State Treasure - Maryland

Stratagem to Escape –
The Grover Berdgoll Story
WASHINGTON COUNTY – A child of wealth and privilege, Grover Cleveland Bergdoll (October 18, 1893 – January 27, 1966) was the grandson of Louis Bergdoll, Sr., a German immigrant who, in 1849, founded the Louis Bergdoll & Sons Brewing Co. of Philadelphia. At the height of production, the company produced one of the most popular beers in the country, making the Bergdoll family millionaires several times over.
Grover Cleveland Bergdoll had it all. He was handsome, wealthy, and urbane and, during the fanciful days of his youth, lived larger then life chasing women, racing cars and flying airplanes. It was the height of WWI when, on June 5, 1917, Bergdoll registered for the draft, but when the draft board called him in for a physical exam, he failed to appear.
Believing his family’s wealth and influence could buy anything; Bergdoll sent his own proposal to the U.S. military offering his services as an officer and stateside flight instructor with the U.S. Air Service. His offer was flatly rejected. It’s one thing when a young man “on the breadline” decides to ignore his draft notice to run the farm and feed his family, and quite another when a coward of privilege in essence spits on the American flag and willfully joins the ranks of the deserter. Not only was this the path chosen by the wealthy playboy, it was something he savored.
Bergdoll was by all means a man of privilege; he owned a 1908 Alco Racer, one of four racecars built by the American Locomotive Company. He raced in the 1915 Indianapolis 500, and his family produced their own motorcar, the Bergdoll. As an aviator, he trained at the Huffman Prairie Flying Field, where he flew and later purchased his own civilian model of the 1911 Wright B Flyer built by the Wright Company.
When Burgdoll learned that the MP’s were looking for him, he withdrew a large sum of money from the bank and went on the lam. Arrogantly, he taunted authorities by sending them a series of defiant and insulting postcards, but Bergdoll’s days were numbered. On January 7, 1920, the cowardly felon was arrested at his mother’s palatial mansion. Sent to Governor’s Island, New York, and charged with desertion, Bergdoll simply became known as Prisoner 289. There Bergdoll was court-martialed and in March sentenced to five years labor at Ft. Jay.
Two months later, Bergdoll informed U.S. Army officials that he had buried a “reserve fund” of $150,000 in gold in Maryland’s Conococheagae Valley while a fugitive. He requested to be allowed to retrieve it before being transported to Ft. Jay. It was agreed upon and Bergdoll was transported to Philadelphia under guard. He escaped custody and this time fled to Germany where he’d remain beyond the reach of American authorities for the next 19 years.
The American Legion wanted Bergdoll’s head more then the U.S. government. In fact, the Legionaries offered a $500 bounty for his capture. They also made two attempts in Germany to capture the fugitive, but failed. So what about the Conococheagae cache? It’s a mystery with more then a few twists and turns.
Most believe it never existed, that it was only a ruse used by Bergdoll in order to escape. The reason most dismissed the story as a stratagem to escape is because the New York Times, on July 4, 1920 claimed that is exactly what occurred.
The Times, however, ran their account based on a story they’d picked up off the wire that was originally published by a staff reporter with the American Legion Weekly, which, by-the-by, had added their own $500 for Bergdoll’s head. Being a retired police chief, it didn’t take long for me to realize that something was amiss with the Weekly’s story.
My investigation confirmed that the first person to find physical evidence attesting to the veracity of Bergdoll’s claim that he buried gold in the Conococheagae Valley came from the reporter for the American Legion Weekly!
Strange, is it not, that the reporter who discovered evidence supporting Bergdoll’s account would print his story claiming just the opposite. This reporter was led to a tree where the letters “GB” had been carved into its trunk; below the letters a horizontal arrow had also been inscribed.
According to what Bergdoll told military authorities the inscription was his, used to mark the exact location of his gold. And the man who took the reporter to Bergdoll’s pointer was a local farmer named Walter Hose.
As a fugitive, investigators had learned that Bergdoll frequently camped during the summer of 1918 and 1919 in the Conococheagae Valley, and for the rest of the year lived under an assumed name at a hotel in Hagerstown. Bergdoll’s camp was identified as being on land adjacent to the farm of one Mr. Walter Hose.
The Weekly’s reporter visited Bergdoll’s campsite, which he described as being “along a pleasant little stream in the Valley of the Conococheagae Creek.” His chance interview with Hose is how he learned it was Hose who’d identified Bergdoll from a police photograph and that, because of the close proximity of Hose’s land to Bergdoll’s camp, he frequently saw him in the vicinity and had one day accidentally discovered the tree carvings while walking in the area.
Regardless of what was printed by the Weekly and later the Times, Bergdoll had the resources and opportunity to have dumped a hoard of gold into a hole in the Conococheagae Valley.
His story was deemed believable by military authorities, and the treasure marker Bergdoll claimed he’d carved into a tree was indeed present. Further evidence is that Hose was the eyewitness who identified Bergdoll from a police photo and coincidently knew of Bergdoll’s tree carving.
Local research is necessary, as the Hose farm / property in 1918-1919 is the key to finding this treasure. The Weekly’s reporter described the scene as follows…
“The [marked] tree is one of a clump of four which stands besides the creek on the lane leading from the main road to Hose’s farmhouse. On the side of the lane opposite the creek a thickly wooded hill rises, and it is up this hill that the arrow on the tree points.”

Baldwin Coinshooters Lead
BALTIMORE COUNTY – This lead will be of interest to coinshooters. This little known lead has been referred to as the “Quaker Treasure,” but it was never a hidden or buried treasure.
On or about the 8th of November, 1906, Calvin S. Harlem, an “eccentric Quaker,” was struck by the Harrisburg and Baltimore Express while crossing the tracks near the rural hamlet of Baldwin in Northeast Baltimore County, one mile east of the Harford County line.
The story ran on November 9, 1906, in the Boston Herald, but does not identify Harlem’s mode of transportation, though in all probability he was driving a wagon due to the substantial load he was transporting.
At the time of the accident, Harlem was carrying an undisclosed amount of specie, which… “Thousands of dollars were scattered along the tracks for a mile, before the accident was discovered,” according to the Herald.
Clearly the tracks would’ve been cleared of any surface coins, as well as those that could be found in the immediate vicinity after the accident was discovered.
But the force of the impact would’ve hurled plenty of the coins over a great distance and from the point of impact continue to leave a debris field for a distance of one mile.
Without detectors in those days all that could be recovered would’ve been surface coins; those left behind by now would’ve worked their way down into the soil perhaps several inches. A good detector today should be able to make some nice recoveries.

Sources:
Thornton, Willis (NEA Service Writer) Bergdoll—The Fighting Slacker, January 24, 1933, The Orlean Times-Herald, http://earlyavia
tors.com/ebergdo_1_.htm
Norton, Richard Arthur, Grover Cleveland Bergdoll, 2006, http://richard.arthur.norton.googlepages.com/groverclevelandbergdoll
Kroplick, Howard, An Alco Racer and its Infamous Owner,
http://www.vanderbiltcupraces.com/index.php/blog/article/tuesday_june_15...
The New York Times, “BERGDOLL’S INITIALS AND ARROW ON TREE – Sycamore in Conococheague Valley May or May Not Be Key to Hidden Treasure,” July 4, 1920 New York, N.Y., The New York Times
Henson, Michael Paul, America’s Lost Treasures, 1984, South Bend, IN, Jayco Publishing Co., p. 52.