Myths and Legends of Our Own Land, vol 9 | Page 9

Caverns have frequently been used as hiding-places for things of more
or less value--generally less. Saltpetre Cave, in Georgia, for instance,
was a factory and magazine for saltpetre, gunpowder, and other
military stores during the Civil War. The Northern soldiers wrecked the
potash works and broke away tons of rock, so as to make it dangerous
to return. Human bones have been found here, too, but they are thought
to be those of soldiers that entered the cave in pursuit of an Indian chief
who had defied the State in the '40's. He escaped through a hole in the
roof, doubled on his pursuers, fired a pile of dead leaves and wood at
the mouth, and suffocated the white men with the smoke.
Spaniards worked the mines in the Ozark Hills of Missouri two
hundred years ago. One of the mines containing lead and silver,
eighteen miles southwest of Galena, was worked by seven men, who
could not agree as to a division of the yield. One by one they were

killed in quarrels until but a single man was left, and he, in turn, was set
upon by the resurrected victims and choked to death by their cold
fingers. In 1873 a Vermonter named Johnson went there and said he
would find what it was the Spaniards had been hiding, in spite of the
devil and his imps. He did work there for one day, and was then found
dead at the mouth of the old shaft with marks of bony fingers on his
throat.
The seven cities of Cibola, that Coronado and other Spanish
adventurers sought in the vast deserts of the Southwest, were pueblos.
A treacherous guide who had hoped to take Coronado into the waterless
plain and lose him, but who first lost his own head, had told him a tale
of the Quivira, a tribe that had much gold. So far from having gold
these Indians did not know the stuff, but the myth that they had hoarded
quantities of it has survived to this day and has caused waste of lives
and money. Towns in New Mexico that have lain in ruins since 1670,
when the Apaches butchered their people--towns that were well built
and were lorded by solid old churches and monasteries erected by the
Spanish missionaries--these towns have often been dug over, and the
ruinous state of Abo, Curari, and Tabira is due, in part, to their foolish
tunnelling and blasting.
A Spanish bark, one day in 1841, put in for water off the spot where
Columbia City, Oregon, now stands. She had a rough crew on board,
and it had been necessary for her officers to watch the men closely
from the time the latter discovered that she was carrying a costly cargo.
Hardly had the anchorchains run out before the sailors fell upon the
captain, killed him, seized all of value that they could gather, and took
it to the shore. What happened after is not clear, but it is probable that
in a quarrel, arising over the demands of each man to have most of the
plunder, several of the claimants were slain. Indians were troublesome,
likewise, so that it was thought best to put most of the goods into the
ground, and this was done on the tract known as Hez Copier's farm.
Hardly was the task completed before the Indians appeared in large
numbers and set up their tepees, showing that they meant to remain.
The mutineers rowed back to the ship, and, after vainly waiting for
several days for a chance to go on shore again, they sailed away. Two
years of wandering, fighting, and carousal ensued before the remnant of
the crew returned to Oregon. The Indians were gone, and an earnest

search was made for the money--but in vain. It was as if the ground had
never been disturbed. The man who had supervised its burial was
present until the mutineers went back to their boats, when it was
discovered that he was mysteriously missing.
More than forty years after these events a meeting of Spiritualists was
held in Columbia City, and a "medium" announced that she had
received a revelation of the exact spot where the goods had been
concealed. A company went to the place, and, after a search of several
days, found, under a foot of soil, a quantity of broken stone. While
throwing out these fragments one of the party fell dead. The spirit of
the defrauded and murdered captain had claimed him, the medium
explained. So great was the fright caused by this accident that the
search was again abandoned until March, 1890, when another party
resumed the digging, and after taking out the remainder of the stone
they came on a number of human skeletons. During the examination of
these