"Solving the Mystery of Oak Island" is a Collier's Weekly feature article written by Henry L. Bowdoin, the New York engineer who led the 1909 expedition of the Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company. The article is organised around six declarations: that no treasure was ever buried in the Money Pit; that the supposed flood tunnel from Smith's Cove would have been an unnecessary labour; that the salt water in the pit percolated through the soil from the south shore rather than through any tunnel; that no ring bolt ever existed on the beach; that no chain links were ever recovered by earlier drillers; and that no characters were ever cut into the stone found at the ninety-foot level.
The closing line has been quoted in nearly every history of the search since: "My experience proved to me that there is not, and never was, a buried treasure on Oak Island. The Mystery is solved."
The article triggered a direct response from Frederick Blair, who held the treasure trove licence and had served as vice president of Old Gold Salvage. Blair's six-point rebuttal appeared in the Amherst Daily News on 23 February 1912 and is its essential companion document.
What this source documents
Bowdoin's first-person account of the 1909 Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company expedition; his examination of the 90-foot stone at the Halifax bookbindery of A. O. Creighton and Marshall, which is the last contemporaneous description of the stone before its disappearance; the borehole record and cement analysis from the 1909 work; and the published foundation of the modern skeptical tradition concerning the Money Pit.
Why it matters
The Collier's article is the most widely cited skeptical document in the Oak Island literature. It is the principal published statement of the case against a buried treasure on the island, and the six declarations it advances have set the terms of nearly every subsequent skeptical argument. The article is also the last eyewitness account of the inscribed stone made by anyone who had handled it, and is therefore a primary source for any investigation of that artifact, regardless of the conclusions Bowdoin drew. Blair's reply in the Amherst Daily News (23 February 1912) should be read alongside it.
