Where Is The Money Pond Located In Jackson County Florida

The Money Pond in Jackson County, Florida

The lost treasure of the Money Swimming is #95 on our list of 100 Cracking Things about Jackson County, Florida. Click here to come across previous items on the list.

In the northeast corner of Jackson County, legend holds that a pirate treasure waits to be found deep below the mud and muck of a swampy body of water. Locals call the place the "Money Pond" and many believe there is enough gold and silver at its bottom to make the person who finds information technology an instant millionaire.

Spanish treasure on display
Museum of Florida History in Tallahassee

That is likely even more true today cheers to the astronomical price of gilt, which at the shut of the markets today was selling for $ane,339.50 per ounce. Silver closed at $20.89 per in one case. Fable holds that the pond contains 7 horse loads of gilded and silverish, each said to weigh over 100 pounds.

If truthful, that means there is somewhere around 11,200 ounces of gold and argent at the lesser of the Money Swimming. If half of it is in gold, then the value for the weight of the metal alone would be nearly $viii million!

More Spanish Treasure at the Museum of Florida History

And that's just the kickoff of the story. The actual value of the treasure could be much, much higher because each of the coins would be worth far more than to collectors than the value of its weight lone. A much smaller hoard of three cans containing aureate coins from the 19th century was recently establish in California and is already thought to be worth more than $10 1000000.

So is the story true? Is an unbelievable treasure waiting to be found at the bottom of a swampy Florida pond?

The answer to those questions may exist... yes.

William Augustus Bowles
Self Portrait of the Pirate "Baton Bowlegs"

The story has its roots in the real life of the famed pirate and adventurer, William Augustus Bowles. He is historic in Fort Walton Beach today every bit the Pirate Billy Bowlegs, which often causes him to be confused with the later Seminole Indian chiefs of the same name.

Born in Maryland in around 1763, Bowles joined the British military service in 1776 when he was thirteen years former. That was the year, of course, that the United States declared its independence from Great U.k.. Bowles was from a family unit of Tories, withal, and his loyalty was to King George 3.

Co-ordinate to an early History of the Bowles Family, he fought at the Battle of Monmouth, New Jersey, before traveling with his regiment from New York to Jamaica and from there to Pensacola. Spain had lost Florida to Great United kingdom at the terminate of the French & Indian State of war and information technology is a little known fact that Due east and West Florida remained loyal British colonies during the American Revolution.

According to family unit historian Thomas M. Farquhar, Bowles was driven from the British service following a dispute with one of his commanding officers. The exact details remain murky and there are several different versions of what happened.

Lower Creek village in Jackson County, Florida

Simply 15 years erstwhile at the time, he decided to walk dwelling house to Maryland and set off on his own through the vast wilderness of the Florida Panhandle. He speedily became completely lost, but was discovered by a political party of Lower Creek Indians from the Perryman towns. These villages, located in today's Jackson Canton, Florida and neighboring Seminole County, Georgia, were headed by Thomas and William Perryman. The son and grandson of English trader Theophilus Perryman and his Creek wife, the two Perryman chiefs were wealthy mestizos (a term meaning they were of mixed Creek and European beginnings).

Since the Creeks were on good terms with the English, the warriors carried Bowles to their towns and he chop-chop ingratiated himself with the Perryman family unit. He later married Thomas Perryman'due south oldest daughter and led the Perryman warriors during the Battle of Pensacola in 1780.

Flag flown by William Augustus Bowles

In 1791, at the historic period of 22, he traveled to London where he negotiated docking rights at British ports in the Due west Indies for ships flight the flag of what he called the "Creek and Cherokee Nation." These rights in manus, he traveled to New Providence in the Bahamas where he purchased a small sloop and began trading voyages back and forth to the Lower Creek towns on the Chattahoochee River.

On a more ominous note, even so, he armed his vessel with cannon and soon entered the life of a pirate, capturing merchant ships on the Gulf of Mexico. He was very good at being a pirate and his ane ship soon turned into a flotilla of pirate vessels.

To requite these ships at least a semblance of legitimacy, he declared the independence of what he called the "Country of Muskogee" and declared war on Spain. Florida had returned to Spanish command at the end of the American Revolution, but the British trading firm of Panton, Leslie and Company had remained backside. Turning his flotilla of pirate ships into the "Muskogee Navy," Bowles became a major thorn in their side.

He and his pirate crews, which included white, black and Creek Indian men, raided merchant vessels traveling in the Gulf. On ane occasion they defeated Spanish declension guard vessels in a fierce battle on Apalachicola Bay. Amidst the vessels of his fleet were the warshipsMackisuky and Tostonoke.

Ekanachatte in 1778
From the Purcell-Stuart Map

In one of his letters, Bowles mentioned plans to bring a ship loaded with cargo upward the Apalachicola River to either the trading mail service of James Burges (Burgess) at what is now Bainbridge, Georgia, or a place he called "The Keen's" on the Chattahoochee River.

The Bully, so named for his prowess as a trader, was the chief of the Lower Creek town of Ekanachatte ("Ruby-red Basis") which lay on the west bank of the river at what is now Neal's Landing Park in Jackson Canton. He was a supporter and business concern associate of Bowles and was fabulously wealthy for his time.

Bowles became such a threat to Spanish and merchant shipping that a reward of $six,000 (in 1790s currency) and i,500 kegs of rum were offered for his capture. He eventually was captured and died while on a hunger strike at the fort of El Morro in Cuba.

Chattahoochee River at Neal's Landing (Ekanachatte)

Co-ordinate to legend, all the same, his treasure remained behind at Ekanachatte (Neal's Landing). It stayed rubber at that place until 1818 when, during the Starting time Seminole War, the Creek troops of Brigadier General William McIntosh drove south into Florida every bit part of Andrew Jackson'south invasion. Fearful that the treasure would be captured, the chief and warriors of the town sank it into the Money Pond.

McIntosh defeated the Ekanachatte warriors at the Battle of the Upper Chipola near Bellamy Bridge in March 1818 and the treasure was forever lost. Run across Battle of the Upper Chipola.

The Coin Swimming

The story, nevertheless, does not end in that location. During the early 1900s, two major expeditions were launched by treasure hunters to find the lost gold and silver of William Augustus Bowles. The largest of these arrived in northeastern Jackson County in 1927, dug a ditch and tuckered the Coin Pond. In one case the mud had dried somewhat, they started digging... and found Spanish silver coins in the muck at the lesser of the pond!

Earlier they could recover the main treasure, even so, information technology began to pelting. 1927 is remembered today as the year of the Slap-up Overflowing. From Louisiana east and the Ohio River south, flood waters rose to unheard of levels. In Jackson County, the Chattahoochee surged from its banks and flowed equally far inland as Malone. The treasure dig came to an cease as raging flood waters flowed through the swamps and forced the men to flee for their lives. They never came back.

The treasure, it is said, is withal there today.

To read more than of the story of William Augustus Bowles and the Money Pond, please consider my volume, The History of Jackson County, Florida: The Early Years.It is bachelor at Chipola River Volume & Tea in downtown Marianna or online from Amazon.com by clicking here: (Kindle)The History Of Jackson County, Florida: The Early Years.

The Kindle version is available for instant download by clicking here: The History of Jackson Canton, Florida: The Early Years.

Ekanachatte, near the legendary Coin Pond, is one of the stops on the new Jackson Canton Spanish Heritage Trail. The 150 mile driving tour passes xi key Spanish colonial sites in Jackson County. The new guide booklet is available at the historic Russ House and Company Center in Marianna. Learn more online at http://visitjacksoncountyfla.com/heritage/spanish-heritage-trail/.

Source: https://twoegg.blogspot.com/2014/03/95-lost-treasure-of-money-pond-100.html

Posted by: barrazawitheath.blogspot.com