Money Hole on the Florida Gulf Coast

Are pirates responsible for hidden Wakulla County treasure?

by Dale Cox

Spanish treasure on display at the
Florida Museum of History in Tallahassee, Florida.

One of Florida's oldest treasure hunts began nearly 175-years ago in the marshes and wetlands near St. Marks.

The historic coastal community chases its origins back to the Spanish conquistador Panfilo de Narvaez. Its fort of San Marcos de Apalache - also called Fort St. Marks and Fort Ward - was the scene of conflict and international intrigue for hundreds of years. Nearby Apalachee Bay was often infested with pirates and the twisting creeks and rivers between St. Marks and the Gulf often provided a safe harbor for ships fleeing these marine raiders.

Legends of buried treasure abound, but perhaps the most intriguing has led to digs in a mysterious "money hole" since at least the 1850s. The story was attributed to Florida Secretary of State H. Clay Crawford, a treasure aficionado who gave the critical details to the Pensacola Journal in 1906. 

According to Crawford, a gold shipment valued at $5,000,000 left New Orleans aboard a Spanish gunboat at the time of Florida's transfer from Spain to the United States in 1821. The vessel shadowed the coast and was off St. Marks when it was disabled in a storm:

...In fear of pirates, who infested the coast, the captain with several of the crew landed and buried the gold, then returned to the gunboat. They drifted for days and the crew was finally picked up by a vessel bound for Peru. During the voyage the scourge broke out on the ship and the officers and many of the crew died, those who survived landing, penniless, at Peru. - Pensacola Journal, August 12, 1906.

Ruins of the Spanish fortress of San Marcos de Apalache
can still be seen in St. Marks, Florida.

Some 44 years later in 1865, a mysterious sailor named Bell appeared in St. Marks. The War Between the States or Civil War was then underway, and Union warships blockaded the mouth of the St. Marks River. An inland raid by Federal soldiers intent on capturing St. Marks, Tallahassee, and even Thomasville, Georgia, was defeated by Confederate forces at the Battle of Natural Bridge on March 6 of that year.

The sailor was quite elderly and all but helpless:

...He was an old man, feeble and ill, and was kindly cared for by a man named Smith, whose home he reached in his wanderings. He lingered several months and then died. When he found that he was about to die he told Mr. Smith the story of his life. He was one of the crew of the ill-fated gunboat that carried the Spanish gold from new Orleans. He told of the burying of the money after the boat became disabled, and of the crew being carried to Peru. He said he had spent his life trying to get back to St. Marks where the gold was buried. Before he died he gave Mr. Smith a chart by which the spot could be located. He was buried at St. Marks. - Ibid.

The map or chart described the burial place of the treasure as being in a spot marked by three mature trees, one of which had an iron spike driven into its trunk.

Looking south from the fort of San Marcos de Apalache
into the marshes of the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge.

Smith set out for the spot with two African American men and found the trees exactly where the treasure map indicated. Noticing an unusual knot on one of the trunks, the men cut into it and revealed the iron spike. So many years had passed since it was driven into the tree that the wood had grown and covered it over.

Mr. Smith did not trust his two companions and required them to wait near the boat while he stepped off a set number of paces into the marsh and began to dig for gold:

...He was equipped only with a hoe and a spade and besides was an old man, and encountered much difficulty in the work. He decided to return home and get better equipment and assistance, believing firmly that the treasure was buried there and intending to return and dig for it. - Ibid.

The end of the war brought hard times to St. Marks, however, and Smith was never able to fund an expedition to find the treasure. Some years later, however, another mysterious sailor - this one named Ballou - arrived in Wakulla County:

The flag of Spain flies over historic St. Marks, Florida.

...He also was an old man of very secretive habits. He fitted out a boat, bought picks, axes, spades and supplies and disappeared. At intervals he would return for supplies. When his funds were exhausted he taught school during the winter, hoarding his earnings like a miser and spending them for supplies for his trips in the summer. Finally exhausted from labor and the hardships he had endured, Ballou became ill and died at the military hospital at St. Marks. From his papers, it was learned that he was a survivor of the crew of the Spanish gunboat that sailed from New Orleans with the five millions for Spain. - Ibid.

The "military" or marine hospital at St. Marks was built with stone from the old Spanish fort of San Marcos de Apalache. Its surviving foundations provide the base for the museum at today's San Marcos de Apalache Historic State Park.

The story of the treasure by this time had become well known along the coast. Some of Wakulla County's most prominent individuals invested in or led searches to find it, but only one expedition ever came close:

The "Money Hole" site is deep within the marshes of the
St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge in Wakulla County, FL.

Since that day many have sought in vain the millions hidden in the marshes of St. Marks. That it lies there, few who have heard the story from those who lived there in those days can doubt. Various expeditions have been secretly fitted out to search for it even in recent years. One party composed of George Ladd, a son of Daniel Lad, Swamp Angel Bill Denham, Castillo, Bryant and Kennedy fitted out a boat and went in search of the gold. They all got drunk and one of the party thought he had located the money but they got into a fight over the probable division and had to go back to St. Marks for repairs and could never again find the place. - Ibid.

The last major expedition was led by "Col. Slusser and Mr. Geo. Lamb,  Mr. Register, and Mr. Hall." They found the site of the earlier digs and began their own excavation, only to find that the brackish water of the marsh quickly seeped into the hole causing it to fill in with mud. Timber cribbing was installed to hold back the walls and pumps employed to drain the water, but the quicksand still proved too much for the would-be millionaires.

The gold - worth more than $376 million today - was never found. 

The site of the money hole became part of the 68,000-acre St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge in 1931. Treasure hunting there is strictly prohibited.

To learn more about beautiful Wakulla County, Florida, be sure to click www.visitwakulla.com.

The Very Jaws of Death: The Wreck of the Steamboat Eagle

A Nineteenth Century Tragedy at Neal's Landing

by Dale Cox

Site of the wreck of the steamboat Eagle.

Neal's Landing - One of the greatest tragedies in the history of Jackson County was the sinking of the steamboat Eagle in less than fifteen minutes on January 29, 1854.

The massive 150-foot boat was a true "floating palace" that rivaled the finest Mississippi riverboats of her day. Propelled by a big paddlewheel at her stern, she carried 200 tons of cargo plus her cargo and crew and was less than two years old when she left Columbus on January 28, 1854, in route down the Chattahoochee and Apalachicola Rivers to Apalachicola, Florida.

The Eagle carried 1,303 bales of cotton on that ill-fated trip and her cabins were filled with passengers, many of them children. She had just reduced speed as she approached Neal's Landing (spelled Neals Landing today) in the northeast corner of Jackson County, Florida, when the smell of smoke suddenly filled her decks.

The cause was never determined, but fire broke out on the boat that day. The flames were first discovered in an area behind the engine room and directly below the "Ladies' Cabin." The gleaming decks burst into flame and fire engulfed the Eagle so fast that crew and passengers alike were surrounded by walls of flame.

The pilot stayed at his post even as fire consumed his vessel. The engines were still running and he steered the bow of the Eagle for the Florida shore to help the crew and passengers get ashore. 

"The children and ladies had either to come down with ropes or be let fall from a height of 13 tiers of cotton bales into the arms of those below on the main deck," wrote one survivor, "then jump to shore."

The same eyewitness continued with a remarkable story of heroism:

...All speak in the highest praise of the conduct of my daughter, not 10 years old. She neither cried nor screamed, but stood upon a pile of cotton, holding one of her little cousins (boys) by each hand, exhorting them not to cry or jump, nor would she leave the burning wreck until she saw them safely landed; she then, in the most self-possessed manner, asked if there was any person that would save her?

One member of the crew yelled out "I will" and, at the risk of his own life, climbed the burning decks and "snatched her from the very jaws of death."

The mighty steamboat Eagle disappeared into the waters of the Chattahoochee within fifteen minutes. Nothing remained to be seen, according to eyewitnesses, but "a few blackened particles of cotton."

All of the people who could be saved were rescued within the first five minutes after the discovery of the fire. Four people - three men and one woman - died. All were members of the crew who remained aboard helping passengers escape until it was too late for them to save themselves.

The loss of the Eagle in financial terms was estimated at $100,000, a remarkable sum for the time. In fact, $100,000 in 1854 was the equivalent of $3,048,714.29 in 2019 dollars.

The estimate did not include a huge shipment of gold and silver being sent to Apalachicola by the banks of Columbus on behalf of the cotton merchants in that city. The season had been extremely profitable and the specie was on its way to be placed aboard an ocean-going vessel for shipment to New York.

Some of the money was recovered, but the banks never revealed how much was lost with the Eagle and remains buried in the mud on the bottom of the Chattahoochee River at Neal's Landing.