining** (Feb 3, 2026) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-13/episode-14-the-shining In the War Room, Rick and Marty Lagina, Craig Tester, and their team meet virtually with Vanessa Lucido of ROC Equipment and Adam Embelton of Soletanche Bachy Canada to plan the season's pivotal Mo... **S13E15: Swamped** (Feb 24, 2026) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-13/episode-15-swamped Teams from ROC Equipment and Soletanche Bachy Canada arrive on Oak Island with a 135-ton telescoping drill rig to begin excavating the TPF shaft, a seven-foot-diameter steel caisson aimed at reachi... **S13E16: Raising the Stakes** (Mar 3, 2026) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-13/episode-16-raising-the-stakes The season's most ambitious Money Pit operation runs into an immediate obstacle when the TPF-1 caisson seizes up at just 25 feet, pinned in compacted backfill gravel from a previous shallow excavat... **S13E17: The Missing Links** (Mar 10, 2026) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-13/episode-17-the-missing-links On Lot 8, archaeologist Fiona Steele continues excavating beneath the site of the 40,000-pound boulder removed one week earlier from its artificially placed ring of support stones. **S13E18: Breaking the Seal** (Mar 17, 2026) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-13/episode-18-breaking-the-seal The Karma-1 shaft reaches its full depth of 212 feet in the solution channel, but the final spoils searched by Rick Lagina, metal detection expert Gary Drayton, and Terry Matheson produce no hits. **S13E19: Axis of Medieval** (Mar 24, 2026) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-13/episode-19-axis-of-medieval On Lot 8, Rick Lagina and Craig Tester join archaeologist Fiona Steele at the cradle-shaped stone feature beneath the removed 40,000-pound boulder. **S13E20: The Sands of Time** (Mar 31, 2026) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-13/episode-20-the-sands-of-time Rick Lagina, Marty Lagina, Craig Tester, and the team gather in the War Room with Steve Guptill to assess their next move. **S13E21: A Sacred Symbol** (Apr 7, 2026) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-13/episode-21-a-sacred-symbol On Lot 8, archaeologists Laird Niven and Fiona Steele continue excavating the cradle-shaped stone feature beneath the 40,000-pound boulder, with Alex Lagina and Craig Tester observing. **S13E22: Road Trip** (Apr 14, 2026) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-13/episode-22-road-trip In the war room, Rick and Marty Lagina, Craig Tester and members of the team meet with Dr. **S13E23: Island Hopping** (Apr 21, 2026) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-13/episode-23-island-hopping On Oak Island, crews from ROC Equipment and Soletanche Bachy Canada, with Adam Embleton and Billy Gerhardt, repair the Money Pit area for another eight-foot-diameter steel shaft targeting the solut... **S13E24: Overseaing the Dig** (Apr 28, 2026) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-13/episode-24-overseaing-the-dig In the Portuguese Azores, Rick Lagina, Alex Lagina, Peter Fornetti, Doug Crowell, and Emiliano Sacchetti join researcher Corjan Mol and local historian Francisco Nogueira at Nossa Senhora da Concei... **S13E25: Pure Gold** (May 5, 2026) - https://thecurseofoakisland.com/episodes/season-13/episode-25-pure-gold In the Money Pit area, the season's final caisson, MP-1, advances toward the solution channel where soil sampling earlier in the year identified the strongest silver concentrations on the island. ### Season 14 (2026) Premiere: November 3, 2026 Episodes: 25 Season 14 Premieres November 3, 2026 Premiere date Tuesday, November 3, 2026 (listed) Episode count 25 Network The History Channel Filming started June 1, 2026 Previous finale May 5, 2026: S13E25, "Pure Gold" Production company Prometheus Entertainment The release date of Season 14 of the Curse of Oak Island is known. The first episode will air on Tuesday November 3 in the United States. Filming for this season has started on Monday, June 1 of this year. Rick Lagina is in Nova Scotia with the full Oak Island Team. The first excavators, pumps and Choice Drilling rigs have arrived on the island. The team is actively digging, drilling and investigating. Given that it is now July, they are approaching the halfway point of season 14 filming. The season premiere is listed in the big TV Guides for Tuesday, November 3, 2026, followed by weekly Tuesday episodes through November 24. [wyw:dig-deeper] Where The Search Left Off Season 13 closed on May 5, 2026 with the episode "Pure Gold," ending the most artifact-rich year in the show's history. Steve Guptill's final heat map plotted more than 800 finds, while Laird Niven put the year's total closer to 1,200. Pink markers on the map, denoting anything older than the 1700s, showed island-wide activity at a scale Niven described as having no parallel he knew of in North America. The season's last caisson, MP-1, reached bedrock at 210 feet, five feet short of its design depth. Gary Drayton recovered a section of nineteenth-century drill pipe, a heavily twisted iron fragment, and a piece of stained wood with palm-like grain that Rick Lagina noted has no natural place at that depth. [artifact:stained-wood-fragment] Katya Drayton found a William III sixpence struck between 1697 and 1701 in the Dunfield spoils on Lot 18, identified by Emma Culligan at the laboratory. Marty connected an earlier fleur-de-lis cap badge fragment from the same area to Isaac de Razilly, the French Knight of Malta who established a fort at LaHave in 1632. [artifact:william-iii-sixpence] Marty closed the war-room meeting by unveiling a one-ounce gold piece marked with a Canadian maple leaf. He placed it as a physical marker for the spot the team intends to sink first in Season 14. [wyw:explore] Where Season 14 Picks Up Season 13 ended with a few threads open. The first is the Lot 8 stone cradle below the giant 40,000 ton boulder. Hand excavation inside the cradle has descended well below the six-foot bedrock reading from the adjacent trench, and hammer-drill samples returned material that Laird Niven judged too soft for bedrock. Marty Lagina was explicit at the close of the year that the cradle work is not finished until the team understands what lies underneath it. Fiona Steele's working estimate places the boulder itself as early as the 1200s. A second thread is the wood metals testing program. Of fifteen samples processed under the program led by Dr. Ian Spooner and Dr. Fred Michel, wood recovered from Shaft 2A in 2024 returned the highest silver and third-highest gold readings recorded on the island. Marty has committed to extending the program. [artifact:piece-of-wood-containing-traces-of-gold] The hardest result of Season 13 was a carbon-14 floor of 1148 to 1216 AD on leather shoe fragments from the swamp cobblestone path, returned by Beta Analytical and reviewed by Craig Tester. Adriano Gaspani's archaeoastronomical analysis of the Lot 5 round foundation placed its alignments at approximately 1236 AD, consistent with his earlier 1217 AD result for Nolan's Cross. Emma Culligan's binder analysis on the Lot 8 cradle returned a premodern construction window, and Fiona Steele's working estimate places the cradle as early as the 1200s. Portuguese numismatist Alberto Silva at Angra do Heroismo narrowed the Pitblado coin's striking window to no later than 1371. Acadia University geologist Dr. Robert Raeside dated the Peacock-1 stoneshot confidently to the 1300s or early 1400s. Five methods, five objects, one window. The thirteenth-century framing has stopped being conjecture and become a working hypothesis the science has now made for the show. [article:archaeoastronomy-on-oak-island][article:oak-island-s13-medieval-case] [wyw:facts-figures] Returning Cast and Production The core team is stable. Rick Lagina and Marty Lagina have led the search since 2014, together with Craig Tester. Marty's son Alex Lagina, nephew Peter Fornetti, Gary Drayton, Doug Crowell, Craig Tester, Terry Matheson, Steve Guptill, Billy Gerhardt, and Jack Begley have all been on-island regulars across recent seasons. Corjan Mol, who has led the European trips since 2019 was recently spotted in Mahone Bay so he will surely return and might have an active role on the island this season. The lab and analysis work continues to draw on Emma Culligan, Dr. Ian Spooner, Laird Niven, Fiona Steele, and Carmen Legge. Prometheus Entertainment continues to produce the series for the History Channel. No cast or production changes have been announced for the next season. The HISTORY Channel has yet to officially announce the new season with a press release, which is a familiar pattern from previous seasons. Closer than Ever What has really changed in the last few weeks is that the island is open to visitors while filming continues behind the gates. The causeway carries public traffic, and the museum and treasure shop are open to walk-in visitors, though the working sites are not. [article:oak-island-has-opened-to-the-public-how-to-visit] This page will be frequently updated when developments happen. Last update [lastupdate]. [artifacts-timeline]   **S14E1: To be announced** (Nov 3, 2026) To be announced **S14E2: To be announced** (Nov 10, 2026) To be announced **S14E3: To be announced** (Nov 17, 2026) To be announced **S14E4: To be announced** (Nov 24, 2026) To be announced **S14E5: To be announced** To be announced **S14E6: To be announced** To be announced **S14E7: To be announced** To be announced **S14E8: To be announced** To be announced **S14E9: To be announced** To be announced **S14E10: To be announced** To be announced **S14E11: To be announced** To be announced **S14E12: To be announced** To be announced **S14E13: To be announced** To be announced **S14E14: To be announced** To be announced **S14E15: To be announced** To be announced **S14E16: To be announced** To be announced **S14E17: To be announced** To be announced **S14E18: To be announced** To be announced **S14E19: To be announced** To be announced **S14E20: To be announced** To be announced **S14E21: To be announced** To be announced **S14E22: To be announced** To be announced **S14E23: To be announced** To be announced **S14E24: To be announced** To be announced **S14E25: To be announced** To be announced ## Episode Guide FAQ Q: How many episodes of The Curse of Oak Island are there? A: As of 2026, there are 256 titled episodes across 14 seasons. Q: When did The Curse of Oak Island first air? A: The series premiered on January 5, 2014 on the History Channel. Q: Is The Curse of Oak Island still on? A: The show has completed 14 seasons. --- # TIMELINE Complete chronological history of Oak Island exploration. **c. 985-986** - Bjarni Herjolfsson sights North America Icelandic merchant Bjarni Herjolfsson becomes the first European to sight the North American mainland when blown off course sailing to Greenland. He observes three lands (likely Newfoundland, Labrador, and Baffin Island) but does not land. **c. 1000** - Basques begin Atlantic whaling expeditions Basque fishermen begin chasing whales into northern summer grounds off Norway, Iceland, and the Hebrides. This marks the beginning of Basque maritime expertise that would eventually extend to the North American coast, including Nova Scotia waters. **c. 1000** - Leif Eriksson explores Vinland Norse explorer Leif Eriksson sails from Greenland with 35 men, following Bjarnis route. He names three lands: Helluland (Baffin Island), Markland (Labrador), and Vinland (Newfoundland). He establishes a camp and winters there. **c. 1002-1004** - Thorvald Eriksson killed in Vinland Leifs brother Thorvald leads an expedition to Vinland. After two years of exploration, he is killed by an arrow during conflict with indigenous people (Skraelings) - the first European death in North America. **c. 1004-1010** - Thorfinn Karlsefni attempts Vinland colonization Icelandic merchant Thorfinn Karlsefni leads the largest Norse expedition to Vinland: three ships with 130-160 settlers including women and livestock. His son Snorri becomes the first European born in North America. After three years, conflicts with Skraelings force them to abandon the settlement. **1021** - Norse activity at LAns aux Meadows scientifically dated Tree-ring analysis of wood cut with metal tools at the LAns aux Meadows site in Newfoundland confirms Norse presence in exactly this year. This represents the earliest precisely dated European activity in North America, nearly 500 years before Columbus. **1118** - Creation of the Knights Templar in Jerusalem The Knights Templar are founded in Jerusalem in the Holy Land by Warmund of Jerusalem, establishing the military order that would become central to crusader-era treasure and secret-keeping theories connected to Oak Island. **1126** - Knights Templar given lands in northern Portugal The Knights Templar are granted lands in Fonte Arcada in northern Portugal, establishing an early Templar presence in the Iberian Peninsula that would grow into one of the order's most significant territorial bases. **1129-01-13** - Council of Troyes and publication of the Templar Rule At the Council of Troyes, Bernard of Clairvaux's Templar Rule is officially published, formalizing the religious and military code governing the Knights Templar and cementing their legitimacy as a recognized order of the Church. **1139-03-29** - Papal bull Omne Datum Optimum grants unprecedented rights to the Templars Pope Innocent II issues the papal bull Omne Datum Optimum, granting the Knights Templar unprecedented rights including exemption from local laws and taxes, while claiming anything they find at Temple Mount for the Church. **1146-07** - Afonso Henriques writes to Bernard of Clairvaux for crusader support Afonso Henriques writes to Bernard of Clairvaux from Porto, Portugal, seeking support in rallying crusader forces to help him defeat the Moors in Portugal - a campaign that would reshape the Iberian Peninsula and deepen Templar involvement in the region. **1147-06-16** - Crusader fleet of 164 ships arrives in Porto Some 164 ships carrying crusaders from England, Germany, Flanders, Frisia and Scotland arrive in Porto, Portugal, and meet Afonso Henriques to begin the campaign against the Moors. **1147-07-01** - Crusader fleet assists in the conquest of Lisbon A crusader fleet assists Afonso Henriques in the conquest of Lisbon, Portugal, a pivotal moment in the Reconquista and a campaign with deep Templar connections. **1147-10-24** - Fall of Lisbon and expulsion of the Moors Lisbon falls to Afonso Henriques and the Moors are expelled. Most of the crusaders who participated in the siege settle in Lisbon, establishing a permanent European Christian presence. **c. 1160** - Construction of the Convent of Christ by Templar Grand Master Gualdim Pais Construction begins on the Convent of Christ by Gualdim Pais, Grand Master of the Knights Templar in Portugal. The convent in Tomar would become the Templar headquarters in Portugal and later the seat of the Order of Christ. **1244-03-13** - Fall of Montségur Montségur falls, with ownership transferring to Louis IX. The Cathar stronghold's fall has long been linked to legends of hidden treasure smuggled out before the siege ended. **1254-04-25** - Louis IX leaves Acre for France with holy relics Louis IX departs Acre for France, carrying holy relics acquired during the Seventh Crusade - objects whose subsequent fate has fueled centuries of treasure-hunting speculation. **1291-05-18** - Fall of Acre and end of the Kingdom of Jerusalem Acre falls, marking the end of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the crusader presence in the Holy Land. The Knights Templar lose their base of operations in the East, forcing the order to relocate its assets and operations to Europe. **c. 1301-1353** - Treaties guarantee Basque fishing rights around British Isles Four treaties are signed with the English Crown guaranteeing Gascon and Spanish Basque fishermen free mutual trade and fishery rights around British and Irish coasts. **1306-03-25** - Robert the Bruce becomes King of Scotland Robert the Bruce is crowned King of Scotland in Edinburgh. Scotland under Bruce would later become a suspected refuge for fleeing Templars after the order's suppression - a theory central to the Templar-Oak Island connection. **1307-10-13** - Arrest of the Knights Templar on Friday the 13th On the orders of King Philip IV of France, Knights Templar across France are arrested in a coordinated dawn raid. The mass arrest on Friday the 13th devastates the order, though many Templars and much of their fleet reportedly escape - fueling enduring theories about where their treasure was taken. **1307-11-22** - Papal bull Pastoralis Praeeminentiae and arrest of remaining Templars Pope Clement V issues the papal bull Pastoralis Praeeminentiae, ordering the arrest of remaining Knights Templar in all territories. The order's suppression spreads beyond France to every Christian kingdom. **1308-06** - Testimony of Templar Jean de Châlons, Preceptor of Nemours Templar Jean de Châlons, Preceptor of Nemours, gives testimony in Poitiers, France. His statements provide one of the few insider accounts of the order's final days and the fate of Templar assets. **1309-11-17** - Scottish Templars testify to the Inquisition at Holyrood Templars William of Middleton and Walter Clifton give testimony to the Inquisition at Holyrood, Scotland. Their testimony is notably mild compared to confessions extracted under torture elsewhere in Europe, supporting theories that Scotland offered Templars protection. **1310-05-11** - Testimony of jurist Ralph de Prelles Jurist Ralph de Prelles gives testimony in Sens, France, adding to the complex legal and theological record of the Templar trials. **1312-03-22** - Papal bull Vox in Excelso dissolves the Knights Templar Pope Clement V issues the papal bull Vox in Excelso, formally dissolving the Knights Templar. After nearly two centuries as one of the most powerful military and financial orders in Christendom, the Templars cease to officially exist. **1312-05-02** - Papal bull Ad Providam transfers Templar assets to the Hospitallers Pope Clement V issues the papal bull Ad Providam, ordering all goods and lands of the Knights Templar to be transferred to the Knights Hospitaller. However, much of the Templar wealth is never accounted for - a mystery that persists to this day. **1314-03-18** - Jacques de Molay burned at the stake Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, is burned at the stake in Paris. According to legend, he cursed King Philip IV and Pope Clement V from the flames - both would be dead within the year. **1319-03-14** - Order of Christ founded in Portugal Pope John XXII issues bull "Ad ea ex quibus" formally recognizing the Order of Christ as successor to the suppressed Knights Templar. King Denis I of Portugal had protected the Templars and negotiated their transformation into a new order that retained their assets, personnel, and headquarters at Tomar. The Order would later fund Portuguese maritime exploration, with the distinctive Cross of Christ appearing on the sails of all Portuguese ships during the Age of Discovery. **1319** - Order of Christ founded in Portugal King Dinis I of Portugal founds the Order of Christ, effectively re-establishing the Knights Templar under a new name. The order inherits Templar assets, personnel, and the Convent of Christ in Tomar, preserving Templar knowledge and traditions that would later drive Portugal's Age of Discovery. **1372** - First disputed mention of Basques reaching the Americas This year marks the first (though historically disputed) mention of Basques reaching the Americas - over a century before Columbus. **1412** - Twenty Basque whaling ships recorded in Iceland Records in Iceland note the arrival of 20 Basque whaling ships off Grunderfjord, demonstrating the scale and range of Basque maritime operations decades before Columbus. **1417** - Prince Henry the Navigator becomes Grand Master of Order of Christ Prince Henry of Portugal, later known as "the Navigator," becomes administrator of the Order of Christ at King John I request. Under his leadership (1417-1460), the Order channels its vast wealth into sponsoring maritime expeditions, establishing a navigation school at Sagres, and funding voyages that would chart the African coast. The Cross of Christ becomes the symbol of Portuguese exploration worldwide. **c. 1472** - Joao Vaz Corte-Real may reach Newfoundland According to family tradition, Portuguese navigator Joao Vaz Corte-Real sailed to the "Land of the Codfish" (Terra dos Bacalhaus) and returned to the Azores. If true, this would predate Columbus discovery by 20 years. His sons Gaspar and Miguel would later lead official Portuguese expeditions to the same waters. Some historians question this claim, but it reflects Portuguese interest in western Atlantic exploration before Columbus. **1492** - Santa Maria built in Basque shipyards The flagship of Christopher Columbus, the Santa Maria, is built in Basque shipyards and owned by Bizkaian navigator Juan de la Cosa. **1494** - Treaty of Tordesillas divides New World between Spain and Portugal The Treaty of Tordesillas establishes a demarcation line dividing newly discovered lands between Spain and Portugal. This line intersected the Nova Scotia coast at an uncertain point, creating competing claims that would influence European activity in the Mahone Bay region for centuries. **1497** - John Cabot claims Nova Scotia for England John Cabot becomes the first European known to have set foot on Nova Scotia, claiming the territory for England. **1497** - Rumors persist Basques knew of land before Cabot John Cabot claims Newfoundland for England, but contemporary rumors persist that Basque fishermen had already found this land and kept it a commercial secret. **1498** - Joao Fernandes Lavrador granted exploration charter King Manuel I of Portugal grants Joao Fernandes, a small landowner (lavrador) from Terceira in the Azores, a patent to explore the Atlantic. Together with Pero de Barcelos, Fernandes would chart the coasts of Greenland and northeastern North America around 1498-1500. The Labrador Peninsula is named after him - the Weimar map of 1530 states the name came from "a labrador of the Azores who informed the English of the land." **c. 1500-1502** - Corte-Real brothers explore Nova Scotia coast Portuguese explorers Gaspar and Miguel Corte-Real conduct voyages exploring the Atlantic coast of Canada, establishing early Portuguese interest in the region that includes present-day Nova Scotia and Mahone Bay. **1500** - Juan de la Cosa draws first map showing Americas Basque navigator Juan de la Cosa draws the first known map of the world to include the Americas. **1500-05-12** - Gaspar Corte-Real receives royal charter to explore King Manuel I grants Gaspar Corte-Real, son of navigator Joao Vaz Corte-Real, a charter to discover and claim lands in the New World. Believing John Cabots 1497 discoveries fell within Portuguese territory under the Treaty of Tordesillas, Portugal seeks to establish its own claims. Gaspar departs Lisbon that summer with three ships financed by his family. **1500** - Gaspar Corte-Real reaches Greenland On his first voyage, Gaspar Corte-Real reaches Greenland, believing it to be Asia. Ice floes and bad weather prevent landing. He rounds Cape Farewell and may have sighted Newfoundland before returning to Lisbon. The voyage establishes Portuguese presence in the North Atlantic and sets stage for more ambitious expeditions. **1501-05-15** - Gaspar Corte-Real departs on fatal second voyage Gaspar Corte-Real sets sail from Lisbon with three caravels on his second expedition. Taking a more westerly course, the fleet reaches Labrador and Newfoundland, finding "land of tall pines and wild berries." The Portuguese chart approximately 600 miles of coastline, describing large rivers and forests. They capture 57-60 indigenous people as slaves. **1501-10** - Two of Gaspar Corte-Reals ships return without him Two of Gaspars three ships return to Lisbon in October 1501 carrying indigenous captives. Italian diplomats Alberto Cantino and Pietro Pasqualigo document the voyage in detailed letters. Gaspar, continuing to explore southward alone, is never seen again. The 1502 Cantino Map would label the region "Terra del Rey de Portugall" - Land of the King of Portugal. **1502-05** - Miguel Corte-Real vanishes searching for his brother Miguel Corte-Real, granted the captaincy of any new lands he might discover, departs Lisbon with three ships to search for his lost brother Gaspar. The fleet reaches Newfoundland and separates to search. Two ships return to Portugal; Miguels vessel vanishes without trace. Both brothers are presumed lost at sea. Their youngest brother Vasco is forbidden to search but later receives their discovered territories. **1506** - Portuguese cod tithe established King Manuel I of Portugal regulates the collection of tithes on Newfoundland cod, confirming that an organized Portuguese fishery is now operating. Portuguese ships from Aveiro and Viana do Castelo make regular voyages to Terra Nova. The fishery would peak mid-century before declining due to political upheavals. **1508** - Pinheiro de Barcelos family granted Nova Scotia coastal territory The family of Pinheiro de Barcelos from the Azores is granted part of the Nova Scotia coast by Portuguese authorities. Historical maps designate two large double bays as "Gulfo" at 44.5° N latitude - a position that precisely intersects Mahone Bay and St. Margaret's Bay, placing Oak Island within early Portuguese territorial claims. **1511** - Possible Miguel Corte-Real inscription at Dighton Rock A controversial inscription on Dighton Rock in Massachusetts, deciphered in 1912 by Professor Edmund Delabarre, allegedly reads: "I, Miguel Cortereal, 1511. In this place, by the will of God, I became a chief of the Indians." If genuine, Miguel survived his 1502 disappearance and lived among indigenous people for nine years. The Portuguese government accepts this interpretation; most historians remain skeptical. The rock, now in a museum, contains multiple layers of carvings of disputed origin. **1517** - First French record confirms Basques in Newfoundland The earliest indisputable French record confirms a Basque presence in the New Land (Newfoundland). **1518** - Baron de Lery attempts French settlement in Nova Scotia Baron de Lery of France makes an unsuccessful attempt to settle the Nova Scotia region, marking early French interest in the territory that would later become Acadia. **c. 1520-1525** - João Álvares Fagundes explores and attempts settlement in Nova Scotia Portuguese explorer João Álvares Fagundes explores the Nova Scotia coast and attempts to establish a settlement. Some researchers believe he may have erected crosses along the coastline - Samuel de Champlain reportedly found an old, moss-covered cross near Advocate, Nova Scotia in 1607 that some attribute to Fagundes. **1520** - Bayonne records mention cod-fishing to Terrenabes Records from Bayonne mention regular cod-fishing expeditions to Terrenabes (Terre-Neuve/Newfoundland). **c. 1520** - Joao Alvares Fagundes explores Nova Scotia coast Portuguese ship owner Joao Alvares Fagundes from Viana do Castelo explores the southern coast of Newfoundland and possibly enters the Gulf of St. Lawrence. With his captain Pero de Barcelos and colonists from the Azores, he charts Sable Island, Cape Breton, Saint-Pierre and Miquelon (which he names the "Eleven Thousand Virgins" after Saint Ursula). His expedition seeks lands suitable for Portuguese settlement. **1521-03-13** - Fagundes granted captaincy of discovered lands King Manuel I of Portugal grants Joao Alvares Fagundes exclusive rights and ownership of lands he has discovered between "Cortereal Land" (eastern Newfoundland) and Spanish territories. This includes islands in "Watering-Place Bay" (possibly Chedabucto Bay or the Gulf of St. Lawrence). Fagundes begins planning a permanent Portuguese colony in the New World. **c. 1521-1522** - Portuguese establish colony at Cape Breton Joao Alvares Fagundes establishes a Portuguese fishing colony on Cape Breton Island, possibly at Ingonish on the northeastern peninsula. Approximately 200 settlers, mostly from the Azores, attempt to create a permanent settlement. Finding Newfoundland too cold, they relocate to Cape Breton. The settlement includes families, fishermen, and livestock. Fagundes dies in Portugal around 1522, leaving the colony without leadership. **1522** - Basque navigator Elcano completes first circumnavigation Basque navigator Juan Sebastian Elcano completes the first circumnavigation of the globe after assuming command of Magellans expedition. **1524** - Estêvão Gomes claims Nova Scotia region for Spain Spanish explorer Estêvão Gomes (a Portuguese navigator sailing for Spain) explores the Atlantic coast and claims the area including Nova Scotia for the Spanish Crown, adding another layer to the competing European claims over the region. **c. 1525** - Portuguese Cape Breton colony abandoned The Portuguese colony at Cape Breton is abandoned due to harsh climate, indigenous conflicts, and loss of leadership after Fagundes death. Some settlers may have returned to Portugal; others may have joined French fishing operations. Mi kmaq oral traditions recall early European presence, and earth-mounds at St. Peters, Cape Breton were said to be built by "white men before the French." The colony is mentioned in records as late as 1570. **1530** - Basque whalers establish Labrador coast stations Basque whalers establish extensive whaling stations along the Labrador coast, creating the first European industrial operations in North America. **1543** - Systematic southern Basque fishing begins in Newfoundland Historical accounts place the start of systematic southern Basque (Spanish Basque) fishing operations in Newfoundland around this year. **c. 1545** - Spanish treasure route changed from due east across Atlantic to Gulf Stream route up American coa... Spanish treasure route changed from due east across Atlantic to Gulf Stream route up American coast, passing within 600 miles of Nova Scotia **1547** - First archival mention of Basque whaler outfitting for Labrador The first direct archival mention appears of Basque whaleman Martin de Licona outfitting for a voyage to Labrador. **1568** - Manoel de Barcelos Machado petitions to settle island near Nova Scotia Manoel de Barcelos Machado petitions Portuguese authorities to settle "Island Barcellona de Sam Bardao" - possibly Oak Island or Sable Island - proposing to raise livestock for trade and mine lime to be sent back to the Azores. This is one of the earliest documented references to potential settlement activity on islands in the Mahone Bay region. **c. 1575** - Carbon-14 dating of wood found below bedrock at 160+ feet: A.D. 1575 ±85 years (range 1490-1660) Carbon-14 dating of wood found below bedrock at 160+ feet: A.D. 1575 ±85 years (range 1490-1660) **1578** - Anthony Parkhurst surveys international fishery at Newfoundland English merchant Anthony Parkhurst provides detailed survey of European fishing activity to Richard Hakluyt. He reports 50 Portuguese vessels operating alongside 150 French/Breton ships, 100 Spanish vessels, and 50 English. The Portuguese fish from April to July, primarily using the "green" or wet-salting method on the Grand Banks. Additionally, 20-30 Basque vessels engage solely in whaling for train oil. **1580** - Portugal loses independence to Spain Following a succession crisis, Philip II of Spain takes control of Portugal, beginning the Iberian Union that would last until 1640. Portuguese maritime activities decline as resources are redirected to Spanish priorities. The Portuguese fishing fleet at Newfoundland begins its long decline. **1583** - Portuguese withdraw from Atlantic Canada The Portuguese withdraw from Atlantic Canada as they can no longer protect their colonial activities following Spain's subjugation of the Azores. This ends nearly a century of Portuguese exploration and settlement attempts in the Nova Scotia region. **1583** - Portuguese withdraw from Atlantic Canada Portugal can no longer protect its colonial activities in Atlantic Canada following Spains subjugation of the Azores. This ends nearly a century of Portuguese exploration and fishing operations in the Nova Scotia and Newfoundland region. English presence grows as Portuguese influence wanes. **c. 1600s** - Francis Bacon/Rosicrucian vault theory origins Theories suggest Sir Francis Bacon or his followers, the Rosicrucians, constructed a vault on Oak Island to hide original Shakespearean manuscripts and other secret documents. **c. 1602-1614** - Pirate Peter Easton operates from Newfoundland The era of the pirate Peter Easton, who operated from a sheltered base in Newfoundland. Some theories link his activities to Oak Island. **1604-05-08** - Samuel de Champlain sights Nova Scotia coast After a three-week voyage from France, a French expedition led by Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Mons, and including geographer Samuel de Champlain, sights the coast of Acadie. The first cape they see reminds them of a landmark in Normandy, so they name it Cap de la Hève (now Cape LaHave). The ship anchors in Green Bay (Port de la Hève), just 20 miles from what would become Oak Island, and Champlain begins mapping the coastline. Champlain would later settle Fort Le Hève in the LaHave River area, not far from Mahone Bay. **1604** - French establish first Acadian settlement at Saint-Croix Island Pierre Dugua de Mons, granted exclusive fur trading rights by King Henry IV, establishes the first French settlement in Acadie on Saint-Croix Island in the St. Croix River (present-day Maine border). Champlain serves as geographer, mapping the Atlantic coast from the Bay of Fundy to Cape Cod. Of the 79 men who winter on the island, 35 die from scurvy and cold. The Mi'kmaq people, led by Chief Membertou, help the surviving French settlers. **1604** - Champlain names Mahone Bay islands "The Martyrs" Samuel de Champlain names a series of large islands at the entrance to Mahone Bay "The Martyrs" (Les Martyrs) after Frenchmen were killed there by indigenous people. This is one of the earliest European references to the specific geography of Mahone Bay, where Oak Island is located. **1605** - Port-Royal established as capital of Acadia After the disastrous winter at Saint-Croix, Champlain and de Mons relocate their settlement across the Bay of Fundy to Port-Royal (present-day Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia), establishing the first permanent European settlement north of Florida. This becomes the capital of Acadia and Champlain's base for three years of coastal exploration. The settlement is approximately 100 miles from Oak Island. **c. 1605** - Port Royal, Nova Scotia established by French - first permanent European settlement in region Port Royal, Nova Scotia established by French - first permanent European settlement in region **1607** - Champlain creates first detailed map of Nova Scotia coast Champlain completes his map of the Bay of Fundy and Nova Scotia coast down to Cape Cod. Notably, the map does not include Mahone Bay where Oak Island is located - an omission later discussed on The Curse of Oak Island (Season 5, Episode 8) by historians Doug Crowell and Charles Barkhouse, who speculate the omission may have been deliberate. Near present-day Advocate, Nova Scotia, Champlain reportedly finds an old, moss-covered cross that some believe was erected by Portuguese explorer João Álvares Fagundes around 1521. **1609** - Henry Hudson reaches latitude of Mahone Bay English explorer Henry Hudson, sailing for the Dutch East India Company, reaches the Atlantic coast at the latitude of Mahone Bay during his voyage searching for a northwest passage. His expedition adds to European knowledge of the Nova Scotia coastline. **1612** - Champlain's "Carte Geographique de la Nouvelle Franse" published Samuel de Champlain publishes his famous map of New France in Paris, the first detailed cartographic record of the region. The map conspicuously omits Mahone Bay and the Oak Island area, though Champlain's expedition would have sailed past this coastline en route to the Bay of Fundy. Whether this was a simple drafting limitation or deliberate concealment remains a subject of debate among Oak Island researchers. **1621** - British Crown claims Nova Scotia by virtue of Cabot's voyage The British Crown formally asserts ownership of Nova Scotia territory based on John Cabot's 1497 voyage, challenging French claims to Acadia. Sir William Alexander receives a charter for "Nova Scotia" (New Scotland), beginning decades of Anglo-French competition for the region. **1632-03-29** - Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye returns Acadia to France The Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye ends three years of Scottish occupation and returns Acadia (Nova Scotia) to French control. Cardinal Richelieu seeks to reestablish colonial authority and initially invites Isaac de Razilly to serve as lieutenant-general of New France. Razilly declines, citing Samuel de Champlain's superior expertise and preferring to serve under him - but Richelieu insists, and on March 27 Razilly signs an agreement to take possession of Port-Royal for the Compagnie de la Nouvelle-France. **1632-07-23** - Isaac de Razilly's expedition departs France for Acadia Isaac de Razilly, a Knight of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem (Knights of Malta) and distinguished French naval officer who lost an eye at the siege of La Rochelle, departs from Auray in Brittany aboard L'Espérance en Dieu with two transport ships. The expedition carries "300 hommes d'élite" including soldiers, craftsmen, 12-15 families of colonists, and six Capuchin monks. His lieutenants include his cousin Charles de Menou d'Aulnay and merchant Nicolas Denys. **1632-09-08** - Razilly establishes LaHave as capital of Acadia, 20 miles from Oak Island Isaac de Razilly lands at La Hève (present-day LaHave, Nova Scotia) with 300 colonists after crossing the Atlantic. He chooses this location - only 20 miles from Oak Island - as his headquarters and the capital of Acadia, building Fort Sainte-Marie-de-Grâce on a point where the LaHave River narrows. The settlement includes his residence, a storehouse, chapel for the Capuchins, and buildings for families and workers. Razilly describes the area as an "earthly paradise." **c. 1632-1635** - French colonial capital established near Oak Island For three years, LaHave serves as the capital of New France, placing a major French colonial operation just 20 miles from Oak Island. Under Razilly's direction, farms are established at Petite-Rivière, Nicolas Denys develops lumber and fishing operations, and some 40 families settle the area. The proximity of this settlement to Oak Island during the 1630s places French naval engineers, craftsmen, and colonists in the immediate vicinity during the timeframe suggested by some artifact dating. **1635-12** - Isaac de Razilly dies suddenly at LaHave Isaac de Razilly, Knight of Malta and lieutenant-general of Acadia, dies unexpectedly at LaHave at age 48. His death is considered tragic for the colony - he was described as having "no other desire than to people this land." His cousin Charles de Menou d'Aulnay assumes command and relocates most settlers to Port-Royal. The fort at LaHave is later burned down by rivals in 1653, and the site has since eroded into the sea. The circumstances of Razilly's sudden death and its impact on French colonial activity near Oak Island remain subjects of speculation. **c. 1645** - William Kidd born in Scotland William Kidd born in Greenock (or Dundee), Scotland, son of a Presbyterian minister. He would go to sea as a youth and become one of the most legendary figures in pirate lore - and a central figure in Oak Island treasure theories **c. 1658-1664** - Fort LaHave rebuilt; Le Borgne granted seigneury The fort at LaHave, just 20 miles from Oak Island, is rebuilt. France grants Emmanuel Le Borgne a seigneury in the area, continuing French colonial presence near Mahone Bay despite periodic English control of the region. **c. 1680-1699** - Career of Captain William Kidd Career of the privateer and pirate William Kidd, whose fabled treasure became the primary focus for early Oak Island searchers. **c. 1687-1694** - Sir William Phipps sacks Port Royal Sir William Phipps sacks Port Royal. Theories suggest he may have hidden a portion of treasure recovered from the Spanish ship Concepcion on Oak Island. **1689** - Kidd joins French-English pirate crew in Caribbean William Kidd is a member of a French-English pirate crew under Captain Jean Fantin in the Caribbean. The crew mutinies, ousts the captain, and sails to the British colony of Nevis. The ship is renamed Blessed William, and Kidd becomes captain **1689** - Kidd attacks French island of Marie-Galante Under commission from the Governor of Nevis, Captain Kidd and the Blessed William attack the French island of Marie-Galante, destroying its only town and looting approximately £2,000 sterling **1691** - Kidd settles in New York City, marries wealthy widow William Kidd settles in New York City, marries Sarah Bradley Cox Oort - a wealthy twice-widowed woman - and becomes a respected member of society. He owns property on Wall Street and supports construction of Trinity Church **1695** - Kidd receives royal commission to hunt pirates In London, Richard Coote, 1st Earl of Bellomont, commissions Kidd to hunt pirates and capture French ships in the Indian Ocean. Backed by powerful Whig nobles, Kidd receives a letter of marque from King William III. A new ship, the Adventure Galley, is built - 284 tons, 34 cannons, 150 crew **Sep 1696** - Adventure Galley departs for Indian Ocean Kidd's Adventure Galley departs from New York in September 1696, heading for Madeira, then Cape Verde, then the Indian Ocean. En route, the Royal Navy presses many of his hand-picked crew into service, forcing Kidd to recruit replacements of dubious character in New York **1697** - Kidd's voyage deteriorates - crew unrest and death Unable to find pirate targets, a third of Kidd's crew dies of cholera. The remaining crew grows mutinous, pressuring Kidd to attack non-legitimate targets. In an altercation, Kidd strikes gunner William Moore with a wooden bucket, killing him - a death that will later seal Kidd's fate at trial **Jan 1698** - Kidd captures the Quedagh Merchant - his greatest prize Kidd captures the 400-ton Armenian-owned Quedagh Merchant off the coast of India, laden with gold, silk, spices, sugar, and other valuables. Kidd claims French passes made it a legitimate prize. However, the cargo's powerful owners complain to the East India Company, and the political tide turns against Kidd **1698** - Kidd abandons rotting Adventure Galley, sails Quedagh Merchant to Caribbean With the Adventure Galley unseaworthy, Kidd transfers to the Quedagh Merchant and sails for the Caribbean. He learns he has been declared a pirate by the Crown. His Whig backers in England, fearing political fallout, have turned against him **1699** - Kidd purchases sloop Antonio, hides Quedagh Merchant in Caribbean Kidd leaves the Quedagh Merchant at Hispaniola and transfers the most valuable portable treasure - gold, silver, gems, jewellery - onto a smaller sloop, the Antonio. He sails north toward New York, hoping to negotiate with Governor Bellomont **Jun 1699** - Kidd buries treasure on Gardiner's Island, Long Island Kidd anchors off Gardiner's Island and persuades owner John Gardiner to bury chests of treasure: gold dust, coined gold, silver bars, rubies, diamonds, silver rings, precious stones, and gold cloth. The documented inventory lists 1,111 ounces of gold and 2,353 ounces of silver. Kidd warns Gardiner the treasure must be there when he returns **Jul 1699** - Captain Kidd arrested in Boston Kidd sails to Boston believing Bellomont will protect him. Instead, the Governor - fearful of his own political exposure - has Kidd arrested on 6 July 1699. Sarah Kidd is also imprisoned. The Gardiner's Island treasure is recovered by authorities as evidence **1700** - Governor of Acadia invites pirates to use LaHave as base The Governor of Acadia officially invites pirates to use LaHave as a base of operations. Buccaneers accept the offer enthusiastically. Mahone Bay, with its natural mountain barriers by land and the shelter of the Tancook Islands at its mouth, becomes an epicenter for pirate activity. Oak Island, with its unusual growth of oak trees and close proximity to the coast, offers particular advantages - anyone docking on the south shore would be completely hidden from the bay's entrance. **1700** - Kidd shipped to London, imprisoned in Newgate Captain Kidd is transported to London in early 1700 and held in the notorious Newgate Prison for over a year before trial. He is twice called before Parliament but refuses to reveal his anonymous backers. Crucially, the French passes that could prove his defence are withheld - conveniently lost by his former patrons **May 1701** - Captain Kidd tried, convicted and hanged in London Captain William Kidd is tried at the Old Bailey for piracy and the murder of William Moore. In a show trial lasting just two days, key defence documents are suppressed. Convicted on all charges, Kidd is hanged at Execution Dock, Wapping, on 23 May 1701. The first rope breaks; he is hanged a second time. His body is displayed in a cage over the Thames at Tilbury Point for years as a warning to pirates **1704** - Date inscribed on stone slab found by Restalls at Smith's Cove Date inscribed on stone slab found by Restalls at Smith's Cove **1713** - Treaty of Utrecht cedes Nova Scotia to Britain The Treaty of Utrecht ends the War of Spanish Succession and formally cedes mainland Nova Scotia (Acadia) to Great Britain, though France retains Cape Breton Island (Île Royale). This treaty marks the beginning of permanent British control over the Mahone Bay region. **1720** - Carbon-14 date of U-shaped structure at Smith's Cove: circa 1720 Carbon-14 date of U-shaped structure at Smith's Cove: circa 1720 **1734** - Southack map notes French inhabitants around Mahone Bay A map by Captain Cyprian Southack notes the presence of French inhabitants around Mahone Bay, indicating continued Acadian settlement in the region despite British sovereignty. These French settlers would be expelled in 1755-1756. **1745** - British colonial forces capture Fortress of Louisbourg after 46-day siege A force of New England militia under William Pepperrell, supported by a Royal Navy squadron, captures the great French fortress on Cape Breton Island. The loss stuns France and triggers an urgent response from Versailles to reclaim its North American territories. **1746** - France assembles massive armada under Duc d'Anville to retake Louisbourg and reclaim Acadia The largest fleet ever sent to the New World - 64 ships and 11,000 men - is assembled at French ports. The expedition is planned under extreme secrecy, with sealed orders, coded letters, and the mysterious arrival of a masked figure who boards the flagship before departure from La Rochelle. **April 1746** - L'Aurore and Le Castor sent ahead to Halifax to await Anville's fleet Two French warships under du Vigneau depart Brest months before the main armada. L'Aurore operates along the Acadian coast near La Hève and St. Margaret's Bay before entering Halifax harbour, where the missionary Le Loutre waits with a package for Anville. **September 1746** - Anville's fleet devastated by storms and disease; Anville dies at Halifax, fleet retreats to France After a catastrophic Atlantic crossing - storms, typhus, and up to 50 men dying per day - the remnants of the fleet reach Halifax. The Duc d'Anville dies suddenly, officially of apoplexy. His replacement, d'Estourmel, attempts suicide by sword. The fleet limps back to France, never reaching Louisbourg. **October 1746** - Conflans' squadron fails to locate Anville at Halifax; returns to France A supporting fleet of four warships under Conflans, sailing from Martinique, spends weeks navigating the Acadian coast and Île de Sable. Unable to recognise the coastline and running low on supplies, Conflans orders the return to France without ever reaching Halifax. **1748** - Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle returns Louisbourg to France The treaty ending the War of Austrian Succession returns Louisbourg to France, outraging the New England colonists who had fought to capture it. The peace proves temporary - within a decade, Britain will take the fortress again. **1749** - Halifax founded as British provincial capital The city of Halifax is founded as the British provincial capital of Nova Scotia, establishing permanent British administrative control over the region. Halifax becomes the base for British expansion into areas including Mahone Bay and the eventual settlement of Lunenburg. **1753** - Oak Island granted to New York fishing agents New York fishing agents John Gifford and Richard Smith are granted three islands in Mahone Bay, including Oak Island. This is the first documented English land grant specifically including Oak Island, occurring the same year Lunenburg is founded by German and French Protestant settlers. **1753** - Lunenburg founded by German and Swiss Protestant settlers Lunenburg founded by German and Swiss Protestant settlers **1754** - Ephraim Cooke granted lands that become Town of Mahone Bay Ephraim Cooke receives a land grant for the territory that would later become the Town of Mahone Bay, marking the beginning of formal English settlement around the bay where Oak Island is located. **1755** - Expulsion of Acadians from Nova Scotia - possible pre-expulsion treasure deposit theory Expulsion of Acadians from Nova Scotia - possible pre-expulsion treasure deposit theory **1758** - British capture Louisbourg a second time; fortress demolished, French treasury vanishes A massive British force under Amherst and Wolfe besieges and captures Louisbourg. The fortress is systematically demolished. The fate of the French garrison's treasury remains unknown - some theorists believe it was hidden on Oak Island before the fall. **1759** - Chester, Nova Scotia settled - first permanent settlement near Oak Island Chester, Nova Scotia settled - first permanent settlement near Oak Island **1762** - British capture Havana - £3 million treasure taken; Fred Nolan's theory for Oak Island origin British capture Havana - £3 million treasure taken; Fred Nolan's theory for Oak Island origin **1762** - Oak Island granted to Timothy Lynch, John Seacombe, and others as part of Shoreham Grant Oak Island granted to Timothy Lynch, John Seacombe, and others as part of Shoreham Grant **c. 1776-1786** - United Empire Loyalists arrive in Mahone Bay Following the American Revolutionary War, United Empire Loyalists fleeing the newly independent United States and disbanded British soldiers arrive in the Mahone Bay area. This influx of settlers increases the population around Oak Island in the decades before the Money Pit discovery. **1776** - Sea chart names island "Glouster Isle" A sea chart designates the island as "Glouster Isle" and the area as Mecklenburgh Bay, though Oak Island was already in common use. **1776** - British American Revolution treasure theory (Walton, Furneaux) - deemed insupportable due to tota... British American Revolution treasure theory (Walton, Furneaux) - deemed insupportable due to total secrecy required **1787** - Samuel Ball settles on Oak Island Samuel Ball, an escaped slave from South Carolina who fought for the British in the American Revolution, settles on Oak Island. He would eventually become the island's largest landowner. **1790** - Samuel Ball purchases mainland property Samuel Ball purchases 100 acres in Lunenburg County and Hook Island, establishing himself as a successful farmer and landowner. **1795** - Samuel Ball marries Mary in Halifax Samuel Ball marries Mary, who worked as a domestic in Halifax. They would have three children: Andrew (1798), Samuel (1801), and Mary (1805). **1795** - Daniel McGinnis (age ~16) discovers Money Pit depression under large red oak tree with sawed-off ... Daniel McGinnis (age ~16) discovers Money Pit depression under large red oak tree with sawed-off limb **1795-06-26** - John Smith purchases Lot 18 (containing Money Pit) for £7 10s John Smith purchases Lot 18 (containing Money Pit) for £7 10s **1795** - McGinnis, John Smith (19), Anthony Vaughan (16) dig to 30 feet McGinnis, John Smith (19), Anthony Vaughan (16) dig to 30 feet. Find: flagstones at 2 feet, oak platforms every 10 feet **1795** - Money Pit discovery linked to Captain Kidd legend When Daniel McGinnis discovers the Money Pit depression, local lore connects it to Captain Kidd. Stories had circulated in New England of a dying sailor from Kidd's crew who claimed £2 million in treasure was buried on an island 'east of Boston'. This legend drives early excavation efforts **1802** - Onslow Company formed - Simeon Lynds, Col. Robert Archibald, 25-30 workers Onslow Company formed - Simeon Lynds, Col. Robert Archibald, 25-30 workers **1803** - At 93 feet, iron probe strikes 'hard impenetrable substance' (possibly wood) 5 feet below pit bottom At 93 feet, iron probe strikes 'hard impenetrable substance' (possibly wood) 5 feet below pit bottom **1803** - Inscribed stone found at 90 feet with strange symbols. Later disappears 1919 from bookbinder's shop Inscribed stone found at 90 feet with strange symbols. Later disappears 1919 from bookbinder's shop **1803** - Money Pit floods to 60-foot mark overnight Money Pit floods to 60-foot mark overnight **1803** - Onslow Company digs to 93 feet. Finds platforms, charcoal, putty, coconut fiber Onslow Company digs to 93 feet. Finds platforms, charcoal, putty, coconut fiber **1804** - Both Money Pit and Shaft 2 flood when tunnel approaches Money Pit. Onslow Company abandons search Both Money Pit and Shaft 2 flood when tunnel approaches Money Pit. Onslow Company abandons search **1804** - Shaft 2 dug to 110 feet. Both shafts flood when connected Shaft 2 dug to 110 feet. Both shafts flood when connected **c. 1810** - Samuel Ball purchases Lot 18 Samuel Ball purchases Lot 18 (containing the Money Pit area), becoming the island's largest landowner. **1846-12-14** - Samuel Ball dies on Oak Island Samuel Ball dies at age 81 on Oak Island. By his death, he owned approximately 100 acres including much of Oak Island, becoming one of the wealthiest men in the county. His friend Anthony Vaughan serves as executor of his will. **1849** - John Pitbladdo (foreman) removes something from drill, wipes it clean, puts in pocket John Pitbladdo (foreman) removes something from drill, wipes it clean, puts in pocket. Later disappears, applies for treasure license with Charles Archibald **1849** - Money Pit re-excavated to 86 feet before flooding Money Pit re-excavated to 86 feet before flooding **1849** - Oak wood splinters and coconut fiber brought up on auger Oak wood splinters and coconut fiber brought up on auger **1849** - Pod auger at 98 feet finds layers: spruce, oak, loose metal (22 inches), oak, metal, spruce Pod auger at 98 feet finds layers: spruce, oak, loose metal (22 inches), oak, metal, spruce **1849** - Three gold chain links brought up on auger from ~100 feet (confirmed by affidavit) Three gold chain links brought up on auger from ~100 feet (confirmed by affidavit) **1849** - Truro Company formed - Dr. David Lynds organizer, 12-man syndicate Truro Company formed - Dr. David Lynds organizer, 12-man syndicate **1849** - Truro Company re-excavates Money Pit. Flooding begins at 86 feet, shaft abandoned Truro Company re-excavates Money Pit. Flooding begins at 86 feet, shaft abandoned **1850** - Cofferdam built at Smith's Cove to expose drainage system. Destroyed by abnormally high tide/storm Cofferdam built at Smith's Cove to expose drainage system. Destroyed by abnormally high tide/storm **1850** - Major discovery at Smith's Cove: artificial beach with coconut fiber layer, eel grass, five conve... Major discovery at Smith's Cove: artificial beach with coconut fiber layer, eel grass, five converging stone box drains **1850** - Shaft 5 at 35 feet strikes flood tunnel with rush of water Shaft 5 at 35 feet strikes flood tunnel with rush of water **1850** - Shaft No. 3 dug 10 feet NW of Money Pit to 109 feet. Floods when tunneling toward Money Pit Shaft No. 3 dug 10 feet NW of Money Pit to 109 feet. Floods when tunneling toward Money Pit **1850** - Shaft No. 4 dug 100 feet W of Smith's Cove to 75 feet Shaft No. 4 dug 100 feet W of Smith's Cove to 75 feet **1850** - Shaft No. 5 dug 12 feet S of No. 4 to 35 feet. Strikes flood tunnel with rush of water Shaft No. 5 dug 12 feet S of No. 4 to 35 feet. Strikes flood tunnel with rush of water **1850** - Shaft No. 6 dug just W of Money Pit to 112 feet. Also floods Shaft No. 6 dug just W of Money Pit to 112 feet. Also floods **1851** - Truro Company ceases operations due to lack of funds Truro Company ceases operations due to lack of funds **1857-08** - First newspaper mention of Oak Island The Liverpool Transcript publishes the first known newspaper mention of treasure hunting on Oak Island on August 8, in an article by J.P. Forks mentioning digging for Captain Kidd's treasure. **1857** - First published account mentions Kidd's treasure on Oak Island The Liverpool Transcript publishes the first known account of treasure hunting activity on Oak Island, specifically referencing a group digging for Captain Kidd's treasure. The Kidd theory is the earliest and most persistent explanation for the Money Pit **1861** - First death on Oak Island: worker scalded by burst pump boiler First death on Oak Island: worker scalded by burst pump boiler **1861** - MAJOR COLLAPSE: platforms/chests drop from 98-105 feet to ~119+ feet. 10,000 board feet lumber falls MAJOR COLLAPSE: platforms/chests drop from 98-105 feet to ~119+ feet. 10,000 board feet lumber falls **1861** - Money Pit re-excavated to 88 feet. Shafts 7 and 8 dug Money Pit re-excavated to 88 feet. Shafts 7 and 8 dug **1861** - Oak Island Association formed - 63 shareholders Oak Island Association formed - 63 shareholders **1861** - Shaft No. 8 dug 18 feet W of Money Pit to 118 feet. Tunnel driven toward Money Pit Shaft No. 8 dug 18 feet W of Money Pit to 118 feet. Tunnel driven toward Money Pit **1862-07** - First written mention of inscribed stone The Halifax Sun and Advisor publishes a letter from J.B. McCully on July 2, containing the first written description of the inscribed stone. **1862-10** - McCully publishes comprehensive Money Pit history The Liverpool Transcript publishes J.B. McCully's detailed account "The Oak Island Diggings" on October 16 - the first comprehensive written history of the Money Pit discovery. **1862** - Shaft No. 10 dug 25 feet NE of No. 5 to 50 feet Shaft No. 10 dug 25 feet NE of No. 5 to 50 feet **1862** - Shaft No. 9 dug next to Money Pit to 107 feet. Money Pit deepened to 103 feet Shaft No. 9 dug next to Money Pit to 107 feet. Money Pit deepened to 103 feet **1863** - Shaft No. 11 dug 100 feet SE of Money Pit to 120 feet. Money Pit deepened to 108 feet Shaft No. 11 dug 100 feet SE of Money Pit to 120 feet. Money Pit deepened to 108 feet **1864-01** - British Colonist publishes Oak Island history The British Colonist newspaper publishes "A History of the Oak Island Enterprise" in three parts on January 2, 7, and 14. **1866** - Halifax Company digs shaft to record 175 feet The Halifax Company digs shaft 10 to a record depth of 175 feet but fails to intercept the flood tunnel. **1866** - Cement found at 146-149 feet - analyzed as man-made Cement found at 146-149 feet - analyzed as man-made **1866** - New cofferdam built at Smith's Cove. Also destroyed by storms New cofferdam built at Smith's Cove. Also destroyed by storms **1866** - Oak Island Eldorado Company (Halifax Company) formed Oak Island Eldorado Company (Halifax Company) formed **1870** - First book includes Oak Island chapter Mather Myles DesBrisay publishes "History of the County of Lunenburg" containing a chapter on Oak Island. **1870** - First book includes Oak Island chapter Mather Myles DesBrisay publishes "History of the County of Lunenburg" containing a chapter on Oak Island. **1893** - Oak Island Treasure Company formed. Frederick Blair (age 25) as treasurer, A.M. Bridgman president Oak Island Treasure Company formed. Frederick Blair (age 25) as treasurer, A.M. Bridgman president **1894** - Shaft No. 12 (Cave-in Pit) dug 350 feet E of Money Pit to 55 feet Shaft No. 12 (Cave-in Pit) dug 350 feet E of Money Pit to 55 feet **1894** - Shaft No. 13 dug 30 feet ENE of Money Pit to 43 feet Shaft No. 13 dug 30 feet ENE of Money Pit to 43 feet **1895** - Revised Lunenburg history published Second edition of DesBrisay's "History of Lunenburg County" published with revised Oak Island account. **1895** - Revised Lunenburg history published Second edition of DesBrisay's "History of Lunenburg County" published with revised Oak Island account. **1896** - Shaft No. 4 deepened to 88 feet (originally 75 feet in 1850) Shaft No. 4 deepened to 88 feet (originally 75 feet in 1850) **1897** - Cement analyzed by Boake Roberts (London): man-made Portland cement Cement analyzed by Boake Roberts (London): man-made Portland cement **1897** - Drilling from 90-foot platform: strikes wood at 126 feet, iron obstruction (crushes drill chisel)... Drilling from 90-foot platform: strikes wood at 126 feet, iron obstruction (crushes drill chisel), then at 154 feet: 7" cement, 5" oak, 2" gap, soft metal, 32" loose metal (coins?), soft metal at 158 feet **1897-06-09** - Flood tunnel found entering Money Pit at 111 feet from east, 2.5 feet wide, under great pressure ... Flood tunnel found entering Money Pit at 111 feet from east, 2.5 feet wide, under great pressure (2,400 cubic feet/hour) **1897** - Maynard Kaiser falls to death down one of the shafts Maynard Kaiser falls to death down one of the shafts **1897** - Money Pit deepened to 113 feet Money Pit deepened to 113 feet **1897** - Parchment discovered at 153-155 feet depth with letters 'vi', 'ui', or 'wi' written in India ink PARCHMENT discovered at 153-155 feet depth with letters 'vi', 'ui', or 'wi' written in India ink. Confirmed as sheepskin with quill pen writing **1897** - Shaft No. 14 dug 45 feet S of Money Pit to 105 feet Shaft No. 14 dug 45 feet S of Money Pit to 105 feet **1898** - Dye test from Shaft 15 reveals SECOND FLOOD TUNNEL from south shore (300 feet from Money Pit) Dye test from Shaft 15 reveals SECOND FLOOD TUNNEL from south shore (300 feet from Money Pit). Water exits at three locations offshore **1898** - Shaft 15 dug to 160 feet Shaft 15 dug to 160 feet **1898** - Shaft No. 15 dug 30 feet SW of No. 14 to 160 feet Shaft No. 15 dug 30 feet SW of No. 14 to 160 feet **1898** - Shaft No. 16 dug 150 feet N of Money Pit to 134 feet Shaft No. 16 dug 150 feet N of Money Pit to 134 feet **1898** - Shaft No. 17 dug 45 feet E of No. 3 to 90 feet Shaft No. 17 dug 45 feet E of No. 3 to 90 feet **1899** - Shaft No. 18 dug 30 feet E of No. 3 to 116 feet Shaft No. 18 dug 30 feet E of No. 3 to 116 feet **1899** - Shaft No. 19 dug near No. 15 to 144 feet Shaft No. 19 dug near No. 15 to 144 feet **1900** - Oak Island Treasure Company dissolves due to lack of funds Oak Island Treasure Company dissolves due to lack of funds **1900** - Shaft No. 20 dug along W side of Money Pit to 113 feet Shaft No. 20 dug along W side of Money Pit to 113 feet **1909** - Bowdoin publishes skeptical article in Collier's Magazine Henry Bowdoin publishes an article in Collier's Magazine asserting "there is not, and never was, a buried treasure on Oak Island." **1909** - 28 drill holes put down to 155-171 feet. Find cement 6-10 inches thick at 146-149 feet 28 drill holes put down to 155-171 feet. Find cement 6-10 inches thick at 146-149 feet **1909** - Henry Bowdoin expedition. FDR (age 27) purchases shares Henry Bowdoin expedition. FDR (age 27) purchases shares **1909** - Last confirmed sighting of inscribed stone by Bowdoin Last confirmed sighting of inscribed stone by Bowdoin **1909** - Money Pit reopened to 113 feet Money Pit reopened to 113 feet **1916** - Smithsonian Institution confirms coconut fiber samples are genuine coconut (Cocos nucifera) from ... Smithsonian Institution confirms coconut fiber samples are genuine coconut (Cocos nucifera) from 1,500+ miles away **1919** - Inscribed stone disappears from bookbinder's shop in Halifax where it had been used as a hearthstone Inscribed stone disappears from bookbinder's shop in Halifax where it had been used as a hearthstone **1926** - New York Times feature article on Oak Island Catherine MacKenzie publishes a feature story in the New York Times noting six known organized treasure hunting attempts in 131 years. **1928** - New York newspaper feature attracts William Chappell A New York newspaper publishes a feature story about Oak Island that captures the attention of William Chappell, who would return to the island in 1931. **1930** - Additional Smithsonian confirmation of coconut fiber authenticity Additional Smithsonian confirmation of coconut fiber authenticity **1931-06** - MacLean's magazine publishes Oak Island feature MacLean's magazine publishes "Nova Scotia's Treasure Island" by Lynn C. Doyle, bringing national Canadian attention to the mystery. **1931** - Anchor fluke found at 120 feet in Chappell Shaft Anchor fluke found at 120 feet in Chappell Shaft **1931** - Chappell expedition costs approximately $40,000 Chappell expedition costs approximately $40,000 **1931** - Granite and concrete chunks found in Chappell Shaft Granite and concrete chunks found in Chappell Shaft **1931** - Tunnel at 157 feet encounters soft earth, nearly buries worker Tunnel at 157 feet encounters soft earth, nearly buries worker. Water tunnel struck at approximately 155 feet **1931** - William & Mel Chappell dig Chappell Shaft (21) to 163 feet William & Mel Chappell dig Chappell Shaft (21) to 163 feet **1931** - William Chappell returns with son Mel William Chappell returns with son Mel. Chappell Shaft (No. 21) dug 15 feet S of Money Pit: 12x14 feet to 163 feet, then 168 feet **1935** - Gilbert Hedden links Oak Island to Kidd's charts Gilbert Hedden, a steel fabricator from New Jersey, discovers a link between Oak Island and a map in Harold T. Wilkins' book 'Captain Kidd and His Skeleton Island'. Hedden travels to England to consult Wilkins, who had drawn the charts from memory. Hedden purchases the southeastern end of Oak Island and begins excavations **1936** - Chappell Shaft deepened to 168 feet Chappell Shaft deepened to 168 feet **1936** - Gilbert Hedden purchases east end of Oak Island for $5,000 Gilbert Hedden purchases east end of Oak Island for $5,000 **1936** - Hedden finds notched timbers with Roman numerals at Smith's Cove Hedden finds notched timbers with Roman numerals at Smith's Cove **1936** - Inscribed rock found at Joudrey's Cove with strange symbols (crosses, H-shapes) Inscribed rock found at Joudrey's Cove with strange symbols (crosses, H-shapes) **1937** - Charles Roper survey of triangle and drilled rocks Charles Roper survey of triangle and drilled rocks **1937** - Hedden Shaft (22) dug to 125 feet Hedden Shaft (22) dug to 125 feet **1937** - Hedden Shaft (No. 22) dug 10 feet E of Money Pit: 12x24 feet to 125 feet Hedden Shaft (No. 22) dug 10 feet E of Money Pit: 12x24 feet to 125 feet **1937** - STONE TRIANGLE found: 10-foot equilateral, medial line points TRUE NORTH to Money Pit STONE TRIANGLE found: 10-foot equilateral, medial line points TRUE NORTH to Money Pit. Gilbert Hedden notes the triangle matches directions on the mysterious "Mar Del" treasure map, suggesting a possible connection to earlier treasure maps. **1937** - Two DRILLED ROCKS discovered, 415 feet apart E-W. Part of original survey markers Two DRILLED ROCKS discovered, 415 feet apart E-W. Part of original survey markers **c. 1938-1943** - Professor Hamilton measures 800 gallon/minute flood rate Professor Edwin Hamilton measures a flood rate of 800 gallons per minute and concludes the Money Pit is a man-made engineering marvel. **1938** - 58 horizontal drill holes from Hedden shaft 58 horizontal drill holes from Hedden shaft **1938** - Erwin Hamilton begins operations on Oak Island Erwin Hamilton begins operations on Oak Island **1939** - Errol Flynn attempts to invest in Oak Island Hollywood actor Errol Flynn, known for swashbuckling roles and real-life treasure hunting, attempts to buy into an Oak Island syndicate. The syndicate refuses to sell. **1939** - Shaft No. 10 reopened to 50 feet Shaft No. 10 reopened to 50 feet **1939** - Shaft No. 23 dug 30 feet S of No. 10 to 63 feet Shaft No. 23 dug 30 feet S of No. 10 to 63 feet **c. 1940** - William Vincent Astor becomes Oak Island investor William Vincent Astor, heir to the Astor family fortune after his father died on the Titanic, becomes a passive investor in Oak Island treasure hunting operations. **c. 1940** - Admiral Richard Byrd becomes Oak Island investor Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd Jr., the famous polar explorer, becomes a passive investor in Oak Island exploration. **1942** - Hamilton dye test shows water exiting 100 yards offshore SE Hamilton dye test shows water exiting 100 yards offshore SE **1942** - Hamilton explores Halifax Company tunnels from 117-foot level Hamilton explores Halifax Company tunnels from 117-foot level. Dye test shows water exiting 100 yards offshore SE **1942** - Hamilton has spent approximately $58,000 on Oak Island operations Hamilton has spent approximately $58,000 on Oak Island operations **1942** - Section of Hedden Shaft deepened to 168 feet. Chappell Shaft deepened to 176 feet Section of Hedden Shaft deepened to 168 feet. Chappell Shaft deepened to 176 feet **1945-04-12** - FDR dies still fascinated by Oak Island President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies. Throughout his political career he had continued to monitor Oak Island developments. He had planned to visit in 1939 but was prevented by fog and the international situation. **1949** - First published rendering of inscribed stone symbols Edward Rowe Snow publishes "True Tales of Buried Treasure" containing the first published rendering of the inscribed stone symbols - the source of the famous "Forty feet below, two million pounds are buried" translation. **1950** - Mel Chappell purchases Oak Island from John Whitney Lewis for approximately $6,000 Mel Chappell purchases Oak Island from John Whitney Lewis for approximately $6,000 **1950** - Shaft No. 24 dug 150 feet NNW of Money Pit to 50 feet Shaft No. 24 dug 150 feet NNW of Money Pit to 50 feet **1951** - Frederick Blair dies at age 83 after 58 years involvement with Oak Island search Frederick Blair dies at age 83 after 58 years involvement with Oak Island search **1955** - George Greene drills to 180+ feet. Cavity at 140-182 feet (40-foot void) George Greene drills to 180+ feet. Cavity at 140-182 feet (40-foot void) **1955** - Greene pumps 100,000 gallons of water into cavity at 140-182 feet - water disappears completely Greene pumps 100,000 gallons of water into cavity at 140-182 feet - water disappears completely **1959** - Bob Restall family arrives on Oak Island, begins living there Bob Restall family arrives on Oak Island, begins living there **1959** - Lavern Johnson first visits Oak Island, studies stone triangle and drilled rocks Lavern Johnson first visits Oak Island, studies stone triangle and drilled rocks **1962** - David Tobias becomes Restall investor David Tobias becomes Restall investor **1962** - Lavern Johnson digs Shaft No Lavern Johnson digs Shaft No. 25 approximately 240 feet N of Money Pit to 30 feet. Tunnel at 25-foot level proves fruitless **1963** - Fred Nolan acquires seven disputed lots on Oak Island Fred Nolan acquires seven disputed lots on Oak Island **1964** - Shaft No. 26 dug at Smith's Cove beach to 24 feet Shaft No. 26 dug at Smith's Cove beach to 24 feet **1964** - Shaft No. 27 dug 30 feet N of No. 26 to 27 feet Shaft No. 27 dug 30 feet N of No. 26 to 27 feet **1965** - Dunfield discovers Shaft 28: 8 feet diameter, 45 feet deep, no cribbing, pre-1795 Dunfield discovers Shaft 28: 8 feet diameter, 45 feet deep, no cribbing, pre-1795. Located 25 feet south of stone triangle **1965** - Dunfield spends $131,000 Dunfield spends $131,000 **1965** - Dunfield uses 70-ton crane to dig pit 140 feet deep, 100 feet across Dunfield uses 70-ton crane to dig pit 140 feet deep, 100 feet across **1965** - Lavern Johnson puts down approximately 40 drill holes near his shaft Lavern Johnson puts down approximately 40 drill holes near his shaft. Air travels underground between holes, suggesting filled-in tunnels **1965** - Money Pit area reopened/dug to 140 feet by Dunfield Money Pit area reopened/dug to 140 feet by Dunfield **1965** - Restalls find '1704' stone slab at Smith's Cove Restalls find '1704' stone slab at Smith's Cove **1965-10-17** - Robert Dunfield builds causeway connecting Oak Island to mainland - island no longer an island Robert Dunfield builds causeway connecting Oak Island to mainland - island no longer an island **1965** - Robert Dunfield takes over operations Robert Dunfield takes over operations **1965** - Shaft No. 28 dug at south shore beach to 45 feet Shaft No. 28 dug at south shore beach to 45 feet **1965** - Stone triangle destroyed by erosion after Dunfield digs trench Stone triangle destroyed by erosion after Dunfield digs trench **1965-08-17** - TRAGEDY: Bob Restall (59), Bobbie Restall (18), Karl Graeser (38), Cyril Hiltz (16) die in Shaft ... TRAGEDY: Bob Restall (59), Bobbie Restall (18), Karl Graeser (38), Cyril Hiltz (16) die in Shaft 27 from gas **1966** - Cave-in Pit (Shaft 12) deepened to 108 feet. Shaft 28 to 90 feet Cave-in Pit (Shaft 12) deepened to 108 feet. Shaft 28 to 90 feet **1966** - Dan Blankenship begins operations on Oak Island Dan Blankenship begins operations on Oak Island **1966** - Shaft No. 12 (Cave-in Pit) deepened to 108 feet Shaft No. 12 (Cave-in Pit) deepened to 108 feet **1966** - Shaft No. 28 deepened to 90 feet Shaft No. 28 deepened to 90 feet **1967** - BRASS found at 174 feet - high impurities indicate early smelting BRASS found at 174 feet - high impurities indicate early smelting **1967** - Becker Drilling begins 60+ drill holes in Money Pit area Becker Drilling begins 60+ drill holes in Money Pit area **1967** - Blankenship finds wrought-iron scissors at Smith's Cove Blankenship finds wrought-iron scissors at Smith's Cove. Smithsonian identifies as Spanish-American, possibly 300 years old **1967** - Drill brings up china, oak buds, cement, wood, metal from 160-212 feet Drill brings up china, oak buds, cement, wood, metal from 160-212 feet **1967** - Drill hits extremely hard metal at 198 feet - 25 minutes to bore 0.5 inch. Sample lost Drill hits extremely hard metal at 198 feet - 25 minutes to bore 0.5 inch. Sample lost **1967** - Heart-shaped stone found at Smith's Cove Heart-shaped stone found at Smith's Cove **1967** - Wood below bedrock carbon-dated to AD 1575 ±85 years by Geochron Labs Wood below bedrock carbon-dated to AD 1575 ±85 years by Geochron Labs **1969** - Triton Alliance Ltd Triton Alliance Ltd. formed. David Tobias president, approximately 30 shareholders, $800,000+ invested to date **1970** - John Wayne's company provides equipment to Triton The Statesman Mining Company of Aspen, Colorado, of which actor John Wayne is part owner, leases drilling and digging equipment to Triton Alliance. **1970** - Borehole 10-X started as water-flow test hole 180 feet NE of Money Pit Borehole 10-X started as water-flow test hole 180 feet NE of Money Pit **1970** - Golder Associates complete geotechnical study. Water flow measured at 600-650 gallons/minute Golder Associates complete geotechnical study. Water flow measured at 600-650 gallons/minute **1970** - Ross Wilhelm publishes inscribed stone translation theory using Porta cipher disk: Spanish messag... Ross Wilhelm publishes inscribed stone translation theory using Porta cipher disk: Spanish message about plugging drain with grain **1970** - U-SHAPED STRUCTURE found below low tide: logs 2 feet thick, 30-65 feet long, notched with Roman n... U-SHAPED STRUCTURE found below low tide: logs 2 feet thick, 30-65 feet long, notched with Roman numerals **1970** - U-shaped log structure carbon-14 dated: approximately 250 years old (circa 1720) U-shaped log structure carbon-14 dated: approximately 250 years old (circa 1720) **1971** - Borehole 10-X (Shaft No. 29) drilled 180 feet NE of Money Pit to 237 feet Borehole 10-X (Shaft No. 29) drilled 180 feet NE of Money Pit to 237 feet **1971** - Camera shows apparent: human hand, three chests, logs/beams, pickax, possible human body Camera shows apparent: human hand, three chests, logs/beams, pickax, possible human body **1971** - Cement from 165 feet - Canada Cement Lafarge: 'reflects human activity' Cement from 165 feet - Canada Cement Lafarge: 'reflects human activity' **1971** - Metal blown from 165 feet in 10-X: soft metal that oxidized rapidly Metal blown from 165 feet in 10-X: soft metal that oxidized rapidly **1971** - Shaft No. 30 dug 650 feet NW of Money Pit to 35 feet Shaft No. 30 dug 650 feet NW of Money Pit to 35 feet **1971** - Underwater TV camera lowered into Borehole 10-X chamber at 230 feet Underwater TV camera lowered into Borehole 10-X chamber at 230 feet **1971** - Wire and chain from 155-165 feet. Stelco: hand-forged prior to 1750 Wire and chain from 155-165 feet. Stelco: hand-forged prior to 1750 **1972** - Blankenship makes dives into 10-X. Finds 15-foot-high bottle-shaped cavern Blankenship makes dives into 10-X. Finds 15-foot-high bottle-shaped cavern **1972** - Investigator from Belfast, Northern Ireland arrives claiming to have the answer to Oak Island mys... Investigator from Belfast, Northern Ireland arrives claiming to have the answer to Oak Island mystery **1974** - Gilbert Hedden dies Gilbert Hedden dies **1974** - Shaft No. 31 dug 660 feet NNE of Money Pit to 100 feet Shaft No. 31 dug 660 feet NNE of Money Pit to 100 feet **1976** - Blankenship nearly trapped when 10-X casing collapses at 90 feet Blankenship nearly trapped when 10-X casing collapses at 90 feet **1976** - Television cameras lowered into Borehole 10-X, images reported but quality poor Television cameras lowered into Borehole 10-X, images reported but quality poor **1976** - Triton takes over island tourism operations Triton takes over island tourism operations **1977** - Tobias acquires Chappell's Oak Island holdings Tobias acquires Chappell's Oak Island holdings **1979** - Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau visits Oak Island with three sons Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau visits Oak Island with three sons **1980** - Mel Chappell dies Mel Chappell dies **1983** - Tobias sues Nolan over lot ownership, causeway access Tobias sues Nolan over lot ownership, causeway access **1985** - Supreme Court upholds Nolan's claim to disputed lots Supreme Court upholds Nolan's claim to disputed lots **1987** - Court of Appeals dismisses Tobias ownership claim. Legal fees: ~$160,000 combined Court of Appeals dismisses Tobias ownership claim. Legal fees: ~$160,000 combined **1988** - Smithsonian Magazine publishes Oak Island article Douglas Preston publishes "Death Trap Defies Treasure Seekers for Two Centuries" in Smithsonian Magazine. **1988** - Triton plans $10 million 'Big Dig' excavation Triton plans $10 million 'Big Dig' excavation **1992** - Fred Nolan announces NOLAN'S CROSS - five granite boulders forming 867-foot cross Fred Nolan announces NOLAN'S CROSS - five granite boulders forming 867-foot cross **1995** - Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution survey At the invitation of Boston businessman David Mugar, Woods Hole conducts a two-week survey - the only known scientific study of the site. They conclude the flooding is caused by natural tidal interaction, not man-made tunnels. **1996** - Bedford Institute detects seabed depressions The Bedford Institute of Oceanography detects potential man-made depressions on the seabed off Oak Island's south shore. **1999** - Robert Young purchases lot 5 from Nolan for $100,000 Robert Young purchases lot 5 from Nolan for $100,000 **2003** - Treasure trove licenses frozen due to disputes Internal disputes between David Tobias and Dan Blankenship lead to a freeze on treasure trove licenses, halting major excavation work. **2003** - Petter Amundsen begins "Tree of Life" excavations Petter Amundsen conducts the first excavations related to his "Tree of Life" and "Secret Shakespeare" codes theory. **2003** - Oak Island for sale at $7 million Oak Island for sale at $7 million **2004** - Triton plans $15 million Phase 2 shaft Triton Alliance prepares plans for a Phase 2 shaft estimated to cost $15 million, proposing to excavate to 215 feet using ground-freezing technology. **2004** - Triton and Nolan treasure trove licenses approved; Blankenship's refused Triton and Nolan treasure trove licenses approved; Blankenship's refused **2005** - Blankenship and Tobias agree to liquidate Oak Island Tours, put island on market Blankenship and Tobias agree to liquidate Oak Island Tours, put island on market **2006** - Lee Lamb publishes 'Oak Island Obsession: The Restall Story' Lee Lamb publishes 'Oak Island Obsession: The Restall Story' **2006** - Michigan brothers Rick and Marty Lagina acquire interest in Oak Island Michigan brothers Rick and Marty Lagina acquire interest in Oak Island **2007** - Wreck of Kidd's Quedagh Merchant found off Dominican Republic Divers discover the wreck believed to be Kidd's Quedagh Merchant in shallow water (less than 10 feet deep) just 70 feet off Catalina Island, south of La Romana, Dominican Republic. The Indiana University diving team confirms the identification. The ship had been scuttled or abandoned after Kidd transferred its treasure in 1699 **2010** - Laginas purchase 50% of Oak Island Tours from Blankenship and Tobias Laginas purchase 50% of Oak Island Tours from Blankenship and Tobias **2013** - Laginas take over full operations. Dan Blankenship remains on island Laginas take over full operations. Dan Blankenship remains on island **2014** - Spanish maravedi coin (dated 1652) found in swamp Spanish maravedi coin (dated 1652) found in swamp **2014** - The Curse of Oak Island TV series premieres on History Channel The Curse of Oak Island TV series premieres on History Channel **2015** - 50kg 'silver' ingot from Kidd's shipwreck turns out to be lead Marine archaeologist Barry Clifford recovers a 50kg ingot from a shipwreck off Île Sainte-Marie, Madagascar, believed to be from the Adventure Galley. Initially reported as silver, UNESCO testing reveals it is 95% lead. The wreckage is likely port construction debris, not Kidd's ship **2016** - Diver John Chatterton explores bottom of 10X Professional diver John Chatterton reaches the bottom of Borehole 10X but finds no definitive evidence of treasure, leading to a renewed focus on the Money Pit area. **2016** - Fred Nolan dies after 50+ years involvement Fred Nolan dies after 50+ years involvement **2017** - Human bones found at 190 feet in H8 shaft - one European, one Middle Eastern origin Human bones found at 190 feet in H8 shaft - one European, one Middle Eastern origin **2017** - Leather bookbinding material and parchment specks found in H8 Leather bookbinding material and parchment specks found in H8 **2017** - Medieval lead cross found at Smith's Cove - dated 900-1300 AD Medieval lead cross found at Smith's Cove - dated 900-1300 AD. Matches cross carved at Domme Prison (1307) **2018** - Randall Sullivan publishes 'The Curse of Oak Island' Randall Sullivan publishes 'The Curse of Oak Island' **2019** - Dan Blankenship dies at age 95 after 50+ years on island Dan Blankenship dies at age 95 after 50+ years on island **2020** - Paved area discovered in the swamp A large stone-paved surface discovered beneath the swamp, with wood beneath it carbon-dated to approximately 1200 AD, suggesting medieval-era construction **2020** - Ship's railing found in swamp dated to 8th century Wooden ship's railing discovered in the swamp carbon-dated to 660-770 AD, the oldest artifact found on Oak Island at that time **2021** - Stone pathway excavated in swamp leading toward Money Pit Major excavation reveals a man-made stone road beneath the swamp, dated to the 16th century, appearing to lead from the shoreline toward the Money Pit area **2022** - Corjan Mol leads team to Portugal investigating Templar connections Researcher Corjan Mol guides the Oak Island team to Portugal, visiting Templar churches and discovering similar construction techniques and symbols matching Oak Island findings **2022** - Lot 5 acquisition and excavation begins The team acquires Lot 5 on the western side of Oak Island and begins intensive excavation, discovering a circular stone structure and early artifacts **2022** - Half Roman coin found on Lot 5 Gary Drayton and Rick Lagina discover half of a Roman coin near the center of Lot 5, dated by numismatist Sandy Campbell to approximately 300 BC **2023** - Multiple Roman and medieval coins discovered on Lot 5 Season 11 premiere features discovery of three coins in one morning on Lot 5, including Roman coins dating from 100-300 AD and one potentially over 2,000 years old **2023** - Archaeoastronomer Adriano Gaspani dates Nolan's Cross to 1200 AD Professor Adriano Gaspani uses archaeoastronomy to determine that Nolan's Cross was constructed around 1200 AD based on stellar alignments, matching carbon dates from the swamp paved area **2023** - European research expeditions to Netherlands and Scandinavia Corjan Mol leads the team to underground Templar tunnels in the Netherlands and Viking ship museums in Scandinavia, finding construction parallels to Oak Island **2024** - Season 12 of The Curse of Oak Island airs Season 12 premieres on History Channel, continuing intensive Money Pit and Lot 5 excavations with advanced drilling technology **2024** - Gaspani dates Lot 15 stone cairns to 1250 AD Professor Gaspani's archaeoastronomy research determines the stone cairns on Lot 15 were built around 1250 AD, aligned with stars, moon, and sun - work he attributes to the Knights Templar **2024** - Corjan Mol leads team to Malta investigating Knights of Malta connections Research expedition to Malta explores connections between the Knights Hospitaller, Knights of Malta, and Oak Island, finding matching symbols in historic prisons **2024** - Lot 5 and Lot 8 excavations reveal medieval artifacts Continued excavations on Lots 5 and 8 uncover artifacts with possible medieval origins, strengthening Templar connection theories **2024** - Well systems investigation across the island Team investigates interconnected well systems across Oak Island, revealing possible drainage or flood tunnel connections **2025** - Season 13 of The Curse of Oak Island premieres November 4 Season 13 begins airing on History Channel, marking over a decade of the Lagina brothers' televised treasure hunt with deeper Money Pit excavations and new Templar revelations --- # GLOSSARY Complete encyclopedia of Oak Island terminology. URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/glossary **"Could It Be?"** (Expedition) Narrator Robert Clotworthy's trademark rhetorical question posing theories. "Could it be?" is the trademark rhetorical question posed by narrator Robert Clotworthy throughout The Curse of Oak Island. Used to introduce speculative theories and connect discoveries to larger narratives, the phrase has become one of the show's most iconic elements - both celebrated and affectionately mocked by fans. The question typically follows a discovery with a dramatic pause before suggesting a possible historical connection. **10-X** (Structure) 235-foot deep borehole drilled in 1970 by Dan Blankenship; camera showed a possible cavern. Borehole 10-X is a 235-foot deep shaft drilled by Dan Blankenship in 1970 on Oak Island. A camera lowered into the borehole captured grainy footage that appeared to show a large underground cavern, with what some interpreted as a severed hand, wooden chests, and tools. Blankenship himself descended into 10-X multiple times, narrowly surviving a collapse. The borehole became one of the most famous and controversial elements of the Oak Island story, and its footage has been analyzed and debated for decades. The current team has revisited 10-X with modern technology. **90 Foot Stone** (Theory) Inscribed stone slab found deep in the Money Pit around 1803, now lost. The 90 Foot Stone is one of the most debated artifacts in Oak Island history. According to historical accounts, a flat stone bearing mysterious inscribed symbols was found around the 80-90 foot level of the Money Pit during the Onslow Company excavation around 1803. Described as approximately two feet long by one foot wide, resembling dark Swedish granite with an olive tinge, the stone was not native to the area. It reportedly passed through several hands: John Smith used it as a fireback in his chimney, after which it was taken to A.O. Creighton's bookbindery in Halifax, where it was used as a beating stone until the inscription was nearly obliterated. The most famous translation, offered by Reverend A.T. Kempton in 1949, reads: "Forty Feet Below Two Million Pounds Are Buried." However, this cipher first appeared in Edward Rowe Snow's 1949 book, and modern researchers have raised serious questions about its authenticity. The stone itself has been lost since approximately 1912. In 2018, gyro survey expert Tory Martin found a stone near the Money Pit with unusual markings - dubbed the "Tory Stone" - which some believe may be the original. **Aaron Taylor** (Team Member) Archaeologist from St. Mary's University with expertise in wetland excavation sites. Aaron Taylor is an archaeologist from St. Mary's University in Halifax with nearly a decade of experience working wetland sites. He was brought to Oak Island to examine the swamp features alongside geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner. Taylor confirmed that the paved area in the swamp is too level and too uniform to be natural, supporting Spooner's conclusion that the feature is man-made. His assessment added a fourth discipline to the growing scientific consensus that large-scale human construction took place in the swamp centuries before the Money Pit's discovery. **Adriano Gaspani** (Historical Figure) Italian archaeoastronomer whose peer-reviewed research dated Nolan's Cross to 1217 AD. Professor Adriano Gaspani is an Italian archaeoastronomer whose peer-reviewed research concluded that the five boulders of Nolan's Cross were positioned in 1217 AD based on their historical alignment with a number of navigational stars like Deneb in the Cygnus constellation. **Aladdin's Cave** (Structure) Name given to a large void detected by drilling beneath the Money Pit area. Aladdin's Cave is the name the team assigned to a large underground void detected through drilling operations beneath the Money Pit area. The void appeared to contain wooden structures and possibly metallic objects based on drill core analysis. Reaching and investigating this cavity has been one of the primary goals of the team's deep excavation campaigns. **Alex Lagina** (Team Member) Marty's son; civil engineer who has taken an increasing role in operations. Alex Lagina is the son of Marty Lagina and a civil engineer who has taken an increasingly prominent role in the Oak Island expedition. Representing the next generation of the treasure hunt, Alex has brought his engineering education and youthful energy to the team's operations. He has been involved in many of the key discoveries and decisions during the current era of investigation. **Anthony Graves** (Historical Figure) Oak Island's largest private landowner in the mid-1800s, who purchased Lots 15-20 in 1857 and allegedly paid for goods in Chester using Spanish gold and silver coins, fueling speculation he found treasure of his own. Anthony Thickpenny Graves (1812-1888) was born in Chester, Nova Scotia, to Phillip Graves and Charlotte Augusta Thickpenny Hutchinson. Listed as a farmer on both his marriage certificate and land records, Graves purchased Lots 15-20 and nearby Frog Island from Henry Stevens in 1857. Stevens had acquired the same lots from the heirs of Money Pit co-discoverer John Smith just two months earlier, and sold them to Graves for the identical price, a transaction that has puzzled researchers ever since. Graves lived with his wife Catherine Elizabeth Seaboyer (and after her death in 1875, his second wife Eliza Elizabeth) in a farmhouse on the shores of Joudrey's Cove on the island's north side. Together they raised eleven children, the most notable being Sophia Elizabeth Graves (born 1845), who married Henry Sellers and remained on the island. In 1878, one of Sophia's oxen famously fell into a collapsed pit while ploughing, a sinkhole that many researchers believe was connected to the original Money Pit workings. In 1861, Graves leased Lot 18 and the Money Pit area to the Oak Island Association, along with the old Smith farmhouse as their base of operations - the building where the legendary 90 Foot Stone had been stored. When the Halifax Company arrived in 1866, Graves leased them the eastern end of the island. Unusually, some researchers have noted that Graves never demanded a percentage of any treasure found from any of the companies who rented his land - a right he was fully entitled to exercise. The most persistent legend surrounding Graves is that he would periodically row to Chester and pay for goods using gold and silver Spanish coins. Whether these coins came from a personal discovery or simply from trade is unknown, but the story has fueled decades of speculation that Graves quietly found and kept treasure of his own. Season 12 of The Curse of Oak Island explored this theory directly in the episode "Graves Concerns" (S12E10), during which excavation of a square feature near his former homestead in the North Swamp area uncovered a brick-lined vault, pottery from the 1800s, iron pipe, and a crank-like mechanism. While some items matched Graves' era on the island, others - including the pipe and crank - dated to the late 1700s, predating his arrival and deepening the mystery of what he may have known. Graves died on February 26, 1888, taking whatever secrets he held to his grave. His property passed to his children, and much of it eventually came under the ownership of later treasure-hunting companies. To this day, the area around his former homestead remains one of the most artifact-rich zones on Oak Island. **Anthony Vaughan** (Historical Figure) Third boy involved in the 1795 discovery; later became a property owner on the island. Anthony Vaughan was the third member of the trio of teenagers who discovered the Money Pit in 1795, alongside Daniel McGinnis and John Smith. Vaughan became a property owner on Oak Island and was a key source of information about the original discovery for later treasure-hunting companies. His accounts helped establish the foundational narrative of the Money Pit story. **Ardoise Hill Gravestone** (Location) A slate gravestone dated 1558 found near Windsor, Nova Scotia, bearing the Latin inscription "Here lies C. Manulis", potentially the oldest inscribed European gravestone in the region. The Ardoise Hill Gravestone is a small inscribed slate stone discovered around 1900 on Ardoise Hill, near Windsor, in Hants County, Nova Scotia. Measuring twelve inches long, six inches high, and a quarter inch thick, the stone bears a shield with a chevron and sword, an arrow, a skull and crossbones, and the Latin inscription "C. Manulis, Hic Jacet; A.M.DLVIII" - "Here lies C. Manulis, 1558." The only published account appears in Larry Loomer's Windsor, Nova Scotia - A Journey in History (West Hants Historical Society, 1996), where he described it as the oldest known inscribed gravestone in Hants County and suggested the deceased was likely a Portuguese fisherman. The stone's significance to the Oak Island mystery lies in its dating. A European burial in the Nova Scotia interior in 1558 falls squarely within the period of documented Portuguese territorial claims in Atlantic Canada. Explorer Joam Alvares Fagundes founded a colony in Cape Breton as early as the 1520s, the Barcelos family from the Azores was settling the Nova Scotia coast from 1508, and Portuguese cartographers were mapping the Bay of Fundy and recording Mi'kmaw place names throughout the 16th century. Researcher Terry J. Deveau cited the gravestone in his 2015 paper on the Overton Stone as evidence of a Portuguese presence that extended beyond the coast and into the heart of Nova Scotia. If the inscription is authentic, C. Manulis died in the same decade that Portuguese cartographer Sebastião Lopes was mapping Atlantic Canada with both Portuguese Crown and Knights of Christ insignia marking their claim to the territory. The stone remains in private hands and has not been subjected to modern archaeological analysis. **Ark of the Covenant Theory** (Theory) Theory that the biblical Ark was moved from Jerusalem to Oak Island via the Templars. The Ark of the Covenant theory proposes that the biblical Ark - the sacred chest said to contain the Ten Commandments - was removed from Jerusalem, possibly during the Crusades or earlier, and eventually transported to Oak Island for safekeeping. The theory connects to the broader Templar narrative, suggesting the Knights discovered the Ark beneath the Temple Mount and later concealed it in the engineered vault system on Oak Island. Bone fragments with Middle Eastern DNA found in the Money Pit have been cited as potential supporting evidence. **Bathymetric Survey** (Technology) Underwater depth mapping used in the Swamp and surrounding waters. Bathymetric surveying maps the depth and topography of underwater terrain using sonar or other acoustic instruments. On Oak Island, bathymetric surveys have been conducted in the Swamp and in the waters surrounding the island to identify submerged features, anomalies, and potential man-made structures hidden beneath the water surface. **Billy Gerhardt** (Team Member) Heavy equipment operator who handles excavation work on the island. Billy Gerhardt is the heavy equipment operator responsible for much of the physical excavation work on Oak Island. His skill with excavators, bulldozers, and other machinery is essential to operations ranging from Swamp drainage to caisson installation. Gerhardt's careful work in moving earth while preserving potential artifacts has made him a critical member of the field operations team. **Bobby Dazzler** (Theory) British slang used by Gary Drayton to describe an exceptional find. A "Bobby Dazzler" is British slang for something outstandingly impressive or attractive. On The Curse of Oak Island, the term has become iconic thanks to metal detection expert Gary Drayton, who uses it enthusiastically whenever he uncovers a particularly noteworthy artifact. Originally from Lincolnshire, England, Drayton brought the expression to the show along with other colorful catchphrases like "Top Pocket Find" (reserved for the most exceptional discoveries small enough to fit in a shirt pocket) and "Holy Shamoley." The term has become so closely associated with Drayton and the show that it has entered the vocabulary of Oak Island fans worldwide. Drayton even sells merchandise featuring the catchphrase. Among his notable "Bobby Dazzlers" are the medieval lead cross, a gold-plated brooch with a leaded glass gem, a rhodolite garnet brooch, and numerous coins and military artifacts spanning centuries of history. **Box Drains** (Structure) Precisely constructed wooden drainage channels found beneath Smith's Cove beach. The box drains are a network of carefully constructed V-shaped or box-shaped channels found beneath the beach at Smith's Cove. First discovered in 1850, the drains are made of flat stones arranged to funnel seawater toward the flood tunnel system. They were covered with layers of eel grass and coconut fiber to act as a filter, preventing sand from clogging the channels. The sophistication of the engineering suggests significant resources and labor were invested in protecting the Money Pit. **Caisson** (Technology) Large steel cylinders sunk into the ground to create stable excavation shafts. A caisson is a large, rigid steel cylinder that is driven or sunk into the ground to create a stable, watertight shaft for excavation. On Oak Island, caissons have been used extensively in the Money Pit area to reach depths that would be impossible with conventional open-pit digging due to the flood tunnel system. The current team has employed increasingly large caissons - some over 10 feet in diameter - in their attempts to reach the deepest target areas. Caisson excavation is the centerpiece of the 'Big Dig' campaign. **Can-Slam** (Expedition) Celebration when drill core brings up significant material; team bangs on the core barrel. A can-slam is the informal celebration that occurs on Oak Island when a drill core brings up potentially significant material from depth. Team members gather around the drill rig and bang on the core barrel in excitement as it is extracted and opened. The ritual has become one of the signature moments of The Curse of Oak Island television series, representing the thrill of discovery that drives the treasure hunt. **Captain Kidd** (Historical Figure) Scottish privateer whose alleged buried treasure sparked the original Oak Island search. Captain William Kidd (c. 1654-1701) was a Scottish privateer and pirate whose legend is intimately connected to the origins of the Oak Island treasure hunt. Kidd was commissioned by the English Crown as a privateer to hunt pirates in the Indian Ocean, but was himself accused of piracy after seizing the Armenian merchant ship Quedagh Merchant. He was arrested in Boston in 1699, sent to England, and hanged in 1701. Kidd famously claimed to have buried a great treasure, and the first known newspaper mention of Oak Island treasure hunting - published in the Liverpool Transcript in 1849 - specifically referenced digging for "Captain Kidd's treasure." The wreck of Kidd's Quedagh Merchant was discovered in shallow water off Catalina Island in the Dominican Republic in 2007. Whether Kidd ever visited Oak Island remains unproven, but his legend as a pirate who buried treasure before his capture made him one of the first and most enduring candidates for the island's mysterious depositor. **Carbon Dating** (Technology) Radiocarbon analysis determining the age of organic materials found on the island. Carbon dating (radiocarbon dating) is a scientific method for determining the age of organic materials by measuring the decay of carbon-14 isotopes. On Oak Island, carbon dating has been applied to wood, coconut fiber, bone fragments, and other organic materials to establish timelines for construction and activity on the island. Results have dated some materials to the medieval period (1200-1400 AD), providing evidence that significant activity occurred on Oak Island centuries before the 1795 discovery. **Carmen Legge** (Team Member) Master blacksmith and artifact analyst; identifies the age and origin of metal finds. Carmen Legge is a master blacksmith and artifact analyst who has become a key consultant for the Oak Island team. When metal objects are discovered on the island, they are often brought to Legge's forge for expert assessment. His deep knowledge of historical metalworking techniques allows him to identify the approximate age, origin, and purpose of iron, steel, and other metal artifacts. Legge's analyses have provided crucial dating and provenance information for many of the team's finds. **Cave-In Pit** (Location) Sinkhole discovered in 1878 when Sophia Sellers' ox fell through, believed connected to the Money Pit. The Cave-In Pit is a sinkhole located southeast of the Money Pit that was discovered in 1878 when one of Sophia Sellers' oxen fell through the ground while ploughing. The collapse revealed a void beneath the surface that many researchers believe is connected to the original Money Pit workings, possibly through the flood tunnel system or a lateral shaft. The pit's location aligned with sight lines established by Gilbert Hedden in 1937 using the stone triangle on the south shore and two drilled boulders near Smith's Cove, a discovery that convinced Hedden the features were part of a deliberate survey system. The Cave-In Pit remains a key reference point in the geography of the Money Pit area. **Celebrity Investors** (Historical Figure) Famous figures including John Wayne, Errol Flynn, and FDR who invested in Oak Island. The Oak Island mystery has attracted a remarkable roster of famous investors and enthusiasts over the centuries. In 1909, future U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt joined the Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company as a shareholder and visited the island; he continued to follow developments until his death in 1945. In 1939, swashbuckling Hollywood actor Errol Flynn - himself a former gold miner in Papua New Guinea - attempted to buy into an Oak Island syndicate but was refused because the digging rights belonged to another party. Around 1970, legendary actor John Wayne was part-owner of the Statesman Mining Company of Aspen, Colorado, which leased drilling and digging equipment to Triton Alliance. There were also discussions about Wayne narrating a film about Oak Island, though neither venture bore fruit. Other notable figures with Oak Island connections include polar explorer Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd Jr. and William Vincent Astor, heir to the Astor fortune (whose father perished on the Titanic), both of whom were passive investors. Even Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau visited the island with his sons in 1979. **Chapel Vault** (Structure) Theoretical underground chamber beneath the island, named by treasure hunters. The Chapel Vault is a theorized underground chamber that treasure hunters have long believed exists beneath Oak Island. The name was adopted from the Chappell family (sometimes spelled Chapel), who were prominent searchers in the early 20th century. Drilling and sensing operations have detected anomalies at depth that could represent a constructed vault or natural cavity. Whether such a chamber actually exists and what it might contain remains one of Oak Island's central mysteries. **Chappell Shaft** (Structure) Shaft built by William Chappell in 1931 to reach the Money Pit, where a possible treasure vault was first reported at 153 feet. The Chappell Shaft is a structure built by William Chappell in 1931 during his attempt to reach the original Money Pit. Chappell's earlier 1897 drilling campaign with Frederick Blair had encountered what became known as the Chappell Vault at approximately 153 feet: a seven-foot-high wooden structure encased in cement from which the auger brought up a tiny fragment of parchment bearing what appeared to be the letters "vi" or "wi" written in India ink on sheepskin. The 1931 shaft was constructed to reach that target. Melbourne Chappell braced the base with a four-foot metal shoe, which the current team uses as a depth marker: anything found below it potentially originates from the original Money Pit deposits. The shaft's timbers have been identified in multiple modern boreholes and caisson operations. **Charles Barkhouse** (Team Member) Oak Island historian and local guide; longtime team member. Charles Barkhouse is a local historian and longtime member of the Oak Island team. With deep roots in the Nova Scotia community and extensive knowledge of Oak Island's history, Barkhouse serves as a guide and historical resource for the team. His familiarity with the island's past and local lore has contributed to many research leads and contextual understanding of discoveries. **Charles Morris** (Historical Figure) Nova Scotia's first Surveyor General (1749-1781). In 1762, Morris personally surveyed Oak Island and divided it into 32 four-acre lots - the only island in Mahone Bay to receive this treatment. His survey grid remains the basis of Oak Island's lot system today. Charles Morris (1711-1781) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and came to Nova Scotia in 1746 as a military officer under Governor Shirley. After surveying the Bay of Fundy and Acadian settlements, he was appointed Nova Scotia's first Chief Surveyor of Lands in 1749 by Governor Cornwallis. He laid out the town of Halifax, Lunenburg, and numerous other settlements, serving as Surveyor General for 32 years. In 1762, Morris traveled the 45 miles from Halifax to survey Oak Island, cataloging it as Island No. 28 and dividing it into 32 lots of approximately four acres each, most with water frontage and access to a common road. No other island in Mahone Bay was ever surveyed in this manner - a fact that has fueled speculation about why Oak Island received such special treatment. Morris also served on the Nova Scotia Council, as Justice of the Peace, and as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1776-1778). Season 11 of The Curse of Oak Island explored the theory that Morris was a Freemason who may have been aware of what was buried on the island, though his lodge membership has not been confirmed in surviving colonial records. The Surveyor General position remained in the Morris family for four generations, spanning the entire existence of the office (1749-1851). **Charlotte Wheatley** (Team Member) Researcher whose four-year study of the Zena Halpern map identified three French Saint Radegund churches aligned toward Oak Island. Charlotte Wheatley is a researcher who works alongside Corjan Mol, Emiliano Sacchetti, and Judi Rudebusch on European connections to Oak Island. She first appeared on The Curse of Oak Island in Season 10, presenting research on the Duc d’Anville expedition with Corjan Mol. In Season 13, she presented findings from four years of work on the 14th-century map brought to the team by the late researcher Zena Halpern. Wheatley traced the map inscription “Le Lionceau de Talmont” to Talmont-sur-Gironde on the west coast of France, where a fortified Benedictine church dedicated to Saint Radegund is oriented at approximately 292.4 degrees. Extended across the Atlantic, this axis leads directly to Oak Island. Two additional Saint Radegund churches within 60 kilometres, at Courant and Saint-Radegonde, share alignments of roughly 292.1 degrees and also point to the island. All three churches date to the 12th or 13th century, a period connected through Bernard of Clairvaux and the Cistercians to the Knights Templar. Wheatley also identified the four-dot cross that appears in depictions of Saint Radegund, the only saint shown carrying a book marked with this symbol. The same four-dot cross appears on Oak Island’s H+O stone found in 1921 and at Templar sites across Europe. Italian archaeoastronomer Adriano Gaspani subsequently confirmed the alignment calculations and observed that the three church axes share stellar alignments with the rising positions of Sirius, the Pleiades, and Hamal, matching those he had previously identified at the Lot 5 round feature on Oak Island. **Chester** (Location) Nearest town to Oak Island, founded 1759; historical connection to early settlers. Chester is a town in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia, founded in 1759 as part of British efforts to settle Nova Scotia after the Expulsion of the Acadians. The Chester area was home to the earliest known settlers of Oak Island, and the town's historical records have provided valuable research material for understanding the island's early history. The Chester Train Station houses an Oak Island exhibit with artifacts, maps, and historical information. **Coconut Fiber** (Theory) Tropical plant fiber found at Smith's Cove, impossible to source locally. Coconut fiber (coir) is among the most compelling evidence of deliberate human engineering on Oak Island. First reported during the Truro Company's 1851 excavation at Smith's Cove, layers of coconut fiber were found beneath an artificial beach along with eelgrass and stone box drains. The discovery was significant because coconuts do not grow within 1,500 kilometres of Nova Scotia, meaning the material had to have been deliberately brought to the island. A sample reportedly sent to the Smithsonian Institution in the early 20th century confirmed the identification as coconut fiber. The material appeared to serve as a filtering layer in what researchers believe was an engineered drainage system designed to channel seawater into the Money Pit via flood tunnels - an elaborate booby trap to protect whatever lies below. The presence of tropical material in a cold North Atlantic location remains one of the strongest indicators that the Money Pit is a sophisticated, man-made construction. **Core Drilling** (Technology) Extracting cylindrical samples from deep underground to analyze materials at depth. Core drilling is an excavation technique that uses a hollow drill bit to extract cylindrical samples (cores) of material from deep underground. On Oak Island, core drilling has been one of the primary methods for probing the Money Pit and surrounding areas at depth without the expense and risk of full shaft excavation. The cores are carefully examined for artifacts, wood, metal, and other materials that might indicate what lies below. Core samples have produced some of the most tantalizing evidence, including parchment fragments and gold chain links. **Corjan Mol** (Team Member) Dutch historical researcher, author of "The Jerusalem Files," and creator of TheCurseOfOakIsland.com. Corjan Mol is a Dutch historical researcher and author who has been investigating historical mysteries for over 30 years, beginning with Rennes-le-Château in 1995. He is the co-author of "The Jerusalem Files" (Watkins/Penguin Random House) and creator of renneslechateau.nl. Mol has conducted eight years of European research expeditions for Oak Island investigations across Portugal, Italy, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, and Malta. He created TheCurseOfOakIsland.com as a comprehensive independent resource for the Oak Island mystery and appears on The Curse of Oak Island television series. **Craig Tester** (Team Member) Engineer and business partner of Marty; key member of the Oak Island Tours team. Craig Tester is an engineer and longtime business partner of Marty Lagina who serves as a key member of the Oak Island Tours Inc. team. His engineering background and practical problem-solving skills have been essential to the technical aspects of the treasure hunt. Tester has been involved since the beginning of the Lagina brothers' Oak Island operations and is one of the core decision-makers on the team. **Crown Time** (Expedition) Team celebration when significant progress or discoveries are made. Crown Time is a celebratory expression and ritual used by the Oak Island team to mark significant discoveries or breakthroughs. Named after Crown Royal whisky, the tradition involves the team sharing a drink to commemorate important moments in the search. The celebration reflects the camaraderie and shared purpose that binds the team together through the long seasons of investigation. **CT Scanning** (Technology) X-ray imaging that reveals the internal structure of artifacts without damaging them. CT (computed tomography) scanning uses X-rays taken from multiple angles to produce cross-sectional images of an object's internal structure. On Oak Island, lab analyst Emma Culligan uses CT scanning to examine artifacts without cutting or cleaning them, revealing hidden details such as coin designs beneath encrustation, the internal grain structure of iron tools, textile weave patterns in fabric fragments, and the construction methods of composite objects like buttons and buckles. The technology has proven particularly valuable for identifying artifacts too fragile or corroded for visual inspection alone. **Dan Blankenship** (Historical Figure) Legendary treasure hunter who dedicated 50+ years to Oak Island; drilled Borehole 10-X. Dan Blankenship was one of the most dedicated treasure hunters in Oak Island history, spending over 50 years living on and investigating the island. Originally from Miami, Blankenship moved to Oak Island in the 1960s after watching a television documentary about the mystery. He drilled the famous Borehole 10-X to 235 feet, personally descended into it multiple times, and survived a near-fatal collapse. Along with David Tobias, he formed the Triton Alliance. Blankenship passed away in 2019 at the age of 95, having spent more time on Oak Island than any other searcher in history. **Dan Henskee** (Team Member) Veteran treasure hunter and longtime team member with decades of Oak Island experience. Dan Henskee is a veteran treasure hunter who has been involved with Oak Island for decades. His long experience with the island's terrain, previous excavation sites, and the practical challenges of working in flooded shafts has made him a valued member of the field operations team. Henskee has participated in drilling campaigns, caisson operations, and surface excavations across multiple seasons of The Curse of Oak Island. **Daniel McGinnis** (Historical Figure) Teenager who discovered the Money Pit depression in 1795. Daniel McGinnis was a sixteen-year-old from the Chester area who, in 1795, discovered a circular depression in the ground on Oak Island beneath an old ship's tackle hanging from a tree. Along with his friends John Smith and Anthony Vaughan, McGinnis began digging and encountered the first oak platform at 10 feet below the surface. Their discovery launched what would become the longest-running treasure hunt in history. McGinnis continued to be involved in early excavation efforts and lived in the area for the rest of his life. **Dave Blankenship** (Team Member) Son of Dan Blankenship; bridge between the old guard and the Lagina era. Dave Blankenship is the son of legendary treasure hunter Dan Blankenship and serves as an important link between the decades of previous exploration and the current Lagina-led operation. Having grown up on Oak Island and witnessed his father's tireless search, Dave brings invaluable institutional knowledge about the island's history, previous excavation locations, and lessons learned from past attempts. **David Tobias** (Historical Figure) Montreal businessman who co-founded Triton Alliance and owned much of Oak Island. David C. Tobias was a Montreal-based businessman who became one of the most significant figures in modern Oak Island history. In January 1967, Tobias joined Daniel Blankenship, Robert Dunfield, and Fred Nolan in forming a syndicate for exploration on the island. Two years later, Tobias and Blankenship formed Triton Alliance and purchased most of Oak Island for $125,000 through a consortium of approximately 49 investors. As president and CEO of Triton Alliance, Tobias oversaw major operations including the drilling of the 235-foot Borehole 10-X in 1971, where cameras lowered into a cave reportedly revealed possible chests and human remains. The partnership between Tobias and Blankenship eventually soured, leading to costly legal battles during the 1990s that froze exploration for years. Tobias personally favoured the theory that Sir Francis Drake had buried treasure on the island. In April 2006, Tobias sold his 50% share of Oak Island Tours to Michigan brothers Rick and Marty Lagina, ushering in the current era of exploration. **De Villiers Bloodline** (Theory) Noble French dynasty with documented Templar and Hospitaller leadership spanning five centuries, from the Crusades to the colonization of Acadia. A noble French family whose members held leadership roles in both the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller from the fall of Jerusalem in 1187 through to Isaac de Razilly's arrival at La Have, Nova Scotia, 20 miles from Oak Island. **Dendrochronology** (Technology) Tree-ring dating used to determine when wooden structures were built. Dendrochronology is a scientific dating method that analyzes the growth ring patterns in wood to determine the year a tree was felled. On Oak Island, dendrochronology has been applied to wooden structures, platforms, and timber recovered from various excavation sites to establish when they were constructed. This technique provides more precise dating than carbon-14 analysis and has helped establish timelines for the engineering work done on the island. **Doug Crowell** (Team Member) Historian and researcher who traces historical records and documents. Doug Crowell is a historian and researcher on the Oak Island team who specializes in tracing historical records, documents, and archives related to the island's past. His research has uncovered important historical context, identified previously unknown connections, and helped the team understand the documentary evidence surrounding the Oak Island mystery. **Duc d'Anville** (Historical Figure) French admiral who led a massive 1746 naval expedition to Nova Scotia - the largest French fleet ever sent to the New World - central to several Oak Island treasure theories. Jean-Baptiste Louis Frédéric de La Rochefoucauld de Roye, Duc d'Anville (1707-1746), was a French admiral who commanded the largest military force ever sent from France to the New World prior to the American Revolution. In June 1746, during King George's War, he departed France with approximately 64 ships, 800 cannons, and 11,000 men, tasked with recapturing Louisbourg and Acadia from the British and burning Boston. The expedition was catastrophically beset by storms, typhus, and scurvy, taking three months to cross the Atlantic. D'Anville died of a stroke just six days after reaching Chebucto Bay (present-day Halifax Harbour) on September 27, 1746. The connection to Oak Island is significant: d'Anville was a member of the La Rochefoucauld family, whose name appears on the Zena Halpern map. Researcher Doug Crowell discovered an eight-page document in the Nova Scotia Archives that appears to be the log of an advance ship (the Aurore or Castor) describing the digging of a deep pit and tunnel on an island in a bay consistent with Mahone Bay - features eerily reminiscent of the Money Pit. **Dye Testing** (Technology) Injecting colored dye into shafts to trace underground water flow connections. Dye testing is a technique used on Oak Island to trace underground water connections by injecting brightly colored, non-toxic dye into one location and monitoring where it emerges. This method has been used to confirm the existence of the flood tunnel system by demonstrating that water injected into shafts near the Money Pit appears at Smith's Cove and other coastal locations, proving subterranean connections between these areas. **Edwin Hamilton** (Historical Figure) New York University engineering professor who searched Oak Island from 1938 to 1943 - one of the few academics to take the treasure seriously enough to dig. Professor Erwin Hamilton of New York University took over the Oak Island search from Gilbert Hedden in 1938, when Hedden ran into financial difficulties. Known locally as "Hammy," Hamilton was a rare figure in Oak Island history: a credentialed academic who believed the mystery warranted serious investigation and was willing to get his hands dirty proving it. Hamilton drilled in the Money Pit area beginning in 1939 and found suspicious rocks and gravel at 190 feet - materials he believed had been deliberately placed. While his discoveries did not produce the breakthrough treasure hunters hoped for, his methodical approach lent the search a measure of academic respectability it had often lacked. He also corresponded with FDR, who wrote to him in 1938: "I wish much I could have gone up the coast this summer and visited Oak Island and seen the work you are doing - for I shall always be interested in that romantic spot." Hamilton was forced to cease operations in 1943 due to World War II, but he never truly left Nova Scotia. He settled in the area and went into partnership with local boatbuilder Amos Nauss in Marriott's Cove, where the two designed and built wooden sailing craft together. Hamilton died before they could complete their final project - a 24-foot cedar hull that, unknowingly, anticipated the lines of what would become the classic Bluenose sloop design. **Eelgrass** (Theory) Marine plant found layered with coconut fiber beneath Smith's Cove. Eelgrass (Zostera marina) is a marine flowering plant that was found layered together with coconut fiber beneath the artificial beach at Smith's Cove during the Truro Company's 1851 excavation. The eelgrass and coconut fiber served as filtering layers above a system of five converging stone box drains - an engineered drainage network believed to channel seawater into the Money Pit via underground flood tunnels. While eelgrass is native to Nova Scotian waters (unlike the coconut fiber), its deliberate placement in layers beneath the beach surface indicates human engineering. The combination of local and imported organic materials as filtration media suggests sophisticated construction knowledge. The material has been useful for carbon dating purposes, helping researchers establish timeframes for the construction of Smith's Cove's drainage system. **Emiliano Sacchetti** (Team Member) Italian historical researcher investigating European connections to Oak Island. Emiliano Sacchetti is an Italian documentary film maker and historical researcher who has investigated potential European connections to Oak Island. His work has explored possible links between artifacts found on the island and historical sites in Europe, particularly in relation to the Knights Templar and medieval Mediterranean trade routes. Sacchetti's research has taken the team to sites across Europe in pursuit of the treasure's origins. **Emma Culligan** (Team Member) Lab analyst who performs XRF, CT scanning, and materials analysis on Oak Island artifacts. Emma Culligan is the lab analyst who performs X-ray fluorescence (XRF), CT scanning, and other materials analysis on artifacts recovered from Oak Island. Working from the on-island Interpretive Centre, Culligan identifies the chemical composition, internal structure, and approximate age of metal, ceramic, stone, and organic finds. Her work has dated iron artifacts by their manganese, phosphorus, and potassium content, identified the origin of bricks and mortar samples, and revealed hidden details on coins, buttons, and tools. Since joining the team in Season 11, Culligan has become central to nearly every artifact identification on the show. **Eye of the Swamp** (Location) Circular feature within the Swamp where significant finds have been made. The Eye of the Swamp is a specific circular anomaly identified within the larger triangular Swamp on Oak Island. This feature has been a focus of investigation due to its unusual shape and the concentration of artifacts found in and around it. The team has recovered ship-related materials and other objects from this area, reinforcing the theory that the Swamp once served as a working cove or harbor. **Fellowship of the Dig** (Expedition) Name the team uses for their group, referencing Tolkien. The Fellowship of the Dig is a name used by the Oak Island team for their group, a playful reference to J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Fellowship of the Ring." The name captures the team's sense of shared mission and adventure as they pursue the island's treasure. Like Tolkien's fellowship, the Oak Island team is a diverse group united by a common quest, facing challenges and setbacks while maintaining their commitment to the search. **Fiona Steele** (Team Member) Archaeologist working on Lot 5 and Lot 8 since Season 11; supervised the raising of the 40,000-pound Lot 8 boulder in Season 13. Fiona Steele is an archaeologist who has worked on Oak Island since Season 11 of The Curse of Oak Island, initially as an assistant on Laird Niven’s team excavating the rounded stone foundation on Lot 5. Over multiple seasons her work on Lot 5 has produced artifacts spanning centuries, including a wound glass bead datable to as early as the 1400s, Venetian trade beads, Staffordshire slipware from 1675 to 1770, hand-painted pottery from the 1770s, and coarse earthenware fragments from the 1600s to 1800s. These finds established that significant activity occurred on Lot 5 at least a century before the Money Pit’s 1795 discovery. In Season 13, Steele took a leading role in excavations on Lot 8, where Laird Niven had identified a 40,000-pound boulder resting on an artificially placed ring of support stones. She supervised weeks of careful hand excavation before the boulder was raised by a 130-ton crane, then continued the work on a cradle-shaped stone feature exposed beneath it. Her excavation identified three distinct bonding materials sealing the stones: a fine powder mortar, blue-grey clay similar to Money Pit puddling clay, and a harder cement-like substance at the north end. Lab analysis by Emma Culligan placed the feature between the post-1200s and pre-1800s, possibly medieval. **Flood Tunnels** (Structure) Engineered channels connecting the ocean to the Money Pit, designed to flood it if disturbed. The flood tunnels are a system of underground channels believed to have been engineered to connect the Atlantic Ocean to the Money Pit. When early treasure hunters dug past a certain depth, seawater flooded the shaft at a rate that could not be controlled by pumping. The discovery of these tunnels - apparently designed as booby traps to protect whatever lies below - is one of the strongest arguments that the Money Pit is an engineered structure, not a natural sinkhole. At least two flood tunnel systems have been identified: one from Smith's Cove and another from the island's south shore. **Fort Point** (Location) National Historic Site at LaHave, Nova Scotia, where Isaac de Razilly established the capital of Acadia in 1632 - just 20 miles from Oak Island. Fort Point is a National Historic Site located at the mouth of the LaHave River on Nova Scotia's South Shore. In 1632, Isaac de Razilly built Fort Sainte-Marie-de-Grâce on this headland, defended by 25 cannons, establishing it as the capital of New France. For three years (1632-1635), LaHave served as the seat of French colonial power in North America, placing a major military and engineering operation just 20 miles from Oak Island. The fort was destroyed in 1653 and its ruins have since eroded into the sea. Today the Fort Point Museum occupies the site, housed in a former lighthouse keeper's dwelling, and interprets 400 years of local history from the Mi'kmaq through French colonization to the present day. The proximity of this significant French colonial installation to Oak Island during the 1630s is considered relevant by researchers who note that French naval engineers, craftsmen, and colonists were operating in the immediate vicinity during the timeframe suggested by some artifact dating. **Franklin D. Roosevelt** (Historical Figure) Future US president who invested in Oak Island treasure hunting as a young man in 1909. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who would later serve as the 32nd President of the United States, was an investor in the Old Gold Salvage group that conducted operations on Oak Island beginning in 1909. Roosevelt maintained an interest in the Oak Island mystery throughout his life and kept correspondence about the treasure hunt well into his presidency. His involvement is one of the most notable examples of the mystery's ability to captivate prominent figures. **Fred Nolan** (Historical Figure) Land surveyor who owned lots on Oak Island and discovered Nolan's Cross. Fred Nolan was a Nova Scotia land surveyor and treasure hunter who owned several lots on Oak Island for decades. His most significant contribution was the discovery and documentation of Nolan's Cross - five large boulders arranged in a cross pattern spanning the island. Nolan frequently clashed with other treasure hunters over access and theories. He maintained his own research and excavation efforts until his death in 2016. His son Tom Nolan continues to be involved with the current team. **Frederick Blair** (Historical Figure) Nova Scotia businessman who spent nearly 60 years pursuing the Oak Island treasure, from 1893 until his death in 1951 - the longest individual involvement in the island's history. Frederick Blair (1867-1951) first became involved with Oak Island at age 25 as treasurer of the Oak Island Treasure Company in 1893. What began as a business venture became a lifelong obsession spanning nearly six decades. In 1897, Blair and drilling operator William Chappell made one of the most significant discoveries in Money Pit history: core drilling at 153-155 feet brought up a tiny fragment of parchment bearing what appeared to be the letters "vi" or "wi," written in India ink on sheepskin - evidence suggesting documents, not just gold, lay buried below. The same drilling campaign encountered what became known as the Chappell Vault: a seven-foot-high structure encased in cement containing layers of oak, metal pieces, and soft metal at depth. In 1904, Blair secured an exclusive 40-year treasure trove license on the Money Pit area, effectively controlling who could search and on what terms. He leased rights to a succession of treasure hunters over the decades, including engineer Harry Bowdoin in 1909 (whose investors included a young Franklin D. Roosevelt), William Chappell in 1931, and Gilbert Hedden in 1936. Blair maintained meticulous records and correspondence throughout his involvement - documents that remain an invaluable primary source for Oak Island researchers today. He died in 1951, having never reached the treasure but having done more than anyone to keep the search alive across two world wars and a depression. A treasure map attributed to Blair resurfaced during Season 12 of The Curse of Oak Island, suggesting he may have identified multiple potential treasure locations on the island. **Freemasons** (Theory) The fraternal order whose symbols, rituals, and members are deeply woven into Oak Island's history - both as a theory for who built the Money Pit and as a documented presence among the treasure hunters themselves. The connection between Freemasonry and Oak Island runs on two parallel tracks: the theory that Masons (or their Templar predecessors) created the underground workings, and the documented fact that many of the island's most prominent treasure hunters were themselves Freemasons. The theoretical case rests on striking parallels between the Money Pit and Masonic allegory. The Royal Arch degree tells of a Secret Vault discovered by three sojourners who dig through multiple levels to find a hidden chamber containing an encrypted message - a narrative that mirrors the Oak Island story almost point for point: three boys discover the pit, dig through layered platforms, and encounter a cipher stone. A metal set square found beneath the finger drains at Smith's Cove evokes one of Freemasonry's most recognizable symbols. In 1967, a granite boulder overturned by a bulldozer on the island revealed the letter "G" inscribed in a rectangle on its underside - the Masonic symbol for the Grand Geometer. Markings reportedly carved on the oak tree above the original pit have been interpreted as Masons' Marks. Notably, most of the Masonic symbolism identified on the island corresponds not to the basic Blue Lodge degrees but to the higher York and Scottish Rites. On the historical side, the Masonic connections among the searchers are extensive. Frederick Blair and his attorney R.V. Harris were both Freemasons. Franklin D. Roosevelt, who invested in the 1909 Bowdoin expedition as a young law clerk, was a prominent Mason. Actor John Wayne and explorer Richard Byrd, both passive investors, were members of the fraternity. Jotham McCully, who led the 1849 Truro Company expedition and produced some of the earliest detailed accounts of the Money Pit's construction, was almost certainly a Mason. Skeptics like researcher Joe Nickell have argued that the entire treasure narrative may be an elaborate Masonic allegory - a symbolic "search" carried out by Nova Scotia Freemasons rather than a literal treasure hunt. Others, like author Scott Clarke (a 32nd-degree Scottish Rite Mason and guest expert on The Curse of Oak Island), contend the connections point to genuine Masonic involvement predating the 1795 discovery. **French Naval Treasure** (Theory) Fortress of Louisbourg payroll or French military funds hidden during the Seven Years' War. The French naval treasure theory suggests that French military funds, possibly the payroll for the Fortress of Louisbourg, were hidden on Oak Island during the Seven Years' War (1756-1763). With the British threatening French positions in Nova Scotia, the theory proposes that French officers concealed significant quantities of gold and silver on Oak Island rather than risk their capture. The French had an established presence in the Nova Scotia region and knowledge of its islands. **Funding of the Curse of Oak Island** (Expedition) The Curse of Oak Island TV show funds the search on and off the island. The search for treasure on Oak Island and the historical research to understand what happened there are funded by the advertising income generated by The Curse of Oak Island TV show. The show is broadcasted in dozens of countries to tens of millions of viewers and is the most popular show on The History Channel, generating millions of dollars in revenue. **Gary Drayton** (Team Member) Professional metal detectorist from England; has made many of the team's most significant finds. Gary Drayton is a professional metal detectorist originally from Leicestershire, England, who has become one of the most popular figures on The Curse of Oak Island. Known for his expertise, infectious enthusiasm, and catchphrases like "top-pocket find" and "bobby dazzler," Drayton has been responsible for discovering many of the team's most significant artifacts, including the lead cross at Smith's Cove. His ability to identify and assess finds in the field has made him an indispensable member of the team. **George Anson** (Historical Figure) 18th-century British Admiral of the Fleet who circumnavigated the globe, born at Shugborough Hall - a manor whose mysterious Shepherd's Monument links to both Oak Island and the wider Arcadian mystery. George Anson, 1st Baron Anson (1697-1762) was a celebrated British Royal Navy officer who rose to become Admiral of the Fleet and First Lord of the Admiralty. He is best known for his circumnavigation of the globe (1740-1744), during which he captured a Spanish treasure galleon laden with gold and silver. The immense wealth from this voyage funded extensive renovations to Shugborough Hall, his family's ancestral estate in Staffordshire, where his elder brother Thomas Anson commissioned the mysterious Shepherd's Monument - a mirror-image relief of Nicolas Poussin's "Shepherds of Arcadia" bearing the unsolved Shugborough Inscription (O U O S V A V V). Anson features in multiple Oak Island theories. In Season 4, Episode 13 ("One of Seven"), treasure hunter Gary Clayton proposed that Oak Island's underground structures were constructed by Anson on behalf of the Royal Society - an institution with alleged ties to Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, and the Knights Templar - using a coded celestial map based on calculations from the Royal Greenwich Observatory. In Season 10, Episode 2, researcher Paul Stewart presented evidence that Anson captured French naval captain Chevalier Hoequart and interrogated him about the Duc d'Anville expedition's activities near Mahone Bay, suggesting the British may have subsequently searched for French treasure on Oak Island. Author George Edmunds proposed in "Anson's Gold" (2016) that the Shugborough Inscription encodes the coordinates of an island where Anson buried Spanish treasure. Peter Oberg calculated that the inscription's letters, converted to numbers, sum to 2,810 - the distance in miles from Shugborough to Oak Island's Money Pit. Anson also orchestrated the Battle of Havana (1762), which captured enormous Spanish wealth, leading some theorists to speculate that British military treasure was subsequently hidden on Oak Island. **Gilbert Hedden** (Historical Figure) Businessman who bought much of Oak Island in 1934 and conducted major excavations. Gilbert Hedden was a New Jersey businessman who purchased the eastern end of Oak Island in 1934 after becoming fascinated by the treasure story. He conducted systematic excavations and was one of the first to apply modern engineering principles to the search. Hedden also investigated a possible connection between Oak Island and Captain William Kidd's treasure map. His ownership and research helped keep the Oak Island mystery alive during the mid-20th century. **Ground-Penetrating Radar** (Technology) Uses radar pulses to image subsurface features without digging. Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) is a non-invasive geophysical survey method that uses radar pulses to image structures and features beneath the ground surface. On Oak Island, GPR has been used to map underground anomalies, identify potential voids and tunnels, and guide excavation efforts. The technology is particularly valuable for surveying large areas quickly without disturbing the ground, helping the team decide where to focus expensive drilling operations. **Hammer Grab** (Technology) Heavy steel clamshell bucket used to extract material from inside caissons during deep excavation. A hammer grab is a heavy steel clamshell bucket, typically weighing several tons, that is lowered into a caisson on a crane cable to extract soil, rock, wood, and other material from depth. On Oak Island, the hammer grab is the primary tool for removing spoils from inside the large-diameter steel caissons sunk into the Money Pit area. The grab opens on descent, closes around material at the bottom of the shaft, and is hoisted to the surface where the contents are deposited for screening and metal detection. The weight of the hammer grab itself is sometimes used strategically, as in Season 7 when the team left the 26-ton grab resting on an obstruction overnight to shift it. **Harry Bowdoin** (Historical Figure) New York engineer who led the 1909 Old Gold Salvage expedition - the one that attracted a young FDR - then became Oak Island's first prominent debunker. Captain Henry Livingston Bowdoin was a New York-based engineer and adventurer who founded the Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company in 1909. Incorporated in Arizona with $250,000 in shares at a dollar each, the venture attracted a roster of prominent investors - most notably a 27-year-old law clerk named Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Bowdoin claimed that "with modern methods and machinery, the recovery of that treasure is easy, ridiculously easy." The expedition arrived on Oak Island in August 1909. Operating under a lease from Sophia Sellers and a treasure trove licence held by Frederick Blair, Bowdoin's team drilled multiple holes to depths of 155 to 171 feet, spaced so that anything over two feet square should have been struck. They found cement six to ten inches thick at depths of 146 to 149 feet, but laboratory analysis by Professor Chandler of Columbia University concluded it was natural limestone pitted by water action - not man-made concrete. By November 1909, the team packed up having found no treasure. The aftermath proved more consequential than the dig. On August 19, 1911, Bowdoin published a detailed firsthand account in Collier's Magazine titled "Solving the Mystery of Oak Island," declaring there had never been any treasure. He also examined the famous inscribed stone at Creighton's bookbindery in Halifax, describing it as "basalt type, hard and fine-grained" with no visible symbols - though he was told they had worn off. Blair was furious, responding with a vigorous defence in the Amherst Daily News in February 1912, claiming Bowdoin had written the article in revenge after the two fell out. Bowdoin's scepticism made him the first significant voice to publicly challenge the treasure narrative, a stance that has only gained adherents in the century since. **Hedden Shaft** (Structure) Wood-cribbed shaft built by Gilbert Hedden in 1937 to reach 125 feet in the Money Pit area. The Hedden Shaft is a 12-by-24-foot wood-cribbed structure built by treasure hunter Gilbert Hedden in 1937 to reach a depth of approximately 125 feet in the Money Pit area. The shaft has been repeatedly encountered during modern drilling operations, with its timbers appearing in core samples and caisson spoils. It serves as a key reference point for the team when establishing the position of deeper, older structures beneath it, since anything found below the Hedden Shaft predates the 1937 expedition. **Henry Sinclair** (Historical Figure) Scottish nobleman theorised to have sailed to Nova Scotia with Templar connections in 1398. Prince Henry Sinclair (c. 1345-c. 1400), 1st Earl of Orkney and Baron of Roslin, is a central figure in the Knights Templar theory of Oak Island. According to a controversial interpretation of letters attributed to the Zeno brothers of Venice, Sinclair led a fleet of ships across the Atlantic in 1398 - nearly a century before Columbus. Proponents of this theory connect Sinclair to the Templars through his family's later construction of Rosslyn Chapel near Edinburgh (built by his grandson William Sinclair in 1446), which contains carvings of New World plants that predate Columbus's voyage. The theory proposes that Sinclair carried Templar treasure - possibly including the Holy Grail or the Ark of the Covenant - to Nova Scotia for safekeeping. A carved knight on a rock in Westford, Massachusetts has been interpreted as depicting Sir James Gunn, a Templar who supposedly accompanied Sinclair. However, mainstream historians consider the Zeno narrative to be largely fabricated, and there are no authentic medieval documents confirming any voyage by Sinclair to North America. **Holy Grail Theory** (Theory) The Grail was brought to the New World by Templar or Rosicrucian groups. The Holy Grail theory suggests that the Holy Grail - whether a physical chalice, sacred documents, or a metaphorical treasure - was transported to Oak Island by the Knights Templar, Rosicrucians, or another secret society. This theory often overlaps with Templar and religious artifact theories, and proposes that the elaborate engineering of the Money Pit was designed to protect an object of supreme religious significance. **Holy Shamoley** (Theory) Gary Drayton's catchphrase, and specifically the nickname he gave the lead cross when he found it at Smith's Cove. History Channel even used it as an episode segment title. Metal detection expert Gary Drayton's signature exclamation when making a significant find. The phrase became most famously associated with his discovery of the lead cross at Smith's Cove in Season 5, which was subsequently dated to between 900 and 1300 AD. Drayton later referred to the lead decorative piece found on Lot 21 as "Holy Shamoley: Part 2" after lead isotope analysis confirmed it came from the same French ore deposit as the cross. **Ian Spooner** (Team Member) Acadia University geoscientist; analyzed Swamp core samples showing saltwater intrusion. Dr. Ian Spooner is a geoscientist from Acadia University who has conducted significant scientific analysis on Oak Island, particularly focused on the Swamp. His core sample analysis revealed that the triangular Swamp was once an open saltwater cove and identified a significant saltwater intrusion event dating to the late 1300s or early 1400s. Spooner's work has provided some of the most compelling scientific evidence that the island's landscape was deliberately modified by human activity centuries ago. **Isaac de Razilly** (Historical Figure) French Knight of Malta and lieutenant-general of Acadia who established the capital of New France just 20 miles from Oak Island in 1632. Isaac de Razilly (1587-1635) was a French naval officer, Knight of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem (Knights of Malta), and colonial governor who established the capital of Acadia at LaHave, Nova Scotia - just 20 miles from Oak Island. Born to French nobility at the Château d'Oiseaumelle in Touraine, he was appointed a knight at age 18 and went on to a distinguished naval career, losing an eye at the siege of La Rochelle. In 1626, Cardinal Richelieu consulted Razilly on maritime policy, and in 1632 commissioned him to take possession of Acadia for France under the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Razilly departed from Auray, Brittany, with 300 colonists and arrived at LaHave on September 8, 1632, where he built Fort Sainte-Marie-de-Grâce. For three years, his settlement placed French naval engineers, craftsmen, and soldiers in the immediate vicinity of Oak Island. His status as a Knight of Malta has drawn significant attention from researchers, as it connects the region to medieval military-religious orders. Razilly died suddenly at LaHave in December 1635 at age 48, after which his cousin Charles de Menou d'Aulnay relocated most settlers to Port Royal. **Jack Begley** (Team Member) Team member and close friend of the Laginas; hands-on excavation work. Jack Begley is a team member on The Curse of Oak Island known for his enthusiasm and willingness to do hands-on excavation work. A close friend of the Lagina family, Begley is often among the first to volunteer for physically demanding tasks including descending into shafts and working at the wash table screening spoils for artifacts. **James Pitblado** (Historical Figure) Truro Company drill foreman who in 1849 secretly pocketed something from the Money Pit auger and then tried to buy the island - one of Oak Island's most tantalising unsolved mysteries. James Pitblado was the drilling foreman of the Truro Company during their 1849 expedition to Oak Island. What he did during that summer created one of the enduring mysteries-within-the-mystery that still haunts the Oak Island story. As the pod auger brought up material from deep in the Money Pit, multiple witnesses - including large shareholder John Gammell, whose "veracity could not be questioned" - saw Pitblado take something from the auger, wash it carefully, examine it closely, then slip it into his pocket. When challenged by his fellow crew members, Pitblado refused to reveal the object, saying he would present it at the next directors' meeting. He never appeared. Instead, Pitblado left the island and, together with Charles Dickson Archibald of the Acadia Iron Works in Londonderry, obtained a treasure-hunting licence from the provincial government on August 6, 1849. The pair then attempted to purchase the eastern end of Oak Island where the Money Pit was located, but were refused by the owners. Archibald eventually retired to England; Pitblado vanished from the Oak Island record. What did he pocket? Speculation has ranged from a gold nugget to a gemstone to a piece of worked metal. Archibald's expertise in metallurgy suggests the artifact may have been metallic. Despite the legend claiming Pitblado died shortly after in a railway accident, that was actually his brother John. James Pitblado lived to the age of 81, dying in July 1903, having never publicly revealed what he found. The secret, whatever it was, died with him. **John Smith** (Historical Figure) One of the three boys who helped excavate the original pit in 1795. John Smith was one of three teenagers who participated in the original 1795 discovery and excavation of the Money Pit on Oak Island. Along with Daniel McGinnis and Anthony Vaughan, Smith dug into the mysterious depression and encountered the first log platforms. Smith later acquired property on Oak Island, including the lot containing the Money Pit itself, and remained involved in treasure-hunting activities. **Jotham McCully** (Historical Figure) Manager of the Truro Company and author of the 1862 account that established the foundational narrative of the Money Pit - the man who essentially wrote the Oak Island story as we know it. Jotham Blanchard McCully (1819-1899) was an engineer from Truro, Nova Scotia, who served as manager and drilling engineer for the Truro Company from 1849, and later as secretary of the Oak Island Association in the 1860s. His involvement spanned roughly two decades of active treasure hunting, but his most lasting contribution was literary rather than archaeological. In October 1862, McCully published "The Oak Island Diggings" in the Liverpool Transcript - a detailed response to a sceptical article entitled "The Oak Island Folly." This account was the first comprehensive written narrative of the Money Pit story, and it introduced elements that have defined the legend ever since: the three discoverers named as McGinnis, Smith, and Vaughan; the oak trees standing in triangular formation with letters carved into their bark; the inscribed stone at 80 feet described as "cut square, two feet long and about a foot thick, with several characters on it"; and the detailed layering of the pit itself. McCully also provided the verbatim drilling account that described the auger passing through layers of spruce, oak, and "metal in pieces" - the famous description of what appeared to be two stacked treasure chests. McCully was almost certainly a Freemason; an 1874 letter from a lodge in Truro asks that "Mr McCully" keep the letter after it has been read to members. This has led sceptics like Dennis King to suggest that McCully may have embellished the narrative with Masonic symbolism - either as a fraternal in-joke or as a coded warning to fellow Masons that the treasure hunt was fraudulent. Whatever his motives, McCully's 1862 account became the source text that R.V. Harris, H.L. Bowdoin, and virtually every subsequent writer drew upon. He is, in effect, the man who wrote the Oak Island story into existence. **Judi Rudebusch** (Team Member) Genealogist and researcher contributing historical family and document research. Judi Rudebusch is a genealogist and historical researcher who has contributed valuable family history and documentary research to the Oak Island investigation. Her genealogical work has helped trace the connections between historical figures associated with the island and broader historical events, providing context that supports various theories about who may have originally deposited treasure on Oak Island. **Katya Drayton** (Team Member) Metal detection specialist and team member, working alongside Gary Drayton. Katya Drayton is a metal detection specialist who works alongside Gary Drayton on Oak Island. She has contributed to artifact recovery across multiple areas of the island including the swamp, Lot 8, and the Money Pit spoils. Among her notable finds are a Washington Funeral Medal from 1800 in the northern swamp and multiple iron and copper artifacts near the Lot 8 boulder feature. **Knights Baronets of Nova Scotia** (Theory) A chivalric order created in 1624 to finance Scottish colonization of Nova Scotia, with alleged connections to the Knights Templar and Oak Island. The Knights Baronets of Nova Scotia (also called the Baronetage of Nova Scotia) was a hereditary chivalric order established by King James I in 1624 at the suggestion of Sir William Alexander to finance the colonization of Nova Scotia. Scottish lairds and clan chiefs could purchase baronetcies - each paying 1,000 merks for a barony of 16,000 acres plus 2,000 merks to maintain six soldiers in the colony for two years. A total of 122 baronetcies were eventually sold. Because the colony had not yet been settled, an area of Edinburgh Castle esplanade was legally designated as Nova Scotian soil, allowing baronets to receive symbolic "earth and stone" of their land without crossing the Atlantic. Researcher James McQuiston, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland who has appeared on The Curse of Oak Island (Season 6, Episode 20), argues that approximately 25% of the Knights Baronets had connections to the Knights Templar, and that the order served as a "continuous legacy" of Scottish Templars. His theory proposes that members may have buried Templar treasure on Oak Island in the 1630s. **Knights of Malta** (Theory) Military-religious order whose commander Isaac de Razilly established the capital of Acadia 20 miles from Oak Island in 1632. The Knights of Malta, formally the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, are a military-religious order that succeeded the Knights Hospitaller after the fall of Rhodes in 1522 and the relocation to Malta in 1530. The order's connection to Oak Island centres on Isaac de Razilly, a Knight of Malta who in 1632 established the capital of Acadia at LaHave, just 20 miles from Oak Island, bringing 300 men including naval engineers, craftsmen, and soldiers. A journal kept by his companion Nicolas Denys describes sailing from LaHave to the head of Mahone Bay, where they found an island with large oaks. Two inventories of de Razilly's possessions compiled after his sudden death in 1636 show that several items went missing between Nova Scotia and France, including leather-covered chests. Research by Emiliano Sacchetti in the Vatican archives and Library and Archives Canada has documented the order's sustained presence in the region throughout the 1600s, a period that aligns with carbon dating of multiple swamp and Money Pit features. **Knights Templar Theory** (Theory) Medieval warrior monks allegedly hid sacred treasures on Oak Island after their order was dissolved in 1312. The Knights Templar theory proposes that members of the medieval military order, facing persecution after their dissolution by Pope Clement V in 1312, transported sacred treasures from the Holy Land and Europe to a hidden vault on Oak Island. Supporting evidence includes the lead cross found at Smith's Cove (which matches carvings in the Templar prison at Domme, France), Nolan's Cross formation, and construction dates from the medieval period. The theory suggests the Templars' extensive naval capabilities and knowledge of the New World enabled them to reach Nova Scotia and engineer the elaborate Money Pit protection system. **Lagina Brothers** (Team Member) Rick and Marty Lagina, Michigan brothers who purchased Oak Island in 2006 and lead the most ambitious treasure hunt in the island's history. The Lagina brothers - Rick and Marty - are the driving force behind the current Oak Island treasure-hunting expedition and co-owners of Oak Island Tours Inc. Their journey began with a January 1965 Reader's Digest article about the Money Pit that captivated 11-year-old Rick in their hometown of Kingsford, Michigan. Decades later, Rick convinced his brother Marty - by then a successful engineer and entrepreneur - to turn the childhood dream into reality. In 2006, they acquired a majority interest in Oak Island Tours Inc. alongside partner Craig Tester, launching what has become the longest, most sustained, and best-funded search in the island's 230-year history. The brothers' dynamic is central to both the operation and the television series: Rick is the passionate dreamer who relocated to Nova Scotia to be near the dig, while Marty is the pragmatic engineer who applies analytical rigor and business discipline to every decision. Their complementary strengths - passion and pragmatism, belief and skepticism - have kept the search both inspired and grounded through more than a decade of investigation. The Curse of Oak Island, which premiered on the History Channel on January 5, 2014, has made them the most recognized names in modern treasure hunting. **Laird Niven** (Team Member) Licensed archaeologist overseeing excavation in compliance with Nova Scotia heritage laws. Laird Niven is a licensed archaeologist who oversees excavation activities on Oak Island to ensure compliance with Nova Scotia's heritage protection laws. His presence is required during significant digging operations, and he is responsible for properly documenting and preserving archaeological finds. Niven's professional oversight adds scientific rigor to the treasure hunt and ensures that discoveries are handled according to established archaeological standards. **Lead Cross** (Theory) Medieval lead cross found at Smith's Cove in 2017, traced to a mine in southern France. The Lead Cross is one of the most significant artifacts ever discovered on Oak Island. Found at Smith's Cove in 2017 by metal detection expert Gary Drayton during Season 5 filming, the small lead cross features a distinctive square hole at the top and bears a striking resemblance to carvings found in the Knights Templar prison at Domme, France. Laser ablation isotope testing at the University of New Brunswick determined that the lead originated from a mine in southern France, dating the raw material to the medieval period - potentially pre-15th century. The cross also contains traces of silver. Templar expert Jerry Glover confirmed its similarity to 13th-century designs found in both Domme prison and a church pillar in Whitchurch, Buckinghamshire. Often called "Drayton's Cross," the artifact remains one of the strongest pieces of physical evidence supporting a pre-Columbian European presence on Oak Island. **Lee Lamb** (Team Member) Daughter of treasure hunter Robert Restall, who has visited Oak Island multiple times to honor her family's legacy and contribute to the search. Lee Lamb (née Mildred Lee Restall) is the daughter of treasure hunters Robert and Mildred Restall, and sister of Robert Jr. ("Bobby"), who died alongside their father in the 1965 Oak Island tragedy. As one of two surviving Restall children - her brother Rick Restall being the other - Lee has served as a living connection to one of Oak Island's most pivotal and heartbreaking chapters. She has appeared on The Curse of Oak Island in Seasons 1, 4, and 5, visiting the island to meet with Rick and Marty Lagina and share family artifacts and memories. Her visits typically bring items of historical significance from her family's years living and working on the island, offering the current team insights into earlier excavation efforts and the human cost of the treasure hunt. **LIDAR** (Technology) Laser-based scanning that creates detailed 3D maps of terrain and structures. LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) uses laser pulses to create extremely detailed three-dimensional maps of terrain and structures. On Oak Island, LIDAR scanning has been used to identify surface features that are invisible to the naked eye, including old roads, foundations, and earthworks hidden beneath vegetation. The technology has been particularly useful for mapping the island's topography and identifying potential archaeological sites for investigation. **Lot 15** (Location) Crown land lot on Oak Island where a stone structure identified as a pine tar kiln was excavated. Lot 15 is a parcel of land on Oak Island that was Crown land throughout much of the island's history and was never privately granted. In Season 8, archaeologists excavated a stone structure on Lot 15 that David MacInnes identified as the remains of a pine tar kiln. A broader archaeological survey of the area was subsequently planned. The lot's status as ungranted Crown land has raised questions among researchers about whether authorities knew of activity on the island that warranted keeping the parcel under government control. **Lot 21** (Location) Location near the Money Pit where Gary Drayton has found multiple artifacts. Lot 21 is situated near the Money Pit area and has been extensively surveyed by metal detectorist Gary Drayton. The lot has produced a steady stream of artifact finds including the famous lead cross, coins, and other metal objects. Its proximity to the Money Pit makes it a key area for understanding the full extent of historical activity on the island. **Lot 26** (Location) Eastern lot with stone features and metal detecting finds. Lot 26 is located on the eastern portion of Oak Island and has revealed stone features and various metal artifacts during investigation. The lot's finds contribute to the broader picture of widespread human activity across the island, not limited to the Money Pit area alone. **Lot 5** (Location) Property on the island's western end where coins and artifacts have been found. Lot 5 is located on the western portion of Oak Island and has been a productive area for metal detecting and archaeological investigation. Gary Drayton and the team have recovered numerous artifacts from this lot, including coins, buttons, and other metal objects that suggest significant historical activity predating the 1795 discovery. The lot's distance from the Money Pit suggests the original depositors' activities extended across a wider area of the island than previously thought. **Lot 8** (Location) Samuel Ball's former property; yielded coins and evidence of early habitation. Lot 8 was owned by Samuel Ball, a formerly enslaved man who became one of Oak Island's most prosperous landowners in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Ball acquired multiple lots on the island and became mysteriously wealthy - leading to speculation that he may have discovered treasure. Archaeological investigation of Lot 8 has revealed coins, pottery fragments, and structural foundations suggesting significant activity. The lot remains one of the more intriguing areas of the island due to Ball's unexplained prosperity. **Lots** (Location) Oak Island is divided into 32 lots of approximately four acres each, surveyed by Charles Morris in 1762. The lot system remains in use today and is central to identifying locations on the island, from the Money Pit on Lot 18 to the Swamp spanning Lots 5-8. Nova Scotia Surveyor General Charles Morris divided Oak Island into 32 lots of roughly four acres each, with most lots having water frontage and access to a central common road running the length of the island. This survey, which designated Oak Island as Island No. 28, was unique - no other island in Mahone Bay received such formal subdivision. The lots are numbered 1 through 32, running roughly from east to west. Key locations include: Lot 18, site of the original Money Pit discovery in 1795; Lots 5-8, encompassing much of the Swamp; Lot 21, location of the Garden Shaft and other early excavations; and Lot 25, home to the so-called Hatch. Lot 15 was Crown land throughout much of the island's history and was never privately granted. Ownership of the lots has changed hands many times over 275 years - from the original Shoreham Grant settlers through families like Smith, Graves, and McGinnis, to the Sellers family, Frederick Blair, Triton Alliance, and ultimately Oak Island Tours Inc. Today the Lagina brothers' Michigan Group controls the vast majority of the island, with a few lots held independently. **Lunenburg** (Location) Historic county in Nova Scotia where Oak Island is located, founded in 1753 as a British colonial settlement. Lunenburg County is the administrative region of Nova Scotia that encompasses Oak Island, Mahone Bay, and the surrounding communities including Chester and Western Shore. The town of Lunenburg itself, founded in 1753 by Governor Edward Cornwallis as a settlement for Foreign Protestants, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site celebrated as one of the best surviving examples of a planned British colonial town. Its shipbuilding heritage and proximity to Oak Island - just 30 kilometers away - make it an important reference point in the island's history. The county's early European settlement by French fishermen in the 1750s predates the Oak Island discovery by several decades, and the region's maritime traditions provide essential context for understanding how the island's mystery unfolded. **Mahone Bay** (Location) The bay off Nova Scotia's south shore where Oak Island sits among 360+ islands. Mahone Bay is a large bay on the south shore of Nova Scotia, Canada, containing over 360 islands including Oak Island. The bay was historically known as a haven for pirates and privateers during the 17th and 18th centuries, which contributed to early treasure legends. The name "Mahone" may derive from the French word "mahonne," a type of low-lying boat used by pirates. The bay's sheltered waters and numerous islands made it an ideal location for concealing ships and activities from authorities. **Marie Antoinette's Jewels** (Theory) French royal jewels smuggled to Nova Scotia during the French Revolution. The Marie Antoinette theory proposes that the French queen's jewels and other royal treasures were smuggled out of France during the Revolution (1789-1799) and hidden on Oak Island. Historical records indicate that some of Marie Antoinette's jewels did disappear during the Revolution, and French naval officers had connections to Nova Scotia through the Fortress of Louisbourg. The theory suggests that loyal supporters of the monarchy used existing knowledge of Oak Island to conceal the royal treasures. **Marty Lagina** (Team Member) Brother of Rick Lagina, engineer and entrepreneur; co-leads and co-finances the expedition. Marty Lagina (August 26, 1955) is an engineer, entrepreneur, and co-leader of the Oak Island expedition alongside his brother Rick. A graduate of Michigan Technological University with a degree in mechanical engineering, Marty founded Terra Energy Ltd., a natural gas exploration company in Michigan's Antrim Shale formation, which he later sold. His experience in energy exploration - understanding drilling operations, geological surveys, and managing large-scale subsurface projects - translates directly to the challenges of Oak Island. Marty also owns Mari Vineyards on the Old Mission Peninsula in Traverse City, Michigan. In 2006, he and Rick acquired a majority interest in Oak Island Tours Inc., and Marty's financial resources and engineering discipline have been essential to sustaining what has become the most technologically advanced search in the island's history. Where Rick is the dreamer, Marty is the pragmatist - more skeptical, more data-driven, and the one most likely to question a theory before committing resources. Yet his commitment to the search is no less deep. **Matty Blake** (Team Member) Host of The Curse of Oak Island: Drilling Down and Beyond Oak Island, serving as an embedded investigator with the team since 2015. Matty Blake is an American television host, actor, and writer who has served as the host of The Curse of Oak Island: Drilling Down since its debut in 2015 and subsequently hosted Beyond Oak Island. Known among fans as the "Head Acorn," Blake conducts interviews with the Oak Island team, visiting researchers, and other guests, providing behind-the-scenes context on discoveries and operations. He has been granted extended access to the island and its search operations across multiple seasons. Before his work on the Oak Island franchise, Blake had a career in comedy and television, with appearances in productions including 30 Rock, Boardwalk Empire, and Mystic River. He also hosts The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch: Behind the Gates for the History Channel. **Maynard Kaiser** (Historical Figure) One of six people who died during treasure hunting operations on Oak Island. Maynard Kaiser was one of the six people who lost their lives during treasure-hunting operations on Oak Island. His death contributed to the legend of the Oak Island curse, which states that seven people must die before the treasure is found. The deaths span from 1861 to 1965 and serve as a sobering reminder of the dangers involved in the search. **McGinnis Foundation** (Structure) The stone ruins of Daniel McGinnis' homestead on Lot 21, where the man credited with discovering the Money Pit in 1795 lived until his death in 1827,now an active archaeological site yielding pre-colonial artifacts. The McGinnis Foundation is the name given to the stone remains of the house built by Daniel McGinnis on Lot 21 of Oak Island. McGinnis - also recorded as Donald McInnes in historical documents - is traditionally credited as the young man who discovered the mysterious depression that became known as the Money Pit in the summer of 1795. He lived on the island from the late 1780s until his death in 1827, purchasing multiple lots including Lot 28 (1788), Lot 23 (1790), Lot 27 (1791), and Lot 1 (1794). The foundation itself consists of a stone perimeter outline typical of late 18th-century Nova Scotian homesteads. It sits on Lot 21, on the western portion of the island, and is a regular stop on the official Oak Island guided tours alongside the Money Pit, Borehole 10-X, and Smith's Cove. In Season 2 of The Curse of Oak Island, researcher J. Hutton Pulitzer examined the ruins for clues, and in Season 4, three direct descendants of McGinnis - sisters Joan, Jean, and Joyce McGinnis - visited the island. After Joyce's death in 2017, Joan and Jean returned to inter some of her ashes in the foundation of their ancestor's home. The area around the McGinnis Foundation has proven remarkably productive for metal detecting and archaeological investigation. Finds from Lot 21 include a jeweled brooch featuring cloisonné metalwork that shares an identical lead isotope signature with the famous Smith's Cove lead cross - meaning both objects originated from the same pre-15th-century ore deposits. A French military cap badge, possibly from a grenadier's hat dating to the 1700s, was also unearthed nearby, potentially linking the site to the Duc d'Anville expedition of 1746. Other discoveries include iron swages or tunneling tools used to sharpen rock drills, identified by blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge. In Season 12, a map sketch by 1930s historian William B. Goodwin - based on a lost map owned by treasure hunter Fred Blair - suggested three separate treasure caches on the western side of the island, specifically on Lots 1 and 21, both of which were McGinnis land. This discovery has renewed interest in the area surrounding the foundation as a potential key to the broader mystery. The team's ongoing investigation of Lot 21 continues to raise the question of whether McGinnis chose this specific homestead location by coincidence - or because of what he knew lay beneath the island. **Mel Chappell** (Historical Figure) Son of William Chappell who inherited the Oak Island treasure rights in 1951 and controlled access to the island for decades, leasing rights to successive treasure hunters. Melbourne "Mel" Chappell (c. 1905-1996) first set foot on Oak Island as a young man in 1931, working alongside his father William, uncle Renerick, and cousin Claude during the Chappells Limited expedition. After Frederick Blair's death in 1951, Mel acquired the Oak Island treasure rights and became the gatekeeper of the search for the next several decades. Rather than mounting his own large-scale excavation, Mel controlled who could dig and on what terms, leasing portions of his rights to a series of treasure hunters. Among those who searched under Mel's authority were George Greene in 1955, the Harman brothers in 1958, Robert Restall in the early 1960s, and Robert Dunfield, whose controversial heavy machinery operations in 1965-66 dramatically altered the Money Pit landscape - lowering the surface elevation by roughly 11 feet and forever changing the site's topography. Mel later partnered with Dan Blankenship, and the two became founding members of the Triton Alliance in the late 1960s - the syndicate that would drive the modern era of Oak Island exploration, including the drilling of the famous Borehole 10-X. Mel also rediscovered the stone triangle on the island's south shore in the spring of 1931, a feature originally found by Captain John Welling in 1897 and later relocated again by Amos Nauss during the Hedden expedition in the 1930s. Mel Chappell remained connected to the Oak Island treasure hunt until his death in 1996, having spent over six decades tied to the mystery his father first drilled into. He represents the crucial bridge between the old era of individual prospectors and the modern corporate approach to the search. **Metal Detecting** (Technology) Systematic sweeping with electromagnetic sensors to locate buried metal objects. Metal detecting is the systematic use of electromagnetic sensors to locate metallic objects buried beneath the ground surface. On Oak Island, metal detecting - primarily conducted by expert Gary Drayton - has been one of the most productive methods for finding artifacts. Using professional-grade detectors, Drayton has identified coins, jewelry fragments, iron tools, and other metal objects across multiple lots on the island, many of which have been dated to periods consistent with pre-1795 activity. **Money Pit** (Location) The original treasure shaft discovered in 1795, now the epicenter of all excavation. The Money Pit is the name given to the original shaft discovered on Oak Island in 1795 by teenager Daniel McGinnis and his friends John Smith and Anthony Vaughan. They found a circular depression in the ground beneath a ship's tackle hanging from a tree branch. As they dug, they encountered log platforms at regular 10-foot intervals. Over 230 years, the Money Pit has been the focus of countless excavation attempts, collapsing tunnels, flooding from what appear to be engineered booby traps, and six deaths. Despite millions of dollars invested, the bottom of the original pit has never been definitively reached. The current Lagina-led team has used modern caisson technology to attempt to reach the deepest levels. **Muon Tomography** (Technology) Uses naturally occurring subatomic particles to detect voids underground. Muon tomography is an advanced imaging technique that uses naturally occurring subatomic particles called muons to detect density variations underground. By measuring how muons are absorbed or deflected as they pass through the earth, scientists can identify voids, cavities, and dense objects at depth - similar to how X-rays image the human body. On Oak Island, muon tomography has been deployed to search for underground chambers and tunnels without any excavation. **Nicolas Poussin** (Historical Figure) French Baroque painter (1594-1665) whose painting "The Shepherds of Arcadia" has become central to theories connecting Oak Island to the Knights Templar, Rennes-le-Château, and the Palace of Versailles. Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) was a leading French Baroque painter who spent most of his working life in Rome. His most famous work in the context of Oak Island is the second version of "Et in Arcadia Ego," commonly known as "The Shepherds of Arcadia" (c. 1637-1638), which depicts a woman and three shepherds gathered around a tomb bearing the Latin inscription "Et in Arcadia ego" ("I am also in Arcadia" or "Even in Arcadia, I exist"). The painting was purchased by King Louis XIV in 1685 and brought to the Palace of Versailles, where it reportedly disappeared from public view for a time in the mid-1700s before being relocated to the Louvre in 1806. Poussin's painting gained renewed significance through several interconnected mysteries. Thomas Anson, brother of Admiral George Anson, commissioned a mirror-image relief copy of the painting for the Shepherd's Monument at Shugborough Hall (c. 1748-1763), beneath which the unsolved Shugborough Inscription was carved. The painting also became central to the Rennes-le-Château mystery after a tomb near the French village was found to bear striking resemblance to the one depicted in the work - a connection exploited in "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" (1982) and Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" (2003), both of which suggested Poussin was a member of the secretive Priory of Sion. **Nolan's Cross** (Location) Five large cone-shaped boulders arranged in a cross pattern spanning the island. Nolan's Cross is a formation of five large cone-shaped granite boulders arranged in the shape of a Christian cross, spanning approximately 720 feet across Oak Island. The formation was discovered and documented by surveyor and treasure hunter Fred Nolan. The precision of the placement has led researchers to theorize it may be a Templar marker, a navigational guide, or a coded map pointing to buried treasure. The cross aligns with certain geographic features of the island, and some researchers believe its intersections mark significant underground locations. **Nolan's Cross Theory** (Theory) Five boulders arranged in a cross may encode a map or Templar symbolism. The Nolan's Cross theory builds on Fred Nolan's discovery of five large boulders arranged in a cross pattern across Oak Island. Proponents argue the formation is too precise to be natural and may serve as a Templar marker, a coded map, or a navigational guide pointing to the treasure's location. Various researchers have attempted to decode the cross's geometry, finding potential alignments with other features on the island and connections to Templar symbolism. **Oak Island Association** (Expedition) 1860s syndicate whose operations led to the first death during treasure hunting. The Oak Island Association was a treasure-hunting syndicate active in the 1860s. Their excavation operations marked a significant escalation in the scale of work on the island. Tragically, their activities led to the first death associated with the treasure hunt in 1861, when a worker was killed during pumping operations. This death initiated the legend that would become the Curse of Oak Island. **Oak Island Tours Inc.** (Expedition) Current company controlling the island, majority-owned by Rick and Marty Lagina. Oak Island Tours Inc. is the company that currently holds the treasure trove license and controls treasure-hunting operations on Oak Island. Rick and Marty Lagina purchased a majority stake in the company in 2006, along with their partner Craig Tester. Oak Island Tours manages all excavation operations, research activities, and access to the island. The company's ongoing operations are documented in The Curse of Oak Island television series. **Oak Island Treasure Company** (Expedition) Late 19th-century group that sunk multiple shafts around the Money Pit. The Oak Island Treasure Company operated in the late 19th century and conducted extensive excavation work around the Money Pit area. The company sunk multiple shafts in attempts to reach the treasure from different angles, hoping to bypass the flood tunnel system. Their efforts, while ultimately unsuccessful in reaching the treasure, added to the growing network of tunnels and shafts that have complicated excavation efforts ever since. **Oak Island Treasure Found** (Theory) While no single legendary hoard has been unearthed, over 230 years of searching have produced artifacts spanning 2,300+ years that rewrite the history of European contact with North America. The question "has treasure been found on Oak Island?" depends entirely on how you define treasure. No single chest of gold or cache of jewels has been recovered from the Money Pit. But what has been found may be far more historically significant: a body of physical evidence suggesting that European contact with North America began centuries earlier - and was far more complex - than mainstream history acknowledges. The artifacts recovered from Oak Island span over 2,300 years of human activity. Roman-era coins dated to 100-300 AD are among the oldest finds, raising questions about ancient Mediterranean voyages across the Atlantic. A stone roadway in the Swamp has been carbon-dated to approximately 1200 AD - three centuries before Columbus. Coconut fiber found in the box drains at Smith's Cove, a material not native to Nova Scotia, has been carbon-dated to 1200-1400 AD, pointing to trade networks or voyages that predate the accepted European timeline for the region. The lead cross discovered at Smith's Cove has been linked to carvings found in the Templar prison at Domme in southern France, supporting theories of a medieval Knights Templar presence. Bone fragments recovered from the Money Pit area have yielded DNA with Middle Eastern origins. Portuguese copper coins, 17th-century British artifacts, and a gemstone brooch dating as far back as the 14th century collectively paint a picture of repeated visits to the island by different groups across different centuries. Rather than a single buried treasure, Oak Island appears to hold something potentially more valuable: physical proof of a hidden chapter in the history of transatlantic contact - one that challenges conventional timelines and connects the island to the Knights Templar, Portuguese explorers, the French military, and possibly civilizations far older. The search continues, and the team has recovered thousands of artifacts to date. **Oak Platforms** (Structure) Log platforms found at 10-foot intervals in the original Money Pit shaft. The oak platforms are layers of oak logs found at regular 10-foot intervals in the original Money Pit shaft by the first excavators in 1795 and subsequent teams. These platforms, placed at depths of 10, 20, 30 feet and beyond, are one of the earliest and most consistent pieces of evidence that the Money Pit was deliberately engineered rather than being a natural formation. Between some platforms, searchers reported finding layers of putty, charcoal, and coconut fiber. **Old Gold Salvage Group** (Expedition) The 1909 treasure-hunting company whose shareholders included a young Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company was an Oak Island treasure-hunting syndicate formed in 1909 by Captain Henry L. Bowdoin, a New York engineer. The company had $250,000 in authorised capital sold in $1 shares, with Bowdoin as president and Frederick Blair as vice president. Its most notable shareholder was a young law clerk named Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who would go on to become the 32nd President of the United States. Roosevelt was drawn to Oak Island partly through family connections - his grandfather Warren Delano Jr. had been a shareholder of the earlier Truro Company. In August 1909, the team arrived on Oak Island and sent divers down into the Money Pit, which had been cleared to 113 feet. They also investigated Smith's Cove, revealing an 1850 cofferdam but finding no treasure. After disagreements over the treasure trove license, Bowdoin and Roosevelt discontinued their excavation. Roosevelt continued to monitor Oak Island developments throughout his entire political career, including his presidency, until his death in 1945. **Onslow Company** (Expedition) First organized expedition in 1804; dug to 90 feet before flooding defeated them. The Onslow Company was the first organized treasure-hunting expedition on Oak Island, formed around 1804 by investors from the Onslow area of Nova Scotia. Building on the earlier efforts of McGinnis, Smith, and Vaughan, the company dug the Money Pit to a depth of approximately 90 feet, encountering log platforms every 10 feet along with layers of charcoal, putty, and coconut fiber. At around 90 feet, they reportedly found a stone inscribed with mysterious symbols. Shortly after, the shaft catastrophically flooded with seawater, defeating their efforts and revealing the flood tunnel booby trap system. **Oscillator Drilling** (Technology) Sonic drilling method that vibrates a steel casing into the ground. Oscillator drilling is a sonic drilling technique that uses high-frequency vibration to drive a steel casing into the ground. Unlike traditional rotary drilling, which can destroy materials it encounters, oscillator drilling provides a gentler extraction method that better preserves artifacts and structural materials found at depth. This technology has been employed on Oak Island to sink caissons and extract material from the Money Pit area with minimal disturbance. **Overton Stone** (Location) A carved glacial boulder near Overton, Nova Scotia, bearing symbols that some researchers link to Portuguese Templar explorers. The Overton Stone is a large glacial boulder located on the Atlantic coast near Overton, Nova Scotia, approximately 140 miles southwest of Oak Island. Discovered around 2009 by local resident Beverly Wells-Pinkney, its face bears carvings that include a stylized Christian cross within a circle, a pair of crossed tobacco leaves, an eagle feather, and a crescent moon. Historian Terry Deveau, who introduced the stone to Rick Lagina and Charles Barkhouse in Season 3, Episode 4 ("The Overton Stone"), believes the carvings may commemorate a friendship treaty between Portuguese explorers and the local Mi'kmaq people. The cross bears resemblance to the padrão crosses carved by Portuguese explorers during the Age of Discovery, which were themselves variants of the Order of Christ Cross - the symbol of the Portuguese Order of Christ, a continuation of the Knights Templar in Portugal. If authentic, the stone would place Templar-connected Portuguese explorers in Nova Scotia, strengthening theories about a pre-Money Pit European presence in the region. **Paul Troutman** (Team Member) Treasure hunter and team member bringing hands-on experience and deep island knowledge. Paul Troutman is a treasure hunter and dedicated team member on The Curse of Oak Island. He brings hands-on excavation experience and a deep knowledge of the island's history to the team's operations. Troutman is frequently involved in fieldwork and has contributed to numerous discoveries during the current era of investigation. **Paved Area** (Location) Man-made stone surface in the swamp measuring roughly 80 by 170 feet, dated to approximately 1200 AD. The Paved Area is a large man-made stone surface discovered in the triangle-shaped swamp on Oak Island. Measuring roughly 80 by 170 feet, nearly half an acre, the feature consists of uniform rocks set into clay with no natural gravel between them. Geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner proved the surface was man-made by demonstrating that wood crushed beneath the stones could not have been deposited by a glacier, as no trees existed during glacial periods. Radiocarbon dating of tree branches embedded beneath the stones returned dates of approximately 1200 AD. Archaeologist Aaron Taylor, Dr. Spooner, and multiple other experts from separate disciplines have all independently confirmed the feature as human construction. The paved area may have served as a working platform for heavy transport, consistent with the wheeled cart tracks found at Fortress Louisbourg. **Peacock** (Structure) An area roughly 40 feet northeast of the Money Pit where underground water tests have detected gold and silver for years, believed to contain a possible offset treasure chamber. The Peacock is a zone in the Money Pit area, approximately 40 to 45 feet northeast of the Top Pocket Find shaft, named by Marty Lagina. It is defined by a column of heavily disturbed, unconsolidated soil between roughly 55 and 150 feet that geologist Terry Matheson has been unable to explain geologically, sitting directly above the solution channel at approximately 170 feet. Underground water testing by Dr. Ian Spooner and Dr. Christa Michael has for years detected gold, silver, and other precious metals emanating from this zone. During Season 13 core drilling, the team discovered a ten-foot void at 150 feet in the Peacock, and an underwater camera captured images of possible man-made artifacts including metallic objects, leading the team to believe it may contain an offset treasure chamber once connected to the original Money Pit. Bedrock in the Peacock area sits at 211 feet, with the solution channel extending upward to approximately 165 feet. The Peacock-1 caisson, a seven-foot-diameter steel shaft, was the third large-scale excavation of Season 13. **Peter Fornetti** (Team Member) Rick Lagina's nephew; team member involved in hands-on exploration. Peter Fornetti is Rick Lagina's nephew and a member of the Oak Island team. He has participated in many aspects of the search including fieldwork, artifact recovery, and research activities. As part of the extended Lagina family, Fornetti represents the broader family commitment to solving the Oak Island mystery. **Phoenician/Roman Theory** (Theory) Ancient Mediterranean peoples reached Nova Scotia, supported by Roman-era coin finds. The Phoenician/Roman theory proposes that ancient Mediterranean peoples - Phoenician traders or Roman legions - crossed the Atlantic and reached Nova Scotia thousands of years before the Vikings. This theory is supported by the discovery of Roman-era coins on Oak Island dated to 100-300 AD, which are among the oldest artifacts found on the island. While mainstream historians consider pre-Viking trans-Atlantic contact unlikely, the coin finds and other ancient artifacts keep this theory alive among researchers. **Pirate Treasure Theory** (Theory) Captain Kidd, Blackbeard, or other pirates buried plunder on the island. The pirate treasure theory suggests that one or more notorious pirates - including Captain William Kidd, Edward Teach (Blackbeard), or Henry Every - used Oak Island to cache their plunder. Mahone Bay was known as a pirate haven in the 17th and 18th centuries, and several historical pirates operated in the region. However, skeptics note that the engineering complexity of the Money Pit and its flood tunnel system far exceeds what any individual pirate crew would likely have constructed. **Port Royal** (Location) First permanent European settlement in Canada, established in 1605 near present-day Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia - the capital of Acadia for over a century. Port Royal was founded in 1605 by Pierre Dugua de Mons and Samuel de Champlain on the shores of the Annapolis Basin in what is now Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia. It served as the first successful permanent European settlement in Canada and the capital of the French colony of Acadia for most of the next 150 years. Control of Port Royal changed hands between France, Scotland, and England numerous times - enduring thirteen attacks, more than any other place in North America. In 1621, King James I granted the territory to Sir William Alexander as "Nova Scotia," and Scottish settlers briefly occupied the site (1629-1632). After the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye returned Acadia to France in 1632, Isaac de Razilly took possession and his successor Charles de Menou d'Aulnay relocated colonists from LaHave to Port Royal. The British finally captured it permanently in 1710, renaming it Annapolis Royal. Port Royal's role as the colonial nexus of power, trade, and military operations in the region provides essential historical context for understanding who may have had the means and motive to construct the works on Oak Island. **Portuguese Connection** (Theory) Theory linking Portuguese explorers and the Order of Christ to pre-Columbian activity. The Portuguese connection theory proposes that Portuguese explorers and members of the Order of Christ (the successor organization to the Knights Templar in Portugal) reached Nova Scotia before Columbus's voyages to the Americas. Supporting evidence includes Portuguese copper coins found on the island, the presence of the explorer João Álvares Fagundes in the region in the early 1500s, and connections between the Order of Christ's navigational knowledge and the engineering found on Oak Island. Research by Corjan Mol and others has investigated Portuguese sites in Europe for connections to Oak Island artifacts. **Prometheus Entertainment** (Expedition) Television production company behind The Curse of Oak Island and its spin-offs Beyond Oak Island and Tales from Oak Island. Prometheus Entertainment is the Los Angeles-based television production company responsible for The Curse of Oak Island TV series and its spin-offs. Founded by the late Kevin Burns, who passed away in September 2020, the company has produced the Oak Island series since its premiere in 2014, growing it into one of the History Channel's highest-rated programs. Under Burns's vision, the show combined documentary-style storytelling with real-time treasure hunting, attracting millions of viewers weekly across 79 countries. Burns was instrumental in key creative decisions including hiring narrator Robert Clotworthy and developing the show's signature blend of mystery, history, and science. Following Burns's death, his production team - including Joe Lessard, Dave Comtois, and Kim Egan - has continued his legacy. The company also produces Beyond Oak Island, a spin-off exploring treasure hunts worldwide. **R.V. Harris** (Historical Figure) Halifax lawyer, 33rd-degree Freemason, and author of The Oak Island Mystery (1958) - the book that defined how the story was told to the world. Reginald V. Harris was a prominent Halifax lawyer whose friendship with Frederick Blair and deep involvement in Oak Island affairs made him the single most influential narrator of the treasure story. His book The Oak Island Mystery, first published in 1958 at Blair's urgent request, was the first comprehensive account of the island's history and remained the definitive reference work for decades. A revised second edition followed in 1967. Harris's access to primary sources was unmatched. As Blair's personal attorney and confidant, he had direct access to decades of correspondence, expedition records, drilling logs, and personal notes that no other writer could obtain. His meticulous documentation of events from the 1795 discovery through the mid-twentieth century established the narrative framework that virtually every subsequent author, including D'Arcy O'Connor and Randall Sullivan, built upon. Harris was also a 33rd-degree Freemason, a detail that has not escaped the attention of researchers investigating Masonic connections to Oak Island. He donated core samples from the island to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax - a choice some view as deliberate preservation, others as an attempt to hide evidence in plain sight at a museum unlikely to attract Oak Island researchers. Whether Harris shaped the story faithfully or selectively remains debated, but his influence on the Oak Island narrative is beyond question. **Reader's Digest Article** (Expedition) The January 1965 article about Oak Island that inspired the Lagina brothers. The Reader's Digest article refers to a story published in the January 1965 edition of the popular magazine that would ultimately change the course of Oak Island history. The article about the island's enduring treasure mystery captivated readers across North America, including an eleven-year-old Rick Lagina in Michigan. The story ignited a lifelong fascination that Rick shared with his brother Marty. Decades later, in 2006, the brothers purchased 50% of Oak Island Tours from David Tobias and began their own systematic search. The same article also proved pivotal for Dan Blankenship, who read it and immediately told his wife about it - she reportedly responded, "So what?" Blankenship was undeterred, and by 1967 had formed a syndicate to explore the island, eventually dedicating over 50 years of his life to the search. The Reader's Digest article thus served as the catalyst that brought together two of Oak Island's most important modern treasure-hunting figures. **Rick Lagina** (Team Member) Co-leader of the current Oak Island expedition; dreamed of searching since reading about it as a boy in 1965. Rick Lagina (January 25, 1952) is the co-leader of the current Oak Island treasure-hunting expedition and co-owner of Oak Island Tours Inc. Born and raised in Kingsford, Michigan, Rick first became captivated by the Oak Island mystery as an 11-year-old after reading a January 1965 Reader's Digest article about the Money Pit. A retired United States Postal Service worker, Rick spent decades nurturing the dream of searching Oak Island before convincing his brother Marty to pursue it seriously. In 2006, the brothers purchased a controlling interest in Oak Island Tours Inc. Rick eventually relocated to Nova Scotia to be closer to the dig, a testament to his commitment. On the show and on the island, Rick is widely regarded as the emotional heart of the operation - the dreamer whose philosophical reflections on the meaning of the search often resonate as deeply as any artifact. His determination has kept the team focused through seasons of setbacks, and his genuine belief in the mystery inspires both the team and millions of viewers worldwide. **Robert Clotworthy** (Team Member) Voice actor and narrator of The Curse of Oak Island and Ancient Aliens. Robert Clotworthy (born October 24, 1955) is an American voice actor and narrator best known as the distinctive voice behind The Curse of Oak Island and Ancient Aliens on the History Channel. A Los Angeles native, Clotworthy was inspired to pursue voice acting by his father, a radio commercial producer who introduced him to legendary voice talent including Mel Blanc and Jerry Stiller. His narration style - authoritative yet approachable - has made catchphrases like "Could it be?" a beloved part of the Oak Island fan experience. Producer Kevin Burns, who created both shows, was so pleased with Clotworthy's delivery on Ancient Aliens that he made him the narrator for Oak Island as well. Clotworthy has narrated over 200 episodes across both series. Beyond narration, he is known for voicing Jim Raynor in Blizzard's StarCraft franchise, narrating the Emmy-nominated documentary Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy for George Lucas, and appearing in American Sniper alongside Clint Eastwood. He is also a master of the Chinese martial art Kung Fu San Soo. **Robert Dunfield** (Historical Figure) Geologist who conducted massive bulldozing operations on the island in the 1960s. Robert Dunfield was a geologist from California who obtained a lease on the Money Pit area in 1965. He took a dramatically different approach to the treasure hunt, using heavy construction equipment to excavate a massive open pit. His bulldozing operations permanently altered the landscape around the Money Pit and destroyed much of the archaeological context. The causeway connecting Oak Island to the mainland was built to bring his heavy machinery onto the island. While his methods were controversial, his geological observations contributed to understanding the island's subsurface. **Robert Restall** (Historical Figure) Treasure hunter who died along with three others in a Money Pit shaft in 1965. Robert Restall was a former carnival daredevil who moved his family to Oak Island in 1959 to search for the treasure. On August 17, 1965, Restall was overcome by carbon monoxide or hydrogen sulfide fumes while working in a shaft near the Money Pit. His son Bobby Restall and two other men - Karl Graeser and Cyril Hiltz - died attempting to rescue him. The tragedy was the most devastating incident in Oak Island's history and brought the death toll to four of the prophesied seven. **Samuel Ball** (Historical Figure) Former slave turned landowner on Oak Island; allegedly became mysteriously wealthy. Samuel Ball was a formerly enslaved man who fought for the British during the American Revolution and subsequently received a land grant in Nova Scotia. He acquired multiple lots on Oak Island, including Lot 8, and became one of the area's most prosperous landowners. His unexplained wealth - unusual for a farmer of his era and background - has led to speculation that he may have discovered some form of treasure on the island. Archaeological investigation of his properties has revealed coins and artifacts that deepen the mystery. **Samuel de Champlain** (Historical Figure) French explorer and cartographer who mapped the Nova Scotia coast in 1604, including the LaHave area near Oak Island. Samuel de Champlain (c. 1567-1635) was a French navigator, cartographer, and explorer known as the "Father of New France." In 1604, he co-led an expedition with Pierre Dugua de Mons to establish the first French colony in Acadia, initially settling on Saint Croix Island before relocating to Port Royal (present-day Annapolis Royal) in 1605. During these early voyages, Champlain mapped the Nova Scotia coastline including the LaHave area - naming it Port de La Hève after Cap de la Hève in France - placing him in the waters near Mahone Bay and Oak Island. He later founded Quebec City in 1608. Champlain's detailed charts of the region are among the earliest European maps of the Nova Scotia coast and provide important historical documentation of the area surrounding Oak Island decades before the earliest artifact dates. In 1607, Champlain reportedly found an old, moss-covered cross near Advocate, Nova Scotia, which some attribute to earlier Portuguese explorer João Álvares Fagundes. **Scott Barlow** (Team Member) Drilling expert and key operations team member. Scott Barlow is a drilling expert who plays a key role in the Oak Island operations team. His expertise in core drilling and caisson operations has been essential to the team's deep excavation campaigns targeting the Money Pit and surrounding areas. **Seismic Testing** (Technology) Measures underground shock waves to map geological layers and anomalies. Seismic testing involves generating controlled shock waves and measuring how they travel through underground materials. Different geological layers and man-made structures reflect and refract seismic waves differently, allowing scientists to create maps of subsurface features. On Oak Island, seismic surveys have helped identify potential tunnels, voids, and changes in geological composition that may indicate human engineering. **Shaft 6** (Structure) One of several historical shafts sunk around the Money Pit area. Shaft 6 is one of numerous historical shafts excavated around the Money Pit area over the past two centuries. Like other satellite shafts, it was dug in an attempt to reach the treasure from a lateral angle, bypassing the flood tunnel system. The proliferation of shafts in the Money Pit area has created a complex underground maze that complicates modern excavation efforts. **Shakespeare Manuscripts Theory** (Theory) Theory that Francis Bacon hid original Shakespeare manuscripts in the Money Pit. The Shakespeare manuscripts theory proposes that Sir Francis Bacon, whom some believe was the true author of Shakespeare's plays, concealed the original manuscripts in the Money Pit. Proponents argue that Bacon had the means, motive, and connections to engineer such a hiding place, and that the manuscripts would represent one of the most significant literary discoveries in history. The theory gained traction in the 19th century during the height of the Bacon-Shakespeare authorship debate. **Sir Francis Bacon** (Historical Figure) English philosopher, statesman, and cryptographer (1561-1626) whose alleged authorship of Shakespeare's works and experiments with mercury preservation form the basis of a prominent Oak Island theory. Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was an English philosopher, scientist, statesman, and cryptographer who served as Lord Chancellor of England. Devotees known as "Baconians" contend he was the true author of Shakespeare's plays and other contemporary literary works - a theory first proposed in the mid-19th century and developed by researchers including Penn Leary, whose 1953 book "The Oak Island Enigma" was the first to suggest Bacon's original manuscripts might be buried beneath Oak Island. The theory rests on several intriguing connections: Bacon was a master of ciphers and codes, which could link him to the enigmatic inscribed stone found in the Money Pit; he developed techniques for preserving documents in mercury, which aligns with the empty mercury-traced flasks discovered during early Money Pit searches; and a piece of parchment recovered from the pit in 1897 has been cited as potential evidence of buried manuscripts. Bacon's protégé Thomas Bushell (c. 1593-1674) was an experienced mining engineer who successfully recovered flooded mines using Cornish miners - skills directly applicable to constructing the Money Pit's sophisticated drainage system. Bacon is also connected to Shugborough Hall, site of the mysterious Shepherd's Monument and its unsolved inscription, which links to the wider network of mysteries including Rennes-le-Château and the Knights Templar. Norwegian researcher Petter Amundsen expanded the theory in Season 1, Episode 4, arguing that coded messages in Shakespeare's First Folio point to Oak Island. Author Randall Sullivan further explored the connection in Season 6, Episode 13 ("The Paper Chase"), noting that a book of Bacon's philosophical writings references seas, pits, water, and shafts - bearing resemblance to the Money Pit's booby traps. Some researchers have even suggested Bacon was the secret son of Queen Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley. **Sir William Alexander** (Historical Figure) Scottish courtier who received the royal charter for Nova Scotia in 1621 and created the Knights Baronets to finance Scottish colonization. Sir William Alexander, 1st Earl of Stirling (c. 1577-1640), was a Scottish poet, courtier, and colonial entrepreneur who obtained the royal charter for Nova Scotia ("New Scotland") from King James I in 1621. Granted all territory between New England and Newfoundland, Alexander devised the Knights Baronets of Nova Scotia scheme to finance colonization - selling hereditary titles to Scottish lairds and clan chiefs. His son, also William Alexander, brought 70 Scottish settlers to Port Royal in 1629, where they established Charles Fort. This brief Scottish occupation ended in 1632 when the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye returned Acadia to France. Researcher James McQuiston, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland who has appeared on The Curse of Oak Island, theorizes that Alexander and members of the Knights Baronets may have buried treasure on or near Oak Island in the 1620s-1630s, connecting a massive treasure known to have been stolen in Scotland in 1622 to a "secret estate" believed to have been built at New Ross, just 20 miles from Oak Island. **Smith's Cove** (Location) Beach on the east side of Oak Island where artificial drains and structures have been found. Smith's Cove is a beach area on the eastern shore of Oak Island that has yielded some of the mystery's most compelling evidence of human engineering. In 1850, the Truro Company discovered an elaborate system of box drains beneath the beach, made of carefully placed stones covered with eel grass and coconut fiber - materials not native to Nova Scotia. These drains appear to channel seawater into the flood tunnel system protecting the Money Pit. Later investigations revealed additional structures including the U-shaped structure (possibly a wharf or slipway), a slipway, and stone walls. Multiple cofferdams have been built at Smith's Cove over the centuries to hold back the ocean during excavation. **Solution Channel** (Theory) Natural geological passage in bedrock dissolved by underground water flow. A solution channel is a natural geological formation created when underground water gradually dissolves soluble bedrock - in Oak Island's case, the anhydrite and gypsum layers beneath the island. These channels form passages and voids through which water flows freely. The discovery of solution channels beneath the Money Pit area has been both illuminating and controversial. Some researchers argue that these natural formations could explain the persistent flooding that has plagued treasure hunters for over two centuries, potentially without the need for the legendary man-made "flood tunnels." Others maintain that the original builders may have exploited existing solution channels, incorporating them into an engineered water management system. The presence of solution channels also raises the possibility that any deposited treasure could have been displaced by water movement over centuries. The debate over natural geology versus human engineering remains one of the central questions of Oak Island research. **Sophia Sellers** (Historical Figure) Oak Island farmer whose ox fell into a sinkhole in 1878, revealing the Cave-in Pit - one of the most important accidental discoveries in the island's history. In 1878, Sophia Sellers (née Graves) was ploughing a field on Oak Island's eastern end when the ground suddenly gave way beneath her team of oxen. One animal plunged into a well-like hole roughly eight feet in diameter and up to fifteen feet deep. A heavy wooden tripod was erected over the shaft to haul the ox out, and the hole was filled with boulders. The sinkhole, located approximately 350 feet east of the Money Pit and 170 feet from Smith's Cove, became known as the Cave-in Pit. Its position - directly on the line between Smith's Cove and the Money Pit - convinced treasure hunters that it was a collapsed air shaft or ventilation tunnel used during the original construction of the flood tunnel system. When Frederick Blair later drilled into the Cave-in Pit, pick marks were visible on the hard clay walls, and oak timbers were found at depths of 62 and 100 feet - evidence that pointed to deliberate construction rather than a natural sinkhole. Sophia was the daughter of Anthony Graves, one of Oak Island's early landowners. She and her husband leased portions of their land to successive treasure-hunting syndicates, including the Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company in 1909. She remains one of the very few women named in Oak Island's 230-year history, and her accidental discovery provided a crucial piece of physical evidence that the island's underground workings extended far beyond the Money Pit itself. **South Shore Cove** (Location) Cove on the island's south side with evidence of historic activity. South Shore Cove is an area along Oak Island's southern coastline that has shown evidence of historical human activity. Investigation of this area has contributed to the understanding that the original depositors likely used multiple access points around the island for their operations. **Spoils Screening** (Technology) Washing and sifting excavated material through screens to find small artifacts. Spoils screening is the process of washing and sifting excavated material through progressively finer screens to recover small artifacts that might otherwise be missed. On Oak Island, material brought up from drilling and caisson excavation is run through a wash table where team members carefully inspect the spoils for fragments of wood, metal, bone, pottery, and other materials. This painstaking process has yielded many important finds including bone fragments with Middle Eastern DNA. **Steve Guptill** (Team Member) Surveyor who maps every discovery, borehole, and feature on Oak Island using GPS. Steve Guptill is the surveyor responsible for recording the precise GPS coordinates of virtually every discovery, borehole, structure, and feature on Oak Island. His measurements have been essential to establishing spatial relationships between finds, including the alignment of swamp survey stakes, the geometry of Nolan's Cross, and the positioning of Money Pit boreholes. Guptill's data underpins the team's decision-making on where to drill, dig, and investigate, and his seasonal mapping summaries have helped establish construction timelines across the island. **Stone Roadway** (Structure) Paved stone surface found in the Swamp, carbon-dated to approximately 1200 AD. The Stone Roadway is a carefully constructed paved surface discovered during excavation of the Swamp. Carbon dating of organic material associated with the roadway placed its construction around 1200 AD - centuries before the European settlement of Nova Scotia and the 1795 Money Pit discovery. The roadway's existence suggests organized activity on Oak Island during the medieval period, consistent with theories involving the Knights Templar or other pre-Columbian European visitors. **Stone Triangle** (Structure) Equilateral triangle of beach stones on the south shore, first found in 1897 and used as a survey marker. The Stone Triangle is an equilateral formation of round beach stones discovered on Oak Island's south shore, with each side measuring ten feet. First found by Captain John Welling in 1897, it was relocated by Amos Nauss during Gilbert Hedden's 1937 expedition. The triangle featured a medial line connecting its base to its apex and a curved line of stones connecting the base corners, giving the whole formation the outline of a sextant. Hedden discovered that the sight line from the triangle through two drilled granite boulders near Smith's Cove aligned precisely, and that distances between the features matched bearings on a map attributed to Captain Kidd. The formation was destroyed during Robert Dunfield's bulldozing operations in the 1960s but had been surveyed and photographed beforehand. **Survey Stakes** (Theory) Hand-cut wooden stakes found across the Oak Island swamp, carbon-dated to the 1600s. The survey stakes are shaped wooden points found throughout the triangle-shaped swamp on Oak Island, sharpened by axe blows that produce a series of flat facets converging to a tip. Fred Nolan first recovered stakes when he drained the swamp in 1969. Subsequent excavations by the Lagina team have produced stakes from the southeastern cobblestone path, the northern swamp near the brick-and-slate vault, and the western swamp. Every stake subjected to radiocarbon analysis has returned a date in the 17th century; no stake has been directly dated earlier than 1600. Early recoveries showed six distinct cuts, while from Season 13 onward the show began describing the stakes as octagonal, though the physical evidence suggests irregular faceted shaping rather than a precision cross-section. Confirmed spacing between stakes along the cobblestone path measured 14 feet, and stakes across multiple locations were found at a consistent elevation of roughly one and a half feet above sea level. The stakes establish organised construction activity in the swamp during the 1600s, by people working to a surveyed layout rather than at random. **Swamp Ship** (Theory) A 200-foot ship-shaped anomaly detected beneath Oak Island's triangular swamp. The Swamp Ship refers to a roughly 200-foot-long anomaly detected beneath the triangular swamp on Oak Island via seismic survey conducted by Eagle Canada during Season 6. The shape of the anomaly bears a resemblance to the profile of a sailing vessel, lending credibility to the long-held theory - championed by the late treasure hunter Fred Nolan - that a ship was deliberately scuttled and buried in the swamp. Evidence supporting the theory includes the recovery of worked wood with treenails, an iron bracket dated to 1710-1790 that blacksmith expert Carmen Legge identified as a ship's bracket that had been in a fierce fire, iron spikes consistent with galleon construction, and a wooden ship's railing carbon-dated to the 7th or 8th century. Geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner has determined that the swamp is only three to four hundred years old and was likely dry land before being deliberately flooded. During a Season 11 research trip to a Viking Ship Museum in Iceland, the team noted the similarity between a reconstructed Viking cargo vessel and the swamp evidence, raising the possibility of a Norse connection. **Terry Deveau** (Team Member) Nova Scotia historian and antiquities researcher who serves as historical consultant on the Oak Island project. Terry Deveau is a Nova Scotia-based historian, senior scientist in ocean acoustics at Jasco Applied Sciences, and former president of the New England Antiquities Research Association (NEARA), where he served from 2012 to 2018. He holds a BSc in mathematics and a diploma in engineering from Saint Mary's University in Halifax, and an MS in acoustics from Penn State University. His French Acadian ancestors have lived in the Maritime Provinces since about 1690, and he has spent decades exploring and documenting stone structures, petroglyphs, and other lithic features across Nova Scotia. On The Curse of Oak Island, Deveau has appeared as a recurring consultant since Season 3. He identified the Overton Stone as bearing a cross consistent with Portuguese padrao markers and proposed it commemorates a treaty between Portuguese explorers and the Mi'kmaq. He assessed the stone road in the Oak Island swamp as consistent with European construction techniques from the 1500s, predating French and British colonial practices in Nova Scotia. He has also examined core samples from Money Pit boreholes, carved stones from the Oak Island museum, and a carved boulder at Peggy's Cove he interpreted as a Mi'kmaq depiction of Glooscap. His work has connected multiple Oak Island finds to Portuguese activity in the region between 1500 and 1583. **Terry Matheson** (Team Member) Geoscientist who provides analysis of geological and material findings. Terry Matheson is a geoscientist who provides expert analysis of geological samples and material findings from Oak Island. His scientific assessments help the team understand the composition, age, and significance of materials recovered during drilling and excavation operations. **The Baby Blob** (Structure) Smaller subsurface anomaly detected near the main Money Pit target. The Baby Blob is the informal name given by the team to a smaller subsurface anomaly detected near the main target area beneath the Money Pit. Identified through drilling and scanning technology, it represents one of several underground features that the team has targeted for investigation using caisson excavation. **The Big Dig** (Expedition) Major excavation campaign using large caissons to reach the Money Pit's deepest levels. The Big Dig refers to the team's most ambitious excavation campaign, using progressively larger caissons to reach the deepest levels of the Money Pit. This multi-season effort represents the culmination of years of research, drilling, and planning, with the goal of finally reaching the original deposit chamber. The Big Dig has employed the largest caissons ever used on Oak Island, penetrating through centuries of collapsed tunnels and previous searcher shafts to reach virgin ground at depth. **The Causeway** (Location) 200-meter road connecting Oak Island to the mainland, built in 1965. The Causeway is a 200-meter road connecting Oak Island to Crandall's Point on the Nova Scotia mainland. It was constructed in 1965 by Robert Dunfield to bring heavy excavation machinery onto the island. Before the causeway, all access to Oak Island was by boat. The causeway fundamentally changed operations on the island, enabling large-scale mechanical excavation that continues to this day. **The Cofferdam** (Structure) Barrier walls built at Smith's Cove to hold back the ocean during excavation. A cofferdam is a watertight enclosure pumped dry to allow construction or excavation work below the waterline. Multiple cofferdams have been built at Smith's Cove over the centuries by various treasure-hunting groups, including the current Lagina team. These temporary barriers hold back the ocean to allow investigation of the box drains, flood tunnels, and other structures buried beneath the beach. The construction and maintenance of cofferdams represents one of the most expensive and technically challenging aspects of Oak Island operations. **The Curse** (Theory) Legend that seven people must die before the treasure is revealed; six have died so far. The Curse of Oak Island refers to a legend stating that seven people must die before the island's treasure can be found. As of the present day, six people have died during treasure-hunting operations: one in 1861, four in 1965 (the Restall tragedy), and one in a separate incident. The curse has become central to the mythology of Oak Island and serves as the namesake for the History Channel television series. Whether viewed as supernatural warning or tragic coincidence, the death toll adds a somber dimension to the treasure hunt. **The Curse of Oak Island** (Expedition) History Channel TV series documenting the Lagina brothers' search, premiered January 5, 2014. The Curse of Oak Island is a reality television series airing on the History Channel that documents Rick and Marty Lagina's ongoing search for treasure on Oak Island. The show premiered on January 5, 2014, and has become one of the History Channel's highest-rated programs. It follows the team through each season's discoveries, expert consultations, and excavation campaigns. The series has brought worldwide attention to the 230-year-old mystery and introduced millions of viewers to Oak Island's story. **The Garden Shaft** (Structure) Shaft near the Money Pit sunk by multiple expeditions; produced significant finds. The Garden Shaft is one of several shafts dug in the immediate vicinity of the Money Pit by various treasure-hunting expeditions. Named for its location near what was once a garden area, the shaft has intersected with tunnels and produced artifacts at various depths. It serves as one of many access points that searchers have used over the centuries in attempts to reach the Money Pit treasure from different angles. **The Hatch** (Structure) Stone and wood feature in the Swamp interpreted as a possible entry point. The Hatch is a stone and timber feature discovered during Swamp excavation that has been interpreted as a possible entry point or access cover for an underground structure. Its construction suggests deliberate engineering, and its location within the Swamp supports theories that the wetland area conceals significant man-made features. **The Shepherds of Arcadia** (Theory) Painting by Nicolas Poussin (c. 1637-1638) depicting shepherds at a tomb inscribed "Et in Arcadia Ego" - a work reproduced on the Shepherd's Monument at Shugborough Hall and linked to Oak Island through geometric analysis. The Shepherds of Arcadia, formally titled "Et in Arcadia Ego," is an oil painting by Nicolas Poussin completed around 1637-1638. It depicts a pastoral scene in which a woman and three shepherds examine a tomb bearing the Latin inscription "Et in Arcadia ego" - commonly interpreted as "Even in Arcadia, I [Death] exist," a memento mori reflecting on mortality even in paradise. It is Poussin's second treatment of this subject; an earlier version (c. 1627) shows a more dramatic composition. The painting's relevance to Oak Island stems from multiple connections. Around 1748-1763, Thomas Anson commissioned Flemish sculptor Peter Scheemakers to create a mirror-image relief copy of the painting for the Shepherd's Monument at Shugborough Hall in Staffordshire, England. The monument was funded by Thomas's brother, Admiral George Anson. Below the relief, the mysterious Shugborough Inscription - eight letters flanked by 'D' and 'M' - has never been satisfactorily decoded, though proposed solutions range from a memorial dedication to coordinates pointing to Oak Island. The painting became even more famous through its role in the Rennes-le-Château mystery, where a nearby tomb was said to resemble the one in the painting. Authors Henry Lincoln, Michael Baigent, and Richard Leigh wove Poussin into their 1982 bestseller "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail," suggesting the painter held secret knowledge of a sacred bloodline. On the show, researcher Corjan Mol has argued that geometric figures embedded in the painting function as a coded map, with alignments pointing to Oak Island. The broader "Arcadian" theme - connecting Oak Island, Shugborough Hall, Versailles, and Rennes-le-Château through art, architecture, and symbolism - remains one of the most elaborate theoretical frameworks explored on the series. **The Spoils** (Structure) Excavated material screening area where drill spoils are washed and examined. The Spoils refers to the material extracted during drilling and excavation operations, as well as the screening area where this material is carefully washed and sifted for artifacts. Spoils screening has produced many significant finds, including small metal objects, bone fragments, and other materials that would otherwise be lost. The wash table and screening process have become an essential part of the team's methodology. **The Swamp** (Location) Triangle-shaped swamp believed to be a former cove; contains anomalous materials. The Swamp is a triangular wetland area on Oak Island that Dr. Ian Spooner of Acadia University has determined was once an open saltwater cove. Core samples revealed a significant saltwater intrusion dating to the late 1300s or early 1400s, suggesting possible human manipulation of the landscape. Excavation of the Swamp has uncovered ship's spikes, a stone roadway carbon-dated to approximately 1200 AD, and other anomalous materials. The team believes the Swamp may have been deliberately filled in to conceal a wharf or vessel, making it one of the most promising areas of investigation. **The Uplands** (Location) Higher elevation area of the island where structures and paths have been identified. The Uplands refers to the higher ground on Oak Island where various stone structures, cleared paths, and other features have been identified through LIDAR scanning and ground-level investigation. These features suggest organized activity across the island's interior, beyond the well-known Money Pit and Smith's Cove areas. **Tom Nolan** (Team Member) Son of the late Fred Nolan; continues his father's legacy as a team contributor. Tom Nolan is the son of the late Fred Nolan, the surveyor who discovered Nolan's Cross and spent decades searching for treasure on his own Oak Island properties. After his father's passing in 2016, Tom has worked with the Lagina team, bringing his father's accumulated knowledge and land access to the joint effort. His participation represents the unification of previously rival treasure-hunting factions on the island. **Top-Pocket Find** (Expedition) Gary Drayton's catchphrase for an artifact good enough to keep in your top pocket. A "top-pocket find" is metal detectorist Gary Drayton's signature catchphrase, used to describe an artifact significant enough that you'd want to keep it safe in your top pocket. The expression has become one of the most beloved and recognizable phrases from The Curse of Oak Island, embodying Drayton's enthusiasm and expertise. Fans of the show frequently reference the phrase, and it has become synonymous with a significant discovery. **Treasure Trove Act** (Expedition) Nova Scotia legislation governing treasure hunting on Oak Island. The Treasure Trove Act and its successor, the Oak Island Treasure Act, are pieces of Nova Scotia provincial legislation that regulate treasure hunting on the island. The original Treasure Trove Act, first enacted in 1954 and revised in 1989, required treasure hunters to obtain a license from the provincial government before conducting any excavation. The act outlined the terms for splitting any recovered treasure between the finder and the Crown. In July 2010, the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources granted Oak Island Tours a treasure trove license allowing operations until December 31, 2010. After that date, the departments repealed the treasure trove license system and replaced it with the Oak Island Treasure Act, which became effective January 1, 2011. The new act specifically governs treasure hunting on Oak Island under terms of a license issued by the Minister of Natural Resources, providing a more tailored legal framework for the island's unique situation. The legislation has been both a necessary safeguard for Nova Scotia's heritage and, at times, a source of frustration for treasure hunters whose operations have been halted or delayed by licensing disputes. **Tree Symbolism** (Theory) Markings on trees and stone triangles may have served as coded navigational markers. The tree symbolism theory proposes that markings found on trees, stone triangles, and other surface features of Oak Island served as a coded system of navigational markers created by the original depositors. These markers would have allowed the builders to relocate their treasure while appearing innocuous to outsiders. Several stone triangles and marked trees were documented by early searchers before being destroyed by subsequent operations. **Triton Alliance** (Expedition) Dan Blankenship and David Tobias's company that drilled 10-X in the 1970s. The Triton Alliance was formed by Dan Blankenship and David Tobias in the 1970s to conduct a major investigation of Oak Island. The company's most notable achievement was the drilling of Borehole 10-X to a depth of 235 feet, where a camera captured footage of what appeared to be an underground cavern. The Triton Alliance represented one of the most well-funded and technologically advanced searches prior to the Lagina era, and Blankenship's work during this period laid the groundwork for much of the current understanding of the island's underground features. **Truro Company** (Expedition) The 1849 expedition that discovered the flood tunnel system and coconut fiber. The Truro Company was formed in 1849 to resume excavation of the Money Pit. Their most significant contribution was the discovery of the flood tunnel system - they determined that seawater was entering the pit through an engineered channel connected to Smith's Cove. Investigating the beach, they found the elaborate box drain system covered with coconut fiber and eel grass. The Truro Company also conducted some of the first drilling operations at depth, reportedly bringing up fragments including chain links and a piece of parchment with writing on it. **U-Shaped Structure** (Structure) Large wooden structure discovered at Smith's Cove, possibly a wharf or slipway. The U-Shaped Structure is a large formation of wooden logs and beams discovered at Smith's Cove during excavation by the current team. The structure extends from the shoreline and is believed to have served as a wharf, slipway, or cofferdam used by the original depositors. Dendrochronology and carbon dating have placed the structure's construction in the period consistent with other engineering features on the island. Its discovery provided further evidence of large-scale maritime activity at Smith's Cove. **Vanessa Lucido** (Team Member) CEO of ROC Equipment who oversees all large-diameter caisson operations on Oak Island. Vanessa Lucido is the CEO of ROC Equipment, the company responsible for the large-diameter caisson excavations that form the centerpiece of the team's Money Pit operations. Lucido personally oversees shaft installation, monitors oscillator pressures and depths, and manages the safety protocols during deep digs. Her crews have operated every major caisson on the show since Season 7, including the eight-foot shafts OC-1 and RF-1, the True Believers and Aladdin's Cave campaigns in Season 12, and the Top Pocket Find and Karma-1 shafts in Season 13. The caissons under her direction have reached depths exceeding 200 feet. **Versailles Alignment** (Theory) A theory presented in Season 8 proposing that Nolan's Cross, the Palace of Versailles, and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem form a deliberate geometric alignment across the Atlantic. The Versailles Alignment is a theory presented by researchers Corjan Mol and Christopher Morford in Season 8, Episode 4 ("Alignment"). The theory demonstrates that an infinite line drawn through the spine of Nolan's Cross - the arrangement of large boulders on Oak Island - forms an arc across the Atlantic Ocean that aligns with the Royal Way (Grande Perspective), the east-west axis bisecting the gardens of the Palace of Versailles. When extended further southeast, this same line intersects the Temple Mount in Jerusalem - the site of Solomon's Temple and the original headquarters of the Knights Templar. The theory proposes that the grounds of Versailles were deliberately arranged in the shape of a Menorah, the golden seven-branched lampstand that illuminated the Holy of Holies in Solomon's Temple. Mol and Morford argued that the Knights Templar recovered Solomon's treasure - including two Menorahs built before and after the destruction of the First Temple in 587 BC - and that an unknown group ensured the Palace of Versailles was oriented to mark a line connecting Jerusalem to the treasure's ultimate hiding place on Oak Island. The theory is strengthened by the fact that King Louis XIV purchased Poussin's "Shepherds of Arcadia" in 1685 and displayed it at Versailles. **War Room** (Structure) The team's on-island operations center where evidence is analyzed and plans are made. The War Room is the team's command center on Oak Island, where discoveries are analyzed, experts are consulted, and operational decisions are made. Featured prominently in the TV series, the War Room is where the team gathers to examine artifacts, review scientific analysis results, discuss theories, and plan next steps. It has become one of the most recognizable settings of The Curse of Oak Island. **Western Shore** (Location) Mainland community across from Oak Island; starting point for island access. Western Shore is the mainland community in Nova Scotia located directly across the water from Oak Island. It serves as the primary access point for reaching the island via the causeway. The Oak Island Resort & Conference Centre in Western Shore offers boat tours of the island for visitors. **William Chappell** (Historical Figure) Drilling operator who discovered the Chappell Vault in 1897 and returned in 1931 to lead his own major excavation of the Money Pit. William Chappell first came to Oak Island in 1897 as a drilling operator for Frederick Blair's Oak Island Treasure Company. Working from a platform at the 90-foot level, Chappell's drill probed deeper than anyone had gone before - and what he found changed the course of the treasure hunt. At 153-155 feet, the drill struck a seven-inch layer of cement, followed by five inches of oak, then roughly two and a half feet of soft, loose metal. This structure became known as the Chappell Vault. Among the core samples brought up was the famous scrap of parchment bearing the letters "vi" or "wi" in India ink - one of the most compelling artifacts ever recovered from the Money Pit. Chappell also secretly found traces of gold on his drill bit during the operation, a discovery he concealed from fellow crew members and only revealed decades later to Frederick Blair. In 1931, Chappell returned to Oak Island leading his own syndicate, Chappells Limited of Sydney, Nova Scotia, accompanied by his brother Renerick, his son Melbourne, and nephew Claude. They sank a 12-by-14-foot shaft to 163 feet southwest of where the 1897 drilling had taken place. Though they found an old anchor fluke at 116 feet, a rusted Acadian axe at 123 feet, and a pickaxe with a miner's seal oil lamp at 127 feet, they never relocated the vault. The Depression forced Chappell to abandon the search. **William Phips** (Historical Figure) 17th-century treasure hunter who recovered a Spanish shipwreck fortune; possible Oak Island connection. Sir William Phips was a 17th-century colonial figure from Massachusetts who became famous for recovering treasure from a sunken Spanish galleon in 1687. His success made him wealthy and eventually led to his appointment as the first royal governor of Massachusetts. Some researchers have theorized a connection between Phips' treasure-hunting activities and Oak Island, given his operations in the Atlantic maritime region during a period consistent with the island's engineering. **X-Ray Fluorescence** (Technology) Portable analysis determining the elemental composition of metal artifacts. X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) is a non-destructive analytical technique that determines the elemental composition of materials by measuring the fluorescent X-rays emitted when a sample is excited by a primary X-ray source. On Oak Island, portable XRF analyzers are used in the field to quickly determine the composition of metal artifacts, helping the team assess whether finds are gold, silver, lead, copper, or alloys - and potentially identifying their geographic origin based on trace element signatures. **Zena Halpern** (Team Member) New York-based historian who spent decades researching Oak Island's Templar connections and provided the team with a controversial French map of the island. Zena Halpern (died 2018) was a New York-based independent historian who devoted approximately fifty years to studying Oak Island and its possible connections to the Knights Templar. She developed a close friendship with Rick Lagina and became a valued contributor to the Oak Island investigation. Halpern authored "The Templar Mission to Oak Island and Beyond," in which she presented a hand-drawn French map of Oak Island that became one of the show's most debated pieces of evidence. She also provided the team with a document known as "La Formule," a coded cipher purportedly linked to the Templars. Her research connected the La Rochefoucauld family, French Admiral Jean-Baptiste du Casse, and the Knights Templar to Oak Island. While the authenticity of her documents has been contested by scholars - with some noting modern French errors and anachronistic elements - the map has guided significant portions of the team's excavation work, including the search for "the Hatch" and other features labeled on the document. **Zena Halpern Map** (Theory) A controversial hand-drawn French map of Oak Island, presented by researcher Zena Halpern, that has guided significant portions of the treasure hunt. The Zena Halpern Map is a hand-drawn document in French depicting Oak Island with labeled features including "the Money Pit," "the Hatch," "the Valve," and an anchor point. The map was discovered by researcher Zena Halpern, reportedly hidden within a book, and was first presented to the Oak Island team around Season 5 of The Curse of Oak Island. A dedication in the upper corner references the La Rochefoucauld family, and the number 1347 appears on the document - which the show controversially presented as a date, though linguistic analysis suggests it may be a distance measurement rather than a year. The map has been attributed by some researchers to French Admiral Jean-Baptiste du Casse, who may have drawn it for his son-in-law Louis de La Rochefoucauld, Marquis de Roye. Its authenticity remains hotly debated: critics note modern French errors, anachronistic vocabulary (including the use of "Indien" suggesting post-1492 knowledge), and fully modern letter forms inconsistent with a medieval document. Despite these concerns, several features labeled on the map have corresponded with actual findings on the island, and it continues to influence the team's excavation strategy. Total glossary terms: 177 --- # ARTIFACTS Catalog of discoveries found on and around Oak Island. URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/artifacts Interactive timeline of dated finds: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/artifacts/timeline **'Ball' name tag** Date: Late 18th century Found: Near Samuel Ball's home When: Lagina era Type: Artifact A small metal plate recovered by Gary Drayton on Lot 24, one of nine four-acre properties once owned by Samuel Ball, during Season 4. The plate came from the stock of a musket or pistol and bore what appeared to be an engraved name or signature. The engraving led to speculation that the plate carried Ball's own name, which would connect the weapon directly to the former soldier who owned the property. Samuel Ball was born in South Carolina around 1764 and escaped slavery during the American Revolution after Lord Dunmore's 1775 Proclamation offered freedom to enslaved men who joined the British forces. Ball served as a woodcutter with the army under General Henry Clinton at Bergen Point, New Jersey, before fleeing to Nova Scotia with other loyalist freemen after Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown. He arrived in Shelburne in 1783 and moved to Chester three years later, purchasing his first lot on Oak Island on September 22, 1787 for eight pounds, a considerable sum at the time. By his death on December 14, 1845, Ball owned nine four-acre lots on Oak Island and an additional hundred acres on the mainland, making him the largest private landowner on the island. The name tag was found alongside a concentration of military artifacts: an 18th-century dandy button, a copper coin bearing the image of King George II (dated 1727 to 1760), a lead musket ball ingot, and six additional George II copper coins clustered in a small radius. Gary concluded the density and type of artifacts pointed to a British military encampment. Author Randall Sullivan, who documented the find in his book on the Oak Island mystery, observed that the artifacts could equally have belonged to Ball himself, given his service with the British army during the Revolutionary War. Charles Barkhouse noted during the search that the 1870 first edition of Mather Myles DesBrisay's History of the County of Lunenburg lists Ball as one of the original Money Pit discoverers rather than Anthony Vaughn, a detail removed without explanation in the 1896 second edition. How Ball afforded nine lots, mainland property, and a servant on a farmer's income remains unexplained. **14th-century barter token** Date: 14th century Found: Lot 5 When: Season 11 (2024) Type: Artifact A lead disc with a distinctive scalloped edge and a thick crust consistent with centuries of burial. XRF analysis by Emma Culligan revealed the light layer is 99.96 percent lead with trace copper and iron, while the darker layer carries higher concentrations of iron, copper, and silicon. XRD testing matched the lead to geological samples from mines in Iran or off the coast of Italy, within a mineral belt extending across the Mediterranean region. Gary Drayton and Jack Begley found the piece on Lot 5 during Season 10, in the same area that had already produced ancient tools and a half Roman coin. At the Interpretive Center, archaeologist Laird Niven described the piece as brittle and old, with intentional scalloping that appeared molded rather than cut. Numismatist Sandy Campbell examined the token in the War Room and recognized it immediately, having seen a near-identical piece roughly a decade earlier in a collection of ancient and historical money. He identified it as a barter piece and showed documentation from the British Museum depicting a matching artifact found at Stonea Grange in Cambridgeshire, a Roman Empire site just 13 miles from Royston Cave. Laser ablation testing by Dr. Chris McFarlane at the University of New Brunswick produced results that carried particular weight: the token's lead isotope values closely match those of the 14th-century lead cross recovered from Smith's Cove in 2017, suggesting both artifacts share a common ore source. The token was found in proximity to the 13-foot-diameter circular stone pit on Lot 5, a feature whose dimensions match the original Money Pit and which has also yielded Roman coins, Venetian trade beads, and pottery dating to the mid-1700s. **1671 Order of the Garter Medallion** Date: 1671 Found: New Ross Type: Artifact A rare knighthood medallion for the Order of the Garter, dated 1671 and inscribed in French in honour of King Charles II, discovered in the soil near New Ross, Nova Scotia, less than 20 miles from Oak Island. Only three knights received this medallion that year: Charles XI of Sweden, John George II of Saxony, and Christopher Monck, 2nd Duke of Albemarle. Author and historian James McQuiston, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, argues the medallion belonged to Monck and was given to Sir William Phips as an honorary knighthood token after Phips recovered a fortune from the Spanish treasure ship Nuestra Señora de la Concepción in 1687, a salvage operation in which Monck was the principal investor. Phips later served as governor of Nova Scotia from 1691 to 1695, placing him directly in the area where the medallion was found. McQuiston believes the medallion's presence at New Ross supports the theory that Phips visited the site, possibly in connection with hidden treasure from the Concepción. **1700s spike** Date: 1700s Found: Lot 26 When: Season 6 Type: Artifact Possibly from fishing wharf of pirate Captain James Anderson **1704 stone** Date: Inscription reads '1704' Found: Oak Island surface When: Historical Type: Carved_stone A flat stone bearing the deeply carved numerals "1704," discovered by Mildred Restall on the beach at Smith's Cove around 1960. Mildred and her husband Robert Restall Sr. had moved to Oak Island in 1959 with their family to search for the treasure, and the stone was found during their years of exploration along the shoreline. The carved numbers remain sharp and legible.The date places activity on the island nearly a century before Daniel McGinnis's reported discovery of the Money Pit in 1795, and 56 years before the first recorded land grant on the island. Robert Restall Sr. kept detailed journals documenting his expeditions, and these records reference the 1704 stone as part of a man-made reservoir at Smith's Cove connected to the flood tunnel system. In that context, the date may mark construction or maintenance of the engineered drainage works that have frustrated treasure hunters for over two centuries.Lee Lamb, eldest daughter of Robert Restall Sr., brought the stone to the War Room in Season 4, where she presented it alongside other artifacts from the Restall years. Lee and her brother Richard also visited the island in Season 5, during which Richard confirmed the family's finds at Smith's Cove and became emotional upon seeing a toy gun recovered from Isaac's Point that had been his, lost more than 50 years earlier. **1850 Cofferdam remains** Date: 1850 Found: Smith's Cove When: 1909; later Type: Structure Remnants of searcher-built cofferdam found by Bowdoin expedition --- CONTEXT FROM CARBON DATING RECORDS --- The 1850 cofferdam at Smith's Cove is attributed to the Truro Company's treasure recovery operations. However, Dan Blankenship's 1969-1970 excavations inside the cofferdam area revealed much older wooden structures beneath and alongside the cofferdam remains. The Geochron Laboratories dating of an oak peg from a timber structure in this area returned 1090 ±140 BP (~860 AD, range 720-1000), and an inclined beam returned 815 ±110 BP (~1135 AD, range 1025-1245). These medieval dates suggest the 1850 cofferdam was built over or near pre-existing structures of considerably greater antiquity. Blankenship's September 1970 report describes finding the remains of a stone-paved road from the cofferdam area toward the Money Pit, a large horseshoe-shaped stone and cement foundation approximately 150 feet south of Smith's Cove beach (roughly 12' wide, 25' long, 3' deep with cemented stones), and evidence of extensive heat and burning along the shore with charcoal and coal deposits. He speculated this could be the site of a steam boiler used by searchers, or alternatively an original hearth furnace for metalwork. **18th-century wharf nail** Date: 18th century Found: Boulderless Beach (near Isaac's Point) When: Season 5, Ep. 5 Type: Artifact Evidence of dock/wharf infrastructure **Adze Head** Date: 1620-1740 (blacksmith analysis) Found: Lot 4, near area marked on Zena Halpern's map as "The Hole under the Hatch" When: 2021 Type: Tool An iron adze head unearthed on Lot 4 during metal detection by Gary Drayton and Rick Lagina in 2021 (Season 9). An adze is a wood-finishing tool with roots dating back to ancient Egypt, used to shape timber into smooth, flat surfaces - particularly ship decks and planking. Blacksmith expert Carmen Legge examined the artifact and identified it as an old English design, the kind used specifically for shaping wood into decks and planking. In his opinion, the tool was forged sometime between 1620 and 1740, placing it firmly in the pre-discovery era. The find is notable for both its age and its location. Lot 4 sits in a zone that Zena Halpern's purported Templar map marks as "The Hole under the Hatch" - an area the team has investigated for possible underground features. The presence of a shipwright's tool on this lot suggests skilled woodworking took place on Oak Island centuries before the Money Pit was discovered in 1795. The adze head gained renewed significance during the Season 10 premiere, when wood fragments recovered from borehole K15.5 at a depth of over 100 feet in the Money Pit area showed what appeared to be adze marks - cut patterns consistent with the very type of tool found on Lot 4. Carbon dating on those timbers returned dates ranging from 1640 to 1806, overlapping with the estimated age of the adze itself. **Adze-marked wood** Date: Colonial era Found: Swamp, west of stone wharf When: Season 9 Type: Material Piece of wood bearing concave scrape marks that Gary Drayton attributed to an adze, recovered from the swamp west of the stone wharf. Found in the same area as a trapezoid-shaped piece Gary thought came from inside a ship and another shaped piece resembling an oar or paddle. Marine archaeologist Dr. E. Lee Spence was called in to evaluate the swamp ship evidence. **Ancient trade weight** Date: Arsenical bronze, no longer made after the 16th century; estimated about a thousand years old by Umberto Moruzzi and at least five hundred years old by Sandy Campbell Found: Lot 7 When: Season 10, Episode 1 (2022) Type: Artifact A small rectangular arsenical-bronze object recovered by Gary Drayton on Lot 7 during Season 10, with Jack Begley present. Drayton first took it for a coin, though its sheared edges were unusual. At the Interpretive Centre, Emma Culligan scanned it with the Skyscan 1273 CT scanner and an XRF spectrometer and found it was mainly copper with high tin and arsenic content, an arsenical bronze no longer produced after the 16th century because the arsenic released dangerous gas during forging. Archaeologist Laird Niven noted the edges were not those of a struck coin. Numismatist Sandy Campbell judged it a barter piece rather than a coin and put it at least five hundred years old. In Rome, numismatist Umberto Moruzzi weighed the piece at just over four grams and estimated it at roughly a thousand years old; he observed that the weight matched a gold Byzantine coin bearing the image of Christ, which would make the object a monetary weight used to check that such coins had not been clipped or debased. **Annular ware pottery, early 1750s-1760s (swamp pathway, Lot 13)** Date: Early 1750s to early 1760s (Dr. Aaron Taylor) Found: Stone pathway uplands near Lot 13, swamp When: Season 8, Episodes 23-25 Type: Artifact Sherds of annular ware, a refined earthenware decorated with banded horizontal slip lines, recovered along the stone pathway where it runs uphill from the swamp. Archaeologist Dr. Aaron Taylor dated the pieces to the early 1750s, with related material extending into the early 1760s. Annular ware was a common British table and utility ceramic of the mid-eighteenth century. Its presence places domestic activity along the pathway several decades before the 1795 discovery of the Money Pit, consistent with the colonial-era occupation indicated by other ceramics from the same excavation. **Arcadia Stone** Date: Unknown Found: Eye of the Swamp When: Season 6, Episode 16, Water Logged Type: Structure A massive granite boulder comparable in size to the five boulders forming Nolan's Cross, discovered buried in the Eye of the Swamp during excavation in Season 7. The site was targeted after researchers Corjan Mol and Chris Morford demonstrated that a pentagram encoded in Nicolas Poussin's painting The Shepherds of Arcadia II, when projected onto Oak Island using Nolan's Cross as the framework, placed its center point precisely on the Eye of the Swamp. The boulder was found with smaller angular stones stacked around it and no clay between layers, a configuration that prompted the team to halt excavation and consult geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner. Blue clay packed onto a large stone at the base of the formation recalled the blue clay layer found at forty feet in the Money Pit by Daniel McGinnis and his partners in 1804. Core samples from the Eye had previously dated human activity at the site to between 1680 and 1700, with a deeper sample returning a date of approximately 1220 AD. The stone takes its name from the Arcadia inscription in the Poussin painting and the historical French name for Nova Scotia. **Ardoise Hill Gravestone (C. Manulis, 1558)** Date: 1558 Found: Ardoise Hill, Nova Scotia Type: Carved_stone A slate gravestone discovered around 1900 on Ardoise Hill, near Windsor, Nova Scotia - approximately 40 miles northeast of Oak Island. The stone measures twelve inches long, six inches high, and a quarter inch thick. Its face bears a shield with a chevron and sword, an arrow, a skull and crossbones, and a Latin inscription: "C. Manulis, Hic Jacet; A.M.DLVIII" - translated as "Here lies C. Manulis, 1558."Historian Larry Loomer, who published the only known account of the stone in Windsor, Nova Scotia - A Journey in History (1996), described it as the oldest known inscribed gravestone in Hants County. He suggested the deceased may have been a member of a Portuguese fishing party who died and was buried inland. The stone was reportedly still held in private hands at the time of Loomer's writing and is not presently available for detailed study.The gravestone was cited by researcher Terry J. Deveau in his 2015 analysis of the Overton Stone as part of a broader body of evidence for 16th-century Portuguese exploration and settlement in Nova Scotia. A burial dated to 1558 places a named individual of apparent European origin in the Nova Scotia interior during the very period when the Portuguese are documented to have been making territorial claims in Atlantic Canada. The Fagundes colony in Cape Breton may still have been active at this date, and the Barcelos family from the Azores was engaged in settlement activities on the Nova Scotia coast from at least 1508. If authentic, the Manulis gravestone represents rare physical evidence of a Portuguese presence that extended beyond coastal fishing stations into the Nova Scotian heartland - strengthening the case for sustained European activity in the region more than two centuries before the Money Pit's discovery. **Ashbury ware ceramic shard** Date: Unknown Found: Lot 5 When: Season 12, Episode 19 (2025) Type: Artifact Shard of Ashbury ware ceramic found on Lot 5 alongside other historical artifacts including a wharf pin nail. **Axe** Date: 17th century or earlier Found: Money Pit area, 123 ft depth When: 1931 Type: Tool The axe was recovered at approximately 123 feet below the surface during the 1931 Chappell expedition. It had a rusted head and a three-foot wooden handle, found at a depth distinct from the other two tools recovered during the same dig: the anchor fluke appeared at 116 feet and the miner's pick at 127 feet. Fanthorpe described it as "an Acadian axe of a slightly later pattern" than the anchor fluke, which he dated to the fourteenth or fifteenth century. The Acadian designation associates the tool with the French colonial settlers of Nova Scotia, active in the region from the early 1600s through their expulsion in 1755. The Chappell expedition was led by William Chappell, who had operated the drill that struck the cement vault in 1897, together with his son Melbourne, his brother Renerick, and nephew Claude. Frederick Blair served as field manager. The team sank a twelve-by-fourteen-foot shaft (No. 21) to 163 feet, using an electric pump capable of shifting four to five hundred gallons per minute. They then drilled exploratory holes another fourteen feet deeper. Despite reaching greater depth than any previous team, they found no trace of the cement vault, the wooden boxes, or the iron barrier encountered during the 1897 drilling. Blair believed the Chappell shaft sat at least six feet away from the original Money Pit. The axe, anchor, and pick were all found well below the deepest recorded working level of any nineteenth-century search expedition. Fanthorpe noted this discrepancy: the tools lay "as much as twenty feet lower than the recorded working depths of the nineteenth and early-twentieth-century shafts," and how they had sunk to that distance remained unexplained. Two possibilities have been discussed: either the tools belonged to the original builders and were left at working depth, or they fell from a collapsed upper shaft and settled through waterlogged soil over time. The depths recorded by the Chappells were precise and consistent across all three tools. **Axe Head** Date: Early 1700s (blacksmith and archaeologist assessment) Found: Lot 15, near the stone walls and suspected tar kiln When: 2020 Type: Tool A broken hand-forged axe head unearthed on Lot 15 by Gary Drayton and Jack Begley during metal detection in the Season 8 premiere. The find was made near the stone walls and the structure later identified as the remains of an English pine tar kiln, dated by blacksmith expert Carmen Legge to 1550-1620. Both Drayton and archaeologist Laird Niven assessed the axe head as dating to the early 1700s. It was presented alongside other Lot 15 finds in a War Room meeting, including a copper coin with a square hole through its centre - a colonial-era artifact that Drayton designated a top pocket find - and ox shoes later dated by Carmen Legge to 1650-1750. Lot 15 proved to be one of the most archaeologically rich areas investigated during Season 8, yielding not only these metal-detected artifacts but also the stone structure that David MacInnes and his team excavated and identified as a tar kiln. Niven suggested the kiln may have been linked to construction of the Money Pit itself, noting that the tar fires could explain the legendary mysterious lights seen flickering on Oak Island at night. **Axe-cut tree stumps** Date: 1346-1396 Found: Middle of the triangle-shaped swamp, deepest area of the brackish bog When: Season 11 (2024) Type: Material Several axe-cut tree stumps recovered from the middle of the triangle-shaped swamp during Season 11. The first large stump was pulled from the deepest part of the brackish bog, with a second uncovered the following day several feet to the north alongside a marked change in the soil layers. Excavator Billy Gerhardt observed that the cut surfaces were uneven, consistent with axe work rather than natural breakage. The stumps were large, and because trees do not grow in standing water, their presence indicated the area had once been dry, forested ground. No metal was found in association with the stumps, and the wood lay at the base of the swamp in an undisturbed context rather than having been deposited later. Geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner, who has held that the swamp is at least partially a man-made feature, collected samples for carbon-14 testing. The results returned 1346 to 1396 at 54.1 percent probability and 1296 to 1328 at 41 percent probability, placing the stump at more than 700 years old. The team compared these dates to wood from the swamp's paved area, which had previously carbon-dated to approximately 1200 AD. If the stump dates are accurate, they would indicate human activity in the swamp in the 13th and 14th centuries, well before the Money Pit was discovered in 1795. **Axe-cut wood slivers (Hole 201X)** Date: Undated; too little wood for radiocarbon dating per Pickford Found: Hole 201X, washed from drill cuttings; hole reached bedrock at about 170 ft When: January 1971 Type: Material Small slivers of wood recovered from washed drill cuttings during the deepening of Hole 201X in the winter of 1971. Hole 201X was a Triton Alliance churn-drill hole beside Golder Hole 201, which lies 97 feet north-northeast of Hole 10 in the Money Pit area. Geologist Martin Pickford, supervising the drilling for Triton, reported in late January 1971 that all cuttings from the hole were washed and only a few slivers were recovered, two of which appeared to have been cut with an axe. He noted there was not enough wood to warrant dating by the carbon 14 method. A batch recovered the previous week prompted Pickford to weigh two readings, wood buried at the time of glaciation or wood emplaced later, observing that the slivers were small and not very diagnostic. Dan Blankenship retained the recovered material. If the axe interpretation is correct, the slivers are human-worked wood from depth in ground beside the Money Pit workings, but no dating or species identification appears in the published record. **Barrel hoop (iron, large)** Date: Pre-1795 Found: Garden Shaft When: Season 10 Type: Artifact Part of a large iron barrel hoop recovered by Ronnie MacKenzie and Bert Marceau during reconstruction of the Garden Shaft. The team noted this was the first hoop recovered despite having previously found barrel staves, and sent the piece to Carmen Legge for examination. The Garden Shaft dates to as early as 1735 based on wood samples, and water and wood from the shaft have tested positive for gold. **Barrel of a hand cannon** Date: 1350s-1500s (European hand cannon) Found: Western Swamp, during excavation of the area near the Stone Road Feature. When: Season 13 (2025) Type: Artifact A corroded iron tube identified as the barrel of a hand cannon - one of the earliest forms of firearms, originating in 12th-century China and widely used across Europe from the 1200s through the early 1500s. Gary Drayton initially suggested the artifact could be a petronel (an early muzzle-loading firearm), while archaeologist Laird Niven proposed it was a hand cannon. Archaeometallurgist Emma Culligan analysed the artifact and found its mineral content to be clean, dating it to the 1700s or older and confirming its European origin. A CT scan revealed a touch hole - the small aperture through which a flame or slow match would ignite the powder charge - confirming its identification as a hand cannon rather than a simple tube or ferrule. Maltese military historian Matthew Balzan, who had worked with the team during their visit to Malta the previous season, examined the piece and confirmed it appeared to be a hand cannon consistent with examples used in Europe from the 1200s to the early 1500s. Balzan also raised the intriguing possibility that it may have been repurposed as a tool for directing gunpowder to fracture rock - a technique that would predate conventional blasting. The team suggested this could connect to the construction of the nearby Stone Road Feature. The find adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting a Portuguese presence on Oak Island, alongside previously discovered artifacts including a piece of a Portuguese breech swivel gun, other cannon fragments, and shot made from volcanic rock sourced from Portuguese colonies. Portuguese colonists are known to have been active in Nova Scotia until the mid-to-late 1500s. **Barrote Nail (Spanish Galleon)** Date: 1575–1600 Found: Swamp, north end When: Season 4 (2017) Type: Artifact A large wrought iron nail discovered by Gary Drayton in the north end of the Oak Island swamp. Although it initially resembled a railroad spike, antiquities expert Dr. Lori Verderame identified it as a barrote nail of the type used in the construction of Spanish galleon decks, dated to between 1575 and 1600. Barrote nails were heavy hand-forged fasteners driven through the thick planking of galleon decks and into the underlying beams. Their presence on Oak Island places a Spanish-built vessel or its salvaged timbers in the immediate vicinity during the late 16th century, decades before any recorded European settlement in the area. **Bedford Petroglyph of an Eight-pointed Star** Date: Unknown Found: Bedford Barrens Petroglyphs site When: Season 2 Episode 3 Type: Carved_stone Carving of an  are pecked into a flat granite surface on the Bedford Barrens, an exposed bedrock area above the head of Bedford Basin in the Halifax Regional Municipality. The principal figures are an eight-pointed star inside a circle and a stylised human shape with raised arms, with smaller marks and lines distributed around them. Conventional attribution places the work within the Mi'kmaq pre-contact petroglyph tradition. The same eight-pointed star appears on the modern Mi'kmaq flag and in older Mi'kmaq decorative work, and similar pecked carvings are documented at other sites in the Atlantic region, most extensively at Kejimkujik. No secure date has been assigned to the Bedford carvings, and the site is treated as culturally sensitive. **Black Glass Jewel** Date: 1730-1775 Found: Lot 5 round stone feature When: Season 13, Episode 8 Type: Artifact A small black faceted disc of paste glass, recovered from the round stone feature on Lot 5. The piece is shaped as a low-domed cabochon with hand-cut facets across the crown, the technique used to imitate a cut gemstone. XRF analysis by Emma Culligan identified the material as lead-rich flint glass, the same composition used for high-quality paste jewelry in 18th-century Europe. The black colour comes from manganese and calcium added to the melt. Traces of tin survive around the rim, residue from the metal setting or fastener that originally held the stone. The composition is identical to a clear paste diamante recovered from the same feature, dated by gemologist Jeffrey Bilgore and John W. Ford Sr. of the American Gem Trade Association to between 1730 and 1775. The technique points to a European origin, possibly England, France, Spain, Portugal, or Italy. Paste diamantes of this period were used in costume jewelry, worn as personal adornment, or sewn directly onto heavy fabric such as ceremonial dress, ecclesiastical garments, or military uniforms. The presence of this piece on Lot 5 places someone wearing or transporting fine 18th-century European dress at the location during the working life of the stone feature. **Block and tackle hook** Date: 1650-1690 Found: Lot 11 well spoils When: Season 10 Type: Tool Hand-forged hook recovered by Gary Drayton from the spoils during excavation of the hidden well on Lot 11 that Fred Nolan discovered in the 1970s. Carmen Legge identified the long shank as characteristic of a block and tackle, a device invented by the Greek scientist Archimedes in 250 BC to raise and lower heavy objects. Carmen dated the hook to 1650 to 1690. **Blue clay layer** Date: Unknown Found: Money Pit, below 153 ft When: 1897 Type: Material Below the cement vault at one hundred and fifty-three feet, the Oak Island Treasure Company's 1897 drilling passed through eleven feet of blue clay before striking the iron barrier at 171 feet. Finn (1994) described the material as "blue puddled clay," the term "puddled" indicating that the clay had been manually worked and mixed with water to create a dense, plastic, watertight mass. This technique has been used for centuries to line tunnels, reservoirs, and underground chambers, and puddled clay differs visibly from naturally occurring clay deposits in its uniformity and compaction. The presence of puddled clay at this depth, directly below the suspected vault and above the iron barrier, suggests the original builders created a layered seal around the chamber contents. The sequence from top to bottom (cement encasing wood and metal, then worked clay, then iron) represents a progression of barrier materials designed to protect whatever the vault contained from both water infiltration and physical intrusion. Blue clay has appeared consistently across multiple boreholes in the Money Pit area during the Lagina-era drilling programs, indicating it forms a continuous horizontal feature at that depth rather than a localised pocket. In Season 7, blue clay packed onto a large stone at the Eye of the Swamp was noted as similar in character to the material found in the Money Pit, providing a possible surface-level connection to the deep underground deposits. **Boatswain's whistle (bone/ivory)** Date: AMNH: most likely Scandinavian, walrus tusk ivory (Norse Greenland ivory trade, c.1200s); found near Smith's Cove 1885. Found: Smith's Cove When: c. 1885 or 1901 Type: Artifact A small instrument identified as a boatswain's whistle was found near Smith's Cove in 1885. Made of bone or ivory, it is consistent in form with the call whistles used by naval officers and ship's crew from the medieval period onward to issue commands aboard sailing vessels. The whistle came to the attention of Mary B. Steward, a New York financier who backed the 1932 Oak Island expedition, and she arranged for it to be examined by several institutions including the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The museum identified the whistle as most likely Scandinavian in origin and made from walrus tusk ivory. Walrus ivory was a primary trade commodity of the Norse North Atlantic world, actively traded from Greenland during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries when Norse settlements there were at their peak. If the identification is correct, the whistle would represent one of the earliest artefacts on Oak Island and one of the few with a direct link to Norse or Viking activity in the region. The only verified Viking settlement in North America, L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, lies 625 miles northeast of Oak Island and was active around 1021 AD. Doug Crowell and Emiliano Cataldi presented the whistle's history to Rick and Marty Lagina during Season 12 as part of a broader discussion of Norse activity in North America. The team decided to bring the whistle and other artefacts with possible Scandinavian connections, including an arrowhead reportedly recovered by Robert Dunfield and a decorative lead piece, to L'Anse aux Meadows for comparison with the nearly eight hundred artefacts recovered at that site. The whistle remains one of several Oak Island finds that predate both the Money Pit's discovery and the arrival of British settlers in the Mahone Bay area. **Bone fragments and periwinkle shell (Borehole 10X sieving)** Date: Undated; recovered in a mixed context that included modern searcher debris Found: Borehole 10X, sieved from recovered material at about 134 ft drilling depth When: February 1971 Type: Artifact Two small pieces of bone and a periwinkle shell recovered during sieving of material from Borehole 10X in February 1971. The shell came up in the week of 8 to 15 February, and the bone fragments the following week, when the hole stood at 134 feet with casing to 126 feet. Martin Pickford's report of 22 February 1971 lists them among several pieces of wood, glass, metal and shells recovered in the sieving, together with grass roots, two pieces of bottle cap, and plastic binding tape from dynamiting that Dan Blankenship had carried out the previous year at a much lower level. Pickford read the tape as strong evidence that water rising up Hole 10 can carry materials upward, and he noted that an opaque light green glass in the batch matched glass observed during work at Smith's Cove, supporting in his view a connection between 10X and Smith's Cove. The recovery context is therefore mixed, containing modern searcher debris alongside possibly transported older material. No species identification or dating of the bone appears in the published record. **Bone-handled knife** Date: 1750s to late 1700s Found: Lot 21, Daniel McGinnis foundation root cellar When: Season 7 Type: Artifact Bone-handled knife recovered by archaeologist Laird Niven near the bottom of the deep, rock-filled root cellar at the Daniel McGinnis foundation on Lot 21. Laird dated it to the 1750s through end of the 1700s, making it the oldest artifact from the McGinnis home site. The cellar featured a trap door entrance Laird had never encountered before, and the home proved larger and the artifacts older than anticipated. **Borehole 10-X camera images** Date: Unknown Found: Borehole 10-X, 235 ft When: 1971 Type: Document Cameras allegedly recorded possible chests, human remains, wooden cribbing, tools in underwater cave; images unclear and unconfirmed; 2016 divers found nothing **Box drains (fan-shaped)** Date: Pre-1795 Found: Smith's Cove When: 1850 Type: Structure The box drains are five stone-walled channels arranged in a fan shape beneath the beach at Smith's Cove, discovered by the Truro Company in 1850. A detailed account published in the Yarmouth Herald in 1863, rediscovered by Doug Crowell at the Lordly House archives in Chester, Nova Scotia, describes each drain as sixty-six feet long, with the two outermost drains sixty-six feet apart. They converged within four feet of each other at a central collection point that fed into the flood tunnel running approximately five hundred feet to the Money Pit. Each drain was built from two flat stones placed on their edges in a triangular configuration, forming a covered channel, and the entire system was blanketed with layers of coconut fibre that acted as a filter to prevent sand and sediment from clogging the stone channels below. The fan arrangement allowed the drains to draw seawater across the full width of the cove regardless of tidal angle, feeding a continuous supply into the flood tunnel. When the Truro Company attempted to block the system by packing the drains with clay, the first tide swept the material away. Coconut fibre recovered from the drains was carbon dated to 1260-1400 AD with ninety-five percent confidence. Eelgrass found alongside the fibre returned a narrower range of 1472-1650 AD, placing the construction firmly before the 1795 discovery of the Money Pit and consistent with several proposed timeframes, including Portuguese, Spanish, and Templar involvement. During the Season 6 excavation of Smith's Cove, Doug Crowell spotted a triangular-shaped opening between two rocks near the U-shaped structure wall, matching the 1863 description, with a steady trickle of water flowing through it. Archaeologist Laird Niven and geologist Terry Matheson confirmed the construction was consistent with a drain system. The team traced the feature northwest toward the Money Pit, finding flat rocks resembling drain stones in several locations. A dye test conducted later that season, in which up to half a million gallons of seawater mixed with nontoxic red dye was pumped into borehole C-1 at the Money Pit, produced red-coloured water seeping from the ground at Smith's Cove, confirming the hydraulic connection between the two sites. **Brass fragment (Borehole 21)** Date: Unknown Found: Borehole 21, 176 ft depth When: 1967 Type: Artifact Thin brass embedded in putty-like blue clay, 10 ft below surrounding bedrock **Britannia coin, 17th century (Lot 32, S09E13)** Date: 17th century Found: Lot 32 (west of swamp) When: Season 9, Episode 13 (2022) Type: Coin An English copper coin recovered from Lot 32 during Season 9, west of the swamp, in the area where the team had previously found ox shoes, a lead cargo bag seal, and other wharf-related material. Gary Drayton's metal detector hit the target. Rick Lagina pulled the coin from the plug. Gary flipped it, recognised the seated figure of Britannia on the shield, and identified it on camera as English. He described the piece as a heavy, thick copper and called it an early one. The cast attempted to read the bust on the obverse but did not identify the monarch on camera, and no date was read at the time of recovery. The Britannia reverse was introduced to English copper coinage by Charles II in 1672 and continued under William III, Anne, and the Georgian kings. Without an obverse reading the issue date remains open to any English copper from 1672 onward. Gary drew the connection on camera to the two coppers recovered from Lot 16 in 2017, the 1673 Charles II piece and the 1694 William III piece, citing the similar style and what he called the early character of the new find. The same on-camera search on Lot 32 also recovered a broken ox shoe and a copper or brass piece bearing part of an inscription or initials. In the War Room the find was situated within the framing presented the previous week by researcher Scott Clarke, who had argued that Sir William Phips and Andrew Belcher hid silver from the Concepción wreck on the island in the late 1600s. The Lot 32 coin's recovery context, a surface find from a known activity zone, leaves its original deposit point uncertain. **Britannia copper, 1673 (Charles II, Lot 16)** Date: 1673 Found: Lot 16 Dunfield spoils from the Money Pit area When: Season 5 Episode 3 Type: Coin An English copper coin recovered from Dunfield / Money Pit spoils on Lot 16 during Season 5. Gary Drayton's metal detector hit the target. Dave Blankenship spotted the coin in the hole and pulled it out. Rick and Marty Lagina were present. The obverse shows the bust of King Charles II with the Latin legend Carolus. The reverse carries the seated figure of Britannia, a motif introduced to English copper coinage by Charles II in 1672 to replace earlier hammered farthings and halfpence. Gary read the date as 1673, placing the coin within Charles II's reign (1660 to 1685). The find placed English activity on Oak Island more than 120 years before the Money Pit's 1795 discovery and was contemporaneous with the seventeenth-century Spanish maravedi recovered from the swamp. Dan Blankenship, then 94 years old, examined the coin at his home and confirmed it provided hard evidence of an English presence near 1670, strengthening the case he had argued for decades that the island's history extended far beyond the 1795 discovery. Archaeologist Laird Niven noted that the coins from Lot 16, along with the brooch and other surface finds from that season, suggested occupation well before the Money Pit era. Because the coin came from Dunfield / Money Pit spoils, its original deposit point within the Money Pit zone cannot be determined. Robert Dunfield removed at least ten feet of surface soil from a large area surrounding the Money Pit in 1965 and moved tons of earth across the island. The coin was recovered alongside the 1694 Britannia copper, identified as a William III piece, which surfaced minutes later from a second target on the same surface search. Eight seasons later, Katya Drayton, Gary's daughter, recovered a William III sixpence from Dunfield / Money Pit spoils on Lot 18, struck between 1697 and 1701. **Britannia copper, 1694 (William III, Lot 16)** Date: 1694 Found: Lot 16 Dunfield spoils from the Money Pit area When: Season 5 Episode 3 Type: Coin An English copper coin recovered from Dunfield / Money Pit spoils on Lot 16 during Season 5, minutes after the 1673 Charles II piece on the same surface search. Gary Drayton's metal detector hit a second target. Dave Blankenship spotted the coin in the hole and pulled it out. Rick and Marty Lagina were present. The cast read the date on the rim as 1694. The obverse was too worn for the monarch to be read on camera. Charles II had died in 1685, placing the 1694 coin in the reign of William III. The reverse carries the same Britannia design introduced under Charles II in 1672. The 1694 date placed English activity on Oak Island a century before the Money Pit's 1795 discovery and within decades of the seventeenth-century Spanish maravedi recovered from the swamp. Dan Blankenship, then 94 years old, examined both Lot 16 coppers at his home and confirmed they provided hard evidence of an English presence in the late seventeenth century, strengthening the case he had argued for decades that the island's history extended far beyond the 1795 discovery. Because the coin came from Dunfield / Money Pit spoils, its original deposit point within the Money Pit zone cannot be determined. Robert Dunfield removed at least ten feet of surface soil from a large area surrounding the Money Pit in 1965 and moved tons of earth across the island. The coin was recovered alongside the 1673 Britannia copper of Charles II, the first of the pair to surface that day. Eight seasons later, Katya Drayton, Gary's daughter, recovered a William III sixpence from Dunfield / Money Pit spoils on Lot 18, identified after laboratory XRF and CT analysis as a sixpence struck between 1697 and 1701. The 1694 Lot 16 copper and the 1697-1701 Lot 18 sixpence are the two William III coins so far recovered from Money Pit spoils on Oak Island. **British copper coin, 17th century (Lot 32, S09E11)** Date: 17th century Found: Lot 32 When: Season 9 Type: Coin A worn British copper coin recovered from Lot 32, just west of the swamp, in Season 9, Episode 11. Metal detection expert Gary Drayton operated the detector. Treasure hunter Michael John recovered the coin from a clean signal. Drayton's field reading: "It looks like an old British copper." The coin was very thin, which Drayton noted as a possible indication of greater age, and the team did not attempt to clean it on site to avoid damaging surface detail. The piece was passed to Kelly Bourassa in the archaeology trailer for cleaning and further examination.Drayton drew the connection on camera to the two British coppers he had recovered from Lot 16 in 2017, on the ridge across the swamp, alongside Rick Lagina, Marty Lagina, and Dave Blankenship. The narration recalled those two coins as 17th-century British coppers and a Charles II piece, with Drayton mentioning that he could recall seeing the Carolus legend on one of the earlier finds. The Lot 32 piece itself was not identified by monarch or date on camera in the episode.The location forms part of a known activity zone at the western edge of the swamp, where the team had previously recovered ox shoes, a lead cargo bag seal later traced by laser ablation to French lead and dated to the bag-seal window of 1450 to 1730, and other wharf-related material. Two episodes later, in Season 9, Episode 13, Rick Lagina and Drayton recovered a second British copper from the same lot, on which Drayton was able to read the Britannia reverse on camera. Both Lot 32 coins fit a 17th-century English window consistent with the wider pattern of pre-1795 European activity on the Money Pit side of the island. **British naval officer's button** Date: 1804-1825 Found: Lot 25 (Ball's home foundation) When: Lagina era Type: Button A British Royal Navy jacket button recovered by Alex Lagina at the Samuel Ball foundation on Lot 25 during Season 8. Alex discovered the button while sifting excavation spoils alongside archaeologists Laird Niven and Liz Michels near the northwest corner of what was once Ball's home. Under magnification in the research center, Gary Drayton identified three anchors and a rope design on its face, confirming it as a Royal Navy officer's button dating to between 1804 and 1825.Traces of gold gilding on the button's surface indicated it had belonged to an officer rather than an enlisted sailor, as gilded buttons were restricted to commissioned ranks during this period. The discovery raised the question of what a British naval officer was doing at the home of a former cabbage farmer on Oak Island during the early 19th century. Samuel Ball arrived on the island in 1787 and over the following decades accumulated substantial wealth through means that have never been explained. He owned nine four-acre lots, making him the largest private landowner on the island during his lifetime.The button's dating placed it squarely within Ball's time on the island. In the War Room, the team discussed its significance in connection with Captain James Anderson, a pirate, privateer, and high-ranking Freemason from Baltimore who defected to the British during the American Revolution with a ship called the Betsy and its rumored valuable cargo. Anderson purchased Lot 26 on Oak Island before selling the property to Samuel Ball. The scale of a wharf structure confirmed by divers off the south shore, combined with the naval officer's button in Ball's foundation, suggested a military or commercial maritime connection to the property. **British Tudor portcullis coin, 1500s (Lot 5)** Date: 1500s (Tudor era) Found: Lot 5 (circular depression) When: Season 11, Episode 1 (2023) Type: Coin A copper coin recovered from the round stone feature on Lot 5 during the Season 11 premiere, the fourth coin the team pulled from the same feature in a single day. The morning had already produced three coins. Rick Lagina, Marty Lagina, Craig Tester, and Gary Drayton returned to the lot in the afternoon, and Drayton's detector hit again. Rick recovered the coin from beneath a small pile of soil. The team read what looked like a faint number on one face, with the other showing what they described as a squiggly design. Later in the same episode, numismatist Sandy Campbell examined the coin at the Interpretive Centre. "This design goes back to the 1500s, 16th century," he told the team. Asked which culture, Campbell answered: "British. This is Tudor period. It is very obvious that that is a portcullis on there. And it is used even today on modern British coins." The portcullis, a heavy iron gate used between the 5th and 15th centuries to protect castles and fortifications, was incorporated into English coinage from the late 15th century onward as a symbol of strength. The Tudor identification placed English activity on Oak Island in the 1500s, before the documented British colonial period in Nova Scotia and within the window proposed by some researchers for Sir William Phips and the silver of the Concepcion wreck. Three further coins came out of Lot 5 the same day. From the morning search, a Roman coin Campbell dated to between 100 and 300 AD, an older copper-silver Roman piece Campbell dated to before 100 AD, and a brass piece bearing a woven pattern, given competing identifications by Emma Culligan as a 13th-century French denier and by Sandy Campbell as possibly 6th to 8th-century Indian. **Brooklyn Symbols** Found: On the beach of Brooklyn, Nova Scotia When: Season 10, Episode 11 Type: Carved_stone A set of four carved symbols on a large boulder sitting on the tide line of a beach at Brooklyn, a community on the shore of Mahone Bay in Nova Scotia, an hour's drive from Oak Island. The carvings include a Globus Cruciger, a cut circle, a fish-like symbol, and a double fish-tail with a square cross within a circle. They were found close to a carved tripod symbol, reminiscent of a British broad arrow, that has also been identified as a possible Goose Paw. The Globus Cruciger, a cross mounted on an orb, has been a symbol of Christian sovereignty since the late Roman Empire and appeared widely on medieval coinage, royal regalia, and ecclesiastical carvings. The cut circle and fish-like symbol remain unidentified, though fish imagery carried strong Christian associations in medieval Europe. The double fish-tail supporting a cross within a circle matches a type of apotropaic mark used in England from the 13th to the 16th century, typically carved around doorways and porches to ward off evil spirits and curses. Some researchers have connected the beach stones to Masonic traditions. Scott Clarke, in Oak Island Odyssey (2023), noted that the earliest Mark Master Mason degrees in Nova Scotia were conferred in 1784 when four members of Lodge No. 155 chose personal symbols including a square, a triangle, and an oblong square, three of which match marks believed to have appeared on the 90-foot stone from the Money Pit. An 1869 Grand Royal Arch Chapter publication referenced "Mark stones evidently very old" in Nova Scotia. Whether the Brooklyn carvings are connected to these traditions, to medieval seafarers, or to later settlers has not been determined. **Bush Scythe Fragments** Date: Mid-17th century (blacksmith analysis and metal composition) Found: Near the well on Lot 26 When: 2022 Type: Tool Multiple iron fragments identified as parts of bush scythes, discovered through metal detection near the mysterious stone well on Lot 26 during Season 10. The fragments were found alongside other artifacts including a pipe tamper, during the team's investigation of the well and its surroundings. Blacksmith expert Carmen Legge examined the fragments and identified them as components of bush scythes - heavy-bladed tools used to clear dense vegetation and brush. Based on their construction style, Legge dated them to the mid-17th century, well before any known permanent settlement of Oak Island and more than a century before the discovery of the Money Pit in 1795. The fragments were subsequently taken to a university laboratory for further analysis. Metal composition testing confirmed the dating, suggesting the scythes were consistent with 17th-century manufacture, though possibly slightly later than an iron nail recovered from inside the well itself, which returned a probable 17th-century date. The presence of bush scythes on Lot 26 is significant. These were practical land-clearing tools, the kind a ship's crew would carry ashore to hack through undergrowth. Their location near the well - which geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner found to contain elevated silver levels and which may date to considerably earlier - raises the possibility that the well served as a known landmark, and that crews returned to the island to clear brush and locate something previously hidden. Lot 26 was one of several lots later owned by Samuel Ball, a former enslaved man from South Carolina who became one of Oak Island's wealthiest residents. The lot has produced a range of pre-searcher artifacts, fueling long-standing questions about what Ball may have found during his years on the island. **Cap Badge Fragment (Money Pit Dunfield spoils)** Date: 18th century Found: In the spoils of the Dunfield Money Pit dig When: Season 13, Episode 24 Type: Artifact A metal fragment recovered from Money Pit spoils on Lot 18 by Marty Lagina and Katya Drayton during Season 13. The Lot 18 spoils piles are material left by treasure hunter Robert Dunfield, who in 1965 used a 70-ton crane to sink a 100-foot-diameter, 143-foot-deep crater in the Money Pit area before seawater flooded the hole. Dunfield filled the pit and left the spoils untouched until this metal-detecting sweep. Marty identified the fragment as visually identical to the French military cap badge fragment recovered on Lot 21 in Season 6 by Gary Drayton, Jack Begley, and Peter Fornetti. He described the new piece as "shaped like the fleur-de-lis." No laboratory analysis or dating has been reported. **Carved wood piece (possible tool handle)** Date: Possibly 1632-1668 (by comparison) Found: Swamp, southern edge When: Season 9 Type: Artifact Carved piece of wood discovered by Scott Barlow in the swamp that archaeologist Laird Niven said he had never seen before. Charles Barkhouse suggested it could be part of a tool like the T-square recovered earlier in the swamp that was dated to 1632 to 1668. Tom Nolan noted signs of rope burn on the piece, and Marty observed the wood was already dry and could be a very dense species. **Cast iron stove (starburst design)** Date: XRF (manganese content) indicates 1800s manufacture; Season 12 lab analysis. Found: Shoreline When: Season 12, Episode 6 (2024) Type: Artifact Old cast iron stove bearing a starburst design similar to a medieval button found in a previous season. Found by metal detectors along the shoreline. **Cast-iron cooking pot fragment** Date: 1600s-1700s (pre-Industrial Revolution) Found: Lot 5, between rectangular feature and round foundation When: Season 13 Type: Artifact Fragment of a cast-iron cooking pot with a fastener, recovered by Katya Drayton on Lot 5 from soil disturbed when Marty used a skid steer to move a large boulder. Emma Culligan's analysis identified high phosphorous content throughout the iron, a characteristic of pre-Industrial Revolution manufacture that places the piece in the 1700s and possibly the 1600s. Laird Niven confirmed that Nova Scotia had no capacity to cast iron in this period, meaning the pot was made in Europe and brought to the island. Along with trade weights, Knights of Malta buttons, and other artifacts found nearby, the cooking pot adds evidence that someone of European origin was active on Lot 5 and deliberately covered up the features before the discovery of the Money Pit. **Cement/concrete vault layer** Date: Unknown Found: Money Pit, 153 ft depth When: 1897 Type: Structure In 1897, drillers working for the Oak Island Treasure Company struck a layer of cement-like material at approximately one hundred and fifty-three feet below the surface of the Money Pit. William Chappell, who operated the drill, left handwritten notes (preserved in the Blair archives) describing the sequence: at 153 feet the drill encountered what he believed was wood, then the auger bored five inches before dropping two inches and striking something hard. Below that, the drill worked through roughly eighteen inches of material in small pieces before hitting a hard, solid surface it could not penetrate. The team concluded they had drilled through the roof, contents, and floor of a sealed chamber. Additional boreholes established that the structure extended at least seven feet vertically, with walls approximately seven inches thick. Two samples of the cement-like material were sent to A. Boake Roberts and Company in London, a firm specialising in chemical analysis. Without being told the source, the company reported: "From the appearance and nature of the samples, we are of the opinion that it is a cement which has been worked by man." A small piece of parchment bearing ink markings was recovered from the same depth during this drilling, and Chappell later told treasure hunter Bob Restall (as recorded by author Lee Lamb) that he had also seen traces of gold on the drill bit at the time but kept it secret. In Season 8, Dr. Christa Brosseau of Saint Mary's University analysed a concrete-like coating on a rosehead spike recovered from borehole OC-1 spoils and identified it as low-calcium fly ash cement, distinct from both natural calcium cement and modern Portland cement. Marty Lagina observed that fly ash mortar coating wood and clay could create a waterproof vault capable of lasting thousands of years, a finding consistent with the 1897 accounts of a concrete-encased wooden chamber at 153 feet. **Chain link (Lot 5)** Date: Unknown Found: Lot 5 When: Season 11 (2023) Type: Artifact Artifact appearing to be a link in a chain, possibly used for hauling treasure. Found on Lot 5 during excavation of the stone foundation area. **Chain with oval hand-forged links** Date: Pre-1700s Found: Lot 8 When: Season 10 Type: Artifact Thin chain with oval links recovered by Jack Begley and Gary Drayton on Lot 8. Gary identified the links as hand-forged and old, noting that a thin chain like this could have been used to secure a strongbox or chest. **Chappell Vault** Date: Detected by drilling, 1897; not yet physically reached Found: Money Pit, 153 ft depth When: 1897 Type: Structure The Chappell Vault is a structure inferred from drilling data collected in 1897 by William Chappell and Frederick Blair during the Oak Island Treasure Company operations. At a depth of approximately 153 feet, the drill bit passed through a sequence of materials that described two wooden chests stacked one on top of the other inside a larger wooden enclosure roughly seven feet tall, sealed in a layer of cement. The drill brought up a scrap of parchment bearing what appeared to be the letters "Vi" in India ink. The work manager, T. Pearly Putnam, privately confirmed that the drill bit showed evidence of having passed through gold. William Chappell signed a sworn affidavit on October 25, 1929, describing the sequence: spruce, then empty space, then four inches of oak, then twenty-two inches of loose metal, then four inches of oak, then more metal, then more oak, then six inches of spruce, and finally clay. Frederick Blair wrote his own account in 1900. When D'Arcy O'Connor compared the two documents, he found discrepancies but concluded Chappell's version was the more accurate. The vault has never been visually confirmed. No camera has photographed it and no human hand has touched it. Its existence rests entirely on what the drill bit passed through and what it brought to the surface. Every major excavation since 1897, from the Chappell Shaft in 1931 through the Hedden Shaft in 1937 to the Lagina brothers' caisson operations from 2016 onward, has oriented itself around the task of reaching this structure. Wood, metal, and cement-like material have been recovered at consistent depths across multiple boreholes in the modern era, but the vault itself has not been opened. The parchment scrap recovered from the drilling passed into Blair's keeping and eventually into the Nova Scotia Archives. Melbourne Chappell, William's son, noted in 1977 that no photographs of his father survived after a fire destroyed his personal collection of Oak Island documents. **Charcoal from the Stone Road** Date: 15th-17th century Found: Southeast corner of the swamp, within and among the stones of the stone road, in a buried firepit inside the pathway, and within a charcoal-rich burn layer with stones laid in a circular pattern Type: Artifact Charcoal and coal recovered from the stone road in the southeastern corner of the Oak Island swamp record burning activity tied to the road's construction and use. Material was found among the cobblestones of the road surface, within a buried firepit identified inside the pathway, and within a charcoal-rich burn layer with stones arranged in a circular pattern. Archaeologist Miriam Amirault recovered a piece of coal from the road surface in Season 8 Episode 15. Dr. Ian Spooner subsequently analysed the sample and reported a sulphur content of 1.12 percent, well below the Nova Scotia average of three to four percent for native coal. Spooner classified the material as low-sulphur subbituminous A coal, a type not commonly found in the province but documented in European coalfields in Spain, eastern Europe, England, Scotland, and Wales. He cautioned that identifying the buyer of the coal would require archival research, since British or French operators could have sourced coal from any of these regions. Pollen and spore analysis was proposed at the time to establish both the precise age and the geographic origin of the sample. No broadcast results have followed. The charcoal evidence is distinct from the coal. In Season 8 Episode 17 the team uncovered a buried firepit with red oxidation staining and charcoal within the pathway, interpreted by Dr. Aaron Taylor and Dr. Ian Spooner as evidence that workers built fires during the road's construction. In Season 8 Episode 25, Dr. Aaron Taylor and Miriam Amirault identified a charcoal-rich burn layer along the road with stones laid in a circular pattern, accompanied by coal and slag. Taylor described the feature as consistent with a hearth or forge and noted that the slag pointed to metalworking activity on the island well before 1795. In Season 13 Episodes 4 and 5, the team explicitly linked charcoal recovered along the southeast-corner stone road to charcoal samples from the western swamp's cobble feature, describing the material as possibly Portuguese in origin and more than 500 years old. The southeast-corner samples themselves have not been independently radiocarbon-dated on broadcast, and the Portuguese attribution remains a working interpretation rather than a laboratory determination. What the charcoal and coal together record is fire activity tied to the stone road. The coal points to a fuel source uncommon in Nova Scotia and present across several European coalfields. The on-site burning features indicate either construction fires, a hearth, or small-scale metalworking at the site. **Charcoal layer** Date: C14: charcoal ~90 BC (148-32 BC); vegetation ~290 AD (208-372 AD) Found: Money Pit, 30-40 ft depth When: c. 1804 Type: Material Charcoal embedded in a large piece of decayed vegetation, recovered from Oak Island in October 1970 by Dan Blankenship. Two fractions of this composite sample were dated separately: • Charcoal fraction (Brock University, BGS-26): 2040 ±58 years before present → approximately 90 BC, with a range of 148-32 BC. • Decayed vegetation - cones and plant detritus (Brock University, BGS-26B): 1660 ±82 years before present → approximately 290 AD, with a range of 208-372 AD. The charcoal represents some of the oldest datable organic material recovered from Oak Island, pre-dating the Common Era by over a century. The approximately 380-year age difference between the charcoal and the surrounding vegetation likely reflects different depositional events or the inherent characteristics of charcoal preservation versus vegetative decay. Dan Blankenship sent this sample to Dr. Jan Terasmae at Brock University along with three other specimens on 16 October 1970. In his accompanying letter, Blankenship described the sample as "a piece of charcoal still imbedded in a large piece of decayed vegetation (called coconut fibre)" and recommended both the charcoal and vegetation for C14 dating, noting that charcoal is considered a reliable material for radiocarbon analysis. Dr. Terasmae reported the results to Kerry Ellard on 24 December 1970, noting that he had dated two fractions of the charcoal and plant matter sample. He confirmed the charcoal date at 2040 ±58 BP and the cones/detritus at 1660 ±82 BP. There was not enough of the suspected coconut fibre in the sample for separate dating. Terasmae also identified a nearby plank (Item #2 on the Smith's Cove Grid Plan) as eastern hemlock with a reasonably sensitive tree-ring record, suggesting it might be possible to cross-date it with a specimen collected from a living hemlock in the Oak Island area - an early proposal for dendrochronological analysis on the island. **Chinese cash coin, 400 BC-900 AD (Lot 15)** Date: 400 BC - 900 AD (Sandy Campbell) Found: Lot 15 (west of stone walls) When: Season 8 (2020) Type: Coin A copper coin with a square hole punched through its centre, recovered by Gary Drayton and Jack Begley on Lot 15 during the Season 8 premiere. Drayton found the coin approximately 100 feet west of the stone walls using his CTX 3030 detector, alongside a ship's rigging axe head. He called it a top-pocket find and tentatively dated it to the 17th or 18th century, noting it did not appear to be European in origin. At the Oak Island Research Centre, artifact conservator Kelly Bourassa photographed the coin beside a ruler, recording a diameter of approximately 2.4 centimetres. She suspected Chinese origin based on the square hole, a characteristic feature of East Asian coinage. After cleaning the faces with a toothbrush to remove green copper tarnish, Bourassa found no visible characters or inscriptions but confirmed a coin-like edge on the piece. Numismatist Sandy Campbell examined the coin later that season and identified it as a Chinese cash coin. Based on the narrow rim and level of deterioration, Campbell estimated the coin dated from 400 BC to 900 AD, which at the time of its identification made it potentially the oldest artifact discovered on the island. Campbell explained that Chinese currency, unlike European coins, did not travel widely with colonial expansion. He suggested the coin arrived on Oak Island as a pocket piece or good luck charm carried by someone who had visited the Far East, rather than through direct Chinese contact with the New World. The coin was found in the same area as a pine tar kiln dated by Carmen Legge to 1550 to 1620, ox shoes from the same period, and a ship's rigging axe head. Lot 15 sits between the swamp and the Money Pit, along a route the team later identified as a possible wagon trail connecting the two areas. Gary Drayton presented the coin in the War Room alongside an axe head he and Laird Niven dated to the early 1700s, reinforcing the concentration of pre-1795 activity on the lot. **Clay pipe bowl fragment** Date: Mid-1700s (associated with annular ware ca. 1760s and creamware plate ca. 1763) Found: Cobblestone pathway in the uplands near Lot 13 When: Season 8, Episode 24 (April 27, 2021) Type: Artifact A clay pipe bowl fragment was recovered from the cobblestone pathway in the uplands near Lot 13 during Season 8 filming. Rick Lagina joined Dr. Aaron Taylor and archaeologist Miriam Amirault on the excavation, which followed the pathway as it ran diagonally uphill away from the swamp. In the same pass Rick recovered a piece of annular ware pottery from the early 1760s and an intact creamware plate base that Taylor dated to approximately 1763, the period when the British introduced the refined lead-glazed earthenware to Nova Scotia. Clay pipe bowls are used in colonial archaeology to date the contexts in which they appear. Bowl shape, rim form, and decoration evolved through distinct phases between the 1620s and the 1850s, and English and Dutch maker catalogues record many of the workshop styles. The presence of this bowl alongside the annular ware and creamware suggests deposition in the mid-eighteenth century, consistent with the period when the cobblestone path was in active use. Alex Lagina also assisted with the dig as the team worked to determine whether the cobblestone pathway connects to the Money Pit. The team's broader objective was to map the swamp's cobblestone features and see whether they form a continuous transport route to the underground works on the eastern drumlin. No laboratory dating of this specific pipe bowl has been publicly reported. **Clay pipe stem (4/64ths bore, Lot 5 round feature)** Date: 1753 to 1800 (Fiona Steele bore-diameter measurement, 4/64ths inch; Harrington-Binford method) Found: Lot 5, round feature When: Season 13, Episode 3 (November 18, 2025) Type: Artifact A clay pipe stem with a borehole measurement of 4/64ths of an inch was recovered from the round feature on Lot 5 by archaeologist Fiona Steele during Season 13 filming. Steele measured the borehole with calipers and applied the bore-diameter dating method, which placed the stem's manufacture between 1753 and 1800. The team noted that this date range was consistent with the mean date range of artifacts previously recovered from the feature. The bore-diameter dating method was developed by archaeologist J. C. Harrington in 1954 and refined by Lewis Binford in 1962. Because English pipe stem bores decreased at a measurable rate over time as manufacturing techniques evolved, a measurement of the hole with calipers provides a reasonably narrow date range for stems manufactured between approximately 1620 and 1800. A 4/64ths inch bore falls in the late-eighteenth-century portion of that scale. In the same episode the team also recovered large fragments of an ornate earthenware bowl that Steele identified as a utilitarian vessel for food preparation, datable between 1600 and 1800. Tansy Rudnicki uncovered a blue glass bead in the same feature that Laird Niven identified as a Venetian seed bead introduced in the second half of the 1600s. The pipe stem joins this assemblage of late-seventeenth and eighteenth-century material from the Lot 5 round feature. **Clay pipe stem (Lot 5 stone feature, Miriam find)** Date: Late 1500s to late 1800s (Helen Sheldon, general clay pipe range; borehole diameter not publicly reported) Found: Lot 5, interior of stone feature When: Season 10, Episode 11 (January 31, 2023) Type: Artifact A clay pipe stem was recovered from the interior of the stone feature on Lot 5 by archaeologist Miriam Amirault during Season 10 filming. Miriam was working with Jack Begley and Helen Sheldon to excavate the round depression that the team had been investigating since earlier in the season, alongside ancient tools and a Roman half coin that could date as far back as 2,000 years. Helen Sheldon explained on screen that clay pipes were used from the late 1500s to the late 1800s, and that the borehole diameter of the stem could help narrow the date of manufacture. English pipe stem boreholes decreased at a measurable rate over time as manufacturing techniques evolved, allowing archaeologists to estimate manufacture date by measuring the hole with calipers. The borehole measurement of this specific stem has not been publicly reported. Miriam noted on screen that Rick Lagina had wondered why no clay pipes had been found during excavation of the stone road in the swamp, the structure the team had been investigating as a possible early transport route. Their absence on the swamp road and presence in the Lot 5 feature suggested to the team that the two features may have been in use during different periods or by different groups. When Rick and Gary Drayton arrived at the site, Helen Sheldon told them the stones at the edges of the feature were packed tightly while the centre stones were loose fill, an arrangement she described as the oldest European deposit the team had identified on the island. The feature was subsequently described in later episodes as the round feature on Lot 5. **Clay pipe stem (north shore seafloor)** Date: Unknown (clay pipe stems were manufactured from the late 1500s to the late 1800s; no laboratory analysis or borehole measurement reported) Found: Seafloor north of Oak Island, near a large boulder When: Season 11, Episode 1 (November 7, 2023) Type: Artifact A clay pipe stem was recovered from the seafloor north of Oak Island by diver Tony Sampson during Season 11 filming. Sampson was working with Alex Lagina, Jack Begley, and underwater imaging expert Ken Deboer, who was operating an ROV. The dive targeted the area where Fred Nolan had long argued an artificial wall existed near the swamp's seaward edge. Sampson used a metal detector while scanning the bottom. The pipe stem was found near a large boulder along with pieces of pottery bearing blue markings. Earlier in the same dive Sampson had located a piece of worked timber measuring roughly twelve by six inches, and additional timber nearby. His metal detector then registered what he thought could be a coin near the boulder, but provincial government permission was required before further recovery from the seabed. The find lies outside the traditional treasure-hunting areas on the eastern drumlin and the swamp itself, placing it in a zone Nolan had argued was modified by whoever did the original work on the island. The presence of worked timber and ceramics on the seabed in this area suggests at least episodic human activity or the deposition of material from a vessel. No laboratory analysis or pipe-stem borehole measurement has been publicly reported for this specific find, so a narrow manufacture date cannot be assigned. **Clay Pipe Stem with "O" Inscription** Date: 17th-18th century (English pipe-maker mark era; specific maker not yet identified) Found: Lot 5, round feature When: Season 12, Episode 18 (April 1, 2024) Type: Artifact A fragment of a clay pipe was recovered from the round feature on Lot 5 by archaeologist Fiona Steele during Season 12 filming. Steele had been excavating the feature with Laird Niven when she found a nail followed by the pipe fragment. The episode summary described the piece as a pipe bowl, and Steele and Niven noticed an O stamped on the fragment. Laird Niven explained on screen that because clay pipes were not reused after breaking, the maker's mark would help date the feature in which the piece was found. He asked Steele to clean the piece for a closer look. Pipe-maker marks have been used since the seventeenth century to identify the workshop, region, or individual maker, with extensive reference catalogues maintained for pipes manufactured in England, the Netherlands, and France during the colonial era. Niven noted on screen that he had not previously seen this particular elongated O marking on any Oak Island pipe fragment, leaving the question of attribution open. The find joins a growing assemblage of pipe-stem and pipe-bowl fragments recovered from Lot 5, the lot the team had been investigating intensively since identifying the stone foundation in earlier seasons. By the close of Season 12, Niven reported that eight pre-1760 items had been recovered from Lot 5, confirming activity on the site earlier than previously documented. **Coconut fibre (Money Pit)** Date: C14 dated: ~1036-1374 AD (three samples, Beta Analytic & WHOI, 2σ calibrated) Found: Money Pit, 60 ft depth When: c. 1804 Type: Material Massive quantities of coconut fibre were found at various depths in the Money Pit, beginning with the earliest excavations in the 1800s. Coconut palms (Cocos nucifera) do not grow within 1,500 miles of Nova Scotia, making this one of the most compelling pieces of evidence for deliberate human engineering at Oak Island. Three separate C14 tests on coconut fibre from the island consistently date the material to the 11th-14th century: • Beta-39897 (tested October 1990): 770 ±60 BP → calibrated 1σ: 1225-1290 AD; 2σ: 1168-1374 AD. Fibre recovered by Dan Henske from Smith's Cove beach, Summer 1990. Previously identified as coconut fibre by the Smithsonian Institution (1919, 1930) and the Botanical Museum of Harvard University (1937). • Beta-66584 (tested October 1993): 820 ±70 BP → calibrated 1σ: 1168-1282 AD; 2σ: 1036-1298 AD. Sample physically obtained by David Tobias from behind an old board wall at Smith's Cove (first section, north side), where it had been stored approximately 20 years in the Oak Island museum as sample 'S-2'. • WHOI receipt 10168 / OI-3-CF2 (tested 1995-96): 765 ±35 BP → approximately 1185 AD (1150-1220 AD). Provided by Dan Blankenship to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. No detailed recovery information recorded. Beta Analytic confirmed that coconut fibre is an ideal substance for C14 dating because coconut is a growth that occurs annually, unlike tree wood which can have a significant 'old wood' effect. Dr. Murry Tamers of Beta Analytic stated the 770 BP coconut fibre result is scientifically reliable and can be depended upon within the 95% probability range (2 standard deviations). Richard C. Nieman of St. Louis coordinated the initial Beta Analytic testing in 1990. He first consulted Mendel Peterson of the Smithsonian Institution, who advised that C14 dating was the most productive approach for the fibre. Nieman also consulted a graduate student at the Art and Archaeology Department of Washington University of St. Louis, who confirmed C14 would be best but cautioned it would only provide a range of dates with limited usefulness. Nieman was shocked by the medieval result, having anticipated a colonial-era date around 1585 AD. Dr. Tamers assured him the procedures were correct and he had high confidence in the result. Nieman concluded: "I can visualize no other reason for the presence of coconut fiber other than its incorporation as part of the original project and until evidence is presented to the contrary, I can only believe that it was used as a filtration mechanism by the original constructors when the project was executed."   Recent research by David H. Neisen, Robert W. Cook, and Christopher L. Boze has proposed a revised identification of the fibre. Based on micro and macro botanical examination, their analysis concludes the material is not coconut coir but trunk fibre from the Judean Date Palm (Phoenix dactylifera), specifically the mesh and sheath material that surrounds the trunk. The C14 dates remain unchanged regardless of species identification, and the core implication holds: the fibre is medieval, pre-Columbian, and foreign to Nova Scotia. If the revised identification is correct, it opens a direct connection to the Levant, where the Knights Templar cultivated date palms and sugarcane near Jericho from 1116 until the Battle of Hattin in 1187. **Coconut fibre (Smith's Cove)** Date: C14 dated: ~810 AD (780-840 AD, WHOI AMS, 1995-96) Found: Smith's Cove, beneath beach When: 1850; 2014 (Season 1) Type: Material Coconut fibre excavated from just below low tide level within Smith's Cove on 27 July 1995. The sample was recovered by Dan Henske - who knew the fibre's location from prior experience - in the presence of D. Aubrey and others from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI). Henske dug down approximately 8 inches to reach the fibre after the site was dewatered. The WHOI NOSAMS AMS (Accelerator Mass Spectrometry) facility dated this sample at 1140 ±30 years before present (receipt 10167, sample ID OI-5-CF3). This places the fibre at approximately 810 AD, with a date range of 780-840 AD - making it significantly older than the three other coconut fibre samples tested from the island, which clustered around 1130-1220 AD (a difference of approximately 330 years). This age discrepancy is notable. The WHOI researchers hypothesized that they may have dated a subsample of the same material previously tested by Beta Analytic (receipt 10168 / OI-3-CF2, which dated to 765 ±35 BP / ~1185 AD), as the ages are indistinguishable from the Beta Analytic results for the other sample provided by Blankenship. However, the Smith's Cove beach sample (OI-5-CF3) is distinctly older. The fibre was heavily decomposed, consisting of only about 5% carbon by weight - a low percentage for most vegetative materials. Despite this decomposition, AMS technology (which requires only very small samples) enabled accurate dating. The WHOI team conducted Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) analysis through the U.S. Geological Survey in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. The SEM photo-micrographs were sent to two palm experts for identification: • Dr. Scott Zona of the Fairchild Tropical Garden in Miami suggested the fibres might be husk fibres of a coconut, but noted his comparison with modern fibres was inconclusive. • Prof. (Emeritus) Natalie Uhl of Cornell University concluded that the SEM photo-micrographs resemble fibrous bundle sheaths in palm stems. However, without the full bundle (including the xylem vessel structure), she could not make a conclusive genus and species identification. She is working with a colleague, Dr. Francisco Guanchez from Venezuela, a specialist on the genus Leopoldinia, which has long been exploited for fibre. For comparison, the WHOI team also obtained SEM photo-micrographs of mesocarp coconut fibre from Cocos nucifera, a coconut commonly found in the tropics. Notable similarities exist between the Oak Island fibre and the reference coconut fibre, though final confirmation from palm and coconut specialists was still pending at the time of the April 1996 draft report. The WHOI report identified four possible pathways by which coconut fibre may have reached Oak Island: (1) planted by previous searchers, (2) natural transport by Gulf Stream and inshore currents, (3) dunnage discharged at Oak Island by a previous ship involved in the oak wood trade, or (4) brought and used by ancient voyagers for flood tunnel filtration purposes. The researchers noted that Triton Associates' claim of finding the fibre could not be discounted, and that the possibility of previous searchers or others planting the material also could not be excluded. They were actively researching Gulf Stream transport with Natalie Uhl and her colleagues.   Recent research by David H. Neisen, Robert W. Cook, and Christopher L. Boze has proposed a specific identification for the fibre. Based on micro and macro botanical examination, their analysis concludes the material is trunk fibre from the Judean Date Palm (Phoenix dactylifera), specifically the mesh and sheath material that surrounds the trunk, rather than coconut coir. This aligns with the caution expressed by both Zona and Uhl in the original WHOI study, where neither expert could make a conclusive coconut identification. The C14 dates remain valid regardless of species, and the pre-Columbian age of the material is not in dispute. If the revised identification is correct, it points directly to the Levant, where the Knights Templar cultivated date palms near Jericho from 1116 until the Battle of Hattin in 1187. **Coin with possible cross design, medieval (Money Pit)** Date: Medieval Found: Near Money Pit When: Season 2, Episode 2 Type: Coin A coin bearing what appears to be a cross symbol, found by Gary Drayton near the Money Pit area during Season 2. The coin was described as having a cross design embedded in its surface, a feature that drew comparisons to medieval European coinage and Templar-era currency. The broad date estimate of 500-1400 AD assigned to the artefact reflects the difficulty of identifying heavily corroded coins without visible inscriptions or mint marks. The find is not described in detail in the episode record, and no expert analysis or conservation report has been documented for this artefact in the series. Cross-bearing coins were common across medieval Europe, appearing on denominations minted by Frankish, English, Spanish, and Portuguese authorities from the early medieval period through the Renaissance. Without cleaning, imaging, or metallurgical analysis, the coin's origin, denomination, and precise date remain undetermined. **Concrete/cement wall** Date: Unknown Found: Smith's Cove When: Season 6 (2018-19) Type: Structure The concrete wall was discovered at Smith's Cove during the Lagina team's Season 6 excavation, buried approximately three feet below the ocean floor near the slipway and the U-shaped structure. It measured five inches thick and three feet tall, entirely unrecorded in any searcher documentation from 1850 onward. Embedded in the bottom of the wall were two connected rubber tubes. Archaeologist Laird Niven noted he had found rubber artefacts dating to the 1850s at other sites, and the team considered the possibility that the rubber tubes were a later addition drilled through an existing structure. Dan Blankenship, who had worked at Smith's Cove for decades, had no record of the wall and suggested it predated Robert Restall's operations, noting that earlier searchers were often too focused on treasure to keep proper records. Rick Lagina observed that the Romans had developed hydraulic concrete capable of setting underwater as early as the third century BC, mixing volcanic ash with minerals to create a compound that hardens in seawater. Marty Lagina raised the possibility that the concrete was far older than the rubber tubes and that a later searcher had drilled through the pre-existing wall. In Season 12, geochemist Emma Culligan analysed a concrete sample recovered from the Smith's Cove area. Her X-ray diffraction results detected a trace of portlandite, placing the sample in the Portland cement category. She narrowed the source to one of only two locations in Canada with portlandite deposits: Quebec or British Columbia, with Quebec more likely because the aggregates and sand appeared to be Nova Scotia-based. The Quebec facility began using hydraulic mining in the 1920s, and the sample was consistent with hydraulically mined cement. Culligan ruled out anything post-1980s because modern concrete additives were absent, and noted the concrete was not mixed thoroughly, a characteristic consistent with cement poured to fill a floodgate. The analysis narrowed the wall's construction to the early-to-mid twentieth century, though its purpose and the identity of its builders remain unresolved. **Copper coin, late 17th-early 18th century (swamp stone pathway, S8E10)** Date: Late 1600s - early 1700s (Gary Drayton estimate) Found: Near stone pathway in swamp When: Season 8, Episode 10 (2021) Type: Coin An old copper coin recovered by Gary Drayton from spoils near the stone pathway in the swamp during Season 8. Drayton estimated the coin dated to the late 1600s or early 1700s. The find added to a growing collection of 17th-century coins from the swamp area, including the Spanish 8 maravedis from 1652 and English coins dating to 1673 found on Lot 16. The stone pathway, excavated under the supervision of archaeologists Dr. Aaron Taylor and Laird Niven, had been revealing evidence of a deliberately constructed road through the swamp, with massive stones laid over a wood cribbing structure. Gary also found an ox shoe nail embedded in the stone structure during the same search, providing further evidence of heavy cargo hauling along the route. **Copper coin, late 17th-early 18th century (swamp stone pathway, S8E11)** Date: Late 1600s - early 1700s (Gary Drayton estimate) Found: Swamp stone pathway When: Season 8, Episode 11 (2021) Type: Coin A late 1600s to early 1700s copper coin recovered by Gary Drayton from spoils near the stone pathway in the swamp during Season 8, Episode 11. Excavation of the stone pathway was continuing under the supervision of archaeologists Dr. Aaron Taylor and Laird Niven, with heavy equipment operator Billy Gerhardt carefully removing material along each side.Beneath the massive stones, Billy uncovered a wood cribbing structure consisting of perpendicular beams stacked in layers, engineered to support the weight of the roadway across the boggy terrain. Gary also recovered an ox shoe nail during the same search, connecting to earlier ox shoe discoveries and suggesting heavy cargo was transported between the swamp and the Lot 15 tar kiln area. **Copper coin, pre-1816 (Lot 6, Samuel Ball property)** Date: Pre-1816 (described as 200+ years old) Found: Lot 6 (Samuel Ball property) When: Season 4, Episode 6 (2016) Type: Coin A coin recovered by metal detection expert Gary Drayton on Lot 6, one of the properties once owned by Samuel Ball, during Season 4. The coin was described as appearing to be over 200 years old. No further identification, cleaning, or expert analysis was documented in the episode. Ball, a formerly enslaved South Carolinian who settled on Oak Island in 1786, accumulated nine four-acre lots on the island and became one of the wealthiest men in the area by his death in 1845. Coins, buttons, and military artifacts have been recovered from multiple Ball properties, supporting theories that he discovered and profited from items buried on the island before his arrival. **Copper Nameplate** Date: Late 17th century Found: Lot 4 — spoils from Lot 5 round feature When: Season 12 Episode 11 (4 February 2024) Type: Artifact A small copper piece bearing rivets, recovered by Peter Fornetti and metal detection expert Gary Drayton on Lot 4 while sifting through ten tons of soil that had been removed from the rounded stone foundation on Lot 5. The find surfaced during a wash-plant session featured in The Curse of Oak Island Season 12 Episode 11, aired 4 February 2024. In the field, Drayton noted that the rivets suggested the piece had once been fastened to a textile or leather object, perhaps from a uniform, bag, or satchel, and hoped lab analysis might reveal a military insignia or regimental marking. Blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge examined the artifact at the Oak Island Research Center and identified it as a nameplate, the type of small applied panel used historically to mark personal effects, equipment, or container fittings. Archaeometallurgist Emma Culligan ran an XRF scan and returned a copper alloy composed of copper, zinc, iron, lead, and arsenic. The arsenic content placed the manufacture before the industrial period, since smelting practices prior to the mid-eighteenth century routinely left residual arsenic in copper alloys while later refining methods removed it. Culligan placed the most likely date in the late seventeenth century. The rounded stone foundation on Lot 5, a deliberately buried structure under investigation since Season 11, has produced artifacts spanning the medieval period through the late eighteenth century, including six Roman coins, multiple Venetian trade beads, a 14th-century lead barter token scientifically matched to the lead cross from Smith's Cove, simulated French gemstones, military-style buttons, and a fragment of a cast-iron cooking pot of European origin. The copper nameplate adds to the colonial-era component of the assemblage. **Copper shards (decorative box)** Date: Unknown Found: Lot 5 round stone feature When: Season 11 (2024) Type: Artifact The Copper Shards (Decorative Box) were recovered from the Lot 5 excavation on Oak Island during Season 11 of the Lagina excavation. The fragments came from the same round stone feature that has produced Venetian glass beads, Roman coins, ornate buttons, and a 14th-century lead barter token. In Season 11 Episode 11, "Plugged Up" (January 23, 2024), Alex Lagina sifted thin decorative copper fragments from spoils excavated at Lot 5. The fragility of the material suggested ornamental rather than structural use. During the same dig sequence, Fiona Steele recovered a flat copper piece pierced by three rivets that appeared to be decorative hardware from a trunk or chest lid. In Season 11 Episode 12, "Digging Back In" (January 30, 2024), blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge of the Ross Farm Museum examined the copper fragments in the Oak Island lab. He identified a rounded, tapered piece bearing a pattern as having come from a small jewelry chest. Iron pieces recovered with the copper fragments were identified as box straps rather than barrel hoops, supporting the interpretation of a chest or small storage container rather than a cask. Emma Culligan performed X-ray fluorescence analysis on the iron components and reported lead sitting on top of one piece, a characteristic that, in Culligan's assessment, is common in English-manufactured iron from the 1600s through the early 1700s. Alex Lagina observed that the resulting date range aligned with the theory presented to the team by Scott Clarke connecting Lot 5 to Sir William Phips, the English colonial governor who recovered substantial treasure from the wreck of the Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de la Concepción in 1687. The shards have not been laboratory dated independently, and the precise origin of the decorative box they came from has not been determined. The interpretation rests on Carmen Legge's visual identification of the chest pattern and Emma Culligan's XRF characterization of the associated iron. **Copper sheeting (decorative)** Date: Unknown; not local copper Found: Lot 8 When: Season 11 (2023) Type: Artifact A piece of decorative copper sheeting recovered on Oak Island and catalogued among the island's metalworking artifacts. Copper sheeting has been used since antiquity for a range of purposes, from decorative architectural cladding to protective hull plating on sailing vessels. The practice of sheathing ship hulls with copper became widespread in the Royal Navy from the 1760s onward, after trials proved the metal's effectiveness against shipworm and marine fouling.On Oak Island, copper and copper-alloy artifacts have been found across multiple lots and at various depths. Carmen Legge identified copper sheathing tacks, or clouts, recovered on Lot 5 during Season 12 as fasteners used to secure copper sheeting to the underside of boats, dating them to 1720 to 1760. Emma Culligan confirmed those tacks were a pure bronze alloy containing lead and arsenic. The presence of copper sheeting and its associated fasteners on the island is consistent with maritime activity during the 18th century, and the decorative quality of this particular piece suggests it may have served an ornamental rather than utilitarian purpose, possibly from furniture, a chest, or a ceremonial object rather than a ship's hull. **Copper ship nails (pair, 1720-1760)** Date: 1720-1760 (Carmen Legge) Found: Lot 5 - circular stone foundation When: Season 12, Episode 14 (2025) Type: Artifact Two copper nails found near the circular stone foundation on Lot 5 by Gary Drayton and Jack Begley. Artifact expert Carmen Legge determined they are ship-related and dated between 1720 and 1760, supporting theories of maritime activity on the island. **Cornish miner's pick** Date: Unknown Found: Money Pit area, 127 ft depth When: 1931 Type: Tool The Cornish miner's pick was found at approximately 127 feet during the 1931 Chappell expedition, alongside the remains of a miner's oil lamp at the same depth. Others record both the pick and the lamp at 127 feet (38.7 metres), eleven feet below the anchor fluke and four feet below the axe recovered during the same dig. The Cornish designation identifies a specific style of pick developed for the tin and copper mines of Cornwall, England, where hard-rock mining had been practised since the Bronze Age. Cornish miners were among the most skilled underground workers in Europe, and from the seventeenth century onward they were exported across the British Empire and beyond wherever tunnelling through difficult ground was required. Their presence in colonial Nova Scotia is well documented: Cornwall men worked in the gold mines of the province during the 1860s rush, and Cornish mining techniques were standard in the region's extractive industries. In the context of Oak Island, historian Paul Speed presented a theory linking Cornish miners to Sir Francis Drake's operations, arguing that sixteenth-century Cornish workers possessed the coastal mining techniques needed to construct the island's tunnels and flood systems. Whether the pick belonged to the original builders or to a previous search team has not been determined. If it was deposited by the builders, its Cornish origin would indicate the involvement of workers with professional hard-rock mining experience, consistent with the scale and sophistication of the Money Pit's underground construction. If it fell from a collapsed searcher shaft, the most likely candidates would be the workers of the nineteenth-century expeditions, several of which employed experienced miners. The pick's grouping with an oil lamp at the same depth suggests the two objects were associated, either as the working kit of a single person or as equipment cached together. **Creamware plate base, c. 1762-1763 (swamp pathway, Lot 13)** Date: c. 1762-1763 (Dr. Aaron Taylor) Found: Stone pathway uplands near Lot 13, swamp When: Season 8, Episode 24 Type: Artifact The base of a creamware plate recovered along the stone pathway uplands near Lot 13. Archaeologist Dr. Aaron Taylor dated it to approximately 1762 to 1763, the period in which British potters introduced refined lead-glazed creamware. Creamware is closely datable because its production and rapid adoption are well documented, which makes it a useful chronological marker on a site. The find sits alongside annular ware from the same excavation and indicates domestic activity along the pathway in the early 1760s, decades before the Money Pit was discovered. **Crib spikes (multiple)** Date: 1650-1800 Found: Smith's Cove When: Season 6 (2018-19) Type: Artifact Multiple large iron spikes were recovered from the Smith's Cove area by Gary Drayton during Season 6 excavations within the steel cofferdam. The spikes were found in the vicinity of the U-shaped structure, the slipway, and the other wooden features that the team was systematically exposing and documenting beneath the cove's surface. Their size and form distinguished them from the smaller nails and fasteners found across the island. Marty Lagina, Alex Lagina, and historian Doug Crowell brought the spikes to blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge at the Ross Farm Museum, approximately twenty miles north of the island. Carmen identified them as crib spikes, used to join heavy timbers in crib construction, a technique for building stable platforms in tidal or waterlogged environments by stacking squared timbers in alternating layers and pinning them with long iron spikes. He dated the spikes to between 1650 and 1800 and described the wrought iron hinge found in the same area as the oldest piece in the collection, dating to the early 1600s. Carmen concluded that the crib spikes held something substantial and were consistent with heavy marine construction. Crib construction of the scale indicated by these spikes would have required substantial pre-planning, a supply of large iron fasteners, and workers experienced in heavy timber work in tidal environments. The spikes complement the other structural evidence from Smith's Cove, including the U-shaped and L-shaped wooden structures dendrochronologically dated to 1769, the slipway with timbers dated to both 1741 and 1769, and the fan-shaped box drains with coconut fibre carbon dated to 1260-1400 AD. Together they indicate an engineered waterfront facility built and maintained over an extended period rather than a single construction event. **Crossbow bolt (Wroclawski/Dunfield)** Date: Medieval/Viking Age; pre-1300s (Ladby Viking Museum assessment) Found: Oak Island (exact location unrecorded; recovered by Robert Dunfield in the 1960s) When: 1960s (presented to team Season 11) Type: Artifact A hand-forged iron crossbow bolt recovered from Oak Island by Robert Dunfield during his excavation in the 1960s. The artifact's exact find location was never recorded. It passed to Oak Island researcher Paul Wroclawski, who had established a relationship with Dan Blankenship in the 1990s and spent years researching the island's earliest inhabitants. After Paul's death in 2014, his son Eric preserved the piece. Eric Wroclawski met Rick Lagina and Doug Crowell in Halifax and presented the bolt. Doug identified it as one of three crossbow bolts found on the island over the years, noting the other two had been lost. The crossbow was documented as early as 500 B.C. but revolutionized warfare 1,500 years later in Europe and the Holy Land during the Crusades. Doug's first reaction on seeing the artifact in person was that it was much smaller than he had expected from photographs. The team brought the artifact to Denmark, where Ladby Viking Museum curator Ane Jepsen Nyborg examined it alongside a replica from her collection. She confirmed the bolt matches pieces from local archaeological digs and dated it to the early medieval period through the Viking Age, pre-1300s. The Oak Island Compendium had previously argued the artifact was a peavey pike, a removable point from a logging tool common on the island, but Doug's observation that the piece was smaller than expected may have undermined that identification. **Crude lime mortar fragments (Becker Hole B33)** Date: Undated; recovered from a partial cavity below the 192-ft wood layer Found: Becker Hole B33, partial cavity below 192 ft, Money Pit area When: 1967 (Becker drilling program) Type: Material Fragments of what appeared to be crude lime mortar recovered from Becker Hole B33 during the 1967 drilling program in the Money Pit area. The hole, located seven feet south of Hole B24, reached rock surface at 152 feet and was advanced through rock to 190 feet with a tricone bit. Clay was found from 190 to 192 feet, followed by a layer of wood at 192 feet. The hole then passed through a partial cavity containing soil and the mortar fragments before encountering rock again at 198 feet. In Oak Island usage this material has commonly been referred to as cement, a label that goes back to the cement layer reported by drillers in the Money Pit in 1897. Les MacPhie's 2008 technical review lists the mortar among the artifacts considered evidence of man-made workings in the lower reaches of the Money Pit, found in association with the deep wood, the puddled clay layer, and the cavity sequence recorded in the surrounding holes. No compositional analysis or dating of the fragments appears in the published record. **Cut silver coin, 15th-18th century (Lot 5 round feature)** Date: 15th-18th century Found: Lot 4 (spoils removed from Lot 5 round feature) When: Season 12, Episode 1 (2024) Type: Coin A cut coin recovered by Gary Drayton and Peter Fornetti while metal detecting 10 tons of spoils removed from the Lot 5 round feature during Season 12. Emma Culligan's XRF analysis showed the coin was silver with high chlorine, indicating prolonged saltwater exposure. The practice of cutting coins was common from the 15th through 18th centuries as a method of making change or paying crew when smaller denominations were unavailable.The coin was found in spoils from the same round stone feature that had produced Roman coins, Venetian trade beads, a 14th-century lead barter token, and pottery spanning the 14th through 18th centuries. The silver composition and saltwater indicators distinguish this coin from the predominantly copper coins found elsewhere on the island and suggest possible maritime origins. **Cut Spanish maravedi, 17th-18th century (Isaac's Point)** Date: 1600s-1700s (Gary Drayton estimate) Found: Isaac's Point (eastern shore, storm-eroded bluffs) When: Season 5 (2017) Type: Coin A Spanish copper maravedi coin that has been deliberately chiseled, recovered by metal detection expert Gary Drayton at Isaac's Point on the eastern shore of Oak Island during Season 5. Peter Fornetti and Jack Begley joined Drayton in searching the storm-eroded bluffs, where they also recovered a musket ball dating to before the 1850s. Drayton identified the coin as a maravedi, a denomination commonly used by Spanish explorers and pirates in the 17th and 18th centuries, and estimated it dated to the 1700s or possibly the 1600s. The coin had been deliberately cut, a standard practice across the Spanish colonial world for making change when smaller denominations were unavailable. Merchants, soldiers, and sailors routinely chiseled coins into halves or quarters to settle transactions at values below the coin's face. The practice was widespread from the 16th through the 18th century and is a common feature of coins recovered from Spanish colonial sites throughout the Americas and the Caribbean. Drayton noted the coin's excellent condition, which suggested it had been buried in soil with no saltwater contact despite its proximity to the shore. The team sent the coin for professional cleaning in hopes of recovering a legible date, though the results of that cleaning have not been reported on the series. Isaac's Point, on the island's eastern shore, is a less frequently searched area than the Money Pit zone or Smith's Cove, and the find extended the geographic range of Spanish-era coin recoveries beyond the swamp and Lot 16. The coin is one of several maravedis recovered from Oak Island. The first, a Spanish 8 maravedis copper coin dated 1652, was found in the swamp during Season 1. A possible maravedi was also recovered from Lot 16 during Season 5. Together with the 1673 and 1694 English coins found on Lot 16 the same season, the Isaac's Point maravedi contributed to a pattern of 17th-century coin finds that placed activity on the island well before the 1795 discovery of the Money Pit. **Cylindrical metal object (Borehole 10, Warnock Hersey)** Date: Undated; possibly Warnock Hersey drilling equipment per the borehole log Found: Borehole 10, Money Pit area; ejected with anhydrite core, top of core or 197.5 ft per log When: November 1-2, 1969 Type: Artifact A small cylindrical metal object, approximately one quarter inch in diameter and three quarters of an inch long, recovered during the deepening of Borehole 10 in the Money Pit area. The hole had been drilled to 167 feet by contractor W. Bowmaster on 29 October 1969, after which Warnock Hersey International Limited advanced it at Dan Blankenship's request and cored the anhydrite bedrock from 237.5 to 242.5 feet on 1 and 2 November 1969. The object was ejected along with the anhydrite core when the corebarrel was emptied. The drilling log records its position as either at the top of the core or at 197.5 feet depth, and states that there was no indication whether it formed part of the corebarrel or other Warnock Hersey drilling equipment, while allowing that it may be. The log notes that the object passed into Dan Blankenship's possession. No metallurgical analysis of the piece appears in the published record, and the log leaves both readings open: equipment debris, or an object from the ground. **Dandy button** Date: 1700s Found: Samuel Ball's property When: Season 4, Ep. 8 Type: Button An 18th-century dandy button recovered by Gary Drayton on Lot 24, one of nine four-acre properties once owned by Samuel Ball. The button was found during an intensive metal detecting survey alongside a copper coin bearing the image of King George II (dated 1727 to 1760), a lead musket ball ingot used by soldiers to chop off pieces and cast musket balls in a mould, a metal plate from the stock of a musket or pistol bearing what appeared to be an engraved name or signature, and six additional King George II copper coins concentrated in a small radius. Dandy buttons were decorative fasteners popular in the 18th century, typically made of brass or copper alloy and often featuring ornamental designs on their face. They were worn on civilian clothing by men of means, distinguishing them from the plainer buttons found on working garments. Gary concluded that the density and type of artifacts recovered from the site pointed to a British military encampment, a finding that supported Fred Nolan's longstanding theory connecting the treasure to the 1762 British sacking of Havana, when the Royal Navy confiscated a vast hoard of Spanish gold and sailed to the port of Halifax, roughly 60 miles north of Oak Island. The recovery site on Lot 24 was part of the extensive landholdings of Samuel Ball, who arrived on Oak Island in 1787 as a cabbage farmer but became one of Nova Scotia's wealthiest landowners through means that have never been satisfactorily explained. Charles Barkhouse noted during the search that the 1870 first edition of Mather Myles DesBrisay's History of the County of Lunenburg lists Ball as one of the original Money Pit discoverers rather than Anthony Vaughn, a detail removed without explanation in later editions. **Decorative brass boat fitting** Date: Colonial era Found: Smith's Cove, intertidal zone When: Season 5 Type: Artifact Decorative brass fitting recovered by Gary Drayton while searching the intertidal zone at Smith's Cove during low tide. Gary identified it as having come from a boat. Found on the same day as the lead cross and lead spoon handle. **Decorative iron hinges (pair, Spanish-style)** Date: Colonial era (Spanish style) Found: Lot 12 dumpsite When: Season 5 Type: Artifact Two decorative iron hinges recovered by Gary Drayton at the dumpsite on Lot 12, marked on Fred Nolan's survey maps. Gary identified them as the type used on chests or boxes, similar to ones he has found on Spanish shipwreck sites. The hinges raise the possibility of a connection to the three missing chests of privateer Captain James Anderson and to the folding skeleton key Fred Nolan found on the island. **Decorative keyhole plate** Date: Pre-1800 Found: Tom Nolan's lot When: Season 5 Type: Artifact An ornate iron lock plate with a clearly defined keyhole and a raised floral design resembling a rose, recovered by Gary Drayton on Lot 8 during Season 5. Rick Lagina and Marty Lagina were metal detecting an area that Fred Nolan had identified on his survey maps as one of 11 sites where he believed subsurface treasure had been concealed. The plate was handmade and asymmetrical, qualities Gary noted were unlike anything a farmer or tradesman would possess, and its decorative style suggested it came from a chest or strongbox of considerable value.The lock plate echoed the folding skeleton key that Tom Nolan had recently given the team from Fred's collection, a key with a blade cut in the shape of a cross that became visible when folded. The pairing of a decorative keyhole plate and a cross-shaped key on the same property raised the possibility that a chest or locked container had once been present on Lot 8. The area had also been flagged by Fred Nolan as one of his 11 priority sites based on 50 years of fieldwork, and subsequent seasons produced additional significant artifacts from the same lot, including a rhodolite garnet brooch dated to 400 to 500 years old, a military-style cuff button from approximately 1780 to 1820, and two chest-type hinges found on Lot 12. **Divider Compass** Date: 1650-1750 Found: Found in the Dunfield spoils of the Money Pit When: Season 13 Type: Tool A hand-forged double-sided iron instrument with two arms joined by a pin, recovered on Lot 15 and initially identified by the team as a compass. Emma Culligan's CT scan and compositional analysis revealed no modern alloying elements, placing the tool comfortably in the 1700s with the possibility of the mid to late 1600s. The iron shows extreme chlorine content consistent with prolonged saltwater submersion, not just surface exposure. Blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge corrected the identification: it is not a compass but a divider, a high-quality engineering tool used for measuring distances, designing structures, and determining circumferences. Carmen called it the most sophisticated item to have surfaced from metal detecting on the island and noted comparable French dividers from 1620 and a British example from 1543. He characterized it as the tool of an upper-level craftsman, expensive and built to last. The team speculated the divider may have been lost in the flood tunnel system at Smith's Cove and later brought to the surface in Robert Dunfield's massive 1965 excavation, whose spoils were spread across Lot 15. Rick Lagina connected it to the five stone cairns on Lot 15 that Fred Nolan documented in the early 1960s, which archaeoastronomy expert Professor Adriano Gaspani demonstrated through peer-reviewed research to be aligned with 13th-century star positions. A precision instrument of this kind would have been essential for planning such formations and for any engineering work in the Money Pit. **Drilled Stone (Lot 15)** Found: Lot 15, near the excavated stone walls When: 2020 (Season 8) Type: Artifact A large flat stone with a beveled edge and a drilled hole in its surface, uncovered on Lot 15 during Season 8 by archaeologists Laird Niven, Aaron Taylor, and David MacInnes while excavating the site's stone walls. Surveyor Steve Guptill examined the find and suggested it resembled an old survey marker, possibly connected to other drilled stones documented elsewhere on the island. MacInnes concluded the flat stone had been placed before the adjacent walls were built. In Season 11, author and Freemason Christopher Morford incorporated the stone into his analysis of Nolan's Cross, tracing a sightline from Cone C through Cone A and along a series of drilled marker stones. Guptill confirmed this stone's position within that alignment, and calculated that the drilled stones in the series sit at exactly half the distance to the Money Pit, with the line terminating on the tunnel discovered beneath the Garden Shaft. **Drilled Stone (Lot 27)** Found: Lot 27, one of the island's highest points When: Surveyed prior to Season 13; significance identified 2026 Type: Artifact A stone bearing a drilled hole located on Lot 27, at one of the highest elevations on Oak Island. Rick Lagina and surveyor Steve Guptill had recorded its position years earlier without a known connection to any other feature. During Season 13, Guptill projected a survey line southeast from the marker stone recovered on Lot 5. The line passed directly through this stone before continuing to the Kingdom Stone, the buried sefirot at the base of Nolan's Cross that Norwegian Freemason and researcher Petter Amundsen identified in 2013 as part of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. Guptill noted the stone's position atop one of the island's high points is consistent with use as a survey pivot within a wider network of aligned features. **Drilled Stone (Money Pit Area)** Date: Unknown Found: About 50 feet north of the Money Pit When: Reported 1895; investigated 1937 (Gilbert Hedden) Type: Artifact A granite boulder bearing a hand-drilled hole, located roughly fifty feet north of the Money Pit. Treasure hunter Frederick Blair reported the stone's existence to Gilbert Hedden in 1937. The show's Season 11 account credits Blair with the original 1895 discovery, while journalist Randall Sullivan's history of the island attributes the initial find to Captain John Welling in 1897. Hedden traced a matching drilled boulder near the Smith's Cove shoreline, its hole aligned with this one, and engaged Halifax land surveyor Charles Roper to record the positions of both stones together with the nearby Stone Triangle. Roper's 1930s survey established a point eighteen rods east of the Smith's Cove stone and seven rods west of this one, landing directly on the Cave-in Pit. The stone was subsequently moved from its original position, though its coordinates remain recorded on Roper's survey. Sullivan notes that when Dan Blankenship later discovered Borehole 10-X sat on the exact line between Hedden's two drilled stones, it renewed Triton Alliance's interest in the site. During Season 8, the team referenced Hedden's find while investigating anchor points drawn from a map belonging to the late researcher Zena Halpern. In Season 11, author and Freemason Christopher Morford incorporated the stone into his analysis of Nolan's Cross, tracing a sightline from Cone C through Cone A and along a series of drilled marker stones. Surveyor Steve Guptill calculated that the stones sit at exactly half the distance to the Money Pit, with the line terminating not on the Garden Shaft but directly on top of the tunnel discovered beneath it. **Drilled Stone (Nolan Property)** Found: Fred Nolan's property, between the swamp and the Money Pit When: Documented by Fred Nolan during his own survey; referenced on-screen in Season 11 Type: Artifact A drilled stone located on Fred Nolan's property, between the swamp and the Money Pit. According to the show's Season 11 account, Nolan documented the stone during his own survey work, more than three decades after Frederick Blair's 1895 report of a similarly drilled stone near the Money Pit. Author and Freemason Christopher Morford incorporated the stone into his analysis of Nolan's Cross, tracing a sightline from Cone C through Cone A and along a series of drilled marker stones. Surveyor Steve Guptill confirmed the stone's position within that alignment. Beyond the Season 11 presentation, no further detail on this stone, such as its physical dimensions or the exact date of Nolan's find, has been published. It should not be confused with the heart-shaped stone also found on Nolan's property, or with the general drilled rocks Nolan reported finding alongside it during his broader search of his land. **Drilled Stone (Smith's Cove)** Found: Near the Smith's Cove shoreline, roughly 400 feet from the Money Pit drilled stone When: 1937 (Gilbert Hedden) Type: Artifact A granite boulder bearing a hand-drilled hole, found near the Smith's Cove shoreline by Gilbert Hedden's crew in 1937 while investigating a matching stone reported north of the Money Pit. The hole in this boulder measured roughly two inches deep and one and a quarter inches in diameter, identical to the companion stone, and aligned with it when sighted along the drilled axis. Hedden had the position surveyed by Halifax land surveyor Charles Roper, who calculated the distance between the two boulders at almost exactly twenty-five rods, about four hundred and fifteen feet. Roper used the pair, together with the nearby Stone Triangle, to establish reference points across the island, including a point that landed directly on the Cave-in Pit. From 1959 to 1963, treasure hunter Laverne Johnson used sightlines between this stone and its counterpart, intersected with a line from the apex of the Stone Triangle, to argue the Money Pit was a decoy and that the true deposit lay roughly 280 feet to the north. During Season 3, Johnson's theory was revisited by his relatives Mike and Sean Harold, and Jack Begley and Charles Barkhouse paced out the bearing line and located a drilled stone matching the historical description. **Dutch Onion Bottle Glass** Date: 1600s-1700s (Gary Drayton); dark-glass technique attributed to Sir Kenelm Digby, 1630s Found: Stone pathway, swamp When: Season 8, Episode 12 Type: Artifact A fragment of dark, thick-walled glass with small trapped air bubbles, recovered from the stone pathway in the swamp. Gary Drayton identified it as part of a Dutch onion bottle, a squat wide-bodied wine or spirits bottle of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and placed it in the 1600s or 1700s. The robust dark-green glass technique is attributed to Sir Kenelm Digby in the 1630s. If the identification is correct, the fragment is consistent with European provisioning activity along the pathway before the 1795 discovery of the Money Pit. **Eelgrass layer** Date: Unknown Found: Money Pit, 60 ft depth When: c. 1804 Type: Material At roughly sixty feet below the surface, excavators found a bed of eelgrass (Zostera marina) laid alongside coconut fibre as part of the Money Pit's layered construction. Eelgrass is a flowering saltwater plant that grows in shallow coastal waters along the Nova Scotia shoreline. It does not grow underground and was clearly placed in the shaft by the original builders. The same pairing of eelgrass and coconut fibre appeared at Smith's Cove, where the Truro Company discovered the box drain system in 1850. Five stone drains, each sixty-six feet long, converged at a collection point and fed seawater into the flood tunnel. The drains were packed with layers of coconut fibre and eelgrass that acted as a natural filter, allowing water to pass while preventing fine sediment from clogging the stone channels below. Coconut fibre recovered from Smith's Cove was carbon dated to 1260-1400 AD with ninety-five percent confidence. Eelgrass samples from the same location returned a narrower range of 1472 to 1650 AD, placing the construction of the drains firmly before the 1795 discovery of the Money Pit. In Season 9, eelgrass appeared again when drilling borehole A13 in the Money Pit area. At approximately eighty-two feet, the core sample contained two pieces of material the team suspected was eelgrass, the same substance the Truro Company had found covering the box drains. Its presence at that depth in the Money Pit area raised the possibility that the flood tunnel system extended further inland than previously mapped. **English nail (1750s, Shaft 6)** Date: 1750s (English origin, Emma Culligan) Found: Shaft 6 / Money Pit area When: Season 12, Episode 16 (2025) Type: Artifact Nail confirmed by metallurgist Emma Culligan as English in origin, dating to the 1750s. The team speculated it could be from a 1600s William Phips treasure chest. **Evans Stone - 13-branched tree carving in rock** Date: Unknown Found: Lot 14, North shore When: Lagina era Type: Carved_stone A boulder on Oak Island's northeastern shore bearing the carved name "EVANS" and an image of a horizontal pine tree or fern. The team examined and documented the stone's markings on site during the season 6 finale. The tree or fern carving has drawn particular attention from researchers for its resemblance to symbolic imagery found on other inscribed stones in the region. The identity of "Evans" remains uncertain: it could refer to a person connected to early activity on the island, a later settler, or a searcher who marked the stone during the 19th century. No Evans appears in the known ownership records of Oak Island lots. The Evans Stone sits in an area with a broader history of inscribed rocks. In 1936, treasure hunter Gilbert Hedden discovered multiple carved stones along the shore at Joudrey's Cove, including fragments of a much larger boulder that had been blasted apart with dynamite in the 1920s. The original boulder bore multiple inscriptions: some appeared to date from the 19th century, but others carried symbols that seemed much older and were described as indecipherable. Hedden concluded that at least the most weathered inscriptions predated the discovery of the Money Pit, and began to consider the possibility that the solution to the island's mystery might have been left behind on the surface by the original depositors. The Evans Stone, with its name and tree carving on the northeastern shore, falls within this pattern of inscribed rocks documented along the island's coastline over more than a century. **Fireplace Hearth Foundation** Date: 1700-1850 Found: Northeastern border of swamp, adjacent to the stone pathway When: Season 8 Episode 20 (30 March 2021) Type: Structure A stone foundation roughly two feet high with two clearly defined right angles, uncovered during Season 8 Episode 20, aired 30 March 2021, near the northeastern border of the triangle-shaped swamp, adjacent to the stone pathway then estimated by surveyor Steve Guptill at approximately 460 feet in length. The foundation was buried beneath three feet of soil. Voids between the stacked stones initially raised the possibility that valuables had been concealed within the structure. Archaeologist Miriam Amirault and David Fornetti excavated the foundation and uncovered a large charcoal deposit beneath the stones, with reddened soil indicating sustained oxidation from intense heat. Dr. Aaron Taylor identified the deposit as evidence of repeated burning consistent either with a working hearth or with a structure that had burned down. Geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner confirmed the oxidation pattern and suggested it pointed to industrial activity, comparable to the pine tar kiln found on Lot 15 earlier in the same season. Steve Guptill observed that the foundation's construction style resembled that of 1700s and 1800s Nova Scotia foundations and noted its proximity to the property of Anthony Graves, who purchased most of Oak Island in 1857 and was known on the mainland for paying with Spanish silver and gold coins. Despite the scale of the burn feature, no artifacts were recovered from within or around the foundation itself, an absence that Aaron Taylor described as almost eerie and possibly indicative of deliberate clearing. Subsequent metal detection along the adjacent stone pathway in Season 8 Episode 21 produced a military-style cuff button dated 1750 to 1850, a fragment of French transfer print pottery from the early 1760s, a possible musket gunflint dating to the early 1600s, and a piece of iron identified as a possible fire grate associated with the hearth feature. **Flagstone layer** Date: Pre-1795 Found: Money Pit, 2 ft depth When: 1795 Type: Structure The flagstone layer was the first constructed feature found in the Money Pit. It consisted of a tier of flat stones arranged across the top of a hand-dug shaft at a depth of approximately two feet below the surface. Judge Mather DesBrisay, writing in his 1870 History of Lunenburg County (the first published book to include the Oak Island account), recorded that the stones "differed from the island stones" and that the finders concluded they had been brought from the vicinity of Gold River, several miles to the north. Beneath the flagstones, the shaft walls were tough, hard clay bearing visible pick marks, while the fill inside was loose and easy to remove compared to the surrounding ground. In the summer of 1795, Daniel McGinnis noticed a circular depression in the ground on the eastern end of Oak Island beneath an oak tree. Some accounts describe a tackle block hanging from the branches overhead, though this detail does not appear in all versions. McGinnis returned with John Smith and Anthony Vaughan, and the three began to dig. Two feet down they struck the flagstone tier. Removing it, they confirmed the shaft below had been previously excavated and refilled. The men continued to roughly thirty feet, finding tiers of oak logs at ten-foot intervals, before the scale of the work forced them to stop. Smith purchased the lot containing the pit later that year. Genealogical research established that McGinnis was thirty-seven at the time, not a teenager as later retellings suggested; he had owned four lots on Oak Island since 1788 and built his home on Lot 21. Smith was nearly twenty, and Anthony Vaughan Sr. was forty-five. The flagstone layer established from the outset that whoever built the shaft had transported material to the site from outside the island and used it to conceal the opening. In 2023, geologist Terry Matheson identified flat granite slabs near a large boulder on Lot 8 as flagstones of a type he had not seen elsewhere on the island, a find the team connected to the original 1795 discovery. **Flat decking wood (carbon dated)** Date: 1516-1674 (carbon dated) Found: Swamp, southern edge When: Season 9 Type: Material Flat piece of wood resembling decking, exposed by Billy Gerhardt in the southern edge of the swamp, an area where numerous pieces of possible ship components have been found dating as far back as 660 AD. Steve Guptill reported the piece was found twenty feet northwest of where a ship's railing was recovered the previous year. Carbon dating returned a date range of 1516 to 1674, consistent with the many 16th and 17th-century items recovered from the swamp. **Flat Stone with Hooked X** Date: Unknown Found: In the swamp When: Season 4, Episode 3 Type: Carved_stone The Flat Stone with Hooked X was discovered in the Oak Island swamp by Charles Barkhouse during a metal-detecting search in Season 4 Episode 3, "Swamp Things" (November 29, 2016). The stone bears a carved symbol resembling an X with a hook on its upper arm. Geologist Phil Finck of the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources subsequently examined the stone and determined that while most markings on its surface are natural glacial striations, the hooked X itself appears to have been deliberately incised. Forensic geologist Scott Wolter has proposed that the hooked X is a medieval rune adopted by the Knights Templar and used to mark their movements across North America from the 14th century onwards. Wolter has documented the symbol at sites including the Kensington Runestone in Minnesota, the Spirit Pond Runestones in Maine, and several locations across New England and the Maritimes, and presents the full argument in his 2009 book "The Hooked X: Key to the Secret History of North America." The symbol carries additional weight within Oak Island research because it appears in two other sources connected to the island. The first is the cipher known as La Formule, presented to the Lagina team by author Zena Halpern and identified by her as a 17th-century French Templar document referencing Oak Island by name. The second is the lost 90-foot stone, an inscribed stone recovered from the Money Pit in 1804 and missing since the early 20th century, which according to recorded oral accounts bore similar characters among its inscriptions. The Hooked X stone has not been re-examined or laboratory-dated in any subsequent broadcast episode through Season 13. The case for its medieval origin rests on Wolter's epigraphic interpretation of the symbol, supported by Finck's finding that the carving is artificial rather than natural. **Flower Button** Date: 1700s When: Season 12, Episode 9 Type: Button A significant gilded gold button with a floral pattern, discovered near the Lot 5 excavation site. Analyzed by Emma Culligan, the 18th-century artifact shows high phosphorus levels, suggesting it belonged to a British military officer or a gentleman of high status. **Fluke anchor** Date: Unknown Found: Money Pit area, 116 ft depth When: 1931 Type: Artifact The fluke anchor was recovered at approximately 116 feet below the surface during the 1931 Chappell expedition, seven feet above the axe and eleven feet above the miner's pick. This makes it the shallowest of the three tools recovered during the dig. Fanthorpe described it as "an ancient anchor fluke which probably dated from the fourteenth or fifteenth century," a date range that would place it well before any known European settlement in Nova Scotia and centuries before the first recorded search of the Money Pit. A fluke anchor is a small, portable anchor used on boats and smaller vessels, distinguished by its flat, pointed arms (flukes) that dig into the seabed. Anchors of this general design were used across European seafaring cultures from the medieval period onward, making precise attribution by form alone difficult. No metallurgical analysis of the Oak Island specimen has been publicly reported. Fanthorpe noted that anchors of this pattern were common on vessels ranging from fishing boats to coastal traders, meaning its presence does not by itself indicate a specific nationality or era beyond the broad medieval-to-colonial window. The anchor's location more than a hundred feet underground in a shaft on a wooded island remains unexplained. If it was deposited by the original builders, its presence would suggest that maritime equipment was brought to the site as part of the construction operation, consistent with the coconut fibre, ship's putty, and other nautical materials found throughout the Money Pit. If it fell from a collapsed searcher shaft, no historical record identifies which expedition might have carried an anchor of this description to the site. **Folded copper coin, post-medieval (Lot 5 round feature)** Date: Post-medieval (copper alloy with zinc, arsenic, lead) Found: Lot 5, spoils from round feature When: Season 13, Episode 8 (2025) Type: Coin A copper coin that has been folded over three times, recovered by Rick Lagina and Gary Drayton from spoils removed from the round feature on Lot 5 during Season 13. Gary noted that sailors and soldiers commonly folded coins as good luck tokens, a superstitious practice documented across European maritime and military cultures. A CT scan conducted by Emma Culligan and reported in the following episode revealed no visible relief or coin markings on the folded surfaces. The composition, a copper alloy with zinc, arsenic, and lead, placed the object definitively in the post-medieval period but prevented precise dating. Laird Niven and Emma presented the findings in the lab, noting the arsenic content as a marker of older metallurgical practice. The folded coin was found in an area that had by this point produced six Roman coins, six Venetian trade beads, two simulated French gemstones, ornate buttons, a 14th-century lead barter token, and a cut silver coin. The concentration of artifacts from multiple centuries in a single feature on an uninhabited lot remains one of the defining puzzles of the island's archaeological record. **Folded copper/brass piece (decorated)** Date: Post-1500s; ~95% copper, 5% zinc (brass). Possibly late 1700s. Found: Lot 8 When: Season 10, Ep. 6 (2022) Type: Artifact Folded brass sheet with intricate repoussé geometric designs, folded three times over. Composition approximately 95% copper and 5% zinc, making it technically brass of European origin. Laird Niven's initial assessment suggested military origin. Archaeologist Andre Costopoulos (University of Alberta) proposed it may be a gorget, a neck ornament worn as part of European military uniforms and also by North American Indigenous warriors. The British gave gorgets to their Mi'kmaw allies after the War of 1812. The decoration suggests possible Indigenous origin rather than European, possibly made from reworked European trade brass or gilding metal (Pinchbeck, manufactured in the UK from the early 1700s). The 5% zinc content rules out native copper and dates the metal source to post-1500s European manufacture. In a follow-up analysis, Dr. Edwin Barnhart of the Maya Exploration Center stated that nothing in the Americas was ever alloyed in this way, making the piece definitively European. He noted the geometric patterns are universal and difficult to attribute to a specific culture or period, but believed it was decorative and possibly a religious object. **Folding skeleton key (cross-shaped)** Date: Unknown Found: Oak Island When: Unknown (Fred Nolan find) Type: Artifact Folding skeleton key found by the late Fred Nolan on Oak Island. When folded, the blade forms the shape of a cross. Tom Nolan showed the key to Rick Lagina and Charles Barkhouse while granting access to his father's survey maps. The cross shape when folded has led to speculation about connections to religious or fraternal orders active on the island. **Forest Axe Heads (3)** Date: Early 1700s or earlier (Laird Niven assessment; not modern) Found: Lot 32, near the southwestern corner of the swamp When: Season 8, Episode 4 (December 1, 2020) Type: Tool Three hand-forged single-bit axe heads were discovered in close proximity on Lot 32 by Gary Drayton and Peter Fornetti during a metal detecting survey filmed for Season 8. The lot sits near the southwestern corner of the swamp, between an interpreted ship's wharf and the rectangular anomaly later identified on neighbouring Lot 30. Drayton noted that the axe heads resembled the rigging axe he and Jack Begley had found on Lot 15 in the season premiere, and suggested the concentration of three heads in such a small area could indicate a former work camp. Archaeologist Laird Niven examined the finds on site and confirmed they were not modern. He identified them as forest axes, lightweight tools used for cutting limbs off trees rather than felling whole trunks. Niven noted that the cluster was consistent with other early-1700s finds recovered from nearby Lot 15 earlier in the same season, which had included an axe head, ox shoes, and other hand-forged metal. The same episode featured a War Room presentation by Corjan Mol and Chris Morford expanding on their geometric research from Season 7. Superimposing Nicolas Poussin's painting The Shepherds of Arcadia onto a map of Oak Island, they demonstrated that a line drawn along the column of Nolan's Cross aligns with the Royal Way of the Palace of Versailles and, when extended further, intersects the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Using a system of concentric circles and a pentagram centred on the swamp, Mol and Morford identified two points on the island where they believed treasure may lie. The narrator suggested a possible connection between the Lot 11 depression identified by their analysis and the cluster of axe heads on Lot 32. **Garden Shaft** Date: Wood dated as early as 1735 Found: Money Pit area When: Lagina era Type: Structure An eighty-two-foot timber-lined shaft in the Money Pit area, originally classified as an 1800s searcher shaft of no particular significance. The structure was redated after wood samples taken from the eighty-foot mark returned a date of approximately 1735, placing its construction roughly sixty years before the discovery of the Money Pit in 1795. Water testing conducted by Dr. Ian Spooner and hydrogeologist Dr. Fred Michel revealed gold in two separate samples collected from the shaft, and a broader water analysis programme confirmed a flow of water from north of the shaft toward the south. The Garden Shaft became a primary focus beginning in Season 10, when the team tracked a previously unknown tunnel running at a depth of 103 feet that sonar and video confirmed was heading toward the shaft. The tunnel was intercepted at five separate borehole locations. Carbon dating of wood from the tunnel returned a 48.1 percent probability of 1731-1806 and a 35.5 percent probability of 1640-1687, placing the tunnel in the same general period as the shaft itself. Water samples from the boreholes in the tunnel zone showed elevated levels of gold, silver, copper, zinc, and tin, metals consistent with brass and bronze alloys that Dr. Spooner described as highly anomalous for the local geology. Dumas Contracting was hired to restore and deepen the shaft. Cameron Carter, Vice President of Engineering, presented a plan to build a foundation, remove backfill, reline the shaft with new timber and waterproofing, and install platforms at eight-foot intervals to a target depth of eighty feet. Probe holes drilled sixteen to twenty feet beyond the walls at each level would allow the team to detect voids, tunnels, or anomalous material. Work began in Season 10 but was halted when the Nova Scotia government determined the project required mining permits rather than the rehabilitation authorisation Dumas had originally received. The permits were eventually secured and work resumed in Season 11. By Season 11, Dumas had reached a depth of sixty-seven feet and was probing twelve feet outside the walls, with corners probed to twenty feet. Wood and water samples from depths of fifty-five and fifty-eight feet tested positive for gold. The shaft sits approximately twenty feet from the area Dr. Spooner and Dr. Michel identified as the Treasure Zone, where they concluded a possible treasure vault could lie at a depth of eighty to 120 feet. Rick Lagina and Scott Barlow descended into the shaft with Roger Fortin during Season 10 for a firsthand inspection, the first time the team had physically stood inside the original eighteenth-century structure. The Garden Shaft remains the deepest human-accessible point on Oak Island and the primary access route for the ongoing underground investigation. **George III "Cartwheel" twopence, 1797 (island general)** Date: 1797 (Boulton, Soho Mint) Found: Lot 2 When: Season 6 (2018) Type: Coin A large copper twopence coin featuring the face of King George III, recovered by Gary Drayton and Rick Lagina on Lot 2 during the Season 6 premiere. The coin was dated 1797 and identified as a cartwheel twopence, a distinctive coin minted exclusively in that year at Matthew Boulton's Soho Mint in Birmingham, England. The cartwheel was produced using steam-powered presses capable of striking coins with unprecedented precision and force. It was made of copper rather than the usual silver, resulting in a coin significantly larger and heavier than standard twopence, which gave rise to its common name. Approximately 720,000 cartwheel twopence coins were produced during a period when Britain faced a severe shortage of small currency. The coin's 1797 date places it just two years after the discovery of the Money Pit in 1795, making it consistent with the earliest known treasure hunting activity on the island. Gary found the coin on Lot 2 near a large granite boulder, alongside an iron spike completely embedded in the rock with several drilled holes of uniform diameter. The team identified what appeared to be a carved triangle on the boulder's face, possibly a Mason's mark. Archaeologist Laird Niven determined the site required formal archaeological evaluation before further excavation could proceed. The cartwheel twopence is well preserved, with the portrait and inscriptions clearly legible. Its presence on Lot 2, in an area previously unexplored by the Lagina team, extends the geographic range of coin finds across the island. The coin is contemporaneous with the earliest searcher activity following the 1795 discovery and may relate either to the original depositors' final visits or to the first generation of treasure hunters who began organised excavation in the early 1800s. **George III penny or halfpenny, 1760-1820 (Lot 5)** Date: 1760-1820 (Georgius III Rex) Found: Lot 5 When: Season 11, Episode 13 (2023) Type: Coin A coin recovered from Lot 5 during Season 11, identified through CT scanning by archaeologist Laird Niven as a Georgius III Rex, dating from 1760 to 1820. Gary Drayton confirmed the coin was the correct size for a penny or halfpenny. At the Interpretive Centre, Laird and Emma Culligan presented the analysis alongside other finds from Lot 5.Alex Lagina noted the coin was found in the fill of a feature on Lot 5, rather than in undisturbed ground. The coin's date range spans the period immediately before and after the discovery of the Money Pit in 1795, making it consistent with either the original depositors' activities or the earliest searcher operations on the island. **George Washington funeral urn medal, 1800 (swamp)** Date: January 1800 Found: Northern part of the Swamp When: Season 13, Episode 16 Type: Coin This medal found in the north end of the Oak Island swamp is a Washington Funeral Urn medal, struck in January 1800 by the engraver Jacob Perkins in Newburyport, Massachusetts. The reverse, depicting a classical funerary urn on a pedestal engraved with the initials GW, was designed by Paul Revere. It was one of the first commemorative pieces produced in the United States. George Washington died on December 14, 1799. The news sent the young republic into a period of mourning unlike anything the country had experienced. In Boston, two formal funeral processions were organised. The first, on February 11, 1800, was conducted by the Masonic Brotherhood. The second, on February 22, Washington's birthday, was a public civic ceremony. Each procession had its own medal. The Masonic version carried a skull and crossbones on the reverse. The public version carried the urn. The Oak Island medal is the urn type, placing it at the February 22 public procession. The medals were struck in silver, white metal, copper, and a handful in gold. Nearly all were pierced with a hole at the top so they could be worn around the neck on a ribbon or string during the procession. They were not currency. They were personal tokens of grief, purchased by citizens who wanted to be seen honouring the memory of the man who had founded their country. Around three hundred of the white metal variety were produced. They were a Boston product, made for a Boston event, sold to people who were in Boston in the winter of 1800. One of those people brought this medal to Oak Island and lost it in the swamp. Nova Scotia in 1800 was British territory, but the maritime connection between Boston and the south shore of Nova Scotia was old and constant. Fishing boats, timber traders, and coastal merchants moved between the two shores regularly. Chester, the town nearest to Oak Island, had been settled by New England families in the 1760s. The McGinnis, Vaughan, and Smith families who reportedly discovered the Money Pit in 1795 were part of that New England diaspora. The timing is what matters. The medal was made in January 1800. It could not have reached Oak Island before the spring of that year at the earliest. The Money Pit was supposedly discovered in 1795. If someone wearing a Boston funeral medal was in the Oak Island swamp around 1800, they were there during the first years of the treasure hunt, or they were there for another reason entirely. Either way, they were standing in a swamp on a small island in Mahone Bay with a commemorative medal around their neck, five years after three boys allegedly found a depression in the ground under an oak tree and started digging. The medal does not tell us what they were looking for. But it tells us they were in Boston, and it tells us roughly the earliest moment they could have been there. And it tells us they ended up in the swamp, not on the high ground where the pit was, not on the road, not at the shore. In the swamp. **Glass fragments** Date: 18th-19th century Found: Shaft 6 spoils When: Season 6 Type: Artifact Found with pottery and pipe stem in Shaft 6 spoils **Glooscap Stone** Found: Peggy's Cove Preservation Area When: Season 4, Episode 10 Type: Carved_stone A large granite boulder above the harbour at Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia, identified by historian Terry J. Deveau as a deliberately carved human face. Deveau presented the stone to Rick Lagina and Charles Barkhouse in Season 4, Episode 10 (About Face), roughly 50 miles east of Oak Island. He pointed to specific modifications that, in his reading, mark the boulder as worked rather than natural: areas where rock has been chipped back to accentuate a nose and eye sockets, and small shim stones placed beneath the boulder to hold it in a fixed orientation. Deveau interprets the carving style as Mi'kmaq and proposes that the face depicts Glooscap, the white traveller of Mi'kmaq oral tradition. According to that tradition, Glooscap arrived in Nova Scotia in 1398 with an army of men and large ships. A line of researchers, beginning with Frederick J. Pohl in the 1950s, has identified Glooscap with Prince Henry Sinclair, the Scottish Earl of Orkney whose 1398 transatlantic voyage has been associated by some with a continuing Templar legacy. The identification rests on oral tradition rather than physical evidence. A compass bearing taken at the stone places the carved face pointing roughly due west, in the direction of Mahone Bay and Oak Island. Rick Lagina drew an explicit parallel on screen with the carved headstone Fred Nolan recovered from the centre of Nolan's Cross, the granite cross of boulders on Oak Island itself. The Peggy's Cove stone has not been formally dated, has not been excavated, and has no direct physical connection to any documented site on Oak Island. Its significance rests on three separate claims: that the surface modifications are anthropogenic, that the carving style is Mi\'kmaq, and that the westward orientation is deliberate. **Gold chain links (3)** Date: Unknown Found: Money Pit, below 98 ft When: 1849 Type: Artifact Three small links of gold chain were brought to the surface on the pod-auger bit during the Truro Company's 1849 drilling of the Money Pit. McCully's account states: "We also brought three small links which had apparently been forced from an epaulette. They were gold." An epaulette is an ornamental shoulder piece used on military uniforms and ceremonial coats. Finn (1994) records a slightly different description, calling them "resembling the links of an ancient watch chain." Fanthorpe counted "three or four links" and suggested they could have come from a necklace, bracelet, or the decorated robes of a religious leader. The chain links represent the only material identified as gold to be recovered from the Money Pit during the nineteenth century. Their extraction was incidental; McCully made clear that the replacement auger's ball-and-pin mechanism could not retrieve coins or larger metallic objects, meaning the links were small enough to bypass the retaining pin where everything else in the metal layers could not.  The links have not survived in any verified collection, and no scientific analysis of their composition or age has been possible. The Truro Company's drilling took place with shareholders observing, and the gold links were presented publicly at the time. A letter in the Roosevelt Presidential Library later confirmed that Franklin Roosevelt's grandfather, Warren Delano, had invested in the Truro Company, the same operation that recovered the gold chain from the Money Pit. **Gold traces in water samples** Found: Money Pit boreholes / Garden Shaft When: Season 9+ (multiple seasons) Type: Sample Water samples from Borehole C-1 and Garden Shaft show gold above natural background levels; wood samples from Garden Shaft also contain trace gold **Gold-colored knob** Date: Pre-modern Found: Along stone pathway, swamp When: Season 8+ Type: Artifact A gold-colored knob recovered on Oak Island and examined by rare coin expert Sandy Campbell, who suggested the piece may have come from a jewel chest. The knob was connected to a larger iron artifact recovered from Lot 13 near the eastern edge of the swamp during Season 8, which blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge identified as a double-bolted latch from a high-end security lock.Carmen examined the latch at Northville Farm in Centreville, Nova Scotia, and concluded it was designed for a heavy chest or trunk rather than a simple traveler's bag. The double-bolt mechanism indicated a level of security associated with valuable contents, and the gold coloring of the knob suggested either gold plating or a gold-colored alloy intended to signal the quality of the container it was attached to. During Season 10, Gary Drayton recovered what he identified as a brass doorknob, possibly from a ship's cabinet, from spoils near the stone ramp in the swamp, adding to the inventory of hardware suggesting that chests, trunks, or fitted furniture had been present on the island.The gold knob and security latch joined a pattern of chest-related artifacts found across Oak Island, including decorative iron hinges on Lots 12 and 25, a cross-shaped skeleton key from Fred Nolan's collection, an ornate lock plate with a rose design on Lot 8, and a chest hinge from 114 feet in the Money Pit's borehole 8-A. Together, these finds suggested that multiple locked containers had been brought to the island at various points in its history. **Gold-Copper Alloy Fragments (Tumbaga)** Date: Disputed: Pre-Columbian tumbaga (from c.300 AD) or Spanish-colonial rose gold (1550-1700) Found: Money Pit area When: Season 9 (2022) Type: Artifact Small fragments of gold-bearing metal recovered from the Money Pit area. Analysis by geoscientist Dr. Christa Brosseau revealed a composition of approximately 65 percent gold and 26 percent copper, with a small amount of silver. Brosseau identified the alloy as consistent with rose gold, but Marty Lagina noted the chemical composition also matched tumbaga, the gold-copper alloy widely used by Inca and Aztec civilisations and later melted down by Spanish conquistadors into bars. Tumbaga was not a single standardised alloy but an umbrella term for a range of gold-copper compositions, with gold content varying from as little as 3 percent to as much as 97 percent. The presence of a gold-copper alloy in the Money Pit does not confirm a South American origin, as copper-gold alloys also occur naturally and were produced in medieval Europe, but it is consistent with the Spanish Connection theory. **Gold-gilded copper button** Date: Unknown (colonial era or earlier) Found: Lot 5 - stone foundation When: Season 11 (2024) Type: Button Copper button gilded with a thin layer of gold, found by archaeologist Jamie Kouba on the same day as the 90% silver tassel piece in the Lot 5 stone foundation. The gold gilding suggests it belonged to someone of status or military rank. **Gold-plated brooch (leaded glass gem)** Date: 14th century or earlier (threading technique) Found: Near Daniel McGinnis's home (Lot 18) When: Season 6, Ep. 1 (2018) Type: Artifact Gold-plated brooch with a leaded glass gemstone, found by Gary Drayton and Rick Lagina while metal detecting near the home of Daniel McGinnis - one of the three boys who discovered the Money Pit in 1795. This was the team's second brooch find after the rhodolite garnet brooch from Season 5. Gemologist Charles Lewton-Brain identified the stone as leaded glass rather than a genuine gem, but noted that a threaded technique used on the brooch dates the jewelry to the 14th century or earlier. Subsequent electron microscope analysis by Dr. Christa Brosseau and Dr. Xiang Yang confirmed that part of the brooch is made of actual gold. **Gold-plated coin, 18th century (Smith's Cove)** Date: 1700s Found: Smith's Cove When: Season 6, Ep. 8 Type: Coin A heavily encrusted object with visible gold colouring around its edges was recovered from the Smith's Cove area by Gary Drayton during Season 6 excavations. At the Oak Island Research Centre, Paul Troutman examined it under a Grobet digital microscope at up to two thousand times magnification, revealing what appeared to be gold beneath the encrustation. Gary noted the absence of a milled edge, a feature introduced by Sir Isaac Newton at the Royal Mint in 1696 to combat coin clipping, which suggested the object may predate the discovery of the Money Pit in 1795. Gold plating on coins of this period was not a standard minting practice. It more commonly indicates a coin that had been deliberately gilded, either for decorative purposes or as part of a personal ornament such as a pendant or brooch fitting. The absence of milling and the presence of gold surfacing together suggest a coin from the seventeenth century or earlier that was modified for personal use. Gary dated the coin to the 1700s based on its form and condition, though the lack of milling could push the date earlier. The coin was found in the same area as a wrought iron spike dated to the 1700s, also recovered by Gary Drayton. Whether the coin arrived at its find location as a lost personal item, as part of a deliberate deposit, or through redistribution of material by tidal action has not been determined. Several other coins with precious metal content have been recovered from the island, including the seventeenth-century Spanish maravedi found in the swamp, the copper coin with possible gold plating from Lot 4, and the Portuguese copper alloy coin recovered on the eastern drumlin. The Smith's Cove coin has not been cleaned or fully identified to a specific mint or nation of origin. **Goose Paw (Palazzo Falson)** Type: Carved_stone A goose paw symbol incised into the stonework of a chimney inside the upper-floor documents room of Palazzo Falson in Mdina, Malta. The carving sits next to a square-cross figure, the two marks cut close enough on the same surface to read as a paired set rather than accumulated graffiti. The chimney is part of a storey added to the palazzo in 1530 to accommodate the arrival of Philippe de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, last Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller in Rhodes and first in Malta. The Palazzo was his first residence on Malta. The carving has not previously been published or shown on television. The mark was first noticed by Emiliano Sacchetti and Corjan Mol during a scouting visit to Palazzo Falson, where the upper floor now houses the museum's documents room. The two returned with a crew during the official filmed visit and recorded the goose paw and the adjacent square cross in detail, though the footage was not included in the broadcast. The carving sits in a position not visible to standard tourist traffic, recessed into the side of the chimney shaft, which accounts in part for its absence from published descriptions of the building. The goose paw appears at multiple sites investigated as part of the Oak Island research thread on the Templars and the Order of Christ, with documented carvings at Camerano (Italy) Valkenburg (The Netherlands) the Igreja de São Sebastião (Azores), and Brooklyn (Nova Scotia), less than fifty miles from the island itself. The symbol has been linked elsewhere in Europe and the Middle East to twelfth-to-fourteenth-century Templar sites. A goose paw cut into Hospitaller fabric in 1530 does not alter that earlier chronology. What it adds is documentation of the symbol's continued use by the order that absorbed most former Templar properties, in a private architectural setting, at the moment that order took possession of Malta. The pairing with a square cross, placed inside a chimney rather than on a public surface, suggests internal use rather than external display. **Goose Paw symbol (Brooklyn, NS)** Date: Unknown (possibly medieval) Found: Brooklyn, Nova Scotia (near Oak Island) When: Discovered by Isaac Rafuse, Corjan Mol Type: Carved_stone A three-pronged carving consistent with the medieval goose paw symbol, discovered on a large flat rock surface known locally as the wharf stone at Brooklyn, Nova Scotia. The wharf stone functioned as a natural quay for the sheltered harbor at Liverpool, roughly 55 kilometers from Oak Island. In Season 10, Episode 11, Rick Lagina, Charles Barkhouse, and researcher Corjan Mol visited the site after being contacted by local residents Isaac Rafuse and Nick Fralic, who believed the carvings might relate to Oak Island. The carving does not stand alone. Directly alongside it on the same rock surface are a Globus Cruciger, a cut circle, a fish symbol, and a double fish-tail with a cross in a circle. Mol identified the Globus Cruciger, a cross mounted on an orb, as a symbol of Christian dominion dating to the fifth century. The tripod carving was initially raised as a possible British broad arrow, a mark used to identify Crown property. Mol and Rick Lagina noted that the broad arrow was never applied to natural rock surfaces, identifying it instead as a goose paw. The broad arrow identification fails on four separate grounds. The policy applied exclusively to standing trees blazed into bark, never to natural rock. The only documented instances of the broad arrow on stone are Ordnance Survey benchmarks, which always carry a horizontal datum line above the arrow forming a composite symbol; the wharf stone carving has no such bar and therefore does not meet even that standard. The OS benchmark program was never conducted on the Nova Scotia coastline. And the White Pine Acts that created the policy date to 1721, while the symbols carved alongside the goose paw on the same surface, including a Globus Cruciger whose form originates in the fifth century, are consistent with a medieval origin predating the policy by potentially three to five centuries. The goose paw, or patte d'oie in French, is a pilgrimage mark documented across medieval Europe from at least the 12th century. It appears at the entrances to churches and hospices along the Camino de Santiago, where it signaled the end of a journey. The symbol also served as a required identifying mark for the Cagots, a persecuted builder caste in Gascony and Navarre who constructed much of the Camino's pilgrimage infrastructure. Mol has documented goose paw carvings at a number of sites connected to the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller across Europe. At Camerano in Italy, a plaster mould taken from a sculpted segment of an old altar in the town's underground cave complex carries a goose paw formed from the three nails of the crucifixion arranged in the tripod configuration. At Valkenburg in the Netherlands, a goose paw appears carved into the wall of the dungeon where Knights Templar were held following the order's suppression in 1307. At the Palazzo Falson in Mdina, Malta, Mol and researcher Emiliano identified a goose paw in the room built for and used by Hospitaller Grand Master Philippe de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam following his arrival on the island in 1530 after the order's expulsion from Rhodes. That section of research was not aired in the television series.  In the Azores, the Igreja Matriz de São Sebastião on Terceira, built in 1455 under the Order of Christ, carries nine goose paws arranged in three groups of three, their original red pigment still preserved. **Goose Paw symbol (Valkenburg, Netherlands)** Found: In the Templar prison below Valkenburg Castle in the Netherlands When: Season 11, Episode 23 Type: Carved_stone A goose paw symbol carved into the stonework of a sealed catacomb chamber beneath Valkenburg Castle in Limburg, southern Netherlands. The chamber dates to the fourteenth century and is accessible only from above, through an opening in its ceiling, with no horizontal entry. The arrangement indicates the space doubled as an oubliette alongside its use as a burial chamber. Its walls carry a dense field of medieval graffiti, including simple crosses, four-dot crosses, human faces, and a ship under sail, which is rare for chambers of this period and location. The goose paw is cut into the lower stonework, in a section set with niches of the Roman type traditionally used to hold the deceased. The carving was identified by Corjan Mol and the research team during exploration of the chamber. The space is closed to the public and is not part of the publicly accessible cave network at Valkenburg, and is distinct from the Fluweelengrot and from the nineteenth-century Romeinse Katakomben replica elsewhere in the town. The discovery was filmed with the full crew present during the official visit, though the scene was not broadcast. The mark sits within the lower zone of the chamber, on a wall surface clear of the heavier graffiti above. Valkenburg Castle is the only hilltop castle ruin in the Netherlands and sits above an extensive network of marl chambers, some quarried for the building stone of the castle itself, others adapted as refuges, escape routes, and burial spaces. The fourteenth-century date of the catacomb places it after the suppression of the Knights Templar in 1312, in a period when most surviving Templar properties in northern Europe were transferred to the Knights Hospitaller by papal bull. The presence of Roman-style burial niches in the lower part of the chamber points to mixed periods of funerary use within the same architectural envelope. The goose paw appears at multiple sites documented in the Oak Island research thread on the Templars and the Order of Christ, with prior records at Camerano in Italy, the Igreja de São Sebastião in the Azores, Palazzo Falson in Mdina, and Liverpool, Nova Scotia. Each documented occurrence sits inside an enclosed or semi-private architectural space rather than on a public façade. A fourteenth-century example in a sealed chamber below Valkenburg Castle, paired with funerary niches and a ship-and-sail graffito, extends the symbol's documented geography into the southern Netherlands. What the carving establishes is the symbol's presence at this specific location. What it does not establish, on its own, is the identity of the carver or the date of incision within the chamber's possible centuries of post-construction use. **Grapeshot (iron cannon ball)** Date: 17th-18th century Found: Lot 16 When: Season 5, Ep. 8 Type: Artifact A piece of iron grapeshot recovered on Lot 16 by Rick Lagina, Marty Lagina, Dave Blankenship, and Gary Drayton during Season 5. Grapeshot was a type of anti-personnel cannon ammunition consisting of small iron balls packed together in a canvas bag or metal canister. When fired, the balls dispersed in a wide pattern, making the projectile effective in naval engagements and land battles from as early as the 15th century through the 19th century.The grapeshot was found alongside a horseshoe fragment and an old coin that Gary believed may have been a maravedi, a Spanish coin that circulated widely in the colonial Americas. The recovery of military ordnance on Oak Island raised questions about whether armed conflict or a military garrison had been present on or directed at the island at some point in its history.A second stone projectile was later recovered during Season 8 from stored spoils from borehole E-5.25 in the Money Pit area. Steve Guptill and Michael John found the dense stone at the wash table, and Gary Drayton identified it as a gunstone, a pre-cannonball projectile fired from a blunderbuss, a type of weapon first manufactured around 1550. Together with musket balls, lead ingots for casting ammunition, and musket stock plates found across the island, the grapeshot formed part of a pattern of military artifacts spanning several centuries of activity on Oak Island. **H+O stone** Date: Unknown Found: Oak Island surface When: Historical Type: Carved_stone In the summer of 1936, Gilbert Hedden was searching the north shore of Oak Island near Joudrey's Cove when he came across a large granite rock half-buried in the beach bearing unusual markings. One of his workmen told him that roughly fifteen years earlier, an even larger boulder with strange markings had been found in the same area, dynamited by someone hoping treasure lay beneath it, and broken up for souvenirs. Hedden organized a search party that recovered a major surviving fragment, weighing several hundred pounds, from the beach. It bore three symbols: the letter H, a cross at the centre, and a circumpunct, a circle with a dot at its heart. The name H+O stone, in common use ever since, is a misreading of that third symbol. It is not the letter O. Hedden was a well-educated Freemason and recognised the markings immediately. Within Freemasonry, each of the three symbols carries established meaning. The central cross represents Christ and is embedded in the higher degrees of Masonic ritual. The letter H is read by some Masonic scholars as a derived form of the Hebrew letter for God or Jehovah. The circumpunct, the point within the circle, is one of the most widely used symbols in the entire Masonic system. Masons are taught that it represents the individual positioned at the centre of his duty, from which he cannot err. The same circumpunct appears on the 90-foot stone from the Money Pit. Outside of Freemasonry, the symbol has ancient roots as a representation of the sun, and in alchemical tradition it is the symbol for gold. During the Lagina team's research trip to Portugal in Season 9, Doug Crowell spotted a circumpunct carved into the exterior wall of the Church of Fontarcada in Povoa De Lanhoso, donated to the Knights Templar by Lady Teresa in 1126. Templar historian Joao Fiandeiro noted that the same symbol appears over the entrance to the Castle of Tomar, the Templars' Portuguese headquarters. At the Convento de Cristo in Tomar, Corjan Mol pointed out a stone above the original gate bearing a cross with four dots at its corners, identical to a symbol on the H+O stone. When Doug asked Fiandeiro directly whether the stone could be of Portuguese origin, he replied that if the Portuguese were on Oak Island, they could have made it. In Season 11, at Morimondo Abbey in northern Italy, a 12th-century Cistercian foundation with documented Templar connections, Doug spotted two four-dot crosses on the exterior ceramic vessels matching the H+O stone. Inside the scriptorium, mid-13th-century paintings by Cistercian monks showed a four-dot cross on a pillar alongside a Tree of Life symbol. At the Caestert limestone quarry near Maastricht in the Netherlands, where medieval monks quarried stone for Catholic churches through fifteen miles of underground tunnels, the team found drawings of four-dot crosses and circumpuncts side by side on the quarry walls. Cultural historian Jacquo Silvertant suggested the recurring symbols may have indicated the direction in which the Templars' treasure was being moved. The same symbols were reported at Valkenburg Castle during the Season 11 end-of-year review. Researchers James McQuiston and Doc Hamels have argued that the markings are consistent with nineteenth and early twentieth-century surveying conventions used by Nova Scotia land surveyors to mark boundaries and reference points, and that the stone may be a modern marker with no connection to the Oak Island mystery. **Half Roman coin, c. 300 BC-600 AD (Lot 5)** Date: c. 300 BC-600 AD (Roman) Found: Lot 5 (centre) When: Season 10 (2022) Type: Coin Found by Gary Drayton; numismatist Sandy Campbell determined Roman origin; possibly Constantius II (337-355 AD); oldest coin-type artifact on island at time. Numismatists were Sandy Campbell and Umberto Moruzzi (Italy). Metallurgical analysis showed it was arsenical bronze whose chemical make up matched ancient Roman mines in Spain and Sardinia. **Hand-forged chain links (Karma-1 shaft)** Date: Late 1600s to mid-1700s Found: Karma-1 shaft spoils When: Season 13 (2025) Type: Artifact Two sections of hand-forged iron chain recovered from the spoils of the Karma-1 shaft during Season 13. The chains were found at depth in material processed through Billy Gerhardt's industrial wash plant near Smith's Cove. Bailey spotted the first piece, a length of small, non-uniform links that Charles Barkhouse and Jack Begley believed could predate the 1850s. Aaron found the second, which Gary Drayton examined closely, identifying striations and individually made links consistent with 1600s or 1700s craftsmanship. He pointed out that each link had been forged separately rather than machine-produced, a hallmark of pre-industrial ironwork. Blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge examined both chain sections in the lab and identified elongated end links consistent with basket-style rigging used for lowering items into a shaft or hold. He concluded that two different blacksmiths had made the chains, based on differences in link shape and forging technique. Emma Culligan's compositional analysis dated the iron to the late 1600s to mid-1700s and confirmed a European origin. Doug Crowell connected the date range to the Duc d'Anville expedition of 1746, in which a French naval fleet with Templar family connections sailed to Nova Scotia. The Karma-1 chains joined a growing inventory of chain artifacts recovered from Oak Island across multiple seasons, including gold chain links from the original Money Pit excavations, a chain with bone from borehole H8, a lifting chain from a wharf structure, and hand-forged oval chain links found on Lot 8 near the massive boulder feature. Carmen's identification of basket-style rigging links carried particular weight: it suggested the chains were not merely stray hardware but functional equipment used for moving heavy objects vertically, consistent with the lowering of cargo into a deep shaft. **Hand-forged iron pintle** Date: Hand-forged; 17th-18th century (object undated, type long-lived) Found: Lot 8, near boulder feature When: Season 13 Type: Artifact Hand-forged iron pintle, a type of pivot pin used for door and gate hinges, recovered by Gary Drayton on Lot 8 near the massive boulder feature. The design type dates as far back as 2000 BC. Blistering on the metal suggests considerable age. A similar pintle was found on Lot 15 earlier in Season 13. The proximity to the boulder adds to the growing body of evidence that the feature was deliberately constructed. **Hand-forged nail (pre-1795)** Date: Before 1795 (predates Money Pit) Found: Lot 5 When: Season 12, Episode 21 (2025) Type: Artifact Nail discovered by archaeologist Fiona Steele on Lot 5, dated to before the 1795 discovery of the Money Pit. **Hand-forged rose head spike** Date: Pre-1780, possibly 1600s Found: GAL-1 spoils pile When: Season 5 Type: Artifact Large hand-forged rose head spike pulled from deep beneath the surface of the GAL-1 spoils pile by Alex Lagina, Jack Begley, Peter Fornetti, and Gary Drayton. Gary identified it as pre-1780 and possibly as old as the 1600s, noting the symmetrical head and petal-shaped hammer marks characteristic of handmade construction. Dan Blankenship, then 94 years old, examined the spike at his home and confirmed it was not a railroad spike, urging the team to have it analyzed and dated. **Hand-wrought iron spike (12th-13th century)** Date: 1100s-1300s (metallurgical analysis) Found: Lot 5 - stone foundation When: Season 11 (2024) Type: Artifact Large hand-wrought iron spike found by Helen Sheldon in the Lot 5 stone foundation. Metallurgist Emma Culligan determined that the high sulphur content, lack of manganese, and purity of the iron dated it to the 1100s-1300s. Too thin to be a nail and not a file - function remains unknown. **Hand-wrought nail + nut/washer** Date: Pre-1800 hand-wrought iron (pre-industrial manufacture) Found: South shore shaft, 60-foot depth When: 1966 or 1967 (sources disagree; during deepening of Dunfield south shore shaft) Type: Artifact A hand-wrought nail and an assembly described as either a nut or a washer were recovered from a south shore shaft on Oak Island during the period when Dan Blankenship was deepening the shaft Robert Dunfield had abandoned in 1965. Published sources disagree on the exact date. Lionel and Patricia Fanthorpe place the find in 1966. Randall Sullivan's main narrative likewise treats the discovery as part of Blankenship's 1966 work on the Dunfield south shore shaft, before David Tobias became his partner. Randall Sullivan's timeline and Randall Clarke both date the find to 1967, after the formation of the new syndicate with Tobias. The depth is consistently reported as 60 feet, at which level Blankenship also recorded a layer of round granite stones, each about the size of a man's head, lying in a pool of stagnant black water. Hand-wrought nails of this type were produced by blacksmiths working iron by hand on an anvil, a method standard before the industrialisation of nail manufacture in the early nineteenth century. The combination of a nail with a nut or washer indicates a fastening assembly rather than simple structural nailing, suggesting a more complex piece of construction or equipment at that location. The deliberately placed stones found at the same level were interpreted by Blankenship as part of the old south shore flood tunnel, the existence of which Frederick Blair's 1898 dye test had confirmed when red dye poured into the Money Pit at ninety feet seeped out at Smith's Cove and at several points along the south shoreline. The south shore has received less investigation than Smith's Cove despite Blair's dye test confirming a flood tunnel exit on that side of the island. In 1972, P. J. Mallon of Northern Ireland discovered a stone triangle on the south shore. In Season 7, the team uncovered an intact box-shaped wooden drain preserved in puddled clay along the south shoreline. The nail and the nut or washer from the south shore shaft remain among the few artifacts recovered from this area of the island's underground works. **Handmade nail (barrel or treasure chest)** Date: 1600s-1700s Found: Lot 5 When: Season 12, Episode 17 (2025) Type: Artifact Iron artifact identified as a handmade nail, possibly from a barrel or treasure chest. Testing confirmed it dates to the 1600s or 1700s, aligning with the William Phips treasure theory. **Handwrought iron hinge (small, chest)** Date: Pre-1795 Found: Borehole 8-A, Money Pit area When: Season 7 Type: Artifact Small handwrought iron hinge found at the wash table by Jack Begley and Steve Guptill during the 8-A excavation. Archaeologist Laird Niven identified it as non-mining-related and possibly from a chest. Recovered alongside hand-hewn ax-cut wood, leather fragments, and a massive oak timber consistent with the oak-log platforms described by Daniel McGinnis during the original 1804 excavation. **Head Stone (human face/sword)** Date: Unknown Found: Centre of Nolan's Cross When: 1981 Type: Carved_stone A craggy piece of sandstone discovered by surveyor Fred Nolan at the intersection of the two lines forming Nolan's Cross, the megalithic formation of five cone-shaped granite boulders he identified on Oak Island in 1981. Each cone boulder stands roughly nine feet high and eight feet wide, and together they form a near-perfect symmetrical Latin cross measuring 720 feet across and 867 feet from tip to tip. Nolan found the headstone at the precise point where the cross's arms and post intersect. He first noted its presence during his surveys of the early 1980s, but it was not until 1991 that he tipped the stone with a backhoe and recognized it had been shaped to resemble a human face. The carved features include what appear to be an eye, forehead, nose, mouth, and chin, along with an indentation that some researchers have described as a sword or cutlass. The stone is limestone rather than granite, distinguishing it from the five cone boulders. Geologists brought to the island to examine it could not reach a definitive conclusion, stating it might have been carved or might have been shaped by natural forces. Whether carved or not, the stone appeared to have been deliberately placed at the intersection point rather than occurring there naturally. In Season 4, local stonemasons Monk Chicken and Mike Whelan inspected the headstone and noted that years of exposure and repeated burial had accelerated erosion of the surface, making the features increasingly difficult to distinguish. The headstone has drawn multiple interpretations. Templar researcher Tobias, interviewed in the south of France during Season 2, described the possible sword carving as consistent with a Templar tomb marker. Norwegian Freemason and researcher Petter Amundsen theorized that Nolan's Cross represents the foundation of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, an ancient Hebrew symbol of ten points called sefirot adopted by the Knights Templar and later by the Rosicrucians and Freemasons, with the headstone sitting at a key intersection. Astronomer and astrophysicist Professor Adriano Gaspani used stellar alignments to date the placement of the cross boulders to approximately 1200 A.D., a period consistent with Templar activity in Western Europe. **Heart-Shaped Stone (Nolan's Property)** Date: Unknown Found: Fred Nolan's property, Oak Island When: Late 1960s–1970s (Fred Nolan) Type: Artifact A sizable heart-shaped stone discovered by Fred Nolan on his property during the late 1960s and 1970s, when he was conducting extensive searches across his land on the island. Nolan found the stone alongside other unusual objects including drilled rocks with survey-like bore holes, an arrowhead-shaped stone, rocks with primitive cement and metal ringbolts embedded in them, and the remains of a very old well and smithy next to the swamp. As a professional surveyor, Nolan believed that many of the marked rocks and stone structures found on his property were part of a massive man-made grid-like map containing a mysterious pattern that pointed to the hiding place of the main treasure. He spent years trying to unravel this system, shooting transit lines between various stones and discovering additional unusual rocks at points of intersection or along sight lines. His conviction that the original architects had laid out a deliberate surveying network across the island was strengthened by the sheer number of worked and positioned stones he encountered. While draining the swamp in 1970, Nolan also recovered very old stakes, a piece of wood with a metal hinge still attached that he believed may have been part of a chest, and what appeared to be a gold-bar branding iron. These discoveries, along with a small piece of a wooden ship's gunwale, were later interpreted as evidence that the swamp may have been used as a docking or boat-repair yard. The heart-shaped stone fits within this broader pattern of intentionally placed objects on Nolan's land, though unlike the Smith's Cove heart stone, it was never submitted for formal expert analysis. **Heart-Shaped Stone (Smith's Cove)** Date: Unknown Found: Smith's Cove, 3 ft deep between low and high tide When: 1967 (Dan Blankenship) Type: Artifact A reddish-orange stone roughly ten inches wide, shaped into a form closely resembling a Valentine's Day heart. Dan Blankenship discovered it in 1967 while excavating three feet below the beach at Smith's Cove, midway between low and high tide, during early Triton Alliance operations. It was found beneath rocks believed to be part of the original flooding system. Recovered alongside it were a pair of wrought-iron scissors of a type made 300 years ago or earlier in Mexico, and an ancient metal set-square dated by metallurgists to sometime before 1783. Mendel Peterson, former curator of the Historical Archaeology division at the Smithsonian Institution, examined the stone and concluded that it had been chiseled with some sort of tool at an early though undeterminable date. Peterson described Oak Island as one of the most fascinating archaeological sites in North America and told D'Arcy O'Connor that he had seen no proof that workings similar to those on Oak Island exist in Haiti or anywhere else in the world. The Triton Alliance 1988 catalog of artifacts rated the stone's oddity factor at 7 out of 10 and its authenticity assessment at 6, noting it was "judged to be worked by man by the Smithsonian Institution, unable to date or conclusively link to originators." A note of conflicting provenance exists in the record. K. Ellard's letter of November 19, 1973 states the find location as the South Shore rather than Smith's Cove. A separate and unverified account adds further intrigue: a Haitian man named Lochard described finding a heart-shaped rock in one of the underground tunnels during an alleged discovery of treasure chambers, claiming it was similar to the hand-chiseled stone Blankenship had recovered at Smith's Cove, though Lochard did not know of Blankenship's find at the time. The account could not be corroborated, and several prominent persons in Haiti at the time of Lochard's alleged discovery expressed strong disbelief. Author Les Clarke held the stone at the Explore Oak Island Days event in 2005 and described it as exceptionally smooth, presumably from many years of weathering. The heart carries significant symbolic weight across multiple traditions. In Freemasonry, it is an emblem associated with the third-degree Master Mason initiation ritual, symbolizing that to be a full Mason one must be prepared in one's heart. According to 18th-century German Masonic scholar Carl Krause, the heart represents the internal principle of Masonry, addressing not only outward conduct but the inner spirit. A remarkably similar heart shape appears on Masonic tombstones in the Old Burying Ground in Halifax, some more than 200 years old. The heart is also a dominant symbol in Rosicrucianism and central to the Christian doctrine of universal love. Several 17th- and 18th-century pirates utilized a bleeding-heart symbol on their flag. **Hidden wooden box (Smith's Cove, Blankenship 1969-70)** Date: Undated; found beneath the U-shaped structure Found: Smith's Cove, beneath U-shaped structure, on the inside corner of Item #2 When: August-October 1970 Type: Artifact A small wooden box recovered by Dan Blankenship during the Smith's Cove excavation of August through October 1970, found at least two feet below the bottom of the large spruce log of the U-shaped structure, on the inside corner of that feature. Blankenship's contemporaneous notes describe the box as apparently hidden. The box measured eighteen inches wide and twenty-four inches long. Its sides were constructed from four-inch by six-inch oak timbers, the bottom from two-inch oak, and the ends from one-inch spruce. One end of the oak sides was beveled, and an oak dowel was embedded in one side only. A sketch of the box accompanied Blankenship's October 1970 report and survives in the Les MacPhie compilation. The construction method, combining heavy oak with lighter spruce ends and an asymmetric beveled finish with a single dowel, points to a purpose-built container rather than a discarded crate. The placement beneath the U-shaped structure indicates the box was deposited before the U-shaped timbers were laid down, or was deliberately concealed beneath them at the time of construction. No contents have been recorded in the surviving documentation. No radiocarbon or dendrochronological dating has been performed on the box itself, and its current location is not specified in Blankenship's published reports. The box's date depends on its relationship to the surrounding structures. If associated with the U-shaped timbers above it, the box would be consistent with the 1769 dendrochronology date returned by Dr. Colin Laroque or with the medieval radiocarbon dates recorded for samples from the same area. **Hornfels Rock** Date: Unknown Found: Lot 5 When: 1998 Type: Carved_stone A piece of hornfels, a fine-grained metamorphic rock formed when intense heat from magmatic intrusion alters the surrounding country rock. Hornfels is characterized by its hardness and conchoidal fracture, and it has been used historically as a toolmaking material dating back to prehistory. The specimen was recovered from Lot 5 in 1998. The rock's presence on Oak Island is geologically out of place. The island sits on a formation belonging to the Windsor Group, composed primarily of anhydrite, gypsum, and limestone. Hornfels does not occur naturally in this geological setting, which means the piece was brought to the island from elsewhere. Whether it arrived as ballast, as a tool, or for some other purpose has not been established. Its classification as a carved stone suggests the specimen may bear surface markings, though detailed analysis results have not been published. Lot 5, where the hornfels was found, has since become one of the most artifact-rich locations on the island. Excavations during Seasons 10 through 13 recovered Roman coins, a lead barter token matched isotopically to the 14th-century lead cross, Venetian trade beads, a 13-foot circular stone pit, and pottery dating to the mid-1700s. The hornfels predates these modern excavations by more than two decades. **Human bone fragments (2 individuals)** Date: Carbon dated: 1678-1764 AD Found: Borehole H8, Money Pit, ~160 ft When: Season 5 (c. 2017) Type: Artifact Two fragments of human bone were recovered from the spoils of borehole H-8 in the Money Pit area at approximately 160 to 165 feet below the surface during Season 5. Archaeologist Laird Niven made the initial identification, noting the hollow structure and density of the denser specimen. At Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Dr. Christa Brosseau and Dr. Xiang Yang examined both fragments under a scanning electron microscope. Both registered calcium phosphate rather than lignin, confirming they were bone and not wood. The second fragment still retained soft tissue and hair, with follicle spacing that Brosseau described as more consistent with skin than animal hide. Dr. Timothy Frasier, an associate professor of biology at Saint Mary's University, performed advanced DNA sequencing on the two samples. The results identified two distinct individuals: one of European descent (haplogroup H) and one of Middle Eastern origin (haplogroup U). Carbon-14 dating by Beta Analytical returned a range of 1678-1764 for the European bone and 1682-1736 for the Middle Eastern bone, both predating the 1795 discovery of the Money Pit. Craig Tester noted that the U-shaped structure at Smith's Cove, dendrochronologically dated to 1769, closely matched the Middle Eastern bone's date range of 1682-1736, suggesting coordinated activity on the island during the same period. The presence of a Middle Eastern individual deep within the Money Pit, below any depth reached by known searcher expeditions, was the first physical evidence supporting theories connecting the island to the Knights Templar, who operated across Western Europe and the Holy Land during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Rick Lagina described the carbon dating results as the first definitive evidence of human presence in the Money Pit before anyone is known to have searched there. The bones were found in the same spoils that yielded leather bookbinding fragments, parchment, pottery, and purple-stained wood, forming the most concentrated collection of pre-discovery artefacts recovered from the Money Pit to that point. **Inclined ramp (Smith's Cove, Blankenship 1969-70)** Date: C14: ~1135 AD (1025-1245, Geochron GX-1691) Found: Smith's Cove, inside cofferdam area, 5-6 feet below the seabed When: August-November 1969; August-October 1970 Type: Structure A long log ramp uncovered by Dan Blankenship during his Smith's Cove excavation between August 1969 and October 1970. The ramp measured approximately nine feet wide and ninety feet long, built from logs that Blankenship described as very old. When the ramp was followed toward shore, the remains of a higher dock of much newer construction were found resting on top of it, indicating two distinct phases of waterfront building at the same location. Rocks two to three feet thick had been placed over the lower ramp. Blankenship and Gerald Dorey first dug with pick and shovel at extreme low tide to expose flood tunnel workings, and at the next low tide extended the search and uncovered additional structures approximately eight feet below the surface. The Smith and Coles law firm letter of 14 October 1969 records that the wood structures were embedded five to six feet below the seabed, beyond the perimeter of the original cofferdam, generally in line with the cave-in shaft and the Money Pit. A beam from the inclined ramp was submitted to Geochron Laboratories in October 1969 by Kerry Ellard's representative McCabe. Geochron sample GX-1691 returned a result of 815 plus or minus 110 C-14 years before present, calibrating to approximately 1135 AD with a range of 1025 to 1245 AD. Geochron identified the sample as wood, probably pine. Harold Kruger of Geochron cautioned that the wood came from rather large trees which may have had a substantial age at the time of fabrication, and that radiocarbon dating measures when the tree formed rather than when the wood was worked. The inclined ramp is structurally distinct from the slipway later excavated by the Lagina team during Season 6, which was dendrochronologically dated by Dr. Colin Laroque to 1769. The slipway and the lower ramp may represent different construction phases at the same location, or two separate waterfront features within Smith's Cove. **Inscribed stone (90-foot stone)** Date: Unknown origin Found: Money Pit, approximately 80–90 ft depth When: c. 1803–1804 (Onslow Company excavation) Type: Carved_stone A flat stone bearing an inscription in unknown characters was reportedly found at a depth of approximately ninety feet in the Money Pit during the Onslow Company excavation of 1803-1804. The Onslow crew encountered the stone resting on top of an oak platform, marking the deepest point reached before the shaft flooded with seawater. The inscription was unlike any alphabet the workers could identify. The stone was removed from the pit and kept on the island for some years before entering the possession of John Smith, who owned the land containing the Money Pit and used it as a fireback in his chimney. The stone later passed to the bookbindery of A.O. Creighton and Marshall on Upper Water Street in Halifax, where it served two purposes: displayed in the shop window to attract investors for treasure operations, and used as a beating stone to flatten leather during bookbinding. J.B. McCully, a Freemason and member of the Truro Company, described the stone in an 1862 letter. By the time Captain Henry Bowdoin visited the bookstore in 1909, accompanied by future U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, the inscription had been nearly obliterated through decades of use. Bowdoin reported finding only the carved initials L and N still visible on its surface. The bookstore closed in 1919 and the stone vanished. No photographs, rubbings, or tracings of the original inscription survive. The most widely known translation was offered by Reverend A.T. Kempton in 1949 and appeared in Edward Rowe Snow's book that same year. Using a substitution cipher, Kempton rendered the message as: forty feet below, two million pounds are buried. However, the cipher on which this translation was based cannot be traced back beyond the early twentieth century, and modern researchers have raised serious questions about its authenticity. In 1971, former U.S. military cryptographer Dr. Ross Wilhelm applied a sixteenth-century cryptography manual to the symbols and identified a second hidden message. Swedish researcher Daniel Ronnstam later built on Wilhelm's work, producing a French decipherment that referenced a shaft measurement of 522 feet, almost exactly the distance from Smith's Cove to the Money Pit. Researcher Zena Halpern provided a separate cipher she called La Formule, whose symbols matched those attributed to the ninety-foot stone. Working with a cryptography professor, Doug Crowell produced a partial French decipherment that yielded fragments including references to digging at forty feet with an angle and the word chambre, meaning chamber. The professor identified La Formule as one of seven pieces of a larger document, with the remaining six fragments still missing. J. Hutton Pulitzer proposed that the markings were not a cipher at all but characters from tifinagh, an ancient alphabet associated with the Punic language of Carthage. In Season 6, Doug Crowell, Jack Begley, and Charles Barkhouse searched the basement of the former Creighton and Marshall building, now the Halifax Seed Company, with Dr. Allan Marble of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society. They located a large stone matching the documented description: approximately two feet long, fifteen inches wide, ten inches thick, close to two hundred pounds, flat on two sides with rounded corners, and bearing the carved initials L and N that Bowdoin had reported in 1909. The stone was transported to Oak Island for examination and lidar scanning by Azimuth Consulting, though its identity as the original ninety-foot stone has not been confirmed beyond doubt. **Iron and lead strap (chest/box)** Date: Unknown Found: Lot 5 round stone feature When: Season 11 (2024) Type: Artifact The Iron and Lead Strap was recovered from the Lot 5 round stone feature on Oak Island during the Season 11 excavation, and examined in the Oak Island lab during Season 11 Episode 12, "Digging Back In" (January 30, 2024). The strap was found in the same sifting context as the decorative copper fragments identified as having come from a small jewelry chest. Blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge of the Ross Farm Museum examined the iron pieces and identified them as box straps rather than barrel hoops, supporting the interpretation that the assemblage represents a chest or small storage container rather than a cask. The thickness and forging characteristics were consistent with hardware used to bind heavy trunks of the period. Emma Culligan performed X-ray fluorescence analysis on the strap and reported lead sitting on top of one of the iron pieces. In Culligan's assessment, the presence of lead as a surface deposit on iron is a characteristic feature of English-manufactured iron from the 1600s through the early 1700s, a residue of the smelting and hammering processes in use at British forges during that period. The lead is not part of the iron alloy itself but a worked-in surface trace, which is why the artifact carries the iron-and-lead designation despite being predominantly iron in composition. Alex Lagina observed that the resulting date range aligned with the theory presented to the team by Scott Clarke connecting Lot 5 to Sir William Phips, the English colonial governor who recovered substantial treasure from the wreck of the Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de la Concepción in 1687. The strap has not been laboratory dated through carbon analysis of any associated organic material or through independent metallurgical study beyond the XRF reading. The 1600s to early 1700s dating rests on Carmen Legge's identification of the strap typology and Emma Culligan's XRF interpretation of the lead surface deposit. **Iron barrier** Date: Unknown Found: Money Pit, 171 ft depth When: 1897 Type: Structure At approximately one hundred and seventy-one feet below the surface, drillers working for the Oak Island Treasure Company in 1897 struck a layer of iron so hard that three hours of drilling advanced less than a quarter of an inch. William Chappell's handwritten notes record that filings were pumped to the surface and tested with a magnet, confirming the obstruction was iron rather than hard rock. The barrier lay below eleven feet of blue puddled clay, which itself sat beneath the cement vault encountered at 153 feet. Subsequent boreholes produced varying results at the same general depth. A fourth hole encountered iron at 166 feet but managed to pass through it, suggesting the barrier was either thinner at that point or the drill caught its edge. A fifth hole, drilled at a slight angle, bypassed the iron entirely and continued through soft material to 188 feet before reaching solid undisturbed clay. These findings indicate the iron does not form a continuous sheet across the entire shaft but sits at a specific level within the structure, covering a limited area. The iron barrier is the deepest confirmed anomaly in the Money Pit. Its position nearly twenty feet below the cement vault indicates the original construction extended considerably further down than the suspected treasure chamber. During the 1931 Chappell expedition, when William Chappell's son Melbourne reopened the shaft to over 160 feet, an axe and a miner's pick were recovered at comparable depths, suggesting earlier workers had reached this level. **Iron box or chest strap** Date: Late 1600s to late 1700s Found: Lot 22, near Lot 4 When: Season 9 Type: Artifact Iron strap recovered by Michael John on Lot 22. Carmen Legge identified it as a box or chest strap from the late 1600s to late 1700s, noting the rounded end is typical of straps used on heavy trunks. The thickness indicates it would have held hardware, china, or silverware rather than something like clothing. **Iron cargo hook (Lot 11 well)** Date: Expert dated: 1650-1690 (Carmen Legge) Found: Lot 11, north side of swamp - excavated from old well spoils When: Season 10, Ep. 17 (2023) Type: Tool A wrought iron hook discovered by Gary Drayton in the spoils excavated from an old well on Lot 11, on the north side of the swamp. Billy Gerhardt used his excavator to dig up the well after Oak Island landowner Tom Nolan recalled that in the 1970s, he and his father Fred Nolan had found an old well in this area with pottery in the bottom. The Nolans had refilled the well at the time. Blacksmith expert Carmen Legge examined the hook and determined it was designed for winching heavy cargo - not a simple water bucket hook. He insisted the hook was clearly intended for lifting something much heavier than water. Carmen dated the artifact to between 1650 and 1690, placing it firmly in the pre-discovery period, roughly a century before the Money Pit was found in 1795. Rick Lagina noted that the Lot 11 well was of identical design and construction to the well previously investigated on Lot 26, where geoscientist Ian Spooner had found elevated silver concentrations and wood dating to approximately 800 years old (~1220 AD). The similarity in construction between these two wells, located on opposite sides of the island, suggests they may have been built by the same group or during the same period of activity. The 17th-century dating of the hook is significant in the context of other colonial-era finds on Oak Island, including the William Phips-era iron found on Lot 5 and various artifacts dating to the 1600s recovered across the island. The hook's function as a heavy cargo winch component raises questions about what was being moved on or off the island during this period. **Iron chopping knife** Date: Mid-1700s Found: Lot 8, near boulder feature When: Season 13 Type: Artifact Small iron chopping knife recovered by Gary Drayton near the massive boulder feature on Lot 8. Gary dated the artifact to the mid-1700s. Found in the same area where Billy Gerhardt had plowed topsoil to allow metal detection of artifacts connected to the boulder feature. **Iron Fire Grate Fragment** Date: Possible fire grate; colonial-era pathway cluster (gunflint c.1600s, transfer-print pottery c.1760s, cuff button 1750-1850). Found: Stone pathway corner, northeastern border of swamp When: Season 8 Episode 21 (6 April 2021) Type: Artifact A piece of iron recovered by metal detection expert Gary Drayton and David Fornetti along the stone pathway near the northeastern border of the triangle-shaped swamp during Season 8 Episode 21, aired 6 April 2021. The team identified the piece as a possible fire grate associated with the nearby burn feature, the stone foundation with charcoal and reddened soil that archaeologist Miriam Amirault and David Fornetti had excavated in the preceding episode. The fragment surfaced during the same metal detection session that produced a military-style cuff button dated 1750 to 1850, a fragment of French transfer print pottery from the early 1760s, and a possible musket gunflint dating to the early 1600s. No formal dating, laboratory analysis, or expert identification of the grate itself was documented in the episode, and the piece is currently held alongside the other pathway finds for further examination. Fire grates were standard components of hearths, forges, and kilns from the medieval period through the nineteenth century, used to support burning fuel and allow air to circulate beneath. The field identification of the fragment as a fire grate was consistent with the hearth interpretation Dr. Aaron Taylor and Dr. Ian Spooner had advanced for the nearby foundation, and added weight to the case for working hearth activity at the swamp's northeastern border during the colonial period. **Iron hinge (massive)** Date: Pre-1800; possibly early 1600s Found: Smith's Cove When: Season 6, Ep. 16 Type: Artifact A massive wrought iron hinge was recovered from the Smith's Cove area by Gary Drayton during Season 6 excavations. The hinge was found more than six feet below the seabed, beneath the slipway structure that treasure hunter Gilbert Hedden had first discovered in 1936. It featured what appeared to be a square hole, and its scale was substantially larger than domestic or everyday hardware, indicating it came from a heavy door, gate, or large structural panel. Marty Lagina, Alex Lagina, and Doug Crowell brought the hinge to blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge at the Ross Farm Museum. Carmen concluded the hinge was the oldest piece in the Smith's Cove collection, dating it to the early 1600s and noting it predated the Money Pit's discovery in 1795 by nearly two centuries. He determined that the hinge had held something substantial, at least two to two-and-a-half inches thick. At the Mug and Anchor pub in Mahone Bay, the team discussed Carmen's findings and grew increasingly confident that the slipway and its associated artefacts were the work of the original depositors rather than later searchers. A hinge of this size in the Smith's Cove context has been connected by researchers to the flood tunnel system, where large fitted panels or gates could have been used to control water flow during the original construction phase. The concrete wall discovered nearby in the same season contained two rubber tubes embedded in its base, a configuration consistent with a valve or flow-control mechanism. No physical gate or door frame has been found in association with the hinge. A smaller handwrought iron hinge was later recovered from borehole 8-A at the wash table during Season 7 at approximately 103 feet in the Shaft Six tunnel, which archaeologist Laird Niven identified as non-mining-related and possibly from a chest. **Iron Hook (Lot 5 Well)** Date: Mid 1700s Found: The well nearside the stone feature on Lot 5 When: Season 13 Type: Artifact A hand-forged iron hook recovered by Marty Lagina and metal detection expert Gary Drayton from inside a stone well on Lot 5, located a few yards from the large round feature. Gary initially considered the object a possible pintle, noting that similar pintles had been found near the boulder on Lot 8 and on Lot 15, both possibly predating 1795. After cleaning and analysis in the Oak Island lab, archaeologist Laird Niven and materials analyst Emma Culligan identified it as a driven hook rather than a pintle, likely used to lower a bucket into the well. Emma''s XRF analysis revealed clean iron with minimal impurities but elevated chromium and copper content. The composition points to a continental European origin rather than British, which distinguishes it from the majority of iron artifacts recovered on the island. No modern alloying elements are present, and the absence of potassium in its base metal led Emma to date the hook most likely to the mid-1700s, predating the 1795 discovery of the Money Pit. The find carries broader implications for Lot 5. The well's late former owner Robert Young had classified it as a 20th century structure. However, the hook's pre-1795 dating suggests the well may be considerably older.  **Iron projectile (Lot 26, possible Roman pilum)** Date: Roman era (1st century BC - 5th century AD) per antiquities expert; iron with manganese confirmed by SEM Found: Lot 26 beachfront, southwest shore When: Season 6, Ep. 3 (2018) Type: Artifact A hand-forged iron object with a tapered point, recovered roughly ten inches below the surface on the Lot 26 beachfront by Gary Drayton, Jack Begley, and geophysicist Mike West. The beach was once the property of 18th-century privateer Captain James Anderson, who fled the United States after spying for the British and faced treason charges from Governor Thomas Jefferson. The team was surveying with an EM61 deep-scanning detector capable of sensing metal up to 20 feet underground. Gary initially identified the artifact as a crossbow bolt, dating it between 1000 and 1500 AD. Archaeologist Laird Niven noted the piece was finely made with hardened iron showing minimal rust. Marty Lagina argued that a weapon, unlike a cross or keepsake, indicates actual activity on the island when it was lost. At St. Mary's University in Halifax, Dr. Christa Brosseau and Dr. Xiang Yang performed scanning electron microscope analysis confirming the metal is iron with manganese, an element used in iron production since as early as the ninth century BC. California antiquities expert Gabriel Vandervort then re-examined the artifact. After initially suspecting a medieval European origin, he found the long neck inconsistent with crossbow bolts and reclassified the object as a Roman pilum, a throwing javelin carried by legionnaires from the first century BC through the fifth century AD. The thin iron neck was designed to penetrate armor and break off inside the target. Vandervort noted such artifacts are rare even in Europe and virtually unheard of in North America. A strikingly similar tapered iron object was later recovered at Smith's Cove among the slipway spoils. **Iron ship's timber brace (burnt)** Date: 1710–1790 (golden age of piracy) Found: Season 7 Episode 14 (February 2020) When: Season 7 Episode 14 (February 2020) Type: Artifact The Iron Ship's Timber Brace was recovered during a metal-detecting search along the stone paved area toward the Eye of the Swamp on Oak Island in Season 7 Episode 14, "Burnt Offering" (February 25, 2020). The find was made by Rick Lagina, Gary Drayton, Jack Begley, and Billy Gerhardt, with Billy extracting the artifact from deep within an excavated hole. The strap was a large iron piece showing the wood grain pattern characteristic of old hand-forged iron pressed against timber. Archaeologist Laird Niven examined the piece on site and suggested it could be reinforcing strap from a large timber or possibly from a chest. Marty Lagina, Alex Lagina, and Gary Drayton then took the strap, together with a hand-forged pickaxe and round-point spade recovered from the same area the previous week, to blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge at the Ross Farm Museum in New Ross, Nova Scotia. Carmen Legge identified the strap as a brace from a nine-inch diameter ship's timber and dated it to 1710 to 1790. He noted clear evidence that the strap had been burned in a fierce fire, with the metal showing the characteristic discoloration and structural damage of high-heat exposure. At the Mug and Anchor pub in Mahone Bay, the team discussed the strap's implications. Its 1710 to 1790 date range falls within the golden age of piracy, and its recovery location lies near a 200-foot ship-shaped anomaly previously identified by seismic scanning of the swamp. The combination of evidence supports the long-standing theory of the late surveyor Fred Nolan that a vessel loaded with treasure was brought into the swamp, offloaded onto the stone paved area as a working platform, and then deliberately burned and sunk to conceal the operation. The strap has not been carbon dated through any associated organic material or independently tested for metallurgical composition beyond Carmen Legge's visual identification. The 1710 to 1790 dating rests on the forging characteristics, the typology of nine-inch ship's timber braces of the period, and the burn evidence consistent with the broader hypothesis of a scuttled vessel. **Iron Spike Boulder (Lot 2)** Date: Unknown Found: Lot 2 When: 2016 (Season 6) Type: Artifact A large granite boulder on Lot 2 with an iron spike completely embedded in its surface, several drilled holes of uniform diameter visible once the moss was cleared, and what appears to be a carved triangle on the stone's face. Metal detection expert Gary Drayton made the find in Season 6, working with Rick Lagina and Jack Begley. The team identified the feature as resembling a ringbolt of the type used to thread chains for hauling heavy cargo, and noted the carved triangle could be a Mason's mark. Archaeologist Laird Niven determined the site required formal archaeological evaluation before any further excavation could proceed. **Iron Staple (Quadrilateral)** Date: Well before 1795 Found: Lot 13, in the ground around the Quadrilateral When: Season 10 Type: Artifact A large hand-forged iron staple discovered embedded in the wall of the Quadrilateral excavation on Lot 13 during Season 10 of The Curse of Oak Island. The staple was found while the team excavated the buried 32-foot boulder formation first documented by Fred Nolan in 1993. Blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge examined the staple and identified it as a fastener used in a rope and pulley system for moving massive boulders into position. Staples of this type have been used throughout history in the assembly of large stone and wooden structures. Legge assessed the piece as ancient, possibly dating to the medieval period - a conclusion that, if correct, would place the construction of the Quadrilateral well before the 1795 discovery of the Money Pit. Archeometallurgist Emma Culligan performed an XRF analysis confirming the staple was 98% iron, with trace amounts of silicon, aluminium, manganese, calcium, sulphur, and phosphorous. She described this composition as indicative of the furnace type and smelting technology used in older metalworking, consistent with Legge's medieval assessment. The staple's context is significant. It was found within a deliberately constructed feature consisting of three layers of stacked multi-ton boulders sealed with blue clay - the same waterproofing material found at 40 feet in the Money Pit and at the Eye of the Swamp. Burnt sticks recovered from the same site matched charred material found beneath the Stone Road. The staple provides direct evidence of the mechanical effort involved in building the Quadrilateral and, if its dating holds, places organised heavy construction activity on Oak Island centuries before the first known treasure hunters arrived. **Iron swages (2 blacksmith tools)** Date: Dated as far back as 14th century Found: Lot 21 When: 2019 Type: Tool Tunnelling tools used to sharpen rock drills; evidence of intense mining operations **Jewelled brooch (rhodolite garnet)** Date: 16th-17th century (400-500 years old) Found: Lot 8 / near Lot 21 When: Season 5, Ep. 16 (2018) Type: Artifact A small brooch set with a deep red hand-cut rhodolite garnet, recovered by Gary Drayton and Rick Lagina on Lot 8 during Season 5. A certified gemologist in Halifax initially examined the stone, confirming it as rhodolite garnet rather than ruby, and dating the hand-cut faceting to 400 to 500 years old based on a pre-modern technique that predates calculated refraction cuts. The silver setting contains up to 73 percent copper, consistent with centuries-old metallurgy, and green patina from copper oxidation confirms its age.Professional gemologist and master goldsmith Charles Lewton-Brain at the Alberta College of Art and Design later examined the brooch under a digital video microscope at 220x magnification. He confirmed the garnet as genuine with a refractive index above 1.7. The setting's wire displays a spiral pattern known as block twisting, a technique dating to the Bronze Age in which metal is hammered into a thin rod and twisted to form a braid-like wire. Because drawplates replaced this method around 1340, the brooch could predate the 14th century. Lewton-Brain described the work as European, crude, and consistent with countryside craftsmanship.Researcher Scott Clarke connected the brooch to the ceremonial breastplate worn by a Masonic Royal Arch High Priest, which is set with twelve precious and semiprecious stones representing the twelve tribes of Israel, one of which is a carbuncle associated with garnets. Clarke noted that M.R. Chappell, who held the deed to Lot 8, was himself a High Priest who would have owned such a breastplate. The brooch ranked eighth on the show's official top ten finds list and remains the only verified pre-modern gemstone recovered from Oak Island. **Keg bottom (wooden)** Date: Pre-1795 Found: Borehole OC-1, approximately 147 feet depth When: Season 7 Type: Artifact Rounded wooden piece with a tapered edge and stave, identified as the bottom of a small barrel or keg, recovered from borehole OC-1 at approximately 147 feet. The find connects directly to the 1861 Shaft Six story, in which a worker narrowly escaped drowning during a sudden flood and grabbed the circular end of a keg as he fled. Hand-hewn timbers from undocumented construction also appeared at this depth. **King George II coins, 18th century (multiple, island general)** Date: 1700s Found: Samuel Ball's property When: Season 4 (2016) Type: Coin Seven copper coins bearing the image of King George II were recovered from Lot 24, one of nine four-acre properties once owned by Samuel Ball, during Season 4. Charles Barkhouse and metal detection expert Gary Drayton conducted an intensive search of the lot, and Gary's detector returned hits across the site. The first coin, dating the piece to between 1727 and 1760, was found alongside an eighteenth-century dandy button, a lead musket ball ingot used by soldiers to chop off pieces and cast musket balls in a mould, and a metal plate from the stock of a musket or pistol bearing what appeared to be an engraved name or signature. Six additional King George II copper coins were then recovered concentrated in a small radius. Gary concluded the density and type of artefacts pointed to a British military encampment. The find supported Fred Nolan's longstanding theory that the treasure was connected to the 1762 British sacking of Havana, when the Royal Navy confiscated a vast hoard of Spanish gold and sailed to the port of Halifax, roughly sixty miles north of Oak Island. Charles noted that the 1870 first edition of Mather Myles DesBrisay's History of the County of Lunenburg lists Samuel Ball as one of the original Money Pit discoverers rather than Anthony Vaughn, a detail removed without explanation in later editions. Ball, a formerly enslaved South Carolinian who settled on Oak Island in 1786, became one of the wealthiest men in the area by his death in 1845, accumulating nine four-acre lots on the island despite having arrived with no apparent means. The concentration of military-grade artefacts on his property has fuelled theories that Ball discovered and profited from treasure or military stores buried on the island. The seven coins represent the largest single cache of period currency recovered from any one location on Oak Island. **King George II copper coin, 1771 (island general)** Date: 1771 AD Found: South shore near swamp When: Season 2, Episode 3 (2014) Type: Coin A British copper coin bearing the profile of King George II on the obverse and Britannia seated on a shield holding a trident on the reverse, dated 1771. Gary Drayton recovered the coin on the south shore near the swamp while searching for artifacts with Rick Lagina, Peter Fornetti, and Dan Henskee. The coin predates the discovery of the Money Pit by 24 years, adding to the body of evidence that human activity on Oak Island extended well before 1795. While the coin does not confirm any specific theory about the island's origins, its 18th-century date and British manufacture are consistent with the pattern of colonial-era artifacts found across the island, including military buttons, musket balls, and other coins from the same period. **Kingdom Stone (Malkuth)** Date: Unknown (predates modern search era) Found: Kingdom point - Tree of Life / Nolan's Cross When: May 25, 2003 (Petter Amundsen) Type: Carved_stone The Kingdom Stone is a small red granite boulder unearthed in May 2003 at the location predicted by Norwegian researcher Petter Amundsen, an organist at Oslo's Evangelical Lutheran chapel in Holmenkollen. Amundsen had projected the Cabalistic Tree of Life onto Nolan's Cross, identifying the five known boulders as half of the diagram and calculating where the remaining Sephirot should fall. The base point of the Tree, called Malkuth in Hebrew or "Kingdom" in English, lay south of the foot of Nolan's Cross, on the extended line of the long arm. Working with Dan Blankenship and with Fred Nolan's permission to investigate, Amundsen scraped away roughly five centimeters of soil and uncovered the stone. According to Blankenship's account in Randall Sullivan's book The Curse of Oak Island, one face was curved like a seashell while the opposite face presented a nearly perfect flat edge, suitable for standing the stone upright. Amundsen identified three small indentations on the flat surface arranged in an isosceles triangle, a configuration that resembles both the Triple Tau of Masonic Royal Arch symbolism and the triangular dot patterns reported on the lost 90-foot Stone. A second flat-faced stone was reportedly recovered at the projected Victory (Netzach) point, although it has received less attention. After the 2003 discovery, Blankenship reburied the Kingdom Stone to keep its existence and location from Fred Nolan, his Oak Island rival of nearly four decades. The stone was unearthed for a second time in 2014 during The Curse of Oak Island Season 1, Episode 4, "The Secret of Solomon's Temple." Amundsen guided Rick and Marty Lagina to the area. The first rock they exposed was too small, but Marty then identified a larger flat-sided stone that Amundsen confirmed as the original. An aerial flyover that followed showed that adding the Kingdom Stone to the five existing Nolan's Cross boulders produced a diamond whose long axis pointed toward the swamp, where Amundsen had placed the Mercy Point and where the Lagina team subsequently recovered a seventeenth-century Spanish maravedi. Two physical observations remain unresolved. The cleanly flat face has no obvious natural counterpart; if the stone is a product of glacial fracture, the matching half has not been located on the island. And the Kingdom Stone sits on the projected line of the long arm of Nolan's Cross, the same line that runs through the buried Headstone at the center of the cross. Both stones share the same three properties: deliberate burial, a single flat surface that reads as worked rather than weathered, and a position on the cross's central axis. Whether this points to a single underlying design or to a coincidence of two buried stones on a long survey line is an open question. **L-shaped wooden structure** Date: Pre-1795 Found: Smith's Cove When: 1970s; re-found Season 6 Type: Structure The L-shaped wooden structure is a fifty-foot-long formation of wood and small stones discovered adjacent to the U-shaped structure in Smith's Cove. It was first noted during Dan Blankenship's investigations in the 1970s but not fully examined until the Lagina team's Season 6 excavation. Archaeologist Laird Niven identified it as the second major timber formation at the cove, distinct from but physically connected to the U-shaped structure. Niven's examination indicated the L-shaped structure was built in at least two distinct phases, meaning construction at the site was not a single event but involved a return or extension of the original work. This phased construction adds a layer of complexity to the chronology of activity at Smith's Cove: whoever built the structure came back to modify or enlarge it, suggesting sustained use of the site over a period of time rather than a single operation. Like the U-shaped structure, the L-shaped formation contains no metal fasteners, only hand-cut notches and wooden pegs, a detail Niven considered archaeologically significant and potentially useful for dating purposes. Within the L-shaped structure, the team uncovered a series of notched beams and horizontal logs arranged as rollers, consistent with a mechanism for hauling heavy loads. Laird Niven associated the feature with the slipway first reported by Gilbert Hedden in 1936, who had discovered two large timbers held together with wooden pegs while building a wharf at Smith's Cove. Hedden concluded the formation was an ancient boat slip but lacked the resources to dig below the low-tide mark. Together with the U-shaped structure, the box drains, and the coconut fibre filter system, the L-shaped feature forms part of an integrated waterfront construction of considerable scale. **Large boulder (TEFERET location)** Date: Unknown Found: North portion of swamp When: Season 11 Type: Structure A large boulder discovered at a site in the northern swamp identified by researcher John Edwards as corresponding to the Tiferet position on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. Edwards, who had spent over 30 years studying Templar-era symbols and icons, proposed extending the geometry of Nolan's Cross into a full Tree of Life diagram, with each sephirah (node) corresponding to a physical location on the island. The Tiferet position, representing beauty and balance at the center of the Tree, fell in the northern swamp near the cobblestone pathway. During Season 11, Jack Begley, Gary Drayton, and Billy Gerhardt excavated the Tiferet site and found the area extremely rocky. The boulder was resting above C horizon rather than sitting naturally within it, which suggested deliberate placement as a marker. Rick Lagina, Marty Lagina, and Dr. Ian Spooner were called in for evaluation. When Billy rolled the boulder, Spooner found a stick trapped between it and the sediment, evidence that the stone had been moved at some point, along with a piece of cut wood that he collected for carbon-14 dating. Deeper excavation revealed chopped timbers, tree stumps, and a rock-lined formation beneath the boulder. The find carried weight in the context of Professor Adriano Gaspani's archaeoastronomical research, which dated the placement of Nolan's Cross boulders to approximately 1200 AD based on stellar alignments with Capella, Arcturus, Antares, Bellatrix, Alphard, and Fomalhaut. If the Tiferet boulder was part of the same construction program as Nolan's Cross, it would extend the known geometry of the formation and reinforce Edwards' theory that the entire Tree of Life was physically laid out across the island as a coded map to the treasure. **Large copper coin, 1730s-1740s (Lot 25, Samuel Ball foundation)** Date: 1730s-1740s (Gary Drayton estimate), possibly British penny Found: Lot 25, Samuel Ball foundation When: Season 8, Episode 17 (2021) Type: Coin A large copper coin with green patina, recovered by metal detection expert Gary Drayton on Lot 25 at the Samuel Ball foundation during Season 8. Rick Lagina was also present during the search, which was conducted under a heritage permit arranged by archaeologist Laird Niven. Gary estimated the coin dated to the 1730s or 1740s and suggested it was possibly a British penny based on its size.The coin was found alongside an ornate cane topper, riding crop topper, or military swagger stick topper bearing a crown and rose design that Gary considered consistent with 1700s English craftsmanship. Doug Crowell confirmed the rose and crown as a symbol of the English monarchy dating to 1485. Historian Sarah MacInnes of the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site confirmed that ox shoes found on the property matched specimens in Louisbourg's archaeological collection, connecting the site to the mid-18th-century French military compound. **Large log with Roman numerals (65 ft)** Date: Dendro: trees felled c. 1770 Found: Smith's Cove, beneath shore When: 1970 Type: Artifact The large log is a spruce timber approximately two feet in diameter and sixty-five feet long, recovered from beneath the shore at Smith's Cove. It forms part of the U-shaped wooden structure first identified by Dan Blankenship during the Triton Alliance investigations in the early 1970s. The log bears Roman numeral carpenter's marks carved into its surface, a feature shared with other timbers in the structure. Roman numerals on structural timbers served as assembly instructions, indicating the order in which prefabricated components should be fitted together. This practice was standard among European shipwrights and military engineers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, who routinely pre-cut and numbered large timber components at a workshop or staging area before transporting them to the construction site. The presence of these marks on the Smith's Cove log indicates the structure was not improvised on location but built according to a predetermined plan, with components prepared elsewhere and assembled in sequence on the island. Dendrochronologist Dr. Colin Laroque analysed wood from the U-shaped structure and determined the trees were felled in 1769, twenty-six years before the discovery of the Money Pit. In Season 7, massive hand-cut timbers with matching Roman numeral markings were recovered from borehole RF-1 at approximately one hundred feet in the Money Pit area. Terry Matheson suggested the marks served as assembly instructions for the original builders, and the team noted the timbers did not match anything associated with the known Hedden or Chappell searcher shafts. The recurring presence of Roman numeral marriage marks at both Smith's Cove and the Money Pit points to a single coordinated construction operation spanning both sites. **Large-diameter pipe stem (Shaft 6)** Date: 1680 to 1710 (Laird Niven angle-of-fragment match; identified as English origin) Found: Borehole RP1 spoils, processed at the wash plant (Lot 18, Money Pit area) When: Season 12, Episode 18 (April 1, 2024); dating confirmed Episode 25 (May 20, 2024) Type: 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. **Lead artifact (scalloped, Sardinian lead)** Date: Unknown; pre-modern Found: Lot 5 When: Season 10+ Type: Artifact Ornate lead piece with scalloped edges and two holes; XRF shows lead not from North America; consistent with southern European/Sardinian origin **Lead Bag Seal - Leeds, with Golden Fleece** Date: 17th-18th century Found: Lot 8 When: Season 13, Episode 10 Type: Artifact A lead bag seal bearing the city seal of Leeds, England, recovered from Lot 8 during Season 13 near a massive boulder surrounded by a ring of deliberately placed stones. The seal consists of two lead circles stamped together with a distinctive sheepskin symbol, a reference to the fleece that defined Leeds as a center of wool manufacturing dating back to the 1300s. Emma Culligan and archaeologist Laird Niven identified the design and noted the seal would have fastened a bale of finished fabric roughly the size of a hay bale, far more cloth than any single household on the island would have required. It is the third bag seal recovered on Oak Island, following one found on Lot 5 and another on Lot 32 near the stone road in the swamp. The Lot 32 seal was scientifically matched through laser ablation testing to the 14th-century lead cross believed to be connected to the Knights Templar, recovered from Smith's Cove in 2017. The proximity of the new seal to the Lot 8 boulder feature, beneath which the team discovered voids, cut wood, and a piece of wool fabric dyed red with no detectable modern chemicals, strengthens the connection between the boulder and organized European activity on the island. Laird connected the wool fabric to the bag seal, observing that a Leeds cloth packer's seal and a piece of English wool found together beneath the same ancient feature could indicate the transport of bulk trade goods through the island. The seal was estimated to be roughly 700 years old, placing it in the same medieval period as the lead cross and the barter token from Lot 5. The Golden Fleece symbol was included in the Coat of Arms of the city of Leeds when it was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1626 by Charles I and the practice of using bale seals for taxation was abandoned in England by 1724. The stars were only added to the seal in 1662. This allows for a quite precise dating of the artifact. (information provided by Oak Island researcher Renae Cope) **Lead Bag Seal - London, I. Lloyd Army Packers** Date: 1808 or older (possibly 1500s) Found: Lot 5 When: Season 11 (2023) Type: Artifact A lead bag seal consisting of two lead circles stamped together, recovered on Lot 5 during Season 11 near the deliberately buried round stone foundation. Rick Lagina and Gary Drayton found the piece while scanning the area around the circular feature. Gary initially believed it was an old coin before Laird Niven identified it as a bag seal at the Interpretive Centre.Emma Culligan's XRF analysis revealed the seal is primarily lead with some iron impurities and a trace of copper. The front surface bears several stamped letters, including what appeared to be a "k," "e," and "r." Laird found an exact match in historical records: a "J. Lloyd Packers London" cloth packers seal listed as army packers, establishing a direct military connection to the artifact. He dated the seal to the 1700s but noted it could be older based on the use of an "I" in place of a "J," a lettering convention that changed around 1524. Army packers seals were attached to cloth bales and supply shipments destined for military forces, indicating that military provisions passed through or were stored on Oak Island.The Lloyd seal was the second bag seal found on Oak Island. A similar seal had been recovered on Lot 32 three years earlier, and testing of that seal's lead composition showed it was a match to both the 14th-century lead barter token from Lot 5 and the 14th-century lead cross Rick and Gary found at Smith's Cove in 2017. The new seal's lead composition did not match the Lot 32 example, suggesting multiple sources of lead artifacts reached the island through different channels or periods. **Lead Bag Seal - Norwich Cloth** Date: 1638-1714 Found: Lot 32 When: Season 8, Episode 25 "Silver Lining" Type: Artifact A lead cloth seal bearing guild certification markings consistent with the English textile trade of the 17th and early 18th centuries. The seal features a distinctive motif of the number four atop a cross - a symbol used by English cloth makers' guilds to certify undyed cloth. The initials on the front face identify the specific guild, while the reverse would originally have borne the scratched initials of the individual weaver. The symbol is not associated with the London guild, which used a different mark, suggesting the seal originated from a regional cloth-producing centre. Independent research points to Norwich as a likely source. Norwich was one of England's most important textile cities, home to a thriving weaving guild that certified cloth for domestic use and export. The city discontinued the use of cloth seals around 1705, and the guild's records were destroyed at that time, placing the seal's probable date of manufacture before that year. Cloth seals of this type were pressed onto bales of fabric as quality certification before shipment. Their presence at colonial sites across the Atlantic - including Jamestown, Virginia - is well documented and indicates organised trade in English textiles. The seal's arrival on Oak Island is consistent with British commercial or military supply activity during the colonial period. The find is one of several lead bag and cloth seals discovered on Oak Island, each pointing to different origins and time periods within the broader English textile trade. **Lead coin weight (Lot 5 round feature)** Date: Unknown Found: Lot 4 (spoils from Lot 5 round feature) When: Season 12, Episode 4 (2024) Type: Artifact A piece of lead identified by Gary Drayton as a coin weight, recovered while searching 10 tons of spoils removed from the round feature on Lot 5 during Season 12. Coin weights were used by merchants and payroll officers to verify that coins met their required weight, serving as a safeguard against clipped or debased currency. Craig Tester was also present during the search.The lead coin weight was found alongside a button Gary estimated at mid-1600s to mid-1700s. The round feature on Lot 5 has produced a wide range of artifacts associated with commercial and military activity, including coins, buttons, trade beads, and tokens spanning multiple centuries. **Lead cross** Date: Pre-15th century; possibly 900-1300 AD Found: Smith's Cove / near shore When: Season 5, Ep. 10 (2017) Type: Artifact A heavy lead cross was recovered from the intertidal zone at Smith's Cove by Gary Drayton during Season 5. Working the rock pools between the beach and the old cofferdams at low tide, Gary got a strong signal at ten inches depth and pulled the cross from the ground. It featured crude, asymmetrical construction and a square hole at the top where a nail or cord would have been threaded for wearing. Gary immediately identified the form as medieval, estimating a date range of 1200 to 1600, and told Rick Lagina he had seen the same shape carved into a wall at the Templar prison in Domme, France, which members of the team had visited just weeks earlier during a research trip. Archaeologist Laird Niven confirmed the object was lead, pierced by a square nail, crudely made, and unlike anything he had previously encountered in Nova Scotia. He noted the metal showed little wear or white patina, suggesting it had been recently unearthed rather than long exposed to the elements, and agreed with Marty Lagina's theory that the team's excavation of the French drain area the previous year may have dislodged it from its original deposit. Dr. Chris McFarlane of the University of New Brunswick conducted laser ablation analysis, vaporising a microscopic sample and feeding it into a mass spectrometer. The results revealed trace silver in the lead consistent with old-fashioned smelting, and isotope ratios that did not match any deposit in North America. The cross was definitively crafted from European lead. Geochemist Tobias Skowronek of the German Mining Museum in Bochum then compared the isotope data against his extensive database of ore bodies. He reported that the lead was inconsistent with European quarries exploited from the fifteenth century onward and instead matched medieval mining deposits in the Montagne Noire mountain range of southern France, within roughly twenty miles of Rennes-le-Chateau, a village with strong Knights Templar connections dating to the thirteenth century. Skowronek's analysis placed the lead as pre-fifteenth century, from a deposit too small for industrial-scale exploitation. The finding was later reinforced when he tested a separate lead artefact from Lot 21, a piece with scalloped edges found against one of the large logs in the bump-out area at Smith's Cove. The isotope data was identical to the cross, confirming both pieces came from the same ore deposit mined over six hundred years ago in southern France. Gary Drayton called the cross one of the most historic finds ever made in North America if it was deposited near the time it was manufactured. During the team's research trip to France in Season 5, the Domme prison where at least seventy Knights Templar were held after their arrest on Friday, October 13, 1307, yielded carvings that Templar expert Jerry Glover identified as matching the cross almost exactly: crosses with four pellets in their quadrants, carved into the stone walls by prisoners using their teeth and fingernails. The cross remains the single artefact most frequently cited in arguments connecting the Knights Templar to Oak Island, and its isotope signature has not been disputed by any subsequent analysis. **Lead Decorative Piece** Date: Carbon dated before 1400 by Tobias Skowronek of the German Mining museum Found: in a clearing, opposite the McGinnis family foundation When: Season 6, Episode 18 Type: Artifact A long, narrow piece of lead with a slight curve, discovered alongside a smaller fragment that fits together as part of a larger object. Both ends feature square-shaped terminals reminiscent of the square hole on the Smith's Cove lead cross. The surface bears a raised floral pattern identified by geochemist Tobias Skowronek of the German Mining Museum as evidence of cloisonné - a medieval metalwork technique in which artists soldered strips of metal onto an object's surface, then filled the compartments with colored glass or gemstones. Skowronek's chemical analysis revealed that the lead isotope data from this artifact is identical to that of the lead cross found at Smith's Cove, meaning both objects originated from the same ore deposit in France and date to before the 15th century. The two pieces were found on opposite sides of the island - this fragment on Lot 21 in the west and the cross at Smith's Cove in the east - yet share the same pre-1400s provenance. Significance is High - the second piece of lead confirmed to match the Smith's Cove lead cross isotopically, establishing that pre-15th-century European material was distributed across multiple locations on Oak Island, not concentrated in a single deposit site. **Lead ingot (musket ball making)** Date: 1700s Found: Samuel Ball's property When: Season 4, Ep. 8 Type: Artifact A lead musket ball ingot recovered by Gary Drayton on Lot 24 during Season 4, one of nine four-acre properties once owned by Samuel Ball. The ingot was a standardized block of lead from which soldiers would chop off pieces and cast musket balls in a hand-held mould, a common practice in military camps from the 17th through 19th centuries. The process allowed troops to manufacture ammunition on site rather than relying on supply chains.The ingot was found alongside a concentration of military artifacts that included an 18th-century dandy button, a copper coin bearing the image of King George II (dated 1727 to 1760), a metal plate from the stock of a musket or pistol bearing what appeared to be an engraved name or signature, and six additional George II copper coins clustered in a small radius. Gary concluded that the density and type of artifacts pointed to a British military encampment. Similar lead splashes consistent with musket ball manufacturing were later found on the Samuel Ball foundation on Lot 25 during Season 8, where Gary and Rick Lagina recovered musket-making debris alongside a single-loop flat button dating to approximately 1750 to 1850.The military artifacts on Ball's properties supported Fred Nolan's longstanding theory connecting the treasure to the 1762 British sacking of Havana, when the Royal Navy confiscated a vast hoard of Spanish gold and sailed to the port of Halifax, roughly 60 miles north of Oak Island. The presence of both ammunition-making materials and officer-grade personal items across multiple Ball lots indicated sustained military activity rather than a passing visit. **Lead spoon handle** Date: Colonial era Found: Smith's Cove, intertidal zone When: Season 5 Type: Artifact Lead spoon handle recovered by Gary Drayton while searching the intertidal zone at Smith's Cove during low tide, on the same day as the lead cross discovery. Found alongside a decorative brass fitting believed to have come from a boat. **Lead tag (Mediterranean origin)** Date: Pre-15th century Found: Smith's Cove, near wharf structure When: Season 7 (2019) Type: Artifact A small lead artefact recovered by Gary Drayton from Smith's Cove during Season 7, found near the wooden wharf structure that the team was exposing within the steel cofferdam. Dr. Chris McFarlane of the University of New Brunswick conducted laser ablation analysis on the piece, the same technique previously used on the lead cross from Smith's Cove and the Lot 21 lead artefact. The results showed impure lead with approximately nine percent tin and two percent antimony, the highest tin ratio McFarlane had encountered in any sample he had tested. Using his database of over six thousand European lead ore isotope measurements, McFarlane determined the lead was not of North American origin. The isotope signature was most consistent with sources in the western Mediterranean, specifically Italy, France, or Spain. This placed the tag in the same broad geographic region as the lead cross, whose isotopes matched medieval mining deposits in the Montagne Noire of southern France, and the Lot 21 artefact, whose lead came from the identical ore body. The accumulation of Mediterranean-origin lead artefacts across Smith's Cove points to a pattern of European activity at the site predating British settlement of the Mahone Bay area. The composition of the tag, with its elevated tin and antimony content, distinguishes it from the purer lead of the cross and the Lot 21 piece. Tin and antimony are commonly found as impurities in lead ores from specific Mediterranean deposits and can serve as a chemical fingerprint narrowing the source region. The tag's proximity to the wharf structure, where crib spikes, the massive iron hinge, and the slipway timbers were also recovered, places it within the concentration of pre-1795 artefacts that have defined Smith's Cove as one of the most archaeologically significant areas on the island. **Leaf/Fern Brooch** Found: Lot 21 When: Season 7, Episode 4 Type: Artifact A decorative brooch featuring a unique design of twin coils of rope surmounted by a fern-like leaf, found by Gary Drayton and Charles Barkhouse on Lot 21, the western shore of Oak Island near the foundation of Daniel McGinnis's former home. Gary identified it immediately as an old piece of jewelry, noting the intricate braiding of the rope pattern and calling it a top-pocket find. The leaf element appeared to sit on a hinge or had been bent down from its original upright position. The same lot had earlier that season yielded two iron swages estimated at 600 years old, and the previous year produced a gold-plated brooch estimated to be some 700 years old. Alex Lagina and archaeologist Laird Niven brought the brooch approximately 50 miles north to Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, where professional conservator Kelly Bourassa cleaned and examined it. Using wooden skewers and a glass fiber brush to avoid scratching the surface, Bourassa carefully removed dirt and corrosion buildup. As the cleaning progressed, finer details of the leaf design emerged. Bourassa stated the brooch was completely new to him and unlike anything he had seen before, noting it could be a commissioned piece, which would mean someone paid extra to have it made to order. He found no maker's mark and could not assign a definitive date, recommending a specialist in antique jewelry for further analysis. At the Mug and Anchor pub in Mahone Bay, Alex and Laird presented the cleaned brooch to Rick, Marty, and the rest of the team. Gary described the design as a double coil of rope topped by a leaf, and the group discussed whether the rope motif suggested a naval or maritime connection. Laird observed that two ropes entwined could also imply a couple. The brooch was found on the same day Gary and Charles recovered a copper half penny bearing the image of a young Queen Victoria, dated to approximately the 1840s. Marty noted the brooch ranked alongside the other brooches found on the island and called it "frickin' fantastic." **Leather book binding fragments** Date: Pre-1890 (testing) Found: Borehole H8 spoils, Money Pit When: Season 5 (c. 2017) Type: Artifact More than fifteen pieces of leather were recovered from the spoils of borehole H-8 in the Money Pit area during Season 5. At Saint Mary's University, Dr. Christa Brosseau examined the fragments under a scanning electron microscope and identified one side as dimpled animal skin, while the other showed bundled textile fibres spun together and bonded to the leather, a construction consistent with bookbinding. Rick Lagina described the bookbinding material as the most intriguing of all the H-8 artefacts tested to that point. Medieval bookbinding expert Joe Landry and his apprentice Katherine Taylor examined the fragments at the Dawson Printshop at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax. Landry immediately identified the scraps as genuine parchment and vegetable-tanned calf leather, consistent with materials used in bound volumes capable of surviving for two thousand years. He noted that vegetable tanning, a process using solutions derived from bark, produces extremely durable leather of the type used in manuscript production from the medieval period through the eighteenth century. At the Oak Island Research Centre, Doug Crowell and Paul Troutman had earlier examined similar fragments from H-8 under a digital microscope at up to two thousand times magnification and identified traces of red and yellow pigment resembling the illuminated drop caps used in medieval manuscripts, where large decorative letters marked the opening of chapters in religious texts. The leather bookbinding fragments lent support to the longstanding theory that the Money Pit contains manuscripts rather than, or in addition to, monetary treasure. Proposed connections have included documents linked to Sir Francis Bacon and William Shakespeare, Freemasonic records, and Knights Templar archives. In Season 7, fragments of leather resembling the bookbinding found in H-8 were recovered from borehole 8-A at approximately 103 feet, within what the team identified as the Shaft Six tunnel that connects directly to the original Money Pit. **Leather boot heel** Date: Dated as early as 1492 Found: Borehole 8-B spoils, Money Pit When: Season 8 (2020) Type: Artifact Pieces of leather identified as a boot heel and sole were recovered from the spoils of borehole 8-B in the Money Pit area during Season 8. The borehole was located just ten feet from where wood previously recovered from an underground tunnel had been carbon dated to 1706. Alex Lagina, Peter Fornetti, Dan Henskee, and Michael John identified the leather fragments during the wash-table sorting process. Charles Barkhouse and Doug Crowell transported the leather to the Dawson Print Shop in Halifax, where rare manuscript conservator and leather expert Joe Landry examined them. Landry identified the material as thick, high-quality leather with fine stitching and folded edges, characteristics of boots made for a wealthy customer rather than a common labourer. He suggested the boots may have belonged to a sea captain or someone of similar social standing. Carbon dating subsequently placed the leather between 1492 and 1662 with ninety-five percent confidence, predating the discovery of the Money Pit by more than 140 years. Marty Lagina observed that leather dating to 1492 would be significant anywhere in North America, and finding it directly in the Money Pit area represented a major development. The carbon date range spans from the era of Columbus through to the mid-seventeenth century, overlapping with multiple proposed timelines for the original construction of the Money Pit, including the Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Templar theories. The combination of the leather's age, its high-end manufacture, and its recovery from near a tunnel dated to 1706 pointed to the presence of someone of means during the original deposit rather than a later searcher. Gary Drayton described it as medieval, and the team concluded the artefact almost certainly belonged to an individual present during the original activity on the island. **Leather Boot Sole** Date: 1830-1900 Found: North Swamp When: 2025 (Season 12) Type: Artifact Oak-tanned leather boot sole discovered during excavation of a new area in the North Swamp, closer to the shore. Leather expert Joe Landry examined the piece at the Research Center, identifying it as a heavy-weight sole consistent with boots - possibly military issue or civilian boots purchased from military surplus. Landry dated the leather to 1830-1900 based on the tanning method and construction. The show connected the find to Anthony Graves, who reportedly paid for goods in Chester with Spanish silver coins during this period, though such coins were common currency throughout Nova Scotia at the time. **Leather Shoe Fragments** Found: Northern part of the Swamp When: Season 13, Episode 15 Type: Artifact Multiple pieces of leather shoe or boot recovered by Rick Lagina and Gary Drayton from deep within the peat layer in the northern region of the Oak Island swamp, near the cobblestone pathway lined with octagonal survey stakes. The fragments feature hobnail holes rather than stitching, a construction method consistent with older European footwear. Gary noted the elongated shape of one piece as characteristic of an early design. Preliminary carbon-14 testing returned a primary date range of 1148 to 1216 AD, with some readings extending as far back as 1047, potentially placing the leather over 800 years old. Craig Tester noted that Beta Analytical was asked to run additional cleaning methods and retest the samples to confirm the results.  If verified, the dates align closely with Professor Adriano Gaspani's peer-reviewed research dating the construction of Nolan's Cross to the early 13th century, as well as the paved area in the swamp, which was scientifically dated to approximately 1200 AD. The find recalls a European-origin boot fragment discovered near the Portuguese stone road in the southeast corner of the swamp during Season 11 (2023), which was dated to the 17th century. These newer fragments, if confirmed, would represent significantly older activity in the bog and strengthen the growing body of evidence for 13th-century presence on Oak Island during the era of the Knights Templar. **Lifting chain (wharf cargo)** Date: Hook and chain 1500s, no later than 1650 (Carmen Legge); three end chains machine-made later additions Found: Swamp, near the stone road, recovered from excavator bucket When: Season 11, Episode 10 (January 16, 2024) Type: Tool A crude handmade chain assembled with a hook and a ring was recovered from the swamp near the stone road during Season 11 filming. Alex Lagina spotted the chain hanging from Billy Gerhardt's excavator bucket, and Gary Drayton retrieved it. Rick Lagina compared the design to a multi-point hitch. In the same excavation pass, Drayton pulled a piece of wood with what appeared to be a spike embedded in it, followed by another piece containing a rose head spike that he dated to the 1700s or possibly older. Blacksmith expert Carmen Legge examined the chain assembly at the Interpretive Centre and gave a specific reading. The hook showed no curve in its shank, a feature Legge said marked it as older than examples with curved shanks. He placed the hook in the 1500s and no later than 1650. The chain connecting the hook to its ring was from the same period and handmade. Three chains at the end of the assembly were machine-made later additions, indicating the original device had been repaired or extended after the industrial era. Legge said the assembly would have been used to lift or drag cargo, or hung from a boom for loading at a harbor. The recovery context placed the chain near the stone road in the swamp, the feature the team had been investigating as a possible transport route used by whoever did the original work on the island. If Legge's dating is accepted, the chain predates the documented arrival of European settlers on the Mahone Bay coast and pushes the operational date of the stone road at least into the mid-seventeenth century, with an upper limit no later than 1650. Carbon dating of the stone road paving had previously returned a date in the 1200s, consistent with Templar-era theories advanced for the site. The chain itself was not submitted for laboratory analysis. **Lot 5 Standing Stone** Date: Unknown Found: Lot 5, near the stone structure When: Season 13, Episode 4 Type: Structure The Lot 5 Standing Stone is a small upright flat stone set at the center of a circular formation of stones near the middle of Lot 5 on Oak Island. The feature was uncovered in late 2025 by Rick Lagina and Gary Drayton during the Season 13 metal-detection program on the lot, which Rick and Marty Lagina acquired in 2023 from the estate of Robert Young. The setting carries weight. The standing stone sits in the same central section of Lot 5 where the team had previously recovered three Roman coins, a Roman-era lead barter token later isotope-matched to ore from the Iberian Peninsula or Italy, and a series of iron artifacts whose composition archaeometallurgist Emma Culligan has repeatedly tied to seventeenth-century English manufacture and to material connected with the Sir William Phips theory advanced by Scott Clarke. The lot also contains the deliberately buried circular and rectangular stone foundations that lead archaeologist Laird Niven and his team have been excavating since 2023. When Lagina and Drayton brought Niven to the new feature, his examination supported two conclusions. The upright flat stone at the center had been placed by hand rather than left in position by glacial action or later surface disturbance. And the stone, in his words, was set to "signify or mark a location." Niven drew a comparison between this small formation and the larger rounded stone feature closer to the Lot 5 shoreline, and recommended that the team clear and bisect the circle to determine its purpose and age. The discovery first appeared on screen in The Curse of Oak Island Season 13, Episode 4, "The Smoking Gun," which aired November 25, 2025. Several questions remain open at the time of broadcast. The stone has not been dated. The surrounding circle has not been fully exposed. No artifacts have yet been recovered from beneath or within its immediate footprint. Whether the marker corresponds to a property reference from one of the documented post-1753 occupants of Lot 5, to an earlier survey point, or to the older European deposits already documented on the lot will depend on what the planned bisection produces. The proximity to the Roman coin finds makes it a candidate for further attention even before any of those answers arrive. **Lot 8 Giant Boulder** Date: Cradle binder analysis (Culligan): post-1200s to pre-mid-1700s; feature described as premodern, possibly medieval Found: Lot 8 When: Season 13 Type: Structure Massive boulder feature on Lot 8 that has become one of the most significant investigative targets on Oak Island. The boulder was manipulated by human hands and held in place by smaller stones placed evenly around its perimeter, a construction technique reminiscent of megalithic sites in France and northern Spain where large stones were deliberately positioned and supported by smaller keystones. The formation conceals a large void underneath that extends into an extensive network of chambers described as a matrix that would not occur naturally. Dr. Ian Spooner conducted soil analysis of sediment extracted from directly beneath the boulder. Lead levels registered at 140 parts per million, more than eleven times the normal baseline of 12 parts per million measured elsewhere on the island. The lead is migrating through layers of ash and coal consistent with burning or smelting activity. Rick Lagina proposed the boulder may cover a ventilation shaft, citing the ancient practice dating to classical Greece of setting fires at the base of mine shafts to force air circulation while smoke rose through a separate channel. Spooner found the theory plausible and described the boulder as one of the most interesting rocks on the island. A snake camera inserted beneath the boulder captured images of a possible iron stake, what appeared to be a pearl, and at greater depth, lumps with golden, yellowy veins that the team observed had the color and luster of gold. Rick called it potentially the most substantial discovery ever made on the island. The archaeologists, including Laird Niven, gave approval to proceed with lifting the boulder using a crane, setting the stage for one of the most anticipated operations in the history of the Oak Island treasure hunt. Artifacts recovered from the surrounding soil include a hand-forged iron chopping knife dated to the mid-1700s and a hand-forged iron pintle of a type dating as far back as 2000 BC, both found by Gary Drayton after Billy Gerhardt plowed the topsoil to allow metal detection. Following the crane operation, archaeologist Fiona Steele excavated directly beneath the boulder's former position, uncovering a tightly packed mosaic-like layer of flat stones unlike anything previously documented on the island. Dr. Spooner confirmed the formation is not natural, noting organic matter surrounding the stones and a circular rock cradle at the base. Rick described the feature as culturally significant and almost certainly European, citing the geometry and physics knowledge required to construct such a platform. The absence of artifacts from the immediate area was taken as a further indicator of age. Continued excavation of the cradle revealed layers of slate beneath the stones, and Laird Niven noted that the soil and rock composition varies across different sections of the feature. Tests on mortar found within the cradle could date the construction to the 1200s, consistent with the earliest activity detected elsewhere on the island. In S13E22, archaeologist Fiona Steele continued bisecting the cradle to study its construction in cross section, eventually reaching what appeared to be the C horizon, the sterile natural soil layer marking the base of cultural activity. Without striking bedrock, the team could not confirm that the feature did not extend further. In S13E23, Marty Lagina dug an adjacent trench beside the cradle and struck slate bedrock at six feet, a level noticeably higher than the depth Fiona's hand excavation had reached inside the cradle without finding rock. Because eastern Oak Island bedrock runs flat and uniform, the drop-off at the cradle's interior is strong evidence that the boulder feature sits inside an earlier excavation and may cap a man-made shaft. In the season finale (S13E25), Dr. Spooner used a hammer drill to test the cradle floor. Two three-foot test holes returned material that Laird Niven judged too soft for bedrock, and a control hole in nearby slate confirmed the reading by hitting significantly harder material. The cradle's floor is not natural rock. Marty Lagina ended the season by stating the feature could not be considered finished until the team understood what lay at its base, and signalled an intent to eventually excavate beneath the stone. Material analysis from beneath the boulder also returned trace metals: silver and copper alongside the previously documented elevated lead, prompting Fiona Steele to suggest the metals may be leaching upward from something buried considerably deeper. Soil compositional analysis by Emma Culligan placed the binder material between post-1200s and pre-mid-1700s, with both Culligan and Spooner describing the feature as premodern and possibly medieval. The dating window aligns with the carbon-14 floor of 1148 to 1216 AD established by leather shoe fragments recovered in S13E15, with Adriano Gaspani's archaeoastronomical date of 1236 AD for the Lot 5 round foundation, and with the Pitblado coin's striking date of no later than 1371. **Man-made stone tunnel** Date: Unknown Found: Near Samuel Ball's home When: Lagina era Type: Structure The Man-made Stone Tunnel was discovered on Lot 25 of Oak Island, on land that formed part of the 18th-century homestead of Samuel Ball, the formerly enslaved Loyalist veteran who settled on the island in 1786 and became one of Nova Scotia's wealthiest men. In Season 7 Episode 18, "The Turning Point" (March 24, 2020), Doug Crowell, Charles Barkhouse, and archaeologist Laird Niven oversaw a ground-penetrating radar scan of the Samuel Ball property conducted by GPR specialists Steve Watson and Don Johnston. The survey identified a tunnel-like anomaly approximately six feet below the surface, prompting Niven to obtain the heritage permits required for excavation of a protected archaeological site. In Season 7 Episode 22, "Marks X the Spot" (April 21, 2020), Rick Lagina, Laird Niven, Charles Barkhouse, and Jack Begley began the hand excavation. Conservator Kelly Bourassa recovered a chest hinge with square nail holes indicating considerable age. Jack Begley then uncovered a configuration of stacked stones concealing a void and an opening resembling a small tunnel. Rick Lagina, Marty Lagina, and excavator operator Billy Gerhardt arrived to assess the find. Camera operator Derek Hale fed a pipe inspection camera 14.5 feet into the structure, confirming that the cavity extended beyond the visible opening and that its construction was deliberately stone-lined rather than a natural void. The nature and date of the tunnel have not been confirmed on screen. No artifacts recovered from inside the tunnel have been laboratory dated, and no further excavation of the feature has been broadcast through Season 13.  **Marlinespikes (pair)** Date: Early 17th century onward Found: Swamp, near Eye of the Swamp When: Season 7 Type: Artifact Two large iron spikes recovered by Gary Drayton near the Eye of the Swamp, initially thought to be cribbing spikes similar to those found at Smith's Cove. Blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge identified them as marlinespikes, tools used by sailors from the early 17th century onward for splicing and tying rope on ships. The finding adds to evidence that a large vessel was once present in what is now the swamp. **Masonic 'G' stone** Date: 1967 recovery Found: Smith's Cove When: Historical Type: Carved_stone The G Stone is a large granite boulder bearing a single letter G carved inside what appears to be a rectangular border. The carving is deeply incised and clearly deliberate, with no ambiguity about the letterform. The stone has been on display at Oak Island since its recovery and currently rests at the bottom of the hill near Smith's Cove. The stone was discovered by accident in 1967, when workers operating heavy machinery were backfilling the Cave-in Pit, a collapsed shaft located between Smith's Cove and the Money Pit. Dan Blankenship, then serving as field manager for the newly formed Triton Alliance, noticed the carving as the stone was pushed out of the ground and moved quickly to retrieve it. Blankenship was confident the marking was not a hoax or the work of a previous searcher, because the side bearing the letter G had been embedded face-down in the earth, while a border of lichen had grown around the rock above the line where it had jutted from the ground. The lichen growth indicated the stone had lain undisturbed in that position for a considerable period. The letter G is one of the most recognizable symbols in Freemasonry, typically displayed alongside the overlapping compass and square. In Masonic tradition the G signifies the supremacy of God, referred to as the Grand Geometrician, and is prominently displayed on the eastern wall of every Masonic lodge and suspended above the Master Mason's chair. Author Mark Finnan described the G Stone as an artifact that would leave little doubt of a sacred aspect to the Oak Island treasure, provided the marking is authentic. However, researcher Scott Clarke has offered an alternative interpretation, noting that the G is positioned in the upper left corner of the stone as though it were the beginning of a word rather than a standalone symbol. Clarke proposed the letter could refer to the surname Gifford, as John Gifford and Richard Smith were the first recorded owners of Oak Island, granted the land on December 27, 1753, by Lieutenant-Governor Charles Lawrence, who was at that time the master of Saint Andrew's Lodge in Halifax. The stone's discovery near Smith's Cove places it in the same area where other artifacts with possible Masonic or pre-depositor connections have been found, including a heart-shaped stone, a metal set-square, and wrought iron scissors, all recovered by Blankenship during the same period of excavation in the late 1960s. No formal scientific dating has been performed on the G Stone itself, and its age remains undetermined. **Masonic Stone of Port Royal (1606)** Date: 1606 (inscribed) Found: Granville shore opposite Goat Island, Annapolis Basin, Nova Scotia When: 1827 Type: Carved_stone A flat slab of trap rock approximately two and a half feet long by two feet broad, bearing the date 1606 and the Masonic square and compasses carved into its natural surface. Discovered in 1827 on the peninsula extending from the Granville shore opposite Goat Island in the Annapolis Basin - the site of the original French settlement at Port Royal established by Champlain and De Monts. The stone was first documented by Judge Thomas Chandler Haliburton, who described the inscription as deeply cut in large Arabic figures, though weathered by more than two centuries of exposure. Dr. Charles T. Jackson of Harvard independently confirmed the find, describing it as a gravestone partly covered with sand on the shore. The prevailing theory, supported by Haliburton and later scholars including Hon. A. W. Savary, identifies it as a gravestone marking the burial of a French artisan who died on or around November 14, 1606 - a colonist fatally wounded by Indians near Cape Cod and buried upon the expedition's return to Port Royal. The square and compasses were a common trade emblem of French craft guilds and the Compagnonnage, used by masons, carpenters, and stone cutters - all trades documented among the Port Royal colonists by Lescarbot. The stone passed from Haliburton to his son Robert Grant Haliburton, then in 1868 was loaned to the Royal Canadian Institute in Toronto via Sir Sandford Fleming. It was exhibited there until 1876, when during construction of a new building a workman inadvertently mortared it into a wall. Despite Sir Sandford Fleming offering a $1,000 reward, the stone has never been recovered. The building, now 58 Richmond Street East in Toronto, has been searched multiple times without success. The stone represents the earliest known trace of craft guild symbolism in North America, predating documented Freemasonry in Canada by over a century. **McGinnis Gold Cross** Date: 1550-1700 Found: In the Money Pit When: McGinnis era Type: Artifact A small gold cross, a McGinnis family heirloom allegedly discovered by Daniel McGinnis in the Money Pit over 200 years ago. Composed of 22-24 carat rose gold, cast in the Spanish West Indies 1550-1700. Holes once housed emeralds. Dr. Lori Verderame examined the gold cross in Season 4, Episode 15. She identified it as a Spanish colonial Christian cross cast in rose gold of 22 to 24 carats, dating between 1550 and 1700. The irregularly shaped piece was originally set with emeralds that were pried out, and the casting style places its origin in the Spanish Indies, likely Mexico or Peru. **Metal bits with fleur-de-lis design** Date: 1700s Found: Lot 21 When: Season 6 Type: Artifact A French military cap badge recovered in two pieces on Lot 21 by Jack Begley, Peter Fornetti, and Gary Drayton during Season 6. The badge featured a fleur-de-lis design that Gary dated to the 1700s based on its construction and style. The fleur-de-lis, a stylized lily, served as the emblem of the French monarchy from the 12th century onward and was widely used on military insignia, religious objects, and heraldic devices throughout the French colonial period.At the research center, Gary presented the find to Marty Lagina, Alex Lagina, archaeologist Laird Niven, and Paul Troutman. Laird connected the French artifact to the Duc d'Anville expedition of 1746, documented in ship's log pages that Doug Crowell had presented the previous season. The log described a French naval force with Templar family connections constructing a deep treasure pit on a wooded island off Nova Scotia's coast, an account that matched details of the Oak Island Money Pit. The expedition, led by Jean-Baptiste de La Rochefoucauld de Roye, Duc d'Anville, sailed from France with a fleet of over 60 ships carrying thousands of troops. The fleet was devastated by storms and disease, and d'Anville himself died near Halifax in September 1746.A second fleur-de-lis artifact was recovered during Season 10 on Lot 26, approximately 100 yards from a well. Emma Culligan's CT scan and XRF analysis revealed a brass-iron alloy containing lead-potassium glass, with no elements indicating a date after 1850. The piece consisted of two parts: a copper wire section and a floral element with lead glass. A third fleur-de-lis connection emerged during Season 12 when a pottery fragment bearing the design was recovered from the RP2 spoils in the Money Pit area, prompting Rick Lagina to reference the Duc d'Anville ship's log once again. The repeated appearance of the French royal symbol across multiple locations on the island supported the theory of organized French activity on Oak Island during the 18th century or earlier. **Metal fragment with gold traces** Date: Unknown Found: Borehole D-2, Money Pit area When: Season 9 (2021) Type: Artifact A thin piece of metal was recovered from borehole D-2 at approximately 88 feet in the Money Pit area during Season 9. The fragment appeared to have cement adhering to its surface, a combination that recalled descriptions from 1897 when the Oak Island Treasure Company drilled into the Chappell Vault at 153 feet and encountered metal encased in a cement-like substance. Craig Tester noted at the time that this was the only piece of metal of unknown origin recovered from the Money Pit, as all other metallic finds had been attributed to drill casings, crib spikes, or tools from known searcher expeditions. Dr. Ian Spooner scanned the fragment with an X-ray fluorescence analyser at the archaeology trailer. The results showed 0.068 percent gold, which Spooner described as equivalent to roughly a thimbleful. He explained that the gold could be on the surface of the metal itself or on sediment still adhering to the uncleaned artefact. Craig subsequently confirmed that XRF testing of two separate samples from the piece both showed gold at seven hundred parts per million. Wood recovered from the same borehole at 91.5 feet was carbon dated to 1488-1650 with 95.4 percent confidence, and wood from neighbouring borehole CD-2.5 at a similar depth returned the same date range. Borehole D-2 was positioned eight feet west of borehole C-1, within a cluster of boreholes the team designated the C-1 Cluster. Water samples from previously drilled holes in this area had revealed elevated levels of gold and silver that Dr. Spooner was unable to attribute to any natural source. The metal fragment with its gold traces provided the first solid evidence that the gold detected in the water was associated with a physical artefact rather than dissolved minerals in the groundwater. **Metal in pieces** Date: Unknown Found: Money Pit, ~98-104 ft depth When: 1849 Type: Material During the Truro Company's pod-auger drilling in 1849, the drill passed through two distinct layers of loose metal at approximately the ninety-eight to one-hundred-and-four-foot level. Each layer was roughly twenty to twenty-two inches thick, separated by eight inches of oak. McCully's first-person account, published in the Nova Scotian on September 30, 1861, described the material as "twenty inches of a material, which by its action upon, and the sound conveyed along the auger, resembled boring through small pieces of metal, coin, if you will, through which the auger passed by its own weight, in one turn." The Truro Company was unable to recover any of the material. Their only valve sludger, a tube designed to capture core samples through a one-way valve, had broken in the first borehole and was lost at approximately 110 feet. The replacement had a ball-and-pin mechanism instead of a proper valve. As McCully explained, this inferior tool could retrieve soil, clay, wood, and fibre fragments, but the retaining pin physically prevented small objects such as coins from passing into the collection tube. The drill passed through two full layers of loose metal without bringing a single piece to the surface. McCully and his team concluded from the boring sequence that two oak chests or containers, stacked one above the other, sat on the spruce platform and held a quantity of metallic objects. **Metal object from 171-foot void** Date: Unknown Found: Money Pit, 171-foot void When: Season 3 Type: Artifact Small metal object recovered by Jack Begley from sediment pumped out of a 21-foot void discovered at 171 feet depth in the Money Pit area. The object appears to have three vertical slash marks on one end and what looks like an overlay or plating. Jack detected the non-ferrous object using a Minelab CTX 3030 metal detector. The team noted that the object's shape bears a curious resemblance to the outline of Oak Island itself. Considered potentially significant as it came directly from the deep void. **Metal pieces (200 ft depth)** Date: Pre-1750 to pre-1800 (Stelco metallurgical analyses, 1970-1971) Found: Borehole 10X and Golder Boreholes G201, G202, G203 (Lot 18 vicinity) When: 1969-1971 (Triton drilling campaign) Type: Artifact Multiple recoveries of small metal fragments from boreholes drilled by Triton Alliance between 1969 and 1971 produced what searchers regarded as physical evidence of early human work at depths well below the bedrock surface. The campaign centred on Borehole 10, later designated 10X, sunk by Dan Blankenship in November 1969 some 180 feet northeast of the Money Pit. During clean-out of the casing, two handfuls of metal fragments came up from a depth thought to be 165 feet or above. Sullivan's account records that high-pressure air injected into 10X blew out enough thin metal from 165 feet to fill both of a man's hands. The metal began oxidising within minutes of exposure to the outside air and turned so brittle it crumbled when touched. The Steel Company of Canada in Hamilton received samples for analysis. Metallurgist A. B. Dove reported in 1971 that case-hardened low-carbon steel from a recovered chain showed treatment that was archaic, with cleanliness indicating the possibility of Swedish steel, and that until 1747 the British Navy would not use English steels industrially. Wire samples were also low-carbon steel of similar character. Angular sections were folded wrought iron, in all probability produced prior to 1750. A separate recovery occurred in Golder Borehole G201, sunk in late May 1970 about 100 feet north-northeast of 10X. Metal pieces embedded in an intact 1.5-inch diameter sample of sand from 84.5 to 86.5 feet were analysed by the Steel Company of Canada in November 1970 and described as friable fragments of wrought iron dating prior to 1800. Fader and Steele caution that downhole drag from advancing drill casings means recovered fragments may have originated from levels other than where they were retrieved. **Metal pipe fragment (Smith's Cove, Blankenship 1969-70)** Date: Undated; recovered six feet below the original beach level Found: Smith's Cove, approximately 6 feet below original beach level When: August-October 1970 Type: Artifact A piece of metal pipe recovered by Dan Blankenship at Smith's Cove during the 1970 excavation, documented as Item #7 in his September inventory of finds. The pipe measured approximately three inches in diameter and fourteen inches in length. It was found roughly six feet below the original beach level, within the pre-searcher material layer that the excavation exposed inside the cofferdam area. Blankenship's report does not specify the metal composition or wall thickness, and no metallurgical analysis of the piece has been published. The fragment was one of a small group of metal objects sent by Blankenship for testing to the Steel Company of Canada during the same period, including iron nails, spikes, and tools that the Stelco analysis estimated to predate 1790. Whether the pipe was included in that analysis or reported separately is not recorded in the surviving documentation. The pipe's stratigraphic position at six feet of depth places it within the same layer as the inclined ramp and the U-shaped structure, both of which returned construction or material dates well before 1795. Metal pipes were used in pre-industrial European waterworks for distribution and drainage, and a short length of pipe at this location could have been part of a flow-control or conduit element associated with the cove's flood-tunnel infrastructure. The pipe has not been re-examined since the original excavation. Its current location is not specified in Blankenship's surviving reports, and the lack of compositional data prevents any narrower dating than the pre-1795 context implied by its burial depth. **Mi'kmaq pottery** Date: 500-2,500 years old Found: Swamp, southeast corner near stone road When: Season 9 Type: Artifact Fragment of delicate pottery discovered by archaeologist Laird Niven in the southeast corner of the swamp, identified as Mi'kmaq in origin and estimated at 500 to 2,500 years old. The discovery triggered a work stoppage as CCH (Culture and Heritage) required consultation with the Acadia First Nation and the Mi'kmaq Rights Initiative before excavation could continue. Four acres of the island were subsequently designated as requiring special permission before work could proceed. Laird noted he did not believe the nearby stone structures were constructed by the Mi'kmaq. **Military-style Cuff Button** Date: 1750-1850 Found: Stone pathway corner, northeastern border of swamp When: Season 8 Episode 21 (6 April 2021) Type: Button A military-style cuff button recovered by metal detection expert Gary Drayton and David Fornetti along the stone pathway near the northeastern border of the triangle-shaped swamp during Season 8 Episode 21, aired 6 April 2021. The find emerged during an excavation led by Alex Lagina with archaeologists Miriam Amirault and Dr. Aaron Taylor and heavy equipment operator Billy Gerhardt, who had just uncovered what appeared to be a corner in the pathway, suggesting it turned uphill toward the interior of the island. The cuff button was one of four artifacts recovered from the immediate area in the same session, together with a piece of iron the team identified as a possible fire grate from a nearby burn feature, a fragment of French transfer print pottery dated to the early 1760s, and a possible musket gunflint potentially dating to the early 1600s. Drayton dated the button to between 1750 and 1850 based on its military style. Cuff buttons of this type were a standard component of British and French infantry and naval officer's coats from the mid-eighteenth through the early nineteenth century, typically cast in copper or copper alloy with regimental, decorative, or plain devices on the face. The 1750 to 1850 range spans the period during which both Britain and France maintained an active military presence in Nova Scotia, including the British garrisons at Halifax established in 1749 and French operations along the Atlantic coast prior to the fall of Louisbourg in 1758. The stone pathway at the northeastern border of the swamp has been interpreted as part of an engineered swamp construction predating the 1795 discovery of the Money Pit, with surveyor Steve Guptill subsequently dating the broader swamp construction zone to between 1630 and 1750. The pottery, gunflint, and cuff button recovered together at the pathway corner place military activity in the area at some point between the mid-seventeenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. The find sits alongside other military-period artifacts on the island, including a British naval officer's button from the Samuel Ball foundation on Lot 25 in the same season and a dandy button recovered by Drayton on Ball's Lot 24 in Season 4. **Miner's oil lamp (whale oil)** Date: 19th century or earlier Found: Hedden shaft (No. 22), approx. 50 ft depth When: 1937 Type: Artifact The miner's whale-oil lamp was found during Gilbert Hedden's 1937 excavation of shaft No. 22, the largest shaft ever opened in the Money Pit area at twelve by twenty-four feet. Finn (1994) records that "remnants of much earlier work such as heavy drill casings and a miner's whale-oil lamp were uncovered" during the dig. These items, including pieces of old drill casings and a large section of rusted pipe, appeared at approximately the fifty-foot level. Whale-oil lamps of this type provided a reliable, relatively smoke-free light source and were standard equipment in underground excavations throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Hedden, a successful American businessman from Chatham, New Jersey, conducted one of the most methodical searches in Oak Island history. He spent 1934 researching the island's history, interviewing previous explorers including William Chappell, and examining records of earlier digs before commencing fieldwork. He hired the professional firm of Sprague and Henwood of Scranton, Pennsylvania, who brought a one-thousand-gallon-per-minute electric pump. After re-timbering the Chappell shaft to 170 feet in 1936, they opened the new Hedden shaft in May 1937 and reached 124 feet before Hedden redirected his attention to a treasure map published in Harold T. Wilkins's book Captain Kidd and his Skeleton Island. The lamp was found amid the debris of previous expeditions that had accumulated in the Money Pit area over the preceding century. At fifty feet, it sat above the flood tunnel level and within the zone where multiple searcher shafts had intersected and collapsed into one another. Its age has not been precisely determined, and whether it belonged to the Onslow Company workers of the early 1800s, the Truro Company men of the 1850s, or another early expedition remains unknown. Its presence alongside drill casings from later operations illustrates the layered stratigraphy of the Money Pit area, where tools and debris from more than two centuries of searching lie intermingled at various depths. **Musket Ball (Lead Shot)** Date: Pre-1700 Found: Lot 5 circular structure When: Season 11, 2023 Type: Artifact Lead musket ball found by Gary Drayton and Rick Lagina during metal detection on Lot 5, recovered alongside the ramrod guide in the same episode. Archeometallurgist Emma Culligan determined the lead to be pure and not modern, estimating it dates to before 1700. Found in the spoils around the circular stone structure on Lot 5, the musket ball adds to a growing collection of military-related artifacts from the lot, supporting theories of a military presence on the island during the 17th or 18th century. **Musket Flintlock Mechanism** Date: 1500s-1800s Found: Lot 8 When: 2022 Type: Artifact Flintlock mechanism from a musket rifle, discovered by Gary Drayton and Marty Lagina while metal detecting on Lot 8. A CT scan by archaeologist Laird Niven revealed the internal workings beneath heavy encrustation. The team concluded the musket was not British in origin - Niven suspected it could be French, though a Portuguese origin was also considered. The find strengthened the theory of pre-colonial European activity on Oak Island, particularly in connection with Portuguese naval expeditions and possible Templar links. **Nail from U-shaped structure timber (Smith's Cove, Blankenship 1969-70)** Date: Undated; associated with U-shaped structure (dendro 1769) Found: Smith's Cove, embedded in loose-laying timber on top of the U-shaped structure When: August-October 1970 Type: Artifact A single hand-forged nail was recovered by Dan Blankenship at Smith's Cove during the 1970 excavation, pulled from one of the loose-laying timbers found on top of the U-shaped structure. The find was documented as Item #9 in Blankenship's September 1970 inventory. His report noted that the nail had been forwarded to the Steel Company of Canada for analysis, with results pending at the time of writing. The published documentation does not include the eventual Stelco analysis. A separate Stelco report dated 19 November 1970 examined metal fragments recovered from Golder Borehole 201 at 84.5 to 86.5 feet depth and described them as friable fragments of wrought iron dating prior to 1800, but the report concerning the Smith's Cove nail itself does not appear in the surviving MacPhie compilation. The nail's position embedded in timber resting on the U-shaped structure indicates a construction or repair phase associated with the larger feature, rather than a chance loss. The U-shaped structure itself was later dendrochronologically dated by Dr. Colin Laroque to trees felled in 1769, while an oak peg from the same structure had earlier returned a Geochron radiocarbon result of approximately 860 AD (GX-1692, range 720-1000), reflecting the age of the wood rather than the felling date. If the Stelco analysis dated the nail to before 1800, the artefact would join the small body of pre-industrial wrought iron recovered from Smith's Cove, including the wrought iron scissors that the Smithsonian Institution identified as Spanish-American manufacture prior to the mid-nineteenth century, and the hand-forged framing square that STELCO estimated to predate 1783. **New Ross Herm Stone** Date: Unknown Found: Private property on high ground outside New Ross, Nova Scotia Type: Carved_stone A medium-sized standing stone uncovered by Joan Harris in the 1970s while landscaping the grounds of a property she and her husband Ron had purchased outside New Ross, Nova Scotia, roughly 20 miles north of Oak Island. Harris named it the Herm Stone and identified a faint carved cross on its upper surface, which she presented as part of a larger claim that the site had successively been the location of a seven-towered Viking castle, a Scottish mansion with twelve marble pillars and a golden dome, and an outpost of the Knights Templar. Harris set out her interpretation of the property and its history in her self-published book A Castle in Nova Scotia. The property was sold in 1990 to Alva and Rose Pye and later purchased by researcher and author Alessandra Nadudvari and her partner Tim Loncarich, who invited the Lagina team to visit in Season 4 Episode 1, aired 15 November 2016. Nadudvari directed Rick Lagina, Charles Barkhouse, and Doug Crowell to the Herm Stone and identified what she believed was a Templar cross carved on its surface. Rick Lagina examined the carving on camera and stated it appeared consistent with a Portuguese Templar cross of the type documented in 12th-century records. The stone was presented alongside the property's stone well, into which professional diver Tony Sampson would descend in the following episode, and the foundation walls Harris had originally uncovered, as part of the case for a pre-discovery Templar presence in the New Ross area. The Templar reading of the New Ross property has been contested. Charles Lindsay of Parks Canada examined the site in the 1980s and concluded that nothing on the grounds predated the nineteenth century, and historian Brian Culbertson later pointed to an 1817 letter from Surveyor General Charles Morris of Nova Scotia recommending a site for the blacksmith shop of one Daniel McKay, together with an 1860 survey map showing a McKay allotment at the same location. Excavation has not addressed whether the foundation stones belong to McKay's works, to an earlier structure beneath them, or to both, and the Herm Stone itself has not been scientifically dated. Separately from the Templar question, New Ross carries pre-discovery significance through a second artifact: a 1671 Order of the Garter medallion recovered from the soil nearby. Author James McQuiston, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, argues in Oak Island Knights (2018) that the medallion belonged to Christopher Monck, 2nd Duke of Albemarle, who was the principal investor in Sir William Phips's 1687 salvage of the Spanish treasure ship Nuestra Señora de la Concepción. McQuiston, who presented his Knights Baronet theory on the show across Seasons 6, 7, and 9, proposes the medallion was given to Phips as an honorary knighthood token and later carried to New Ross, where Phips would have had reason to visit during his subsequent term as Governor of Nova Scotia from 1691 to 1695. The Herm Stone sits within a wider New Ross area in which other recovered material points to seventeenth-century activity, independent of the Templar claim. **New Ross Well Symbol** When: Season 4, Episode 2 Type: Carved_stone Carved symbols found on stones inside a deep, intricately constructed well on a property in New Ross, Nova Scotia, roughly 20 miles north of Oak Island. The well itself has walls approximately four feet thick, built from fitted stones sourced from the nearby Gold River, with what appeared on camera to be a level flagstone floor at the bottom. The property, originally claimed by Joan Harris in the 1970s as the site of a Viking castle, was later owned by researchers Alessandra Nadudvari and Tim Loncarich, who invited the Oak Island team to investigate. Professional diver Tony Sampson descended the well in a Bosun's chair rigged to a pulley, with safety diver Mike Huntley on standby. Partway down, Sampson identified a carved triangle with what appeared to be an eye in the centre, a symbol consistent with the Eye of Providence associated with both the Freemasons and, according to some researchers, the Knights Templar. Underwater, he located a second carving that he called a possible broad arrow, which could also be a goose paw symbol. Historian Doug Crowell noted that both a triangle and an arrow symbol appear among the markings reported on the 90-foot stone found in the Money Pit in 1804. Parks Canada archaeologist Charles Lindsay, who visited the property in an earlier decade, concluded that nothing he examined there predated the 19th century and that the stone foundations were remnants of a blacksmith shop belonging to a Daniel McKay, documented on an 1860 survey map. The symbols in the well remain a point of disagreement between those who see Masonic or Templar connections and those who attribute them to 19th-century stonemasons. **Nolan's Cross (5 boulders)** Date: Dated by archaeoastronomer Adriano Gaspani to 1217 AD Found: Island interior When: 1981 Type: Structure A formation of six large cone-shaped boulders arranged in the shape of a cross, discovered in 1981 by Fred Nolan, a surveyor and Oak Island landowner. Nolan, who surveyed every feature of his property with precision, noticed emerging geometric patterns along his sight lines and investigated the intersection points, where he uncovered the boulders. The cross measures 360 feet wide by 867 feet tall, oriented northeast to southwest. Five boulders were labelled Cones A through E, with a sixth boulder at the centre bearing features described as a carved human face and sword image, traits associated with Templar tomb effigies. None of the boulders were found seated in glacial till, indicating they are not in natural positions deposited by glaciers but were deliberately placed by human hands. Fred Nolan found items beneath Cone B, including pieces of a wrought iron stove and cutlery, though their current whereabouts are unknown. In Season 10, the team visited archaeoastronomer Professor Adriano Gaspani in Italy. Gaspani identified six stars that aligned with the positions of the Nolan's Cross boulders and dated their placement to approximately 1200 AD. In Season 11, Gaspani extended his analysis to the five stone cairns on Lot 15, concluding they were likely constructed by the same group of people around the same period. The dating coincides with the carbon dating of the paved area in the swamp, also dated to the 1200s, and with Zena Halpern's theory that Templar knights made voyages to Oak Island beginning in 1179 AD. The formation is not unique. At Temple Beeld on the North York Moors in Yorkshire, England, five megaliths stand in a configuration that mirrors the Oak Island boulders. The Temple Beeld formation measures approximately 100 feet by 57 feet, with the central stone offset from the geometric centre, exactly as on Oak Island. The land on which Temple Beeld stands was held by the Templar knight William de Villiers, documented Templar property. The arm angles of the Temple Beeld formation have been measured: the vertical axis runs at approximately 150 degrees from north, with the arms opening at approximately 60 and 150 degrees from the axis. These measurements are, within the margin of error imposed by centuries of weathering, identical to the corresponding angles of the Oak Island formation. Two megalithic formations on opposite sides of the Atlantic, same number of stones, same angular geometry, same off-centre placement of the central stone, one on confirmed Templar land in England. Researcher Brian Pharoah identified sacred numbers in the cross's proportions: 144, 288, 360, 432, 740, and 864. He demonstrated that these figures appear in the construction measurements of Chartres Cathedral, Rosslyn Chapel, and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Pharoah concluded that the cross functions as an astronomical calendar aligned with equinoxes and solstices, with the constellation Cygnus and its Northern Cross asterism playing a prominent role. Norwegian researcher Petter Amundsen projected the Kabbalistic Tree of Life onto Nolan's Cross and found the distances between boulders matched the corresponding Sephirots, discovering buried flat stones at the Kingdom (Malkuth) and Victory (Netzach) points. Norwegian researcher Petter Amundsen proposed in 2003 that the five boulders of Nolan's Cross correspond to five of the ten Sephirots on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. In his projection, Cone A aligns with Kether (Crown), Cone B with Chokmah (Wisdom), Cone C with Binah (Understanding), Cone D with Tiphereth (Beauty), and Cone E with Yesod (Foundation). The remaining five Sephirots would occupy positions beyond the visible cross. With permission from David Tobias of the Triton Alliance, Amundsen visited the island and found buried flat stones at the positions corresponding to Malkuth (Kingdom) and Netzach (Victory), stones that had not been previously recorded. He concluded that the cross and the Tree of Life are a single unified design, a symbol consistent with the Rosicrucian tradition of merging Christian and Kabbalistic imagery. Amundsen identified the Chesed (Mercy) point, located in the swamp, as the most significant position on the projected Tree, a conclusion he connected to coded references in the works attributed to Shakespeare. His research was first published in 2006 through the book Organisten (The Organist) by Norwegian novelist Erlend Loe, later republished in English as The Seven Steps to Mercy. **Oak buds in puddled clay (Becker Hole B11)** Date: Undated; embedded in clay interpreted as man-made puddled clay Found: Becker Hole B11, 196 ft depth, Money Pit area When: 1967 (Becker drilling program) Type: Sample Two oak buds found embedded in a clay sample recovered from 196 feet depth in Becker Hole B11, one of the holes drilled in the Money Pit area during the Becker program of January to June 1967. The hole was advanced to its full depth of 200 feet with Becker casing, encountering wood at 168 feet and uniform clay from 184 to 200 feet. Because the hole was advanced with casing for its entire depth, Les MacPhie's 2008 technical review considered the recorded depth of 196 feet for the clay sample to be reliable. The clay layer itself is interpreted as puddled clay, a man-made deposit placed as a slurry and allowed to settle. In nearby Hole B13 the same layer showed coarser pebble sizes at regular intervals of about 18 inches, consistent with placement in successive 18-inch lifts. If the interpretation holds, the buds were sealed inside material handled by the original depositors, and they represent organic matter that could in principle be radiocarbon dated. No dating of the buds appears in the published record. **Oak leaf and acorn (Restall collection)** Date: Pre-1795 (recovered circa 1960s) Found: Smith's Cove flooding system When: 1960s (Robert Restall Sr.) Type: Material Oak leaf and acorn recovered by treasure hunter Robert Restall Sr. from the Smith's Cove flooding system roughly 60 years before being presented to the team by his daughter Lee Lamb. Botanist Dr. Rodger Evans examined the specimens and confirmed the acorns are markedly different from native red oak, raising the possibility that a non-indigenous species was deliberately brought to the island. Evans noted the acorns would not survive drifting across the Atlantic in salt water, meaning someone had to carry them. The material is too old for DNA testing. **Oak log platforms (multiple)** Date: Pre-1795 Found: Money Pit, every 10 ft (10-90 ft) When: 1795-1804 Type: Structure The oak log platforms are the most frequently cited structural feature of the Money Pit. The earliest detailed account, written by Truro Company manager Jotham McCully and published in the Liverpool Transcript on October 16, 1862, states that the Onslow Company sank the pit to ninety-three feet, "finding a mark every 10 feet." McCully describes "some charcoal and some putty" among these marks, and notes that the diggers were "confined to a diameter of 16 feet, by the softness of the ground within that limit." Pick marks were visible all around the sides of the pit, confirming it had been dug and refilled by human hands. Later accounts expanded the description to include solid oak platforms at each ten-foot interval from ten to ninety feet. The Onslow Company, organised by Simeon Lynds of Onslow, Nova Scotia, began work around 1803 with a crew of roughly twenty-five to thirty men. They picked up where McGinnis, Smith, and Vaughan had stopped at about thirty feet. As they progressed, they encountered layers of charcoal, putty, and coconut fibre between the timber platforms. Hiram Walker, a ship's carpenter from Chester who worked on the excavation, later told his granddaughter (as recorded by Fanthorpe) that he had seen "bushels of coconut fibre" lifted from the shaft. The quantity was significant: one account records that enough putty was recovered from a single platform to glaze the windows of more than twenty local houses. At approximately eighty to ninety feet, the team found the inscribed stone slab. The Onslow Company probed with a crowbar at ninety-three feet and struck what appeared to be a level wooden platform at ninety-eight feet before the shaft flooded overnight to tide level with salt water. The oak used in the platforms was not native to Oak Island, meaning it was transported to the site for this specific purpose. The consistent spacing and the volume of sealing materials between layers point to an organised construction effort rather than improvised work. Modern drilling programs have repeatedly struck hand-hewn timbers at depths consistent with the original platform levels. In Season 7, a massive oak timber recovered from roughly 114 feet in borehole 8-A was described as consistent with the platform construction McGinnis observed during the 1804 excavation. In Season 4, a round piece of wood recovered from the T-1 shaft at 105 feet raised the possibility of a previously unknown tenth platform below the ninety-foot stone. **Oak peg (Smith's Cove U-shaped structure, GX-1692)** Date: C14: ~860 AD (720-1000, Geochron GX-1692) Found: Smith's Cove, removed from U-shaped wooden structure When: August-November 1969 (sampled October 1969) Type: Artifact A two-inch-thick oak peg removed by Dan Blankenship from the U-shaped wooden structure at Smith's Cove during the 1969 excavation, and submitted by Kerry Ellard's representative McCabe to Geochron Laboratories in October 1969 for radiocarbon dating. The peg secured a six-inch by seven-inch spruce timber to one of the large spruce logs (twelve to twenty inches in diameter) that formed the main horizontal element of the U-shaped structure. Timbers in the structure were spaced approximately four feet ten inches on center, and the peg was one of multiple oak fasteners used throughout the assembly in place of metal hardware. Geochron sample GX-1692 returned a result of 1090 plus or minus 140 C-14 years before present, calibrating to approximately 860 AD with a range of 720 to 1000 AD. Geochron tentatively identified the sample as wood, probably cedar, while Kerry Ellard's September 1970 letter to Dr. Terasmae described the peg as oak. The species discrepancy has not been resolved in the surviving documentation, and no follow-up species analysis appears in the MacPhie compilation. Harold Kruger of Geochron emphasised in his December 1969 letter to McCabe that radiocarbon dating measures when the tree formed rather than when the wood was worked, and cautioned that the wood fragments came from rather large trees which may have had a substantial age at the time of fabrication. The medieval C-14 result therefore establishes the wood itself as no younger than the eighth to tenth century, but does not by itself date the construction of the U-shaped structure, which Dr. Colin Laroque's later dendrochronological analysis placed in 1769. The peg is one of two radiocarbon-dated samples from Blankenship's 1969-70 Smith's Cove excavation, the other being the inclined ramp beam (Geochron GX-1691, ~1135 AD, range 1025-1245). Both samples produced medieval dates, and Harold Kruger's caveat applies equally to both: the dates reflect the age of the timber as it was growing, not the date at which the structures were assembled. The reconciliation of medieval wood with eighteenth-century felling dates remains an open question for any reading of the Smith's Cove sequence. **Oak stumps (Mercy Point)** Date: Carbon dated: 1450-1640 AD Found: Mercy Point, swamp edge When: Season 2 (2014) Type: Material Appear rooted to swamp floor; tree expert Joe Peters determined they could not have grown submerged, suggesting prior dry land **Ornate Faceted Glass Jewel** Date: Early to mid-1700s (post-1734) Found: Lot 5 circular structure When: Season 12, 2024 Type: Artifact Faceted glass jewel discovered by archaeology assistant Todd Langseth during excavation near the circular stone structure on Lot 5. Initially thought to possibly be a diamond, closer inspection suggested it was glass. The piece was sent to the lab where archeometallurgist Emma Culligan performed XRF analysis, confirming it was glass with high lead content and not modern. Culligan dated it to the early to mid-1700s and identified it as a French artificially simulated gemstone - a technique introduced in France in 1734. Such stones could have been worn by either men or women and likely indicated someone of wealth. The team speculated a possible connection to the Duc d'Anville expedition of 1746. **Ornate Floral Button** Date: 1600s - 1700s estimated Found: Lot 5 Stone Foundation - close to the starburst button When: Season 12, Episode 22 Type: Button Copper/bronze button with apparent floral design, heavily corroded with green patina. Found in close proximity to the Starburst button that was later compared to Knights of Malta uniform buttons by Maltese military heraldry expert Denis Darmanin. Sent to Emma Culligan for lab analysis. Found by Ethan Green. **Ornate metal ring (flowered)** Date: Unknown; possibly Spanish Found: Swamp When: Season 7, Ep. 19 Type: Artifact An ornate ring with an intricate floral pattern recovered by Gary Drayton along the northern edge of the triangle-shaped swamp during Season 7. The ring was thick and well made, small enough to fit a woman's finger, and featured a central flower motif with evidence of two different metals, including what appeared to be silver repairs and crude joining work.At the Research Centre, archaeologist Laird Niven examined the ring under a Grobet digital microscope, noting the complexity of the floral design and the evidence of repair work using a second metal. Via video conference, Professor Charles Lewton-Brain of the Alberta College of Art and Design confirmed the floral design had been chiseled by hand, a technique used before saw blades became available to jewelers in the 1730s. Lewton-Brain dated the ring to prior to 1730 and identified the pattern as European, possibly Spanish.The Spanish connection echoed a 1652 Spanish maravedi coin previously found in the swamp. The ring's recovery near the stone pathway and paved area, both of which have been dated to well before the Money Pit's 1795 discovery, placed it within the same zone of pre-colonial activity that has produced some of the island's most significant artifacts, including iron ringbolts, tunneling tools, and wooden survey stakes carbon-dated to the 17th century. **Overton Stone** Date: Possibly 15th-16th century (Portuguese Age of Discovery) Found: Overton, Nova Scotia (off-island) When: c. 2009 (reported); Season 3, Episode 4 (2015) Type: Carved_stone The Overton Stone is a large glacial boulder located on the Atlantic coast near Overton, Nova Scotia, split into two halves each roughly the size of a small car. On the vertical, south-facing surface of the inland half, a deeply carved inscription combines Christian and Mi'kmaw symbols: a stylised cross with outward-flaring arms enclosed in an oval with four dots, a pair of crossed Native tobacco leaves overlaid by an eagle feather, and a three-day-old evening crescent moon. The carving was cut into the stone's thick weathering patina using what appears to be a hard steel chisel, and repatination has begun in the deepest cuts, suggesting significant age. The stone was first reported around 2009 by local resident Beverly Wells-Pinkney and subsequently investigated by historian Terry J. Deveau, who introduced it to Rick Lagina and Charles Barkhouse in Season 3, Episode 4 - an episode that took its title from the stone. Deveau's analysis identified the cross as stylistically consistent with padrão crosses left by Portuguese explorers during the Age of Discovery, particularly the cross carved at Yellala Rock on the Congo River by Diogo Cão's expedition in 1485. Portuguese padrão crosses were closely associated with the Order of Christ, the Portuguese successor to the Knights Templar, whose cross adorned Portuguese sails throughout the era of global exploration. Deveau proposed that the carving commemorates a friendship treaty between Portuguese explorers and the local Mi'kmaq people. The tobacco leaves and eagle feather carry deep spiritual significance in Mi'kmaw culture, while the crescent moon corresponds to their tradition of observing the lunar cycle. Historical evidence supports sustained Portuguese-Mi'kmaq contact: Lopo Homem's 1554 map shows Mi'kmaw place names on the Cape Breton coast, and explorer Joam Alvares Fagundes conducted expeditions and founded a colony in Nova Scotia as early as the 1520s. The Bay of Fundy itself takes its name from the Portuguese "Rio Fundo." A separate, later carving of the initials "HT" and the date "06/07" appears one metre below the main inscription, likely carved by someone attempting to calibrate the weathering rate in order to estimate the age of the original work. Deveau also noted an area below the main carving where the stone surface appears to have been deliberately removed - possibly to destroy a date that would have validated a Portuguese territorial claim. The stone's relevance to Oak Island lies in the broader pattern of evidence for pre-colonial Portuguese activity in Nova Scotia connected to the Knights Templar's successor order, consistent with theories that Templar-linked Europeans operated in the Mahone Bay region centuries before the Money Pit's 1795 discovery. **Ox shoes (multiple)** Date: Various Found: Along stone pathway / swamp area When: Multiple seasons Type: Artifact Multiple iron ox shoes recovered from locations across Oak Island over several seasons. Ox shoes differ from horseshoes in their characteristic two-part design, with each half covering one side of the cloven hoof, and their presence on the island indicates that draft oxen were used to haul heavy loads at various points in its history. During Season 8, Gary Drayton and Jack Begley recovered two ox shoes on Lot 15 while metal detecting toward the swamp. Jack observed that a line drawn through both finds would intersect the paved area in the swamp and the Lot 15 stone structure. Alex Lagina and Jack brought the shoes to blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge in Centreville, who identified the first as a British winter shoe for the left front hoof of a draft ox, dating it to 1650 to 1750 and noting it could be military in origin. The second was a winter shoe by the same blacksmith for a smaller ox. Carmen concluded both animals were shod by the same person, indicating they worked as a team, and the winter designation meant they were used during cold months when the ground was frozen. Additional ox shoes were recovered on Lots 7, 8, and 24 across multiple seasons. On Lot 8, Marty Lagina and Gary Drayton found an ox shoe near the stone feature where the garnet brooch had been discovered, suggesting a hauling operation in the area. Carmen Legge's dating of the Lot 15 shoes to as early as 1650 placed the use of draft animals on the island well before the Money Pit's discovery in 1795, consistent with the growing body of evidence for organized labor and construction activity during the 17th and 18th centuries. **Parchment fragment** Date: Unknown Found: Money Pit, 153 ft depth When: 1897 Type: Artifact The parchment fragment is a tiny piece of animal-skin writing material recovered from the Money Pit at approximately one hundred and fifty-three feet during drilling by the Oak Island Treasure Company in 1897. It had been rolled into a ball no larger than a grain of rice and was discovered only after a meticulous examination of the auger borings by company official T.P. Putnam. On September 6, 1897, over thirty men assembled at the Amherst courthouse in Nova Scotia to witness the examination. Dr. A.E. Porter, a local physician, slowly flattened the tiny fragment under a strong magnifying glass and found that it bore writing in black ink. The visible letters appeared to read either "vi" or "wi." The parchment was subsequently sent to Boston, where writing experts confirmed it had been inscribed with a quill pen using India ink. Frederick Blair, who would devote most of his life to the Oak Island search, told the Toronto Telegraph: "That is more convincing evidence of buried treasure than a few doubloons would be. I am satisfied that either a treasure of immense value or priceless historical documents are in a chest at the bottom of the Pit." Parchment, made from prepared animal skin, was the standard medium for documents of high importance throughout the medieval and early modern periods. Its presence within the cement vault layer, alongside traces of gold on the drill bit, led to theories that the Money Pit contains manuscripts or archives rather than, or in addition to, monetary treasure. Proposed connections have included Freemasonic records, Knights Templar documents, and Francis Bacon's alleged custody of original Shakespearean manuscripts. In Season 5, animal-skin parchment was again recovered from borehole H-8 at a similar depth. Dr. Christa Brosseau confirmed the material as collagen-fibre parchment under scanning electron microscopy, and medieval bookbinding expert Joe Landry at the Dawson Printshop in Halifax identified it as genuine parchment consistent with materials used in bound volumes capable of surviving for two thousand years. The original 1897 fragment's current whereabouts are unknown. **Parchment scrap (H8)** Date: Medieval or later; associated with H-8 material dated to the 1600s Found: Borehole H8 spoils, Money Pit When: Season 5 (c. 2017) Type: Artifact An additional fragment of parchment was recovered from the spoils of borehole H-8 alongside the human bone, leather bookbinding, and pottery during the Season 5 excavation. Jack Begley and Dan Henskee identified it during a painstaking wash-and-sort process that extended over several days. Rick Lagina noted its resemblance to the parchment fragment William Chappell recovered from the suspected vault at 153 feet in 1897. At Saint Mary's University, Dr. Christa Brosseau examined the material under the scanning electron microscope. The fibre structure revealed collagen and traces of nitrogen, identifying it as animal-skin parchment rather than plant-based paper. Parchment was historically reserved for documents of high importance, including legal charters, religious texts, and royal correspondence, from the early medieval period through to the seventeenth century. Dr. Brosseau also confirmed a separate fragment from the H-8 spoils as cellulose-based cotton rag paper, an older form of paper used in book production from as early as the twelfth century. The presence of both parchment and rag paper in the same borehole spoils pointed to the remains of at least one bound manuscript. The H-8 parchment is the second confirmed recovery of animal-skin writing material from the Money Pit, following the 1897 fragment bearing the letters "vi" or "wi" in India ink. Doug Crowell described the find as corroboration of William Chappell's drilling results 120 years earlier. The material was recovered from the same depth zone as the human bone fragments carbon dated to the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, though the parchment itself has not been independently dated. **Paved Area / Stone Wharf** Date: Radiocarbon: wood beneath dated to c. 1200 AD Found: Centre of triangular swamp When: Season 7 (2019-20) Type: Structure The paved area is a massive stone feature in the centre of the triangle-shaped Oak Island swamp, identified underwater by diver Tony Sampson early in Season 7 and progressively excavated through the Season 7 finale (Episode 23, aired 28 April 2020). The feature measures approximately 80 feet by 170 feet, close to half an acre. It is the oldest dated construction in the swamp and one of the earliest dated human-made features on the island. Excavation was disrupted by Hurricane Dorian, which made landfall over Nova Scotia as a Category 1 storm in Season 7 Episode 11 and flooded the swamp with ocean water. Once the area was pumped dry, heavy equipment operator Billy Gerhardt re-exposed the surface across the second half of the season. Surveyor Steve Guptill measured the main paved surface at roughly two feet below sea level, with some peripheral sections at one foot below. The stones are layered, with smaller rocks at the base and larger rocks on top, a construction technique Dr. Ian Spooner identified in Season 7 Episode 12 as inconsistent with glacial deposit and consistent with roadbuilding. Geologist Terry Matheson observed that the boulder types incorporated into the feature are rock types he would not expect to encounter naturally until approximately 120 feet down in the Money Pit area, indicating that the stones were transported and placed. Archaeologist Laird Niven, examining the feature with Matheson and Spooner, stated he could see no natural process that would have arrived the rocks at this location. In Season 7 Episode 13, Spooner identified wood crushed beneath the paved stones. No trees existed during glacial periods, which established that the feature could not have been laid down by ice. In Season 7 Episode 18, archaeologist Dr. Aaron Taylor of Saint Mary's University examined both the paved area and the nearby Eye of the Swamp, confirming the paved surface as too level and too uniform to be natural. With five experts across four disciplines now in agreement, Marty Lagina acknowledged that Rick Lagina had been right about the swamp's significance. The carbon-14 result, reported by Spooner in Season 7 Episode 23, dated tree branches embedded beneath the paved-area stones to approximately 1200 AD. The team has subsequently referred to the feature as dated to "the 1200s" or "the 13th century." It is the earliest scientifically dated human construction in the swamp. Spooner's working interpretation was that the paved area served as a work surface or dock, with boats brought into what was then open water, offloaded onto the stone platform, and the cargo moved inland. He proposed the surface may have been leveled to allow horse-and-cart access toward the Eye of the Swamp, which he interpreted as a clay extraction site. Probing with a steel bar in Season 7 Episode 13 confirmed that rocks continue underground in the direction of the Eye, approximately 150 feet from the paved area's midpoint. In Seasons 10 through 13, the team uncovered a paving stone ramp connecting the paved area to the stone road along the swamp's eastern edge, establishing the three features as an integrated transport system. The paved area records organised, large-scale construction in the centre of the swamp roughly six centuries before the Money Pit was discovered in 1795. The carbon evidence places the work in the medieval period. Who built it, why, and what was moved across it remain open. **Paving stone ramp/incline** Date: c. 500 years old Found: Swamp When: Season 10 (2022) Type: Structure A sloping stone feature uncovered in the northeast corner of the triangle-shaped swamp during Season 10, connecting the paved area (dated to the 1200s) to the stone pathway that runs along the swamp's eastern edge. The ramp was discovered after the team drained the swamp following a magnetometer survey by Jeremy Church of Panther Geoscience that had identified several metallic anomalies in the area.Surveyor Steve Guptill measured the elevation of the feature and found the lower edge sat approximately one foot below sea level, consistent with the paved area's average depth, while the upper portion was only four inches below sea level, confirming a deliberate incline. Dr. Ian Spooner examined the ramp and told Rick Lagina it shared characteristics with the cobblestone path, including the type and arrangement of the stones. Archaeologist Miriam Amirault directed the grid survey and sample collection at the site. Gary Drayton recovered a square-shanked fastener from the spoils during the excavation.Carbon-14 testing of organic material found beneath the second layer of stones in the ramp returned a date of 1495 to 1656, placing its construction in roughly the same period as the stone road and stone pathway. The ramp appeared to function as a transition between the level paved area, which Dr. Spooner described as a staging area, and the pathway leading uphill toward the interior of the island and the Money Pit. The three features together formed what the team interpreted as an infrastructure system: a working surface at the shore, a ramp for moving heavy loads uphill, and a road leading to the construction site. **Peat deposits (Beach Pits 2 & 8)** Date: C14: Beach Pit 2 peat ~10 AD (30 BC-50 AD); Beach Pit 8 peat ~390 BC (425-355 BC) Found: South shore barrier beach, opposite swamp When: July 1995 (WHOI field investigation) Type: Sample Peat samples from two beach pits along the south shore barrier beach of Oak Island, dated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) using AMS (Accelerator Mass Spectrometry) in 1995-1996. These represent the oldest reliably dated organic deposits from the island. • Beach Pit 2 (OI-BP-2, receipt 10169): Peat from approximately 8 feet below mean sea level (MSL), along the south shore barrier beach across from the swamp. Dated to 1940 ±40 years before present → approximately 10 AD (range 30 BC to 50 AD). This corresponds roughly to the time of Alexander the Great's childhood in Macedonia. • Beach Pit 8 (OI-BP-8, receipt 10170): Peat from approximately 10 feet below MSL, same barrier beach area. Dated to 2340 ±35 years before present → approximately 390 BC (range 425-355 BC). These peat layers were deposited at or above sea level in a marsh/sediment water interface environment. Their depths below current MSL provide critical data for calculating the rate of relative sea-level rise at Oak Island: • Beach Pit 2 yields a minimum relative sea-level rise of 1.25 mm/year (approximately 0.4 feet per century) • Beach Pit 8 yields a relative sea-level rise of 1.3 mm/year (approximately 0.43 feet per century) Both samples indicate consistent rates of relatively sea-level rise, suggesting that at the time the coconut fibres were deposited (some 800-1100 years ago), Smith's Cove was at a sea level approximately 3.4 to 5 feet below present levels. This means evidence left by people working at the site during this period must be referenced to a substantially lower shoreline, and the area that searchers know as Smith's Cove would have been above water during the period 800-1100 AD. The WHOI researchers concluded that flood tunnel outlets and inlets should be sought farther seaward than where the search has traditionally focused. **Pewter Spoon Bowl** Date: Mid-1700s (Gary Drayton estimate) Found: Isaac's Point When: Season 8, Episode 2 Type: Artifact The bowl of a pewter spoon recovered by metal detection at Isaac's Point, a shoreline area on the eastern side of the island. Gary Drayton dated it to the mid-1700s. Pewter spoons were ordinary domestic tableware in the eighteenth century, and the form and alloy support a broad rather than precise date. The find joins a group of colonial-era objects recovered at Isaac's Point and is consistent with activity there before the 1795 discovery of the Money Pit. **Pick Axe** Date: 1500-1700 Found: Borehole RF-1 When: Season 11, Episode 16 Type: Tool The head of a tunneling pick resembling a rock hammer, recovered by Gary Drayton and Jack Begley at Isaac's Point on the island's eastern shore. The iron head shows a pronounced stress fracture indicating it was subjected to extremely heavy use over a prolonged period. Blacksmith and antiques expert Carmen Legge examined the pick axe head at his workshop in Centreville, Nova Scotia, and dated it to the late 1700s or early 1800s. The fracture pattern and forging style are consistent with hand-wrought tools manufactured before industrial production methods became widespread in North America. A similar rock hammer head had previously been recovered from the spoils of Borehole RF-1 at the Money Pit during Season 7, pulled from roughly 100 feet underground alongside hand-cut timbers carved with Roman numerals. The Isaac's Point pick axe adds to a pattern of heavy-duty mining and excavation tools found across the island, suggesting organized labor predating the earliest recorded treasure-hunting expeditions. **Pick Axe (Eye of the Swamp)** Date: 1740-1770 Found: Near the Eye of the Swamp When: Season 7 (February 2020) Type: Artifact The Iron Pickaxe was recovered by Gary Drayton and Jack Begley during a search of the area near the Eye of the Swamp on Oak Island in Season 7 Episode 13, "Bromancing the Stones" (February 11, 2020). The find was made while the team was probing the extent of the stone paved area, which had been traced toward the Eye approximately 150 feet from the paved area's midpoint. Gary Drayton identified the pickaxe as having unusually short tines, a design suited for tunneling work rather than surface excavation. A round-point spade of similar antiquity was recovered alongside the pickaxe. Drayton's initial field assessment placed the artifact in the 1700s and noted that the design supported the hypothesis of large-scale underground digging in the swamp area centuries before the 1795 Money Pit discovery. In Season 7 Episode 14, "Burnt Offering" (February 25, 2020), Marty Lagina, Alex Lagina, and Gary Drayton took the pickaxe along with an iron strap recovered nearby to blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge at the Ross Farm Museum in New Ross, Nova Scotia. Legge confirmed the pickaxe was hand-forged and dated it to the mid-18th century, identifying it as suitable for tunneling. The accompanying iron strap was dated to 1710 to 1790 and identified as a brace from a nine-inch diameter ship's timber that had been exposed to fierce fire. In Season 7 Episode 23, "Timeline" (April 28, 2020), historian Charles Barkhouse arranged the season's most significant finds along a physical timeline in the War Room. Gary Drayton singled out the Eye-of-the-Swamp pickaxe as one of the season's key tunneling-tool discoveries, alongside two metal swages for sharpening tunneling tools and an iron hand-point chisel recovered from property once belonging to Daniel McGinnis. The pickaxe has not been carbon dated or laboratory tested for metallurgical composition beyond Carmen Legge's visual identification. The mid-18th century dating rests on the typology and forging characteristics observed by Legge, supported by Drayton's parallel identification of the round-point spade as period-consistent. **Piece of chain + bone** Date: Unknown Found: Borehole S-6 (Shaft Six tunnel), Money Pit area, ~101 ft When: Season 6 (2018-19) Type: Artifact An iron chain link and a fragment of bone were recovered on consecutive days from the spoils of borehole S-6, drilled into the Shaft Six tunnel in the Money Pit area during Season 6. The chain link was found by Jack Begley at the wash table. Gary Drayton examined it and identified it as handforged and oval-shaped, consistent with considerable age, and suggested it may have been part of a pulley system used during the original depositing of material in the Money Pit. The following day, Doug Crowell spotted the bone fragment in the same S-6 spoils. It displayed visible capillary holes characteristic of bone tissue. The team noted that if confirmed as human, it could be related to the two fragments of human bone recovered from nearby borehole H-8 the previous season, which DNA sequencing had identified as belonging to two individuals, one European and one Middle Eastern, both carbon dated to the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century. The bone's presence in the S-6 debris field would support the theory that material from the original Money Pit scattered across the connecting Shaft Six tunnel during the catastrophic collapse of 1861, when workers attempting to tunnel beneath the treasure chamber triggered a flood that destroyed the underground workings. The chain link and bone were found alongside hand-hewn oak timbers, leather, and pottery at depths consistent with the Shaft Six tunnel, which historical records place at approximately 101 feet. The S-6 borehole had been positioned using surveyor Steve Guptill's master map, which overlaid roughly a dozen historical survey plans to pinpoint the tunnel's most likely location. The finds from S-6 corroborated the H-8 results and extended the artefact trail from the Money Pit into its connecting tunnel system. **Piece of wood containing traces of gold** Date: 1640-1806 Found: Borehole DN11.5, Baby Blob, west of the Garden Shaft, Money Pit area Type: Material Wood recovered from inside an eight-foot-high void at a depth of 90 feet in Borehole DN11.5, drilled by Choice Drilling during Season 10 of The Curse of Oak Island. Surveyor Steve Guptill marked the location based on water testing that had identified the Baby Blob, a zone immediately west of the Garden Shaft, as carrying the highest concentrations of dissolved gold anywhere on the island. The team was targeting a suspected tunnel at 95 feet. The drill returned solid core at 78 feet and broke through into open space at 90, five feet shallower than expected. Terry Deveau examined the cores and identified the void as the top of an east-west tunnel running just beneath the Garden Shaft and previously intercepted in two other boreholes. The next core contained wood, which Dr. Ian Spooner sealed for testing. Marty Lagina ordered the Inuktun Spectrum 120 camera lowered into the borehole to image the chamber, but the screen went completely black inside the void. At the Interpretive Center, archaeologist Laird Niven and Emma Culligan reported the laboratory results to Rick Lagina and Craig Tester. After drying the sample and running X-ray fluorescence analysis, Emma Culligan found the expected natural elements along with gold. Rick told Craig to call Marty immediately, framing the result as an evidence trail of comparable weight to the water samples that had defined the Baby Blob in the first place. Subsequent episodes positioned the find within a broader pattern. In Season 10, Episode 20 Scott Barlow noted that DN11.5 and two other boreholes had returned wood at 95 feet, indicating a tunnel running through the Baby Blob toward the Garden Shaft's north corner, and that the tunnel tested positive for gold. In Season 10, Episode 21 Scott Barlow listed gold in three independent contexts: the water samples, the wood from the Garden Shaft itself, and the wood from Borehole DN11.5. In Season 11, Episode 1 the team returned with Borehole DN12, positioned less than three feet from the original DN11.5 strike, and recovered further wood from the same eight-foot-high chamber, confirming the previous year's result and extending the tunnel intercept to a fourth borehole. Dating: Tunnel wood from a void at 90 feet; carbon dating of wood from nearby Borehole K15.5 in the same tunnel returned 48.1% probability of 1731-1806 and 35.5% probability of 1640-1687 **Pigmented Parchment Fragments** Date: 1300-1600 Found: Borehole H-8 spoils, Money Pit area When: Season 6 Episodes 13-14 (12-26 February 2019); analyzed Season 6 Episode 14 Type: Artifact A second set of parchment-like fragments recovered from continuing Borehole H-8 sifting work during Season 6 Episode 13, aired 12 February 2019. Jack Begley and Charles Barkhouse, sorting through spoils extracted from depths below 168 feet during the Irving Equipment crew's effort to recapture the Chappell Vault, identified a scroll-like piece of fibrous organic material together with additional pieces of possible parchment and leather. The recovery extended the H-8 organic record beyond the Season 5 fragments that medieval bookbinding expert Joe Landry had earlier identified as genuine parchment and vegetable-tanned calf leather consistent with materials used in books that can survive two thousand years. At the Oak Island Research Centre, Craig Tester, Jack Begley, Paul Troutman, and Doug Crowell examined the finds under a digital microscope at magnifications of up to 2,000 times. They identified what appeared to be leather bookbinding with traces of color, and paper or parchment fragments bearing red and yellow pigment. Doug Crowell observed that the coloring resembled the illuminated drop caps used in medieval manuscripts, where large decorative letters marked the opening of chapters in religious texts. The red and yellow palette is consistent with the iron oxide and orpiment or vermilion pigments commonly used in European illumination from the early medieval period onward. Alex Lagina and historian Doug Crowell brought the fragments to medieval book expert Joe Landry at the Nova Scotia School of Art and Design in the following episode, Season 6 Episode 14, aired 26 February 2019. Working with his apprentice Katherine Taylor, Landry soaked and unfolded the paper fragments using surgical forceps, then examined them with lab technician Fergus Tweeddale under a polarized light microscope at 100 times magnification. Tweeddale and Landry identified a crystalline substance on the paper that they considered likely to be cinnabar, a red mineral used in medieval and Renaissance ink production from as early as the 9th century. On the basis of the cinnabar identification and the fragments' construction, Joe Landry estimated the paper could date anywhere from the 1300s to the 1600s. The estimate is consistent with the Season 5 H-8 finds Landry had earlier identified as parchment and vegetable-tanned calf leather of the type used in books that can survive for two thousand years. A subsequent recovery in Season 6 Episode 19 of purple-stained wood from a separate borehole was identified by Landry as colored with an ancient dye used in manuscript production throughout the Middle Ages, extending the documented record of medieval-era manuscript materials in the Money Pit area. **Pine Tar Kiln** Date: 1550-1620 Found: Lot 15, between the swamp and the Money Pit When: Season 8 Episodes 1-2 (November 2020) Type: Structure A stone structure excavated on Lot 15 during Season 8 by archaeologists David MacInnes, Aaron Taylor, and Liz Michels under the broader supervision of Laird Niven. Blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge examined the structure during Season 8 Episode 1 and identified it as an English tar kiln dating from 1550 to 1620. In the following episode, Aaron Taylor voiced the team's confirmed conclusion that the feature was a pine tar kiln, and Laird Niven added that the kiln may have been linked to construction activity on Oak Island itself, noting that the tar fires could account for long-standing accounts of mysterious lights observed flickering on the island at night. Marty Lagina observed that an operation on this scale would have required government or military backing. Pine tar kilns were stone or earthwork structures used to render pine wood into tar and pitch, materials with multiple applications in seventeenth-century shipbuilding, rope production, and waterproofing. The 1550 to 1620 dating placed the kiln well before the 1795 discovery of the Money Pit and within the period when European fishing and trading vessels were active along the coast of what is now Nova Scotia. Niven suggested the kiln may have been linked to construction activity on Oak Island itself, noting that the tar fires could account for the long-standing accounts of mysterious lights observed flickering on the island at night. The kiln sits alongside other pre-discovery finds recovered from Lot 15, including a Chinese cash coin, two ox shoes identified by Carmen Legge as British winter shoes dating 1650 to 1750, and a ship's rigging axe head. The combined record from the lot reinforces the case for sustained activity on Oak Island during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. **Pink glass bead (17th century)** Date: 17th century Found: Lot 5 When: Season 12, Episode 20 (2025) Type: Artifact Pink glass bead matching another bead found earlier in Season 12. Experts suggest it dates to the 17th century, reinforcing the theory that European visitors arrived on Oak Island long before modern settlements were established. **Pipe stem** Date: Pipe bit ca. 1870s-1880s; companion Blue Willow stoneware ca. 1810s-1840s (Laird Niven) Found: Borehole S-6 spoils, processed through Smith's Cove wash plant (Lot 18, Money Pit area) When: Season 6, Episode 18 (March 26, 2019) Type: Artifact A clay pipe stem was recovered from the spoils of borehole S-6 during Season 6 caisson work in the Money Pit area. Three days before the find aired, S-6 had penetrated what Rick Lagina, geologist Terry Matheson, and the Oak Island Tours crew believed to be the Shaft Six historical searcher tunnel at 101 feet, yielding a hand-cut oak timber, possible leather bookbinding, and iron chain. The spoils were being processed through the large-scale wash plant near Smith's Cove, where Billy Gerhardt's crew recovered pottery fragments, old glass, and the pipe stem. In the War Room, archaeologist Laird Niven examined the finds alongside Craig Tester, Doug Crowell, and Paul Troutman. Niven identified a Blue Willow transfer-print pattern dating to the 1810s through 1840s, a pipe bit from around the 1870s through 1880s, and a piece of red-bodied stoneware with unusual tool-made striations that he placed in the early 1700s, making it the first pottery from the site to potentially predate the Money Pit's discovery in 1795. Clay tobacco pipes were disposable items that broke easily and were discarded after use, making fragments common at colonial and post-colonial sites in North America. Because pipe stem borehole diameters decreased at a known rate over time as manufacturing techniques evolved, archaeologists can date a stem fragment by measuring the hole with calipers. The 1870s through 1880s dating Niven assigned to the pipe bit from the S-6 wash batch places that piece firmly in the post-1795 searcher era, when the Oak Island Association and successor companies were active on the site. Drilling in S-6 pushed to 175 feet that day before crane operator Danny reported hitting limestone bedrock at 190 feet of casing, and the hole was shut down. **Plumb Bob** Date: 1600s-1700s (Gary Drayton estimate) Found: Near the stone pathway, swamp When: Season 8, Episode 9 Type: Tool A heavy hand-forged iron object with a punched hole through one end, recovered near the stone pathway in the swamp. Metal detection expert Gary Drayton identified it as a plumb bob, a weight suspended on a line to establish a true vertical, and placed it in the 1600s or 1700s. A plumb bob is a basic instrument of surveying and shaft work, used to keep walls and excavations straight as they descend. If the identification holds, the tool is consistent with the controlled, engineered digging recorded in the Money Pit and would indicate skilled construction in the swamp well before the 1795 discovery. **Porcelain fragments** Date: Blue-and-white china (Becker Hole B24, below 180 ft); early-1700s porcelain (Dunfield 1965 spoils) Found: Money Pit area spoils (Dunfield) and Becker Borehole B24 (Lot 18) When: 1965-1967 (Dunfield excavation and Becker drilling) Type: Artifact Pieces of porcelain and china were recovered from the Money Pit area during two distinct treasure-hunting campaigns in the 1960s. Robert Dunfield's 1965 excavation, which used a 70-ton crane and the largest digging equipment ever brought to the island up to that point, produced porcelain fragments in the spoils. Clarke records that examination dated these pieces to the early 1700s, though Dunfield kept the detailed laboratory results private after sending core material to the University of Southern California for testing. The Becker Drilling programme of 1967, funded by David Tobias and conducted under Dan Blankenship's supervision, sank approximately sixty boreholes in and around the Money Pit using a percussive drill that operated inside a casing pile-driven into the ground. Among the materials brought up from these boreholes was a piece of blue and white china recovered from below 180 feet depth in Hole B24. Graham Harris and Les MacPhie, in their compilation of the Becker drilling records, treated this find together with other deep recoveries as evidence of man-made workings in the lower reaches of the Money Pit. Steele and Fader urge caution about interpreting any deep recovery as proof of original construction. The Becker programme used a drill that pile-drove its casing through overburden, and material could have been dragged downward from higher levels before being expelled at the surface. The boreholes also showed cavities in the glacial till at depths where natural compression would normally prevent voids from forming, raising the possibility that sinkhole activity had carried surface debris downward over centuries. No photographs of the Dunfield porcelain or the Becker B24 china appear to have been published, and the present location of the fragments is unrecorded in the available source material. **Portuguese Tornes, 1369-1371 (Pitblado coin)** Date: Minted 1369-1371 under King Ferdinand I (Fernando I) of Portugal. XRF-confirmed by Emma Culligan. Found: Claimed: Money Pit auger drilling at depth. Provenance unverified - presented as Pitblado/Archibald family heirloom When: Original incident: 1849 (Truro Company drilling). Presented to team: Season 13, 2025 Type: Coin A billon (.375 silver) Tornês coin from the reign of Portuguese King Ferdinand I (Fernando I, "O Formoso"), minted at Lisbon between 1369 and 1371. Value: 1 Tornês = 72 Dinheiros. Obverse: Portuguese royal shield flanked by roses, with Latin inscription FERNANDVS D G REX PORTVGALIE AL ("Ferdinand, by the Grace of God, King of Portugal and the Algarve"). Reverse: Latin inscription from Psalm 118: SI DOMINVS MICHI AVDIVTOR NON TIMEBO QVID FAVIT ("If the Lord is my helper, I shall not fear what man can do to me"). Features a cross design identified by researcher Judi Rudebusch as resembling a Templar cross, and a six-pointed star similar to symbols at Fonte Arcada Church in northern Portugal. The coin was presented to the Oak Island team in Season 13, Episode 1 ("The Comeback") by Steve Salomon, who identified himself as a relative of James Pitblado and members of the Archibald family. Salomon claimed the coin is a family heirloom that may be the object Pitblado was witnessed pocketing from an auger bit during Truro Company drilling operations in 1849. The original Pitblado incident is one of Oak Island's most enduring mysteries. During the Truro Company's fourth drilling of the Money Pit, fellow crew member John Gammel witnessed foreman James Pitblado wipe dirt off an object retrieved by the auger and slip it into his pocket. When confronted, Pitblado promised to present the item at the next directors'' meeting but left the island that night and never returned. He and Charles Dickson Archibald (manager of the Acadian Iron Works at Londonderry, Nova Scotia) subsequently attempted to purchase the eastern end of Oak Island where the Money Pit is located, but were denied. Pitblado lived to age 81, dying in 1903 without ever publicly revealing what he found. Emma Culligan''s archaeometallurgical report noted the coin is in excellent condition with little wear and no abrasive marks.  In Season 13, Episode 24 ("Overseaing the Dig"), Doug Crowell, Rick Lagina, and Alex Lagina presented the coin to Portuguese numismatist Alberto Silva at the Luís da Silva Ribeiro Public Library and Regional Archive on Terceira in the Azores. Silva analysed the die markings and narrowed the strike window to no later than 1371, placing the coin in the early years of Ferdinand I''s reign and before the outbreak of the Fernandine Wars in 1372. He estimated that fewer than one hundred examples of this coin type are known to exist worldwide, despite a substantial original mintage. Silva''s observation that most of the original output is unaccounted for in modern collections reinforced earlier valuations from coin specialist Sandy Campbell, who had previously placed a single example near twenty thousand US dollars. **Possible booby trap spike** Date: Unknown (possibly original construction) Found: Borehole 8-A, approximately 114 feet depth When: Season 7 Type: Artifact Pointed metal object recovered from the spoils of borehole 8-A at approximately 114 feet, alongside hand-hewn timbers and leather fragments. Blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge identified it as a possible booby trap spike, designed to injure anyone who stepped on it. If correct, this suggests the original Money Pit builders may have installed physical traps beyond the known flood tunnel system. **Possible box drain entrance** Date: Pre-1795 Found: Smith's Cove When: Season 6+ Type: Structure A stone formation matching the physical description of the original box drain entrances was discovered at Smith's Cove during Season 6 excavations within the steel cofferdam. Doug Crowell spotted a triangular-shaped opening between two rocks near the wall of the U-shaped structure, with a steady trickle of water flowing through it. The formation matched the detailed 1863 Yarmouth Herald article that Doug had discovered at the Lordly House archives in Chester, Nova Scotia, which described the original drains as built from two flat stones placed on their edges in a triangular configuration. Charles Barkhouse pulled coconut fibre from the adjacent soil, the same filtering material the Truro Company had documented covering the fan-shaped drains when they first uncovered them in 1850. Coconut fibre previously recovered from Smith's Cove had been carbon dated to 1260-1400 AD with ninety-five percent confidence. Archaeologist Laird Niven and geologist Terry Matheson examined the stones and confirmed the construction was consistent with a drain system, though Terry cautioned that the proof would come from following the feature back toward the Money Pit to see if a pattern emerged. Subsequent trenching by the team did not locate additional drains beyond this single confirmed example. The original box drains were largely destroyed or displaced by successive cofferdam operations and heavy excavation equipment over more than a century and a half of search activity. The 1863 Yarmouth Herald account recorded five finger drains, each sixty-six feet long, with the two outermost sixty-six feet apart, converging within four feet of each other at a collection point leading to a flood tunnel. Finding a stone formation that matched these descriptions, with coconut fibre still in place, confirmed that at least one section of the drainage system survived the later disturbance and provided a direct physical link between the modern excavations and the nineteenth-century accounts. **Possible silver coin, post-1730s (Smith's Cove slipway)** Date: Post-1730s (milled edge) Found: Smith's Cove, wash plant spoils near slipway When: Season 6, Episode 17 (2019) Type: Coin A heavily encrusted object recovered from Smith's Cove wash plant spoils by Gary Drayton during dismantling of the slipway in Season 6. Gary identified the object as what he believed to be a silver coin, possibly a Spanish one real. Its milled edge places it no older than the 1730s, as milling was introduced to combat coin clipping. The encrusted condition and location alongside the slipway suggest considerable age.Rick Lagina, Jack Begley, and archaeologist Laird Niven were also present during the search. Heavy equipment operator Billy Gerhardt removed the larger slipway timbers so the team could search beneath the structure. The coin has not been cleaned or definitively identified to a specific denomination or mint. **Pottery (18th century)** Date: Early 18th century Found: Lot 5, stone circle When: Season 10+ Type: Artifact Found within stone circle structure during investigation **Pottery fragments (Smith's Cove ramp, Blankenship 1969-70)** Date: Undated; recovered from and beneath the inclined ramp Found: Smith's Cove, vicinity of and beneath the inclined ramp When: August-October 1970 Type: Artifact Several pieces of pottery were recovered by Dan Blankenship from the vicinity of the inclined ramp at Smith's Cove during the 1970 excavation. Two pieces of dish were taken from near the ramp itself, and a separate piece of dish along with a piece of mug were recovered from beneath the ramp. The ceramics were documented in Blankenship's September 1970 report as Items 8 and 10 in his inventory of finds. Their position beneath the ramp places them below a structure that contained timbers radiocarbon dated to approximately 1135 AD (Geochron GX-1691, range 1025-1245). The pottery was therefore deposited before the ramp's construction or at the time of its construction. No formal ceramic analysis has been published on the fragments. Without typological identification of glaze, paste, or decoration, the pieces cannot be assigned to a specific century or production region. Their archaeological context at Smith's Cove, beneath a structure overlaid by a much newer dock and surrounded by other clearly pre-searcher material, places them outside the post-1795 search-debris layer. The fragments are part of a broader pre-discovery ceramic assemblage from Smith's Cove that has not been formally catalogued. Re-examination of these pieces, if their current location can be established, would provide a typological anchor for the construction phase represented by the inclined ramp. **Pottery pieces (Lot 12 dump site)** Date: Unknown Found: Lot 12, 2 ft depth When: Lagina era Type: Artifact A large collection of pottery shards recovered from a dump site on Lot 12 during Season 5. Rick Lagina, Marty Lagina, Charles Barkhouse, and Gary Drayton searched the lot on Tom Nolan's property, targeting a location Fred Nolan had described on his survey maps as an ancient dumpsite. Jim Meagher, Tom's associate, operated a backhoe to cut a trench while Gary swept the spoils with a metal detector. Charles began pulling pottery shards from the cross section of the trench, quickly amassing a large collection.The dump was exactly where Fred's maps indicated, confirming both the accuracy of his surveys and the old accounts that treasure hunters had historically used the area to discard debris. The pottery shards represented a mix of types and periods, consistent with a dump that accumulated material over an extended period of occupation. In the same area, the team recovered two decorative iron hinges that Gary identified as the type used on chests or boxes, similar to ones he had found on Spanish shipwreck sites in Florida. The chest hinges raised the possibility of a connection to the three missing chests of privateer Captain James Anderson and to the folding skeleton key that Fred Nolan had found on the island.The Lot 12 dump site became one of the team's early successes in using Fred Nolan's maps to locate previously undocumented features. The combination of pottery spanning multiple centuries and chest hardware in a single deposit suggested that the site had served as a waste area for successive occupants of the island, from the earliest depositors through the 19th-century treasure hunters. **Pottery shard with raised leaf design** Date: Pre-1795 Found: Borehole H-8, approximately 150 feet depth When: Season 5 Type: Artifact Fine piece of pottery with a raised leaf design recovered from the spoils of borehole H-8 at around 150 feet, within the ten-foot void where the team believed they had encountered the collapsed Money Pit. The decorative nature of the piece suggests it was not utilitarian ware left by previous searchers. **Pottery shards (mercury traces, Hedden find)** Date: 1936 recovery (age unknown) Found: Lot 12 dumpsite When: 1936 (Gilbert Hedden) Type: Artifact Pottery shards with traces of mercury found by treasure hunter Gilbert Hedden at the Lot 12 dumpsite in 1936. The mercury traces connect to the theory that Sir Francis Bacon preserved documents in mercury before burying them on Oak Island, as detailed in his 1620 work Novum Organum. The dumpsite was marked on Fred Nolan's survey maps and confirmed by the Lagina team when they excavated the exact location and recovered additional pottery. **Pottery shards (Staffordshire pearlware)** Date: 1780s-1800 AD (Niven identification) Found: Money Pit, 192 ft underground When: Lagina era Type: Artifact Fragments of hand-painted pearlware pottery were recovered from the spoils of borehole H-8 at approximately 160 to 200 feet below the surface of the Money Pit area during Season 5. Archaeologist Laird Niven identified the blue-and-white pottery as pearlware from Staffordshire, England, dating between the 1780s and 1800. Pearlware was an imitation of Chinese porcelain developed by Josiah Wedgwood and other Staffordshire potters, and its presence nearly two hundred feet underground led Niven to call it the most significant discovery of the season. The pottery was found in the same spoils that produced human bone fragments, leather bookbinding, parchment, and purple-stained wood. Its depth placed it among the deepest human-made objects recovered from the island. The 1780s-1800 date range falls within a narrow window: after the pottery style was first manufactured but before the 1795 discovery of the Money Pit. This means the pottery could have been deposited by the original builders during a final phase of work, or it could have fallen from a searcher shaft that subsequently collapsed. No pearlware of this pattern has been attributed to any documented search expedition. Additional pottery was recovered from borehole S-6 in Season 6 at approximately 101 feet, within the Shaft Six tunnel. Laird Niven identified a Blue Willow transfer-print pattern on those fragments, dating to the 1810s-1840s, along with a pipe bit from the 1870s-1880s and a piece of red-bodied stoneware with tool-made striations that he placed in the early 1700s, the first pottery from the underground workings to potentially predate the Money Pit's discovery. The presence of pottery across multiple boreholes and depths indicates repeated human activity in the Money Pit area spanning at least two centuries. **Purple-stained wood fragment** Date: Unknown Found: Borehole H8 spoils, Money Pit When: Season 5+ Type: Artifact A fragment of wood bearing a distinctive purple stain was recovered from the spoils of borehole H-8 in the Money Pit area during Season 5. The piece was small enough to have passed through the hammer grab alongside the bone, leather, and pottery fragments that formed the bulk of the H-8 artefact collection. Its colour immediately set it apart from the other wood recovered at the site. Medieval bookbinding expert Joe Landry examined the fragment at the Dawson Printshop in Halifax and identified the purple colouring as resembling Tyrian purple, one of the most expensive dyes in the ancient and medieval world. Tyrian purple was originally extracted from the mucus of Murex sea snails and was so costly that its use was restricted to royalty, senior clergy, and the most important ecclesiastical documents. Landry suggested the staining could result from ecclesiastical leather bleeding into a book board over time, and noted that the thickness of the wood was consistent with a book cover. Taken together with the parchment and leather bookbinding recovered from the same borehole, Landry considered the purple-stained wood compelling evidence of an ancient bound volume. In Season 6, purple-stained wood appeared again in spoils from a Money Pit borehole at approximately one hundred feet, near hand-hewn timbers and glazed pottery. The team identified it as similar to the pieces found in H-8 the previous year that Landry had connected to medieval manuscript production. The recurrence of this material in multiple boreholes at the Money Pit suggests it is not an isolated fragment but part of a dispersed deposit, consistent with the collapse and scattering of original vault contents across the underground workings. **Putty layer** Date: Ship's putty (chalk and linseed oil) on a Money Pit platform; deposited pre-1795, recovered by the Onslow Company 1803-1804 (Fanthorpe). Found: Money Pit, 50 ft depth When: c. 1804 Type: Material The putty layer was found at approximately fifty feet below the surface of the Money Pit by the Onslow Company during their 1803-1804 excavation. The material was ship's putty, a maritime sealant made from chalk mixed with linseed oil, commonly used to caulk the seams of wooden vessels. It had been spread in a thick, continuous layer across a timber platform, covering the full diameter of the shaft. The quantity was substantial. Fanthorpe records that so much putty was found on this single platform that it was used to glaze the windows of more than twenty local houses. This volume ruled out any natural explanation for its presence; ship's putty does not occur underground, and the amount recovered was consistent with deliberate placement rather than incidental debris. The putty appeared alongside layers of coconut fibre and charcoal at similar depths, forming part of a series of sealing barriers between the oak platforms that lined the shaft at ten-foot intervals. The use of a specialised maritime material deep within a land-based shaft indicates the original builders had direct experience with ocean-going vessels and access to ship's stores. Putty of this type requires both raw materials (chalk and linseed oil) and knowledge of how to prepare and apply it as a waterproof seal, skills associated with professional shipwrights rather than casual labourers. **Quadrilateral boulder formation** Date: Before 1795 Found: Lot 13, found by Fred Nolan When: 1993 Type: Structure A 32-foot-long formation of deliberately stacked multi-ton boulders discovered buried beneath the surface of Lot 13 in 1993 by surveyor and treasure hunter Fred Nolan. Nolan documented the feature in his unpublished book but was unable to determine its purpose before his death in 2016. His son Tom later shared the manuscript with the Lagina team, prompting excavation in Season 10. The dig revealed three layers of massive boulders stacked deliberately and buried underground. Beneath the stones, at roughly four feet depth, the team found a thick seam of blue clay - a material that does not occur naturally in that area of the island. Geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner confirmed the clay could not have formed there geologically. The same distinctive blue clay has been found at 40 feet in the original Money Pit, where it served as a waterproof sealant, and at the Eye of the Swamp. Additional clay layers showed signs of burning or intense heat, and burnt sticks recovered from the site matched charred material previously found beneath the Stone Road in the swamp. A large hand-forged iron staple was found embedded in the excavation wall. Blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge identified it as a fastener from a rope and pulley system used to move massive stones into position, and assessed it as potentially medieval in origin. Archeometallurgist Emma Culligan's XRF analysis confirmed it was 98% iron with trace elements consistent with older furnace technology. The combination of stacked boulders, waterproofing clay, burnt material, and a potentially medieval fastener points to a deliberate, labour-intensive construction predating the 1795 discovery of the Money Pit. **Queen Victoria copper halfpenny, c. 1840s (island general)** Date: c. 1840s Found: Lot 21, near Daniel McGinnis foundation When: Season 7, Episode 4 (2019) Type: Coin A copper halfpenny bearing a young Queen Victoria, recovered by metal detection expert Gary Drayton on Lot 21 near the foundation of Daniel McGinnis's former home during Season 7. Charles Barkhouse was also present during the search. Gary dated the coin to approximately the 1840s based on the portrait style, which depicts Victoria early in her reign.Lot 21 has been one of the more productive lots on the island for artifact recovery. The same lot had previously yielded a gold-plated brooch estimated at 700 years old and two iron swages dated to roughly 600 years ago. During the same search, Gary also recovered an unusual decorative brooch featuring twin coils of rope surmounted by a leaf with 13 branches. The Victoria halfpenny is consistent with activity on the island during the early to mid-19th century, when multiple treasure hunting companies and individual searchers were operating in the area. **Ramrod (musket rifle)** Date: Unknown (colonial era) Found: Swamp When: Season 12, Episode 21 (2025) Type: Tool A ramrod believed to have been used in a musket rifle, discovered by Gary Drayton in the swamp area. The find adds to growing evidence of military presence on the island. **Ramrod Guide** Date: 1600-1800 Found: Lot 5 circular structure When: Season 11, 2023 Type: Artifact Metal ramrod guide found by Gary Drayton and Rick Lagina during metal detection on Lot 5. Initially thought to be a gun sight, lab analysis revealed it to be a ramrod guide - a component mounted on the stock of a muzzleloading firearm to hold the ramrod in place. A scan revealed markings reading "VIIII," which do not form a standard Roman numeral for nine, suggesting they may be counting or tally marks rather than a number. The find adds to growing evidence of military presence on Oak Island. **Rectangular structure (Lot 30)** Date: Unknown Found: Lot 30 When: Season 10 (2022) Type: Structure The Lot 30 rectangular structure is a geometric anomaly measuring approximately 100 by 150 feet, detected through a LIDAR survey conducted by Phoenix Aerial Productions in 2022. Dr. Ian Spooner reviewed the data and reported the findings to the Lagina team in Season 10 Episode 4, "Wharf And Pieces" (December 2022). Spooner concluded the rectangle was too geometric to be a natural formation and recommended investigation. Jack Begley proposed that the feature could represent a camp associated with the ancient ship wharf identified on neighbouring Lot 32. Archaeologist Laird Niven recommended small hand-dug test trenches before any larger excavation. Rick Lagina, Laird Niven, and Helen Sheldon began digging test pits across the anomaly during the same episode. The Lot 30 rectangular feature has not been revisited in any episode through Season 13. The test-pit results were not reported on screen, and no follow-up survey, excavation, or interpretation has been presented. The nature of the feature, whether a camp, a building foundation, an agricultural earthwork, or an unrelated geological pattern, has not been identified or dated. This artifact is not the same as the rectangular feature on Lot 5, an early-modern stone cellar foundation that has been the subject of intensive excavation from Season 11 onwards. The Lot 5 and Lot 30 features are physically separate and unrelated in size, depth, and find context. **Red dye emerging at Smith's Cove** Found: Money Pit → Smith's Cove When: 1896; Season 6 (fluorescent dye test) Type: Sample Red paint/dye poured into flooded pit allegedly exposed exit holes at beach; fluorescent dye test in Season 6 confirmed red water at Smith's Cove **REDDEM Stone** Date: Unknown Found: Concrete floor of Fred Nolan's former mainland museum, Western Shore, Nova Scotia When: Pre-1990s embedment by Fred Nolan; recovered Season 3 Episode 6 (15 December 2015) Type: Carved_stone A two-piece carved stone recovered by Rick Lagina, Dave Blankenship, and Jack Begley from the concrete floor of Fred Nolan's former mainland museum in Western Shore, Nova Scotia, during Season 3 Episode 6, aired 15 December 2015. The two pieces fit together like a puzzle along a clean break, forming a single original stone that had been split at some point before Nolan embedded it in the museum's concrete floor. Nolan had told the property's subsequent owners Barry and Karen Publicover that the stones were of significant value to the Oak Island story and that he had cemented them in place to keep them safe. Rick Lagina and the team extracted the two pieces, together with a third separate carved stone bearing what appeared to be Roman numerals, using a jackhammer. The recovery came as part of a wider Season 3 search for the carved stones associated with Oak Island, prompted by Dan Blankenship's recollection that Fred Nolan had embedded large carved stones in his museum floor years earlier. The most famous of the historical stones, the H/O Stone first found on Oak Island's northern shore in 1921, had been destroyed with dynamite by searchers hoping treasure lay beneath it before Gilbert Hedden saved several fragments in 1936. The Hedden fragments remained on the island until roughly 20 years before the Season 3 visit, when they disappeared. Rick Lagina raised the possibility on camera that the stones recovered from the Publicover property could be among the lost H/O Stone fragments or part of a wider lost set of inscribed boulders. Stone researcher Terry Deveau examined the two-piece stone at the Oak Island Interpretive Centre. He confirmed the carvings were definitively man-made and identified a straight line and a semicircle on one piece as the letter D. After the two pieces were aligned, Rick Lagina read the assembled inscription on camera as the sequence R, E, D, D, E and probably an M, with the final letter unclear and possibly an H. Rick suggested the M might be an H for Gilbert Hedden, who searched Oak Island in the 1930s and whose name accounts for several of the visible letters. Deveau did not endorse the Hedden reading on camera and left the inscription's meaning open. No subsequent epigraphic study, petrological analysis, or comparison with the lost H/O Stone fragments has been documented for the REDDE Stone, and the inscription remains undeciphered. The Latin word redde, an imperative form meaning return or give back, fits the visible letter sequence but the episode did not raise this reading and no formal linguistic identification has been published. **Ring Bolt (Smith's Cove, Historical Account)** Date: Unknown Found: Smith's Cove shoreline When: Reported by early searchers; investigated unsuccessfully 1909 (Captain Henry Bowdoin's Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company) Type: Artifact A ring bolt reportedly observed by early searchers embedded in rock on the Smith's Cove shoreline. Ring bolts of this type were used to moor vessels or secure ropes during loading and unloading operations at wharves and landing points. The earliest accounts describe the bolt as fixed into bedrock at the water's edge, consistent with a purpose-built mooring point designed to withstand the pull of a ship under tide and wind. When Captain Henry Bowdoin's Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company investigated the site in 1909, they could find no evidence of the bolt, leaving its existence unverified by any expedition with the resources to document it. **Ring Bolt (South Shore Cove, Blankenship)** Date: Unknown Found: South Shore Cove, near the Hidden Shaft, almost due south of the Money Pit When: 1965-1966 (Dan Blankenship, South Shore excavation) Type: Artifact An iron ringbolt found lodged in a boulder at South Shore Cove, almost due south of the Money Pit, by Dan Blankenship during his excavation of the Hidden Shaft in the mid-1960s. In his own periodic reports, later compiled by Les MacPhie, Blankenship listed the ringbolt among a group of unusual finds at the site, alongside a second stone triangle, a flat rock bearing obscured writing, and a large semicircle of stones in the water. Blankenship argued the ringbolt and the triangle pointed to work done at the south shore by the original depositors, and stated the bolt had been authenticated at approximately two hundred years old, proposing it had been used to moor a ship whose tackle was in turn used with a windlass to excavate the tunnel beneath the site. Researchers Joy Steele and Gordon Fader note that no supporting documentation for that dating survives, and they question whether the boulders in the area are large enough to have moored anything beyond a small skiff, let alone the vessel Blankenship's tunnel theory would require. **Ring Bolt Rock (Lot 13)** Date: Unknown Found: Lot 13, eastern border of the swamp When: Located 1969 (Fred Nolan); reconfirmed on-screen 2021 (Season 8, "Cannon Fodder") Type: Artifact A large boulder with iron embedded in its surface on Lot 13, at the eastern border of the swamp. Metal detection expert Gary Drayton located the iron signal while searching the area with Rick Lagina and geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner for evidence of the stone pathway's direction. Tom Nolan, son of the late Fred Nolan, identified the boulder as one of the original ring bolt rocks his father located in the swamp area in 1969, noting that Fred had removed the upper portion of the bolt for photographs at the time. The show's account of Fred Nolan's original find is inconsistent on the total number of stones. One Season 8 episode describes two ringbolts found on the eastern edge of the swamp after Nolan purchased eight lots across the island's center, while another describes a separate Season 8 find as possibly one of three ringbolts Nolan discovered in the 1960s. This Lot 13 boulder is confirmed as one of the originals, without a definitive total count established on screen. Dr. Spooner observed that the stone pathway appeared to angle uphill toward the Money Pit at this point, and Tom suggested that if someone wanted to move cargo unobserved, the center of the island would offer a concealed route. **Rock stake (ship anchor)** Date: 1710-1740 Found: Lot 32 When: Season 9 Type: Artifact Large spike with a mushroomed head from repeated use, recovered by Marty Lagina and Gary Drayton on Lot 32. Carmen Legge identified it as a rock stake that would have been used to anchor a ship or drag cargo ashore. He dated it to 1710 to 1740, a range that aligns with the 1746 French ship's log Doug Crowell found in 2019, which describes a deep pit being dug and treasure buried during a mission to retake Acadia. **Rock Wall (Lot26)** Date: 15th century (charcoal dating) Found: Lot 26, near the well that never freezes When: Season 13 (2026) Type: Structure A dry stone wall on Lot 26, located near a well that was carbon-dated to 1028 to 1172 A.D. and tested positive for silver. Charcoal recovered from within the wall has been carbon-dated to as early as 1464, placing its construction in the 15th century. Forestry technician Peter Romkey examined the wall in Season 10 and noted that the rocks are leaned inward, a classic technique for holding a rubble wall together. He identified a one-over-two, two-over-one building technique and described the foundation of small rocks as very similar to how castles and large structures were built in England and Scotland. Romkey also suggested that someone may have been hiding evidence of underground digging by disposing of spoils within the wall. Archaeologist Laird Niven recovered a piece of worked red granite from within the structure, the same stone type as the Kingdom Stone found on Lot 30 in 2013. Portuguese researcher Francisco Nogueira examined the wall during a War Room presentation in Season 10 and identified it as the most important evidence of a Portuguese connection to Oak Island. Nogueira explained that during the 15th and 16th centuries, the Portuguese built double walls of large stones with rubble fill, a technique consistent with the Lot 26 construction. He noted that the Order of Christ, a group of Knights Templar who fled to Portugal, maintained a presence on both the mainland and the Azores. The wall has since been referenced repeatedly as a benchmark for European-style construction on the island. Hand-cut rocks found on Lot 15 in Season 13 were compared to those in the Lot 26 wall, and the construction of the circular stone feature on Lot 5 was also noted to resemble it. In Season 13, researcher Scott Clarke connected the wall to the broader Portuguese and Azores theory, citing it alongside the Pitblado coin and stone shot as evidence of Portuguese activity on Oak Island. **Roman coin (Claudius II), 268-270 AD (Lot 5)** Date: 250 - 270 AD Found: Lot 5 When: Season 13, Episode 2 Type: Coin A copper-alloy coin bearing the image of Roman Emperor Claudius II, discovered on Lot 5 during Season 13 of The Curse of Oak Island. The coin was unearthed by metal detectorist Katya Drayton in the southern portion of Lot 5, in an area where several Roman-era coins had previously been recovered. In the lab, archeometallurgist Emma Culligan performed an XRF scan revealing a composition of copper, iron, calcium and silver - a mix she noted was consistent with an older coin. A CT scan of the heavily worn surface revealed what appeared to be a Roman portrait, which she identified as Claudius II and dated to approximately 250-270 AD. Culligan observed that the coin appeared to have been in its location for a considerable period of time. Numismatist Sandy Campbell subsequently examined the coin at the research centre and confirmed the identification. He noted that the CT scan appeared to show a figure holding an oak leaf on the reverse - an iconographic detail consistent with known Claudius II coinage. Campbell described it as the most remarkable of all the Roman coins discovered on the island to date, and confirmed the 3rd-century dating, consistent with Culligan's findings. He also noted that coins of this type continued to circulate as currency well into the 1500s, making the question of when the coin was actually deposited on Oak Island - as team member Tom Nolan pointedly observed - the real million-dollar question. Claudius II, known as "Gothicus" for his decisive victories against Gothic invaders, ruled during the Crisis of the Third Century from 268 to 270 AD. His antoninianus coinage - originally a silver denomination that had been debased to copper-alloy by his reign - was minted in enormous quantities across the empire and remained in wide circulation for centuries after his death from plague in 270 AD. The coin is the sixth Roman-era coin recovered from Lot 5, an area of Oak Island with no known history of habitation. The concentration of Roman coinage in a single uninhabited lot remains one of the more puzzling patterns in the Oak Island archaeological record. **Roman coin, 100-300 AD (Lot 5)** Date: 100-300 AD Found: Lot 5 (circular depression) When: Season 11, Episode 1 (2023) Type: Coin A small copper-alloy coin recovered from the round stone feature on Lot 5 during the Season 11 premiere. Rick Lagina pulled it from the ground with Gary Drayton operating the metal detector, one of three coins the team recovered from the same feature on the same morning, joined later by Jack Begley and by Marty Lagina and Craig Tester after a phone call from the lot. Gary read what he described as a faint female bust on one face. At the laboratory, Emma Culligan's XRF returned copper, silicon, lead, and tin, a profile she described as a strong candidate for a Roman coin, and her database matched the composition to known Roman issues. Later in the same episode, numismatist Sandy Campbell examined the coin at the Interpretive Centre and confirmed the identification. "It is a Roman coin from probably between 100 and 300 AD, if I am allowed to use AD," Campbell told the team. Asked whether he was definitive on the range, he answered yes. The date range puts the piece in the imperial Roman period, from the late Principate through the Crisis of the Third Century. Roman coins from this era were minted in enormous quantities and stayed in circulation long after production, often turning up in medieval contexts hundreds of years and thousands of miles from their original mint. Campbell observed in a later season that Roman coins were actively traded as currency well into the 1500s across Europe and the New World, including at sites associated with the Knights Templar in Iceland that the team has previously visited. Three further coins came out of Lot 5 the same day. From the morning search, an older copper-silver piece Campbell later dated to before 100 AD, and a brass piece bearing what the team described as a woven or chain-link pattern, given competing identifications by Emma Culligan as a 13th-century French denier and by Sandy Campbell as possibly 6th to 8th-century Indian. Later that day, with Marty Lagina and Craig Tester now on site, Rick recovered a fourth coin Campbell identified as a 16th-century British Tudor portcullis piece. The cluster fits a wider pattern on Lot 5: a half Roman coin recovered the previous season, a sixth Roman coin attributed in Season 13 to the emperor Claudius II (268 to 270 AD), and additional copper pieces from the same round feature. The lot has no recorded history of habitation. **Roman coin, 200-300 AD (Lot 5)** Date: 200-300 AD Found: Lot 5 When: Season 12 (2024) Type: Coin A small copper-alloy coin with heavily worn edges and an irregular shape recovered from Lot 5 during Season 12. Jack Begley found the coin while sifting through soil that archaeologist Laird Niven had removed from the rounded stone feature, a multilayered structure that has produced artifacts spanning several centuries. The coin's irregular form indicated it had been hammered rather than struck with a die, a manufacturing method that fell out of use by approximately 1650.Numismatist Sandy Campbell examined the coin and identified what he believed to be a horse in the design. Based on the imagery and the method of production, Campbell concluded the coin was late Roman, dating to approximately 200 to 300 AD. Emma Culligan's XRF analysis confirmed a composition of 70 percent copper and 16 percent lead, with elevated levels of arsenic and sulfur. Campbell noted that copper coins of this type circulated for extended periods throughout the ancient and medieval world, and that the Vikings were known to collect and repurpose Roman coins they encountered during their expansion across Europe and the North Atlantic.The coin was one of several Roman-era coins recovered from the Lot 5 area across multiple seasons. By the start of Season 13, five Roman coins had been found on Lot 5, followed by a sixth identified by Emma Culligan as bearing the likeness of Emperor Claudius II and dated to approximately 250 to 270 AD. Sandy Campbell described that sixth coin as the most remarkable piece found on the island, and observed that Roman coins remained in active circulation as currency well into the 1500s across Europe and the New World. He suggested the coins on Lot 5 could represent pocket change lost by workers who came to the island to construct the Money Pit. The team has noted that similar Roman coins from the same era were recovered at sites associated with the Knights Templar in Iceland during their European research trips. **Roman coin, pre-100 AD (Lot 5)** Date: Pre-100 AD (2,000+ years old per Sandy Campbell) Found: Lot 5 (circular depression) When: Season 11, Episode 1 (2023) Type: Coin A copper-silver coin recovered from the round stone feature on Lot 5 during the Season 11 premiere, one of three coins the team pulled from the same feature on the same morning. Rick Lagina recovered the coin with Gary Drayton operating the metal detector. At the laboratory, Emma Culligan's XRF returned a composition of approximately 94 percent copper and about 5 percent silver, with no tin and no lead. "Normally, Roman coins have tin and lead, which I am not seeing in this one," Culligan noted. "So, not Roman, but it is not modern, either, because it has no modern coin alloys." The reading left the coin unclassified at that point in the episode. Later in the same episode, numismatist Sandy Campbell examined the coin at the Interpretive Centre and reversed the laboratory verdict. He read a male portrait on the obverse, with a pointed chin and a larger nose, and identified two conjoined figures on the reverse. "This is probably, you know, BC," he told the team, asked whether he was 100 percent certain, and answered yes. Campbell described the design as very pronounced for a coin more than 2,000 years old, calling it possibly the oldest coin ever found on Oak Island. Pre-Christian Roman coinage circulated for centuries after striking, and ancient coins continued to turn up in medieval contexts far from their original mints. Campbell observed in a later season that Roman coins were actively traded as currency well into the 1500s across Europe and the New World, including at sites associated with the Knights Templar in Iceland. Three further coins came out of Lot 5 the same day. From the morning search, a second Roman coin Campbell dated to between 100 and 300 AD, and a brass piece bearing what the team described as a woven or chain-link pattern, given competing identifications by Emma Culligan as a 13th-century French denier and by Sandy Campbell as possibly 6th to 8th-century Indian. Later that day, with Marty Lagina and Craig Tester now on site, Rick recovered a fourth coin Campbell identified as a 16th-century British Tudor portcullis piece. A half Roman coin had been recovered from Lot 5 the previous season, and additional Roman coinage has surfaced there in subsequent seasons. The lot has no recorded history of habitation. **Rose Head Spike (Karma-1)** Date: Mid-1700s or earlier (XRF analysis) Found: Karma-1 shaft spoils, wash plant When: 2025 (wash plant team) Type: Artifact A hand-wrought, square-shanked iron spike recovered from the Karma-1 shaft spoils by Charles Barkhouse and the wash plant team. The spike originated from below 167 feet, deeper than any previous searchers reached in this area of the Money Pit, placing it below the range of known historical search activity. Originally five to six inches long, the spike had been broken from a larger iron object and reused as an improvised fastener. Its head was not formally shaped but mushroomed from being driven straight down, with the iron fibers splayed outward on impact. Blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge identified it as the type of spike used in planking for large boxes or vaults built to safeguard valuables, consistent with an original depositor working with limited materials brought to the island in secret. Metallurgist Emma Culligan's XRF analysis classified the iron as cold-short, meaning brittle in cold climates due to exceptionally high phosphorus content. The composition also showed trace manganese and elevated sulfur. Cold-short iron is a reliable indicator of pre-industrial manufacture, as modern smelting controls for phosphorus. Emma placed its most likely date at the mid-1700s or earlier. Doug Crowell raised the possibility of a connection to the Duc d'Anville expedition of 1746, citing a ship's log he discovered in the Nova Scotia Archives in 2017 that described the burial of treasure in a deep pit on an island in the region. If the spike dates to that period, it could represent material evidence linking the Money Pit to the French naval expedition whose commander's family had ties to the Knights Templar. **Ruler/set square** Date: Unknown Found: Smith's Cove area When: Historical Type: Tool A fragment of a hand-forged wrought iron ruler or framing square, discovered near the buried log structures at Smith's Cove. The numbers and calibrations were engraved by hand and are in English measure, indicating it was made by or for an English-speaking craftsman. Research scientists at STELCO (the Steel Company of Canada) examined the artifact and estimated it was manufactured prior to 1783 - placing it at least twelve years before the discovery of the Money Pit in 1795.The artifact was photographed and documented by Robert Dunfield II, whose father Robert Dunfield conducted major excavation operations on Oak Island in the 1960s.Historical Context: A framing square is a precision construction tool used for measuring and marking right angles in woodworking and structural building. Its presence near the Smith's Cove log structures is significant because it points to organized, skilled construction activity at the cove well before the first known treasure hunters arrived on the island. The hand-forged construction and hand-engraved calibrations indicate pre-industrial manufacture. The use of English measure rather than French metric narrows the origin to a British or colonial English-speaking context. This is consistent with the 18th-century British colonial presence in Nova Scotia, though it does not rule out an earlier English origin. Smith's Cove is the site where an elaborate artificial drainage system was discovered, including fan-shaped box drains constructed from wooden planks, a U-shaped structure, and large quantities of coconut fibre - some of which has been carbon-dated to the medieval period. The ruler fragment adds to the evidence that the cove was the site of a major, engineered construction project requiring precision tools and skilled labour. **Rusty hook** Date: 1700s or earlier Found: Lot 26 When: Season 6 Type: Artifact A wrought iron hook recovered during the investigation of a brick-and-slate vault structure in the northern section of the triangle-shaped swamp during Season 12. Rick Lagina found the hook after the feature had been partially drained, in a cellar-like structure that Tom Nolan said he had never encountered anything like on the island. Tom suggested the hook had been used to lower or remove items from the vault.In the lab, Emma Culligan's CT scan and compositional analysis dated the hook to the early to mid-1800s based on its manganese content. Other artifacts recovered from the same vault included a wrought iron handle that Laird Niven identified as a crank based on its square shape, used to move something, and a large piece of iron pipe. Emma dated the pipe and crank to the late 1700s, earlier than the hook, leading the team to conclude the vault had been constructed before the discovery of the Money Pit in 1795 and remained in use afterward.The brick-and-slate vault was located near the cobblestone pathway and within the area once owned by Anthony Graves, who purchased most of Oak Island in 1857 and was later said to have made purchases on the mainland using Spanish silver coins. The combination of 18th-century construction hardware and 19th-century additions suggested the vault had served multiple users across different periods of the island's history. **Sand Road (Western Swamp)** Date: Pre-colonial Found: The Swamp (western region) When: Season 13 (2025) Type: Structure A sand-covered cobblestone road discovered in the western region of the Oak Island swamp during Season 13. The feature was first exposed by heavy equipment operator Billy Gerhardt while expanding permitted excavation areas, and has since been traced across a significant section of the swamp. The road consists of a layered construction: sand on the surface, organic material beneath, and rocks at the base. Billy Gerhardt noted that this layered profile matches the Portuguese-style stone road previously uncovered in the southeast corner of the swamp. The feature is lined on both sides by eight-sided wooden survey stakes of the same type found elsewhere in the swamp, where archaeoastronomer Professor Adriano Gaspani dated similar stakes to the early 13th century based on stellar alignments. During excavation, metal detection expert Gary Drayton recovered an ox shoe buried roughly a foot below the surface and an ox shoe nail from within the road material. Gary noted that ox shoes indicate travel and the hauling of heavy loads, consistent with the transport of materials toward the Money Pit. Cut wood fragments were also found embedded in the construction. Dr. Ian Spooner collected an embedded stick for carbon-14 dating and requested a crosscut trench to examine the road's construction profile. As the team traced the road to the edge of their permitted dig area, the feature appeared to head toward Center Road, the path following property boundaries drawn by Surveyor General Charles Morris in 1762. Craig Tester raised the possibility that the sand road predates the Morris survey and that Center Road may have been built on top of an older route. Peter Fornetti observed that a road linking Lot 5 to the Money Pit would explain the established connection between the two sites. Rick Lagina noted it was too early to project the full alignment but called for a wider exposure of the sand layer. The team plans to dig a cross-section along Center Road to determine whether the cobblestone feature continues beneath it. In S13E23, Marty Lagina returned to Center Road near the western edge of the swamp with Gary Drayton, Billy Gerhardt, Laird Niven, and Scott Barlow to test whether the modern track overlies the sand road. A first cross-section proved inconclusive owing to surface contamination, but a second trench a few yards down exposed clean sand aligned with the road's projected path. Gary recovered an iron nail from the sand layer, possibly an oxshoe nail matching the earlier ox shoe find, which was sent to Emma Culligan's lab for analysis. The working conclusion is that Center Road predates the 1762 Morris survey and once connected Lot 5 to the Money Pit via the sand road and the Portuguese Road in the southeast corner of the swamp. **Ship spikes (numerous)** Date: Various; 17th-18th century Found: Swamp and across island When: Multiple seasons Type: Artifact Numerous large hand-wrought iron spikes recovered from locations across Oak Island over multiple seasons, identified by experts as ship construction hardware spanning several centuries. The spikes varied in size and function, but all shared characteristics of hand forging consistent with pre-industrial manufacture.On the Boulderless Beach along the island's northern shore during Season 5, Gary Drayton recovered a large ship spike that archaeologist Laird Niven dated to the 18th century. At Smith's Cove during Season 6, Carmen Legge examined a group of iron objects and identified them as crib spikes, used to join heavy timbers in shipbuilding and wharf construction, dating them to the mid-1600s. On the beach at Lot 32 during Season 7, Gary recovered a decking spike consistent with 1700s ship construction, similar to a barrote-type spike found in the swamp three years earlier that antiques expert Dr. Lori Verderame had identified as coming from a 17th-century Spanish galleon.Carmen Legge later reclassified a pair of spikes found near the stone pathway in the swamp as marlinespikes rather than crib spikes, identifying them as tools used by sailors from the early 17th century onward for splicing and tying rope on ships. The distinction was significant: marlinespikes are personal tools carried by working sailors, indicating that crew members, not just cargo, were present in the swamp area. The cumulative evidence from ship spikes, marlinespikes, a ship's railing carbon-dated to 660 to 770 CE, barrel staves, and other nautical hardware supported the theory that at least one large vessel had been present in what is now the swamp before it was artificially flooded. **Ship's wooden pin** Date: Pre-1795 Found: Swamp, southern edge When: Season 9 Type: Artifact Pointed piece of wood pulled from the swamp by Billy Gerhardt, identified by Gary Drayton as a ship's pin. The find came from the same area where numerous pieces of possible ship components have been found, including a ship's railing carbon dated to 660-770 AD. The War Room consensus supported identification as a probable ship component. **Silver button** Date: Mid-18th century Found: Isaac Point When: Lagina era Type: Button Possibly from military uniform **Silver Spanish ring** Date: Possibly 16th-17th century Found: Swamp When: Season 7 (2019-20) Type: Artifact A small, thick ring with an intricate hand-chiseled floral pattern, sized to fit a woman's finger. The band shows evidence of at least two different metals, including what appears to be silver used in repairs, along with crude joining work that indicates pre-industrial manufacture. A central flower motif dominates the design.Metal detection expert Gary Drayton recovered the ring in the swamp during Season 7, working along the northern edge near the beach road. At the Oak Island Research Centre, archaeologist Laird Niven examined it under a Grobet digital microscope and noted the central flower, the mixed-metal composition, and the rough joining technique.Professor Charles Lewton-Brain of the Alberta College of Art and Design confirmed via video conference that the floral design was chiseled entirely by hand, a technique used before saw blades became available to jewelers around 1730. He dated the ring to before that year and identified the pattern as European in origin, possibly Spanish. The connection to Spain echoes the 1652 maravedi coin previously recovered from the same swamp, and both finds place European activity on the island well before the Money Pit's discovery in 1795. **Silver tassel piece (90% silver)** Date: Unknown - ancient (pre-colonial) Found: Lot 5 - stone foundation When: Season 11 (2024) Type: Artifact A small silver artifact recovered on Lot 5 during Season 11 by Jamie Beaton. Emma Culligan's XRF analysis confirmed the piece is 90 percent silver, a purity that qualified it as treasure under the provincial treasure trove license. The composition represents one of the highest silver concentrations found in any artifact on Oak Island.Archaeologist Laird Niven and Emma examined the piece at the Interpretive Centre and concluded it appears to be in its original form rather than a fragment of something larger. They identified it as either a knife hilt or a decorative tassel, a type of ornamental fitting used on clothing, military dress, or ceremonial objects. The craftsmanship and silver content suggest it belonged to someone of status rather than a common laborer or settler.Rick Lagina requested further metallurgical testing to determine whether the silver composition could connect the piece to the wreck of the Concepcion, the Spanish treasure galleon that sank off Hispaniola in 1641 and was partially salvaged by William Phips in 1687. The Concepcion connection runs through Captain Andrew Belcher, an early Freemason caught trading with pirates who had Phips's ship, and through the broader theory that Spanish colonial silver made its way to Nova Scotia through privateering networks. The tassel was found alongside other significant Lot 5 artifacts including a gilded naval button with 3 percent gold that Emma dated to the 18th century and identified as English military manufacture. **Silver traces ('dump-truck load')** Found: Money Pit boreholes When: Season 8 (2020-21) Type: Sample Water sampling in numerous boreholes provided 'scientific proof' of substantial silver deposit deep underground **Silver-gilt button, 1600s-1700s (Lot 5)** Date: 1600s-1700s (silver gilt, arsenical copper of medieval origin) Found: Lot 5 When: Season 12, Episode 25 (2024) Type: Button A small object initially identified in the field as a possible coin or token, recovered near the round stone feature on Lot 5 in Season 12, Episode 25 (Uplifting Discoveries) by Gary Drayton and other members of the team. Field discussion was inconclusive: Drayton observed a faint shank area but could not rule out either a coin or a button. The piece was sent to archaeometallurgist Emma Culligan for laboratory analysis.In the season finale War Room, Culligan delivered the result. "It is a button," she told the team. The body of the button is a copper alloy with silver gilt, the silver visible throughout. The copper carries an unusual signature: a very high arsenic content. "The arsenical copper indicates the medieval times," Culligan explained. "A skilled person made it, refined the copper and created this alloy. So they are recycling medieval copper." Marty Lagina pressed her on a date, asking whether pre-1750 was reasonable. Culligan agreed, with a copper-iron alloy reading placing the surviving artefact in the 1600s or 1700s. Rick Lagina greeted the result by saying: "Medieval, baby."The reading places the button in the post-medieval period in its surviving form, but built from copper that had already been worked and recycled from a medieval source. The find sits among the wider concentration of pre-modern material recovered from the round feature on Lot 5, including four coins from Season 11 (a Roman piece dated between 100 and 300 AD, a Roman piece dated to before 100 AD, a brass piece given competing 13th-century French and 6th to 8th-century Indian identifications, and a Tudor portcullis piece from the 1500s), an additional cut silver coin, a folded copper coin, and a Roman piece of Claudius II recovered in Season 13. The lot has no recorded history of habitation. **Skeleton key** Date: Pre-1800 Found: Oak Island When: Season 5, Ep. 12 Type: Artifact A folding iron skeleton key with a blade cut in the shape of a cross, recovered by Fred Nolan during his decades of fieldwork on Oak Island. The cross shape becomes visible when the key is folded, a design detail that the team considered significant given the longstanding connections between the island and medieval Christian orders. Tom Nolan, Fred's son, presented the key to Rick Lagina and Charles Barkhouse during Season 5 when he granted the Lagina team full access to his father's 16 acres on the island, including the area surrounding Nolan's Cross.Fred Nolan spent more than 50 years surveying and investigating Oak Island, producing detailed maps that charted virtually every visible rock, survey line, and point of interest across his property. The skeleton key was among the artifacts he recovered during that period, though the precise location and circumstances of its discovery were not recorded in detail on the show. The key took on added significance when the team later recovered an ornate lock plate on Lot 8, one of 11 sites where Fred believed subsurface treasure had been recovered. The lock plate featured a clearly defined keyhole and a raised floral design resembling a rose, and Gary Drayton noted the handmade, asymmetrical piece was unlike anything a farmer or tradesman would possess. The pairing of a decorative lock plate and a cross-shaped skeleton key on the same property reinforced the team's suspicion that chests or strongboxes had been present on the island, a theory further supported by the two decorative iron chest hinges recovered from a dump site on Lot 12 during the same season. **Slag-like metal piece (Bowmaster dewatering hole)** Date: Undated; possible casting fragment per Dr. Cooke Found: Bowmaster dewatering hole adjacent to Hole 10, between 120 and 135 ft When: Late October 1970 Type: Artifact A piece of slag-like metal, approximately one inch by three quarters of an inch by one quarter of an inch, that blocked the drill bit between 120 and 135 feet during the drilling of Bowmaster's dewatering hole in late October 1970. The hole was put down adjacent to Hole 10, about ten feet from the 27-inch casing, to allow pumping closer to the excavation. Martin Pickford's report of 7 November 1970 records that the piece might be part of a casting, and that Dr. Cooke thought it resembled the portion of a cannon ball cast that forms in the filler neck of the mould and is discarded when the cast is removed. The piece passed to Dan Blankenship. Samples washed from the same hole later that month included a further piece of slag-like material, a piece of dull grey metal recorded as possibly lead or zinc and set aside for testing, assorted wood slivers of which two appeared axe-cut, Littorina sea shells, a piece of probable window glass, and plastic binding tape of the kind used to bind dynamite. No analysis of the casting piece appears in the published record. **Slipway (wooden)** Date: Dendro: red spruce dated 1769 Found: Smith's Cove When: Season 6 (2018-19) Type: Structure The slipway is a large wooden structure uncovered at Smith's Cove, first reported by treasure hunter Gilbert Hedden in 1936. Hedden noticed the ends of two large timbers protruding from the rocks inside the remains of the 1866 cofferdam. When excavated, the timbers proved to be fifteen inches in diameter, notched every four feet, with each notch containing wooden pins and several four-foot cross-members. Finn records that Hedden believed the formation was part of an ancient skid or slipway. Fanthorpe described it as "the remains of a very ancient ramp, jetty or slipway" comprising "massive old timbers with notches and bearing Roman numerals." Hedden lacked the resources to dig below the low-tide mark and could not determine the full extent of the structure. The Lagina team fully excavated the slipway during the Season 6 Smith's Cove operation, exposing the structure within the cofferdam enclosure. Dendrochronologist Dr. Colin Laroque analysed the red spruce timber, and the results placed the construction date at 1769, the same year as the U-shaped structure. A separate sample from the bump-out area adjacent to the slipway returned a date of 1741, more than two decades earlier, indicating the waterfront structures at Smith's Cove were built across at least two distinct periods. The 1741 date aligns with the first siege of Fortress Louisbourg in 1745 and supports the theory that the French may have moved a fortune from the fortress to Oak Island in the early 1740s. A slipway at this location would have allowed vessels to approach the island at high tide, ground on the structure as the water receded, and be unloaded efficiently before the next tide. The scale of the underground construction on the island, including the flood tunnel, the box drains, the Money Pit shaft, and the layered sealing barriers, would have required the movement of substantial quantities of material, tools, and workers over an extended period. A purpose-built landing structure was functionally necessary for an operation of this size. The slipway's position, combined with the other structures at the cove, supports the view that Smith's Cove served as the primary access and logistics point for whoever built the island's underground works. **Small coin, 17th century (island general)** Date: 17th century Found: Lot 16 When: Season 5, Ep. 8 Type: Coin A small coin recovered by Gary Drayton and Rick Lagina from Lot 16 during Season 5. The coin was found in the same area as a piece of grapeshot, a type of cannon ammunition used in naval and land warfare dating to as early as the fifteenth century, and a horseshoe fragment. Gary believed the coin could be another maravedi, consistent with the Spanish copper coins found elsewhere on the island. Lot 16 was the site of Robert Dunfield's massive spoils pile, created when his 1965 excavation collapsed and displaced material from the Money Pit area across the island. Gary Drayton had previously recovered two seventeenth-century English coins from the same lot: a 1673 Charles II and a 1694 William III. The presence of grapeshot alongside the coin raised questions about military activity on or directed at the island, as grapeshot was a standard antipersonnel and anti-rigging projectile in naval combat. The coin's condition prevented definitive identification of its denomination, mint, or exact date. Gary estimated it as seventeenth century based on its size, weight, and patina. If confirmed as a maravedi, it would join a growing inventory of Spanish-era coins from the island, including the 1652 swamp maravedi, the 1598 Smith's Cove maravedi, and cut maravedis from Isaac's Point and the Lot 15 area. The cluster of seventeenth-century artefacts on Lot 16, despite their displacement by Dunfield's equipment, points to significant pre-1795 activity in the Money Pit zone. **Small horseshoe (mule/pony)** Date: Unknown Found: Lot 16 When: Season 5, Ep. 8 Type: Artifact A small iron horseshoe recovered on Oak Island, identified as belonging to a mule or pony rather than a full-sized horse. The shoe's dimensions were consistent with a smaller working animal of the type used for hauling loads along narrow paths or in confined spaces where a full-sized draft horse or ox would be impractical.Multiple horseshoes have been recovered across the island over several seasons, and blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge has examined many of them at Northville Farm in Centreville, Nova Scotia. Carmen has demonstrated the ability to distinguish between shoes made for draft animals, riding horses, and smaller working stock based on the thickness, taper, and overall proportions of each piece. During Season 10, he examined a horseshoe from the swamp's northeast section and identified it as belonging to a cavalry or riding horse, dating it to the 1400s based on its handmade construction and unusually short profile. He called it the oldest horseshoe he had seen in Nova Scotia, from a period when no recorded visits of horses to the province had yet occurred.The presence of shoes for animals of different sizes and purposes on the island pointed to a varied operation: draft oxen for heavy hauling, riding horses for personnel of status, and smaller animals like mules or ponies for lighter work. The pattern was consistent with a large-scale, organized undertaking rather than a single expedition, and the range of shoe types and dates suggested that activity on the island spanned several centuries. **Spanish 11 maravedis, 1598 (Smith's Cove)** Date: 1598 AD Found: Isaac's Point When: 1965 Type: Coin A Spanish copper coin identified as an 11 maravedis piece dated 1598, reportedly found by a student on the beach at Smith's Cove in 1965 during the period when Robert Dunfield was conducting his large-scale excavation of the island. The coin dates to the reign of Philip III of Spain and is one of the oldest identified coins recovered from Oak Island, predating the discovery of the Money Pit by nearly two hundred years. The maravedi was the basic unit of account in the Spanish monetary system from the eleventh century through the nineteenth century. An 11 maravedis denomination was a common copper coin in circulation throughout the Spanish Empire during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Smith's Cove, where the coin was found, is also the location where the elaborate box drain system, U-shaped structure, slipway, and numerous other pre-1795 artefacts have been recovered, including the lead cross whose lead was traced to a medieval French mine. The circumstances of the find are not well documented, and the coin does not appear in any episode of The Curse of Oak Island television series. It is referenced in historical records of the island's artefact inventory alongside the 1652 Spanish maravedi from the swamp and other Spanish-era coins that collectively support theories of Iberian activity on Oak Island before British settlement of the Mahone Bay area. **Spanish 8 maravedis copper, 1652 (swamp)** Date: 1652 AD Found: Swamp When: Season 1 (2014) Type: Coin A copper coin recovered from the Oak Island swamp during Season 1, the first coin ever found on the island during the modern treasure hunt. Rick Lagina discovered it at the Mercy point near the apex of the swamp, an area identified by Norwegian researcher Petter Amundsen as corresponding to a position on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. An eight was visible on its surface, and Rick recognised it as possibly a Spanish maravedi from the 1500s or 1600s. The find electrified the team. For over two hundred years, treasure hunters had recovered wood, coconut fibre, scraps of metal, and other circumstantial evidence from Oak Island, but never a single coin. A local legend about Anthony Graves, a wealthy nineteenth-century island landowner who reportedly paid for goods on the mainland with seventeenth-century Spanish coins but refused to say where he got them, added historical weight to the discovery. Rick and Marty Lagina brought the coin to Global Marine Exploration in Tampa, Florida, a company specialising in shipwreck artefact salvage. Under a microscope, the team could see white sediment in the cracks and green oxidation consistent with an object that spent centuries submerged in a brackish environment. Technician Jason cleaned the coin using a mild citric acid bath, and after roughly ninety minutes a date became legible on the reverse: 1652, more than 140 years before the Money Pit was discovered. Global Marine confirmed the corrosion pattern was consistent with a swamp find, not a land deposit, strengthening the case that the coin was not planted in modern times. Dan Blankenship, who had searched the island for nearly 48 years, held the coin and declared it confirmed his long-held belief that the Spanish were responsible for the original depositing activity, placing it between 1500 and 1550. Charles Barkhouse identified the coin as a Spanish maravedi eight cob. The coin has since been referenced as a benchmark artefact in multiple theories, including D'Arcy O'Connor's Spanish galleon hypothesis and connections to the barrote-type decking spike and wooden scuppers Fred Nolan discovered in the swamp in 1969. For Marty Lagina, the coin was decisive: he later revealed that had it not been found, he was prepared to ask Rick to call off the search. **Spanish half-real silver, 1781 (island general)** Date: 1781 AD Found: Lot 5 When: Pre-2020 Type: Coin A silver Spanish half-real coin dated 1781, found on Lot 5 by the previous owner Robert S. Young. Between 1996 and his death in 2020, Young marked any finds on the property with numbered pegs. During Season 12, archaeologists working at the rounded stone feature on Lot 5 dug out a Robert Young peg numbered 5-025. Laird Niven checked the database and reported that peg 5-025 corresponded to a silver 1781 Spanish half-real. Young purchased Lot 5 from Fred Nolan, his research partner, more than twenty years before the Lagina team acquired the property. He found many artefacts there, including buttons, ancient coins, and iron tools. In 1996, Young found a coin on the lot that he believed was Norse. Dr. Edwin Barnhart later noted that Vikings were crossing the Atlantic around 1000 AD and plating objects with brass, though Young's Norse attribution has not been independently verified. The half-real, by contrast, is clearly identifiable as an eighteenth-century Spanish colonial coin. The Spanish half-real was a common denomination in colonial trade, circulating throughout the Americas and Atlantic maritime routes during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Its presence on Lot 5 places it alongside other artefacts from the property, including red earthenware with unusual purple and black glaze dated to the 1600s, a decorative strap, a river raft spike identified as pre-1840, and iron hardware whose composition matched artefacts from the William Phips birthplace in Maine. The coin's 1781 date falls within the period of British colonial administration of Nova Scotia and is consistent with the broad pattern of eighteenth-century activity documented across the island. **Spike (1700s wrought iron)** Date: 1700s Found: Smith's Cove When: Season 6, Ep. 8 Type: Artifact A wrought iron spike was recovered from the Smith's Cove area by Gary Drayton during Season 6 excavations within the steel cofferdam. The spike was notable for being shorter and thicker in profile than the other spikes found across the island, with proportions consistent with heavy fastening hardware used in ship or wharf construction rather than the longer, thinner spikes associated with lighter timber framing. Gary dated it to the 1700s based on its unique bevelled design. Wrought iron of this period was produced by hammering iron heated in a forge, a process that left a characteristic grain structure distinguishable from later cast or rolled iron. The bevelled profile indicates the spike was shaped for a specific structural purpose, driven into heavy timber to secure joints or fasten planking under load. Carmen Legge, who examined other spikes from the same Smith's Cove excavation, dated the broader collection to between 1650 and 1800 and identified them as crib spikes used in heavy marine construction. The spike was found in the same area as a gold-plated coin, also recovered by Gary Drayton. The pairing of construction hardware with a personal item in the same location suggests a concentration of activity or deposition in that part of the cove. Similar spikes have been recovered from multiple locations across the island, including the slipway at Smith's Cove, the swamp's stone road, and Lot 32 near the south shore, where Gary identified a decking spike consistent with 1700s ship construction that antiques expert Dr. Lori Verderame had compared to barrote-type spikes from seventeenth-century Spanish galleons. **Spike coated in limestone/concrete** Date: Pre-1795 if associated with original Money Pit construction; coating composition untested Found: Borehole H8 spoils, 150-foot level (Lot 18, Money Pit area) When: Season 5, Episode 10 (January 16, 2018) Type: Artifact Gary Drayton recovered an iron spike coated in a concrete-like substance from the 150-foot level of borehole H8 spoils during the Season 5 caisson dig. The 60-inch caisson had reached 155 feet of casing by that point, with the hammer grab excavating at 150 feet, and project manager Vanessa Lucido of Irving Equipment Limited oversaw the operation. The spike was found in the same wash plant batch as fragments of bone, pottery, glass, and hand-chopped wood recovered by Jack Begley and the spoils crew. The concrete-like coating echoes the documented history of cementitious material reported deep in the Money Pit. William Chappell, drilling into the Pit in 1897, recorded striking what he and his workmen described as cement at the level of the wood layer, leading to the long-running interpretation that an artificial chamber had been sealed there. Samples of similar cement-like material recovered from later drilling were analysed by the Belleville Research Laboratory of Canada Cement Lafarge and described as crude lime carbonate consistent with pre-industrial preparation, not Portland cement. If the coating on the H8 spike is the same material, it would place the spike at or near the depth at which historical searchers reported encountering the so-called concrete vault. Later in the same episode, at 170 feet, oscillator operator Danny reported torque pressure on the caisson doubling against a flat, hard, consistent surface that Rick Lagina noted matched the profile of a collapsed underground structure. No laboratory analysis of the H8 spike's coating has been publicly reported, and the precise composition of the material remains untested. **Spruce platform** Date: Pre-1795 Found: Money Pit, 98 ft depth When: 1849 Type: Structure The spruce platform is a six-inch-thick layer of spruce wood encountered at ninety-eight feet in the Money Pit, directly below the lowest oak platform. It was first identified in 1849 when the Truro Company lowered a pod auger into the flooded shaft. The platform sat at precisely the depth where the Onslow Company men had struck something solid with a crowbar in 1803, confirming that the earlier probing had been accurate. Jotham McCully, the Truro Company's site manager, left a first-person account of the drilling. After the auger passed through six inches of spruce, it dropped twelve inches through empty space before striking four inches of oak. Below that lay twenty inches of loose metal, then eight inches of oak, another twenty inches of metal, four inches of oak, six inches of spruce, and finally seven feet of previously worked clay before reaching undisturbed virgin clay beneath. A second borehole struck the same platform at the same depth, with the auger dropping slightly further before hitting what McCully described as the side of a cask or barrel; splinters of oak stave and pieces of birch hoop came up on the bit. The spruce platform appears to mark the top of a sealed deposit distinct from the oak platform system above. The Truro Company's attempt to physically descend to this level failed when the flood tunnel activated overnight and filled the shaft with seawater to tide level. Every subsequent drilling program in the Money Pit area has used the ninety-eight-foot spruce platform as a reference marker, but no excavation team has physically reached it since the shaft flooded in 1803. **Square nails** Date: Late 1700s Found: Lot 5 When: Season 10+ Type: Artifact Hand-cut square nails recovered from multiple locations on Oak Island. Square nails, also called rosehead nails for the distinctive shape left by the blacksmith's hammer, were the standard fastener in North America from the colonial period through the mid-19th century, when machine-cut wire nails replaced them. Their presence is a general indicator of pre-industrial construction, though they cannot be dated precisely without additional context.Square nails have been found in the Money Pit spoils, at Smith's Cove, on the Samuel Ball properties, in the swamp pathway, and at the Lot 5 stone features. During Season 4, Gary Drayton recovered a hammered iron object with a square nail hole punched through it from the GAL-1 spoils, which he connected to the same pre-1795 construction activity evidenced by other artifacts from the area. During Season 11, Laird Niven examined a handwrought rosehead nail extracted from a timber in the Garden Shaft tunnel and dated it to the 1600s to 1700s based on its construction.The distribution of square nails across virtually every investigated area of the island confirmed that large-scale construction using hand-forged hardware occurred at multiple locations. When combined with the crib spikes Carmen Legge dated to the mid-1600s and the ring bolts he dated to the 1600s to 1760, the nails formed part of a consistent picture of organized building activity spanning at least a century before the Money Pit's official discovery. **Square Swamp Vault** Date: Late 1600s Found: Northern swamp, near Eye of the Swamp When: Season 12, Episode 9 (2024) Type: Structure A rectangular structure composed of handmade bricks and cut slate, located in the northern section of the triangle-shaped swamp near the cobblestone pathway that leads toward the Eye of the Swamp. The feature was first exposed in Season 12, Episode 9 when Alex Lagina found a brick and Billy Gerhardt spotted cut slate during excavation. Dr. Ian Spooner identified the bricks as handmade, and archaeologist Laird Niven said he had never seen a slate-and-brick structure like it on the island. Fellow landowner Tom Nolan, whose father Fred Nolan spent five decades investigating the swamp, said he had never encountered anything like it either. He noted that two wells found on the nearby Anthony Graves property were both round, making this square structure distinct from any known domestic feature in the area. Excavation of the vault produced a large piece of iron pipe, a wrought iron hook that Tom suggested was used to lower or remove items from the structure, and a square iron crank handle. X-ray diffraction analysis by Emma Culligan showed that the vault bricks differed in composition from the 1600s-era bricks found on Lot 5 and at Smith's Cove, aligning instead with local samples from the 1800s. The iron pipe and crank, however, dated to the late 1700s, leading the team to conclude the vault was constructed before the discovery of the Money Pit in 1795. The feature sits along a 600-foot cobblestone pathway bordered by wooden survey stakes dated to the 1650s through 1700s, and within a broader swamp construction zone that Steve Guptill placed between 1630 and 1750. Online commentary has dismissed the structure as an outhouse connected to the Graves homestead, but the pre-Money Pit dating of the artifacts recovered from within it, the handmade brick construction, and its position along a surveyed pathway of 17th-century origin are inconsistent with that explanation. Eight-sided survey stakes matching those found near the vault were also recovered in Season 13, reinforcing the connection between the feature and the wider swamp infrastructure. **Square-shaped hatch** Date: Unknown Found: Western side of island When: Lagina era Type: Structure A rectangular depression chiseled into bedrock on the western side of Oak Island near the former Blankenship property on Lot 22. Dave Blankenship first stumbled into the feature while trailing a deer, and when the team examined it during Season 4, Marty Lagina described it as a square hole cut into bedrock by humans, noting there was no geological explanation for its shape. Archaeologist Laird Niven agreed the formation was not natural.Jack Begley connected the depression to the feature labelled "The Hatch" on a hand-drawn French map of Oak Island dated 1347 that researcher Zena Halpern had presented to the team. Begley overlaid Halpern's map on a modern map of the island and determined that the depression near the Blankenship home fell almost exactly where the historical map placed the Hatch, one of several landmarks noted on the document alongside "The Basin," "The Marsh," "The Dam," "The Anchor," and "The Valve." The concept of a walk-in tunnel entrance to the treasure chamber had been discussed by treasure hunters since the 19th century, and both Fred Nolan and Dan Blankenship believed such an entrance existed somewhere on the island.Jack probed the bottom and sides with a shovel, striking only rock under the soil, and suggested that if the hatch once contained a wooden door it may have rotted away. Further excavation through what appeared to be bedrock chiseled by hand revealed a solid surface that sounded hollow when struck, but the hole narrowed as it descended and conditions made further hand-digging impractical. The feature was not explored to a definitive conclusion. **Staffordshire slipware pottery** Date: 1675-1770 Found: Lot 5, round feature When: Season 13 Type: Artifact Fragment of Staffordshire slipware pottery unearthed by archaeologist Fiona Steele at the round feature on Lot 5. Laird Niven dated the piece to 1675-1770, representing some of the earliest pottery found in the feature. Staffordshire slipware was a type of lead-glazed earthenware produced in Staffordshire, England, characterized by trailed slip decoration. **Stained Wood Fragment** Date: Undetermined Found: MP-1 caisson, Money Pit area at 195 feet When: Seasons 13 Episode 25 (finale) Type: Artifact A small piece of stained, multicolored wood recovered by Rick Lagina from spoils brought up by caisson MP-1 at a depth of approximately 195 feet, within the solution channel targeted for its strong silver readings. Metal detection expert Gary Drayton, examining the fragment in the field, described the coloring as exotic and suggested the grain pattern was consistent with palm. No tropical or palm species are native to Nova Scotia, and Rick observed that organic material of this character should not occur naturally at that depth in the dissolved-bedrock zone. The most likely explanation accepted by the team is downward displacement: that the fragment originated in shallower deposits and migrated into the solution channel during the centuries of searcher activity above, when shafts were sunk, collapsed, and backfilled across the Money Pit area. The find sits alongside the Smith's Cove coconut fiber and the broader pattern of foreign organic material recovered from the island, and would benefit from species identification and radiocarbon dating before any firmer interpretation can be offered. The fragment is currently held for laboratory analysis. **Starburst button (lead-tin)** Date: 17th-18th century Found: Lot 5, stone foundation area When: Season 11 (2024) Type: Button Fragile button with a distinctive starburst design, composed of a lead layer over a tin base. Moya MacDonald recovered it on Lot 5 at the stone foundation during Season 11. Emma Culligan's analysis confirmed the lead-over-tin composition. Archaeologist Laird Niven identified it as a cast decorative button whose elevated quality suggests it belonged to someone of importance, noting that comparable examples date from the 1600s to 1700s, with some reaching back to medieval times. Judi Rudebusch later pointed to similarities between the button and Knights of Malta uniform buttons, proposing a possible connection to the military order. **Starburst Button (silver-plated)** Date: 1650–1675 Found: Isaac's Point, eastern shore near Smith's Cove When: Season 7, Episode 1 Type: Artifact Silver-plated button bearing a distinctive starburst design with a hand-crafted shank. Gary Drayton recovered it on the eastern shore at Isaac's Point, near Smith's Cove, during Season 7. Doug Crowell examined it under magnification, finding hand-cut striations and a stamped rather than moulded design. Maltese military-artifact specialist Denis Darmanin later identified the pattern as probably Spanish and dated the button to 1650 to 1675, noting the type was fashionable among the aristocratic class and matching it to a Knight of Malta uniform button. **Sticks/organic matter (Eye of the Swamp)** Date: Carbon dated: 1674-1700 AD Found: Eye of the Swamp When: Season 7 Type: Material A concentration of sticks and organic matter recovered from the Eye of the Swamp, a circular formation of stones with embedded iron located at the center of the triangle-shaped swamp. The Eye was first identified during Season 7 as a priority investigation target after researchers Corjan Mol and Chris Morford demonstrated that a pentagram derived from Nicolas Poussin's painting The Shepherds of Arcadia, when projected onto a map of Oak Island using Nolan's Cross as a framework, fell precisely on this location.Geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner and three graduate students from Acadia University, Lauren Ruff, Chelsea Renaud, and Julia Crews, collected vibra-core samples from the Eye during Season 7. Spooner's analysis revealed glacial till at the bottom, then a disturbed zone with interlayered organic matter and till that could not be explained by natural processes, followed by swamp sediment above. A sample from the disturbed zone dated to 1600 to 1700, while a twig from another layer returned a date consistent with the same period. Spooner concluded the Eye was manmade and that someone had deliberately excavated into the glacial till and refilled it with a mixture of organic material and soil.Excavation of the Eye during Season 7 revealed blue clay packed onto a large stone at the base of the formation, recalling the blue clay layers found at 40 feet in the Money Pit in 1804. Core samples also showed elevated levels of lead and mercury at the base, an anomalous finding that Spooner connected to significant human activity. The mercury was of particular interest: 17th-century philosopher Sir Francis Bacon had detailed a method for preserving documents by sealing them in mercury within glass containers. **Stone and cement foundation (Smith's Cove)** Date: Undated (pre-1795 based on context) Found: Smith's Cove, 150 ft south of beach, 2 ft below grade When: November 1969 Type: Structure A large stone and cement foundation discovered by Dan Blankenship during the November 1969 Smith's Cove excavation, shaped like a horseshoe and found approximately 2 feet below the grade and about 150 feet south of the Smith's Cove beach. Blankenship described it as "quite massive." Dimensions: roughly 12 feet wide and 25 feet long, with the open end toward the shore. The width of the footing varied from 20 inches to 30 inches and averaged approximately 3 feet deep. All the stones were cemented together in a mass, with the footing approximately 2 feet deep. The earth inside the horseshoe appeared slightly whiter than outside, and the earth toward the shore showed evidence of extensive heat - burnt deep red with patches of white in layers. Pieces of charcoal and coal were found in this area. Blankenship noted that the remains of a stone-paved road from this area toward the Money Pit were still discernible. He speculated on two possible interpretations: (1) it could have been the site of a steam boiler used by searchers working on the coffer dam, though he personally doubted this as he could not conceive the usefulness of a steam engine for such an operation; or (2) more likely in his view, it was the site of an original open hearth furnace where metalwork - including the manufacture of bricks and clays - could have been performed. This structure was found in the same excavation campaign that uncovered the medieval-dated timber structures (Items #1-#11) inside the cofferdam, and its proximity to those structures, the stone road remnants, and the evidence of industrial-scale heating activity suggests it may be connected to the original depositor's operations on the island. **Stone Cairns** Date: 1217 Found: Lot 15, between the Swamp and Money Pit When: First documented by Fred Nolan; analyzed Season 11 (2024) Type: Structure Five pyramid-shaped stone constructs arranged on Lot 15, originally dubbed "Pirate Piles" by the late Fred Nolan. The cairns point toward the swamp. In Season 11, archaeoastronomer Professor Adriano Gaspani analyzed the positioning of the cairns and determined they were built in alignment with the stars, sun, and the moon's position in the night sky. By calculating how long ago those alignments were exact, Gaspani dated their construction to approximately 1250 AD - the same period he attributes to Nolan's Cross (dated 1200 AD). Gaspani concluded that both monuments were built by the same group and attributed the work to the Knights Templar. Metal detecting near the cairns by Gary Drayton recovered a decorated lead strip suspected to be medieval. Analysis revealed similarities to a twisted lead artifact from Lot 13 with Scandinavian origins, raising the possibility of Viking involvement alongside the Templars. **Stone circle structure (13 ft diameter)** Date: 18th century artifacts found within; matches Money Pit dimensions Found: Lot 5, near shoreline When: Season 10 (2022) Type: Structure Man-made circular feature 13 ft across with notches every 4 ft; same dimension as original Money Pit; previously dismissed as old cellar by Laird Niven **Stone Road** Date: Carbon-14 dated ~800 AD (approximately 1200 years old) Found: Southeast corner of the triangle-shaped swamp, running along the eastern border and turning uphill toward the interior of the island When: Identified underwater by Tony Sampson in Season 7. Systematic excavation began Season 8 Episode 9 (January 2021). Approximately 580 feet exposed by the end of Season 9. Type: Structure The stone road in the southeastern corner of the Oak Island swamp is one of the most substantial pre-1795 features documented on the island. The feature was first identified underwater by diver Tony Sampson during Season 7 work in the swamp. Systematic excavation began in Season 8 Episode 9 (January 2021) after the Lagina team obtained permits to drain and dig the southeastern corner of the triangle-shaped bog. By the end of Season 9, surveyor Steve Guptill had exposed approximately 580 feet of the feature running along the eastern border of the swamp. The construction is two to three courses of stacked stone roughly six feet wide, laid atop a deliberate wood-cribbing substructure of perpendicular and parallel beams driven into the swamp floor. Archaeologists Dr. Aaron Taylor and Laird Niven identified the road as a definitive man-made construction. Heavy equipment operator Billy Gerhardt's trenching exposed the layered profile: cobblestone surface over wood cribbing, with cut stakes driven into the boggy ground to anchor the framework. The road sits at an elevation of roughly one and a half to two feet above sea level, consistent across the exposed sections measured by surveyor Steve Guptill. The route runs from the southeastern corner along the eastern border of the swamp before turning uphill into the uplands toward the interior of the island. At one point the team identified what appeared to be a fork, with one branch angling toward the Eye of the Swamp. Carbon-14 dating places the construction in the 15th to 17th century. A root growing beneath the road returned a date of 1474 to 1638 (Season 9 Episode 6), which establishes the earliest possible date for construction since the road was built on top of the living root. Wood from beneath the pathway returned 1489 to 1654 (Season 8 Episode 20). Two wooden survey stakes recovered along the road dated to 1636 to 1684 and 1719 to 1826 (Season 8 Episode 18). A wooden T-square recovered from the road's spoils dated to 1632 to 1668 (Season 8 Episode 22). Antiquities researcher Terry Deveau, former president of the New England Antiquities Research Association, inspected the feature in Season 8 Episode 17 and concluded the construction technology does not match French or British colonial roadbuilding practices documented in Nova Scotia. In his assessment, the road reflects a European stone-roadbuilding tradition from the 1500s or earlier. In Season 9 Episode 23, Portuguese archaeologist Jorge Figueiredo, who was restoring a Roman stone road in Alqueidao Da Serra, examined photographs of the Oak Island road and agreed that Portuguese builders could have built it using technology of European origin. The team's working name for the feature became the Portuguese Road. Function is indicated by the consistent recovery of ox shoes and ox shoe nails along its length, identified by metal detection expert Gary Drayton and dated to a French or Scottish origin between the 1600s and mid-1700s by blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge. The road was suited for draft animals hauling heavy cargo. Other finds recovered in and around the road include a hand-forged iron ringbolt identified by Legge as a wharf pin, multiple wooden survey stakes, a Spanish 8 maravedi coin from 1652, late 17th and early 18th century copper coins, fragments of Dutch onion bottle glass, wooden keg pieces, red earthenware pottery of possible Spanish or Portuguese origin, and a charcoal and coal assemblage. The road records organised, European-tradition construction of a working transport route across the swamp before the Money Pit was discovered in 1795. Who built it, and the exact decade of construction, remain open. **Stone Shot (Lot 16)** Date: 15th-16th century Found: Lot 16, near the swamp When: Season 9 Type: Artifact A small round stone ball spotted by metal detectorist Gary Drayton on Lot 16, near the swamp. Drayton recognised it immediately as an old gun stone, a type of projectile fired from small deck-mounted cannons.\r\n\r\nGeologist Dr. Robert Raeside analysed the composition and identified it as an olivine-bearing rock containing olivine gabbro and basalt, confirming it was volcanic in origin and could not have come from Nova Scotia. Raeside concluded the stone most likely originated from the Canary Islands or the Azores, both heavily associated with early trans-Atlantic voyages by Spanish and Portuguese navigators.\r\n\r\nA second, nearly identical gun stone was found the following year along a possible pathway between the swamp and the Money Pit, with the same volcanic composition. The Portuguese were among the first to use these types of small shipboard cannons, and the Azores were a Portuguese territory and a key staging point for Atlantic crossings. **Stone Shot (Money Pit)** Date: 15th-16th century Found: Money Pit - E-5.25 shaft spoils When: Season 8 Type: Artifact A small stone cannonball unearthed from more than 100 feet deep in the Money Pit area. Treasure hunter Michael John and surveyor Steve Guptil discovered the projectile in 2020 while searching spoils excavated from the E-5.25 shaft. Analysis confirmed the stone was volcanic in composition, matching material commonly found in the Azores islands of Portugal. The depth at which it was found, well below the surface and within the Money Pit excavation zone, suggests it was deposited long before the 1795 discovery and may have been part of the original works. The find was significant as it placed Portuguese-linked material not just on the surface of Oak Island but deep within the Money Pit itself, connecting the growing body of Portuguese evidence on the surface to whatever lies below. **Stone Shot (Peacock 1)** Date: 14th-15th century Found: Money Pit spoils from below 100 feet When: Season 13 (2026) Type: Artifact A round stone projectile recovered by Derek Couch from the Peacock-1 spoils at the wash plant. The material originated from approximately 100 feet deep in the Money Pit area. Charles Barkhouse identified it on site as a possible Portuguese stone shot, noting its resemblance to two earlier examples found on Lot 15 and in the Money Pit, both of which were traced to the Azores and Madeira Islands, former Portuguese colonies. Archaeometallurgist Emma Culligan performed a CT scan of the artifact and identified two divots consistent with wear marks or working marks. Archaeologist Laird Niven confirmed the peck marks as characteristic of stonemasonry, noting that stone shot of this type were produced primarily during the 14th and 15th centuries. Jack Begley observed that the dating aligns with the Pitblado coin, a Portuguese tornas from the reign of Ferdinand I (1367-1383) reportedly recovered from the Money Pit in 1849. The stone was subsequently cut in half and sent to Dr. Robert Raeside, a professor of geology and earth science at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. Raeside reported that the geological composition was unlike anything he had previously encountered. He confirmed his belief that this specimen, along with the two stoneshots found earlier on the island, may have originated in the Portuguese Azores. Marty Lagina stated he was 90 percent certain the artifact is a projectile dating to the 1300s or early 1400s. Historian Doug Crowell noted that the stone material could also have been sourced from Labrador, a region named after Portuguese explorer João Fernandes Lavrador and among the first areas explored by the Portuguese in North America. Alex Lagina observed that with three nearly identical spherical stones now recovered, two from deep within the Money Pit, the likelihood of a natural explanation was diminishing. **Stone Triangle** Date: Unknown Found: South shore, above high-water mark When: 1897 Type: Structure An equilateral triangle of large, round beach stones was discovered on Oak Island's south shore by Captain John Welling and Frederick Blair in 1897. Each side measured ten feet in length, with the stones roughly the size of a man's head placed on the grassy bank just above the high-water mark. A curved line of similar stones extended approximately three feet below the base, and a straight medial line of stones connected this curve to the apex, pointing true north in the direction of the Pole Star. When extended, this medial line passed directly through the location of the original Money Pit. Several observers noted the formation resembled a large sextant. Blair showed the triangle to Gilbert Hedden during the 1930s excavation, and Hedden immediately recognised its potential significance in relation to a treasure map he was studying from Harold Wilkins's book Captain Kidd and His Skeleton Island. Hedden cleared the site and found the triangle still intact. Both Blair and Hedden were Freemasons, and the equilateral triangle is a geometric form with established significance in Masonic literature and ritual. Hedden used the triangle as one of several reference points, along with two drilled rocks he located on the island, to establish measurements he believed corresponded to markers on the Kidd map. He had the positions verified by Halifax land surveyor Charles Roper. The original Stone Triangle was destroyed by Robert Dunfield during his aggressive excavation of 1965, when heavy earth-moving equipment obliterated the formation along with other surface landmarks. The triangle currently on the island is a reconstruction. A second triangular formation, known as the Mallon Triangle, was discovered in 1972 by P.J. Mallon of Northern Ireland on the south shore approximately 480 feet southeast of the Money Pit. Its sides measured ten feet by ten feet by 9.5 feet. Two additional triangle-shaped stones were located on the seabed approximately 300 feet offshore during a marine survey, aligned on a 360-degree bearing toward the shore triangle and the Money Pit. The Bedford Institute's data confirmed that sea levels were one to two metres lower 300 to 400 years ago, meaning these stones could have been exposed when placed. In Season 11, archaeoastronomer Professor Adriano Gaspani analysed the Stone Triangle's coordinates and determined that it encoded two astronomical lines corresponding to sunrise and sunset at the winter solstice. Having previously dated Nolan's Cross to 1200 AD based on stellar alignments, Gaspani concluded that between 1200 and 1300, people arriving from Europe encoded messages by arranging stones in astronomically significant patterns. He identified the Templars as the most likely builders of Nolan's Cross, the Stone Triangle, and the Lot 15 stone cairns, noting that this astronomical knowledge belonged to monastic, religious, and knightly orders rather than common people. **Stone well (Lot 11)** Date: Pre-1795 (identical construction to Lot 26 medieval well) Found: Lot 11, north side of swamp, near Anthony Graves house site When: Season 10, Ep. 17 (2023) Type: Structure An old stone well on Lot 11, north of the swamp, first discovered by Fred Nolan and his son Tom in the 1970s. At the time, the Nolans found pottery in the bottom of the well and subsequently refilled it. The well was re-excavated in Season 10 by Billy Gerhardt after the team's interest in island wells was reignited by Ian Spooner's discovery of elevated silver and medieval-dated wood in the Lot 26 well. Rick Lagina immediately noted that the Lot 11 well was of identical design and construction to the Lot 26 well - both are crudely and roughly built stone-lined wells, a construction style that Ian Spooner had noted was consistent with significant age and contrasted with the more refined stonework typical of 18th- and 19th-century Nova Scotian construction. Excavation of the well spoils produced several notable finds, including a wrought iron cargo hook dated by blacksmith expert Carmen Legge to 1650-1690. Tom Nolan recalled the pottery his father had found in the well decades earlier, adding to the evidence of pre-discovery activity in this area. The well's location near the former house site of Anthony Graves is notable. Graves was a 19th-century Oak Island landowner who, according to local legend, would row to Chester and pay for goods using gold and silver Spanish coins - leading some researchers to speculate that Graves may have discovered treasure on his property. The proximity of this well to the Graves house, combined with the 17th-century cargo hook found in its spoils, deepens the mystery of what activity was taking place on this part of the island before the Money Pit discovery. No direct C14 dating has been performed on the well structure itself. The date confidence is set to low because, while the identical construction to the Lot 26 well (~1220 AD) and the 17th-century artifacts found within it suggest pre-1795 origins, no lab dating has been applied to the structure. Further analysis of the pottery and wood from the well could help establish a firmer date range. **Stone Well (Lot 5)** Date: Pre-1795 Found: Lot 5 When: Season 13 Type: Structure A stone-lined circular well on Lot 5, located a few yards from the large round feature and close to the ocean. The well was covered with plywood by the lot's former owner, the late Robert Young, who classified it as a 20th century structure. The team acquired Lot 5 from Young''s estate in 2022, and for several seasons the well went largely uninvestigated. In Season 13, Marty Lagina and metal detection expert Gary Drayton removed the plywood cover and descended into the well for the first time. They found it considerably deeper than expected, with several feet of compressed leaves below the apparent floor and the ground still giving way underfoot, indicating they were nowhere near the bottom. Gary detected no metals at the accessible depth but noted the well had never been searched before and that non-metallic artifacts such as pottery or glass could be buried deeper. Near the well, the pair recovered an iron hook that lab analyst Emma Culligan dated to the mid-1700s based on XRF analysis showing clean iron with elevated chromium and copper content and no modern alloying elements, suggesting a continental European origin. Archaeologist Laird Niven observed that the well is circled with rocks in a manner very similar to the nearby round feature. Marty noted that digging a water well so close to the ocean made little practical sense, raising the possibility that the structure served a different purpose. Robert Young's assessment of the well as modern appears inconsistent with the findings and with the mid-1700s hook recovered from inside it. The team plans to return with archaeologists for a full investigation. **Stone well (never freezes)** Date: 12th century Found: Lot 26, south side of Oak Island When: Season 10, Ep. 11 (2023) Type: Structure A crudely built stone well on Lot 26, on the south side of Oak Island, first noticed by Rick Lagina during a winter walk years before its investigation. Despite snow and ice covering the ground, the well remained unfrozen, a peculiarity that prompted further study. In Season 10, geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner investigated the well by extracting water samples and a piece of wood from the bottom that he believed had been used in its construction. The wood was carbon dated to between 1028 and 1172, placing it squarely within the medieval period alongside the coconut fibre deposits from the Money Pit (1036 to 1374) and the Smith''s Cove timber structures (720 to 1245). The water sample returned with elevated silver content, making the Lot 26 well one of the few locations outside the Money Pit area where silver has been detected. Spooner noted that the well's crude and rough construction style was itself consistent with significant age, contrasting with the more refined stonework typical of 18th and 19th century Nova Scotian construction. The well''s location on the south side of the island, far from the Money Pit and Smith''s Cove, suggests that activity during the medieval period was not confined to the northeastern corner of the island. Combined with the elevated silver readings, the well raises the possibility of a broader operational footprint by whoever was working on Oak Island in the 11th and 12th centuries. Subsequent episodes saw archaeologist Laird Niven and his team expand their investigation to include a nearby stone wall on Lot 26 with a massive oak tree growing out of it. The reasoning was that the wall must pre-date the tree, so dating the tree would provide a minimum age for the wall. An expert consulted by the team suggested that if someone wanted to hide evidence of underground digging, the middle of a wall would be an ideal concealment location. In Season 13, the well's dating gained renewed weight when the team visited Grota do Medo on Terceira in the Azores and found a cup-shaped cut-stone feature that Dr. Felix Rodrigues dates to the 12th century, the same window as the Lot 26 well, and roughly three centuries before the Portuguese officially settled the Azores in 1439. **Submerged coin, undated, possibly Chinese (shoreline)** Date: Unknown Found: Off northern coast (underwater) When: Season 11 (2023) Type: Coin A metallic object identified as a possible coin was discovered by diver Tony Sampson while exploring the waters just north of Oak Island during Season 11. Sampson, joined by Alex Lagina, Jack Begley, and underwater imaging expert Ken Deboer with an ROV, was searching for evidence of the artificial wall Fred Nolan believed existed near the swamp. During the dive, Tony metal detected the seabed and discovered pieces of worked timber, pottery with blue markings, and a clay pipe stem near a large boulder. His metal detector then picked up what he believed could be a coin near the same boulder, but provincial government regulations prevented its extraction at the time. Nova Scotia heritage law requires permits for the removal of potential archaeological artefacts from underwater sites, and the team was unable to recover the object during the initial dive. The find was noted for future investigation pending the necessary government authorisation. The initial description suggested the object might be of Chinese origin, though this identification is speculative without physical examination. A separate Chinese cash coin was previously found on Lot 15 by Gary Drayton and identified by numismatist Sandy Campbell as potentially dating from 400 BC to 900 AD. If the submerged object is confirmed as a coin and recovered under permit, its location in the waters north of the island could provide evidence of maritime activity or a vessel that either visited or was deliberately scuttled near the shore. **Swivel Gun Metal** Date: Pre-16th century (material composition) Found: Lot 4 When: Season 9 (2021) Type: Artifact A fragment of metal unearthed by Gary Drayton on Lot 4, in an area marked on Zena Halpern's map as "The Hole under the Hatch." Dr. Christa Brosseau of Saint Mary's University in Halifax analysed the piece and identified it as bell metal, a copper alloy historically used in the manufacture of cannons and bells. Brosseau noted that the composition was consistent with cannon material, possibly of Portuguese origin. The find was later referenced in Season 10 when a similar piece of bell metal was discovered on Lot 8. The artifact adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting Portuguese activity on Oak Island, alongside volcanic stone shot traced to the Azores, a stone road with Portuguese construction characteristics, and a hand cannon fragment found in the western swamp. **TD pipe stem (Thomas Dormer)** Date: Mid-1700s (Thomas Dormer, English pipemaker, London) Found: Lot 5, north annex to the stone foundation When: Season 12, Episode 7 (January 7, 2024) Type: Artifact A clay pipe stem bearing the maker's mark TD was recovered on Lot 5 by archaeologist Helen Sheldon during Season 12 filming. Sheldon was working with Moya MacDonald and Jillian Parsons in an area Laird Niven called an annex to the main foundation, where the team had been exposing the north wall of the stone structure after removing large stones the previous year. The TD stamp identifies the pipe as the work of Thomas Dormer, an English pipemaker based in London who was active during the mid-1700s. Thomas Dormer's pipes circulated widely in the North Atlantic trade and have been recovered at colonial-era sites along the eastern seaboard of North America. Helen Sheldon made the attribution on screen. The find places verified English colonial-era material on Lot 5, in proximity to the foundation that the team had been investigating since Season 10 alongside ancient tools and a Roman half coin recovered earlier in the season. By the close of Season 12, archaeologist Laird Niven reported that eight pre-1760 items had been recovered from Lot 5, confirming activity on the site earlier than previously documented. The Dormer pipe stem sits in the mid-1700s end of that range, providing one of the more closely datable artifacts from the lot. **Toe tap (leather and copper)** Date: Pre-modern Found: Lot 4 When: Season 10 Type: Artifact Piece of leather with copper alloy and three nail holes, identified as a toe tap, recovered by Rick Lagina and Gary Drayton on Lot 4. A toe tap is a small metal plate attached to the sole of a shoe or boot to reduce wear. **Tory Martin Stone** Date: Unknown Found: near the Money Pit Type: Carved_stone An inscribed stone discovered by gyroscope operator Tory Martin while assembling his equipment near the Money Pit during Season 6. Martin noticed the stone lying in the woods by the old well, and when Rick Lagina, Craig Tester, and Dan Henskee examined it they found a flat surface too straight to be natural, with raised ridges and linear carvings resembling Roman numerals.Geologist Terry Matheson identified the rock as metamorphosed graywacke and concluded it appeared to have been worked and possibly decorated. The team arranged for Rob Hyslop and Ryan Levangie of Azimuth Consulting Limited to laser-scan the stone using a Trimble CX scanner, with talcum powder applied to increase surface reflectivity. The preliminary three-dimensional model revealed undulations and markings requiring further digital enhancement.The following week, Hyslop and Levangie presented the completed 3D scan in the War Room. The analysis confirmed a perfectly flat surface too straight to be natural and a series of markings with regular linear spacing perpendicular to the flat face. Doug Crowell identified the characters as possibly futhark, a runic language used by Germanic tribes and in Scandinavia dating back to the first century A.D. Alex Lagina and Paul Troutman subsequently traveled to the Yarmouth County Museum to examine the Yarmouth Runic Stone, discovered in 1812, whose most widely accepted translation reads "Leif to Erik," suggesting a Viking connection to Nova Scotia and a possible context for runic writing found on Oak Island. **Trapezoid-Shaped Wood Piece** Date: 1683-1735 (radiocarbon) Found: Triangle Swamp excavation When: 2022 Type: Artifact A deliberately shaped trapezoid piece of wood recovered from the Oak Island swamp during excavation by Gary Drayton and Billy Gerhardt in Season 9. It was found alongside several other worked wood pieces, including planks that may have been oars, a large wooden pin identified as a probable fid (a tool used to splice rope on sailing ships), and assorted lumber. Marine archaeologist Dr. Lee Spence examined the finds in the War Room and confirmed that most of the recovered wood pieces could easily be nautical in origin. While the fid was specifically identified as likely coming from a large sailing vessel, the trapezoid piece resisted definitive identification. Spence could only describe it as a shaped wooden object of unknown specific function. One possibility raised is that it may be part of a forward seat from a small rowing vessel. Radiocarbon dating placed the trapezoid piece between 1683 and 1735 - firmly in the pre-discovery colonial period and consistent with a growing body of evidence pointing to significant activity on Oak Island decades before the Money Pit was found in 1795. A second unidentified wood piece recovered from the swamp around the same time returned a nearly identical date range of 1680 to 1740, reinforcing the pattern. The dating aligns with Dr. Ian Spooner's analysis of the Eye of the Swamp, which indicated the swamp itself was disturbed by human activity between 1674 and 1700. The convergence of these dates across multiple independent finds strengthens the case for organized operations in the swamp during the late 17th to early 18th century. **Treasure chest hinge** Date: Pre-1800 Found: Oak Island When: Season 4, Ep. 15 Type: Artifact A small handwrought iron hinge recovered from the spoils of borehole 8-A at a depth of approximately 114 feet during Season 7. Jack Begley and Steve Guptill found the hinge at the wash table while processing material brought up by the hammergrab during the excavation of the eight-foot-wide caisson. Archaeologist Laird Niven examined the piece and identified it as non-mining-related, concluding it was possibly from a chest.Borehole 8-A targeted the Shaft Six tunnel, which according to archival records connected directly to the original Money Pit. At roughly 103 feet, oscillator pressure had risen to 2,500 pounds per square inch, suggesting the caisson was cutting through a structure, and loads of hand-hewn, axe-cut wood soon followed. At approximately 114 feet, a massive oak timber emerged, consistent with the oak-log platforms described during the original 1804 excavation. The hinge was found alongside fragments of leather resembling the bookbinding material recovered two years earlier from borehole H8, and a pointed metal object of unknown purpose.Despite these finds, the shaft produced only water and clastic sediments below 140 feet, and the team terminated 8-A without locating the full collapse zone or treasure. In the season review, Craig Tester noted that the excavation had confirmed evidence of a collapse zone and the Shaft Six tunnel itself, and Rick Lagina concluded they had been close to but not within the Money Pit's core. The hinge was one of several similar artifacts recovered across the island over multiple seasons; comparable chest-type hinges were found on the Samuel Ball property on Lot 25, at the Lot 12 dump site, and at the rounded stone feature on Lot 5. **Two copper coins, undated (Lot 5 round feature)** Date: Unknown Found: Lot 4 (spoils from Lot 5 round feature) When: Season 12, Episode 3 (2024) Type: Coin Two copper coins found in succession by Gary Drayton and Peter Fornetti while searching spoils removed from the circular stone feature on Lot 5 during Season 12. Gary picked up a hit and Peter dug out the first copper coin, followed shortly by a second signal that produced a second copper coin.No expert analysis, cleaning, or identification was documented for these coins in the episode. The coins were found in the same spoils pile that had produced a cut silver coin the previous episode and would continue to yield buttons, lead artifacts, and other finds throughout the season. The round feature on Lot 5 has been one of the most artifact-rich excavation sites on the island. **U-shaped wooden structure** Date: Dendro: 1769 (trees felled) Found: Smith's Cove, tidal zone When: 1970s; fully excavated Season 6 (2018-19) Type: Structure The U-shaped wooden structure is a large formation of logs in the tidal zone at Smith's Cove, first discovered by Dan Blankenship in 1970-1971 and fully excavated by the Lagina team during Season 6. It measures approximately sixty-five feet across its leading edge. The logs bear Roman numeral marriage marks, including the numerals III, IV, VII, XI, and XII carved into the uprights. The beams are joined with hand-cut wooden pegs rather than metal fasteners, and Blankenship told Rick Lagina the timbers exceeded twenty-four inches in diameter. Archaeologist Laird Niven confirmed he had never encountered anything like it in Nova Scotia. Dendrochronologist Dr. Colin Laroque analysed wood from the structure and determined the trees were felled in 1769, predating the discovery of the Money Pit by twenty-six years. When Dan Blankenship was informed of the result, he expressed surprise, noting he had never determined whether the Smith's Cove structures were built before or after 1795. The dendrochronology date provides the first scientific confirmation that significant construction at the cove took place well before anyone is known to have searched for treasure on the island. An earlier radiocarbon test on an oak peg removed from this structure during Blankenship's 1969 excavation returned a medieval result (Geochron GX-1692, approximately 860 AD with a range of 720 to 1000 AD). The C-14 date measures the formation age of the wood itself rather than the year of construction, and is consistent with Laroque's 1769 felling date if the trees used were already several hundred years old when cut. The oak peg sample is catalogued separately under its own Geochron lab number. Geologist Terry Matheson noted that blue clay packed against the exterior of the structure matched the clay-rich till found above fifty feet in the Money Pit, suggesting both sites may share the same builders. The structure's purpose has been debated since its discovery. Proposed interpretations include a slipway for launching or receiving vessels, the base of a crane or wharf used to handle heavy cargo, and a cofferdam built to allow construction work below the tide line. Blankenship's first attempt to fully expose it in the 1970s ended when violent storms destroyed his earth-filled cofferdam. The Lagina team's steel cofferdam, stretching 525 feet and using interlocking steel sheets driven twenty-five feet into the seabed, allowed the first complete excavation of the feature. Inside the structure, Niven uncovered a previously unknown wooden wall of thick offset timbers built for strength, along with stacked rocks and blue clay consistent with a French drain system. **Unknown tunnel (east-west)** Date: Unknown Found: Money Pit area, ~103 ft depth When: Season 10 (2022) Type: Structure A previously unknown tunnel running east to west was detected across three separate boreholes in the Money Pit area during Season 10. The tunnel was first encountered at a depth of 103 feet in borehole K15.5, where core samples revealed wood including part of a beam sitting in undisturbed material. Borehole M16.25, drilled eleven feet to the south, confirmed a four-foot opening at the same depth. An underwater camera lowered into the casing revealed timbers with what appeared to be a dowel in the end of one, a type of fastener predating the discovery of the Money Pit. Sonar run the following day mapped a rectangular thirty-five-foot structure with evenly spaced beams that bent and appeared collapsed on one side, trending south-southeast before turning northwest toward the Garden Shaft. Over the following weeks, the team intercepted the tunnel at five separate locations using boreholes positioned progressively closer to the Garden Shaft. Carbon dating of wood from borehole K15.5 returned a 48.1 percent probability of 1731-1806 and a 35.5 percent probability of 1640-1687. The tunnel was not associated with any recorded search team operation. Its east-west orientation differed from the north-south axis of most known flood tunnels and searcher shafts, and video footage confirmed hand-cut timbers with construction methods predating the nineteenth century. Water samples collected from boreholes in the tunnel zone by Dr. Ian Spooner and hydrogeologist Dr. Fred Michel revealed elevated levels of gold and silver that Michel was unable to attribute to any natural source. The area where the tunnel produced the highest metal readings was narrowed by Steve Guptill to a twenty-by-twenty-foot zone that Marty Lagina named the Baby Blob. Subsequent drilling within this zone also detected anomalous levels of copper, zinc, and tin, metals consistent with brass and bronze alloys. Dr. Spooner described these readings as highly anomalous for the local geology. The tunnel became the primary focus of the Season 10 drilling programme and led directly to the decision to restore and deepen the Garden Shaft, which Dumas Contracting began rebuilding with platforms at eight-foot intervals to a target depth of eighty feet. **Unusual coin or token with webbing design, undated (Money Pit)** Date: Unknown Found: Near Money Pit area When: Season 6, Episode 12 (2019) Type: Coin An unusual coin or token with a webbing-like design unlike anything the team had previously encountered, discovered by Gary Drayton near the Money Pit area during Season 6. Rick Lagina and Dan Henskee were also searching the area at the time, looking for additional fragments of an inscribed stone found nearby. The coin's denomination, origin, and date have not been determined. No expert analysis or follow-up identification was documented in the episode descriptions. The webbing pattern does not match known European, Spanish, or British coin designs from the colonial period. **Venetian glass beads (multiple)** Date: 15th-16th century Found: Lot 5 When: Seasons 11-13 (2024-2026) Type: Artifact Six Venetian glass beads have been recovered from the Lot 5 round stone foundation across three seasons of excavation. The first was unearthed by Jamie in Season 11 Episode 10 (January 2024), found alongside seventeenth-century salt-glazed stoneware. A second matching bead was recovered two weeks later by Moya MacDonald in Season 11 Episode 12. In Season 11 Episode 13, Halifax glass-bead specialist Phillip Doucette examined both beads and confirmed they were manufactured in Venice using the drawn-bead method, with early colour formulations placing them between 1500 and 1650. He noted that five or six such beads found together typically indicate a string used for trade or barter rather than personal decoration. In Season 12 Episode 8, a third bead, identified as a seed bead by Laird Niven, was matched by Emma Culligan's XRF analysis to the earlier Venetian beads in both composition and colouring. The copper-based colorant, rather than selenium or gold, placed the date at the early 1700s or earlier. In Season 12 Episode 20, Moya recovered a fourth Venetian trade bead. In Season 12 Episode 21, Fiona Steele uncovered a green glass bead with visible striations, identified by Laird Niven as a wound bead made by winding molten glass around a metal rod, a technique potentially dating to the 1400s and predating the drawn beads. In Season 13 Episode 3, Tansy Rudnicki uncovered a blue glass bead; Emma's XRF showed a compositional average matching the earlier Venetian beads, with Laird identifying it as a seed bead introduced in the second half of the 1600s. A sixth bead was recovered in Season 13 Episode 7 from the round stone foundation. In Season 13 Episode 12, local historian and author Joan Dawson confirmed at Fort Point in LaHave that the Venetian beads found on Lot 5 are the same type Isaac de Razilly, the Knight of Malta who established the French colony of Acadia in 1632, would have used for fur trading with the Mi'kmaq. De Razilly's headquarters at Fort Point lay fifteen miles south of Oak Island, and journals from his expedition describe an island filled with oaks. **Wharf pin (large iron)** Date: Colonial era Found: Swamp, northern region near cobblestone pathway When: Season 12 Type: Artifact Large metal pin recovered by Jack Begley from the northern swamp near the cobblestone pathway and survey stakes. The team identified it as a possible wharf pin, consistent with other maritime hardware found in the swamp including rock stakes, marlinespikes, and ship components. **Wharf pin nail (1700s)** Date: 1700s Found: Lot 5 When: Season 12, Episode 19 (2025) Type: Artifact Nail thought to be a wharf pin from the 1700s, found on Lot 5. Supports evidence of maritime activity connected to the island. **Wharf-Pin Ringbolt (Eastern Uplands)** Date: 1600s-1760 (forging style, Carmen Legge) Found: Eastern Uplands, near the eastern edge of the swamp When: 2020 (Season 8); dated by Carmen Legge to 1600s-1760 Type: Artifact A large hand-forged iron ringbolt recovered from the eastern Uplands near the swamp's edge during Season 8. Metal detection expert Gary Drayton and heavy equipment operator Billy Gerhardt made the find while investigating the stone pathway uncovered in the swamp. Jack Begley, Tom Nolan, and Charles Barkhouse brought the piece to blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge at Northville Farm in Centreville, roughly fifty 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, and dated the forging style to between the 1600s and 1760, well before the Money Pit's discovery in 1795. The ringbolt's splayed end confirmed it had been driven into a structure rather than dropped, and its recovery atop the stone pathway carried significance for the road's age. Researcher Doug Crowell reasoned that if the ringbolt dated no later than 1760 and was already buried beneath accumulated soil, the stone road beneath it had to be considerably older, potentially by two centuries. Near the same site, Billy Gerhardt and geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner examined a piece of slate with a circular indent that did not appear natural, and Gerhardt found cobblestones in a test hole confirming the road extends along the eastern swamp border before turning uphill toward the Money Pit. Earlier the same season, Doug Crowell, surveyor Steve Guptill, Rick Lagina, and Gary Drayton had searched Lot 15 for ringbolts Fred Nolan reportedly found there in 1969, without success, recovering a potbelly stove fragment instead. **William III sixpence, 1697-1701 (Lot 18)** Date: 1697-1701 Found: Dunfield spoils from the Money Pit When: Season 13 Episode 25 (finale) Type: Coin A heavily worn silver sixpence recovered by Katya Drayton from Dunfield / Money Pit spoils on Lot 18, where 1965 treasure hunter Robert Dunfield's 100-foot crater was abandoned at 143 feet when seawater overwhelmed the operation and the displaced fill was never sifted at the time. Searching alongside Katya were surveyor Steve Guptill and heavy equipment operator Billy Gerhardt, who turned over a fresh pile shortly before the find. The edges of the coin showed no visible milling, a feature initially read in the field as evidence of seventeenth-century or earlier hammered coinage. At the laboratory, Emma Culligan returned an XRF reading of roughly 87 percent silver, slightly below the 92.5 percent sterling standard, a result consistent with prolonged surface wear on a long-buried specimen. CT imaging brought out the bust on the obverse and the partial legend MVS, the closing letters of GVLIELMVS, the Latin form of William used on William III obverse inscriptions. Overlaid against a reference example, the coin matched a William III sixpence struck between 1697 and 1701, part of the milled silver issued under the Great Recoinage of 1696. The recoinage program, overseen by Sir Isaac Newton in his role as Master of the Mint, replaced the country's clipped and forged hammered silver with machine-struck coins protected by grained or inscribed edges. On the Oak Island specimen the original grained edge has been worn smooth, which accounts for the initial field reading of an unmilled coin. The sixpence belongs to a small group of seventeenth and early eighteenth century British coins recovered on Oak Island. The team described the piece as an object likely carried by someone of means, leaving open whether it was lost by an early searcher or by an original depositor. Tied to the Money Pit deposit itself, the date would push that deposit no earlier than 1697, half a century before the British founding of Halifax in 1749. The Season 5 episode S05E03 (Obstruction) recorded the first William III coin from Money Pit spoils: a 1694 copper recovered by Katya's father Gary Drayton from Dunfield / Money Pit spoils on Lot 16, alongside a 1673 Charles II piece. The cast read the 1694 date on camera but could not identify the monarch from the worn obverse. Because Charles II had died in 1685, the 1694 date placed that coin in the reign of William III. See the 1673 Charles II and 1694 William III Britannia coins entry for the Season 5 finds. **Wood from 2A shaft** Date: Unknown Found: Bottom of Shaft 2A When: Season 12, Episode 1 Type: Artifact Wood recovered from the bottom of Shaft 2A, a previously undocumented searcher shaft uncovered during the Season 12 premiere when Billy Gerhardt's excavator exposed it 17 feet from the expected location of the 1805 Onslow Company Shaft 2. Construction closely resembled Shaft 2, with a wall measurement of 116 inches, but the shaft had been deliberately packed with fill in a manner Marty Lagina read as concealment. Darker boards emerging at the bottom suggested wood that might predate the 1805 build, raising the possibility that 2A reused timber from an earlier phase of activity. The samples took on new significance in the Season 13 finale, when Dr. Ian Spooner presented results from a wood-as-filter testing program proposed by Dr. Fred Michel. The methodology rests on the principle that submerged wood acts as a passive concentrator of dissolved metals, drawing precious metals from groundwater and accumulating them within its fibers at measurable levels. Of the fifteen samples processed across the Money Pit shafts, the Shaft 2A wood returned the highest silver reading and the third-highest gold reading recorded anywhere on the island. The team reads the result as evidence that Shaft 2A sits close to a substantial concentration of precious metal, consistent with its location near the original Money Pit and within the same broader zone that has produced the season's strongest silver signals from soil sampling and groundwater analysis. The samples are held for carbon-14 and dendrochronological dating to test whether the lower boards predate the Onslow construction, which would lend support to the working theory that Shaft 2A was deliberately concealed by an earlier party operating on the island. **Wood slat and wooden stake (Triton Alliance, 1981)** Date: C14: slat ~280 AD (210-350); stake ~250 AD (170-250) Found: Unknown - possibly Nolan's property When: Pre-1981 (submitted March 1981) Type: Material Two wood samples submitted to the Brock University Geological Sciences Radiocarbon Lab by Triton Alliance Ltd. for the Oak Island Project, analysed in March 1981 by technician Howard Melville. These returned remarkably ancient dates: • Wood slat #1 (BGS-677): 1670 ±70 years before present → approximately 280 AD (range 210-350 AD) Analysed 4 March 1981. Benzene produced: 4.2162g. Counting time: 3000 minutes. Disintegrations: 102,750. • Wooden stake #2 (BGS-678): 1700 ±80 years before present → approximately 250 AD (range 170-250 AD) Analysed 6 March 1981. Benzene produced: 4.0357g. Counting time: 3000 minutes. Disintegrations: 98,960. Both samples received full pretreatment: removal of foreign material, removal of humic acid, distilled water wash, and acid leach. Unused portions were dried and stored. Howard Melville's cover letter to David C. Tobias of Triton Alliance (23 March 1981) noted: "The age reported for carbon dating represents the age for that portion of the tree from which your sample came. I have dried your samples and put them into storage. If you wish them returned, please notify me and I will gladly do so." The Les MacPhie summary table notes these samples had "no details on location" with a query mark next to "Nolan?" suggesting they may have been recovered from Fred Nolan's property. If these dates are accurate and the samples represent worked wood (the designation "slat" and "stake" implies deliberate shaping), they would represent some of the oldest evidence of human woodworking activity on or near Oak Island, contemporary with the late Roman Empire. However, significant caveats apply: (1) the provenance is uncertain; (2) the "old wood effect" means the trees could have been much older than when they were worked; (3) no information exists about whether these were clearly tool-worked specimens or naturally shaped wood. The confidence level is set to medium due to these uncertainties. **Wood, clay, charcoal (various boreholes)** Date: C14 range: 1490-1970 AD (multiple samples); one glacial deposit ~25,000 BP Found: Various boreholes When: 1960s-70s Type: Material Multiple wood samples recovered from deep boreholes and shafts across the Money Pit area, carbon dated between 1969 and 1996 by three separate laboratories. These represent the first systematic attempt to date subsurface structures at Oak Island. THE FIRST OAK ISLAND C14 TEST (1969) The very first carbon dating of Oak Island material was initiated by Michael J. Needham of T'ang Management Inc., Toronto. On 25 April 1969, Needham wrote to Harold Kruger at Geochron Laboratories, Cambridge, Massachusetts, enclosing three wood samples and requesting dating within a tolerance of ±10 years. He stressed urgency as the results would influence an upcoming drilling program commencing the week of 12 May 1969. Of the three samples, only one (Sample A, GX-1584) was large enough to date. Samples B (GX-1585) and C (GX-1586) were marked "TOO SMALL TO BE DATED." Kruger reported the results on 3 June 1969.  • Becker Hole 24, 193 ft depth - Wood chips reported by David Tobias, recovered 29 May 1967: Geochron GX-1584: 375 ±85 C-14 years BP → A.D. 1575 (range 1490-1660) Kruger noted: "Taking into consideration the analytical error associated with the age determination there is a possibility that the wood is very early colonial in age, although it is equally possible that it is just slightly pre-colonial and was emplaced by natural processes. Certainly the wood bears no relationship to glacial deposits since most of these have ages of almost 10,000 years or older." Donald C. Webster forwarded these results to Dan Blankenship on 10 June 1969, noting: "I think the carbon dating is quite interesting as it substantiates that the wood is from the date which we have predicted" - a reference to the time period associated with the publication "Adventures of the Sea." GEOCHRON SECOND BATCH (1969) Michael J. McCabe of Helix Investments Ltd. sent two additional wood samples to Geochron on 30 October 1969. Kruger reported on 19 December 1969: • Oak peg from timber structure, Dan Blankenship, Oct 1969: Geochron GX-1692: 1090 ±140 BP → A.D. 860 (range 720-1000) Identified as "wood, probably cedar." Comment: "The wood may of course have had a significant age before fabrication." • Inclined beam from timber structure, Dan Blankenship, Oct 1969: Geochron GX-1691: 815 ±110 BP → A.D. 1135 (range 1025-1245) Identified as "wood, probably pine." Comment: "The wood may of course have had a substantial age prior to fabrication." Kruger cautioned McCabe: "As you will see both of these samples give ages in the vicinity of 1000 years... the fragments of wood may have come, in each case, from rather large trees. This means, of course, that they may have had a rather substantial age at the time of fabrication. The radiocarbon age determination does not necessarily date the age of fabrication but rather the time at which each particular tree was formed." TERASMAE / BROCK UNIVERSITY (1970) Dr. Jan Terasmae of Brock University dated six samples from the Oak Island Exploration project (number 69126), reported 23 October 1970: • Wood (chips) from BH 202, 125 ft: BGS-16A - approximately 25,000 years BP (estimate only). This is glacial deposit material, not human-worked. Terasmae noted the sample could have originated from non-glacial beds of mid-Wisconsinan age incorporated into glacial deposits of late-Wisconsinan age. In the case of sample BGS-16A, only an estimate of age is given because the sample was smaller than the minimum weight required for meaningful reliability. • Wood from BH 103 (Heddon Shaft), 144 ft: BGS-16B - 174 ±85 BP → ~1776 AD (range 1691-1861) • Wood "Off shore": BGS-16C - 305 ±115 BP → ~1645 AD (range 1530-1760) • Wood (chips) from BH 9 (Chappell Shaft), 198-206 ft: BGS-24 - 104 ±124 BP → ~1846 AD (range 1722-1970) Terasmae noted: "In the case of sample B.G.S. 24 there is a suggestion of contamination by modern wood material (presence of small round twigs) during the drilling operation."  • Wood "Upright" from 1-T: BGS-25A - 380 ±150 BP → ~1570 AD (range 1420-1720) • Wood "Peg" from 2-T: BGS-25B - 274 ±159 BP → ~1676 AD (range 1517-1835) Terasmae summarized: "It would appear that most of the submitted material has an average age of 250 or 260 years." He cautioned that some variance was caused by uncertainty about whether wood samples came from the inside or outside of logs, and that radiocarbon dates should be refined through comparison with dendrochronology. WHOI / NOSAMS AMS (1995-96) • Wood from borehole 10X, 165 ft, provided by Dan Blankenship (probably from 1971): WHOI receipt 10165 / OI-W6: 120 ±35 BP → ~1830 AD (range 1795-1865) • Wood from borehole 10X(?), provided by Dan Blankenship (probably from 1971): WHOI receipt 10166 / OI-W7: 75 ±30 BP → ~1875 AD (range 1845-1905) The WHOI draft report (April 1996) noted that the provenance of both wood samples was unclear - whether they came from a log, worked wood, or inner/outer portions of the wood. Both dated to modern times, approximately 100 years old, and were considered of limited interpretive value. BROCK UNIVERSITY / MELVILLE (1981) Howard Melville at Brock University dated two samples for Triton Alliance Ltd.: • Wood slat #1: BGS-677 - 1670 ±70 BP → ~280 AD (range 210-350) Analysed 4 March 1981. Full pretreatment applied. • Wooden stake #2: BGS-678 - 1700 ±80 BP → ~250 AD (range 170-250) Analysed 6 March 1981. Full pretreatment applied. The summary table notes these had "no details on location" with a query mark suggesting they may be from the Nolan property. If accurate, these dates (~250-280 AD) would represent some of the oldest worked-wood dates from Oak Island. **Wooden cargo barrel fragments** Date: Dated as early as 15th century Found: Swamp, near stone wharf When: Season 8+ Type: Artifact Fragments of wooden barrel staves recovered from the southeast corner and southern edge of the triangle-shaped swamp across several seasons. The staves were identified as remnants of cargo barrels of the type used to store and transport provisions, gunpowder, and goods aboard sailing vessels from the medieval period onward. Barrel construction remained largely unchanged for centuries: coopers assembled curved staves around a hollow core, binding them with iron hoops.During Season 9, the team found ancient cargo barrels and possible ship components in the southeast corner of the swamp near the stone road. In the same season, numerous pieces resembling parts of a ship and barrel staves were recovered from the swamp's southern edge. A piece of shaped wood found within thirty feet of the ship's railing (carbon-dated to 660 to 770 CE) returned a date of 224 to 376 AD, though the barrel fragments themselves were not individually dated. During Season 11, Billy Gerhardt uncovered a barrel stave near the southern border while excavating a wooden structure with dowel construction and no metal fasteners, and the team sent it for carbon-14 testing.The barrel fragments formed part of a broader pattern of nautical artifacts recovered from the swamp, including the ship's railing, ship spikes, marlinespikes, and shaped hull timbers. Their distribution across the swamp, concentrated at the southern edge and near the stone road, was consistent with the theory that a large vessel had been brought into the inlet before the swamp was created, and that its cargo had been offloaded onto the paved area for transport inland along the stone road and pathway. **Wooden keg barrel pieces** Date: Colonial era Found: Swamp, northern region near cobblestone pathway When: Season 13 Type: Artifact Two pieces of wooden keg barrel, one a top and the other a bottom, recovered by Gary Drayton from deep in the bog in the northern region of the swamp near sections of cobblestone pathway. Gary noted that the French, English, and Spanish historically used kegs to transport and store treasure coins, and suggested that lab analyst Emma Culligan may be able to determine through XRD testing what the keg once contained. **Wooden Ship's Plank** Date: 1680-1735 Found: Swamp, back pond near northern tip When: Season 4 (2016); first observed Season 1 Type: Artifact An eighteen-foot wooden plank recovered from the triangle-shaped swamp by professional diver Tony Sampson during Season 4 in 2016. The plank had first been observed during Season 1 swamp work but was not physically retrieved or sampled for dating until Sampson relocated it in the back pond. The retrieval followed Matt Savelle's EM-61 MK IIA metal detection survey of the swamp for Canadian Seabed Research, which identified targets at the northern tip near the back pond and along the southwestern border. Beta Analytic ran carbon-14 testing and returned a build date of 1680 to 1735 at 90 percent probability, placing the timber more than half a century before the Money Pit's 1795 discovery. The plank's thinness led the team to conclude it was deck planking rather than side planking from a masted ship. The find did not stand alone. Gary Drayton recovered a heavy iron spike from the north end of the swamp during the same season, which Dr. Lori Verderame identified as a barrote, a wrought iron deck nail of the type used to fasten planks to the deck beams of Spanish galleons, and dated to earlier than 1652. Fred Nolan had previously pulled scuppers from the swamp during his 1969 drainage work, and the Spanish maravedi coin recovered from the swamp at the end of Season 1 fell within the same broader period. Oak stumps from Mercy Point at the swamp's edge had earlier carbon-dated to 1450-1640, indicating the swamp had once been dry land. Together, the plank, the barrote, the scuppers, the maravedi, and the dated oak stumps supported Fred Nolan's long-held theory that a Spanish-built vessel had been deliberately scuttled in what is now the swamp, with the area subsequently transformed into a freshwater bog to conceal the ship. The Beta Analytic date range for the plank aligns with later finds from the same swamp area, including a trapezoid-shaped wood piece recovered in Season 9 that radiocarbon-dated to 1683-1735, and a second unidentified swamp wood piece dated to 1680-1740. Together these finds reinforced the pattern of late 17th and early 18th century activity in the swamp before the Money Pit was discovered in 1795. **Wooden ship's railing** Date: Carbon dated: 660-770 AD Found: Southern border of swamp When: Season 8 (2020-21) Type: Artifact A piece of shaped wood recovered from approximately ten feet below sea level at the southern border of the triangle-shaped swamp during Season 8. Billy Gerhardt pulled the timber during a cross-sectional trench excavation designed to model the ancient landscape beneath the swamp. The wood was polished smooth on one surface and curved in a manner consistent with a ship's railing or gunwale, and it was found in alignment with the 200-foot galleon-shaped anomaly that seismic scanning had detected in 2018.Carbon-14 testing dated the railing to 660 to 770 CE, making it one of the oldest artifacts ever recovered on Oak Island and placing it firmly in the early medieval period, centuries before either the Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland (circa 1021 AD) or the Money Pit's discovery in 1795. Craig Tester noted the result was tested more than once to verify the date. The find was ranked ninth in the Fellowship's Top 10 Finds special that aired in October 2021.Additional ship components were subsequently recovered from the same area across several seasons. During Season 9, a piece of shaped wood found within thirty feet of the railing returned a carbon-14 date of 224 to 376 AD, and Season 11 produced a runner-like timber that Billy Gerhardt suggested could be from the bottom of a hull, used to protect a vessel as it slid over rocks near shore. The accumulation of nautical timbers at the swamp's southern edge supported Fred Nolan's long-held theory that a large sailing vessel was deliberately sunk in what was then a sea inlet and later concealed when the swamp was artificially created. **Wooden Stakes** Found: The Swamp Type: Artifact Wooden survey stakes have been recovered from multiple locations across the Oak Island swamp since Fred Nolan first drained the bog in 1969. Nolan, a professional land surveyor, believed the stakes had been placed by whoever originally constructed the swamp as an artificial feature, and that they marked out its layout in the same way a modern surveyor would peg a site before breaking ground. Subsequent excavations by the Lagina team have produced stakes from the southeastern swamp near the cobblestone path, from the northern swamp in the vicinity of the brick-and-slate vault, and from the western swamp where a second cobblestone feature was identified in Season 13. The stakes are hand-cut wooden points, sharpened by axe blows that produce a series of flat facets converging to a tip. Early recoveries, including those described by Billy Gerhardt in Season 7, show six distinct cuts. From Season 13 onward the show began referring to the stakes as eight-sided or octagonal, though the physical evidence suggests irregular faceted shaping rather than a precision geometric cross-section. Different cut patterns have been noted on stakes recovered from the same area, which the team has interpreted as the work of more than one person. Confirmed spacing between stakes along the cobblestone path measured 14 feet, and stakes across multiple locations were found at a consistent elevation of roughly one and a half feet above sea level. Every stake subjected to radiocarbon analysis has returned a date in the 17th century. Ian Spooner's assessments of stakes along the southeastern cobblestone path placed them in the 17th century, and the Season 12 synthesis of swamp findings dated the cobblestone path stakes to between 1650 and 1700. Fred Nolan's original 1969 dating put his stakes at up to 300 years before the 1795 discovery of the Money Pit, giving an outer limit of approximately 1495, though subsequent testing has not confirmed pre-17th-century dates for any recovered specimen. No stake examined to date has returned a carbon date predating 1600. In Season 13, Episode 16, Professor Adriano Gaspani applied archaeoastronomical analysis to the GPS positions recorded by surveyor Steve Guptill for each recovered stake. Gaspani found that the stakes divide into two groups, both sharing stellar alignments with Deneb, the primary star in the Cygnus constellation, at an epoch consistent with a 13th-century construction date. This is the same methodology and the same star system he used to date Nolan's Cross to approximately 1217 AD. His conclusion was that the stake positions reflect a master plan originating in the medieval period, and that the stakes and the cross were set out by the same people as part of a single coordinated layout. The physical alignment of the recovered stakes to Gaspani's projected line is approximate rather than precise, and the analysis rests on positional data rather than on the physical age of the wood. The stakes present a genuine interpretive difficulty. The radiocarbon evidence places the wood firmly in the colonial period, consistent with the other 17th-century datings from the swamp complex, including the cobblestone path, the Eye of the Swamp, and the brick-and-slate vault. Gaspani's analysis raises the possibility that 17th-century builders were following or reinstating a much older plan, replacing deteriorated medieval stakes with new ones on the same positions. That interpretation cannot be confirmed from the physical evidence alone. What the stakes establish without dispute is organised, deliberate construction activity in the swamp during the 1600s, by people working to a surveyed layout rather than at random. **Wooden T-square / masonic tool** Date: 1632-1668 Found: Swamp When: Season 8 (2020) Type: Tool A perfectly square wooden object recovered by Gary Drayton from excavated spoils along the stone pathway near the eastern edge of the swamp during Season 8. Dr. Aaron Taylor and Dr. Ian Spooner examined the piece on site and suggested it may be an architectural tool. Doug Crowell's subsequent research identified it as closely resembling a stonemason's T-square, a tool used for marking right angles on stone surfaces during construction. In the research center, Marty Lagina, Doug Crowell, and Gary Drayton inspected the artifact and discussed its potential Masonic significance. The T-square is one of the principal symbols of Freemasonry, representing morality and the craft of building, and its recovery on Oak Island carried weight given the longstanding connections between the Freemasons, the Knights Templar, and the island's mystery. Marty ordered carbon-14 dating to determine the object's age. Craig Tester presented the carbon-14 results in the War Room: the wood dated to between 1632 and 1668, more than 160 years before the discovery of the Money Pit in 1795. Dr. Aaron Taylor admitted the date was far older than he had expected. The result aligned with a theory presented weeks earlier by author James McQuiston, who proposed that 17th-century Scottish Knights Baronets with ties to both Freemasonry and the Knights Templar took shelter in Mahone Bay after being ousted by the French in the spring of 1632 and may have buried treasure on Oak Island. The T-square was found in close proximity to the cobblestone road, which Dr. Spooner had dated to the 1200s, and the iron ringbolt that Carmen Legge dated to between the 1600s and 1760, placing it within the same period of pre-1795 activity that multiple lines of evidence on the island continue to confirm. **Wound glass bead (forest glass, Normandy)** Date: As early as 10th century Found: Lot 5 When: Season 12, Episode 21 (2025) Type: Artifact Wound glass bead found by archaeologist Fiona Steele on Lot 5. Metallurgist Emma Culligan confirmed it is made from forest glass, characterized by high potassium and low sodium content, and likely originated in Normandy, France. Forest glass production was common in medieval Northern France. **Wrought iron scissors** Date: Pre-mid-19th century Found: Smith's Cove, beneath flood system When: 1967-1970 Type: Tool A pair of wrought iron scissors was recovered from beneath the artificial beach at Smith's Cove during excavations led by Dan Blankenship and David Tobias in the late 1960s. The scissors were found below the level of the drainage system, in the same campaign that uncovered an old metal set-square and a hand-worked heart-shaped stone. Fanthorpe records the scissors discovery in 1967 in the period leading up to the 1970 cofferdam construction. The set-square and scissors were estimated by experts to be between two and three hundred years old. The scissors, along with iron nails, spikes, and old tools from the same excavation, were sent to the Steel Company of Canada for testing, and all came back as estimated to predate 1790. The Smithsonian Institution subsequently identified the scissors as typical of Spanish-American manufacture prior to the mid-nineteenth century. Spanish-American ironwork of this type was produced in colonial workshops across the Americas and the Caribbean, where a distinctive forging style and composition developed that specialists can distinguish from European or British manufacture through visual and metallurgical examination. The scissors were revisited during Season 11 when Gary Drayton and Peter Fornetti recovered a scissor handle from the Lot 5 shoreline near the slipway. The find immediately reminded Gary of the scissors Dan Blankenship had discovered at Smith's Cove. Blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge confirmed the new piece as a scissor handle from the 1600s to early 1700s and told the team it was older than Dan's original find. The presence of Spanish-American scissors beneath the flood system at Smith's Cove places them among the artefacts deposited before or during the construction of the cove's water management infrastructure, rather than arriving through later searcher activity. **Wrought iron spike (swamp)** Date: Late 1600s-early 1700s Found: Swamp When: Lagina era Type: Artifact A wrought iron spike recovered from the triangle-shaped swamp, one of numerous iron fasteners found across the island that point to large-scale construction activity predating the Money Pit's discovery in 1795. The spike was hand forged, with the irregular surface texture and fibrous grain pattern characteristic of pre-industrial iron production, where a blacksmith would heat raw iron in a charcoal forge and shape it by repeated hammering on an anvil.Wrought iron spikes of this type served multiple purposes in 17th and 18th-century construction: securing heavy timbers in wharves and ship cribbing, fastening structural beams in tunnel construction, and joining planks in cofferdams and retaining walls. Their presence in the swamp placed them alongside other construction hardware including crib spikes that Carmen Legge dated to the mid-1600s at Smith's Cove, marlinespikes from the same era that he identified as sailors' rope-splicing tools, and ring bolts dated to the 1600s to 1760 that he identified as wharf pins. The swamp has produced the densest concentration of pre-1795 iron hardware on the island, consistent with the theory that it once served as a working waterfront where a vessel was brought in, offloaded, and the area subsequently flooded to conceal the operation. **Yarmouth Runic Stone** Date: c. 1000 CE (if Norse, unconfirmed) Found: Yarmouth Harbour, Nova Scotia When: 1812 Type: Artifact A 400-pound slab of quartzite measuring roughly 79 cm by 51 cm, featuring a 13-character inscription on its naturally smooth face. Discovered in 1812 by retired British Army surgeon Dr. Richard Fletcher in a salt marsh at the head of Yarmouth Harbour, Nova Scotia, near the Tusket River. The inscription has been interpreted as Norse runes, early Basque, Old Japanese, Hungarian, and Mycenaean Greek, among other theories. The most persistent reading comes from Henry Phillips Jr., who in 1884 translated it as "Hako's son addressed the men," linking it to Thorfinn Karlsefni's expedition of c. 1007 CE. Olaf Strandwold offered the alternative: "Leif to Eric raises this monument." Skeptics, including Norway's leading runic expert Dr. Liestol (1966) and University of Toronto archaeologist A.D. Fraser, have argued the markings are not genuine runes. Fletcher's own descendants believed he carved it as a practical joke. The stone traveled internationally before World War I, exhibited in Oslo and stored in London at the Canadian Pacific Railway offices during the war. It returned to Yarmouth in 1918 and has been housed at the Yarmouth County Museum since the 1960s. Alex Lagina visited the museum in the summer of 2018 to examine the stone firsthand. Museum director Nadine Gates and historian Terry Deveau presented it alongside other regional artifacts suggesting pre-Columbian European contact with Nova Scotia, strengthening the case for Norse activity in the region explored in the show's Viking theory. Total artifacts cataloged: 318 --- # RESEARCH SITES Off-island locations investigated for their connection to the Oak Island mystery. URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites **Abbey of Alet-les-Bains** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/abbey-of-alet-les-bains Type: Monastery Location: Alet-les-Bains, Aude, France Medieval abbey built on the foundations of a Roman temple, situated 7 miles north of Rennes-le-Château in southern France. A carving at the old baths depicts the symbolic transfer of Templar knowledge into Freemasonry. The Abbey of Alet-les-Bains is a medieval monastic complex in the commune of Alet-les-Bains in the Aude department of southern France, approximately seven miles north of the village of Rennes-le-Château. The abbey was built on the foundations of a Roman temple and became an important religious centre during the medieval period, serving as the seat of a bishopric from the 9th century. The town's thermal baths, known since Roman times, attracted visitors throughout the medieval and early modern periods. The surrounding Languedoc region was a stronghold of both Cathar Christianity and the Knights Templar during the 12th and 13th centuries, and the landscape between Alet-les-Bains and Rennes-le-Château is rich with sites connected to both traditions. Oak Island Connection: In Season 2, Marty and Alex Lagina traveled to southern France with author and researcher Kathleen McGowan. At the old baths of Alet-les-Bains, they met Tobi, a modern-day Knight Templar and Templar historian. Tobi showed the group a carving depicting a Templar cross with a flash descending through angel wings into a handshake, a symbol he explained represents the transfer of Templar knowledge into Freemasonry. The carving provided a visual link between the Templar order and the Masonic tradition that has been connected to Oak Island through multiple lines of evidence, including the Masonic affiliations of early searchers, the Masonic membership of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the geometric symbolism embedded in Nolan's Cross. When asked about Oak Island, Tobi pointed to the carved stone found at the centre of Nolan's Cross and described what had been identified as a sword on its surface as a possible Templar tomb marker, suggesting the stone may mark a burial or repository rather than simply serving as a geographic reference point. **Acadia University** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/acadia-university Type: Educational Location: Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada Department of Earth and Environmental Science where Dr. Ian Spooner conducts geochemical and environmental analysis of Oak Island soil, water, and mineral samples, providing critical scientific data on underground conditions and historical human activity. Acadia University is a primarily undergraduate liberal arts university founded in 1838 in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, roughly 50 miles north of Oak Island. The Department of Earth and Environmental Science houses laboratories for geochemistry, sediment analysis, and wetland geology, along with conservation facilities used for artifact cleaning and preservation. The university sits at the head of the Annapolis Valley on the shores of the Minas Basin, a region shaped by some of the highest tides in the world. Its proximity to Oak Island and its specialised earth science faculty have made it a natural partner for field research on the island since Season 7. Oak Island Connection: Acadia University has been the single most frequently consulted research institution in the history of The Curse of Oak Island, with involvement spanning from Season 5 through Season 13. The partnership centres on Dr. Ian Spooner, a professor of earth and environmental science with over two decades of experience in wetland geology, who has become one of the most prominent scientific voices on the show. Spooner''s work began in Season 7 when Rick and Marty Lagina brought swamp core samples to his Wolfville laboratory. His analysis determined that the swamp was once open ocean and appeared far younger than expected, perhaps only 300 to 400 years old. This finding, combined with his conclusion that significant human activity took place at the Eye of the Swamp between 1680 and 1700, became one of the foundational scientific results of the investigation. In Season 7, Alex Lagina and archaeologist Laird Niven also brought a gold-plated brooch to Acadia, where professional conservator Kelly Bourassa cleaned and examined it, describing it as unlike anything he had seen before. From Season 8 onward, Spooner became a regular presence on the island itself, conducting sonar scans of the swamp, collecting vibra-core and gravity core samples, analysing sediment stratigraphy, and overseeing water testing across the Money Pit boreholes. His groundwater analysis in Season 8 detected anomalous concentrations of copper, zinc, silver, and gold in flooded boreholes, results he described as the strongest scientific evidence yet that buried treasure lies within reach of the drilling program. Chemist Dr. Matt Lukeman, also from Acadia, assisted with the water sampling protocol. Spooner''s contributions have extended across virtually every area of the investigation: dating the cobble path and stone road in the swamp, identifying the paved area as man-made, analysing coal deposits and clay formations, evaluating stone features on multiple lots, and tracing precious metal signatures through the island''s groundwater system. By Season 13, his XRF soil analysis and deep sediment work in the solution channel continued to guide the team''s drilling strategy. **Apple Island** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/apple-island Type: Historic_site Location: Chester, Nova Scotia, Canada A small island half a mile east of Oak Island, surveyed in 2019 after Travis Taylor's star map theory pointed to three boulders on its shore. Location Apple Island sits roughly half a mile east of Oak Island in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. It is one of more than three hundred islands scattered across the bay and lies within the cluster that includes Oak Island, Frog Island, and the smaller shoals between them. The island has no permanent settlement and falls outside the treasure trove area covered by the active Oak Island licenses. The Mahone Bay Exploration Company Apple Island first entered the modern search through Dan Blankenship. In 1994, after decades of work on Oak Island, he formed the Mahone Bay Exploration Company specifically to investigate Frog Island and Apple Island. The effort produced no significant discoveries, and the line of investigation was not continued. Travis Taylor's Star Map Survey Apple Island returned to the active investigation when astrophysicist Dr. Travis Taylor joined the Oak Island team. Travis presented a theory connecting Freemasonry to the layout of the island and its neighbours, proposing that a star map hidden inside the Masonic Hiram Abiff drawing template aligned the constellation Taurus with specific points across Oak Island, Frog Island, and Apple Island. He identified the corresponding GPS coordinates on the ground and recommended a survey of each of the three islands. Jack Begley, Gary Drayton, and diver Tony Sampson boated across to Apple Island to test the theory. At the coordinates Travis had supplied they located three massive boulders, two of white granite and one of pinkish-red stone. The stones were consistent in size and arrangement with the markers found at other points indicated by the star map on Oak Island itself. Gary's metal detector registered multiple iron targets at the site and at least one promising non-ferrous signal. The team made no excavation. Their treasure trove license covered Oak Island only, and Apple Island lay outside its boundary. Status No excavation permit has since been issued for Apple Island, and the boulders identified during the survey remain in place. The metal-detector signals recorded that day have not been investigated further. Apple Island stands as one of two neighbouring islands, with Frog Island, that the Lagina team has identified as potentially holding physical evidence connected to whoever worked on Oak Island. Confirmation would require a separate license and an archaeological survey of the site. Oak Island Connection: Apple Island is one of two neighbouring islands, alongside Frog Island, that the Oak Island team has identified as potentially holding physical evidence connected to whoever worked on Oak Island. Dan Blankenship's formation of the Mahone Bay Exploration Company in 1994 was the first formal acknowledgment that the original operation may have extended beyond the boundaries of Oak Island itself. Dr. Travis Taylor's 2019 star map analysis brought Apple Island back into the active investigation, and the three boulders located at his predicted coordinates remain the most tangible result yet produced by a celestial theory applied to the Mahone Bay cluster. Whether those boulders are a natural glacial deposit or a deliberate marker placed by the same hand that worked Oak Island has not been determined. **Arni Magnusson Institute for Icelandic Studies** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/arni-magnusson-institute-for-icelandic-studies Type: Educational Location: Reykjavik, Reykjavik, Iceland Iceland's principal research institute for the preservation and study of medieval manuscripts, housing one of the world's most significant collections of Norse and Latin texts from the medieval period. The Arni Magnusson Institute for Icelandic Studies in Reykjavik is the custodian of Iceland's medieval manuscript heritage. Named after the 17th-century Icelandic scholar Arni Magnusson, who spent decades collecting manuscripts across Scandinavia, the institute preserves and studies one of the world's most important collections of Norse sagas, historical chronicles, and Latin texts dating from the 11th through 14th centuries. Iceland's monastic tradition, which included more than 15 active houses between the 11th and 14th centuries, produced and preserved manuscripts that document Norse exploration, navigation, and settlement across the North Atlantic. Oak Island Connection: In Season 11, Rick Lagina, Doug Crowell, Alex Lagina, Peter Fornetti, and the research team visited the institute as part of an extended European research trip. Curator Professor Gunnlaugsson presented a manuscript written in Latin and Norse that named four specific stars, one of which was Arcturus, a reference star for the geometric alignment of Nolan's Cross on Oak Island. Emiliano Sacchetti noted that the Cistercian scriptorium at Morimondo in Italy had produced over 100 manuscripts during the 13th century and that this monastic literary tradition eventually reached Iceland through its network of religious houses. During the examination, Doug Crowell identified the ribbon-like symbol from the Lot 8 copper piece appearing multiple times within the manuscript text, strengthening the case for a connection between medieval European manuscript traditions and symbolic artifacts found on Oak Island. **Beaton Institute** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/beaton-institute Type: Educational Location: Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada Archives and research centre at Cape Breton University in Sydney, Nova Scotia, housing documents donated by the Chappell family that include sworn affidavits and records from early twentieth-century Oak Island excavations. The Beaton Institute is the archives and research centre of Cape Breton University, located in Sydney, Nova Scotia, roughly 300 miles northeast of Oak Island. Named after Sister Margaret Beaton, a librarian who recognised in the 1950s that documents of historical significance to Cape Breton were being lost and began collecting them, the institute has served as the regional archive for Cape Breton Island for over six decades. The collection includes more than 3,000 manuscript collections, 60,000 images, 2,500 sound recordings, and 2,000 maps and plans. Among its holdings are documents donated by the Chappell family, whose members were among the most active Oak Island searchers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Oak Island Connection: In Season 5, Episode 5, Alex Lagina, Charles Barkhouse, Peter Fornetti, and historian Doug Crowell travelled 300 miles northeast to the Beaton Institute to examine documents donated by M.R. Chappell. The Chappell family had been deeply involved in Oak Island excavations dating back to the 1890s, and their papers represented a potentially significant untapped source of primary documentation. Among the materials the team found a sworn affidavit by Frederick Blair, one of the most persistent and well-documented Oak Island searchers, whose involvement with the island spanned from the 1890s through the 1940s. Blair's affidavits and correspondence have served as key primary sources for understanding the early excavation history, and the Beaton Institute's holdings provided the team with access to original documents rather than secondary accounts. **Bedford Barrens Petroglyphs** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/bedford-barrens-petroglyphs Type: Ancient Site Location: Bedford, Nova Scotia, Canada A bedrock outcrop above Bedford Basin in Nova Scotia, roughly 80 km northeast of Oak Island, bearing pecked carvings that include an eight-pointed star inside a circle. Presented to the Oak Island team in Season 2. The carvings are pecked into a flat granite surface on the Bedford Barrens, an exposed bedrock area above the head of Bedford Basin in the Halifax Regional Municipality. The principal figures are an eight-pointed star inside a circle and a stylised human shape with raised arms, with smaller marks and lines distributed around them. Conventional attribution places the work within the Mi'kmaq pre-contact petroglyph tradition. The same eight-pointed star appears on the modern Mi'kmaq flag and in older Mi'kmaq decorative work, and similar pecked carvings are documented at other sites in the Atlantic region, most extensively at Kejimkujik. No secure date has been assigned to the Bedford carvings, and the site is treated as culturally sensitive. **Bedford Institute of Oceanography** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/bedford-institute-of-oceanography Type: Educational Location: Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada Canada's largest centre for ocean research, located on the Dartmouth waterfront across Halifax Harbour. Home to scientists from Fisheries and Oceans Canada and Natural Resources Canada who provided the Oak Island team with critical bathymetric data on historical sea levels around the island. The Bedford Institute of Oceanography is the largest centre for ocean research in Canada, located on the shore of Bedford Basin in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Established in 1962, it houses scientists and researchers from multiple federal departments including Fisheries and Oceans Canada and Natural Resources Canada. The institute's work encompasses marine geology, hydrography, ocean chemistry, and coastal studies across the North Atlantic. The facility maintains extensive archives of bathymetric survey data covering the waters of Atlantic Canada, including detailed records of seafloor topography and historical sea level measurements for the Mahone Bay region. Oak Island Connection: In Season 3, Episode 8, Jack Begley, Alex Lagina, and Charles Barkhouse travelled to the Bedford Institute to consult with oceanographer Dr. Bob Courtney. The visit focused on obtaining bathymetric data from the waters surrounding Oak Island, with the team seeking to understand how sea levels and coastal conditions had changed over the centuries. During the visit, the team also followed up on Fred Nolan's earlier description of a timbered wall he had observed between the swamp and the beach: sawn square timbers stacked one atop another, extending down 12 feet and spanning roughly 12 feet in width. By the following episode, the Bedford Institute's data had confirmed that sea levels around Oak Island were one to two metres lower 300 to 400 years ago. This finding carried significant implications for the investigation, as it meant that stones and structures now submerged could have been exposed and deliberately placed as markers visible only to those who knew where to look. The data supported the theory that features discovered in the waters around the island, including aligned rocks found by Tony Sampson, may have been intentional navigational aids rather than natural formations. **Bianzano Castle** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/bianzano-castle Type: Castle Location: Bianzano, Bergamo, Italy Thirteenth-century castle in the province of Bergamo, northern Italy, believed by researchers to have served as the Italian headquarters of the Knights Templar. Its walls encode celestial alignments matching those found in Nolan's Cross on Oak Island. Bianzano Castle is a 13th-century fortification in the province of Bergamo in northern Italy, perched on a hilltop overlooking the Cavallina Valley. Researchers believe the castle served as the Italian headquarters of the Knights Templar during the 13th century. The structure is notable for its geometric precision: archaeoastronomer Professor Adriano Gaspani has demonstrated that the castle's external walls are aligned with the rise and set of the Cygnus constellation and oriented toward the star Arcturus. The castle's interior contains carved symbols including an eight-pointed star that Gaspani identifies as Polaris in medieval iconography, a form used to design octagonal church structures and for celestial alignments. The precision of these astronomical references has led researchers to conclude that the castle was designed by individuals with advanced knowledge of celestial navigation and geometry. Oak Island Connection: In Season 11, Rick Lagina, Doug Crowell, Alex Lagina, and Peter Fornetti visited the castle with Emiliano Sacchetti and Professor Gaspani. Gaspani revealed that the castle's external walls align with the rise and set of the Cygnus constellation and point toward the star Arcturus, the same celestial references he had identified as encoded in Nolan's Cross on Oak Island. He concluded that whoever designed Bianzano Castle belonged to the same cultural environment as whoever placed Nolan's Cross, directly linking the Italian Templar headquarters to the geometric layout of the Oak Island monument. Inside the castle, Doug noticed an eight-pointed star that Gaspani identified as Polaris in medieval iconography. Emiliano then presented Gaspani with the Cremona Document and asked him to consider the navigational devices it describes, particularly the Abetor. Gaspani demonstrated a reconstruction he had built, showing how this tool could guide a vessel across the Atlantic on a fixed route and could also have been used to lay out Nolan's Cross. The demonstration provided a direct mechanical link between medieval Italian Templar navigation and the physical features found on Oak Island. **Brooklyn Nova Scotia** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/brooklyn-nova-scotia Type: Historic_site Location: Brooklyn, Nova Scotia, Canada Historic South Shore community formerly known as Newport, situated just miles from Oak Island. Stone carvings found in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, during a Season 10 visit were identified by Corjan Mol as Templar stonemason marks matching those in medieval European churches. Brooklyn is a historic community on the South Shore of Nova Scotia, formerly known as Newport, situated in close proximity to Oak Island and the broader Mahone Bay region. The surrounding area, including the nearby town of Liverpool, contains stone carvings and carved symbols that have attracted the attention of researchers investigating pre-colonial European activity in Nova Scotia. Liverpool, located on the province's South Shore approximately 75 miles southwest of Oak Island, was an important port during the colonial era and has yielded carved stone markers that some researchers connect to medieval European traditions. Oak Island Connection: In Season 10, Rick Lagina, Charles Barkhouse, and Corjan Mol visited Liverpool, Nova Scotia, after being contacted by Isaac Rafuse, who believed stone carvings near the water might relate to Oak Island. At the site, Isaac and Nick Fralic showed them a triangle shape that had been carved into rock for as long as anyone could remember. Initial speculation centred on a British broadhead, a symbol used since the 14th century, but Corjan identified the symbol as a goose paw, the mark of Masonic stonemasons for the Knights Templar in medieval Europe, found on cornerstones of confirmed Templar churches in northern Portugal, Spain, southern France, Italy, and Sardinia. Corjan noted that broadheads were never placed on rock, making the Templar identification more consistent. Isaac then led the group to another stone bearing a cross, a circle, and a half circle with a dot. Corjan identified a globus cruciger, a circle with a cross on top representing Christianity's dominion over the world, dating the symbol to the fifth century. The discovery of Templar stonemason marks on the Nova Scotia coastline provided physical evidence of a medieval European symbolic presence in the region beyond Oak Island itself. **Centre of Geographic Sciences (COGS)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/centre-geographic-sciences-cogs Type: Educational Location: Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia, Canada Nova Scotia Community College campus in Lawrencetown housing rare historical documents. Research into Acadian genealogical records revealed a marriage between the Rochefoucauld and Dugua families, connecting the alleged Templar map to the founder of French Acadia. The Centre of Geographic Sciences (COGS) is a campus of the Nova Scotia Community College located in Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia. The centre maintains a collection of rare historical documents related to Nova Scotia and Acadian history, including genealogical records, colonial-era maps, and administrative documents from the French settlement period. The archive is particularly valuable for researchers investigating the connections between French noble families, the early colonial administration of Nova Scotia, and the broader network of Templar and Masonic activity in the region. Oak Island Connection: In Season 5, Alex Lagina, Peter Fornetti, Charles Barkhouse, and Doug Crowell traveled to the Centre of Geographic Sciences to search rare Nova Scotia and Acadian documents. In a genealogy of the Dugua family, they discovered that a Francois de La Rochefoucauld married into the line of Pierre Dugua, the founder of the first French colony in Nova Scotia. The Rochefoucauld name had already appeared on the alleged 14th-century Templar map provided by researcher Zena Halpern, and the marriage connection placed the family directly within the administrative lineage of French Acadia. The team also noted that Dugua's personal cartographer was Samuel Champlain, whose otherwise meticulous maps conspicuously omit Mahone Bay, a 25-by-20-mile body of water containing more than 360 islands. The omission raised the question of whether Champlain was directed to leave the area off his charts to protect something hidden on Oak Island, a theory that gained additional weight from the Rochefoucauld-Dugua family connection. **Château de la Rochefoucauld** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/chateau-de-la-rochefoucauld Type: Castle Location: La Rochefoucauld, Charente, France Ancestral seat of the De la Rochefoucauld family in Charente, France, one of the oldest noble families in Europe with documented ties to the Knights Templar. The Rochefoucauld name appears on Zena Halpern's controversial 1347 map of Nova Scotia, and archival research has linked the family to a French fleet dispatched to Nova Scotia in the eighteenth century reportedly carrying treasure. The Château de la Rochefoucauld stands above the River Tardoire in the town of La Rochefoucauld in Charente, southwestern France. It has been in continuous possession of the same family for over a thousand years, making the De la Rochefoucaulds one of the longest-established noble dynasties in Europe. The castle's origins date to around 980 AD, when Foucauld, Lord of La Roche, built the first fortification on the site. The current structure is a blend of medieval defensive architecture and Renaissance elegance, with a monumental spiral staircase modelled on those at the royal châteaux of the Loire Valley. The family's Templar connections are documented. Members of the De la Rochefoucauld line served in the Crusades and maintained ties to the military orders throughout the medieval period. The family's lands in Charente and Poitou sat within the same region as major Templar commanderies, and the Rochefoucauld name appears in records associated with Templar patronage and land grants. The family survived the suppression of the Templars in 1312 and continued to hold positions of power through the Renaissance and into the modern era, producing diplomats, military commanders, and one of France's greatest writers of maxims, François de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680). Oak Island Connection: The Rochefoucauld connection to Oak Island operates on two levels. The first is cartographic: the family name appears on the controversial map attributed to 1347 that researcher Zena Halpern presented to the team, which purports to show Nova Scotia with marked locations including what some researchers interpret as Oak Island. If authentic, the map would place French knowledge of the Nova Scotian coast nearly two centuries before any documented voyage, within the period immediately following the Templar suppression. The second is military, and it is one of the best-documented naval operations in colonial history. In June 1746, the largest French armada ever sent to the New World sailed from Ile d'Aix under the command of Admiral Jean-Baptiste Louis Frederic de La Rochefoucauld de Roye, Duc d'Anville. The fleet comprised over 70 vessels, 20 warships, 32 transports, and 21 auxiliary craft, carrying 3,000 veteran troops and 10,000 sailors. Louis XV had personally commissioned the expedition to retake Louisbourg, recapture Acadia, burn Boston, and ravage New England. Its destination was Chebucto, the harbour the British would later rename Halifax, barely fifty miles from Oak Island. The expedition was a catastrophe. Storms scattered the fleet off Sable Island. Typhus and scurvy killed thousands. D'Anville himself died on September 27, six days after arriving at Chebucto, and was buried on Georges Island in the harbour. His replacement attempted suicide. Of the 13,000 men who left France, only a few thousand returned. The land forces coordinating with the fleet were commanded from Acadia by Nicolas Antoine II Coulon-de-Villiers, the same man who claimed descent from Philippe de Villiers de L'Isle Adam and whose grandfather held the old Templar commandery at Valpendant. A Rochefoucauld leading the fleet. A Villiers commanding on shore. Both families with deep Templar roots, converging on the same stretch of Nova Scotian coast in the same operation. **Church of Fonte Arcada** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/church-of-fonte-arcada Type: Church Location: Fonte Arcada, Póvoa de Lanhoso, Portugal Church in the parish of Fonte Arcada in Póvoa de Lanhoso, northern Portugal, where the Knights Templar received one of their earliest European land grants. Considered by researcher Corjan Mol to be the oldest Templar commandery in Portugal. The Church of Fonte Arcada stands in the parish of Fonte Arcada in the municipality of Póvoa de Lanhoso in northern Portugal. The church was donated to the Knights Templar by Lady Teresa in 1126, during the earliest period of the order's establishment in the Iberian Peninsula. During the Crusades, Templar knights arrived in Portugal at the invitation of King Afonso I, who granted them land and wealth in exchange for military assistance in battling the Moors. Researcher Corjan Mol considers Fonte Arcada the oldest Templar commandery in Portugal, while Templar historian Joao Fiandeiro describes the church as "God's fortress," reflecting its dual role as a religious site and a fortified position during the Reconquista. Oak Island Connection: In Season 9, Rick Lagina, Doug Crowell, Alex Lagina, and Peter Fornetti traveled to Portugal with researcher Corjan Mol and Templar historian Joao Fiandeiro. Their first stop was the Church of Fonte Arcada, where the group searched the walls for symbols and mason marks. Alex discovered a carving that matched a symbol found on the 90 Foot Stone from the Oak Island Money Pit, one that could represent a maker's mark identifying the person who carved the original stone. Outside the church, Corjan showed the group a Templar cross on the exterior wall. Doug Crowell noticed a circle with a dot at its centre, a symbol that also appears on the 90 Foot Stone and the H/O stone and is believed to represent gold. When Doug asked Joao whether the H/O stone could be of Portuguese origin, Joao replied that if the Portuguese were on Oak Island, they could have made it. Corjan added that the same circle-and-dot symbol appears over the entrance to the castle of Tomar, the Templar headquarters in Portugal. The visit established direct parallels between Portuguese Templar symbolic traditions and markings on two of Oak Island's most significant artifacts. **Church of Our Lady of the Conception** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/church-of-our-lady-of-the-conception Type: Church Location: Angra do Heroismo, Terceira, Portugal Renaissance and Mannerist parish church in the historic centre of Angra do Heroísmo, raised on two fifteenth-century hermitages founded by the first settler Álvaro Martins Homem and elevated to parish seat by charter of João III in 1553. Construction was completed in October 1582 through a donation of five hundred cruzados and a portable altar by Dom António, Prior of Crato, made from his exile government in Angra a year before the Spanish reconquest of Terceira.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ The Igreja Paroquial de Nossa Senhora da Conceição stands at the Largo da Igreja in the centre of Angra do Heroísmo, the second oldest church in the city after the Sé Cathedral and one of the few surviving structures whose construction history runs from the first generation of Portuguese settlement on Terceira through the dynastic rupture of 1580 to 1583. The church and the parish it serves are inscribed within the historic centre of Angra classified by UNESCO in 1983, and the building itself carries Portuguese state classification as a property of public interest. The origins lie in the years between roughly 1460 and 1474, when Álvaro Martins Homem, one of the first settlers of the island, raised two adjoining hermitages on the site, the Ermida de São Salvador and the Ermida de Nossa Senhora da Conceição. The same hand erected the primitive hermitage of São Salvador on the site that later became the Sé, placing the two oldest religious foundations of Angra under a single founder. The Conceição hermitage initially carried the invocation of Nossa Senhora dos Remédios and stood next to the houses of the descendants of Pedro Anes do Canto, the wealthy provedor of the Armadas whose family dominated the early settlement. By the early sixteenth century the hermitage was the working parish of the most populous district of the city, but it was not yet a parish in canonical terms. That status came on 26 March 1553, when João III of Portugal issued the charter that raised the hermitage to parish seat and instructed the bishop to install the parochial cure. A new church was begun on the foundations of the older structure in a sober Renaissance and Mannerist idiom, with three naves separated by round arches on stone piers and a triple-stepped chancel. Construction proceeded by the standard pattern of an Atlantic colonial parish, slowly and through successive bequests, and after nearly thirty years the building remained unfinished. The work was completed under unusual patronage. In October 1582 Dom António, Prior of Crato, made a personal donation of five hundred cruzados and a portable altar to the church for the express purpose of finishing it. Dom António had been acclaimed King of Portugal at Santarém on 19 July 1580, defeated at the Battle of Alcântara on 25 August of that year, and after eighteen months of flight had disembarked at Vila de São Sebastião on Terceira on 26 July 1582 to take up the resisting fragment of the realm. By October he was governing from Angra as the recognised sovereign of the island, conferring titles, raising defences, and minting coin in his own name. His donation to the parish church of his de facto capital, made within months of his arrival, completed a building that had been under construction for the entire first century of Angra and gave the city its second functioning church before the Spanish reconquest in late July and early August 1583. The royal Portuguese arms set above the arch of the principal chapel date to this period and remain in place above the same arch today. The interior fittings reflect the long arc of the building's history rather than a single campaign. The high altar is in the Portuguese Baroque idiom of the seventeenth century. The altar of the Most Holy Sacrament shows the orientalising carving characteristic of the Indo-Portuguese exchange that ran through Angra as a port of call on the Carreira da Índia. A series of side wall panels, taken from a mobile altar and depicting scenes from the Old Testament, are attributed to the workshop of the Master of the Cathedral of Angra and dated to around 1600, placing them within a generation of Dom António's donation. The Machado e Cerveira pipe organ in the high choir, opus 81, was built in Lisbon in 1815 and is one of the last of the firm's instruments shipped to the Azores. The Order of Christ chancery and the parish records situate the church within the administrative framework of the Portuguese Atlantic during the period of direct Order of Christ jurisdiction over the Azores. The parish administered the surrounding rural districts between the city and the central highlands of Terceira, including the lands that later became the independent parish of Posto Santo. The collegiate body and the parish records survive partly in the Biblioteca Pública e Arquivo Regional Luís da Silva Ribeiro, which holds the parish archive of Conceição alongside the records of the other historic parishes of the island. The earthquake of 1 January 1980 caused substantial damage to the structure and to the interior fittings. The restoration campaign that followed reopened the church for worship and conserved the painted panels, the altars, and the organ. On 8 December 1987 the bishop Aurélio Granada Escudeiro elevated the church to the status of Marian Sanctuary, and the building has since served jointly as the parish church and as the Santuário Mariano da Conceição. Earlier descriptions of the church survive in the chronicle of Gaspar Frutuoso, written at the end of the sixteenth century within living memory of Dom António's donation, and in the topographic studies of Terceira by Jerónimo Emiliano d'Andrade in 1843 and Alfredo da Silva Sampaio in the first decade of the twentieth century. Oak Island Connection: The Igreja Paroquial de Nossa Senhora da Conceição is a 15th-century parish church in Angra do Heroísmo on Terceira, built under the Order of Christ in the same period as the Igreja Matriz de São Sebastião nearby. It carries a goose paw carving identical in structure to those documented at Camerano in Italy and on a stone at a beach in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, fifty miles from Oak Island. The Conceição example consists of three nails of the cross, the Templar form of the symbol used at sacred sites across the Mediterranean and Europe between the 12th and 14th centuries. The carving is part of an IHS monogram, the Christogram adopted by the Society of Jesus as its emblem, and forms part of the fittings donated to the church in October 1582 by Dom António, Prior of Crato. At the time of the donation Dom António was the de facto sovereign of Terceira, ruling as King of Portugal in resistance to the Spanish reconquest, and held the Grand Mastership of the Order of Christ. The donation completed the unfinished church under direct Order of Christ patronage and embeds the goose paw within an explicit Templar-successor context. Beside the carving is an elongated cross described by Alex Lagina as similar in proportion to Nolan's Cross. The church adds a second Azorean instance of the goose paw symbol to the corridor of evidence linking Templar and Order of Christ activity from the Mediterranean through Portugal and the Azores to Nova Scotia. **Church of Saint Sebastian** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/church-of-saint-sebastian Type: Church Location: Vila de Sao Sebastiao, Terceira, Portugal The Igreja Matriz de São Sebastião (the Mother Church of Saint Sebastian) on Terceira Island is one of the most historically significant religious buildings in the Azores, dating back to 1455. The Igreja Matriz de São Sebastião (the Mother Church of Saint Sebastian) on Terceira Island is one of the most historically significant religious buildings in the Azores, with its foundation dating back to the mid-15th century (around 1455) during the initial settlement of the island. Originally established by some of the island’s first residents, the church evolved from a primitive chapel into a grand three-nave structure that showcases a rare fusion of architectural styles, most notably the late-Gothic Manueline style visible in its ornate portals. Throughout the centuries, it served as a spiritual fortress for the community, surviving seismic activity and undergoing various renovations that added Baroque altars and Manueline-era frescoes, which were rediscovered during a 20th-century restoration. Today, it stands as a National Monument, prized for its unique "Indo-Portuguese" influence and its status as a testament to the early maritime expansion and religious devotion of the Portuguese explorers.  The church is modeled on Santa Maria do Olival in Tomar, through its sturdy three-nave structure and its tripartite head with a central main chapel. This architectural link was established because the Order of Christ in Tomar held spiritual authority over the Azores, leading early builders to replicate the Order's headquarters as a symbol of religious continuity. Oak Island Connection: The Igreja Matriz de São Sebastião is the oldest church in the Azores, built in 1455 under the Order of Christ, the Portuguese successor to the Knights Templar founded by King Denis in 1318. It carries direct iconographic evidence of continuity between the suppressed Templar order and the maritime arm of medieval Portugal that operated in the Azores during the 15th century. Three of the four corners of one of its chapels carry three-pronged goose paw carvings, one of them still bearing original red pigment. The goose paw is a Templar pilgrim's mark, scratched by travellers on the Camino de Santiago to mark the end of their journey, and was used by the order at sacred sites across the Mediterranean and Europe between the 12th and 14th centuries. The same symbol has been documented at the Templar caves of Camerano in Italy and on a stone at a beach in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, fifty miles from Oak Island. The continuity between the Mediterranean original, the Azorean instances, and the Nova Scotian carving forms one leg of the geographic corridor the team has been building from Portugal across the Atlantic. **Church of Santa Maria Nuova** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/church-of-santa-maria-nuova Type: Church Location: Viterbo, Roma, Italy Medieval church in Viterbo, built in 1080, containing carved Templar symbols including four-dot crosses and Latin inscriptions that Alex Lagina proposed could be decoded as "Here Templar Gold," matching symbols on the Oak Island H/O stone. The Church of Santa Maria Nuova is a Romanesque church in Viterbo, central Italy, built in 1080 during a period when the city served as a centre of papal and religious authority. The church predates the formal founding of the Knights Templar in 1119, but its walls and pillars bear carved symbols and inscriptions that researchers have connected to the order's later presence in the region. The church is situated in a city that served as temporary headquarters for Pope Alexander IV in the 13th century, and its medieval fabric has been preserved with relatively few later alterations, making it a valuable site for studying early medieval religious and military-order symbolism. Templar investigator Gianluca Di Prosper, who has spent more than two decades researching medieval activity in the Viterbo region, considers the church a key site in tracing Templar movements through central Italy. Oak Island Connection: In Season 10, Rick Lagina, Doug Crowell, Alex Lagina, Peter Fornetti, and Corjan Mol visited the church guided by Templar investigator Gianluca Di Prosper and translator Emiliano Sacchetti. Inside, Peter Fornetti spotted a symbol matching one found on the H/O stone from Oak Island. Gianluca explained that four-dot crosses mark special places associated with the Templars, the Holy Grail, or the Holy Shroud. As the group continued through the church, Alex found the Latin letters HIC carved on a pillar, which Emiliano translated as "here." Nearby they noticed a letter A that Gianluca identified as a compass reference, and a square symbol he described as more Masonic in character but anomalous given the church's 11th-century construction date. Alex photographed the carving and demonstrated how, with a few pen strokes, the I could become a cross with four dots and the C a circle with a dot at its centre, recreating the symbols found on the H/O stone. The resulting decoded message, Alex proposed, reads "Here Templar Gold." The discovery suggested that the H/O stone from Oak Island may contain a cypher based on a symbolic tradition rooted in medieval Italian church architecture. **Connecticut Museum of Culture and History** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/connecticut-museum-of-culture-and-history Type: Museum Location: Hartford, Connecticut, United States of America State history museum in Hartford, Connecticut, where Oak Island researchers recovered what they identified as the Blair treasure map, a document connected to early twentieth-century searcher Frederick Blair indicating three separate treasure caches on the island. The Connecticut Museum of Culture and History, formerly known as the Connecticut Historical Society, is located in Hartford, Connecticut. Founded in 1825, it is one of the oldest historical societies in the United States, maintaining collections of manuscripts, printed works, photographs, and artifacts documenting the history of Connecticut and New England from the colonial period onward. The museum's archives hold materials from prominent Connecticut families and institutions with connections to maritime trade, colonial enterprise, and early American exploration, areas that occasionally intersect with the broader history of treasure hunting and East Coast antiquarian research. Oak Island Connection: In Season 12, Episode 12, Rick Lagina presented research conducted by Doug Crowell, Judi Rudebusch, and historian Terry Deveau at the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History. The researchers had recovered what they identified as the Blair treasure map, a document connected to previous Oak Island searcher Frederick Blair. The map indicated three separate treasure caches on Oak Island, a claim that, if accurate, would represent a significant departure from the long-held assumption that the Money Pit was the sole target. Armed with the map, Rick and Gary Drayton travelled to the western side of the island near Lot 18 or Lot 25, an area rarely investigated and on the opposite side of the island from the Money Pit. The discovery of the map and its implications for unexplored areas of the island became a notable development in the Season 12 investigation. **Dartmouth Heritage Museum (Evergreen House)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/dartmouth-heritage-museum Type: Museum Location: Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada Once the home of celebrated Nova Scotian folklorist Dr. Helen Creighton, a distant relative of Augustus Oliver Creighton whose Halifax bookstore was the last known location of the legendary 90-foot stone from the Money Pit. The Dartmouth Heritage Museum occupies the Evergreen House in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, a property purchased by Dr. Helen Creighton in 1919. Creighton was one of Nova Scotia's most celebrated folklorists, spending decades collecting songs, stories, and supernatural accounts from communities across the Maritime provinces. The museum now preserves her collections and the heritage of the Dartmouth area. The property is of particular interest to Oak Island researchers because of Helen Creighton's family connection to Augustus Oliver Creighton, a partner in the A.O. Creighton bookstore in Halifax where the legendary 90-foot stone from the Money Pit was last documented before it disappeared. The bookstore closed its doors in 1919, the same year Helen Creighton purchased the Evergreen House. Oak Island Connection: The museum's connection to Oak Island centres on the missing 90-foot stone, one of the most important artifacts in the island's history. During the original excavation of the Money Pit, searchers reportedly found a large carved stone at a depth of 90 feet bearing mysterious symbols that were later interpreted as an encoded message reading "Forty feet below, two million pounds lie buried." The stone eventually made its way to a Halifax bookstore operated by Augustus Oliver Creighton, where it was used as a binding stone. When the bookstore closed in 1919, the stone vanished from the historical record. In Season 4, researcher Paul Troutman and Doug Crowell identified the Creighton family connection between the bookstore and Dr. Helen Creighton. In Season 7, Rick Lagina, Peter Fornetti, Doug Crowell, and Billy Gerhardt traveled 52 miles to the museum following a lead Rick received at Dan Blankenship's funeral. Kevin Rideout told Rick that over 40 years earlier, a museum curator had pointed out a stone in the backyard said to have come from Oak Island. Museum curator Terry Eyland took the group to the grounds, where Rideout estimated the stone had been embedded beneath a large rhododendron bush. The team did not locate the stone during the initial visit but planned to return with a government excavation permit. The possibility that the 90-foot stone, or another significant Oak Island artifact, may rest on the Evergreen House property remains an open line of investigation. **Dawson Print Shop - Nova Scotia School of Art & Design** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/dawson-print-shop-nova-scotia-school-of-art-design Type: Educational Location: Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada Letterpress printshop and bindery at NSCAD University in Halifax, housing one of Canada's largest collections of functional typographic material with over 1,000 typefaces. The Dawson Printshop ceased commercial operations due to NSCAD budget cuts but continues to serve as a teaching space and visiting artist workshop facility. The Dawson Printshop occupies Room N100 of NSCAD University's Fountain Campus, a National Historic Site of Canada set within a block of Victorian terrace-style buildings at 1895 Granville Street in downtown Halifax. Originally housed in the Killam Library at Dalhousie University, the collection was relocated to NSCAD, where the larger space allowed the printshop to operate as both a commercial letterpress studio and a teaching facility. The shop contains rare equipment, including a Vandercook Universal II proof press, alongside more than 1,000 cases of wood and metal type spanning centuries of typographic history. Medieval bookbinding expert Joe Landry taught and worked at the Dawson, where its bindery and historical materials provided the context for analysing ancient manuscript fragments. Oak Island Connection: In Season 5, Episode 12, Alex Lagina and Jack Begley brought material recovered from the H-8 borehole to the Dawson Printshop, where medieval bookbinding expert Joe Landry and his apprentice Katherine Taylor examined the fragments. Landry identified the scraps as genuine parchment and vegetable-tanned calf leather consistent with materials used in books capable of surviving for 2,000 years. The purple-stained wood fragment drew the strongest reaction; Landry compared the colouring to Tyrian purple, an ancient dye so costly it was restricted to church documents and royal decrees. He suggested the staining could result from ecclesiastical leather bleeding into a book board, and noted that the wood's thickness was consistent with a book cover. Taken together, the parchment, leather, and purple-stained wood formed what Landry considered evidence of an ancient bound volume deep beneath Oak Island. **Fontana Grande** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/fontana-grande Type: Historic_site Location: Viterbo, Roma, Italy Iconic 13th-century fountain in the medieval quarter of Viterbo, a city in central Italy that served as temporary papal headquarters and contained multiple sites connected to the Knights Templar. The Fontana Grande is the oldest and most prominent of Viterbo's medieval fountains, dating to 1212. It stands in the Piazza della Rocca in the heart of the city's historic centre, a symbol of Viterbo's importance during the 13th century when the city served as temporary seat of the papal court under Pope Alexander IV. Built from local peperino stone in a cross-shaped basin design, the fountain reflects the architectural ambition of a city that rivaled Rome in political and religious influence during the medieval period. Viterbo's historic quarter, the San Pellegrino district, is one of the best-preserved medieval urban landscapes in Italy, retaining its 12th- and 13th-century streets, towers, and churches largely intact. Oak Island Connection: In Season 10, Rick Lagina, Doug Crowell, Alex Lagina, Peter Fornetti, and Corjan Mol traveled to Viterbo as part of a research trip to Italy, guided by Templar investigator Gianluca Di Prosper and translator Emiliano Sacchetti. The city's 13th-century importance as a papal and Templar-connected centre made it a natural destination for investigating the European origins of symbols found on Oak Island. The team's principal discovery in Viterbo took place at the nearby Church of Santa Maria Nuova, where they identified four-dot crosses, Latin inscriptions, and carvings matching the H/O stone. Viterbo's concentration of medieval religious and military-order architecture provided broader context for understanding the symbolic traditions the Templars carried across Europe and potentially to the New World. **Fort Point Museum** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/fort-point-museum Type: Museum Location: La Have, Nova Scotia, Canada National Historic Site at the mouth of the LaHave River, just 20 miles from Oak Island. Originally established as a French stronghold in 1632 by Isaac de Razilly, a high-ranking Knight of Malta who arrived with 300 elite men and sailed into Mahone Bay. Fort Point is a National Historic Site at the mouth of the LaHave River in LaHave, Nova Scotia, approximately 15 miles south of Oak Island. The site marks the location of the French stronghold originally established in 1632 by Isaac de Razilly, a high-ranking Knight of Malta who arrived in Nova Scotia with 300 elite men and founded the French colony of Acadia. De Razilly served as the first governor of Acadia and maintained close ties to the Knights of Malta throughout his brief tenure, which ended with his unexpected death in July 1636. The site has been recognized as historically significant since the 19th century and today functions as a museum and interpretive centre documenting the early French colonial presence in the region. Oak Island Connection: In Season 13, Alex Lagina, Peter Fornetti, Judi Rudebusch, and Emiliano Sacchetti traveled to Fort Point to meet local historian and author Joan Dawson. Dawson confirmed that the Venetian trade beads found on Lot 5 of Oak Island were the same type Isaac de Razilly would have used for fur trading with the Mi'kmaq people. She noted that de Razilly wrote to the leader of the Knights of Malta suggesting they establish a monastery in Nova Scotia, that he sailed into Mahone Bay with two local priests, and that a journal from the expedition describes an island filled with oaks. Dawson also confirmed that several of de Razilly's possessions, including chests, went missing after his unexpected death in 1636. When shown the French flintlock plate found on Lot 8 of Oak Island, she considered it consistent with de Razilly's well-armed forces. Emiliano presented a volume from researcher John Edwards' book series containing Masonic codes, Hebrew writings, and a hand-drawn map of Oak Island; Dawson recognized the author Josephus and stated that such a book was exactly what a Knight of Malta would have kept in his library. The visit strengthened the connection between de Razilly's Acadian colony and early activity on Oak Island. **Grand Lodge of Halifax** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/grand-lodge-of-halifax Type: Historic_site Location: Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada Headquarters of the Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Nova Scotia, located in Halifax. Houses archives documenting the province''s Masonic history from the 1730s onward, including records connected to several figures involved in the early Oak Island treasure hunt. The Grand Lodge of Nova Scotia serves as the governing body of Freemasonry in the province, with roots tracing back to 1738 when Major Erasmus James Philipps was appointed Provincial Grand Master of Nova Scotia by Henry Price in Boston. The lodge maintains archives that are not available to the general public, containing membership rolls, correspondence, and records spanning nearly three centuries of Masonic activity in the region. Freemasonry became deeply embedded in Nova Scotia's colonial administration. Among its members were Lieutenant-Governor Charles Lawrence, who granted Oak Island to John Gifford and Richard Smith on December 27, 1753 (the feast day of Saint John the Evangelist, one of the most significant dates in the Masonic calendar); Surveyor General Charles Morris, who in 1762 divided Oak Island into 32 lots under the authority of Grand Master Jonathan Belcher Jr.; and Gilbert Hedden, who led excavations on the island in the 1930s. Researcher Scott Clarke has documented that at least six pre-1795 lot owners on Oak Island were Freemasons. The Grand Lodge archives hold records relating to JB McCully, the Freemason who reportedly removed the inscribed 90-foot stone from the Money Pit. The stone was last publicly documented in 1865, displayed in a bookbinding firm on Upper Water Street in Halifax, and vanished around 1919. Charles Barkhouse, himself a Freemason, contacted fellow Mason Cal Hancock to arrange access to the archives in the hope of locating records that could shed light on the stone''s fate or McCully's involvement with the treasure hunt.   Oak Island Connection: Lodge officials acknowledged the longstanding connections between Freemasonry and Oak Island during the team''s visit, noting the involvement of prominent Masons including Hedden and President Franklin Roosevelt. The archives also preserve the broader Masonic network that researcher Scott Clarke later drew on to establish connections between the Belcher family, Sir William Phips, and the earliest lot owners on the island. No definitive lead on the 90-foot stone emerged from the visit, but the lodge committed to continuing the search through their records. **Grota do Medo** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/grota-do-medo Type: Ancient Site Location: Posto Santo, Terceira, Portugal Megalithic site in the parish of Posto Santo on Terceira, Azores, surveyed and published by António Félix Rodrigues in 2015. The complex contains structures resembling Atlantic-façade passage tombs and portal tombs, capstones bearing cup-marks similar to Irish bullauns, rock-cut basins, and stone inscriptions. Accelerator Mass Spectrometry dating of one man-made basin places human activity at or before the eleventh century, predating the documented Portuguese arrival in 1427. The Grota do Medo Megalithic Complex occupies a wooded slope in the parish of Posto Santo, in the central highlands of Terceira a few kilometres north of the city of Angra do Heroísmo. The site sits at roughly forty-five metres above sea level on the hill known locally as Pico do Espigão, with sight-lines to the southern coast, to inland watercourses, and to the higher peaks of the island interior. The surrounding parish takes its name from the bubonic plague outbreak of 1599, when the area was spared and served as a refuge for residents of Angra. The megalithic structures themselves predate that history by an order of magnitude and are not referenced in any Portuguese cadastral or historical record of the parish. The site was brought to academic attention by António Félix Rodrigues, a researcher at the University of the Azores, who first presented it at the 16th Annual Mediterranean Studies Association International Congress, held in Angra do Heroísmo in May 2013. Rodrigues subsequently published a detailed description in 2015 in the journal *Archaeological Discovery* under the title "Megalithic Constructions Discovered in the Azores, Portugal". An earlier 2012 survey paper by Antonieta Costa of the CITCEM research centre at the University of Porto had already listed the location as one of four anomalous archaeological areas on Terceira, alongside the Mount Brasil hypogea, the cart ruts of São Brás, and a separate complex of stone constructions at Serreta. Rodrigues documents two principal classes of structure on the site. The first class, identified as comparable to Atlantic-façade passage tombs of the type found from western Scotland to southern Spain, consists of a corridor running approximately four metres into a mound, terminating in a circular space roughly three metres across that is interpreted as a collapsed burial chamber. Two such structures occur on the hillside, one positioned approximately ten metres above the other, both with entrances oriented to the southeast. The second class, comparable to Irish portal tombs, consists of four structures with east-facing entrances, rectangular or trapezoidal chambers, roofs constructed by a process resembling corbelling, and surrounding dry-stone walls incorporating orthostats. The largest of these stands over 1.5 metres in height with paired capstones each over three metres long, set at an angle close to ninety degrees. Across the complex, capstones and outcrops carry dozens of carved bowls, or cup-marks, comparable to the bullauns documented in Ireland and Scotland and to similar features on the Swedish island of Gotland and in Lithuania. The bowls retain water during rainfall, which then drains in defined channels toward the cliffs and toward the entrances of the tomb-like structures. Surrounding the chambers, Rodrigues records cut-marks on trachyte rock comparable in shape and volume to those documented at megalithic quarries in France, Ireland, Portugal, and Malta. A number of stones bear inscriptions and figurative engravings, some of which Rodrigues and later authors have compared to Libyco-Berber rock art of North Africa. In a follow-up study published with Nuno Martins, Nuno Ribeiro, and Anabela Joaquinito under the title "Early Atlantic Navigation: Pre-Portuguese Presence in the Azores Islands", a man-made rock basin from the site was submitted for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry dating. The result indicated human activity at or before the eleventh century, well in advance of the official Portuguese discovery and settlement of the archipelago, conventionally dated to 1427 under Prince Henry the Navigator. The authors note that the dating establishes a pre-Portuguese human presence on Terceira but does not, in the absence of artefacts, identify the culture responsible. The interpretation remains academically contested. Portuguese mainstream historiography continues to treat the archipelago as uninhabited before the fifteenth century, on the basis of contemporary Portuguese sources that describe the islands as empty on first arrival. The structures at Grota do Medo, together with the hypogea documented at Mount Brasil by Nuno Ribeiro and Anabela Joaquinito, sit outside that orthodox account. No formal excavation has been conducted at Grota do Medo, no artefacts or pottery have been recovered, and no follow-up dating campaign has been undertaken. The site is currently accessible to the public through a private tourism operation, Ancient Azores, established to preserve and present the complex while academic debate continues. **Halifax Club** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/halifax-club Type: Historic_site Location: Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada Historic gentlemen's club built in 1862 by Scottish-Canadian stonemason George Lang, where a member reportedly told his son in 1982 that the legendary 90-foot stone from the Money Pit was embedded in the building's floor. The Halifax Club is a historic private club in Halifax, Nova Scotia, built in 1862 by Scottish-Canadian stonemason George Lang. The building features original stone foundations and has served as a gathering place for Halifax's political and business establishment for more than 160 years. The club's potential connection to Oak Island centres on a report that a member told his son in 1982 that the legendary 90-foot stone from the Money Pit was embedded somewhere in the building's floor. The 90-foot stone, originally recovered from the Money Pit by the Onslow Company in 1804, was last documented at the A.O. Creighton bookstore in Halifax, where it was displayed in the window and later used as a cutting board for leather book jackets before the bookstore closed in 1919. Oak Island Connection: In Season 4, Alex Lagina, Charles Barkhouse, Doug Crowell, and Kel Hancock searched for the missing 90-foot stone in Halifax. After examining the former A.O. Creighton bookstore building, now the Halifax Seed Company, and finding no trace of the stone in its basement, Dr. Allan Marble of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society directed the group to the Halifax Club. A search of the club's basement and sub-basement revealed a large limestone slab, but its dimensions did not match the historical descriptions of the 90-foot stone. The investigation did not rule out the club entirely, as the building's extensive stonework and the specificity of the 1982 account suggest the stone may be embedded in an area that was not accessible during the initial search. **Hyde Park Roosevelt Estate** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/hyde-park-roosevelt-estate Type: Museum Location: Hyde Park, New York, United States of America The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York, where archival documents revealed the specific treasure theory that drove Roosevelt's lifelong interest in Oak Island. The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum is located on the grounds of the Roosevelt family estate in Hyde Park, New York, along the Hudson River. Established in 1941, it was the first presidential library in the United States and houses millions of pages of documents, photographs, and personal papers spanning Roosevelt's political career and private interests. Among the archives are materials documenting Roosevelt's fascination with Oak Island, including correspondence with his Harvard classmate Duncan Harris, who served as his personal liaison to the treasure hunt, and records related to his investment in the 1909 Bowdoin expedition that attempted to recover whatever lay at the bottom of the Money Pit. Oak Island Connection: In Season 4, Rick and Alex Lagina traveled to Hyde Park with Paul Troutman and Doug Crowell to review Roosevelt's Oak Island archives. The team discovered a document from Duncan Harris, Roosevelt's Harvard classmate and personal Oak Island liaison, that revealed the specific theory behind FDR's interest: a lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette was reportedly ordered to smuggle the queen's gold and jewels out of France as the Revolution turned bloody in 1792. According to the account, the woman fled to Canada and claimed the jewels were buried in Mahone Bay. Roosevelt heard the story through his grandfather Warren Delano Jr.'s connections to the Truro Company, one of the earliest organized excavation efforts on Oak Island. He apparently believed this narrative and invested in the 1909 Bowdoin expedition based on it. The team noted that if the lady-in-waiting could be identified by name, it would represent the first direct link between a real historical figure and the Oak Island deposit. Roosevelt's involvement remains one of the most high-profile connections between an American president and the Oak Island mystery. **Kilwinning Abbey** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/kilwinning-abbey Type: Monastery Location: Kilwinning, Scotland, United Kingdom Tironensian monastery founded around 1162 in Ayrshire, Scotland. The Tironensian order were expert builders of underground tunnel systems, and researchers believe the abbey received Templar treasure smuggled from La Rochelle after the order's suppression in 1307. Kilwinning Abbey is the ruins of a Tironensian monastery founded around 1162 in the town of Kilwinning in North Ayrshire, Scotland. The Tironensian order was a group of builder monks founded in Tiron, France, in 1109 who constructed more than 100 abbeys and priories across France, England, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. The Tironensians were not only expert builders above ground but were also highly skilled at constructing underground tunnel systems, including passages believed to connect Rosslyn Chapel to a nearby castle. Kilwinning is also traditionally associated with the origins of Scottish Freemasonry; the Mother Lodge Kilwinning No. 0, considered the oldest Masonic lodge in Scotland, claims a direct connection to the abbey and the builder traditions it preserved. Oak Island Connection: In Season 2, Rick, Marty, and Alex Lagina visited Kilwinning with Dave Blankenship, Charles Barkhouse, and researchers Kathleen McGowan and Alan Butler. Butler explained that after King Philip IV of France ordered the arrest of the Knights Templar on Friday, October 13, 1307, eighteen ships believed to be carrying precious Templar cargo left the port of La Rochelle and sailed for Scotland. Scotland was a safe haven because King Robert the Bruce had been excommunicated by the Pope, placing the entire country beyond Rome's reach. Butler and McGowan argued that the Templar treasure, including what they identified as the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail, was brought into the nearby harbour at Saltcoats and then moved to Kilwinning Abbey. The Tironensian connection is significant because the engineering sophistication required to build the Money Pit's flood tunnel system and underground vault would be consistent with the Tironensians' documented expertise in underground construction. McGowan and Butler proposed that the Knights Templar formed a secret alliance with the Tironensians and later the Freemasons to transport and conceal sacred objects, ultimately hiding them on Oak Island. **Kverkarhellir Cave** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/kverkarhellir-cave Type: Cave Location: Seljaland, Southern Region, Iceland Human-made cave in southern Iceland dating to the 9th century, carved into the volcanic landscape by an Irish Christian monastic order around 800 A.D. and later occupied by Vikings from 874 A.D. through the 13th century. Kverkarhellir Cave is a human-made underground chamber in southern Iceland, carved into the volcanic rock by an Irish Christian monastic order around 800 A.D. The cave predates the Norse settlement of Iceland, which began in 874 A.D. when Vikings conquered the island and occupied existing sites, including Kverkarhellir, which they used through the 13th century. The cave represents a rare overlap between two distinct cultural traditions in the North Atlantic: the early Irish Christian monastic movement, which established hermitages and religious communities across remote Atlantic islands, and the Norse expansion that followed and absorbed these earlier settlements. The cave's walls bear carved symbols left by both cultures over centuries of occupation. Oak Island Connection: In Season 11, Rick Lagina, Doug Crowell, Alex Lagina, Peter Fornetti, and the team visited Kverkarhellir Cave during their Scandinavian and Icelandic research trip. Historian Roberto Pagani led the group through the underground caverns. Inside, the team discovered a cross carving that resembled the lead cross found at Smith's Cove on Oak Island, as well as similar carvings observed at Templar sites in France and Italy during earlier research trips. Back in the War Room, Doug recapped the symbols encountered across the entire European trip that also appeared on Oak Island. Alex presented the cave carving from Iceland alongside images of the lead cross, and the group discussed the growing evidence of a symbolic tradition connecting Irish monastic, Norse, and Templar cultures across the North Atlantic. The Kverkarhellir cross established that the lead cross design was not unique to any single tradition but existed within a centuries-old symbolic language shared across cultures with documented connections to Atlantic navigation. **L'Anse aux Meadows** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/l-anse-aux-meadows Type: Ancient Site Location: L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, Canada UNESCO World Heritage Site and the only confirmed Norse settlement in North America, scientifically dated to 1021 AD. Located on the northern tip of Newfoundland, roughly 600 miles from Oak Island. Butternut wood found among the remains proves the Norse explored as far south as New Brunswick or Nova Scotia, placing Viking activity within reach of Mahone Bay. L'Anse aux Meadows sits on the northernmost tip of Newfoundland, on a grassy terrace overlooking Epaves Bay. It was discovered in 1960 by Norwegian explorer Helge Ingstad and his archaeologist wife Anne Stine Ingstad, who spent the next eight years excavating the site. What they uncovered were the remains of eight Norse buildings: three dwellings, a forge with iron slag and a stone anvil, a carpentry workshop, and several smaller structures. Radiocarbon dating and, more recently, a solar storm marker in the tree rings of cut wood have fixed the occupation to approximately 1021 AD. The settlement was not a permanent colony. Archaeologists interpret it as a seasonal base camp, a gateway station used by Norse crews exploring the coastline further south. The buildings could house between seventy and ninety people. The forge produced iron nails from local bog iron, likely for ship repair. The carpentry workshop contained wood shavings from plank production. Everything about the site points to a logistical hub for expeditions deeper into the continent. The most significant find for the Oak Island question is butternut. Butternuts and butternut wood were recovered from the site, but the butternut tree (Juglans cinerea) does not grow in Newfoundland. Its northernmost range is New Brunswick and the coast of Nova Scotia. For butternut to be present at L'Anse aux Meadows, someone had to bring it back from at least 600 miles to the south. The Norse sagas describe exactly this kind of journey. The Saga of the Greenlanders and the Saga of Erik the Red both describe a place called Hop, a sheltered bay with wild grapes, self-sown wheat, and abundant salmon, located south of the base camp. Researchers have proposed various locations for Hop, from the Miramichi River to Passamaquoddy Bay to the coast of Nova Scotia itself. The site was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978, the first cultural site to receive the designation. Parks Canada maintains the archaeological remains under protective cover, with a reconstructed Norse longhouse and outbuildings open to visitors. The original artifacts, including the ring-headed bronze pin, iron rivets, a bone needle, and a spindle whorl indicating the presence of women, are held at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec. Oak Island Connection: The connection between L'Anse aux Meadows and Oak Island rests on two facts: the Norse were physically present in Atlantic Canada around 1021 AD, and they explored significantly further south than Newfoundland. The butternut evidence alone places Norse crews in the coastal zone that includes Nova Scotia and Mahone Bay. Several artifacts on Oak Island have returned dates consistent with this period. The stone wharf in Smith's Cove was dated by archaeoastronomer Adriano Gaspani to approximately 1200 AD. Coconut fibre from the Money Pit has been radiocarbon dated to medieval ranges. While no artifact on Oak Island has been directly attributed to Norse construction, the question is no longer whether the Vikings could have reached the island. The question is whether they did. The Villiers Bloodline theory adds another dimension. The De Villiers family emerged from Norman soil barely a century after Rollo's Norse settlers accepted land from the French crown in 911. Godefroy de Villiers appears in the records around 1013, just eight years before the Norse occupation at L'Anse aux Meadows. The Norse who settled Normandy and the Norse who crossed the Atlantic were separated by one or two generations at most. Atlantic seafaring was a living capability within the wider network from which the De Villiers emerged. **Lordly House Museum** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/lordly-house-museum Type: Museum Location: Lordly House Museum, Nova Scotia, Canada The Lordly House Museum is a historic house museum located in the seaside village of Chester, Nova Scotia, Canada. The Lordly House Museum is a historic house museum located in the seaside village of Chester, Nova Scotia, Canada. It occupies a beautifully restored Georgian-era home built around 1806 that once belonged to Charles Lordly, a prominent merchant and the first municipal clerk of the Municipality of the District of Chester. Inside, visitors experience a glimpse of 19th-century life through period rooms furnished with authentic artifacts and interpretive displays reflecting the region’s social and cultural history. The house itself, with its original fireplaces, parlours, kitchen, dining room and bedrooms, offers insight into the lifestyle of an upper-class family in early Nova Scotia. Surrounded by a park and playground, the museum also forms part of the Chester Municipal Heritage Society’s efforts to preserve and promote local heritage. This location is particularly appealing for travelers interested in maritime history, local culture, and heritage architecture on Nova Scotia’s scenic South Shore. Oak Island Connection: In The Curse of Oak Island Season 6, Episode 10 (“Fingers Made of Stone”), the Oak Island research team travels inland to Chester’s Lordly House Museum to consult historical records related to the centuries-old treasure hunt on Oak Island. There they access archival documents, including a 1936 letter from early treasure hunter Gilbert Hedden, which describes an underground wooden structure found at Smith’s Cove on Oak Island. This historic correspondence helps the team deepen their understanding of earlier discoveries and theories about structures and possible water systems on the island. This scene highlights Lordly House Museum not just as a heritage site, but as a real-world repository of local historic Oak Island research materials that have informed some of the show’s investigations. **Lunenburg Academy** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/lunenburg-academy Type: Historic_site Location: Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, Canada National Historic Site atop Gallows Hill in Lunenburg, roughly 20 miles southwest of Oak Island. The nearby South Shore Genealogical Society holds an 1883 map labelling Oak Island properties with the notation "Kidd's Treasure." Lunenburg Academy is a National Historic Site situated atop Gallows Hill in the town of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, approximately 20 miles southwest of Oak Island. The imposing wooden building, constructed in 1895, served as the town's primary educational institution for over a century. Lunenburg itself is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, recognized for its remarkably preserved colonial grid layout and wooden architecture dating to its founding by British Protestants in 1753. The town's South Shore Genealogical Society maintains an important archive of regional historical documents, land records, and maps spanning several centuries of Nova Scotia history. Oak Island Connection: In Season 4, Charles Barkhouse and investigative journalist Randall Sullivan traveled to the South Shore Genealogical Society in Lunenburg. Archivist Stephen Ernst produced an 1883 A.F. Church Company map of the area that labelled Oak Island properties by household name and included a handwritten notation reading "Kidd's Treasure," a direct reference to the 17th-century pirate Captain William Kidd, who was hanged in 1701 after offering to trade his life for a mysterious treasure he claimed was buried somewhere east of Boston. The map also identified the McGinnis family, one of the founding families connected to the 1795 Money Pit discovery, as property owners on the island. The "Kidd's Treasure" notation on an official surveying company map demonstrated that the pirate treasure theory was well established in the local community by the late 19th century. **Maritime Museum of the Atlantic** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/maritime-museum-of-the-atlantic Type: Museum Location: Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada Canada's oldest and largest maritime museum, located on the Halifax waterfront, housing an extensive collection of historic vessels, naval artifacts, and maritime heritage exhibits spanning centuries of Atlantic seafaring. The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic sits on the Halifax waterfront in Nova Scotia and is the oldest and largest maritime museum in Canada. Its permanent collection includes small craft from the Age of Sail through the 20th century, artifacts from the Titanic recovered off the coast of Nova Scotia, and extensive exhibits documenting the 1917 Halifax Explosion. The museum's holdings include period longboats, naval equipment, and ship components that serve as important reference material for identifying maritime artifacts found across the province. Oak Island Connection: During Season 9, Doug Crowell and project manager Scott Barlow visited the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic to examine a historic longboat with an intact bulkhead. The visit was prompted by the recovery of a trapezoid-shaped wooden piece from the Oak Island swamp, found at a depth of ten feet and carbon dated to 1683 to 1735. Dr. E. Lee Spence had already identified the piece as broken woodwork originally nailed to another structural element. At the museum, Doug and Scott found that the longboat's bulkhead construction closely matched the trapezoid artifact from the swamp, providing further evidence that ship components may be buried beneath the wetland. Doug presented photographs from the museum visit to the team in the War Room for comparison. **Mug & Anchor Pub** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/mug-and-anchor-pub Type: Historic_site Location: Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada English-style pub at 643 Main Street overlooking Mahone Bay harbour, serving as an informal gathering point where the Oak Island team regularly discusses findings, reviews research, and debates theories over drinks. The Mug and Anchor Pub is an English-style pub at 643 Main Street in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, overlooking the harbour and the bay that contains Oak Island. The pub has served as an unofficial extension of the War Room across multiple seasons, providing a relaxed setting where team members discuss the day's findings, review research, and debate theories. Its location in Mahone Bay, the nearest mainland town to Oak Island, makes it a natural gathering point before and after operations on the island. Oak Island Connection: The Mug and Anchor has hosted numerous significant discussions across the show's history. In Season 5, historian Doug Crowell presented research at the pub into the La Rochefoucauld family, whose name appears on the alleged 14th-century Templar map provided by researcher Zena Halpern. Doug traced the Rochefoucaulds as a prominent French noble house dating to the 10th century with direct connections to the Crusades through the Lusignan family, who ruled in Jerusalem. The presentation set the stage for the team's visit to the Centre of Geographic Sciences, where the Rochefoucauld-Dugua marriage connection was discovered. In Season 7, the team discussed Carmen Legge's identification of a burned ship strap dating to 1710-1790 and a mid-18th-century pickax at the pub, connecting the artifacts to the ship-shaped anomaly in the swamp and the theory that a vessel was deliberately burned and sunk there. The pub also featured in Season 7 when the team toasted to the swamp after five experts from four disciplines confirmed the paved area was man-made. **Museu de Angra do Heroismo** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/museu-de-angra-do-heroismo Type: Museum Location: Angra do Heroismo, Terceira, Portugal Regional history museum in Angra do Heroísmo on Terceira, Azores, housed in the former Franciscan Convent. Holdings cover Azorean military, naval, religious, and decorative material from the fifteenth century onward, including cartography, navigation instruments, and weaponry tied to the archipelago's role as an Atlantic waystation. The Museu de Angra do Heroísmo occupies the former Convento de São Francisco in the historic centre of Angra do Heroísmo, the capital of Terceira Island in the central Azorean group. The Franciscan house was founded in the fifteenth century and rebuilt after damage sustained in the 1 January 1980 Terceira earthquake. Its adjoining church, Nossa Senhora da Guia, forms part of the museum complex. The site stands within the zone inscribed by UNESCO in 1983 as a World Heritage Site for its sixteenth-century street plan and fortifications. The collections span Azorean material culture from the earliest Portuguese settlement of the islands in the 1430s through the twentieth century. Major holdings include sculpture and sacred art drawn from the archipelago's convents and parish churches, Portuguese and foreign weaponry linked to the garrisoning of Terceira, cartography and navigation instruments, ethnographic objects, and a documentary archive covering civil, ecclesiastical, and military history of the island. Angra do Heroísmo itself is a key institution for any research into the Portuguese role in the North Atlantic. From the late fifteenth century onward the city served as a provisioning port for ships returning from the Americas and from the Carreira da Índia, and during the Iberian Union of 1580 to 1640 it functioned as a principal Azorean calling point for the Spanish Carrera de Indias. The Corte-Real brothers, who sailed from the Azores toward the North Atlantic coast in 1500, 1501, and 1502, held Terceira as part of their family captaincy. For Oak Island research the museum matters as a repository of the documentary, cartographic, and material evidence for that Portuguese North Atlantic activity. It is the nearest institutional home of record for the naval, colonial, and ecclesiastical archive of the island from which several of the voyages most often raised in connection with a Portuguese presence in Nova Scotia were launched or resupplied. Oak Island Connection: The museum holds what is identified locally as the oldest carved stone on the island, dated 1454. The stone bears a swirl motif closely resembling the ornate device on the copper artifact recovered from Lot 8 in 2022, and carries, at its top, a goose above two goose paws flanked by two faces representing the winds. The goose paw is a medieval iconographic used by both the Templars (later the Order of Christ) and the Hospitallers (later the Order of Malta). Beyond that single object, the museum is the institutional record of the Portuguese naval, ecclesiastical, and cartographic archive of Terceira, the Azorean waystation most directly implicated in any pre-Columbian Portuguese activity in Nova Scotia. **New Ross** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/new-ross Type: Historic_site Location: New Ross, Nova Scotia, Canada Photo of the well copyright Alessandra Nadudvari, shown with kind permission. About twenty-two miles inland from the Atlantic coast, on high ground above the Gold River in the northeast corner of Lunenburg County, lies a property that has drawn attention since the 1970s for its possible connection to pre-Columbian activity in Nova Scotia. In the early 1970s, Joan Harris and her husband Ron began landscaping their newly purchased land outside New Ross and uncovered stone foundations, walls, and artifacts that Harris interpreted as the remains of a pre-Columbian castle. Her claims escalated over the years: first a Viking fortress with seven towers, then a Scottish mansion with twelve marble pillars and a golden dome. She eventually self-published A Castle in Nova Scotia, in which the property's history expanded to include Phoenicians, Celts, Norsemen, and other Europeans across multiple centuries. Parks Canada took the claims seriously enough to dispatch archaeologist Charles Lindsay to investigate. In his report, Lindsay concluded that nothing on the property predated the 19th century. The stone walls were mostly linear piles from field clearing, with some rough foundations of modest outbuildings. What Harris had identified as a Viking sword was, according to Lindsay, the blade of a scythe, likely from the 20th century. Historian Brian Culbertson later found an 1817 letter from Surveyor General Charles Morris directing Captain William Ross (who had settled New Ross in 1816 with 172 discharged soldiers) to find a suitable location for the blacksmith shop of a Daniel McKay. An 1860 survey map showed McKay's property allotment in the same location later occupied by the Harrises. The "castle," it appeared, was the remains of a blacksmith's works. Author Michael Bradley nonetheless built on Harris's claims in Holy Grail Across the Atlantic, recasting the property as the site where Henry Sinclair had lived as Glooskap following his alleged 1398 voyage to the New World. The book brought national attention to New Ross and embedded it in the broader Sinclair-Templar narrative that connects Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland to Nova Scotia. In Season 4, Rick Lagina, Charles Barkhouse, and Doug Crowell visited the property, then owned by researcher Alessandra Nadudvari and her partner Tim Loncarich. Nadudvari believed she had identified a Templar cross carved onto a stone that Joan Harris had called a "burial stone." Loncarich directed the team to a stone-lined water well he called the "holy well," built with four-foot-thick walls of fitted stones from the Gold River and a level flagstone floor. Professional diver Tony Sampson descended in a bosun's chair, rotating 360 degrees as he examined the walls, and became excited by a rock that appeared to bear a carved triangle with what might be an eye in the centre, a symbol he suggested could be the Eye of Providence. On a second descent in a dive helmet and wet suit, Sampson discovered a "broad arrow" carved onto another rock. Zena Halpern's controversial 1179 map labels a point near this location as "RhoDon," and the Gold River itself flows from New Ross directly to Mahone Bay, a geographical corridor that Halpern traced as a route for transporting treasure. James McQuiston connected New Ross to his broader thesis linking the Knights Baronet of Nova Scotia, the Templar inheritance through Mary Queen of Scots, and the emergence of Freemasonry in the early 1600s. Whether the stone foundations predate European colonial settlement or belong to Daniel McKay's 19th-century blacksmith shop remains unresolved. The well, with its precision stonework and carved symbols, is harder to dismiss, though it too lacks independent archaeological dating. New Ross sits at the intersection of the Sinclair voyage theory, the Templar-Masonic lineage, and the physical geography of the Gold River corridor to Oak Island, a crossroads where speculation and documented history have been difficult to separate since Joan Harris first put a spade in the ground. **Northville Farms Heritage Centre** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/northville-farms-heritage-centre Type: Museum Location: Centreville, Nova Scotia, Canada A heritage centre in Centreville, Nova Scotia, where blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge regularly examines Oak Island artifacts, identifying their age, origin, and function based on decades of experience with historical metalwork. Northville Farms Heritage Centre is located in Centreville, Nova Scotia, and serves as a working heritage site preserving traditional rural trades and craftsmanship. The centre is home to blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge, whose extensive knowledge of historical metalwork and forging techniques has made him an indispensable resource for the Oak Island team. Carmen's workshop at Northville Farms functions as an informal laboratory where iron, steel, and copper artifacts recovered from the island are brought for expert identification, dating, and analysis based on their construction methods, tool marks, and metallurgical characteristics. Oak Island Connection: Northville Farms has become one of the most frequently visited off-island research locations across multiple seasons. In Season 8, Doug Crowell and Scott Barlow brought Carmen Legge a mysterious metal artifact discovered in Dan Blankenship's archived files, originally found in the swamp during the 1970s. Carmen identified it as part of a large cannon, noting its layered metal construction and traces of burnt gunpowder in its exhaust ports, and dated the piece to the mid-1400s. In the same season, Charles Barkhouse, David Fornetti, and Dan Henskee returned to Northville Farms with a burned iron rod recovered near the stone pathway at the swamp's northeastern border. Carmen identified it as an eyebolt used for anchoring or securing parts of ships, dating it to as far back as the late 1600s. Carmen Legge's identifications at Northville Farms have consistently pushed the timeline of human activity on Oak Island well before the 1795 discovery of the Money Pit. His analysis of hinges, fasteners, and military hardware has provided critical dating evidence and helped connect individual artifacts to broader patterns of European activity in Nova Scotia. **Overton Stone** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/overton-stone Type: Ancient Site Location: Overton, Nova Scotia, Canada A large glacial boulder near Overton, Nova Scotia, bearing a carved inscription that combines Christian and Mi'kmaw symbols. First reported by Beverly Wells-Pinkney in 2009 and investigated by local historian Terry J. Deveau for the New England Antiquities Research Association (NEARA). The carving consists of a stylized cross inside an oval, a pair of crossed Native tobacco leaves overlaid by an eagle feather, and a three-day-old evening crescent moon. Deveau interprets the stone as a possible monument to a friendship treaty between Portuguese explorers and the Mi'kmaq people, based on the cross's resemblance to Knights of Christ insignia and parallels with Portuguese padrão markers found in Africa, Indonesia, and the Cape Verde Islands. The Overton Stone is a large glacial boulder of 430-million-year-old tuffaceous metasiltstone from the White Rock Formation that has broken into two nearly equal pieces, each about the size of a small car. It sits at the top of a small rise near the shore. The carving is on the more inland and higher of the two pieces, on a vertical south-facing and sea-facing surface. The inscription was carved into the thick weathering patina present on the stone surface. As a glacial boulder, the undisturbed patina would be approximately 13,000 years old. The cross was carved deeply enough to expose dark unpatinated material, and some subsequent repatination is visible in the interior of the cross, suggesting the carving is not recent. The carving consists of three groups of elements: a stylized Christian cross with outward-widening arms surrounded by an oval with four deep dots outside it, a pair of Native tobacco leaves (identified as Nicotiana tabacum) with an eagle feather overlying them, and a three-day-old evening crescent moon. A secondary carving of the stylized initials "HT" and an abbreviated date "06/07" appears about one metre to the lower right of the main inscription. The tool-mark pattern and degree of weathering differ from the main carving. Deveau suggests these initials may have been carved much later, possibly as a calibration test to estimate the age of the original inscription by comparing weathering rates. An area below the main carving shows signs of possible deliberate defacement, with very little patination compared to the surrounding surface, as if an oblong horizontal piece of the stone was removed. Deveau suggests that if the stone originally included a date, a later group (perhaps the French after 1600 or the British after 1713) may have removed it to invalidate the monument as evidence of a prior Portuguese land claim. Deveau's analysis considers and largely rules out several alternative origins: Norse (no runic elements; archaeologist Rob Ferguson of Parks Canada and Mats Larsson of Linnaeus University found nothing Norse about the carvings), Mi\'kmaw (the deeply sculpted steel chisel work is stylistically different from typical Mi'kmaw petroglyphs, which tend toward line-art on flat quartzite bedrock; Ruth Whitehead, retired ethnologist at the Nova Scotia Museum, agreed it was unlikely to be an ancient Mi'kmaw petroglyph), and recreational carver (the motif is unlike typical recreational carvings, and the HT initials appear to be a separate, later addition). The Portuguese are identified as the strongest candidate based on the cross's resemblance to known Knights of Christ insignia, the Portuguese practice of erecting padrão stones and crosses as territorial markers worldwide between 1460 and 1580, and documented Portuguese land claims to Nova Scotia by explorers including Joam Alvares Fagundes (circa 1520) and the Corte-Real brothers (1500-1502). Oak Island Connection: The Overton Stone sits near the opening of the Bay of Fundy, a name itself derived from the Portuguese "Rio Fundo." The Portuguese connection to Nova Scotia is well documented through 16th-century cartography, including the Pedro Reinel portolan map (circa 1504-1520), which shows Knights of Christ insignia flags on Portuguese land claims in Atlantic Canada. The Lopo Homem world map of 1554 shows the Bay of Fundy in remarkable cartographic detail and includes Mi'kmaw place names on Cape Breton Island, evidence of what historian W.F. Ganong described as contact "far more lasting and intimate than was possible to the usual explorer of the sixteenth century, suggesting rather some contemporary settler there." The Oak Island team visited the stone in Season 3, Episode 4 after researcher Robert Marcus identified it as a possible waypoint on an antique treasure map. Terry Deveau led Rick and Marty Lagina, Craig Tester, and Dave Blankenship to the site. Deveau identified the cross as Portuguese rather than Templar, noting its flared arms match the style of the Knights of Christ, the Portuguese successor order to the Knights Templar. The Order of Christ was founded in 1317 to inherit the Templar assets and property in Portugal, and its Grand Master Prince Henry the Navigator funded the great wave of Portuguese exploration using the order's resources. The same cross adorned Portuguese sails across the world. **Peggy's Cove** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/peggy-s-cove Type: Ancient Site Location: Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada Peggy's Cove sits on the rocky Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia, west of the entrance to Halifax Harbour and roughly 50 miles east of Oak Island. The village was settled in the eighteenth century around a small fishing harbour and grew into one of the most photographed locations in Canada. Its character is defined by exposed granite, glacial erratics, and the absence of trees that gives the shoreline its distinctive openness. The same coast formed part of Mi\'kma\'ki, the traditional territory of the Mi\'kmaq, who lived and travelled along this section of the Atlantic shore for thousands of years before European arrival. The Peggy's Point Lighthouse, built in 1915, sits at the tip of the cove on a wide apron of bare granite. It is the visual centre of the village and the anchor of the surrounding Peggy's Cove Preservation Area, a protected zone established to keep the granite shore free of development. The preservation area extends along the coast away from the village in both directions, and most visitors walk only the small section of bedrock immediately around the lighthouse. The boulder that historian Terry J. Deveau identifies as a carved face sits within the preservation area, roughly a ten minute walk from the lighthouse along the granite shore. It rests on bare granite among the glacial outcrops and is not marked, signposted, or formally protected as an archaeological feature. Most visitors pass within view of it without recognising the modifications Deveau documents. Oak Island Connection: The carved boulder at Peggy's Cove links the site to a long-standing line of Oak Island research that traces a late fourteenth-century European presence in Nova Scotia. In Mi'kmaq oral tradition, Glooscap arrived from across the sea with a body of men and large ships. Frederick J. Pohl, writing in the 1950s, proposed that the Glooscap of oral history preserves a memory of Prince Henry Sinclair, the Scottish Earl of Orkney whose 1398 transatlantic voyage was first set out in the Zeno Narrative. Later Sinclair researchers have continued to develop the identification, although it remains contested within mainstream Mi'kmaq and Indigenous studies scholarship. If the boulder is read against the Glooscap tradition, it would be a Mi'kmaq response to a pre-Columbian European arrival, carved within view of the Atlantic and oriented toward the coast Sinclair is said to have reached. A compass bearing taken at the carved face points roughly due west, in the direction of Mahone Bay and Oak Island. In Season 4, Episode 10 (About Face), Rick Lagina noted the parallel with the carved headstone Fred Nolan recovered from the centre of Nolan's Cross, the granite cross of boulders on Oak Island itself. Both stones combine deliberate modification with directional alignment, and both sit within the wider zone of Mi'kma'ki across which Sinclair-Glooscap identifications have been argued for seventy years. The Peggy's Cove Glooscap stone has not been formally dated, has not been excavated, and has not been authenticated by independent archaeological analysis. The Glooscap-Sinclair identification rests on oral tradition and circumstantial geographic argument. ' ' **Regional Public Library and Archives of Angra do Heroismo** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/regional-public-library-and-archives-of-angra-do-heroismo Type: Educational Location: Angra do Heroismo, Terceira, Portugal Public library and regional archive on Terceira, Azores, housed since 2016 in a contemporary building on Rua do Morrão designed by Inês Lobo Arquitectos. Holds approximately 400,000 books and two million documents, including the parish, notarial, and judicial records of Terceira, São Jorge, and Graciosa, the surviving administrative archives of the Diocese of Angra, and substantial monastic, family, and personal collections. The Biblioteca Pública e Arquivo Regional Luís da Silva Ribeiro is the principal documentary institution of the central group of the Azores, located in Angra do Heroísmo on Terceira within the zone inscribed by UNESCO in 1983 as a World Heritage Site. The library and archive together hold approximately 400,000 books and two million documents, distributed across a public library, a children's and youth library, a conservation library with legal deposit, and the regional archive. The current building on Rua do Morrão was inaugurated on 16 September 2016, designed by the Lisbon practice of Inês Lobo Arquitectos and built on what had been the gardens of the nineteenth-century Palacete Silveira e Paulo. It comprises 9,600 square metres of gross built area across three floors, with a translucent U-glass façade that gives the structure its distinctive appearance within the historic urban fabric. Document storage and conservation occupy a partially submerged lower level, with reading rooms, exhibition spaces, and the children's section above. Total investment in the building reached approximately eighteen million euros over a seven-year construction period. The archive is the most extensive of the three regional archives of the Azores. Its holdings cover the parish, notarial, and judicial records of the islands of Terceira, São Jorge, and Graciosa, providing the documentary backbone for local and regional history from the late fifteenth century onward. Alongside the civil records sit the surviving archives of the Diocese of Angra, including the Cabido and the Mitra, together with documentation from monasteries and convents, brotherhoods, chapels, and the Misericórdias. The institution also holds family archives, the records of civil and cultural associations, and a number of personal papers donated over the past century. The library traces its origins to the dissolution of the Portuguese monastic orders in the 1830s, when collections from the suppressed convents were transferred into public custody. A formal public library was established in 1871 through the bequest of roughly 4,000 volumes from the personal library of Francisco Jerónimo da Silva, an Angra-born jurist who died in Lisbon, and was officially inaugurated on 1 December 1876. The combined institution in its modern form was created in the late 1940s and 1950s through the work of the Instituto Histórico da Ilha Terceira, founded in 1944, whose members lobbied for the establishment of a district archive (Decree-Law 36/842 of 20 April 1948) and a district library (Decree-Law 40/745 of 16 April 1956). For the next sixty years the institution was housed in the Palácio Bettencourt, a seventeenth-century baroque palace on Rua da Rosa, which it vacated in September 2016 when the present building opened. The institution is administered by the Direção Regional da Cultura of the Government of the Azores. Its catalogue is partially digitised and accessible through the Catálogo Coletivo dos Arquivos dos Açores. For research into the early modern history of Terceira, including the period of the Order of Christ presence in the Azores, the succession crisis of 1580 to 1583, and the documented activity of Azorean families with interests across the western Atlantic, it is the primary repository of surviving primary material on the island. Oak Island Connection: The Biblioteca Pública e Arquivo Regional Luís da Silva Ribeiro holds the most extensive primary documentary record on Terceira's history, including the parish, notarial, and judicial records from the late 15th century onward and the surviving administrative archives of the Diocese of Angra. In S13E24, Portuguese numismatist Alberto Silva examined the Tornes escudo silver coin recovered from the original Money Pit and authenticated by family record back to the 1849 Truro Company drilling operation. Working from the institution's reference collection, Silva narrowed the coin's striking window to no later than 1371, placed it in the reign of Order of Christ patron King Ferdinand I, and confirmed that fewer than a hundred examples are known worldwide despite a much larger original mintage. The archive's collection on the period of Order of Christ jurisdiction over the Azores makes it the single most important Portuguese repository for the documentary side of the Oak Island corridor case. **Roman Road of Alqueidao da Serra** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/roman-road-of-alqueidao-da-serra Type: Ancient Site Location: Alqueidão da Serra, Porto de Mos, Portugal A 2,000-year-old Roman stone road under active archaeological restoration in central Portugal, whose construction closely resembles the cobblestone road and paved features discovered in the Oak Island swamp. The Roman Road of Alqueidao da Serra is an ancient paved route in central Portugal dating back approximately 2,000 years to the period of Roman occupation of the Iberian Peninsula. The road is under active archaeological restoration led by archaeologist Jorge Figueiredo, who has documented its construction techniques including the use of fitted stone surfaces, drainage features, and layered foundations designed to support heavy traffic across varied terrain. Roman road-building technology spread throughout Europe during and after the imperial period, and was adopted and adapted by subsequent cultures including the Portuguese, who employed similar techniques in their own infrastructure projects through the medieval period and the Age of Discovery. Oak Island Connection: In Season 9, Rick Lagina, Doug Crowell, Alex Lagina, and Peter Fornetti traveled to Portugal with historical researcher Corjan Mol and Templar historian Joao Fiandeiro. At Alqueidao da Serra, archaeologist Jorge Figueiredo showed the group the 2,000-year-old Roman stone road he was restoring, which closely resembled the paved road discovered in the Oak Island swamp. Joao explained that larger stones would have been used as a base when building such a road through swampland. Jorge confirmed that other cultures, including the Portuguese, could have copied the Roman construction technology, and showed the team a stone path nearly identical to the cobblestone path found on Oak Island the previous year. When shown photographs of the Oak Island road, Jorge agreed that the Portuguese could have built it and confirmed the technology originated in Europe. Earlier in the investigation, antiquities expert Terry Deveau had independently concluded the Oak Island road was Portuguese and similar to roads built in Europe during the 1500s. The comparison at Alqueidao da Serra provided direct physical evidence supporting a Portuguese origin for infrastructure found on Oak Island. **Ross Farm Museum** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/ross-farm-museum Type: Museum Location: New Ross, Nova Scotia, Canada Living history agricultural museum in New Ross, Nova Scotia, roughly 20 miles north of Oak Island. Home to blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge, who has examined hundreds of metallic artifacts recovered from the island across multiple seasons. Ross Farm Museum is a living history site in New Ross, Nova Scotia, operated as a heritage agricultural museum depicting rural life in 19th-century Nova Scotia. The museum preserves traditional trades including blacksmithing, coopering, and woodworking, and maintains heritage breeds of livestock on a working farmstead. Among its staff is blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge, whose deep knowledge of historical metalworking techniques, forge construction, tool marks, and period-specific hardware has made the museum one of the most frequently visited research locations in the Oak Island investigation. Carmen's ability to identify the age, origin, and function of iron, steel, copper, and lead artifacts from visual inspection alone, drawing on decades of hands-on experience with historical metalwork, has provided critical first-pass dating for objects recovered from across the island. Oak Island Connection: Ross Farm Museum has served as an off-island research hub across multiple seasons, with team members regularly traveling the roughly 20 miles from Oak Island to consult Carmen Legge on newly recovered artifacts. In Season 7 alone, the museum featured in at least five episodes. Alex Lagina and Gary Drayton brought a decking spike recovered from the beach at Lot 32, which Carmen confirmed was consistent with 1700s ship construction hardware (S07E06). Marty Lagina, Alex, and Gary returned with a swamp iron strap and two digging tools found near the Eye of the Swamp; Carmen identified the strap as a brace from a nine-inch-diameter ship's timber dating to 1710 to 1790, noting clear evidence it had been burned in a fierce fire, and one of the tools as a hand-forged pickax dating to the mid-18th century and suitable for tunneling (S07E14). The team visited again with a hollow metal point recovered from the swamp near a conical boulder, which Carmen identified as an 18th-century pike pole tip, a docking tool used on shipping wharfs to guide sailing vessels (S07E15). Later in the season, Alex and Craig Tester brought Carmen an iron tool and a pickax recovered from roughly 120 feet deep in the Money Pit shaft RF-1. Carmen identified the iron piece as a possible lantern or pulley anchor consistent with original construction, and dated the pickax to potentially three centuries before 1795, placing it in the 1500s or earlier (S07E22). Carmen's identifications have repeatedly extended the known timeline of activity on Oak Island and have been instrumental in connecting surface finds to the deeper archaeological narrative. **Saint Mary's University** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/saint-marys-university Type: Educational Location: Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada Home to Dr. Christa Brosseau's chemistry laboratory, where artifacts found on Oak Island are examined under a scanning electron microscope capable of magnifying samples up to 200,000 times to determine their chemical composition and age. Saint Mary's University is a public university in Halifax, Nova Scotia, founded in 1802 and one of the oldest universities in Canada. The university's chemistry laboratory, directed by Dr. Christa Brosseau, operates a scanning electron microscope capable of magnifying samples up to 200,000 times their actual size and identifying their precise chemical composition through energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. Dr. Brosseau and her colleague Dr. Xiang Yang have examined numerous artifacts and material samples from Oak Island, providing critical analysis of metal composition, mineral content, and manufacturing techniques that help determine the age and origin of recovered objects. The laboratory has become one of the most important off-island scientific resources in the investigation. Oak Island Connection: Saint Mary's University has been involved in the Oak Island investigation since the earliest seasons. In Season 1, Alex Lagina brought coconut fibre samples from Smith's Cove to the university, where Dr. Tanya Koslowski examined them under a scanning electron microscope at 650x magnification and confirmed the material was genuine coconut fibre. Subsequent carbon dating placed the fibre between 1260 and 1400 A.D., nearly four centuries before the Money Pit's discovery. In Season 9, Marty Lagina, Craig Tester, and Dan Henskee visited Dr. Brosseau and Dr. Yang to examine the metal from Borehole D-2 under the scanning electron microscope. Dr. Yang identified the absence of manganese, placing the material before the 1840s, and discovered a particle that was 65 percent gold, 26 percent copper, and 5 percent silver. Dr. Brosseau identified this composition as rose gold, a material used since the Middle Ages. In Season 10, Peter Fornetti, Charles Barkhouse, and Emma Culligan brought the iron piece from the Lot 26 well and bush scythes for analysis; Dr. Brosseau confirmed both pre-dated 1840 based on the absence of manganese. In Season 11, Charles and Jack Begley brought hair found embedded in cement-like rock from beneath a Nolan's Cross boulder to Dr. Brosseau and Dr. Yang for examination under the scanning electron microscope. **Serreta** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/serreta Type: Ancient Site Location: Serreta, Terceira, Portugal A large group of stone constructions covering two to three square kilometres in the forest at the northwest limits of Serreta on the island of Terceira in the Azores. The site appears in no cadastral record and has been the subject of one published academic notice, a single page in a 2012 survey paper. No excavation has been conducted and no dating has been attempted. Within the forest at the northwest limits of Serreta, on the western tip of Terceira in the Azores, lies a field of stone constructions covering between two and three square kilometres, perhaps more. The terrain is sterile, the canopy is dense enough to impair any clear view from above, and rough tracks of unknown origin cross the entire area. The forest is mature, with trunks and roots grown through several of the walls. Many of the constructions are rectangular in plan. Some have no openings or passages between them. The amount of stone involved, and the volume of work required to move and place it, is very substantial. The site does not appear in any civil cadastral record, in any historical document, on any official map, or in the holdings of the parish or municipal offices of Angra do Heroísmo. The only modern association is a brief, abandoned attempt by one or two couples to start a vineyard at the southern edge, where two or three organised constructions can be plausibly attributed to that effort. Immediately before and after the vineyard area, the older ruins continue at the same density and in the same unfamiliar pattern. The site was first published in December 2012 by Antonieta Costa, PhD researcher at CITCEM, University of Porto, in a survey paper titled Terceira Island as a "megalithic station". Costa lists Serreta as the first of four anomalous archaeological areas on Terceira, alongside the Mount Brasil hypogea, the Grota do Medo complex outside Angra, and the cart ruts of S. Brás. Her account of Serreta runs to a single page. No follow-up academic work has been published. No excavation has been conducted. No samples have been submitted for radiocarbon dating. The Regional Government of the Azores has not commissioned any assessment, and the broader debate over pre-Portuguese presence on Terceira, which has focused on Mount Brasil and Grota do Medo, has bypassed Serreta entirely. The historical context narrows the question without answering it. Serreta is the part of Terceira that was settled latest. While the rest of the southwest coast was occupied by Portuguese settlers around 1510, the territory of Serreta was not generally settled until the middle of the 17th century, and the parish only became administratively independent from neighbouring Doze Ribeiras in 1862. The poor pumice soils, altitude and exposure made the area marginal, and a hermit priest is recorded as the first sustained resident. The Portuguese settlers who eventually moved into the area appear to have left no record of the constructions in the forest above them, despite the scale of the site and the difficulty of missing it. What can be established with confidence is limited. A substantial field of stone constructions exists in the forest at the northwest limits of Serreta. It does not appear in any official record. The only published academic notice is a single page from 2012. The local population, on the evidence of the cadastral absence, did not build it and does not have a tradition explaining it. What cannot be established, in the absence of dating evidence or excavation, is who built the constructions, when, or for what purpose. The site remains, by every available measure, unexamined.  Oak Island Connection: The dry-stone constructions at Serreta share a signature technique with the Lot 26 wall on Oak Island: large retaining boulders on the outer edges and a core of smaller rubble held between them, at comparable wall widths. Available carbon dates for similar Azorean walls fall around 1470 to 1475, close to the working timeline for Lot 26. If any part of Serreta belongs to a period earlier than the official Portuguese settlement of the island, it places a comparable building culture on a direct North Atlantic line between the Iberian peninsula and Nova Scotia, consistent with the route the team has been tracing through the rest of the Terceira evidence. **The American University of Rome** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/the-american-university-of-rome Type: Educational Location: Rome, Rome, Italy A private American university in Rome where Professor Andrea di Robilant, an expert on pre-15th-century Atlantic voyages, presented evidence of the Zeno brothers' 14th-century expedition to the New World with Henry Sinclair. The American University of Rome is a private institution offering liberal arts education in the Italian capital. Among its faculty is Professor Andrea di Robilant, an author and lecturer with more than 40 years of experience studying pre-15th-century Atlantic voyages. His research focuses on documented European expeditions to the New World that predate Columbus, with particular emphasis on Venetian maritime activity and the Zeno family's navigational records from the late 14th century. Oak Island Connection: In Season 10, Rick Lagina, Doug Crowell, Alex Lagina, Peter Fornetti, and Corjan Mol visited Professor Andrea di Robilant at the university during a research trip to Italy. The professor described a booklet published in Venice in 1558 that documented the voyages of Venetian sailors Nicolo and Antonio Zeno. According to the account, the brothers sailed to the Faroe Islands in the 1390s, where they entered the service of Lord Henry Sinclair and spent the next decade exploring the North Atlantic. Professor di Robilant presented documents indicating the Zeno brothers sailed to the New World with Sinclair and showed the team a late-17th-century map inscribed "Discovered by Antonio Zeno in 1390." The Zeno-Sinclair connection is significant to Oak Island research because Henry Sinclair, a Scottish nobleman with Templar heritage, is one of the central figures in theories linking the Knights Templar to pre-Columbian voyages to Nova Scotia. If the Zeno narrative is accurate, it places European explorers with Templar connections in the North Atlantic a full century before Columbus and within reach of Oak Island. **The National Archives** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/the-national-archives Type: Educational Location: Kew, Richmond, United Kingdom The National Archives is the official archival institution of the United Kingdom Government and serves as the principal repository for England’s and Wales’s historical public records. he National Archives is the official archival institution of the United Kingdom Government and serves as the principal repository for England’s and Wales’s historical public records. Based in Kew, Richmond upon Thames, London, it holds over 1,000 years of documents spanning from medieval charters and maps to modern government correspondence and naval logs. Open to researchers and the public, the archive’s facilities include extensive search rooms, reading areas, public exhibitions, and digital catalogues that allow visitors to explore historic materials firsthand. It’s a vital resource for understanding British and colonial history, including maritime records, Admiralty files, and colonial expedition documents that pertain to North America and Atlantic exploration. Today, The National Archives stands as both a research destination for historians and treasure hunters, and a cultural heritage site where original source materials—such as ship logs, Admiralty correspondence and legal records can be examined in their original form or through online catalogue services. Oak Island Connection: In Season 10, Episode 2 (“Across the Pond”) of The Curse of Oak Island, members of the Oak Island exploration team, Marty and Alex Lagina along with historian Charles Barkhouse, travel to The National Archives in Kew, London, England as part of their investigation into historical evidence linked to the Oak Island mystery. At the archives, they meet with historian Paul Stewart, who presents them with original British naval and colonial records, including an eighteenth-century document relating to the capture of the British ship Lively by a French vessel. This paperwork, signed in early 1746 by Jean-Baptiste Louis Frédéric de La Rochefoucauld de Roye, Duc d’Anville, suggests the French admiral may have been in the Nova Scotia region near Oak Island months before previously believed, potentially linking him more directly to treasure-burial theories. This archive visit highlights how primary source research in historical document repositories like The National Archives can play a role in piecing together the centuries-old Oak Island story. **University of New Brunswick** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/university-of-new-brunswick Type: Educational Location: Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada Canada's oldest English-language university, located in Fredericton, New Brunswick, where the Department of Earth Sciences has conducted laser ablation isotope analysis on key Oak Island artifacts. The University of New Brunswick in Fredericton is Canada's oldest English-language university, founded in 1785. Its Department of Earth Sciences operates advanced geochemistry laboratories equipped with laser ablation mass spectrometry systems capable of determining the isotopic composition of metals and minerals. Under the direction of Dr. Chris McFarlane, Professor of Earth Sciences, the department has developed expertise in provenance analysis, using isotope ratios to trace metals to their geological source regions by comparing results against databases containing thousands of reference samples from mining sites worldwide. Oak Island Connection: The University of New Brunswick has played a pivotal role in determining the origin of metallic artifacts recovered from Oak Island. In Season 6, Craig Tester, Dave Blankenship, and Peter Fornetti traveled to Fredericton to meet Dr. Chris McFarlane, who conducted laser ablation testing on the lead cross found at Smith's Cove. The process involved vaporizing microscopic sections of the artifact and feeding the gas into a mass spectrometer. Results showed the lead contained trace silver consistent with old-fashioned smelting techniques, and the isotopic ratios did not match any North American lead sources, confirming the cross was crafted from European lead. In Season 9, Charles Barkhouse and Marty Lagina returned to the university for laser ablation results on the lead bag seal found on Lot 32. Starting from a database of 7,000 records, Dr. McFarlane narrowed the results to ten to twelve possible source locations, all in Europe. Nothing pointed to North America, Scandinavia, or England; the lead appeared to be French. This finding joined a growing body of evidence supporting a European, and specifically French, connection to activity on Oak Island, including a stone paved area dating to the 1200s, 15th-century cargo barrels, and the lead cross itself. **Valletta Underground** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/valletta-underground Type: Cave Location: Valetta, Valletta, Malta Network of underground chambers, tunnels, and passages beneath Malta's capital city, dug into limestone bedrock by the Knights of Malta following the Ottoman siege of 1565. The tunnels feature blue-gray clay waterproofing identical to material found in the Money Pit. Beneath the streets of Valletta lies an extensive network of underground chambers, tunnels, and passages carved into the limestone bedrock by the Knights of Malta in the decades following the Great Siege of 1565. The Ottoman attack exposed the vulnerability of the island's above-ground defences, prompting the Hospitallers to construct an elaborate underground infrastructure beneath their new capital. The tunnels served multiple purposes: military storage, protected passage between fortified positions, and cisterns for collecting and storing fresh water. The underground network demonstrates the same advanced tunnel engineering and waterproofing techniques the order had developed across centuries of fortification construction in the Holy Land, Cyprus, Rhodes, and the Mediterranean. Oak Island Connection: In Season 12, journalist Jean Paul Mifsud led the team into the underground passages beneath Valletta. The tunnels, dug into limestone bedrock, provided the team with a firsthand look at Hospitaller underground construction techniques. Of particular significance was the blue-gray clay lining the tunnel walls, which Jean Paul identified as a sealant used for waterproofing. Scott Barlow immediately noted that blue clay was similarly used for waterproofing inside the Money Pit on Oak Island, where it has been encountered at multiple depths during drilling operations. The parallel between the Valletta tunnels and the Money Pit extended beyond the clay: both systems featured passages cut through rock, water management infrastructure, and deliberate sealing techniques designed to control flooding. The Hospitaller tunnels demonstrated that the engineering knowledge required to construct the Money Pit's flood tunnel system existed within the military-religious orders connected to the broader Templar and Hospitaller tradition. **Rennes-le-Château** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/rennes-le-chateau Type: Church Location: Rennes-le-Château, Aude, Occitanie, France Hilltop village in southern France where priest Bérenger Saunière discovered mysterious parchments in 1891 that led to unexplained wealth. A focal point in Templar treasure theories connecting the Cathar treasure to the Knights Templar and potentially to Oak Island. Rennes-le-Château is a hilltop village in the Aude department of southern France that has become one of the most studied sites in the history of treasure hunting and esoteric research. In 1891, the village priest Bérenger Saunière reportedly discovered a set of mysterious parchments hidden inside a hollow pillar while renovating the Church of Mary Magdalene. Shortly afterwards, Saunière began spending enormous sums of money on renovations, construction, and personal projects far beyond the means of a rural parish priest, fueling speculation that the parchments led him to a hidden treasure. The village sits in the heart of the Languedoc region, which was both a Cathar stronghold and a centre of Templar activity during the 12th and 13th centuries. Theories about the source of Saunière's wealth range from Cathar treasure and Templar gold to Visigothic royal treasure and sacred religious relics. Oak Island Connection: In Season 2, Marty and Alex Lagina visited Rennes-le-Château with researcher Kathleen McGowan, who described it as the most enigmatic and mysterious place in France. At a house bearing an iron Templar cross above the door, the group met Tobi, a modern-day Knight Templar and Templar historian. Tobi confirmed that a Templar treasure existed, that it was never found, and that the Knights Templar were persecuted by King Philip IV of France, who on Friday, October 13, 1307, ordered their arrest and burned many at the stake. The village's significance to Oak Island lies in its position along the theoretical treasure route: McGowan argued that sacred objects, including what she identified as the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail, were moved from the Cathar fortress of Montségur through Templar territory in southern France and eventually transported to Oak Island. The connections between the Cathar treasure, the Knights Templar, and the later Masonic and Rosicrucian traditions that emerged in Scotland after the order's suppression form a central thread in theories linking European medieval history to the Oak Island mystery. **Château de Montségur** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/chateau-de-montsegur Type: Castle Location: Montségur, Ariège, Occitanie, France Ruined Cathar fortress perched nearly 4,000 feet above the Pyrenean valley floor. The last stronghold of the Cathar faith fell after a ten-month siege in 1244, but Inquisition records confirm that treasure was smuggled out before the surrender, and two men were lowered by rope down the precipice on the night over 200 Cathars were burned alive. Montségur sits on a limestone ridge in the French Pyrenees so steep that in places the castle walls and the cliff are the same thing. For the Cathars, the dualist Christian faith that Rome spent thirty years trying to eradicate through the Albigensian Crusade and the Inquisition, this fortress served as spiritual capital, treasury, and final refuge. By 1243 the Cathar church had been driven underground across the Languedoc, and Montségur was the last place where its leaders could gather openly. In May 1243, a force of roughly ten thousand soldiers representing the French crown and the Catholic Church laid siege to the castle. Inside were fewer than four hundred people: soldiers, civilians, and the last senior figures of the Cathar faith. The siege dragged on for ten months through a harsh mountain winter. By early 1244, the garrison was starving and the defences were failing. Surrender terms were negotiated: those who renounced Catharism could leave. Those who refused would burn. On March 16, 1244, over two hundred Cathars who refused to recant were led into a wooden stockade at the base of the mountain and burned alive. The site is still marked today by a memorial stele in the field known as the Prat dels Cremats, the Field of the Burned. But the Inquisition records preserved in the DOAT collection at the Bibliothèque nationale de France tell a more complex story. Before the surrender, two Cathar perfects named Mathieu and Pierre Bonnet smuggled out gold, silver, and what the Latin record calls "pecuniam infinitam," an infinite quantity of money. They hid it in caves in the Sabarthès region, on lands held by Pons Arnaud de Châteauverdun. Then, on the night of the mass burning, the fortress commander Pierre Roger de Mirepoix hid two more men inside the walls: Amiel Aicard and his companion Hugh de Villiers. After the pyres had burned, the two were lowered by rope down the sheer precipice beneath the castle. Witnesses traced their route through Caussou and Prades to the Castle of Usson, where they met Mathieu, the man who had hidden the monetary treasure weeks earlier. The Inquisition interrogation of Arnaud Roger de Mirepoix records the reason explicitly: "And this was done so that the Church of the heretics would not lose its treasure, which was hidden in the woods." Neither Hugh de Villiers nor the Cathar treasure was ever found. Oak Island Connection: The escape of Hugh de Villiers from Montségur in 1244 is the earliest documented instance of a pattern that connects directly to Oak Island. The De Villiers family of the Languedoc were Templar patrons who had donated their own castle at Pieusse to the Knights Templar in 1137. They were also Cathar sympathisers who hosted a synod of over a hundred Cathars in 1225. Hugh's brother Jourdain de Villiers had participated in the raid on Avignonet in 1242, in which Cathar fighters killed two Dominican inquisitors and returned to Montségur with documents and valuables. The family straddled both the Templar and Cathar worlds simultaneously. Sixty-three years after Hugh de Villiers vanished from Montségur with the Cathar treasure, another man bearing the same name, Hugues de Châlons (identified by historian E.-G. Léonard as "probably identical" with Hugh de Villiers, preceptor of Épailly), fled Paris on the eve of the Templar arrests in October 1307 carrying the entire treasury of the Visitor of the Knights Templar. He was escorted by Gérard de Villiers, Master of France, the highest-ranking Templar on French soil, who led fifty horses out of the city while eighteen galleys put to sea. Same family name, same role, same outcome: escape with the treasure, followed by silence. The De Villiers line continued through the Knights Hospitaller, producing Philippe de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, Grand Master during the fall of Rhodes in 1522, and eventually Catherine de Villiers, whose son Isaac de Razilly arrived on the coast of Nova Scotia in 1632 as a Knight Commander of the Order of Malta. Razilly established himself at La Hève, roughly twenty kilometres from Oak Island, and in 1635 requested that the Order of Malta purchase lands in Acadia to found a Priory. The pattern set at Montségur, a De Villiers present at the moment of crisis, trusted with what is most precious, and disappearing into silence, continued for nearly five centuries. **Domme Templar Prison** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/domme-templar-prison Type: Prison Location: Domme, Dordogne, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France In 1307, seventy Knights Templar were imprisoned in the towers of Domme. The carvings they left behind include a crucifix that matches the lead cross found on Oak Island. Domme is a fortified medieval town in the Dordogne department of southwestern France, perched on a limestone cliff 150 metres above the Dordogne River. It was founded in 1281 by King Philip III of France, known as Philip the Bold, as a royal bastide: a strategic military stronghold designed to assert French control over the region during conflicts with the English Duchy of Aquitaine. The town's most imposing feature is the Porte des Tours, a massive gateway flanked by two round stone towers that served as both the entrance to the bastide and, from 1307 onward, a prison. The fortifications and ramparts were completed by 1310. Domme was only 26 years old when its towers were put to their darkest use. On Friday, October 13, 1307, King Philip IV of France ordered the simultaneous arrest of every Knight Templar in his kingdom. The charges were heresy, blasphemy, and idolatry. Historians widely agree that the accusations were politically motivated: Philip was heavily in debt to the order and sought to seize its wealth. Confessions were extracted under torture. Seventy Templar knights were imprisoned in the towers of the Porte des Tours. According to Canon Tonnelier, who conducted the first systematic study of the site in 1970, these prisoners were held at Domme from 1307 until approximately 1318. The names of all seventy were later published by Andre Goineaud-Berard in the Bulletin de la Societe Historique et Archeologique du Perigord. During their years of captivity, the imprisoned Templars carved hundreds of images into the hard stone walls of their prison. According to tradition, the prisoners had no tools and used their own fingernails and teeth to score the carvings into the rock. Some researchers, including Templar expert Jerry Glover, have expressed doubt about this explanation, noting that the complexity and depth of the carvings would be difficult to achieve with such crude instruments. Others have suggested that short knives may have been provided to the higher-ranking knights as a courtesy, a practice not uncommon in medieval noble imprisonment. However the carvings were made, the effort required was extraordinary. Seven distinct tableaux survive, depicting crucifixion scenes, crosses, religious figures, and geometric symbols. The carvings include what have been interpreted as Templar crosses, images of Christ on the cross flanked by the two Marys, crowned figures of the Virgin, and complex arrangements of triangles, circles, octagons and squares. Canon Tonnelier proposed that these geometric shapes formed a symbolic code. An octagon represented the Grail. A triangle surmounted by a cross represented Golgotha, where Christ was crucified. A square represented the Temple of Solomon, the order's headquarters in Jerusalem. A circle represented imprisonment. Whether these interpretations are correct remains debated, but the religious intensity of the carvings is not in question. Whatever the symbols mean, they were carved by people of deep faith who knew they were unlikely to leave those walls alive. The graffiti remain visible today. The Porte des Tours is open to visitors, and guided tours are available in French with English translations provided on request. In 1970, further examination of the walls revealed additional inscriptions invisible to the naked eye, suggesting that the full extent of the prisoners' testimony has yet to be uncovered. Domme is now one of the "Plus Beaux Villages de France." But behind the honey-coloured stone and the panoramic views of the Dordogne valley, the towers of the Porte des Tours preserve the last recorded testament of men who were arrested for their faith, tortured for their confessions, and left to carve their truth into the walls of their prison. Oak Island Connection: One carving in particular drew international attention in 2017. A crucifix carved into the prison wall bears a striking resemblance to the lead cross discovered by Gary Drayton at Smith's Cove on Oak Island during Season 5 of The Curse of Oak Island. Rick Lagina, who had visited Domme with Alex Lagina and Peter Fornetti during a research trip shown in the preceding episode, immediately noted the similarity. Templar expert Jerry Glover subsequently confirmed that the Smith's Cove cross is congruent with the Domme crucifix, and also with a design carved onto a pillar in the nave of a 13th-century church in Whitchurch, Buckinghamshire, England. That church stands half a mile from Creslow Manor, a former Knights Templar preceptory that was later turned over to the Knights Hospitaller after the order's suppression. Lead isotope analysis by geochemist Tobias Skowronek of the German Mining Museum dated the Smith's Cove cross to between 900 and 1300 AD and traced its metal to medieval mines in southern France, thousands of miles from Nova Scotia. The resemblance between a physical artifact found on Oak Island and a carving made by imprisoned Templars in the Dordogne remains one of the most direct visual links between the island and the medieval order. **Rosslyn Chapel** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/rosslyn-chapel Type: Church Location: Roslin, Midlothian, Scotland, United Kingdom Built by William Sinclair between 1446-1484. Extraordinarily dense with carved symbolism, including what many identify as pre-Columbian corn or maize, suggesting the Sinclair family had knowledge of North America nearly a century before Columbus. Rosslyn Chapel is a 15th-century chapel in the village of Roslin, Midlothian, Scotland, designed by William Sinclair and built by Freemasons between approximately 1446 and 1484. The chapel is renowned for the extraordinary density and complexity of its carved stone decoration, which includes Biblical scenes, Green Men, geometric patterns, and botanical motifs that have fascinated researchers for centuries. Among the most debated carvings are what many scholars identify as depictions of corn or maize, a grain native to North America that would not have been known in Scotland before the European discovery of the New World. If the identification is correct, it suggests the Sinclair family had knowledge of North American plants decades before Columbus crossed the Atlantic. William Sinclair's grandfather, Prince Henry Sinclair, is a central figure in theories connecting Scotland to pre-Columbian Atlantic voyages. Historical accounts suggest that Henry Sinclair sailed to Nova Scotia in 1398, accompanied by Venetian navigators Antonio and Nicolo Zeno, nearly a century before Columbus. The Mi'kmaq people of Nova Scotia are said to have encountered Henry Sinclair and regarded him as a figure named Glooscap who taught them new methods of fishing and navigation. The ceremonial flag of the Mi'kmaq bears a striking resemblance to the Templar battle flag of Henry Sinclair. Oak Island Connection: In Season 2, Rick, Marty, and Alex Lagina visited Rosslyn Chapel with Dave Blankenship, Charles Barkhouse, and researchers Kathleen McGowan and Alan Butler. The chapel's carved botanical motifs, particularly the corn or maize, supported the theory that Prince Henry Sinclair reached Nova Scotia in 1398 and that the Sinclair family possessed knowledge of the New World passed down through generations. Alan Butler presented a theory connecting Rosslyn Chapel directly to Oak Island through measurement. The distance between Rosslyn Chapel and Rosslyn Castle is 366 megalithic yards, equivalent to 996 feet. Butler argued that the Templars used this same measurement system on Oak Island, constructing a new Jerusalem based on the Enochian model, with a hidden chamber located 366 megalithic yards from the Money Pit at a fixed compass point due west, a location that falls squarely in the swamp. The measurement theory provided a mathematical link between the Scottish Templar tradition and the physical layout of Oak Island, and pointed once again to the swamp as a location of central importance. **Royston Cave** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/royston-cave Type: Cave Location: Royston, Hertfordshire, England, United Kingdom Bell-shaped chamber carved into chalk bedrock beneath a crossroads in Royston, England, discovered in 1742 but believed to date to medieval times. Wall carvings include a figure matching the Oak Island lead cross, a brick dated 1347, and a depiction of Melusine connected to the Rochefoucauld family. Royston Cave is a bell-shaped artificial chamber carved into the chalk bedrock beneath the crossroads at the centre of Royston, Hertfordshire, England, a town founded in 1184 that was once part of the Roman Empire. The cave was first documented in 1742 when workmen discovered it beneath a market stall. The chamber's centre circle measures close to 13 feet in diameter, and its walls are covered with carved figures, religious scenes, and symbolic imagery that researchers have attributed to the Knights Templar. The cave is widely interpreted as a Templar initiation chamber, hidden beneath a commercial building to conceal its ritual function during and after the suppression of the order. The carvings include crucifixion scenes, figures of saints, and symbols that connect to Templar iconography found across Europe. Oak Island Connection: In Season 10, Marty Lagina, Alex Lagina, and Charles Barkhouse visited Royston Cave with researcher and author Gretchen Cornwall. Marty noted that the chamber's centre circle of close to 13 feet matched the diameter of the original Money Pit, and the group discussed similarities to the Initiation Well they had observed at Quinta da Regaleira in Sintra, Portugal. Gretchen pointed out a carving she believed depicted the figure portrayed on the lead cross found on Oak Island, noting the tilted head and the longer arm on one side, details that also echoed a carving found in the Templar prison at Domme, France. She then showed them a brick inscribed with the number 1347, the same date that appeared on Zena Halpern's Templar map of Oak Island, which Marty suggested could be a commemorative stone marking the Templars' departure. Gretchen identified another carving as a representation of Melusine, a half-human, half-fish goddess from the sixth century whom the Rochefoucauld family claims as an ancestress. She showed the group a photograph from the Château de Rochefoucauld where Melusine holds up a platform for a bust. Alex observed that a connection to the Rochefoucaulds would represent another link to Zena Halpern's map, tying the cave's carvings to both the Templar tradition and the specific French noble family whose name has appeared repeatedly in the Oak Island investigation. **Valkenburg Castle Ruins** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/valkenburg-castle Type: Ruin Location: Valkenburg aan de Geul, Limburg, Netherlands The only hilltop castle in the Netherlands, founded c.1115 by Gosewijn I. Secret passages and a dungeon containing 14th-century Templar carvings, including four-dot crosses and symbols matching those found in Nova Scotia. Valkenburg Castle is the only hilltop castle in the Netherlands, founded around 1115 by Gosewijn I, Lord of Valkenburg, on a limestone prominence overlooking the Geul Valley in the province of Limburg. The castle was besieged and partially destroyed multiple times over the centuries, with the final demolition ordered by the States-General of the Dutch Republic in 1672. Today the ruins include a keep, defensive walls, and an extensive network of underground passages carved through the limestone, including dungeons where prisoners were held during the medieval period. Among those held captive were members of the Knights Templar following the suppression of the order in the early 14th century. Oak Island Connection: In Season 11, Rick Lagina, Doug Crowell, and members of the team visited the castle ruins during their European research trip. Corjan Mol and cultural historian Jacquo Silvertant showed the group 14th-century carvings in the dungeon where Templars were once imprisoned. Among the markings were four-dot crosses and a goose paw symbol matching one previously found in Liverpool, Nova Scotia. Corjan identified what he described as a Viking Sail, a symbol resembling sails made from horizontal strips of cloth on Norse vessels. The presence of both Templar and Norse-associated symbols carved by prisoners in the same dungeon suggested a crossover between the two traditions, supporting the theory that Templar knowledge of Atlantic navigation may have drawn on earlier Viking seafaring routes to the New World. **Caestert Quarry Underground Tunnels** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/caestert-quarry-underground-tunnels Type: Cave Location: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands Extensive medieval tunnel system carved through marlstone near Maastricht. Part of a 15-mile network of underground passageways running between the Netherlands and Belgium, containing Templar-associated symbols matching those found on Oak Island. The Caestert stone quarry is a 12th-century underground tunnel system near Maastricht in the southern Netherlands, where marlstone was mined for the construction of Catholic churches and abbeys throughout the region. The quarry comprises thousands of tunnels totaling approximately 15 miles of underground passageways that extend beneath the border between the Netherlands and Belgium. Used continuously from the medieval period through the 18th century, the tunnels contain carved symbols, drawings, and inscriptions left by miners, pilgrims, and, according to some researchers, members of the Knights Templar who may have used the quarry network as a staging area or hiding place for treasures during the suppression of the order in the early 14th century. Oak Island Connection: In Season 11, Corjan Mol and cultural historian Jacquo Silvertant led Rick Lagina, Doug Crowell, Alex Lagina, and Peter Fornetti through the quarry as part of a European research trip. Jacquo proposed that the Templars may have hidden their treasures in the quarry network before transporting them onward to Oak Island. In a cross-shaped section of the tunnels, the team found drawings resembling a menorah alongside four-dot crosses and circles with a central dot, both matching symbols found on the H/O stone from Oak Island's northern shore. Corjan suggested that the recurring appearance of these symbols across multiple European sites, from Caestert to Morimondo Abbey to the churches of Bornholm, may trace the route the treasure followed as it moved westward toward the Atlantic. The quarry's position near major medieval trade routes connecting the Rhineland to the North Sea ports of Flanders would have made it a logical waypoint in any such journey. **Nylars Round Church** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/nylars-round-church Type: Church Location: Nylars, Bornholm, Denmark Best-preserved of Bornholm's four 12th-century round churches, built c.1165 and believed by researchers to have been constructed by the Knights Templar. Contains runestones with symbols matching those reportedly found on the Oak Island 90-foot stone. Nylars Church is the best-preserved of four medieval round churches on the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea. Built around 1165, the church features a distinctive circular design with thick defensive walls and a central column supporting a vaulted ceiling. Researchers including Danish author Erling Haagensen have argued that the round churches of Bornholm were constructed by the Knights Templar, who maintained a significant presence on the island during the 12th and 13th centuries. The church's interior contains carved runestones dating to the 4th century, preserved within the medieval structure, alongside Templar-associated symbols and markings that have attracted the attention of historians tracing the order's movements across northern Europe. Oak Island Connection: In Season 11, Rick Lagina, Doug Crowell, and members of the team visited Nylars Church during a research trip to Denmark with Corjan Mol. Author Erling Haagensen told the group that Vikings helped the Templars prepare for transporting treasure to the New World. Inside the church, Rick examined runestones dating to the 4th century and noticed symbols matching those reportedly found on the 90-foot stone from the Money Pit, which was historically described as Swedish porphyry with an olive-green colour. Rick also spotted what appeared to be a Templar cross at the top of one runestone, suggesting a link between the pre-Christian carved stones and the later Templar occupation of the site. The presence of matching symbols on both the Bornholm runestones and the Oak Island 90-foot stone raises the possibility that the Templars drew on Scandinavian symbolic traditions when encoding information about the Money Pit. **Madsebakke Rock Carvings** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/madsebakke Type: Ancient Site Location: Allinge, Bornholm, Denmark Northern Europe's most important Bronze Age rock carving site, with petroglyphs dating back 3,000 years that researchers believe represent navigational tools aligned with the stars. The Madsebakke rock carvings on Bornholm, Denmark, constitute the largest and most significant collection of Bronze Age petroglyphs in northern Europe. Dating back approximately 3,000 years, the carvings are incised into exposed rock surfaces and include ships, wheels, circular motifs, and geometric patterns that researchers have interpreted as representations of celestial navigation tools, solar calendars, and maritime route markers. The site reflects the deep astronomical knowledge of Bronze Age Scandinavian cultures, whose seafaring traditions laid the groundwork for the Viking Age navigational achievements that followed more than a millennium later. Oak Island Connection: In Season 11, Rick Lagina, Doug Crowell, Corjan Mol, and members of the team visited Madsebakke during their research trip to Bornholm. Historian Jeanne Cordua presented the 3,000-year-old carvings and described one as a Bronze Age compass aligned with sunrise and sunset at the winter solstice. She also explained how Norse mariners used translucent mineral Sunstones to navigate the open sea, a technology that would have been essential for any transatlantic crossing. Among the carvings the team identified a four-dot cross, a symbol that has appeared repeatedly in the Oak Island investigation including on the H/O stone found on the island's northern shore. Doug Crowell connected nearby carved potholes representing the Hyades constellation to the stone piles on Lot 15 of Oak Island, which Professor Gaspani had independently linked to the same star cluster during his analysis of Nolan's Cross. The convergence of celestial references at Madsebakke and on Oak Island strengthened the case for a shared navigational and symbolic tradition connecting Scandinavian and Templar cultures. **Ladby Viking Museum** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/ladby-viking-museum Type: Museum Location: Kerteminde, Funen, Denmark The only Viking ship burial found in Denmark, dating to c.925 AD. A 21.5-metre warship served as the final resting place of a Viking chieftain, preserved in situ with weapons, tools, and the remains of horses and dogs. The Ladby Viking Museum in Kerteminde, Denmark, preserves the only Viking ship burial discovered in the country. Dating to approximately 925 A.D., the site contains the remains of a 21.5-metre warship used as the burial vessel for a Viking chieftain, likely the King of Ladby. The ship was interred with the ruler's weapons, tools, and the remains of horses and dogs, following Norse burial customs that reflected the belief in an afterlife requiring provisions and transport. The museum has been built directly over the original excavation site, allowing visitors to view the ship's imprint and surviving iron rivets in their original position. The collection includes weapons, jewellery, and navigational instruments from the early medieval period. Oak Island Connection: In Season 11, Rick Lagina, Doug Crowell, Corjan Mol, and the team visited the Ladby Viking Museum during their research trip to Denmark. Curator Ane Jepsen Nyborg showed them the burial site of the King of Ladby, who died around 925 A.D. and was interred in a 70-foot Viking ship. When Doug presented a photograph of a crossbow bolt found on Oak Island in the 1960s, Ane produced a replica and confirmed that the artifact matched pieces from local Danish archaeological excavations, dating it to the early medieval period through the Viking Age, specifically pre-1300s. The identification placed the Oak Island crossbow bolt within a Scandinavian military context and added to the growing body of evidence suggesting Norse or early medieval European activity on the island centuries before its official discovery in 1795. **Roskilde Viking Ship Museum** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/roskilde-viking-ships Type: Museum Location: Roskilde, Zealand, Denmark Houses five original Viking ships deliberately sunk in Roskilde Fjord c.1070 to block enemy naval attack. The museum's research centre has reconstructed seaworthy replicas demonstrating that Norse cargo vessels could carry 20 tons across the Atlantic. The Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark, is built around five original Viking ships recovered from the bottom of Roskilde Fjord, where they were deliberately sunk around 1070 A.D. to create an underwater barrier against enemy naval attacks. The vessels range from a small fishing boat to a large ocean-going warship and represent the full spectrum of Viking maritime technology. The museum's research centre has reconstructed several seaworthy replicas using period-accurate tools and techniques, including cargo ships capable of transatlantic voyages. Shipwright Marten Rodevad Dael and maritime archaeologist Dr. Morten Ravn lead research programmes documenting how Norse ship design evolved from oared craft to sail-powered vessels around 750 A.D., enabling the open-ocean voyages that eventually reached North America. Oak Island Connection: In Season 11, Rick Lagina, Doug Crowell, Corjan Mol, and the team visited the museum as part of their Scandinavian research trip. Dr. Morten Ravn showed them a vessel dating from the late Viking Age to the early medieval period and explained how the evolution from oared craft to sail-powered ships around 750 A.D. enabled transatlantic voyages. Shipwright Marten Rodevad Dael demonstrated a reconstructed cargo ship built around 1060 that could carry roughly 20 tons to North America, a capacity sufficient to transport significant quantities of material or treasure across the Atlantic. Doug Crowell noted during the visit that a piece of wood found on Oak Island had been dated to 660 through 770 A.D. and resembled railing from the bow of just such a vessel. The comparison established that Norse ships of the period were both capable of reaching Nova Scotia and consistent in construction with wooden artifacts recovered from the island. The museum visit strengthened the case that Viking-era or early medieval seafarers may have reached Oak Island centuries before the arrival of later European expeditions. **Morimondo Abbey** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/morimondo-abbey Type: Monastery Location: Morimondo, Lombardy, Italy Cistercian abbey founded in 1134 as a daughter house of Morimond Abbey in Burgundy. Its scriptorium produced over 100 manuscripts in the 13th century, and its walls contain four-dot crosses and Templar symbols matching those found on Oak Island. Morimondo Abbey is a Cistercian monastery founded in 1134 in the commune of Morimondo, southwest of Milan in Lombardy, Italy. Established as a daughter house of Morimond Abbey in Burgundy, France, it became one of the most important Cistercian foundations in northern Italy. The abbey's scriptorium was a major centre of manuscript production during the 13th century, creating over 100 texts that preserved and transmitted religious, scientific, and navigational knowledge across the Cistercian network. The connection between the Cistercian and Templar orders is historically significant: both were championed by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who wrote the Rule of the Knights Templar and was instrumental in securing papal recognition for the order. Cistercian abbeys frequently served as centres of learning where Templar scholars studied, and the two orders maintained close institutional ties throughout the medieval period. Oak Island Connection: In Season 11, Rick Lagina, Doug Crowell, Alex Lagina, and Peter Fornetti toured the abbey with Emiliano Sacchetti and archaeoastronomer Professor Adriano Gaspani, with interpreter Marzia Sebastiani. Before entering, Emiliano drew attention to exterior ceramic vessels, and Doug spotted two four-dot crosses matching the H/O stone found on Oak Island's northern shore in the 1920s. Inside the abbey, whose nave stretches 60 metres by 13 metres with eight large pillars on each side, the team found a Templar cross on the ceiling. In the scriptorium, mid-13th-century paintings by Cistercian monks revealed a Tree of Life symbol matching one seen at the Templar prison in Domme, France, with a four-dot cross on the reverse side of the same pillar. Rick noticed oak leaves in one painting and wondered whether knowledge of foreign plants was being recorded, raising the question of whether the monks' work was intended for only a select audience. Professor Gaspani declared he was convinced Nolan's Cross was built by a Knight Templar or a Cistercian monk, noting that both orders shared the same founder in St. Bernard of Clairvaux and that Templar scholars often studied in Cistercian abbeys. Emiliano later noted that the scriptorium's 13th-century manuscript tradition eventually reached as far as Iceland through the Cistercian monastic network. **Camerano Caves** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/camerano-caves Type: Cave Location: Camerano, Marche, Italy Underground city beneath Camerano with tunnels dating from the Piceni era through the Roman Empire and into the medieval period, when the caves served as a Knights Templar stronghold containing symbols matching those found on Oak Island. The Camerano Caves are an extensive underground network beneath the town of Camerano in the Marche region of central Italy. The system dates back more than 2,500 years: the Piceni people are believed to have created the original chambers around 600 B.C., and the area was incorporated into the Roman Empire in 290 B.C. During the 12th to 14th centuries, the caves served as a Knights Templar stronghold, with an entrance modeled after the Holy Sepulchre dating to the 13th century. After the dissolution of the Templar order in 1312, surviving members are believed to have used the underground spaces as secret gathering places. The cave system includes the Burchiani Cave, also known as the Venus Cave, one of the oldest chambers at roughly 20 metres below street level. Local historian Alberto Recanatini has spent over 50 years mapping the tunnels and documenting their history. Oak Island Connection: In Season 10, Rick Lagina, Doug Crowell, Alex Lagina, Peter Fornetti, and Corjan Mol toured the Camerano Caves with Emiliano Sacchetti and Alberto Recanatini. Emiliano explained that the cave entrance was modeled after the Holy Sepulchre and dates to the 13th century, and Alberto noted that after the Templars were dissolved, surviving members dug underground places to gather in secret. In the Burchiani Cave, the team discovered that a section of the cave system matches the shape of the lead cross found on Oak Island at Smith's Cove in 2017. Corjan Mol also identified a goose-paw symbol like one previously observed in Liverpool, Nova Scotia. The recurring appearance of matching symbols in Templar sites across Italy, alongside the lead cross shape correspondence, added to the pattern of connections between medieval European Templar strongholds and artifacts recovered from Oak Island. **Osimo Caves** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/osimo-caves Type: Cave Location: Osimo, Marche, Italy Network of 88 caves and tunnels beneath the medieval city, connected by wells and passages stretching roughly 30 kilometres. Originally created almost 2,000 years ago and reestablished as a Templar stronghold around 1160 A.D. The Grotte Simonetti in Osimo form part of one of the most extensive underground networks in central Italy, comprising 88 caves and tunnels beneath the medieval hilltop city. The system stretches roughly 30 kilometres and was first created almost 2,000 years ago before being reestablished as a Knights Templar stronghold around 1160 A.D. During the 14th century, following the suppression of the order, the caves are believed to have served as a refuge for surviving Templar members. The tunnels contain carved symbols, religious iconography, and markings that have attracted researchers studying the movement and survival of the Templar order after its official dissolution. Professor Fabrizio Bartoli, a historian and modern-day Knight Templar, has studied the cave system extensively. Oak Island Connection: In Season 10, the team visited the Grotte Simonetti with Professor Fabrizio Bartoli. Inside the caves, Doug Crowell discovered a large carving similar to one Rick had seen at the Templar prison in Domme, France, in 2017. Alex Lagina found a symbol that had appeared on the H/O stone from Oak Island and was also observed the previous year in Portugal, believed to represent gold. Rick identified a crescent moon motif that had likewise appeared at Domme, in Portugal, and on the Overton Stone found on Oak Island. The concentration of symbols in Osimo matching those found across multiple Templar sites and on Oak Island artifacts reinforced the theory of a shared symbolic language used by the order across its European network, a language that may also have been employed to mark activity on Oak Island. **Convento de Cristo** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/convento-de-cristo Type: Commandery Location: Tomar, Santarém, Centro, Portugal Templar headquarters in Portugal, founded in 1160. The iconic round church (Charola) and fortified convent complex contain carved stone hands marking underground aqueduct channels whose construction mirrors the finger drains found at Smith's Cove on Oak Island. The Convento de Cristo is the former castle and convent of the Knights Templar in Tomar, Portugal, founded on the first of March 1160. The complex includes the iconic Charola, a sixteen-sided round church modelled after the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which served as the Templars' most sacred place of worship in Portugal. The fortified convent grew over centuries through additions by the Order of Christ, the successor organisation that King Dinis created in 1319 to preserve the Templar tradition in Portugal. The complex features Manueline, Gothic, and Renaissance architectural elements, and is designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A massive aqueduct system once supplied water to the castle through a network of underground channels, an engineering achievement that demonstrated the order's advanced hydraulic knowledge. Oak Island Connection: In Season 9, Corjan Mol led Rick Lagina, Doug Crowell, Alex Lagina, and Peter Fornetti through the convent, which Corjan described as what the Templars considered their New Jerusalem. Joao Fiandeiro explained the castle's founding date of 1160 and its role as the spiritual heart of the Portuguese Templar order. Corjan showed the group a series of carved stone hands with unusual middle fingers, five or six of which are placed throughout the convent to indicate where the underground aqueducts run. He drew a direct comparison to the finger drains discovered on Oak Island in 1850 by the Truro Company at Smith's Cove, where five drains made of flat stones covered with capstones converged into a single tunnel heading toward the Money Pit. When Rick asked whether the formations matched, Corjan confirmed that the Convento de Cristo system uses square pipes with capstones, the same construction technique found at Smith's Cove. At the original gate of the castle, Corjan pointed out a Templar cross carved above the entrance arch and, below it, a stone bearing a cross with four dots identical to a symbol on the H/O stone from Oak Island. **Tomar Town Square** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/tomar-town-square Type: Historic_site Location: Tomar, Santarém, Centro, Portugal Historic town centre of Tomar, laid out by the Templars in the 12th century on a site of seven hills. The city served as Templar headquarters in Portugal under Grand Master Gualdim Pais and later became the seat of the renamed Order of Christ. Tomar is a historic city in central Portugal, laid out by the Knights Templar in the 12th century on a site of seven hills, mirroring the sacred geography of Rome and Jerusalem. The city became the Templar headquarters in Portugal under Gualdim Pais, who was knighted by King Afonso Henriques and returned from a successful military campaign in the Holy Land in 1157 to become the fourth Grand Master of the Portuguese Templars. Some researchers believe the order's most sacred religious treasures were hidden in the city during the height of Templar power. When King Philip IV of France and Pope Clement V disbanded the Knights Templar across Europe in 1307, thousands of knights were arrested, tortured, and executed, including Grand Master Jacques de Molay. However, several hundred Templars fled to Scotland and Portugal, carrying priceless religious artifacts with them. In Portugal, King Dinis protected the order by renaming it the Knights of Christ in 1319, allowing its members to continue operating under a new identity. Over time the Templar cross evolved into an elongated form that bears a resemblance to the configuration of Nolan's Cross on Oak Island. Oak Island Connection: In Season 9, the team visited Tomar as part of their Portuguese research trip with Corjan Mol and Joao Fiandeiro. The city's significance to the Oak Island investigation lies in its role as the operational centre of the Portuguese Templars, the order that researchers believe may have had the means, motive, and navigational capability to reach Nova Scotia centuries before Columbus. The statue of Gualdim Pais in the town square commemorates the Grand Master who established Tomar as the Templar headquarters, and the evolution of the Templar cross into the elongated form used by the Order of Christ mirrors the shape of Nolan's Cross on Oak Island. The team's visit placed the broader pattern of Portuguese Templar activity in geographic context, connecting the symbolic evidence found at Fonte Arcada, the Convento de Cristo, and the Roman Road of Alqueidao da Serra to the organisation's administrative and spiritual capital. **Museu Militar (Military Museum)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/museu-militar-military-museum Type: Museum Location: Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal Lisbon's military museum, where Portuguese military experts confirmed that stone shots found on Oak Island match 15th or 16th-century Portuguese naval cannon, with calibres originating from the Azores Islands or mainland Portugal. The Museu Militar (Military Museum) is located near the Santa Apolonia station in Lisbon, Portugal. The museum houses an extensive collection of weapons, armour, artillery, and military artifacts spanning Portugal's military history from the medieval period through the modern era. Its artillery collection includes period cannons from the Age of Discovery, when Portuguese naval power dominated the Atlantic trade routes. The museum's staff includes military history experts with specialist knowledge of Portuguese ordnance, ballistics, and the naval weaponry deployed aboard exploration and trading vessels during the 15th and 16th centuries. Oak Island Connection: In Season 9, the team visited the museum during their Portuguese research trip with Corjan Mol and Joao Fiandeiro. Sergeants Ricardo Lopes and Carlos Magro, experts in Portuguese military history, examined replicas of the stone shots found on Oak Island. The shots, measuring 3.9 centimetres, had previously been analyzed by geology professor Dr. Robert Raeside, who believed they originated from Portugal's Azores Islands. The sergeants confirmed the stones were made in either the Azores or mainland Portugal and showed the group a 15th or 16th-century cannon with a four-centimetre calibre that fires a half-Portuguese-pound ball, an exact match for the Oak Island replicas. They also confirmed that smaller cannons of this type were typically used on ships or fortresses and could be removed from a vessel and placed on a structure ashore. The identification provided direct physical evidence connecting Portuguese military hardware to artifacts found on Oak Island, supporting the theory of Portuguese activity on or near the island during the Age of Discovery. **Quinta da Regaleira** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/quinta-da-regaleira Type: Historic_site Location: Sintra, Lisbon District, Portugal Enigmatic estate in Sintra featuring an inverted tower (Initiation Well) descending nine levels via a spiral staircase, whose dimensions and design closely resemble historical descriptions of the original Money Pit on Oak Island. Quinta da Regaleira is a palatial estate in the town of Sintra, approximately twenty miles west of Lisbon. The town was captured in 1154 by Portugal's first king, Afonso Henriques, and turned over to the Knights Templar, who held it as a stronghold for centuries. In 1904 the estate was purchased by Antonio Augusto de Carvalho Monteiro, a wealthy Freemason believed to have held secret Masonic and Templar rituals on the grounds. The most striking feature of the estate is the Initiation Well, a thirteen-foot-diameter inverted tower that descends through nine platforms connected by a spiral staircase carved into the rock. A tunnel leads from the base of the well to the estate's exterior grounds. The well's design draws on Masonic and Templar symbolism, with the nine levels representing stages of initiation corresponding to Dante's nine circles. Oak Island Connection: In Season 9, the team visited Quinta da Regaleira during their Portuguese research trip with Corjan Mol and Joao Fiandeiro. The group descended the Initiation Well, and the parallels to the Oak Island Money Pit were immediately apparent: a vertical shaft with a spiral design, multiple platform levels, and a tunnel leading outward from the base. Doug Crowell noted that the Restall family, who searched Oak Island in the 1960s, believed a spiral tunnel wrapped around the Money Pit, much like the staircase in the well. At the bottom of the shaft, Corjan pointed out an oak tree branch hanging directly over the opening, echoing the account of how the Money Pit was first discovered in 1795 when Daniel McGinnis noticed a depression in the ground beneath an oak tree with a tackle block hanging from one of its branches. The combination of the spiral design, the tunnel at the base, and the oak tree above created a striking architectural echo of the Money Pit's described features, suggesting the builders of both structures may have drawn on the same Masonic and Templar traditions. **Palazzo Falson** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/palazzo-falson Type: Museum Location: Mdina, Central Region, Malta Medieval palace in the silent city of Mdina, one of the best-preserved historic houses in Malta. Houses Captain Olof Gollcher's collection of art, silver, and antiquities spanning the medieval period through the Knights of Malta era. The building itself dates to the 13th century. Palazzo Falson stands on Villegaignon Street in the heart of Mdina, Malta's ancient walled capital. The oldest parts of the building date to the 13th century, when a single-storey house rose on the ruins of a structure known as La Rocca, itself built over a former synagogue. The ground floor of the present palazzo was constructed around 1495 in the Siculo-Norman style, and the Falsone family, holders of important administrative roles in Mdina, carried out further enlargements through the 16th century. It was long known as 'the Norman house'. The building's most significant historical moment came on 13 November 1530, when Grand Master Philippe Villiers de L'Isle-Adam visited the palazzo for a banquet following a formal ceremony in which he took possession of Mdina on behalf of the Knights of St. John. The event, documented by Giovanni Francesco Abela in his 1647 work Della Descrittione di Malta, marked the beginning of the Order's rule over the Maltese islands after their expulsion from Rhodes by Sultan Suleiman in 1522. De Villiers lived in the house for a while. In the 20th century, the palazzo was acquired by Captain Olof Frederick Gollcher, a Maltese-Swedish collector who filled the house with European art, arms, armour, silver, Oriental rugs, and historical documents spanning the 15th through 20th centuries. Among his library is a 1728 History of the Knights of Malta.  Since 2007 the palazzo has operated as a historic house museum managed by the Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti. Oak Island Connection: During Season 12 of The Curse of Oak Island, the Oak Island fellowship traveled to Malta to investigate possible links between the Knights of Malta and Oak Island. Researcher and author Corjan Mol led a presentation at Palazzo Falson in which he outlined what he described as a "Generations Game," a chain of custody for treasure and sacred relics that passed through the hands of military orders across centuries and continents. The presentation traced the De Villiers family's involvement from Jerusalem and Acre through Paris, Rhodes, and finally Malta, where Philippe Villiers de L'Isle-Adam established the Order in 1530. The critical link to Nova Scotia runs through Isaac de Razilly, a French colonizer who founded a fort roughly 15 to 20 miles from Oak Island in the 1630s. De Razilly's mother was Catherine de Villiers, placing him within the same family line that had commanded both the Knights Templar and the Knights of Malta for generations. If treasure or relics were entrusted to the De Villiers bloodline after Gerard de Villiers reportedly fled Paris with Templar wealth in 1307, the family's documented presence near Oak Island through De Razilly provides a plausible route for their eventual concealment on the island. **Fort St. Elmo** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/fort-st-elmo Type: Castle Location: Valletta, Northern Harbour, Malta Star fort at the tip of the Sciberras Peninsula in Valletta, constructed in the 16th century by the Knights of Malta. Site of the most ferocious fighting during the Great Siege of 1565, where Hospitaller knights held off an Ottoman invasion force. Fort St. Elmo is a star-shaped fortification at the tip of the Sciberras Peninsula in Valletta, Malta, originally constructed in 1552 by the Knights of Malta, also known as the Knights Hospitaller. The fort became the focal point of the Great Siege of 1565, when a massive Ottoman invasion force attempted to take Malta from the Hospitaller order. The garrison held out for over a month under relentless bombardment, buying time for the rest of the island's defences to be reinforced. The fort's construction demonstrates the advanced military engineering the Hospitallers brought with them from their previous strongholds in Jerusalem, Rhodes, and across the Mediterranean. Today the fort houses the National War Museum and serves as a monument to the Hospitaller military tradition that shaped Malta's history for nearly three centuries. Oak Island Connection: In Season 12, Rick Lagina, Alex Lagina, Peter Fornetti, Doug Crowell, Corjan Mol, and other team members visited Fort St. Elmo with archaeologist Matthew Balzan, a specialist in Hospitaller studies. Matthew explained that the knights arrived on Malta in 1530 and transformed the island into a fortress. Doug showed Matthew a pickaxe recovered six years earlier from below 145 feet in shaft RF1 on Oak Island. Matthew identified it as a baqqun, a standard quarrying tool used for centuries to cut through both hard and soft rock, confirming it matched the type of equipment the Hospitallers would have employed in their extensive underground construction projects. When Alex asked about the role of clay in fortifications, Matthew described deffun, a waterproofing compound made from broken pottery and limestone that the knights used to seal underground structures. The identification of the pickaxe as a Hospitaller quarrying tool and the parallel use of clay waterproofing techniques connected the engineering practices of the Knights of Malta to construction methods observed in the Money Pit. **Gozo Old Prison** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/gozo-old-prison Type: Prison Location: Citadel, Gozo, Malta Old Knights of Malta prison inside the Cittadella of Victoria on Gozo, reconstructed in 1599. Prisoner carvings on the walls include four-dot crosses and symbols matching those found on the Oak Island 90-foot stone. The Old Prison is located within the Cittadella, the fortified citadel crowning the hilltop above the town of Victoria on the island of Gozo, Malta's smaller sister island. Reconstructed in 1599 during the Hospitaller period, the prison held captives whose identities ranged from common criminals to political and religious prisoners. The stone walls of the cells bear carved symbols, dates, and markings left by inmates over centuries of use. Some researchers believe the prison may also have been used to conceal Templar-related treasures or documents, given the Hospitallers' historical role as successors to the Templar order's Mediterranean possessions and the strategic importance of Gozo as an outpost within the order's island fortress. Oak Island Connection: In Season 12, Rick Lagina, Alex Lagina, Doug Crowell, Peter Fornetti, Corjan Mol, and Emiliano Cataldi visited the Old Prison during their research trip to Malta. Corjan told the group that prisoners held in the cells had carved symbols into the walls over the centuries. Emiliano identified a four-dot cross carved into the stone, which Doug noted was used historically to represent the presence of holy relics. Alex spotted a six-petal symbol, and Rick found a carving that matched a symbol on the 90-foot stone from the Money Pit. The same day, at the Palazzo Falson in the medieval city of Mdina, Corjan presented research tracing the de Villiers family bloodline across every major Hospitaller and Templar stronghold and connecting it directly to Oak Island. The lineage ran from Guillaume de Villiers, second in command of the Knights Hospitaller in Jerusalem in 1187, through Gérard de Villiers, Master of France in 1307 who fled Paris with 50 horses and 18 galleys believed to carry the Templar treasure, to Philippe de Villiers, Grand Master of the Hospitallers in Rhodes in 1522 before the order took possession of Malta and Gozo in 1530. The line continued through Catherine de Villiers, mother of Isaac de Razilly, a Knight of Malta who landed at LaHave in 1632 and established the French colony of Acadia, now known as Nova Scotia. **Fortress of Louisbourg** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/fortress-louisbourg Type: Castle Location: Louisbourg, Nova Scotia, Canada Largest reconstructed 18th-century French fortification in North America, located on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. The fortress contains original stone drain systems, a countermine tunnel built through marshy ground, and the burial chapel of the duc d'Anville, a member of the Rochefoucauld family with ties to the Knights Templar. The Fortress of Louisbourg is the largest reconstructed 18th-century French fortification in North America, situated on Cape Breton Island approximately 300 miles northeast of Oak Island. Originally constructed beginning in 1713 following the Treaty of Utrecht, the fortress served as the capital of the French colony of Ile Royale and as the primary military and commercial hub for French interests in the North Atlantic. At its peak it was one of the most heavily fortified positions in the New World, defending lucrative fishing grounds and the approaches to the St. Lawrence River. The fortress fell to British forces during the first siege in 1745, was returned to France under the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, and was captured again and systematically demolished by the British in 1760. Today it is operated by Parks Canada as a National Historic Site, with extensive reconstructions of the original French buildings, fortifications, and underground structures including casemates and a cross-shaped countermine tunnel built through marshy ground in its original 18th-century condition. Oak Island Connection: In Season 7, Rick Lagina and historian Doug Crowell traveled 300 miles northeast to Louisbourg after dendrochronology results dated a red spruce timber from the bump-out structure at Smith's Cove to 1741, more than two decades earlier than the slipway and U-shaped structure. The date aligned with the first siege of Fortress Louisbourg in 1745 and supported naval historian Chipp Reid's theory that the French may have moved a vast fortune from the fortress to Oak Island in the early 1740s as the military situation deteriorated. Parks Canada historian Sarah MacInnes guided Rick and Doug through the original 18th-century French structures. In the chapel, they visited the burial site of Jean-Baptiste de La Rochefoucauld, the duc d'Anville, a French naval commander and member of a noble family with documented ties to the Knights Templar. The duc d'Anville led a massive 1746 expedition to recapture Louisbourg from the British, but the fleet was devastated by storms and disease before reaching its objective, and the duc himself died and was buried under the altar of the fortress chapel. The Rochefoucauld family name also appears on a mysterious 14th-century map connected to Oak Island. In the casemates, Rick and Doug discovered an original stone drain system strikingly similar to the box drain structures found at Smith's Cove. MacInnes then showed them the countermine tunnel, a 180-foot cross-shaped passage built through marshy ground and still in its original 18th-century condition. The tunnel demonstrated that the French possessed the engineering capability to construct underground passages in wet environments like those theorized on Oak Island, and that the drainage infrastructure at Smith's Cove was consistent with French military engineering practices of the period. **Yarmouth County Museum** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/sites/yarmouth-county-museum Type: Museum Location: Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada Regional heritage museum in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, housing the Yarmouth Runic Stone, a 400-pound quartzite boulder bearing a 13-character inscription discovered in 1812. Visited by the Oak Island team after possible futhark markings were identified on a stone found near the Money Pit. The Yarmouth County Museum and Archives occupies a former church building in downtown Yarmouth, roughly 140 miles southwest of Oak Island. Its permanent collection includes the Yarmouth Runic Stone, a 400-pound quartzite slab measuring approximately 79 by 51 centimeters, discovered in 1812 by retired British Army surgeon Dr. Richard Fletcher in a salt marsh at the head of Yarmouth Harbour near the Tusket River. The stone bears 13 or 14 characters on its naturally smooth face that have attracted scholarly debate for over two centuries. Olaf Strandwold, a Norwegian scholar, translated the characters as runic and read them as "Leif to Erik raises this monument." Henry Phillips Jr. offered an 1884 reading of "Hako's son addressed the men," linking it to Thorfinn Karlsefni's expedition of approximately 1007 A.D. Other interpretations have proposed Basque, Japanese, Hungarian, and Mycenaean Greek origins. Skeptics including Norway's leading runic expert Dr. Liestol and University of Toronto archaeologist A.D. Fraser have argued the markings are not genuine runes, and Fletcher's own descendants suggested he carved it as a practical joke. The stone traveled internationally before World War I, exhibited in Oslo and stored in London at the Canadian Pacific Railway offices during the war. It returned to Yarmouth in 1918 and has been housed at the museum since the 1960s. Fanthorpe's "The Oak Island Mystery" connects the stone to the Glozel alphabet through researcher George Young, who proposed the characters may predate Viking runes entirely. Oak Island Connection: The Yarmouth County Museum visit was prompted by the discovery of the Tory Martin Stone near the Money Pit during Season 6. Gyroscope operator Tory Martin noticed a flat stone with raised ridges and linear carvings lying in the woods by the old well. Geologist Terry Matheson identified it as metamorphosed graywacke that appeared to have been worked. After Rob Hyslop and Ryan Levangie of Azimuth Consulting laser-scanned the stone, historian Doug Crowell identified the characters as possibly futhark, a runic language used by Germanic tribes and in Scandinavia dating back to the first century A.D. Alex Lagina and Paul Troutman traveled 140 miles southwest to the museum to compare the Tory Martin Stone's markings with the Yarmouth Runic Stone firsthand. Museum director Nadine presented the stone alongside other regional artifacts suggesting pre-Columbian European contact with Nova Scotia. If the Tory Martin Stone's markings are indeed futhark, it would represent evidence of Norse or early Germanic presence on Oak Island itself, not just in the broader Nova Scotia region. The Yarmouth Stone, whatever its true origin, has served as the primary reference point for evaluating runic claims in the province for over two centuries. Total research sites: 68 --- # THE RESEARCH ARCHIVE Structured catalogue of every documented Oak Island source: books, primary documents, newspaper and magazine articles, journal articles, podcasts, online archives, manuscripts, government records, and engineering reports. URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research **The Jerusalem Files** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-jerusalem-files Type: Book Year: 2024 Authors: Corjan Mol & Christopher Morford Era: General The best researched book detailing the wider history of the Oak Island mystery and the origins of North America. Published by Watkins/Penguin Random House. Investigates historical mysteries and hidden connections spanning centuries and three continents. **Oak Island Mystery Trees** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/oak-island-mystery-trees Type: Website Year: 2022 Authors: David Neisen and Christopher L. Boze Era: General Oak Island Mystery Trees (oakislandmysterytrees.com), the companion website for the 2022 book Oak Island Mystery Trees and Other Forensic Answers by David H. Neisen, Robert W. Cook, and Christopher L. Boze, with a 2024 Compendium volume. Editorial focus is the application of forensic-science methods to Oak Island physical evidence, including dendrochronology, geological context, historic landowner records, and coconut-fibre analysis. **Jfree906 Podcast** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/jfree906-podcast Type: Podcast (series) Year: 2020 Authors: Jeff Freeman Publisher: Jeff Freeman Era: General Regular video podcasts about The Curse of Oak Island featuring guests that have a connection to the mystery. Hosted by Jeff Freeman and Tom Burns. **The Secrets of Nolan's Cross** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-secrets-of-nolan-s-cross Type: Book Year: 2020 Authors: Brian Pharoah Publisher: Brian Pharoah Era: General Brian Pharoah illustrates the hidden language of the Ancients. This hidden language is encoded in Nolan’s Cross on Oak Island, and in our daily lives. Hidden in plain sight. Within this hidden language of mathematics, geometry, words, music and astronomy are the keys to solving the Oak Island mystery. **Diggin' Oak Island** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/diggin-oak-island Type: Podcast (series) Year: 2019 Authors: Dave McBride Era: General Huge and high-quality collection of over 200 audio podcasts and interviews, hosted by Dave McBride. **The Secret Treasure of Oak Island** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-secret-treasure-of-oak-island Type: Book Year: 2018 Authors: D'Arcy O'Connor Publisher: The Lyons Press Era: General D'Arcy O'Connor's 2004 revised edition of The Big Dig, the book that for over thirty years was the standard popular account of the Oak Island search. O'Connor, a former Wall Street Journal feature writer and longtime documentary filmmaker, has covered the island since the late 1960s. The Lyons Press edition updates the 1988 original with the Triton Alliance work of the 1990s, the early carbon-dating results, and the run-up to the Lagina period. O'Connor's archive of correspondence and field notes is now held at the Chester Municipal Heritage Society. **The Curse of Oak Island: The Story of the World's Longest Treasure Hunt** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-curse-of-oak-island-the-story-of-the-world-s-longest-treasure-hunt Type: Book Year: 2018 Authors: Randall Sullivan Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press Era: General Randall Sullivan's 2018 investigation of the Oak Island treasure hunt, drawing on a month spent on the island during the filming of Season 4 and exclusive access to Marty and Rick Lagina. The book grew from Sullivan's January 2004 Rolling Stone article, which he came to regard as having accepted the conventional legend without enough scrutiny. Across twenty-seven chapters and a postscript covering Season 5, Sullivan reconstructs the documented record from the 1795 discovery through the 2017 finds at Smith's Cove and the Money Pit, with particular attention to where the popular narrative diverges from the primary sources. **The Templar Mission to Oak Island and Beyond** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-templar-mission-to-oak-island-and-beyond Type: Book Year: 2017 Authors: Zena Halpern Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform Era: General Zena Halpern's 2017 book on the Knights Templar in North America, published independently through CreateSpace and based on a translation of what Halpern presented as a twelfth-century Templar manuscript recovered from a medieval Italian church. The manuscript describes a landfall on an "island of oaks" and references a later expedition by Ralph de Sudeley to a North American site Halpern identifies with the Catskills. Halpern, a researcher with a master's degree in history from New York University and a background in pre-Columbian seafaring studies, was a recurring contributor to The Curse of Oak Island during its fourth season. **Cracking the Shakespeare Code: The Seven Steps to Mercy** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/cracking-the-shakespeare-code-the-seven-steps-to-mercy Type: Video Year: 2016 Publisher: Syndicado Era: Lagina era (2006-present) Cracking the Shakespeare Code: The Seven Steps to Mercy, a 2017 documentary film directed by Jorgen Friberg presenting Petter Amundsen's claim to have decoded a treasure map embedded in Shakespeare's First Folio leading to Oak Island. Features Amundsen, historian Dr. Robert Crumpton, Shakespeare scholar Sir Stanley Wells, Rosicrucian historian Tobias Churton, and Rick Lagina. The principal documentary treatment of the Bacon-Shakespeare authorship line of Oak Island theory. **Oak Island Mystery: Solved** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/oak-island-mystery-solved Type: Book Year: 2015 Authors: Joy Steele & Gordon Fader Era: General Alternative theory based on geological and historical research by a marine geologist and freelance researcher. **The Curse of Oak Island** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-curse-of-oak-island Type: Video Year: 2014 Authors: History Channel Era: General Reality series documenting the Lagina brothers' excavation efforts. Running since 2014, currently in Season 12+. While entertainment-focused, documents actual archaeological finds. **Oak Island and Its Lost Treasure** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/oak-island-and-its-lost-treasure Type: Book Year: 2013 Authors: Graham Harris & Les MacPhie Publisher: Formac Era: General Engineering-focused analysis with emphasis on geotechnical issues. Written by professionals with technical expertise in excavation challenges. Three editions published. **The Oak Island Money Pit Mystery** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-oak-island-money-pit-mystery Type: Video Year: 2010 Publisher: CBC Land & Sea Era: Lagina era (2006-present) The Oak Island Money Pit Mystery, an episode of the CBC Television documentary series Land & Sea aired on 28 February 2010. Features interviews with author D'Arcy O'Connor, Oak Island tour guide Danny Hennigar, and treasure hunter Dan Blankenship. One of the major Canadian public-broadcaster treatments of the Oak Island story, predating the History Channel television era. **The Seven Steps to Mercy: with Shakespeare's Key to the Oak Island Templum** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-seven-steps-to-mercy-with-shakespeare-s-key-to-the-oak-island-templum Type: Book Year: 2009 Authors: Erlend Loe & Petter Amundsen Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform Era: General The English-language edition of Petter Amundsen and Erlend Loe's book on Bacon-Shakespeare ciphers and Oak Island, published independently through CreateSpace in 2015. The book updates and revises Loe's 2006 Norwegian-language interviews with Amundsen, originally published as Organisten, and includes an additional chapter by Norwegian film director Jorgen Friberg proposing that the Ark of the Covenant is among the candidate items concealed on the island. Amundsen, a Norwegian organist, presents Shakespeare's First Folio as a coded treasure map encoded by what he calls the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross. **History, Hoax, and Hype: The Oak Island Legend** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/history-hoax-and-hype-the-oak-island-legend Type: Website Year: 2006 Authors: Richard Joltes (Harvard) Era: General History, Hoax, and Hype: The Oak Island Legend, a 2006 long-form skeptical analysis of the Oak Island story by Richard Joltes, hosted at criticalenquiry.org/oakisland/. Pursues a document-by-document analysis of how the Oak Island legend evolved, with the central observation that no written documentation of the search predates 1849, more than fifty years after the conventional 1795 discovery date. **Les MacPhie: Smith's Cove Compilation (2006)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/les-macphie-smith-s-cove-compilation-2006 Type: Research / engineering report Year: 2006 Authors: Les MacPhie Era: General Les MacPhie's 2006 compilation of Smith's Cove documentation, the standard secondary reference for the area. **The Oak Island Mystery: The Secret of the World's Greatest Treasure Hunt** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-oak-island-mystery-the-secret-of-the-world-s-greatest-treasure-hunt Type: Book Year: 2005 Authors: Lionel & Patricia Fanthorpe Publisher: Hounslow Press (Dundurn Group) Era: General Lionel and Patricia Fanthorpe's 1995 book on Oak Island, published by Hounslow Press as part of a Dundurn Group imprint and later reissued by Dundurn in 2012 in the Mysteries and Secrets series under a slightly shortened title. The Fanthorpes had spent over thirty years investigating European unsolved mysteries, including the Knights Templar, the Masons, and Rennes-le-Chateau, before turning to Oak Island. The book is unusual in the literature for its sustained attention to the medieval-religious-refugee theories and for placing Oak Island inside a wider European tradition of hidden-deposit narratives. **Les MacPhie: Geotechnical and Archaeological Conditions at the Money Pit (1967–2005)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/les-macphie-geotechnical-and-archaeological-conditions-at-the-money-pit-1967-2005 Type: Research / engineering report Year: 2005 Authors: Les MacPhie Era: General Les MacPhie's 2005 review of geotechnical and archaeological conditions at the Money Pit covering nearly four decades of fieldwork. **Oak Island Treasure (UK)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/oak-island-treasure-uk Type: Website Year: 2001 Authors: Joanna Atherton Era: General Oak Island Treasure (oakislandarchives.com, originally oakislandtreasure.co.uk), the long-running Oak Island research website created in August 2001 by Jo Atherton, a Bedfordshire-based professional artist who currently works with the Oak Island team. The site hosts the Oak Island Treasure archive, a curated body of excavation documents, photographs, theory pieces, and historical newspaper articles, and has been associated with the search community since the early 2000s. **The Secrets of Oak Island** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-secrets-of-oak-island Type: Journal article Year: 2000 Authors: Joe Nickell (Committee for Skeptical Inquiry) Era: General Published in Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 24.2. Proposes the Money Pit is a natural sinkhole and identifies Masonic symbolism added to the legend over time. **In Search Of... The Money Pit Mystery** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/in-search-of-the-money-pit-mystery Type: Video Year: 1979 Authors: Alan Landsburg Era: General Classic 1979 episode from the original In Search Of... series featuring Leonard Nimoy. **The Money Pit Mystery: The Costliest Treasure Hunt Ever** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-money-pit-mystery-the-costliest-treasure-hunt-ever Type: Book Year: 1972 Authors: Rupert Furneaux Publisher: Tom Stacey (UK) / Dodd, Mead & Co. (US) Era: General Rupert Furneaux's 1972 investigation of Oak Island, the first full-length book by a serious historical-mystery writer to argue against the existence of treasure on the island. Furneaux, a British author of true-crime and historical-puzzle books, spent seven years researching the case before publishing his conclusions through Tom Stacey in London and Dodd, Mead in New York. The book traces the search from the 1795 discovery through the work of Robert Restall and the early Triton period, then offers Furneaux's own thesis: the works are British military, not pirate or Templar. **Norman Creighton: CBC Radio Talk Transcript on Oak Island (1969)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/norman-creighton-cbc-radio-talk-transcript-on-oak-island-1969 Type: Manuscript Year: 1969 Authors: Norman Creighton Era: Dunfield and Triton (1965-2007) Primary source: yes Transcript of Norman Creighton's CBC radio talk on Oak Island, 1969. Held in MS-2-689 at Dalhousie University Archives. **Robert Dunfield: Field Sketches (1966)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/robert-dunfield-field-sketches-1966 Type: Manuscript Year: 1966 Authors: Robert Dunfield Era: Dunfield and Triton (1965-2007) Primary source: yes Robert Dunfield's hand-drawn field sketches of his 1966 Oak Island excavations. **The Rotarian: The Strange Case of the Money Pit** Subtitle: by David MacDonald URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-rotarian-the-strange-case-of-the-money-pit Type: Magazine article Year: 1965 Authors: David MacDonald Publication: The Rotarian Era: Chappell and Restall (1931-1965) Primary source: yes David MacDonald's April 1965 Rotarian article. The widely-read Reader's Digest condensation that brought the Money Pit story to a generation of mid-century readers (and famously inspired a young Rick Lagina) was adapted from this piece. **Reader's Digest: Oak Island's Mysterious Money Pit** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/reader-s-digest-oak-island-s-mysterious-money-pit Type: Magazine article Year: 1965 Authors: David MacDonald Publisher: Readers Digest Publication: Reader's Digest Era: Chappell and Restall (1931-1965) Reader's Digest 1965 condensation of David MacDonald's Rotarian article. Widely credited with reigniting public fascination with Oak Island, including a young Rick Lagina who read it at age eleven. **The Oak Island Mystery** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-oak-island-mystery Type: Book Year: 1958 Authors: Reginald Vanderbilt Harris Era: General Important early scholarly account of the island's history, written when many original sources were still accessible. **John Whitney Lewis: Notes on the Money Pit (1957)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/john-whitney-lewis-notes-on-the-money-pit-1957 Type: Manuscript Year: 1957 Authors: John Whitney Lewis Era: Chappell and Restall (1931-1965) Primary source: yes John Whitney Lewis's 1957 notes on the Money Pit. Original hosted on OakIslandTreasure.co.uk; this URL is the Wayback Machine snapshot. **OakIslandTreasure.co.uk: George Greene Documents (1955)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/oakislandtreasure-co-uk-george-greene-documents-1955 Type: Online archive Year: 1955 Era: Chappell and Restall (1931-1965) Curated set of eleven documents covering George Greene's 1955 Oak Island operation. **The Oak Island Enigma: A History and Inquiry into the Origin of the Money Pit** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-oak-island-enigma-a-history-and-inquiry-into-the-origin-of-the-money-pit Type: Book Year: 1953 Authors: Penn Leary Era: General First book proposing the Bacon/Shakespeare manuscript theory. Important for understanding how this theory originated. First self-published in 1953. **Hamilton to Blair: On Hedden Possibly Selling the Island (1940)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/hamilton-to-blair-on-hedden-possibly-selling-the-island-1940 Type: Letter Year: 1940 Authors: Edwin H. Hamilton Era: Chappell and Restall (1931-1965) Primary source: yes Letter from Hamilton to Blair discussing the prospect of Gilbert Hedden selling Oak Island, 1940. **Captain Kidd's Gold** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/captain-kidd-s-gold Type: Video Year: 1939 Publisher: Leroy A. Crooks Era: Chappell and Restall (1931-1965) Captain Kidd's Gold, a 1939 colour film by LeRoy Crooks documenting the Erwin Hamilton-era Oak Island search and surrounding Nova Scotia. One of the earliest surviving moving-image records of Oak Island, made during the period of Hamilton's 1938 to 1942 excavations. Now hosted on Jo Atherton's Oak Island Treasure YouTube channel. **Hamilton: Notes on Work Done in Summer 1939** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/hamilton-notes-on-work-done-in-summer-1939 Type: Manuscript Year: 1939 Authors: Edwin H. Hamilton Era: Chappell and Restall (1931-1965) Primary source: yes Edwin Hamilton's field notes covering the summer 1939 work programme. Two pages. **Hamilton to Blair: Letter on Timbering Problems (1939)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/hamilton-to-blair-letter-on-timbering-problems-1939 Type: Letter Year: 1939 Authors: Edwin H. Hamilton Era: Chappell and Restall (1931-1965) Primary source: yes Letter from Hamilton to Blair describing problems with timbering work in the Money Pit. Two pages. **Agreement between Blair and Hedden (1938)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/agreement-between-blair-and-hedden-1938 Type: Letter Year: 1938 Era: Chappell and Restall (1931-1965) Primary source: yes Two-page document covering the working agreement between Frederick Blair and Gilbert Hedden, 1938. **Hedden to Harris: Letter Discussing the Skidway (1936)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/hedden-to-harris-letter-discussing-the-skidway-1936 Type: Letter Year: 1936 Authors: Gilbert Hedden Era: Chappell and Restall (1931-1965) Primary source: yes Letter from Gilbert Hedden to R.V. Harris discussing the Smith's Cove skidway, 1936. Two pages. **The North American Review: The Oak Island Treasure** Subtitle: by C. B. Driscoll URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-north-american-review-the-oak-island-treasure Type: Magazine article Year: 1929 Authors: Charles B. Driscoll Publication: The North American Review Era: Chappell and Restall (1931-1965) Primary source: yes Charles B. Driscoll's 1929 essay in The North American Review, a key 20th-century retelling of the Oak Island story. **The Wide World Magazine: Pirate Gold (1920)** Subtitle: The Buried Treasure of Mahone Bay URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-wide-world-magazine-pirate-gold-1920 Type: Magazine article Year: 1920 Publication: The Wide World Magazine Era: General Primary source: yes The Wide World Magazine feature on Mahone Bay treasure legends, 1920. **The Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company Prospectus (1912)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-old-gold-salvage-and-wrecking-company-prospectus-1912 Type: Government document Year: 1912 Era: Treasure Company era (1893-1912) Primary source: yes Investor prospectus for the Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company, 1912. Three pages. **Details about the Salvage Co. (1912)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/details-about-the-salvage-co-1912 Type: Manuscript Year: 1912 Era: Treasure Company era (1893-1912) Primary source: yes Operating details on the Salvage Co., 1912. Two pages. **Collier's: Solving the Mystery of Oak Island** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/collier-s-solving-the-mystery-of-oak-island Type: Magazine article Year: 1911 Publication: Collier's Era: Treasure Company era (1893-1912) Primary source: yes Captain Henry L. Bowdoin's first-person account of his Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company expedition to Oak Island in 1909, published in Collier's Weekly on 19 August 1911. The article concludes that no treasure was ever buried in the Money Pit and provides the last eyewitness description of the 90-foot stone before it disappeared from a Halifax bookbindery. **The Precursors of Jacques Cartier, 1497–1534** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-precursors-of-jacques-cartier-1497-1534 Type: Book Year: 1911 Era: General Documentary history of European voyages to North America before Cartier, relevant to early-contact theories around Oak Island. **The Saturday Blade: Gold Buried by Old Capt. Kidd** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-saturday-blade-gold-buried-by-old-capt-kidd Type: Newspaper article Year: 1909 Publication: The Saturday Blade Era: Treasure Company era (1893-1912) Primary source: yes The Saturday Blade article connecting Oak Island to Captain Kidd, 17 April 1909. **The Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company (1909)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-old-gold-salvage-and-wrecking-company-1909 Type: Manuscript Year: 1909 Era: Treasure Company era (1893-1912) Primary source: yes Documentation of the 1909 Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company expedition, the operation that included a young Franklin Roosevelt as a shareholder. Five pages. **List of Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company Crew (1909)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/list-of-old-gold-salvage-and-wrecking-company-crew-1909 Type: Manuscript Year: 1909 Era: Treasure Company era (1893-1912) Primary source: yes Crew roster for the 1909 Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company expedition. **MG1 Vol. 380: Activity Description (1909)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/mg1-vol-380-activity-description-1909 Type: Manuscript Year: 1909 Era: Treasure Company era (1893-1912) Primary source: yes Activity description from Manuscript Group 1, Volume 380, documenting the 1909 fieldwork. Three pages. **Collier's: The Lure of Pirate's Gold (1906)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/collier-s-the-lure-of-pirate-s-gold-1906 Type: Magazine article Year: 1906 Publication: Collier's Era: Treasure Company era (1893-1912) Primary source: yes Collier's magazine follow-up on Oak Island, 29 September 1906. **Collier's: The Lure of Pirate's Gold (1905)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/collier-s-the-lure-of-pirate-s-gold-1905 Type: Magazine article Year: 1905 Publication: Collier's Era: Treasure Company era (1893-1912) Primary source: yes Collier's magazine article on Oak Island and pirate-gold legends, 23 September 1905. **F. Blair: Account of the Oak Island Treasure Co. Operations 1896–1900** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/f-blair-account-of-the-oak-island-treasure-co-operations-1896-1900 Type: Manuscript Year: 1900 Authors: Frederick Blair Era: Treasure Company era (1893-1912) Primary source: yes Frederick Blair's six-page account of the Oak Island Treasure Company's operations 1896-1900, the period covering the cement-vault discovery and the parchment fragment. **Burrows: Letter on Oak Island Search Attempts (1900)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/burrows-letter-on-oak-island-search-attempts-1900 Type: Letter Year: 1900 Era: Treasure Company era (1893-1912) Primary source: yes Letter from Burrows on the state of Oak Island recovery attempts at the close of the Oak Island Treasure Company era. Two pages. **Captain Welling on Oak Island (1898)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/captain-welling-on-oak-island-1898 Type: Manuscript Year: 1898 Era: Treasure Company era (1893-1912) Primary source: yes Captain Welling document referencing the Oak Island operations, 1898. **The Sun: 21 August 1898** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-sun-21-august-1898 Type: Newspaper article Year: 1898 Publication: The Sun Era: Treasure Company era (1893-1912) Primary source: yes An illustrated feature on the Oak Island excavations published in The Sun, New York, on 21 August 1898. Provides one of the major American press accounts of the Oak Island Treasure Company's mid-1890s operations. Held within the Library of Congress Chronicling America digital newspaper archive. **Oak Island newspaper coverage, June 1897** Subtitle: Buffalo Times, Vermont Phoenix, Boston Globe URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/oak-island-newspaper-coverage-june-1897 Type: Newspaper article Year: 1897 Era: Treasure Company era (1893-1912) Primary source: yes Three June 1897 newspaper accounts of the Oak Island Treasure Company's operations and discoveries, sourced from the Library of Congress (Vermont Phoenix) and Newspapers.com (Buffalo Times and Boston Globe). **The Penny Magazine: The 100 Years' Search (1897)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-penny-magazine-the-100-years-search-1897 Type: Magazine article Year: 1897 Publication: The Penny Magazine Era: Treasure Company era (1893-1912) Primary source: yes The Penny Magazine's 1897 hundred-year retrospective on the Oak Island treasure hunt. **A History of Lunenburg County** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/a-history-of-lunenburg-county Type: Book Year: 1895 Authors: Mather Byles DesBrisay Era: Treasure Company era (1893-1912) Published 1895, references earlier newspaper accounts and provides historical context for the region. **Notes on the Eastern Chronicle Article, 5 April 1894** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/notes-on-the-eastern-chronicle-article-5-april-1894 Type: Manuscript Year: 1894 Era: Treasure Company era (1893-1912) Primary source: yes Annotated notes on the Eastern Chronicle's 5 April 1894 article on the Oak Island Treasure Company. **Oak Island Treasure Company Prospectus (1893)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/oak-island-treasure-company-prospectus-1893 Type: Government document Year: 1893 Era: Treasure Company era (1893-1912) Primary source: yes The 1893 Oak Island Treasure Company prospectus, a printed stock-offering document issued by the company at its formation seeking subscriber capital. Reproduces an account of the previous Oak Island excavations from the original 1795 discovery through the mid-nineteenth-century treasure-hunting companies, presented as a basis for the company's investment proposition. Among the most widely cited early documentary sources on the Oak Island search. **Operations of the Oak Island Treasure Company** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/operations-of-the-oak-island-treasure-company Type: Manuscript Year: 1893 Era: Treasure Company era (1893-1912) Primary source: yes Operations record of the Oak Island Treasure Company's 1893 fieldwork. Five pages. **1873 Historical and Genealogical Record of the First Settlers of Colchester County** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/1873-historical-and-genealogical-record-of-the-first-settlers-of-colchester-county Type: Book Year: 1873 Era: Truro and Halifax companies (1848-1867) Primary source: yes Genealogical record covering Colchester County settler families including Lynds, useful for biographical research on early treasure-hunt participants. **The New Dominion Monthly, July 1870** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-new-dominion-monthly-july-1870 Type: Magazine article Year: 1870 Publication: The New Dominion Monthly Era: Truro and Halifax companies (1848-1867) Primary source: yes An article on Oak Island and its mystery published in The New Dominion Monthly, a Montreal-based popular magazine, in its July 1870 issue. One of the early popular-press treatments of the Oak Island story, predating the major American magazine coverage of the late nineteenth century. Hosted within Early Canadiana Online. **Early Oak Island Documents 1857-1867 (MacPhie compilation)** Subtitle: Compiled by Les MacPhie, May 2014 URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/early-oak-island-documents-1857-1867-macphie-compilation Type: Research / engineering report Year: 1867 Era: Truro and Halifax companies (1848-1867) Primary source: yes Large compilation PDF of early Oak Island documents from the period 1857-1867, assembled by Les MacPhie in May 2014. **James McNutt's History of Oak Island (1867)** Subtitle: Transcribed by F. Blair from Vol. 383 URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/james-mcnutt-s-history-of-oak-island-1867 Type: Manuscript Year: 1867 Authors: James McNutt Era: Truro and Halifax companies (1848-1867) Primary source: yes James McNutt's 1867 manuscript history of Oak Island, transcribed by Frederick Blair from Volume 383 of his archive. McNutt was secretary and treasurer of the Oak Island Association and includes details unavailable elsewhere, including the clover patch and inscribed-stone reports. **Notes from James McNutt (1867)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/notes-from-james-mcnutt-1867 Type: Manuscript Year: 1867 Authors: James McNutt Era: Truro and Halifax companies (1848-1867) Primary source: yes Working notes by James McNutt accompanying his history. Three pages. **The Fourth Attempt (1866)** Subtitle: Oak Island Eldorado Company / Halifax Company URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-fourth-attempt-1866 Type: Manuscript Year: 1866 Era: Truro and Halifax companies (1848-1867) Primary source: yes Manuscript account of the Oak Island Eldorado Company (also known as the Halifax Company), formed in 1866 as the fourth major treasure-recovery organisation at Oak Island. **The Third Attempt (1865)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-third-attempt-1865 Type: Manuscript Year: 1865 Era: Truro and Halifax companies (1848-1867) Primary source: yes Manuscript account of the Oak Island Association's third major recovery attempt, 1865. **Parliamentary Debates of the Province of Nova Scotia (1865)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/parliamentary-debates-of-the-province-of-nova-scotia-1865 Type: Government document Year: 1865 Era: Truro and Halifax companies (1848-1867) Primary source: yes The Parliamentary Debates of the Province of Nova Scotia for the 1865 legislative session, the official record of legislative debates during the period between the dissolution of the Oak Island Association (1861 to 1864) and the formation of the Oak Island Eldorado Company (1866 to 1867). Hosted within Early Canadiana Online. **Rambles Among the Blue-Noses** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/rambles-among-the-blue-noses Type: Book Year: 1863 Era: Truro and Halifax companies (1848-1867) Primary source: yes Travelogue of Nova Scotia containing a substantial early account of the Oak Island treasure hunt, 1863. **Journals and Proceedings of the House of Assembly of Nova Scotia (1862)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/journals-and-proceedings-of-the-house-of-assembly-of-nova-scotia-1862 Type: Government document Year: 1862 Era: Truro and Halifax companies (1848-1867) Primary source: yes Nova Scotia House of Assembly journal entry referencing Oak Island, 1862. Primary government record from the Truro-Halifax era. **Oak Island Association: Meeting Notes on Formation (1861)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/oak-island-association-meeting-notes-on-formation-1861 Type: Manuscript Year: 1861 Era: Truro and Halifax companies (1848-1867) Primary source: yes Original meeting notes documenting the 1861 formation of the Oak Island Association, the third major treasure-hunting organisation at Oak Island. **Man-Made Flood System (1850)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/man-made-flood-system-1850 Type: Manuscript Year: 1850 Era: Truro and Halifax companies (1848-1867) Primary source: yes Documentation of the man-made flood-tunnel system identified during the 1850 Truro Company operations at Smith's Cove. **The Second Attempt at Recovery (1849)** Subtitle: Truro Company excavation, transcribed account URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-second-attempt-at-recovery-1849 Type: Manuscript Year: 1849 Era: Truro and Halifax companies (1848-1867) Primary source: yes Manuscript account of the Truro Company's 1849 excavation at Oak Island. Nine numbered scans of the original document, the second-major recorded effort to recover the supposed treasure. **The First Treasure Company (1803)** Subtitle: Simeon Lynds and the Onslow Company URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-first-treasure-company-1803 Type: Manuscript Year: 1803 Era: Discovery (1795-1805) Primary source: yes Documentary record of the first organised treasure-recovery effort at Oak Island, organised by Simeon Lynds in 1803. **1799 Journal and Votes of the House of Assembly, Nova Scotia** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/1799-journal-and-votes-of-the-house-of-assembly-nova-scotia Type: Government document Year: 1799 Era: Discovery (1795-1805) Primary source: yes The Journal and Votes of the House of Assembly of Nova Scotia for the 1799 legislative session, the official record of the lower house's proceedings during the period immediately following the conventional 1795 Oak Island discovery date. Catalogued for its contextual value to Oak Island research; specific Oak Island references within the journal, if present, are not part of the standard documentary record. **The Voyages and Explorations of Samuel de Champlain (1604–1616)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-voyages-and-explorations-of-samuel-de-champlain-1604-1616 Type: Book Year: 1616 Authors: Samuel de Champlain Era: General Primary source: yes English translation of Champlain's voyage records, 1604-1616. The Mahone Bay description appears around page 181. **Map of New France (Champlain, 1612)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/map-of-new-france-champlain-1612 Type: Map Year: 1612 Authors: Samuel de Champlain Era: General Primary source: yes Champlain's 1612 Map of New France. Provenance of this scan should be verified before use in citations. **Voyage de Samuel Champlain (Latin, 1603)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/voyage-de-samuel-champlain-latin-1603 Type: Manuscript Year: 1603 Authors: Samuel de Champlain Era: General Primary source: yes Latin edition of Champlain's 1603 voyage account. The English translation in his collected voyages contains the relevant Mahone Bay and Nova Scotia descriptions. **Oak Island Book** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/oak-island-book Type: Website Authors: Paul Troutman Era: General Oak Island Book (oakislandbook.com), an online archive of the personal scrapbook of James Troutman, a partner in the 1965 Robert Dunfield expedition to Oak Island. Made publicly available by Troutman's family in 2014. Contains contemporaneous newspaper articles, photographs, correspondence, telegrams, and field documents from the Dunfield-era search. **Quest of Oak Island Facebook Group** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/quest-of-oak-island-facebook-group Type: Website Authors: John Stemmer Era: General 70,000 members make this Facebook Group an interesting online Oak Island community. **Chester Municipal Heritage Society** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/chester-municipal-heritage-society Type: Online archive Era: General Chester Municipal Heritage Society (CMHS), a volunteer-driven not-for-profit founded in 1981 in Chester, Nova Scotia. Operates Chester Train Station, the Lordly House Museum, Maple Cottage (its research centre and the original first Chester municipal office), and Lordly Park. Holds the D'Arcy O'Connor Oak Island Fonds and the Les MacPhie research compilations, two of the principal Oak Island archival collections. Materials are made publicly available through the Society's online research portal at oakislandmystery.com. **OakIslandMystery.com** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/oakislandmystery-com Type: Online archive Authors: Danny Hennigar Era: General Houses the D'Arcy O'Connor Fonds, David Tobias and Les MacPhie Archives. Approximately 3,000 pages of letters, reports, photographs, and original documents donated to the Chester Municipal Heritage Society. Essential primary source collection. **Nova Scotia Archives** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/nova-scotia-archives Type: Online archive Era: General Nova Scotia Archives, the provincial archive of Nova Scotia, located in Halifax. Holds the public record of the province in the form of government Record Groups (RG) and private Manuscript Groups (MG), supplemented by historical newspapers, photographs, maps, sound recordings, and a 50,000-title research library. Several of its holdings carry direct relevance to Oak Island research, including the R.V. Harris papers in Manuscript Group 1. **Oak Island Plus** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/oak-island-plus Type: YouTube channel Authors: James McQuiston & John Hamels Era: General YouTube channel focusing on primary source document research. McQuiston has appeared on The Curse of Oak Island and is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. **The Oak Island Compendium** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-oak-island-compendium Type: Online archive Authors: Daniel Spino & Charlotte Wheatley Era: General The Oak Island Compendium (theoakislandcompendium.com), the current iteration of the long-running Oak Island research compendium originally created by Doug Crowell and Kel Hancock at Blockhouse Investigations. Operated by Charlotte Wheatley and a research collaborator with permission of the original owners. Hosts research articles, document analysis, and topical investigations into the Oak Island mystery. **National Archives of Scotland** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/national-archives-of-scotland Type: Online archive Era: General National Records of Scotland (NRS), formerly the National Archives of Scotland, the principal archive of the Scottish government, located in Edinburgh. Holds the public record of Scotland from the twelfth century onward, including Crown, Treasury, and judicial records, parish registers, and substantial private and family papers. Of relevance to Oak Island research primarily through Templar and Sinclair-family theoretical lines that draw on Scottish medieval and early-modern records. **Nova Scotia Archives - Oak Island Maps** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/nova-scotia-archives-oak-island-maps Type: Online archive Authors: Nova Scotia Archives Era: General A predefined search within the Nova Scotia Archives map collection returning all catalogued maps and architectural plans matching "Oak Island". Functions as a topic-specific finding aid into historical surveys, plot maps, and ownership maps of Oak Island and Mahone Bay held in the provincial archive. **OakIslandMystery.com - Research Index** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/oakislandmystery-com-research-index Type: Online archive Authors: Chester Municipal Heritage Society Era: General Searchable database table of all individual items in the D'Arcy O'Connor research materials. Can be sorted and searched by keyword. **Oak Island Legend** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/oak-island-legend Type: Website Authors: Cerca Trova Publisher: Cerca Trova ltd Era: General The official website of Cerca Trova Limited, the Nova Scotia registered company owned by Marty and Rick Lagina, Craig Tester and Alan Kostrava, with a goal to solve the mystery of Oak Island and recover any treasure under a Treasure Trove License granted by the Province. **CMHS: Timeline of Searchers** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/cmhs-timeline-of-searchers Type: Online archive Era: General A chronological reference compilation tracing the principal searchers, syndicates, and companies that have worked on Oak Island from the original 1795 discovery through the modern History Channel era. Maintained by the Chester Municipal Heritage Society as part of its online research portal. **CMHS: Ownership of Oak Island, 1795–Present** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/cmhs-ownership-of-oak-island-1795-present Type: Online archive Era: General A reference compilation tracing the ownership of Oak Island from the original 1762 land survey through the present, lot by lot. Maintained by the Chester Municipal Heritage Society as part of its online research portal. Documents the chain of title for each of the original thirty-two four-acre lots and the various consolidations and transfers across the search history. **Chronology of the Oak Island Treasure Hunt** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/chronology-of-the-oak-island-treasure-hunt Type: Website Era: General Independently maintained chronology of the Oak Island treasure hunt at WorldTimeline.info. **History of Fisheries in the Northwest Atlantic: The 500-Year Perspective** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/history-of-fisheries-in-the-northwest-atlantic-the-500-year-perspective Type: Academic paper Era: General Academic paper providing the long historical context of Atlantic fisheries, useful for situating European pre-contact and early-contact activity around Nova Scotia. **Triton Alliance Documentation** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/triton-alliance-documentation Type: Online archive Era: Dunfield and Triton (1965-2007) Multi-document archive of records from the Triton Alliance era (1969-2007). **CMHS: Interactive Oak Island Map** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/cmhs-interactive-oak-island-map Type: Website Era: General An interactive map of Oak Island maintained by the Chester Municipal Heritage Society, showing the principal sites of treasure-hunting activity, archaeological features, and historic landmarks across the island. Each marked feature links to the relevant background information within the broader CMHS research portal. **Blockhouse: 90-Foot Stone Series** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/blockhouse-90-foot-stone-series Type: Website Era: General Multi-part Blockhouse investigation into the 90-Foot Stone, including descriptions, the Kempton variant, and the cipher analyses. Ten linked posts. **CMHS: Inscribed (90-Foot) Stone** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/cmhs-inscribed-90-foot-stone Type: Website Era: General A topical research compilation on the Inscribed Stone, also known as the 90-Foot Stone, the slab bearing carved symbols reportedly recovered at the ninety-foot level of the Money Pit during the early-nineteenth-century search and disappeared from the documentary record by the early twentieth century. Maintained by the Chester Municipal Heritage Society as part of its online research portal. **Coconut Fibre Carbon Dating Reports** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/coconut-fibre-carbon-dating-reports Type: Online archive Era: General Multi-report archive of Smith's Cove coconut fibre carbon-dating results, including Beta Analytic and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution analyses. **Les MacPhie: Carbon Dating Compilation** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/les-macphie-carbon-dating-compilation Type: Research / engineering report Authors: Les MacPhie Era: General Les MacPhie's master compilation of Oak Island carbon-dating reports across decades and labs. Standard reference for the radiocarbon record. **Blockhouse: Les MacPhie Archives** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/blockhouse-les-macphie-archives Type: Online archive Era: General The Les MacPhie research archives, a collection of structured PDF compilations consolidating the documentary record of Oak Island excavations from 1849 onward. Donated to the Chester Municipal Heritage Society by geotechnical engineer Les MacPhie. Made available online through both the Blockhouse Investigations site at oakislandcompendium.ca and the CMHS portal at oakislandmystery.com. **MemoryNS: Jotham Blanchard McCully Fonds** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/memoryns-jotham-blanchard-mccully-fonds Type: Online archive Era: Truro and Halifax companies (1848-1867) Jotham Blanchard McCully fonds catalogue entry on the MemoryNS Nova Scotia heritage portal. **Lunenburg County Church Records** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/lunenburg-county-church-records Type: Online archive Era: General Lunenburg County church records compiled by Nova Scotia Genealogy Network volunteers. **The Spanish in Nova Scotia in the XVI Century** Subtitle: A hint in the Oak Island treasure mystery URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-spanish-in-nova-scotia-in-the-xvi-century Type: Academic paper Era: General Academic paper from the Dalhousie Review proposing a 16th-century Spanish presence in Nova Scotia and connecting it speculatively to the Oak Island mystery. **Early Canadiana Online** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/early-canadiana-online Type: Online archive Era: General Early Canadiana Online (ECO), a digital archive of pre-twentieth-century Canadian books, periodicals, and government documents. Operated by Canadiana, a not-for-profit partnership of Canadian academic libraries, archives, and heritage institutions. Holds late-eighteenth and nineteenth-century Nova Scotia government records of relevance to Oak Island ownership, treasure-trove law, and the corporate history of the early treasure-hunting companies. **Hathi Trust Digital Library** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/hathi-trust-digital-library Type: Online archive Era: General HathiTrust Digital Library, a not-for-profit partnership of academic and research libraries primarily based in the United States. Maintains a digital archive of public-domain and limited-access works contributed by member institutions. Holds public-domain materials of relevance to Oak Island research, including the 1893 Oak Island Treasure Company prospectus. **British Newspaper Archive** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/british-newspaper-archive Type: Online archive Era: General British Newspaper Archive, a digital archive of digitized British and Irish newspapers operated by Findmypast in partnership with the British Library. Provides paid full-text search and access to millions of newspaper pages from the eighteenth century onward, including UK and colonial press coverage of Oak Island during periods when the search drew international attention. **Nova Scotia Virtual Archives** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/nova-scotia-virtual-archives Type: Online archive Era: General Nova Scotia Virtual Archives, the digital-collections portal of Nova Scotia Archives, providing online access to selected digitized holdings from the provincial archive. Content overlaps with the broader Nova Scotia Archives website and is increasingly consolidated into the main archive portal. **The National Archives (United Kingdom)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-national-archives-united-kingdom Type: Online archive Era: General The National Archives of the United Kingdom (TNA), the official archive and publisher of records for the UK Government, located in Kew, west London. Holds British government, military, judicial, and Crown records spanning more than a thousand years. Of relevance to Oak Island research through Crown colonial records, military records of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, and the Sir Henry Clinton papers that figure in skeptical theories of the Money Pit's origin. **The National Archives (United States)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/the-national-archives-united-states Type: Online archive Era: General The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the official archive and records-management agency of the United States federal government. Maintains presidential libraries, federal records centres, and the central National Archives building in Washington. Of relevance to Oak Island research primarily through the Franklin D. Roosevelt holdings: Roosevelt invested in the Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company that operated on Oak Island in 1909, and his correspondence with the search continues into his presidential period. **Library and Archives Canada** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/library-and-archives-canada Type: Online archive Era: General Library and Archives Canada (LAC), the federal archive and library of Canada, located in Ottawa with branches and reading rooms across the country. Holds federal Canadian government records and pre-Confederation provincial records transferred to federal custody. Of contextual relevance to Oak Island research through Crown colonial records and certain court records relating to treasure-trove and prize jurisdiction. The catalogued URL for this entry is currently inaccessible and may require updating to library-archives.canada.ca. **Chronicling America (Library of Congress)** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/chronicling-america-library-of-congress Type: Online archive Era: General Chronicling America, the digital newspaper archive of the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Provides free public access to digitized U.S. newspapers from 1690 to the present. Holds late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century American newspaper coverage of Oak Island, including The Sun (New York) of 21 August 1898. **Critical Enquiry: Oak Island Information** URL: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/research/critical-enquiry-oak-island-information Type: Website Era: General Critical Enquiry: Oak Island Information (criticalenquiry.org/wp/), the continuing online research site of Richard Joltes, the author of the 2006 long-form skeptical analysis History, Hoax, and Hype. Hosts updated and additional Oak Island skeptical analysis on a WordPress-based platform, complementing the static 2006 paper at the parent domain. Total sources in archive: 110 --- # OWNERSHIP HISTORY Interactive ownership map: https://thecurseofoakisland.com/ownership Oak Island's complete lot-by-lot ownership history spanning 275 years (1751–2026). This is the only resource that tracks every ownership change across all 32 lots — based on original land grant records, deed research, and the Oak Island Mystery Trees Compendium. ## The 32 Lots In 1762, Nova Scotia Surveyor General Charles Morris surveyed Oak Island and divided it into 32 lots of approximately four acres each, most with water frontage and access to a common road. Oak Island was cataloged as Island No. 28 — the only island in Mahone Bay to receive formal subdivision. This lot system remains in use today. ## Documented Owners - **00**: Crown Ownership - **01**: Allen, Ambrose - **02**: Anderson, James - **03**: Ball, Samuel - **03a**: Ball, Isaac "Butler" - **04**: Beamish, Clarence James - **04a**: Graves, Edward - **05**: Bearlson, John - **06a**: Bezanson, John - **06b**: Bezanson, George - **06c**: Bezanson, Joseph - **07**: Blankenship, Daniel C. - **07a**: Blankenship, Dave - **08**: Bowie, William - **09**: Chapman, Mary Ellen - **10**: Chappell, Melbourne R. - **10a**: Lewis, John Whitney - **10b**: Acadia Trust Company - **11**: Cochran, John P. - **12**: Conrad, Francis Arthur - **12,a**: Conrad, Ingram Eli - **12a**: Conrad, Ingram Eli - **13**: Corkum, Burnell Stanley - **13a**: Corkum, All Corkum Relatives - **14**: Crandall, Davie Wilbur - **15**: Dauphinee, Archibald C. - **15,63**: Dauphinee, Archibald C. & Young, Wallace & Margaret - **16**: Ellis, David - **17**: Embree, Thomas - **18**: Ernst, Abraham - **18,19**: Ernst, Abraham & Graves, Anthony Thickpenny - **18,19,19a**: Ernst, Abraham & Graves, Anthony Thickpenny & Sellers, Henry - **18,19a**: Ernst, Abraham & Sellers, Henry - **19**: Graves, Anthony Thickpenny - **19a**: Sellers, Henry - **19b**: Sellers, Sellyn - **20**: Grimm, George W. Jr. - **21**: Hatt, Jacob & Mary Hovey - **21a**: Hovey, Thomas & Mary - **22**: Hedden, Gilbert D. - **23**: Hopkins, George - **24**: James, Edward - **25**: Johnston, John - **26**: Kinghorn, John - **27**: Kostrzewa, Alan - **28**: Lynch, Timothy - **29**: Malay, Mary & Joseph White - **30**: Marshall, Martin - **31**: Martin, John - **32**: McGinnis, Donald - **32 fam**: McGinnis Family - **32a**: McKinnon, Daniel - **33**: Reserved - **34**: McLean, Hector - **34a**: McLean, Merton - **35**: McMullen, Neal - **35a**: McMullen Smith, Neil - **36**: Reserved - **37**: McNeil, Alexander - **38**: Melvin, Robert Sr. - **38 fam**: Melvin Family - **38a**: Melvin, Nathaniel - **38b**: Melvin, David - **38c**: Melvin, Jacob - **38d**: Melvin, Robert Jr. - **39**: Monro, John - **39a**: Monrow, James - **40**: Nolan, Frederick G. - **40a**: Nolan, Thomas J. - **41**: Oak Island Tours Inc. - **42**: Pattillo, Alexander - **42a**: Pattillo, Fred - **43**: Payzant, Phillip - **44**: Powers, Erdie - **45**: Prescott, Jonathan Dr. - **46**: Pulsifer, John - **47**: Rogers, Jeremiah - **48**: Secombe, John Reverend - **49**: Sharp, James - **50**: Shephard, Jacob - **51**: Smith, Duncan - **51a**: Smith, John - **51b**: Smith, Joseph - **51b,c**: Smith, Joseph & Smith, Thomas E. - **51c**: Smith, Thomas E. - **52**: Smith, Edward - **53**: Smith, Richard & Gifford, John - **54**: Strachan, John - **55**: Tobias, David C. - **56**: Triton Alliance Syndicate - **57**: Vaughan, Anthony Sr. - **57a**: Vaughan, Anthony Jr. - **57b**: Vaughan, Daniel - **57c**: Vaughan, David & Sara - **57d**: Vaughan, James - Sara & Family - **57dfam**: Vaughan Family - **58**: Wollenhaupt, Casper - **59**: Walls, Wilbert & Genevieve - **60**: Webber, James - **61**: Young, Robert S. - **62**: Young, Thomas - **63**: Young, Wallace & Margaret - **64**: Zink, Frederick - **65**: Zink, Timothy - **66**: Cunningham, Richard - **67**: Holt, Moses - **68**: Foras, Edward - **?**: Unknown - **All heirs**: All Heirs - **±**: Unknown / Unverified Total documented owners: 110 ## Key Ownership Eras ### Crown Ownership (pre-1762) Before European settlement, all of Oak Island was Crown land (owner code 00). The earliest recorded private interests appear in 1753 when New York fish merchants Richard Smith and John Gifford are documented in the area. ### Shoreham Grant & Early Settlement (1759–1790s) In 1759, Governor Charles Lawrence approved the Shoreham Grant, offering free land to encourage settlement. Four families — Seacombe, Young, Lynch, and Monro — received the initial grants. Charles Morris surveyed and divided the island into 32 lots in 1762. Early owners included the Smith family (Richard & Gifford on lots 9–10 from 1753, and Edward Smith on lot 50 area), the Vaughan family (Anthony Sr. and descendants), and various New England Planter families. ### The Anthony Graves Era (1780s–1850s) Anthony Thickpenny Graves (owner code 19) became one of the most significant landowners, accumulating numerous lots from the late 18th century. The Graves family and their heirs controlled large portions of the island for decades, with some lots passing through Henry Sellers (19a) and Sellyn Sellers (19b) branches. ### The Money Pit Discovery & Aftermath (1795–1860) The Money Pit was discovered on Lot 18 in 1795 by Daniel McGinnis. John Smith (51a) acquired the Money Pit lot and surrounding land. The McGinnis family (32, 32a — Donald McGinnis and Daniel McKinnon) held lots on the western end. The Vaughan family (57, 57b, 57c, 57d) maintained holdings in the area where the discovery was made. ### The Search Companies Era (1860–1940s) As treasure hunting intensified, ownership shifted from farming families to search syndicates. Frederick Blair (03, 03a) consolidated significant holdings and controlled treasure rights from the 1890s through the 1940s. The Sellers family heirs and various local families continued to hold individual lots. ### The Chappell & Hedden Period (1930s–1950s) Melbourne R. Chappell (10) and Gilbert D. Hedden (22) acquired key lots tied to treasure hunting operations. The Acadia Trust Company (10b) managed some holdings during this period. ### Triton Alliance & Robert Dunfield (1960s–2005) David Tobias and the Triton Alliance Syndicate (55, 56) acquired the majority of the island beginning in the 1970s, consolidating lots that had been held by multiple families. Fred Nolan (40, 40a) independently acquired and held several lots, particularly in areas associated with Nolan's Cross. Robert Dunfield built the first causeway to the island in 1965. ### Oak Island Tours & The Lagina Era (2006–Present) Michigan brothers Rick and Marty Lagina, through Oak Island Tours Inc. (41), acquired the Triton Alliance holdings in 2006 and have since consolidated ownership of approximately 78% of the island. Dan Blankenship (07, 07a) held lots until his passing. Tom Nolan inherited Fred Nolan's lots. A small number of lots remain independently owned, including Lot 5 (Robert Young, 61) and Lot 25 (Allan Kostrzewa, 27). ## Notable Lots - **Lot 5**: Independently owned by Robert Young; one of few lots never explored by the current team - **Lot 13**: Independently owned; also unexplored by the team - **Lot 15**: Remained Crown land throughout much of the island's history - **Lot 18**: Site of the original Money Pit discovery in 1795 - **Lot 21**: Location of the Garden Shaft and various early excavations - **Lot 24**: Site where Edward James acquired land early in the island's history - **Lot 25**: Known as the location of the Hatch - **Lot 32**: The westernmost lot; remained Crown land for extended periods