Smith's Cove Finds

The Lagina brothers and their team have recently discovered some very interesting finds in Smith's Cove. They knew that the so-called U-shaped structure and the L-shaped structure had been discovered many years ago by Dan Blankenship, but had never been fully excavated.

Smith's Cove screen shot, History Channel
series 6.

The Templar Cross

The Templar Lead Cross
Found in Smith's Cove

This small lead cross really is one of the most significant items to be found on Oak Island. Even if it turns out to have nothing to do with the money pit, it is still a very significant find. Pieces of Templar jewellery do not turn up every day, and certainly not on an island in the North Atlantic that the Templars were not even supposed to know about.

The 'Deep' Finds

By deep finds, I am referring to the items that have been found at great depths during the drilling operations.

There have been a number of items discovered at surprising depths from some of the holes that have been drilled over the years. Things like tiny fragments of parchment and fabrics that suggest that documents of some kind may be 'down there'. The Lagina brothers and their team have gone to great lengths to have most of these items authenticated and they all seem to fit perfectly with one or other of the theories about what may be down there.

Tantalising Clues

It may be disappointing to be reminded of this, but over the 220 or so years that people have been exploring Oak Island unfortunately nothing of any value or real significance has ever been pulled out of the money pit. Considering how much blood, sweat, tears and money have been expended over such a long time this seems to suggest that there may be nothing to find. This does not necessarily mean that there never was anything there. After all, someone spent a great deal of time, effort and money digging the pit and it's surrounding infrastructure. It can't have been created just because someone had nothing better to do with his time.

A number of tantalising clues keep popping up to keep us on the edge of our seat but it is difficult to be sure how much importance to attach to them. Things like buttons or the odd coin don't really mean a great deal. Many old soldiers from the various wars and Indian uprisings being fought back then will have been wearing their old combat jackets for years afterwards so it's not surprising that the odd button will turn up everywhere.

Even some of the items that are being found at surprising depths may have a fairly mundane explanation. I'll look at some of those in the next entry.

The Ninety Foot Stone

When the original seekers got down to the 90 feet level they found what has always been considered to be one of the most significant objects to come out of the money pit. It was a large slab of stone with some strange figures carved into it that looked likely to be a secret code of some sort that might have given a clue as to what was down there, if it could be deciphered.

In the Beginning

The Money Pit During the 19th Century

The money pit seems to have been discovered by Daniel McGinnis back in 1795 when he was wandering around the island trying to find out what all the rumours were about. Apparently, for many years local folk had talked of strange comings and goings on the island. The favourite rumour seemed to be that some pirate or other was burying their ill-gotten gains somewhere on the island.

Eventually McGinnis came across a depression in the ground in a clearing in the woods. To a young farmer, this looked like someone may have dug a hole, buried his treasure and filled it in again. Over time the in-fill would have settled and left just such a depression. The story says that an oak tree at the edge of the clearing had a substantial branch overhanging the depression and the remains of an old ship’s block and tackle was hanging from it.

This suggested that someone had used the block and tackle to help dig the hole and then no doubt lower something into it.