CYRUS COLE: Imagine being a boy, living across a fishing stream
from a man who tans hides, eats venison and leeks, talks to the
spirits – and makes money the old-fashioned way.

The man was Cyrus Cole of Eldred, an alleged counterfeiter.

But for Kenneth Kemp, who was 8 years old at the time, this man
was “one of the most colorful people I ever knew.” He adds, “I was
scared of him but I loved him.”

We carried a little item the other day about this Cyrus Cole who
was an early target of the Secret Service working a counterfeiting
case.

According to a BBC website, Cole lived by himself in a shack
near the swamps outside Eldred. “Cole was something of a bum,
surviving by picking berries and trapping muskrats yet, strangely,
he was never short of cash.”

“The Secret Service had been investigating an influx of
counterfeit silver half dollars and gold coins in the area, but
could never get any leads. Then in 1912, they got an anonymous tip
that Cole was the mastermind behind the counterfeiting ring.

“Armed with a search warrant, the agents searched Cole’s shack
and found some evidence, but not enough for a conviction.”

“They searched the swamp for evidence of the minting equipment,
but came up empty-handed. Legend has it that Cole buried his
counterfeit coins and his real gold and silver profits somewhere on
the high ground near Eldred. None of it has ever been
recovered.”

Kenneth, who counts himself among those who searched
unsuccessfully for the buried loot, tells us Cole’s activities –
including the counterfeiting – were only attempts to eke out a
living. “They had nothing,” he said, referring to Cole and his
sister, both full-blooded Indians.

The sister, a gifted artist, drew beautiful pictures of
peacocks. She also had drawn pictures of $5 and $10 bills that were
so realistic you’d be tempted to spend them. In fact, she told
Kenneth is was she who had drawn the plates used for the
counterfeiting.

He also remembers the sister giving him 5 cents to buy tobacco
to smoke. “She said she didn’t smoke it but only put it on her
plants.”

Meanwhile, the Coles had no relatives. “They took them out of
there in ’41 or ’42 and put them in a home.”

“It was an honor to have known them,” he concludes.