State Treasures - Virginia

Treasures of the Seventh Seal
ARLINGTON COUNTY – The treasure of the Seventh Seal is reputed to consist of a hoard of gold along with priceless documents that, if known, would challenge our understanding of man’s history and reveal to us the “secret destiny” for America and our global civilization.
For centuries, these documents have been protected by a secret society and their contents have only been viewed by a select few intellectuals that belong to the Order of the Illumined, or the Illuminati.
These documents have been deemed so critical to mankind’s future that they have been called the Seventh Seal.
Today, the Seventh Seal treasures are believed to be buried in the Bruton Vault, which is said to have been constructed of brick by Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) and members of his Wild Goose Club, and is 10 by 10 feet located 20 feet below the altar of the first brick church in Bruton Parish. Many claim the vault was once part of an underground Freemasonry Lodge.
Today, that church is known as the Bruton Parish Episcopal Church, located at 331 West Duke of Gloucester Street, Williamsburg, Virginia.
The present-day structure was built in 1715 and is the third Anglican Church to stand at this site since the early 1600’s, but it is not where the Bruton Vault can be found.
Using research compiled by noted author, scholar, philosopher and metaphysician Manly Palmer Hall (1901-1990), and a dedicated group of his students, Maria Bauer (1904-2005), who would later become Hall’s second wife, in 1938 was successful in unearthing the original foundations of the Bruton Parish Church, built around 1676 during the only archaeological dig authorized by church officials and the Rockefeller Foundation.
The site of the original church can be found in the present-day cemetery and, if the story is true, 20 feet below is the Bruton Vault.
Over the past century, the legend portraying Freemasons as secretly having a dominant role in developing the ideals and laws upon which the United States was founded has been a passionately contested topic that has inspired numerous novels and films.
Most recently, the movies National Treasure and Angels and Demons have been loosely based on that legend and its connection to the Knights Templar and America’s founding fathers.
At the center of the story and controversy is Sir Francis Bacon who, in his own right, was certainly one of the most brilliant intellectuals of his time.
But he is also a man whose life is shielded in obscurity; both his birth and death are shrouded in mystery, yet he was one of the best-known public figures of his day.
According to legend, it was Lord Bacon’s vision of a “New Atlantis,” a great democratic and philosophic empire that would be governed by a group of philosopher-scientists who were committed to education and developing a nation of people dedicated to a higher level of achievement and higher standard of living.
Bacon’s novel, New Atlantis, published in 1627, tells of the rise of this “Golden Age,” which was planned to emerge from the new American colonies.
The story goes that early in Bacon’s life he attracted a loyal following of colleagues, friends and students who were known as the “Good Pens.”
Legend claims a number of these followers, many being European luminaries, traveled to America to assist in laying the framework for America’s democratic form of government, and they secretly transported across the seas the sacred treasures that would be deposited in the Bruton Vault and 144 other hidden Freemasonry vaults located throughout the new American continent.
According to the Ascension Research Center, the locations of 121 of these scared vaults have been identified.
Only one other attempt has been made to raise the Bruton Vault. It came on September 9, 1991, and was quickly halted as an illegal and unauthorized dig. According to David Allen Rivera, author of Final Warning: A History of the New World Order, the organization known as Sir Francis Bacon’s Sages of the Seventh Seal appealed to the Bruton Parish Episcopal Church in 1992 to authorize a new archaeological dig, claiming they had new evidence that a spiral staircase exists beneath the pyramid-shaped monument that marks the graves of David and Elizabeth Bray. That staircase is said to lead to the vault. The church, however, declined that request.

Settlers' Fortune Lost
HARRISONBURG COUNTY – I don’t have much on this lost treasure, so local research is necessary.
The story involves a group of German immigrants who settled on land outside of McGaheysville near Peaked Mountain during the 1700’s.
The group is said to have buried a large coin cache along with other personal valuables at or near their new settlement.
Neighbors did not accept the Germans well and had no trust of them. Hostilities forced the Germans to uproot and quickly flee their settlement, resulting in their having to leave behind their cache of gold and silver coins.
It’s highly probable that the cache is still there.

Sunken Treasures
of the SS Merida
NORTHAMPTON COUNTY - On May 12, 1911, shortly after midnight, the steamship SS Merida was struck by the steamer Admiral Farragut in heavy fog roughly 60 miles off the Virginia Capes.
The bow of the Admiral Farragut hit the Merida mid-ship, ripping through 15 feet of plates and bulkheads. She lost the engines and power, leaving her adrift and taking on water.
The crew and passengers of the Merida were transferred to the Admiral Farragut, thus preventing any loss of life. Captain Robertson was the last to leave the Merida at 5:15 a.m. At 5:30 a.m. the vessel was consumed by the sea.
Various accounts exist as to what treasure was onboard, that may be in part due to the fact that many of her passengers were Mexican aristocrats fleeing the Mexican Revolution.
The Norfolk Beacon reported the loss of 17 tons of silver bars valued at $500,000.
Later reports claimed other losses included Emperor Maximilian’s crowned jewels, 699 bars of copper, $90,000 in mahogany logs, and 6,000 tons of Jamaica rum, along with a possibility of the famous emeralds of Quetzalcoatl.
Insurance records confirm that the 17 tons of silver were indeed lost, but, at the time of the shipwreck, Maximilian’s crowned jewels were on public display in Mexico City.
Further research should help better determine what cargo was onboard and its worth today. Numerous attempts to recover this treasure have been made, but ocean and weather conditions have hampered all efforts, as well as the fact that salvagers using dynamite in 1938 damaged the ship to the extent it has been deemed too hazardous to enter.
The vessel is located 45 miles east of Cobb Island at 37 degrees 20 minutes north and 74 degrees 41 minutes west.

Sources:
National Heritage Museum, The Bruton Vault Story, October 8, 2008, http://nationalheritagemuseum.typep
ad.com/library_and_archives/2008/10/the-bruton-vaul.html
Sir Francis Bacon’s Sages of the Seventh Seal, The Quest for Sir Francis Bacon’s Sacred Treasure Vaults, 2008, Ascension Research Center, http://www.ascension-research.org/Quest_for_Sacred_Treasure_Vaults_of_Fr...
Rivera, David Allen, Freemasonry – Final Warning of the New World Order, http://www.the7thfire.com/new_world_order/final_warning/freemasonry.htm
Rivera, David Allen, Archaeological Conspiracy at Williamsburg – The Mystery of Bruton Vault, 2007, http://www.scribd.com/doc/6488965/Archaeological-Conspiracy-at-Williamsb...
Vance, Tom, “Larger Known Treasure Caches,” April 1999, Lost Treasure magazine, p. 59
Purzycki, Thomas M, “Growth Continues,” October 2001, Lost Treasure magazine, p. 53.