Michael Paul Henson treasure leads...Fact or Fiction?

I always wondered about the treasure sites/leads that Michael Paul Henson wrote about in his books. There was a story of a cave filled with Gold in Indiana I tried to locate with no success. Have any of you tried looking for any of Henson's leads?

MY BAD! My topic doesn't have anything EQUINOX related!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/2018 03:18PM by straker.

Lmao!

Get yourself a Nox and find that cave full o gold this afternoon.

Yes spent some years back in the late 80s with some guys who chased leads from those books..And alot of other books too..And got clue's from books and field time..

I have the MPH books on audio cassette too but they don't play right anymore..LOL..Just looked and there 1983 cassettes..I wore them out back in the 80s listening to them as I drove around...

The guys I knew heavily into Indian treasures of North Georgia...Real secretive type guys..and one was really good and finding indian signs in the woods..He showed me alot of things I never would of noticed.Was they treasure sings??They thought so..

I can say one of them did find a place in middle of nowhere once from SIGNS..and used metal detector to find a target from the signs..Triangulation??? anyways it was a small iron cooking kettle..1830s style...it was in the ground no other targets anywhere no house site or anything..pot had cracked in bottom and full of dirt...was on a slope of hill..he noticed the soil out from the pot down hill slope side was sparkling...he got the dirt up and processed it ..it was small gold real small...So there's always a chance of finding indian treasure..The book lead's??Not sure,, all stories have a glint of truth in there somewhere I would think..

Another guy found a crude copper bowl once and inside was just arrow heads..he said it was treasure an I thought really??But he explained maybe that's all the guy had and they were sacred to him...Makes sense...I'm sure he couldn't take them with him on a forced march...Maybe They were his family heirlooms passed down ??Maybe he left them on the sacred hunting grounds to come back one day and get them back???Dreams lost..

The trail of tears was horrible what they did to the Native American's..and I'm sure they all didn't have gold and such but as you analyze it if they did hide things they may of been simple things that was there TREASURES..


Keith

“I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own”
-Nikola Tesla

As always an interesting and historical post from Keith. Got any more??

Perhaps....however lots of them out there no documented but found by accident...
Like Keiths post indeed treasures are not always valuable monetarily but indeed treasures.....of some nature no matter how valuable....

Straker, those treasure "encyclopedias" are to be taken with a grain of salt on a heaping helping of skepticism. A whole lot of those books are compilations of stories from early treasure magazines, and the stories in those early magazines were about as likely to be complete fiction as not. Same for books put out by Jameson and Terry. In fact, someone once told me that the Treasure Atlas series put out by Thomas P. Terry is a negative guide; that is, if the story is in his atlas, you can be assured it's fiction.

If you see an interesting story in Henson's book, use that only as a research starting point. See how far back in time you can trace the story, and especially if any elements show up in period newspaper articles. If an article in a 1967 True Treasure is as far back as you can trace it, then that is likely where the story began.

Geez, now you guys tell me. I did, though, find a dime once! HH jim tn

Keith Southern Wrote:
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> , all stories have a glin
> t of truth in there somewhere I would think..
>

A "glint" of truth ? Heck, they could be 99% true. True names, dates, events, etc.... Even the silly made-up ones from the treasure magazines of the 1970s contained the salacious faded newspaper clippings. Giving names of real people, references to real events, etc.... But if the 1% of the story that ISN'T true, is that: There's no treasure: Then it won't make any difference how much sorting of fact from fiction you do. Right ?

And if you throw a skeleton, a cryptogram, a "tip of the iceberg" find that someone was said to have made, a squiggle on a rock, a government conspiracy, and a drawing of a man posed next to his burro: Then by-golly, now you REALLY know it's true.

Sorry, but I don't buy into any of them. Oak Island, lost dutchman, Yamashita, pearl ship, etc.....

An md'ing buddy of mine submitted one of those treasure stories for the mid 1970s treasure mag's. You know, the magazines back then were filled with "lost mines" and the "stagecoach loot" stories. His was entirely made up fiction, but to make it, he had some clippings, names of ghost towns involved, etc... He did it just for fun, and to get the $50 they pay for accepted submissions.

We got a good laugh wondering if anyone ever went looking for it.

I remember these back in the day. I always wondered if such a good lead why would He publish it?
Kind of like that Aquachigger guy on YouTube who found all that Treasure hoard of Bust Coins in a River with an AT-Pro.
Why would You show the world? To be Garretts guy?
What about taxes? Don't Uncle Sam get a share now that You showed it too the World? All for some Glory.
I guess I am different as I would keep My mouth shut.
Screw the YouTube Hero crap. But that's just Me.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2018 04:06PM by Harold,ILL..

Harold,ILL. Wrote:
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> Don't Uncle Sam get a share now
> that You showed it too the World? All for some Glo
> ry.
> I guess I am different as I would keep My mouth sh
> ut.
>

Harold, ILL : A casual glance at any md'ing web forum "finds" sections, will show you that a big part of our hobby is the show & tell trophies aspect . It's only natural, in any sport or hobby, to relish the "win" , the achievements, etc.... Like a golfer who finally hits a hole in one, durn well hopes his golfing buddies were there to see it drop in. Or the snow skier who FINALLY achieves the triple back flip , certainly hopes his buddies caught it on film. If you beat Bobby Fisher at chess, and thus get your picture on the front page of a Chess magazine, you're gonna send an extra copy to your mom, eh ?

So md'ing is no different. And why is taxes or Uncle Sam fears stopping that ? If you scroll down the finds pages, you'll see no shortage of finds that are sometimes quite valuable. If Uncle same was "hot and bothered" to chase people for taxes on that, then all they'd have to do is view the forums, and come knocking on people's doors. And as you can see, that's not happening. Nor did it happen (I'll betcha) to the fellow who found and posted all the bust coins at the river.

Tom, I will admit I am ignorant too such laws. But I heard this was a Civil War Treasure even though Bust instead of Seated? That may draw even more IRS attention. May claim it still belongs to the Goverment? All I know is Uncle Sam can come knockin' at Your door 5 Years later and say You owe taxes plus penalty no matter You were not contacted. If You found the lost Dutchman mine would You tell the World? I would not, But that's just Me. Heck if I hit the Lotto I would not show My face on T.V.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2018 04:33PM by Harold,ILL..

There's a few known treasure STORIES here in my county...

One I've read quite alot about was a hot topic over 100 years ago in my town..

And it was a quite popular Sunday afternoon sport back in the late 1800s early 1900s by reading newspapers from then...Even statements like well the locals have been out digging on the Creek again this past sunday looking for the lost Yankee payroll..The farm beside the creek is now starting to look like a war zone from so many holes..


The story roughly recounted went that a dying Yankee Cavalryman had confessed on deathbed a couple years after the war that in may of 1864 he and another fella had taken payroll from a wagon in middle of night about 10 miles north and moved along a creek and hid the payroll specie next to a mill..up in a feeder creek between two large oaks and in close vicinity to a large rock..Had some juicy details too about killing a Slave on the ________ plantation as he came up on them from the mill while they were burying it..The dates are right and the plantation is right as I have found the grave yard above the mill out in middle of no where in woods and ________ are buried there..But Who knows??The Story did net me a treasure though!!! LOL...I found the_________ house site and my first signal was a 1892 Morgan Dollar in beautiful shape!!Just wrong period!

There's another variation to the story that coincides with that story but it's a family history story and two of the mill owners teenage sons were killed at the mill instead of a slave??


If you look through old newspapers you can find things mentioned ...What's funny the ones I find in the papers I've never read in the books about treasure leads..


One I have kept on the back burner and always eating at me is a 1880s story I read about in a period newspaper that stated Mr.__________ came into town today and was showing some what seemed to be Gold coins he found while plowing his field..said he had a few and seemed to ge gold but the writing on them was not decipherable by anyone who looked at them , looked to be quite old and crude...What's funny about that story is I studied it and the guy was just a farmer..but by end of that decade he had a railroad stop town named after him and was in politics and owned alot of land...I also know that the Spanish mined gold in North georgia in the early 1600s and have heard/read( BUT REALLY NOT SURE) the practice was to produce the gold into coins before moving them down to the large river to take to the Gulf of mexico..This spot Mr._________owned is about twenty miles south along a large creek from a known Spanish outpost and about 15 miles above a Spanish mining operation..I've always wondered if this was related...I would imagine the finding of the coins in the field was true...He did say in story in paper him and a younger boy hand dug around the area with shovels..was he just showing a small portion of a cache???This county was settled until 1832 No real settled english colonial period in this area..But there was light spanish activity from 1540 that ceased in the mid 1600s..This area was heavily occupied by indians till trail of tears...


There was another story I ran across in a newspaper in late 1890s ....It went sort of like this Young Mr. whoever ??? was out exploring again today along the creek South of the river and came back with a great story to tell and also with a 2 ft gold linked chain...???????????? the Young man said he found a cave along the Creek he had never seen before and went inside and discovered a 3ft tall statue made of some slick type rock and around the neck of the statue was the gold linked chain he brought back....supposedly a flood had exposed a cave??.....................As I read that story i thought what?? dang...But the the paper was published on April 1st...Fools day...So then I thought Um Ok....Publisher having a bit of fun...and I know that in the late 1800s the huge mound complex on the river where that creek empties into it was being researched and the whole area was learning about the indian culture of this Mound complex that was the largest in the Southeast and a occupied settlement from like 800 A.D. till 1500s..So I said ok Joke on me...But what always got me about that story is there was marble statues found in the mounds like described in the story...BUT they were not found for another 25 odd years after story was written.And they are very unique being marble....YET why would such a valuable item be south of there in a cave and not at the mound..and there was never any gold artifacts found in mound to suggest gold processing was taking place that far back??Lot's of questions....

Here's what a the marble ones look like discovered in 1925 by archaeologist, seem to match the 1890s description..they are about 3ft or so ..Slick marble.



One thing for certain the old stories make for some great fireside reading on cold winter nights.Get the blood to pumping...And if nothing else it can make you go down rabbit holes and learn things about your area through research...and we as metal detectorist are always wanting to learn more about our areas...I know I would not have my Morgan dollar if I hadn't been worried about a treasure lead...Detecting is part mystical in a way is it not???the thrill of the hunt ..the searching for the lost or unknown the excitement of a find...The DREAMS of TREASURE SEEKING we had when we were young...it makes life all the more exciting...Manufacturers can sell a machine by just showing a pile of coins or artifacts...no need for anything else...

Treasure is where you find it...And it comes in many forms.

Keith

“I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own”
-Nikola Tesla

Keith Southern Wrote:
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>
> If you look through old newspapers you can find th
> ings mentioned ...

Keith, it's par for the course for a lot of these legends to contain a "deathbed confession", eh ? Eg.: "The dying miner, ... the lone survivor of an indian attack ... drags himself into the wild west saloon", blah blah blah.

And as for the salacious stories that are even contemporary from the times (newspaper), I'd have my doubts about them too. Consider the following true story . Which took place in a single over-night period :

[www.treasurenet.com]

Keith reminds me of my favorite uncle,Uncle Joe,I would sit for hours around the wood stove at our deer camp and listen to"Uncle Joe" and the other Ole Timers tell their tales. I could just envision all the action and would have sworn on the Bible that it was all true.

My favorite local treasure tale is that a iron pot of gold was hidden in the "boiling sand spring" and every few years it will"boil to the surface",but people "just miss it before it sinks again". Of course the ole timers don't know that the gold is 19.6 times as heavy as the water it floats up on.

doc holiday Wrote:
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> Of co
> urse the ole timers don't know that the gold is 19
> .6 times as heavy as the water it floats up on.

Gauranteed, if you raised that objection to a treasure-story with that detail in it: They could find *some* conceived way, that it could be possible. Eg.: a vortex in the earth's surface at that exact spot in the landscape. Or corks could have been attached to the gold. Or this mineral water was a different variety of water found only in Antarctica, but could have been transported here by 100 slaves in 1800, blah blah blah

This is exactly the silly-ness that the Oak Island faithful come up with, to continue to bolster their story. Any time someone comes up with a logical doubt as to the logistics, the faithful that some far-fetched remote way, where it *could still* technically be possible. A total failure of the Occam's razor test, eh ?

Tom in CA---that's the truth---Don't confuse them with Your facts,they have their own.

I only watched part of One episode of Oak Island---enough for me.