MONEY DIGGING ON MARTHA'S VINEYARD

In 1833, newspapers around the country reprinted a story from the New Bedford Gazette titled "Money Digging":

As historian Charles Hine later noted, "the story got out in due time." The original article reported that the treasure had evidently beenoriginally buried in a bag ("ascertained by pieces of cloth adhering to some of the coin"), but a footnote in an 1839 history book by William Dunlapclaimed that it was "a pot, containing $1,800, ploughed up in a field upon Martha's Vineyard," and attributed the loot to the pirate captain WilliamKidd.

Hines noted, "This is said to be the only case actually known where buried gold has been found" on the Island. But that was not for lack oftrying. There were lots of stories of pirates and other mysterious strangers visiting the Island to stash their wealth. An 1811 article in theBoston Palladium reported that three men were sighted stealthily landing a longboat on the Island's south shore at three o'clock in themorning. They spoke broken English and were thought to be Spaniards, and they carried five or six thousand dollars in coins. "Every appearanceindicates them to be villains, who have perpetrated crimes of the deepest dye." They found passage to New Bedford, and vanished before they could bedetained and questioned.

To read the complete article, see:

This Was Then: Money digging(https://www.mvtimes.com/2019/05/08/this-was-then-money-digging/)