Treasure of Choctawhatchee Bay

Do millions in gold and silver await discovery?

Choctawhatchee Bay in Northwest Florida.

by Dale Cox

Editor's Note: This article continues "Monstery and Mystery Month" on Two Egg TV! To read the first article in the series, please see Pirate Ghosts of the Emerald Coast!

Long before real gold rose from the sands of Destin and South Walton, Choctawhatchee Bay was the focal point of a series of searches for buried treasure. In fact, many would-be millionaires still believe that a fortune in Spanish gold and silver remains to be found somewhere in the bay.

The frenzy surrounding the purported treasure reached its height in 1921-1925 after a man named W.S. Teachout claimed to know its precise location:

Mr. Teachout, who is about seventy years of age, said he could go and put his hands on three of the ships--one that was under only a few feet of sand, that he found it several years ago, and was only waiting for someone with enough money to tackle the job. He was told that men and boats were at his disposal, and that dredges, pumps, and divers would be gotten if necessary. [1]

Rocky Bayou as seen from the shoreline at Fred Gannon
Rocky Bayou State Park in Niceville, Florida. The park is
one of the prettiest spots on Choctawhatchee Bay's north shore.

The legend, as told by Teachout, was that a flotilla of pirate ships was cornered in Choctawhatchee Bay by Spanish warships. East Pass was too shallow for the vessels to escape, and the Spanish had blocked the channel leading from the Choctawhatchee through Santa Rosa Sound to Pensacola. Instead of surrendering to face not just the loss of his treasure but his execution on the gallows at Pensacola, the pirate leader scuttled his gold-laden ships and escaped into the woods with his crew.

No documentation that the legend is true has ever been found, and there is a good reason for skepticism. Evidence, however, has never been a barrier to true believers!

Mr. Teachout found ready investors, and they met him at Valparaiso, ready to begin the search. That's when things got very strange:

...Wednesday night there was a dance in Valparaiso and several strangers were present, two of whom attempted to draw Mr. Teachout into conversation about the treasure. Thursday morning when a boat went out with Teachout and others an airplane soon appeared and hovered over the boat. The boat remained out all morning, and so did the plane. It hovered over the treasure seekers’ boat until noon, when the boat returned to Valparaiso, and the plane flew away. [2]

Did a flotilla of treasure-laden pirate ships meet its end
in Northwest Florida's Choctawhatchee Bay?

The 1921 search focused on areas along the north side of the bay between Valparaiso and Freeport. Newspaper writers reported seeing "mysterious figures," including one of a ship carved into large trees along the shore.

To his own chagrin, Teachout was not able to lead the searchers to the treasure, and the hunt came up empty. The effort to find gold and silver in the bay, however, was far from over. Things got hot again in 1925 when a mysterious dredge left Pensacola and made its way through Santa Rosa Sound to Choctawhatchee Bay:

…Movement of the big barge through the narrows of the sound is a costly process but it was accomplished, the first stop of the barge being at the south shore in Hogtown Bayou. In the past days the dredge has been working off Camp Walton [i.e. Fort Walton Beach]. 

     Lands on the north shore of Choctawhatchee bay, where old timers say treasure is really cached, are owned by the Dixie Town and Land company, and its officials have announced that they will permit no trespass of their properties or riparian rights. The barge crew has been warned not to come within 1,000 feet of this shore line or injunctions will be obtained against them. [3]

The north shore of Choctawhatchee Bay is said by some to be
the location of a mysterious buried treasure.

Part of the north shore of the bay - then as now - was the property of the U.S. Government. Military officials were so concerned about the treasure seekers that they launched planes to shadow their movements. This might also explain the mysterious aircraft that followed the 1921 expedition.

The expense and determination expended on the 1925 expedition failed to bring treasure up from the bottom of Choctawhatchee Bay. The search came up empty, and legends of buried treasure continue to this day.

Is there really a buried treasure? And if so, who could have left it there? The only real answer to the first question is that anything is possible. No documentation of Spanish ships cornering a pirate flotilla in Choctawhatchee Bay has ever been found, but it is challenging to prove a negative. As to who could have left it there, legend current in 1925 credited the famed Louisiana pirate Jean Lafitte.

Editor's Note: Watch for another mystery tomorrow right here on our web channel at www.twoeggflorida.com. 

REFERENCES

[1] Wiregrass Farmer quoting the Valparaiso Herald, September 8, 1921.

[2] Ibid.

[3] The Tampa Times, September 12, 1925.

Pirate Ghosts of the Emerald Coast

Headless Pirates haunt Santa Rosa Sound

by Dale Cox

Santa Rosa Sound at Fort Walton Beach, Florida.

Editor's Note: October is Monster & Mystery Month on Two Egg TV! Check back daily for new stories of monsters, mysteries, and more from Florida, Alabama, and Georgia.

Santa Rosa Sound is a beautiful natural waterway that extends east from Pensacola Bay past Mary Esther and Fort Walton Beach to Choctawhatchee Bay. It separates the sparkling white sand beaches of Santa Rosa Island and the rising condominiums and hotels of Okaloosa Island from the prehistoric Native American mounds and waterfront of Fort Walton Beach.

This stretch of water is a popular playground today, but is it also the haunt of a band of headless pirates? Legend holds that just such a crew is condemned to perpetually sail its surface on moonlit nights. The following report of an encounter with these seafaring specters appeared in Florida and Alabama newspapers in 1921:

One night Mr. Lee Jernigan’s vessel was sailing up the sound, just drifting along. As they passed Pirates’ Cove a yawl came out of the cove and was rowed alongside. Mr. Jernigan was below. There were three men on deck, and they declared that every man in the yawl was headless that they watched the boat several minutes, when all at once—just like a flash—boat and men disappeared. The three men took oath, kissed the Bible, and swore that they saw this. [1]

Santa Rosa Sound on a "ghost story" perfect winter's day.

Pirates' Cove is a shallow body of water within the limits of today's Gulf Islands National Seashore. It is directly across Santa Rosa Sound from the City of Mary Esther, Florida. Entirely surrounded by the dunes of Santa Rosa Island, it is connected to the sound by a shallow inlet. 

The vicinity achieved note in 1906 after a significant storm exposed a cache of lost treasure:

...Spanish coins have been found in the sands of Santa Rosa Island, and only a few years ago, 1906, after a great storm twenty were found on the island in the sand. This find was on Santa Rosa Island, opposite Mary Esther. They were stuck together, showing that they had been buried for a long time aggregated in value several hundred dollars. Not far away is Pirates’ Cove, a little bay in Santa Rosa Island, so named because a pirate ship was sunk there.[2]

The Face of a Real Pirate
William Augustus Bowles as painted
in London in 1790.

The ghosts of the lost pirate and his crew, of course, are said to be searching for their lost cache of coins. They are presumed to also be protecting other treasures that remain hidden on Santa Rosa Island and along the shores of Choctawhatchee Bay. 

Anyone familiar with food and fun on the Emerald Coast is familiar with Fort Walton Beach's legendary Billy Bowlegs Pirate Festival. This fun escapade has been part of the local cultural scene since 1953 and celebrates the "life" and lore of a supposed pirate named Billy Bowlegs. The founders of the festival associated their event with the adventurer and pirate William Augustus Bowles, who prowled the waters of the Gulf of Mexico in 1799-1803. (Note: The real Billy Bowlegs was an important Seminole Indian chief. William Bowles never used the name).

So far as is known, Bowles never sailed from Choctawhatchee Bay, but the best pirate stories are not always the most authentic! The festival is fun and does exactly what its founders intended by bringing tens of thousands of visitors to enjoy a weekend in Fort Walton Beach.

Long before the pirate festival came into being, though, the ghost pirates were a force to be reckoned with for those sailing in Santa Rosa Sound. Strange lights were seen on the island at night in the vicinity of Pirates' Cove, and many fishermen swore to their own encounters with the spirits:

"You may ask any sailor who has passed Pirates’ Cove at night," continued the newspaper accounts, "and he will tell you of the lights and boat and headless men and if he has not seen them his ship mates have."

One man was so frightened by his encounter with the ghosts that local residents swore and began to tremble so badly that "he became bowlegged." 

If you want to see the pirate ghosts for yourself, just enjoy a midnight boat ride west from Fort Walton Beach down Santa Rosa Sound in the direction of the Navarre Bridge. The red pin on the map below points out Pirates' Cove.

Editor's Note: The lands surrounding Pirates' Cove are part of Gulf Islands National Seashore. Treasure digging is strictly prohibited and can lead to a lengthy prison term!

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.