The Oak Island Mystery (13 page)

There is one more incongruous data-fly struggling around in this speculative ointment: French was widely spoken by the Acadians (Arcadians?) in the area in the early settlement days, and
chene
is French for “oak.” Was the China Sea marked on what purported to be the treasure map a slight misrendering of the French
Chene
, or Oak, Sea — meaning the sea around Oak Island: in other words, Mahone Bay?

Putting it all together, a wildly improbable — but just barely possible — Kidd scenario begins to emerge. A map, chart, or other curious document relating to the Arcadian Treasure is discovered by William and Sarah among the late John Oort's papers. The main feature of this information is a reference to the China Sea. William and Sarah discuss the safest and most legitimate way to get there. In pursuit of an excuse to visit the pirate-infested South China Sea in an adequately armed vessel, Kidd goes to London on board his own sloop the
Antegoa
, where he meets the wily Colonel Livingstone and the potentially untrustworthy Bellamont, the newly appointed governor of New York. Secretly backed by four influential and unscrupulous British government peers (who insisted on anonymity), Kidd sets off on his ill-fated voyage in the
Adventure Galley
. His reluctance to tackle real pirates, or well-armed enemy vessels, now becomes much more understandable: he is trying to cross the Indian Ocean in one piece and then negotiate the Straits of Malacca to reach the South China Sea.

His reluctance to assuage his mutinous crew's thirst for piracy also becomes more understandable: he does not wish to risk bringing a British war fleet down on the
Adventure Galley
because his piratical activities have been reported by survivors. Out of favour with his sponsors and with his crew, the hapless Kidd fails miserably to reach the South China Seas because his men desert him and flock over to join his old enemy, the pirate Culliford. The irony of Kidd's tragedy is that he had only to sail a few miles up the much less hazardous Atlantic coast to find Oak Island in its Chene Sea. The question then arises of what happened to the Oort map, or, perhaps, a copy of it which Kidd made and initialled? Did William manage to pass it to Sarah before the end, and did it eventually get from one of Sarah's descendants to the mysterious Captain Allen, who cruised enigmatically around the Oak Island area with it for two summers, but apparently found nothing?

Captain Allen — if that was his real name, which is doubtful — was a wealthy southerner who turned up in Chester, on the shore of Mahone Bay, a few years after the end of the American Civil War (1861–1865). Allen had a mysterious map (the Oort-Kidd Arcadian document?) which he consulted daily, but allowed no one else to see. He bought a small ship from Shad Bay fisherman named Ganter and spent day after day sailing from a location about thirty miles out on a course that should have brought him to Oak Island — but never did.

After two long summers of this fruitless search, Allen left the area and handed the quest over to a Halifax man named Pickles. More communicative by nature than Allen had been, he referred to a treasure “so huge it was beyond imagining”
[2]
and an island with three stone markers and a mysterious “well.” (Could the Money Pit by any stretch of the imagination have been described as a vast “well”?) Did Allen and Pickles get into St. Margaret's Bay rather than Mahone Bay because of magnetic variations over the years? Or were they misled by differences of nomenclature that had occurred? The old Des Barres survey referred to Mahone Bay as Mecklenburg Bay, and listed what is now St. Margaret's Bay as Mahone Bay! Not surprisingly, therefore, Pickles apparently had no more success than Allen.

If William Kidd is discounted as highly unlikely, might it have been the flamboyant Welsh swashbuckler, Sir Henry Morgan (1635–88), who was responsible for the Money Pit and its ancillary defences?

There is almost as much mystery and confusion over Sir Henry Morgan's early life as over Kidd's. In his will, Morgan referred to his “ever-honest cozen, Mr. Thomas Morgan of Tredegar,” but he himself seems to have been born in Llanrhymney, in Glamorgan. He was a successful buccaneer who later became deputy governor and a justice of the peace in Jamaica, ironically sitting in judgment over many of his former corsair associates.

Unlike Kidd, Morgan was a charismatic leader against whom few chose to rebel, and even fewer dared. His most likely connection with the Oak Island Money Pit relies on his incredibly well-planned raid on Panama involving a force of nearly 2,000 buccaneers, according to some accounts. In January of 1671, Morgan led his indomitable pirates and their allies through miles of swamp and jungle, although his marauders were so hungry at one point that they were reduced to eating leather. On the eighth day of their advance they were ambushed by Indian archers, but came through with enough survivors to carry out the great attack on Panama itself. The Spanish defenders greatly outnumbered Morgan's men, but were no match for them in combat. The Spanish infantry was cut to ribbons by the deadly accuracy of Morgan's musketeers. The flower of the dashing and fearless Spanish cavalry was decimated by the unerring aim of Morgan's French allies.

A Spanish ruse to stampede cattle into the backs of the attacking buccaneers misfired badly when the wily Morgan got his pirates clear in time and then encouraged the terrified animals to charge on into the remaining Spanish defenders!

After Morgan's victory, there was considerable confusion about the spoils. Some accounts averred that a number of Spaniards had managed to escape south on two galleons loaded with gold and jewels; others reported that long mule-trains packed with valuables had left for Mexico before Morgan took the city. There is considerable room for doubt. Many of the buccaneers complained bitterly that their share of the loot was far smaller than expected. Does that suggest that Morgan, supported by an inner circle of trusted veterans, had made other arrangements for at least half the Panama takings? It is a reasonable assumption.

Morgan certainly had enough cash, rank, and leadership skills to have enabled him to organize an expedition on a grand enough scale to have constructed the Oak Island labyrinth. Did he have the motive, the necessary quantity of valuables to conceal and the opportunity? Perhaps he did. If the discontent among the disappointed Panama raiders had rumbled on, and the finger of suspicion had continued pointing to Sir Henry, then he would have had ample motive to construct a deep, secure treasure vault. He could well have been planning to retrieve his huge fortune in fifteen or twenty years' time, when the buccaneers' suspicions would have evaporated, but his dismissal from all his official posts in Jamaica in 1683 and his death there in 1688 brought those plans to nothing. Morgan is by no means the most likely candidate for role of Money Pit maker, but he is an undeniable contender — and a far more probable one than the hapless and ineffective Kidd. Like Lloyd George, the great statesman, and Tommy Farr, the courageous heavyweight boxer, Sir Henry Morgan, the charismatic buccaneer, was a formidable Welsh warrior — a man who normally achieved whatever he set out to do.

If personality, determination, leadership, and charisma, like Morgan's, are necessary qualifications, then Drake also demands serious consideration. Born sometime between 1539 and 1544 in Tavistock, Devon, England, of sturdy yeoman farmer stock, Sir Francis Drake was undoubtedly a man of exceptional ability. His skills as a navigator were among the highest in the world — which he circumnavigated between 1577 and 1580. Before this, he had been one of the most successful corsairs who ever raided the Spanish Main, and his attack on Nombre de Dios was one of the outstanding exploits of maritime history. His plunder from the Spanish treasure ship
Cacafuego
contributed substantially to the estimated half-million pounds he brought home to Queen Elizabeth. Drake was also the principal architect of the destruction of the Spanish Armada in 1588. He died of dysentery on January 27, 1596, with the blazing ruins of Puerto Bello as his memorial pyre.

Could Drake have been connected with the Oak Island mystery? Certainly he had the ability, the powers of leadership and organization, and the unquestioning loyalty of enough strong and capable men to have carried out the work there. During many periods of his hectic life, he also commanded enough wealth to justify the construction of at least part of the complex Oak Island system. But are there enough gaps in the historical records to allow him the necessary time for that enterprise? It is certainly possible. His best opportunities would have arisen between 1573 and 1575, and again between 1585 and 1587, and it could be argued that he would have had additional motives for the work: a safe base on the Nova Scotian coast for refurbishing and careening his ships, together with a safe hiding place for treasure which was less than legitimate. It would have been preferable from Elizabeth's point of view for her trusted pirate-admiral to have kept a safe (and anonymous) store for her on Oak Island than for him to sail into England too blatantly and too frequently with what was obviously stolen gold from the New World — especially during diplomatically tense periods of fragile peace in England's cold war with Spain.

The most wildly breathtaking historical hypothesis of all is that Elizabeth's very close and secretive relationship with Drake was more than platonic. There have always been persistent rumours that the immensely talented Sir Francis Bacon was, in fact, Elizabeth's child, and that the fanatically loyal Protestant Bacons (Sir Nicholas and Lady Ann) smuggled him out of the palace and pretended that he was theirs. If the rumours have any foundation in fact, and if Drake was Bacon's father as well as the mysterious architect of the Money Pit, then the Baconian connection with Oak Island becomes much more probable (see Chapter 16: Francis Bacon's Secret Cypher).

Two more intriguing questions arise in connection with the doughty Sir Francis. Referring to Drake's activities in 1573, Dr. A.J. Williamson writes: “He disappeared so effectively that to this day no one knows where he was in the next two years, which are an absolute blank in the record.”
[3]

The indigenous Mi'kmaqs of Nova Scotia have intriguing, centuries-old folk memories and legends of a mysterious hero named Glooscap, who came to them in a “great stone canoe with trees on it, a canoe as big as an island.” In Andrew Sinclair's excellent book,
The Sword and the Grail
, it is convincingly argued that Glooscap was Prince Henry of Orkney. It is equally possible in view of Dr. Williamson's research that Drake's mysterious missing years from 1573 until 1575 were spent helping the Mi'kmaqs, who dubbed him Glooscap in their later legends. Perhaps with their assistance in providing some of the manpower, he constructed the Money Pit and its defences while he was there. A period close to 1573 would certainly fit the radio-carbon timber dating perfectly!

Celts and Vikings

T
he
term “Celts” is taken from the Greek
keltoi
and Latin
celtae
, which referred to the peoples inhabiting much of the Iberian peninsula and transalpine Europe from about 700 B.C.E. and possibly earlier. Around 400 B.C.E. they began vigorous emigrations into the Balkans and Italy. They were a powerful, gifted race, wild and dangerous in war, but aesthetically talented, intuitive, and mystical in their art forms, their music and their literature. Great travellers, adventurers, and traders, pioneering Celtic groups moved from Europe to the British Isles at an early date.

Celtic warriors sacked Rome in 390 B.C.E. and there are records of Celtic ambassadors talking with Alexander the Great in 335 B.C.E. Certainly, they were people to be reckoned with: a people who left many of their bold, indelible marks across the pages of history. Is it possible that the amazing Oak Island labyrinth is another such mark? Many of the oldest Celtic legends, especially the Irish
imramha
, refer to travelling and voyaging. There are tales of journeys to Iceland and Greenland, and to less well-defined destinations which may very reasonably be assumed to include America and Nova Scotia. The Celtic heroes of these legends make epic voyages to the magical lands of eternal happiness far beyond the western ocean.
[1]

An interesting example is the seventh-century work, part verse and part prose, in which Bran the son of Febal meets a mysterious woman who offers him a silver apple branch and calls him to her land of Emain (the Happy Otherworld) which lies far across the sea to the west of Wales and Ireland. Taking three companies with nine men in each — “magical” numbers here, the square of three and the cube of three — Bran sets out. Their first landfall is the Island of Joy; their second is the Land of Women. Here the leader of the women helps them to land by using a magical clew,
[2]
and they stay with her people for what seems to them to be about a year. Finally overwhelmed by homesickness, Bran and his faithful followers go back to Ireland, only to find that they have been away so long that they and their epic voyage are remembered only in the ancient legends. Bran departs and is never seen again.

The bowmen of Gwent, justifiably ranked among the greatest archers of all time, are also of old Celtic stock — the Welsh branch — and their warrior traditions go back many centuries. There is a strong possibility that the American Mandan bowmen may have acquired their skill from twelfth-century Welsh settlers led by Prince Madoc ap Owain Gwynedd.

When Owain Gwynedd died circa 1168, his sons quarrelled over the succession, and young Prince Madoc was driven out by his brothers. He went into exile in North Wales, where he decided to emigrate instead of fighting his brothers to regain his inheritance. He and a few loyal followers built a heavy cargo boat they named the
Gwennan Corn
, a sturdy, full-bodied single-master. In 1169 or 1170, they launched her from a point near Conway on the Welsh coast and successfully crossed the Irish Sea and the Atlantic.

There is a plaque in Alabama — at Fort Morgan (an undeniably Welsh name!) — that records their landing in Mobile Bay in 1170. There are also three ancient fortified buildings near Chattanooga in Tennessee built in the early Welsh style. The unusually fair-haired Mandan Indians once occupied the land alongside the Missouri River, where they used small boats like Welsh coracles instead of canoes. Tragically, most of the Mandans were wiped out by a smallpox epidemic brought by fur traders in 1838.

The most that can be said of Prince Madoc's legendary voyage is that it is possible, even probable, but not proven beyond a shadow of a doubt on the evidence currently available. If Madoc and his followers did reach Mobile Bay in 1170, it is not unreasonable to assume that they were well aware of — and deliberately following — a long and honourable tradition of Celtic sea-rovers who had braved the hazards of the Atlantic for centuries before them. Some of those earlier expeditions might even have reached Nova Scotia, and been responsible for the workings on Oak Island. This argument is greatly strengthened by a comment from D. Morgan Rees, MA, FSA, keeper of the Department of Industry in the National Museum of Wales. He writes:

… the evidence of applied industry during Roman times in Wales, and indeed earlier, has a fascination and provides proof of great technical ability. The workings of the Dolaucothi goldmine the Ogafu, near Pumsaint, Carmarthenshire, and the meeting of their demands for water, provide proof of applied engineering of extraordinarily high attainment. Some of the levels, which were driven into hillsides at this goldmine, may still be penetrated to reveal their “bold and regular workmanship.” The formation of roof and walls is such that it suggests, in some cases, that the level was driven so that loads could be carried hanging from yokes borne on human shoulders. That these levels were driven using only hand tools makes them all the more remarkable. An exceptional feature associated with this Roman goldmine was the watercourse, which brought water to it from a point on the river Cothi about seven miles away. It followed the steep hillside bounding the eastern side of the river valley running between the 600 and 800 feet contour lines. Along part of its length continuity was only made possibly by cutting channels out of rock or a flat ledge into the hillside. Despite the time which has elapsed, this aqueduct may still be traced along part of its length enabling it to be recognized as an outstanding feat of water engineering.
[3]

Combining the underlying ideas found in the
inramha
of early Celtic heroes (such as Bran the son of Febal) voyaging westward across the Atlantic, the twelfth-century references to Madoc ap Owain Gwynedd's epic journey, and the skills of the Welsh miners who cut the Ogofau during Roman times, produces a scenario equal to any theories involving Drake, Kidd, or Morgan.

Suppose a rich seam of gold is discovered in the Ogofau during the fourth century. Roman power is declining and control over Pumsaint and other distant parts of the Empire is weakening. A powerful and far-sighted centurion is in charge of the mine: less and less of its produce goes back to Rome; more and more is stored secretly against the coming barbarian storm from the north. Nowhere in Britain is safe because of the deteriorating military and political situation; legion after legion is being recalled to Rome. It will be difficult for a former mine supervisor to go home as an inexplicably rich man — and, in any case, the crumbling Western Empire offers little or no security. His Welsh miners tell of journeys across the Great Western Ocean to blessed and happy lands. Perhaps he has even met travellers who have returned safely from such journeys. His decision is made. With a shipload or two of Roman legionaries, and the sturdy Welsh miners who cut the Ogafau tunnels and their seven-mile waterway, our centurion embarks with his Dolaucothi gold.

Could that Romano-Welsh party have reached Nova Scotia and built themselves an underground labyrinth as a combination of fortress and safe deposit? Did they live out their lives on the shores of Mahone Bay, trade with the indigenous Americans and marry into local tribes which eventually absorbed them? It is not a theory that ranks highly on the scale of probability — but it is certainly not impossible.

From the Celts we proceed to the Norsemen: did Vikings construct the Money Pit? As James Enterline confirms in “Viking America,”
[4]
Norse explorers followed the Celts northward and westward to Iceland, but to understand their motives for these journeys, we need to understand Norse character and social organization. Individualistic and isolationist by nature, the peoples of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, especially those living along the
viks
or
fjords
of the western coast of Scandinavia, were always keen to find more living space. Towards the end of the ninth century, Norse explorers found Iceland. At about the same time, Harald Fairhair set himself up as the first king of all Norway, an arrangement that angered many of the fiercely independent Vikings. Chieftains from the fjords, with their families and followers, headed away from Harald's authority to the freedom and opportunity offered by this new land to the north.

About a century later, Eirik Thorvaldsson, an Icelandic farmer and local chieftain, quarrelled with a neighbour over some borrowed agricultural equipment. When the feuding died down, Eirik was banished for three years, and sailed off with his family and followers to seek for new lands. He eventually reached Greenland and settled there. One of his colonists, Herjolf, had a devoted son, Bjarni, who came looking for him. Because of a navigational error, Bjarni and his crew missed Greenland altogether, but eventually sighted parts of northeastern Canada, Nova Scotia, or New England. They made three landings before locating Iceland, the Viking colony and Herjolf's farm.

As a result of hearing of Bjarni's adventures, Eirik's son, the famous Leif Eiriksson, traced Bjarni's course in reverse and landed where he had done, naming the sites Helluland, Markland, and Vinland respectively. Other voyagers included his brother, Thorvald, and a relative by marriage, Thorfinn the Valiant (Thorfinn Karlsefni) who had married the widow of Thorstein, Leif's elder brother.

The evidence for this Viking exploration of the Atlantic coasts of Canada and the U.S.A. in the early eleventh century is, therefore, very convincing indeed.
[5]

The Viking scenario for Oak Island is comparable to the Romano-Welsh hypothesis. Given a group of skilful, fearless, independent, but rather quarrelsome people, with a love of freedom and mastery of the sea, the arrival of Norse colonists in Mahone Bay is an undeniable possibility. But if Vikings dug the Money Pit and some at least of its ancillary workings, they are far more likely to have constructed it as a burial place for a great leader than as a treasure store. If, indeed, the Oak Island workings eventually turn out to be of Norse origin, the mysterious boxes which the drillers encountered are much more likely to be coffins than treasure chests. Could the “loose metal” have been the remains of some type of early Norse chain mail?

Both Celts and Vikings would have had the skill, the strength, the organization, the group discipline, and the tenacity to have carried out the Oak Island work. They might also have had the opportunity. The historical question mark remains.