State Treasure - Tennessee

The Keller Treasure
LAUDERDALE COUNTY – NOTE: Hiram Keller is the principal in this legend of buried treasure from Lauderdale County, Tennessee.
For research purposes before running this story, I attempted to confirm that Hiram Keller was a real person who did in fact live in Lauderdale County in the 1920’s.
I discovered that the Keller family of Lauderdale County dates back many generations and the family apparently has a fondness for the name “Hiram,” since they have continued to name their male children Hiram for at least six generations, much to my dismay.
In an attempt to confirm which Hiram Keller was in fact the person who is mentioned in the story, I did further genealogy research on the Keller family and found what may be errors in the repeated telling of this legend over time.
I will provide our readers with the original legend as it has been documented over the years and at the end will comment on what discrepancies I found during research. Local research is necessary.
The good news is the Keller Century Farm has remained in the Keller family at the same location for six generations.
In 2005, title of the farm was transferred to none other than… Hiram Franklin Keller and his wife, Pat, who I believe still run the farm today.
During prohibition in the 1920’s, Hiram Keller, called “the undisputed and largest dealer in moonshine whiskey in Lauderdale County,” is thought to have had approximately 20 stills in operation at one time.
Keller made a fortune selling his whiskey and ran his operation from a “large rambling log house located just west of the Baptist Church” in the village of Asbury.
According to legend, Keller’s wife died during childbirth, which left him with one son, Clint.
One day he told Clint that he’d buried money all over the Asbury property and would tell him the locations of these caches when he was older.
In December 1927, Keller was drinking and playing cards with a group of local men at one of the stills he ran.
Someone made the accusation that they’d been cheated when a brawl broke out. To quell the fighting, one of the men fired several shots into the air.
The fight immediately stopped and Hiram Keller dropped dead.
The story does not state if Keller’s death was the result of a gunshot wound or not, but does add that when Clint grew older he made a number of unsuccessful searches for his father’s fortune, but failed to recover any of it.
Research has left many unanswered questions concerning this legend.
Records indicate that during prohibition one Hiram Keller, who was alive, was Hiram Washington Keller who died of natural causes on September 27, 1928, at the age of 93 years.
His date of birth is given as December 14, 1835, and he was buried at the Bethlehem Cemetery in Henning.
As the crow flies, Henning is located just 4-1/2 miles south of Asbury where this story is said to have occurred.
H. W. Keller was survived by five children, none of whom was named Clint. Genealogy research indicates that he did have a son who was also alive during prohibition; his name was Hiram Franklin Keller, born September 19, 1877, and died January 14, 1939, at 61 years. H. F. Keller is listed as a resident of Henning.
According to descendants still living, Hiram Frank Keller and Patricia R. Keller, the Keller farm was established in 1861 by H.W. Keller and is located not in Asbury, but “one and a half miles southeast of Henning.” That would place the family farm 5.75 miles south of Asbury.
The farm was transferred to H. F. Keller in 1913 who wed Nora Jernigan and the couple had three children whose names are not listed, however their son, Franklin Wade Keller, acquired the farm in 1964, becoming its third owner.
In the early days the farm once exceeded 400 acres, and when acquired by its present owner, Hiram Frank Keller in 2005, the farm was then 188 acres in size.
Did the tellers of this legend over time refer to Asbury intentionally to throw others off the trail of treasure?
What is clear is that the Keller family has been in Lauderdale County for a long time, as I found records dating to 1836 where a Hiram C. Keller was involved with the development of the nearby town of Ripley.
Perhaps local genealogy and land title research will help clarify the mystery and better identify which Keller was making moonshine and where.Medon’s Lost Silver Cache
MADISON COUNTY – In 1968, Robert C. Mills wrote of a lost cache consisting of an estimated 4,200 silver dollars.
The story involves an aging Medon man named Troy H. Allen who, in March 1940, decided to accept his daughter’s offer for him to come live with her in California. The elderly man owned a small farm with a small white frame house on the property. For years he’d earned extra income from selling produce he raised on the farm.
His decision to move to California to be with his daughter meant putting the house and farm up for sale.
Since Allen would be busy packing and cleaning up until the house sold, he decided it wise to hide his silver dollar collection until he was actually prepared to leave for California.
The property went up for sale and Allen buried his coin collection in the three-acre garden he kept on the south side of his house since he wouldn’t be doing any planting that year.
He buried his silver roughly 30 inches deep then planted a small bush over the cache so that when the time came he could quickly unearth it before heading out west. Allen sold the property to an old friend, William Myers, who owned another farm nearby.
Just days before his planned departure Allen went into Medon to pick up some essentials he knew he would need for the long trip and say his farewells to old friends.
While in town, Mr. Myers unexpectedly showed up at Allen’s home to do some plowing in anticipation of spring planting.
Finding no one home, and having known Mr. Allen for many years, he knew there would be no objection to him running his plow over the property.
Later that day Allen returned home to discover the land freshly plowed. He checked the garden and found the bush he’d planted over his treasure was gone.
Realizing what had happened, Allen was confident that his cache was still there since he’d buried it well beyond the reach of any plow blade, but without the bush to mark the spot he was lost.
In the final days leading up to his departure he dug holes all over the old garden, but never found his coin collection.
When the time came for him to leave he did so with great regret. As time passed, the cache was forgotten and eventually the property fell into disuse. It is still believed to be there today.
In the original story, Robert Mills gave very specific directions to the old Allen farm, he wrote…
“[The] old house stands on the Deanburg Road just past the little town of Medon, Tennessee, in Hardeman County. It is located about 500 feet from the road in the woods to the right about half a mile after one turns off State Highway 18.”
My map research for this site indicates Mills was likely in error about the house being in Hardeman County.
Highway 18 is called Main Street within the city limits of Medon and runs north to south.
Turning onto Deanburg Road you can only go east, a half-mile east of Main Street (Hwy. 18) places the old farm barely within the Medon city limits today, where the road is known as Lowery Road.
Lowery Road becomes Deanburg Road at the county line about two miles southeast of Medon, which is roughly where the county lines for Madison, Hardeman and Chester Counties merge.Sources:
Vance, Tom, Questions & Answers – Spanish Treasure in the Skeleton Canyon? August 2006, “Lost Treasure magazine,” p. 60
Treasure in Tennessee, http://www.gwizit.com/treasures/tennessee.php
Keller, H. Frank and Patricia Keller, Keller Farm, http://www.tncenturyfarms.org/lauderdale_county/
Keller Genealogy Research: http://bodart.tripod.com/burks/dat10.htm#19
“The Henning Progress,” Obituary for H.W. Keller, September 27, 1928
http://www.tngenweb.org/lauderdale/newspapers/newspaper11.htm
Mills, Robert C., Buried Silver Dollars, January 1968, “Lost Treasure” magazine, p. 1.