TREASURE: We always find treasure in issues of The Era, but in this case, in July of 1974, there was a story about a legend of $1.5 million in silver bars lost in McKean County.
“At the time it was lost, it was valued at one-and-a-half million dollars, but with the increasing value of pure silver, the lost bars could conceivably be worth double that amount,” the story began. The treasure was buried in the summer of 1812 “in the southeast corner of McKean County near the tiny village of Keating Summit” with at least “two dozen elk looking on.”
The legend goes something like this: In 1811, a Capt. Blackbeard, not to be confused with the pirate, received a commission from the British Admiralty to raise the wreckage of a Spanish galleon off the Bahamas. Known as one of the greatest salvage experts of his time, Blackbeard had no problem raising the hulk. He landed at Baltimore and made arrangements for a warship to tow it back to England.
While he was carousing in a Baltimore tavern, Blackbeard heard rumors of the great wealth aboard the ship. Realizing this left him open for attack and robbery, Blackbeard knew he had to make a different plan. The prospect of England and America going to war was a growing possibility, so traveling by sea was impossible, he reasoned. A land route to Canada would be the best bet. The trip was far more difficult than he anticipated. He decided to stop and bury the loot in a “primeval forest.” He returned to England and sent Col. Noah Parker to retrieve the treasure.
Parker claimed he never found the silver, but “from time to time he showed sudden affluence.”
Blackbeard never recovered it either. Might the treasure, or some of it, still be buried in the woods near Gardeau?
