Did the KGC Cause the South to Loose?

I’ll bet you’ve never heard or seen that question anywhere before, huh? Everybody says the Knights of the Golden Circle were responsible for amassing a fortune and hiding it underground. You can pick your own reason why, there are several theories floating around, none of which, in my opinion, make a lot of sense. But could they have caused the downfall of the south because they weren’t as smart as everyone thinks they were?

It is known that the KGC operated in several states including some of the northern states. It is known that the KGC had a few “operatives” or spies in the North and that some of those operated in New York City. But could some of those spies have caused the downfall of the South because they were careless with how they passed messages to each other and because of the ciphers they used?

In December of 1863 the North intercepted a letter addressed to Alexander Keith of Nova Scotia. That letter was intercepted because Mr. Keith was known to associate with Confederate agents. This would seem to have been a very big mistake on the part of the confederate agents sending the letter to a known collaborator even though the letter was coded. When intercepted, this letter was sent to Washington to have the North’s most famous code breakers take a look at it. Those code breakers, three men known as the “Sacred Three” included Charles Tinker, Albert Chandler and David Bates.

The “Scared Three”, called this because except for his cabinet and private secretaries no one was closer to President Lincoln than these three men, determined that the letter contained coded information using what is now known as the “Rosicrucian Cipher”. This was a cipher that took on the appearance of a tic-tac-toe board and allowed the shapes and lines of the board along with dots to be used to designate the letters in the cipher. If you have ever read the book “The KGC, An Authentic Exposition” you will see a code written out in line form that appears to have been partially derived from the Rosicrucian Cipher. I have posted a photo of the code from this book at the top of this article. Now, back to the Sacred Three. About the time the three men broke the cipher a second coded letter arrived using the same cipher.

By breaking the Rosicrucian Cipher the Sacred Three determined that confederate agents were using a company in New York City to build printing presses and engraving plates for the sole purpose of printing money for the Confederate states. It seems the confederates didn’t have the technological know how to make their own presses and engraved plates. These presses and plates, along with several million dollars of already printed confederate money were scheduled to be shipped to the south in January of 1864 but because the code was broken, a raid was conducted on “Hilton’s Engraving Shop” in Manhattan, NY. The money, presses and engraved plates were all seized on December 31st 1863.

You are probably wondering how this could cause the downfall of the south. Well, the South was already fairly poor and they were unable to print their own money in sufficient quantities and needed those presses, not to mention the money that had already been printed. Once the North had the presses they stopped the South from being able to print large quantities of money and at the same time the North had their own spies use these presses to print their own counterfeit Confederate currency and flooded the market, so to speak. This put a tremendous drain on the already poor South. To add insult to injury, the money printed from the seized presses and plates was considered to be superior in quality to the currency actually printed by the South. That had to be embarrassing!

It’s all about the money!

I'm sure some of you will jump onto the conspiracy wagon and say this proves that the KGC was connected to the Freemasons and even the Knights Templar because both groups were said to have used a version of the Rosicrucian Cipher. I would say that maybe the Confederacy was too lazy or not smart enough to come up with their own cipher or code. Some of you will probably ask if I have proof that the Confederate agents in charge of the money debacle were actually part of the KGC? Nope, but not having proof of something doesn’t seem to bother the believers in the KGC mega-bucks so I’m going to say it’s possible one or more of them may have been members of the KGC since the KGC was supposed to be in charge of the spying for the south. Someone else can do the fine detail researching on this one if you're really interested.

Summer Time Hunting and the Bugs

Warmer weather is finally here! I don’t know about you but I have had enough of the cold and snow for a while. Even though I am ready for warmer weather, with the better weather comes a new set of problems, one of which is bugs.

Bugs in general aren’t anything to worry about but if you live or hunt in certain states, including what is called the Midwest, you have the problem of the nasty “no-see-ums”. Most people wouldn’t worry too much about these but if you have ever had more than five or six chigger bites at one time you know how uncomfortable it can be. I’ve had to sleep in a bathtub full of water before because I had so many chigger bites I couldn’t stand it. (The water kept air from getting to the bites, which in turn kept them from itching. This allowed me to sleep for 20-30 minutes at a time until the water got cold. Trust me, having that many chigger bites was more than just a little irritating.)

Besides being uncomfortable you have the possibility of catching some very unhealthy diseases such as Lime disease from ticks or West Nile Virus from mosquitoes. You have very few options when it comes to protecting your self from the no-see-ums. You can soak yourself and your clothing in Deet or something that is more earth friendly such as Permethrin but they both have their drawbacks.

Deet doesn’t really repel insects, it actually partially deactivates the heat and C02 receptors in the bugs, which confuses the bug and keeps them from finding you. If you are using a strong formula of Deet you can have several problems most people don’t see in the fine print. Deet can dissolve the surface of some synthetic fabrics and plastics such as that found in sunglasses. If you get the strong Deet on your lips it can even make you nauseous.

Permethrin is a synthetic version of a naturally occurring substance found in a South African flower. There is something in the naturally occurring pyrethroids in the plant that temporarily disable the bug. Anything natural that works is always better than some toxic chemical. The drawbacks to permethrin is that it has it’s own side effects if not used properly. It should only be put on your clothing because if it is ingested or absorbed through the skin it can cause skin irritation. A stronger formula of permethrin, the type the military uses, can cause blurred vision and make your eyes water and if you wear it in a high temperature climate it can vaporize from your clothing and breathing in the vapors can cause nasal and respiratory irritation. But the government says it's safe, really!

Now for some good news. There are some types of bug proof clothing you can wear that will defeat the no-see-ums. One is a fabric infused with an encapsulated form of permethrin that seems to take away most of the side effects. You also have the bug suits that you wear on the outside of your clothing but these can be hot and a pain in the butt to treasure hunt in.

The one solution I really like and highly recommend is a bug or tick suit that is worn underneath your regular clothing. I bought my first tick suit about six years ago and I don’t go into the woods or tall grass during warm weather without it. These suits are a thin, tightly woven material that is very light and stretches so that it fits tightly over your body, think pantyhose. The suit comes in pieces, a long sleeve top, pants, a hood and gloves, kind of like long underwear but with out the thermal properties and a lot thinner. Of course each piece is sold separately and they are not cheap. The shirt and pants generally run between $30 and $40 each. I can personally guarantee that it is worth the expense if you do a lot of hunting where there are ticks and chiggers. One unintended but added benefit to wearing these suits is that they act as an evaporative cooler when there is a breeze. The suit is next to your body and thin but it absorbs the sweat and when a breeze comes along it’s like opening the door to a walk-in cooler.

If you are interested in this kind of bug protection, there are several sporting goods stores that sell these suits and most of them have their own brand. If you can’t find them locally you should look on line at stores like Cabelas or maybe even Bass Pro Shop. Cabelas has their own brand called “Bug Skinz” which is what I use. The manufacturer guarantees it against ticks and chiggers and although they don’t guarantee it, they say the suit can stop mosquito bites. I have been wearing my suit for over six years and I have never gotten any type of bug bite while wearing the suit.

I’ve never had Lime Disease but I have a friend who has and it wasn’t very pleasant for him. If you hunt where there are a lot of ticks, chiggers or mosquitoes I can’t recommend this type of clothing enough.

Hunt safe and hunt smart.

Relics and a Cache or Two

This was going to be about a ghost town called Wallace, KS but Wallace isn’t really a ghost town. There are probably a few ghosts in the area if you are interested. If you are traveling in Wallace County, KS there are a few things you could check out, especially if you are a civil war buff or like to hunt for relics.

There are four sites you can check out and I think all four are still on private property. The first is the Pond Creek Station, located about one mile west of Wallace, KS on the south side of Highway 40. Pond Creek Station was located on the old Smokey Hill trail and was a temporary military post and stage station in 1865 and 1866. At one time you could still see the old cellar holes and what was left of the dirt fortifications. A couple of the buildings from the site including the coach house and stage tender’s building were moved from the property intact to another piece of land, apparently to preserve them. This old station would be a good place to run a metal detector looking for artifacts and relics. Who knows, maybe you will come across a small cache left behind by a traveler or worker.

The next three sites are the same place but in different locations. I’ve got you wondering now don’t I? What started out as Camp Pond Creek in 1865 was renamed in 1866 as Fort Wallace. This was an active Army post from 1865 until 1882 and was considered one of the largest army posts in Indian Territory. It’s main purpose was to quell the Plains Indians who were trying to protect their lands from the white man. When construction on the fort first started in 1865 the soldiers camped at the bluffs on the south fork of the Smoky Hill River and Pond creek. This location was about two miles west of the permanent location of the fort. So there is your first site, where the soldiers camped while building the fort. This could be a relic hunters dream.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Fort Wallace started out in a low area of land and was partially constructed when a First Lieutenant, who was apparently smarter than the preceding officers at the fort, decided with the fort being in a low lying area it was vulnerable to attack from all sides and requested that he be allowed to move the fort. In July of 1866 construction started at the new site that was on higher ground. So there are your other two sites. You have the spot where the fort was first constructed and then you have the spot where the fort was finally and permanently located.

This fort site is located about two miles southeast of the town of Wallace, KS. The original cemetery plot is still there and is across the road from the actual fort site. It’s my understanding that all of the soldiers buried in this cemetery were later exhumed and re-interred at Fort Leavenworth, KS. There are still other graves in the cemetery and there is a large monument in the cemetery dedicated to the dead soldiers.

As far as I know there are still remnants of the fort that are evident to someone looking. No buildings exist but you can probably find some of the foundations and cellars.

As long as you are in the area of Wallace, KS you might as well do some looking around for some “small” caches left behind by an old resident of the town.

Peter Robidoux was a pioneer storekeeper that did very well for himself in the town of Wallace, KS. Mr. Robidoux arrived in Wallace, KS in 1872 and immediately opened a small general store. As his store prospered he was forced to enlarge the store several times. Mr. Robidoux was known to boast that he would put all of the silver dollars he earned each day into an empty beer keg and the day’s earnings would fill up the keg each day! Holy crap! Somebody was drinking a lot of beer! Oh, come on, your weren’t actually thinking about the silver were you?

In 1909 Peter Robidoux bought a large Victorian style home and moved his family into it where they lived for several years. In 1919 he sold all of his holdings that included the house and thirty two THOUSAND acres! Robidoux was known to have hidden several caches of money on his property and he apparently died before he recovered them all.

It has been reported that treasure hunters have found a few of these caches but it is thought many more are still in the ground. The old Victorian home once owned by Peter Robidoux still stands in Wallace, KS and is being restored to it’s original beauty.

Thirty two thousand acres is a big place to hunt but a little research might give you some insight into where some of these caches might still be.

In Treasure Hunting, Size Does Matter

Come on now, get your minds out of the gutter, this is a treasure hunting blog! When you are talking about symbols in a carved map size does matter, at least sometimes. How’s that for a definitive statement? Remember, there are very few absolutes in treasure hunting.

If you are lucky enough to come across a carved map, and most of us are because it seems like they are everywhere, the size of the symbols in the map can be a clue. This is especially true with outlaw maps but it can also be true with maps from other groups. Maps can consist of just 3-4 symbols or they can be very elaborate and have 20 or 30 or more symbols in them. As you look at your map you need to decide if there is a pattern to the map. Are the symbols in lines like a sentence? Are they in groups separated by a space? Is there something around them like a box or circle? All of these things will be important and will relate to how you interpret the symbols.

As you progress through the symbols in a map you may notice that the symbols in one line or section are bigger than the ones in another line or section. The size of the symbols can be relative to the size of the “moves” or the distances you will travel with each “leg” of the carving. In some cases the size of the symbols can directly relate to the distance to travel. If a symbol is half the size of a previous symbol then the distance traveled when working that symbol may be half the distance. So if you have a symbol that is four inches in size on the map and the distance you traveled working that symbol was fifty feet then if the next symbol is half the size of the last symbol then there is a better than average chance the distance you will travel on this symbol will be about half or around 25 feet.

Interpreting symbols on a carved map is as much about what the previous symbol told you to do, as it is about the current symbol you are working on. One symbol can directly correlate to the other depending on how the map was meant to be used. As the size of the symbols change it can mean the distances that you travel change in relation to the size. It can also mean that the physical clues you find as you work the map may be changing in size, getting smaller or larger depending on what the carved symbols are doing. By varying the size of the symbols in the map the mapmaker was giving himself additional information about the clues while hiding this information from people who aren’t paying attention to the details.

The size of a symbol can also relate to its importance in the map. You may have a map with one or two symbols that are larger than the others. This would indicate that the larger symbol(s) is an important piece of the puzzle. It could be a spot in the map where things get reversed or it may be a spot where you will find additional carvings that aren’t on the original map. You may have more than one cache and the first cache could be located at the point in the map where you have a larger symbol. Part of the map may be garbage to throw you off and the larger symbol shows you that this is the end or beginning of the actual map. These spots can be almost anything but a lot of the times the symbols were made larger to point out that they are more important compared to the other symbols.

Once you begin to work a carved map or any map for that matter, you will see a pattern start to emerge on how the mapmaker’s mind worked. Don’t ignore these patterns. They will help you think like the mapmaker did and this will make interpreting the map that much easier.

“It’s not what you look at, but what you see”

Wildman, An Oklahoma Ghost Town

The Ghost Town of Wildman, Oklahoma was located in Kiowa County about fifteen and one half miles south and seven miles east of present day Hobart. The town’s Post Office was only in business from May 1901 to November 1904.

The town got its name from the type of people that liked to come there. The town was described as “a wild west, hard shooting, tough mining town made up of grizzled miners and unscrupulous gamblers with a liberal seasoning of bandits”. Sounds like my kind of place, when I was twenty-five years old! It was said that the first “diggings developed in Wildman was the graveyard”.

Wildman was started when the federal government opened the Wichita Mountains area to miners in the fall of 1900. The town at one time had two grocery stores, two hotels, a general store, an assayer’s office, a restaurant, a drug store and a hardware store. Of course there were more saloons and places to gamble than anything else in the town. The town also had it’s own newspaper for a while. It was called the Otter Creek Miner.

Today, nothing is left of the old town except for possibly an old foundation or two and the cyanide ore mill. The buildings were all removed so that the land could be used for agriculture.

Since Wildman was a mining town there were several tunnels and mining shafts dug into the granite hills in the area, especially around Nest Egg Mountain. One of the more widely known mines was the Gold Bells Mine. I believe the location of this mine can still be seen today. The newspapers of the day reported that gold, silver, lead, copper and platinum had been found and some of what was found assayed in the thousands of dollars per ton. Even though there were some high assayer’s reports it doesn’t appear that there was that much gold taken out of the area. Even if there wasn’t that much found, at today’s prices any gold would be worth finding.

If you are in this area looking around you might want to look for what was said to be a very rich mine that was supposed to have been worked for years by the Spanish. That is until the Indians decided they had had enough of the Spaniards and let them know their feelings by attacking the miners. This mine is supposed to be located on the west side of Otter Creek less than half a mile from the south side of the mountains.

This mine was supposed to have been marked by a series of oak trees that had the limbs cut off of one side. The sides without the limbs are supposed to be in the direction the mine is located. By now, these trees may be long gone but it would be my opinion the Spanish would have also used some other types of markers in the area, markers made of stone that might still be around.

If you are a history enthusiast you could even try looking for some of the old miner claim markers from the 1900’s. Some of these can be pretty interesting since they might still have the handwritten claim in them.

Hughes Brothers

In 1894 James Hughes moved to Oklahoma. He settled on a homestead along the Washita River southeast of Cloud Chief. He was a shrewd and respected businessman. While he wasn't an outlaw his two sons Ben and Jim had criminal backgrounds.

As the Hughes Ranch grew rumors began to circulate that everything going on at the ranch might not be on the up and up.It seems that the Hughes offered an invitation of shelter to men of questionable character. Men such as Bert Casey, Al jennings, George Miller, Ben Cravens, and Red Buck Weightman arebut a few who were thought to frequent the ranch.

By the turn of the century the Hughes ranch had expanded to the point that they owned a number of sections of land, leased 36 sections of "indian" land, and ran a mail route. Ben and Jim were worth more than a hundred thousand dollars. This was a huge sum in those days.

In 1904 James Hughes Sr passed away. it was from this point on that the Hughes ranch began it's downward spiral. Ben and Jim would remain at odds with the law for the rest of their lives as well as their sons.

The old ranch site would be a great place to search for treasure. Many outlaws spent time hiding on the ranch and there is a good chance that they hid their ill-gotten gains on the ranch. Some of the Hughes family fortunes could be hidden as well. With a little research the original ranch site could easily be located.

Oklahoma Outlaws

When you think of Oklahoma outlaws the Dalton or Doolin Gangs probably come to mind. Belle Starr or even the James/Younger Gang might be at the top of your list. The Sooner State has a long list of badmen who made the Indian Territory their haunt. I'll be doing a series of short stories on some of the lesser known outlaws. Their areas of operation could still hold some of their long hidden loot.

The Bill Coe gang was a group of renegades who numbers ranged from 15 to 50 at any given time. The outlaws terrorized travelers on the Santa Fe Trail. They headquartered in the Black Mesa region of the panhandle during the 1860's. Their hideout became known as Robbers Roost. It was located near Lookout Point not far from what is now known as North Carrizo Creek. The gang was very well organized and even tended a farm located near their hideout.

Robbing travelers and rustling were the main sources of income for this group. The Coe Gangs reign came to an abrupt end in 1867. The fortress like hideout was beseiged by troops and a cannon from Fort Lyons. The outlaws were either shot down or later rounded up and hung. With no time to recover any hidden loot and as successful as the gang was this would be a good area to research.

The hideout is on private property, but for those interested in visiting the area can contact the Boise City Chamber of Commerce to arrange for a visit.