Bully Hayes' Gold

[Reef Badlaw]

Most of it is still buried on Kosrae, the isle where The Lenora was shipwrecked. We gotta go get it...

Longitude: 163.0 East, latitude: 5.3 North.

I read James Michener's Rascals In Paradise long ago, but I happened to pop-in Nate And Hayes on VHS the other day, and it reminded me of the treasure.

The Lenora was supposedly the most notorious ship in the 19th-Century Pacific. -Blown onto a Kosrae-reef in 1874, where Hayes and his crew decided to set-up a coconut-oil (copra) business, under the umbrella of Britain. Hayes eventually raped a 9-year-old girl, then fled in a small boat as a British warship came to investigate.

-from Tom Bentley; The Micronesia Grand Tour;

Before his hastened departure, Hayes allegedly buried his considerable treasure somewhere on the island. It has been supposed that the cache would be somewhere in the vicinity of one of Kosrae's harbors, though over time all of the diggings came up empty. Hayes returned after a few years in March of 1877 on a small schooner, the Lotus, but supposedly got into an argument with the ship's cook and was hit over the head and dumped overboard.

That's a fitting end for a man of violence, but one that left the mystery of his treasure's whereabouts unknown. One of the island stories of the treasure tells of the sighting of a big crab emerging from a hole carrying a large gold piece in his claw, but all excavations near the spot had empty yields. It was reported that prior to WWII the employees of a Japanese-run sawmill hit a metal box while digging on a small island off Okat harbor. Soon after the sawmill closed down, everyone returned to Japan. It was later reported that the sawmill's owner had become a wealthy man, but there was no accounting either way for his prosperity. If the treasure was the source of his bounty, the new owner kept mum. Tadao Waguk, the self-proclaimed "last storyteller" of Kosrae says that Hayes reputedly had three treasure chests, and that only one was recovered through the Japanese sawmill crew, leaving two still at large. However, there's no record or story of any local treasure diggings for more than 50 years. The time is ripe for the technology of the modern treasure hunter to be applied to Hayes's ancient booty.

Here's Kosrae Isle on wiki;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosrae

I'm packin' sunglasses...

[Rabid1]

I am always up for a good treasure hunt.

Near my home town there was a botched stage robbery and the gunmen were shot up but got away with what was reported as $15000 in gold and silver from a strong box. They escaped somewhere back behind Peavine Mountain between there and Dog Valley California. We first heard about it in 8th grade Nevada history. The last gunman alive was found near Chilcoot and before he died mentioned petroglyphs, a redrock cliff face, and they had buried the box the box in an old stone mule pen. As kids we spent many a weekend looking for that box. We found what we thought was the petroglyphs. They actually made the news a few years back when a contractor was caught stealing them for landscaping. Obviously we never found the box.

But last year a buddies dad died and he found some old pictures of us up quail hunting near the Cali border when we were about 16. He says one of the pics is of our camp and he swears it looks like we setup in a square pen about 6 or 8 inches high. LOL wouldn't that have been something to be that clsoe and not have been looking anymore? Neither of us remember exactly where we were but have talked about going looking for fun one more time.

[Reef Badlaw]

I am always up for a good treasure hunt.

Near my home town there was a botched stage robbery and the gunmen were shot up but got away with what was reported as $15000 in gold and silver from a strong box. They escaped somewhere back behind Peavine Mountain between there and Dog Valley California. We first heard about it in 8th grade Nevada history. The last gunman alive was found near Chilcoot and before he died mentioned petroglyphs, a redrock cliff face, and they had buried the box the box in an old stone mule pen. As kids we spent many a weekend looking for that box. We found what we thought was the petroglyphs. They actually made the news a few years back when a contractor was caught stealing them for landscaping. Obviously we never found the box.

But last year a buddies dad died and he found some old pictures of us up quail hunting near the Cali border when we were about 16. He says one of the pics is of our camp and he swears it looks like we setup in a square pen about 6 or 8 inches high. LOL wouldn't that have been something to be that clsoe and not have been looking anymore? Neither of us remember exactly where we were but have talked about going looking for fun one more time.

Sounds like my early-days, always going-out looking for stuff. Old metal and weird rocks... My parents had 'treasure fever', which helped, lol.

But there are vast amounts of lost treasure scattered everywhere, including found, and lost again. Even today, people are burying stuff in their yards, not trusting the 'banking climate'. -Or hiding it.

-Was there a chain of 10,000 golden-links in ancient Morocco? What happened after the British sacked Havana? Was Sinbad The Sailor real, and is his casket resting on a 'river of golden scimitars'?, etc.
Stay-tuned for details...

[custompainter]

Interesting read Reef. Count me in. Treasure hunting while on a tropical island? Wow!
Just up the coast from here, there is supposed to be a buried treasure called "The Neakanie treasure" theres been a couple B-movies made about it. Ive hiked around the mountain and even logged parts of it. Always hopeful of tripping over a gold bar lol. Im sure wiki can tell you more than I can.
Great post!

[Reef Badlaw]

Interesting read Reef. Count me in. Treasure hunting while on a tropical island? Wow!
Just up the coast from here, there is supposed to be a buried treasure called "The Neakanie treasure" theres been a couple B-movies made about it. Ive hiked around the mountain and even logged parts of it. Always hopeful of tripping over a gold bar lol. Im sure wiki can tell you more than I can.
Great post!

Thanks, cp...

An antigravitational-longboat can be what the Clatsops meant by 'winged canoe'... possibly a Polynesian-outrigger too. Anyways, how would the tribe know about the pirate-tradition of burying something, then executing a victim to be buried-with it? Verrrrry interesting...

Trouble is, any salt knows not to mark something by 'carving' a simple perpendicular, or parallel-line. It'd be almost impossible to find again, even in a short weather-exposed time-span. That's why the 'X' became legendary. I didn't wiki it, but went to one of my support-sites:

http://www.highstrangeness.tv/0-290-treasure-on-neahkahnie-mountain.html

I did google 'neahkahanie map' and got:

http://www.neahkahnie.net/neahkahnietreasure.htm

[Tired Old Man]

One of my dreams would be to win the Lotto. Not so much for the money but to be able to travel and search. The wealth that could be found would not exceeded the shear pleasure of finding it.