State Treasures - Vermont

St. Francis Treasure
ESSEX COUNTY - What little information I have on the St. Francis Treasure, as it is known, is enough to get a good researcher started on attempting to locate this buried cache.
The treasure itself is said to consist of $40,000 in church plate with gold and silver specie and is reported to have been buried along the Connecticut River in the vicinity of Bloomfield.
Famed treasure hunter and author Richard F. Marx mentioned this cache briefly in his book Buried Treasures You Can Find (1993).

Old Lake House Treasure
CALEDONIA COUNTY – In his day, William Darlington, aka “Bristol Bill,” was the John Dillinger of the mid-nineteenth century. He fancied himself a gentlemanly “stick-up-man” who quickly let it be known he had standards.
First he only robbed banks. Second he was a ladies’ man and, therefore, never relieved a lady of her possessions. Like Dillinger, Bill lived larger than life and took immense pride in the fact that he’d outwitted officers on two continents, having eluded authorities in London, Boston and New York City.
Bobbies were closing in on Darlington after several bank robberies in England. But before they could put the “habeas grabas” on him, the fugitive fled to the United States. In the U.S. he pulled a number of bank jobs in New York City and also gave N.Y.P.D. detectives the slip by relocating to Vermont. In Vermont, Darlington continued his usual livelihood of robbing banks, but here he discovered a new venture…counterfeiting!
Unfortunately for the Brit, he was not well equipped to operate as a counterfeiter. Bristol Bill was confident he could easily counterfeit the paper money that was being issued by local banks. Just how much phony money he passed is unknown, but he continued to print the worthless currency without much of an eye for detail. For example, on his fake $5 bills he misspelled the word dollar as “doller.”
Word of Bill’s phony money spread and merchants and banks soon refused the fakes. He became angry and went back to his old ways by forcing bank managers and businessmen at gunpoint to exchange his bogus bucks for gold and silver specie.
According to author Herbert Asbury in his book, All Around The Town – Murder, Scandal, Riot and Mayhem in Old New York, over a 10-year period Bill’s criminal enterprise earned him an income of roughly $400,000. At the time of his arrest he only had $5 on him.
After such a successful criminal career, and having duped and evaded some of the best detectives from England and America, Bill was stunned when he was eventually arrested in the tiny village of Groton, Vermont, where he frequently resided at a placed called the Old Lake House.
Humiliated, the luminary outlaw was arrested single-handedly by the local town constable.
Bill is known to have lived the high life during his criminal exploits and from 1842 through 1849 he maintained three sweethearts in three separate residences.
No doubt much money was spent on his lavish lifestyle, but how much money he had cached away for himself over the years and where it is buried today remains a mystery.
Many believe it will one day be discovered in the vicinity of the Old Lake House where the end came for Bristol Bill.

Lost Timber Baron’s Treasure
CHITTENDEN COUNTY – Operating a primitive, but extensive lumber operation from the headwaters of the Winooski River during the 1730’s – 1740’s, David Jarvis amassed a large fortune in gold by dealing ship masts to Boston shipyards.
The masts were in great demand during the era of the great sailing ships from about 1600 to 1800.
Upon delivery, Jarvis would accept nothing but gold coins as payment. At home he ran a small farm near his lumber mill where it was common knowledge he buried his fortune, not because he was a braggart or had a loose tongue, but simply because the area was sparsely populated at that time and what few neighbors lived in the region all did the same, as no towns or banks existed.
In Jarvis’ business, he was required to keep a substantial amount of cash on hand to pay his logging crews and to buy timber tracts.
Jarvis is said to have been killed while falling a tree and the accident resulted in his fortune becoming lost.
Local research of old county records should help pin down the location of Jarvis’ farm, where so far as is known a fortune in gold still lies buried waiting to be found.

Ghost Town / Mine Lead
WINDSOR COUNTY – Vermont’s gold rush era began during the 1850’s and lasted into the 1880’s. During that time, Windsor County was the destination for most prospectors hoping to strike it rich with Vermont gold.
It was in 1880 when a group of miners passed through the Plymouth Five Corners area while chasing a lead of placer gold they were extracting from Buffalo Creek.
The group followed the lead to its source, a high vein up on a slope overlooking the creek.
Two years later the Rooks Mining Company was organized and the mine began full operation.
It was big news in 1884 when it was reported the mine was producing $50/ton ore.
Historically, it was the Bridgewater-Plymouth area where the state’s gold rush unfolded about 30 years earlier, meaning the discovery and opening of the Rooks Mine actually occurred at the end of the state’s gold rush period.
The Rooks Mine was the largest gold producer in Vermont. In 1887, the Rooks went bankrupt and the mine closed. It was the last mine in operation, which closed the book on the Vermont Gold Rush.
In its heyday, this area had dozens of mines operating, of which the fading ruins and coyote holes are still visible today.
Last year the state erected its first historical monument recognizing the Vermont Gold Rush and dedicated it at Camp Plymouth State Park near Ludlow.
If you intend to use your detector or dig for relics, check with park officials first. Otherwise check with the owners of private land for permission, since the mining area well exceeds the park boundaries onto private property.
Vermont’s biggest gold producing mines were the Rooks Mine, the Dailey Hollow Gold Mine, the Quttaquechee Mine, the T-Gold Mine, and Taggert-Fagneau Mine.
State officials have confirmed that, other than the Rooks Mine, no markers exist showing the others.
John P. Dumville, the state’s historic preservation officer, states the older mines exist on private property, and poor record keeping during the mid-19th century has made it impossible to separate one mine from the next.

Vermont Ghost Town Leads
Mosquitoville – (CALEDONIA COUNTY) As the crow flies, Mosquitoville is located in south Caledonia County 8/10ths of a mile south of the southern tip of Harvey’s Lake at the intersection of Schoolhouse Road (Township Highway 87) and Mosquitoville Road. The village was a farming community in its day, but all that remains today are overgrown cellar holes and crumbling foundations.
Oakland – (FRANKLIN COUNTY) There is very little information about Oakland, and I believe that may be because it most likely served at a tiny stop along the railroad.
It is located just west of highway 89 about 4.5 miles south of St. Albans. It is marked by the Kingsbury/Hibbard Cemetery, which is at the intersection of Oakland Station Road and Route 104.

Sources:
Marx, Robert F, Buried Treasures You Can Find, 1993, Dallas, TX, Ram Publishing Company, p. 348
Netzel, Pete, A Man With A Temper, September 2007, Vermont Treasure Stories, Friendly Metal Detecting Forum, http://metaldetectingforum.c
om/showthread.php?t=13935&highl
ight=Vermont
Henson, Michael Paul, America’s Lost Treasures, 1984, South Bend, IN, Jayco Publishing Co, p. 177-78.
Varricchio, Lou, Marker to memorialize Vermont’s Gold Rush, July 24, 2009, Denton Publications, http://www.denpubs.com/Articles-c-2009-08-11-61190.113116-sub_Marker_to_...
Author’s file on Vermont Ghost Towns.