The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar (41 page)

One legend is of a white lady who will someday be summoned by a trumpet note and reveal the way to the secret treasure. But the most valuable secret in the chapel may be the confirmation of the Sinclair’s voyage to America. Among the other effigies in stone is the very distinct
depiction of Native American corn carved into the archways. Other American vegetation is depicted as well. The treasure, if any remains, is more likely in the hidden passageways that were formerly reached from the chapel. Like Solomon’s temple or the underground passageways through rock found in Languedoc, Roslin’s underground complex was massive. But there has been little in the way of rewards for treasure seekers there. The treasure that Roslin once held had been moved again.

Oak Island

Our fourth stop then is Nova Scotia. There is no record of sacred articles being taken from Roslin when it was attacked and destroyed by anti-Catholic mobs. If the relics from Solomon’s temple, a “Holy Grail” of the Cathari, or even the more mundane, more modern artifacts of the Scottish Catholic Church had been found by a mob, it would not have remained a secret. Nor is there any record of a mob recovering wealth in coin, currency, or gold bullion. The treasures from Jerusalem, from Montsegur, and from the Templar treasury in Paris and the religious relics of the Sinclairs are all unrecovered.

The guardian family, the Sinclairs of Scotland, discovered and explored Nova Scotia long before anyone took an interest. They had the motive to create a hiding place and the means and opportunity to bring the needed workers and supplies. The family never revealed the location of its new land to anyone and, more significantly, kept the secret knowledge limited to only a handful of the family. This may have ensured that Oak Island would remain a secret. It may also have been the reason the Sinclairs could never claim the island or their treasure. The guardian died before passing on the secret. At some point the last Sinclair may have envisioned a new Roslin, a new ancestral home complete with a new chapel in their residence in a new Scotland. But it was not to be. Death on a battlefield, in a prison cell, on an unrecorded sea voyage probably took the last guardian before such a secret could be handed down to the next Sinclair.

Nova Scotia (New Scotland) provided refuge for the Sinclairs and their allied families, the fourth holy place, Arcadia. Oak Island became
the needed repository for the sacred treasure. Nova Scotia itself could not be kept secret, but Oak Island was—until three young people stumbled upon the site. Who holds the key to the secret of Oak Island? A late grand master of the Prieuré de Sion, Victor Hugo, spent most of his life writing and rewriting his
Légende des Siècles
. In this work he tells the reader that only one man knows where the treasure is hidden. Was the secret passed down through the Sinclair family? Or was the secret lost to an untimely death?

It is very possible that the ultimate secret was not passed on but died an untimely death, which was tragically typical of the guardian family. William, the second earl of Caithness, fell in battle at Flodden along with forty other Sinclairs. John Sinclair, the third earl, died in battle in the Orkneys. John Sinclair, “master” of Caithness, died imprisoned in Girnigo Castle. George Sinclair, nephew of the earl, was killed in a landslide started by the enemy in a battle in Norway. Could the secret have died in such a way?

After the ancestral home of the Sinclairs was destroyed in the mid-seventeenth century, surviving Sinclairs and their trusted Scottish relations—the Ramseys, Douglases, Setons, and Sutherlands—migrated en masse to the New World. The Sinclairs made a name for themselves there, but they were not known for their wealth. General Arthur St. Clair, whose name graces several geographic sites near Detroit, suffered the worst American military defeat against indigenous Indian tribes before George Armstrong Custer’s rout at Little Bighorn. Only fellow Mason George Washington saved him from a board of inquiry. He died in apparent poverty in western Pennsylvania.

Major Samuel Sinclair, a master Mason who fought at Ticonderoga, whose name is immortalized in Sinclairville, New York, also died in poverty. His tomb, complete with such Masonic trappings as the square and compass, was visited even by Lafayette, who went to show respect to a fellow Mason.
⁶
One of the more interesting lines of Sinclair descendants was that of a certain James St. Clair, who was related to the general. He had twelve children, including a son named Levi and a daughter named Polly. Polly married Hezekiah Whitney and had a son who was named Levi St. Clair Whitney.
⁷

Levi’s children included Henrietta May Whitney, who was gifted from birth. May, as she was known, could read at age three and published her writings starting at age nine. Her pseudonym was “Egypt” because of her love for things Egyptian. She started the Society de Sancto Claro and promoted the idea that the Norse discovered America, which was accomplished “by the kinsfolk and ancestors of the family.” One of her books was entitled
The Origin and History of the Norse Arvel Cup, or Holy Grail.
⁸
But neither she nor the hundreds of Sinclairs from Maine to Barbados would ever exhibit any massive wealth that might derive from ownership of the treasure of the Money Pit.

The most likely scenario is that the secret of the Money Pit was lost. The Sinclairs who built it and who were the overseers of its expansion were also the Grail keepers. And the Grail knowledge, the secret of just what lies in the pit and how to gain access to the treasure, was lost because of the death of the secret bearer. If not a Sinclair, who else could be privy to the key to Oak Island?

The date of the construction that the Sinclairs had supposedly started in the fifteenth century was confirmed by radiocarbon testing. The treasure was brought to Oak Island in intervals afterward. It is also very possible that the pit was then expanded upon and protected by the designs of Leonardo da Vinci. In 1510 da Vinci wrote his
Codex Atlanticus,
where he put on paper his military engineering and hydraulic designs. Seven years later he became completely devoted to his engineering work. While he never traveled to North America, Prieuré representatives, miners, and engineers in Nova Scotia followed his designs. The two most likely candidates to have brought the needed workers to Nova Scotia are Sir Francis Drake and Sir Oliver Sinclair.

Drake is a candidate because he was intricately tied to the Elizabethan court and the surrounding intrigues of alchemists, secret societies, schemers, and plotters. If Drake played a role in transporting workers and treasure to America, it is still possible that a Sinclair was guardian, or gatekeeper. Oliver Sinclair disappeared from England and from history in 1545. While he could have hidden in the Orkneys or the Shetlands, even those refuges were under attack. It is more likely that this commander of the country’s army and his own navy sailed to North America. A small colony, or temporary camp, near Oak Island but not on it may have housed the workers.

The existence of such a camp is not easily uncovered. Some claim that there are actually two Oak Islands, where oak trees were planted on purpose to distinguish them from the numerous other islands in Mahone Bay.
⁹
The northern “Oak Island” is no longer an island because a man-made dike changed it into a peninsula in the 1930s. Midway between the two Oak Islands lies the ruin of an ancient structure that was likely the base for these pre-Columbian explorers. The ruined castle is intriguing, as are claims of two islands. (It should be noted that a local author claims that oak trees dotted the coast of Mahone Bay and the offshore islands until the late nineteenth century, when a plague of black ants started killing them.)

The fact that the camp of the workers has not been found does not constitute proof that it was not there. Viking settlements existed in eastern Canada, but only one has been found, and that was a complete farming village. The camps of the first Sinclair-Zeno voyage and subsequent Sinclair voyages might still turn up. Someone did construct the Money Pit. And someone excavated a shaft connected to flood tunnels. Likewise, someone inscribed stones, placed flood drains, laid oaken platforms, and then hid all from view. The most important question may be “Did the guardians of the Money Pit ever remove their treasure?”

The vault that is the Money Pit may have remained accessible from 1441, at the beginning of its construction, until the 1630s, when Huguenot families started to settle nearby Lunenberg. After that, the steadily increasing population and heightening tensions between England and France made trips to the Oak Island vault risky. Sometime after 1630 the single guardian of the vault passed away.

The two secret societies, linked together (but not closely because of constant war), knew they possessed a treasure. The two groups, one cabal based among the Freemasons of Scotland and England and the other among the French Prieuré de Sion, collectively believed one of their number was the guardian, but because such a secret had to be kept secret, no one would even be aware that the gatekeeper was dead and the secret buried.

As our clues led us from Jerusalem to Rennes-le-Chateau to Roslin and finally to Oak Island, all along the way treasure and sacred artifacts have disappeared. With the notable exception of Father Saunière’s wealth, none have surfaced. While it is difficult to keep secret the sudden appearance of wealth, hiding the discovery of other relics would be nearly impossible. The treasures of the Templars have not yet been recovered, and they must still lie deep underground somewhere on Oak Island.

F
OOTNOTE

Chapter 10

^I
According to Barbara Walker, “On” refers to a city in ancient Egypt, possibly Heliopolis.

N
OTES

Chapter 1