The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1895-10-23
POTS OF GOLD.
Wartime Devices TO Conceal vaIuables
from GuerriIas.

| uuuI outTTIidos
For hundred years to como there
will be tables of treasure trove from
that large section of the mid-south
which was for three years of civil war
a debatable land, wherein, outside the
army posts, there was no security of
person or property. The invaders
themselves had a pretty taste for loot
ing, but they were nothing like so ra-
pacious as the guerrillas, who plum
dered impartialy men Of all sympa-
thies, and as often sported blue and
brass as the confederate gray. The
guerrillas had, indeed, but single
active principle-pillage. Gold was
at an enormous premium, and nearly
all the rich agricultural country pro-
duced crops of cotton or tobacco, both
equivalent to gold in the controlling
European marts. The owners of such
crops were in war between the devil
and the deep sea. 1t was extra haz-
ardous to sell and hoard the proceeds,
yet to undertake to store the produce
was to invite the guerrillas ready
torch. Then, too, the country swarm
ed with traders, so facile of conscience
as not to turn o hair in swearing to
support both the contesting govern
ments three times in the same week.
It was only by such facility that they
managed to get what they bought,
either north or south. They gave
liberal prices, enormoue indeed, on the
face, when payment could be made in
greenbacks. IfKentucky bank notes
were demanded by the seller, there
was something of reduction, but if the
payment was in gold, prices went down,
almost out of sight.
Still, very many did insist on having.
gold, and found life burden after
they got it. The writer remembers,
as small child, the weeks Of unrest
that followed the coming into the
house of fat bag of double eagles in
exchange for many hogsheads Of to.
bacco. In that time and place gold
was more dangerous than dynamite.
All the household had heard with cur
ding blood tales Of the tortures old
men had endured during attempts to
make them reveal the.hiding place Of
their. money. One, a family connec-
tion, had been strapped to board,
and held with his feet to slow fire
until they were so crisped he never
walked again; yet to the last he had
kept stoutly silent. Another had been
swung up by the thumbs through out
long cold night, with nothing on but
the garments in which he had been
dragged from bed. An old woman
miser had been beaten raw and her
wounds washed with vinegar. Indeed,
every variety of torture ethat fendish
| ingenuity could devise was said to
have been practiced toward the un-
happy possessors Of hidden treasures.
So it became matter of first impor-
tauce to be able to say truthfully that
you knew nothing of such a thing
Heads Of families, of course, bore the
brunt Of questioning, and twas,
therefore, determined that the smallest
of the family should be intrusted with
the task of secreting the gold. To
this day it brings thrill and creepy
feeling up and down the spine to re-
call going out into the big woods alone,
wandering there for an hour, and as
last sscrambling up a big hollow oak,
Einto an upper cavity Of which:a heavy
1 sealed tinSbox was dropped, there to
lremain untouched, unmatched, until
/ its contents could be sent by sure
lhand to New York city for investment.
That was year later. In the inter-
val, if by any chance sudden death
had come, the money would most like
ly be there yet, as the tree stood in
the edge of bit of marsh land that is
unlikely ever to be cleared and culti-
vated.
z. Sudden death did come in many
leases. Oneiold farmer, who had held
lthree years, crop until prices were at
their highest, got $12,0O0in the yel-
How metal, took it home andSgave it to
. his wife, bidding her do the best she
could with it. She was an easy going,
unthrifty sort of body, and buried it
in the garden in plain sight of every
body about the place, taking only the
precaution to set struggling rose bush
on top Of it, and, further, to put above
the gold bag of silver that she her
| self had saved up. That was Friday
night. On Sunday the family aliiwent
| to preaching. When they came home
the rosetree laysuprooted, the bag Of
silver was gone, and so were wagon
and team besides family of negroes.
They had taken all Of their belongings
and much Of their masters and run
away to the nearest federal outpost,
which was twenty miles off. Pursuit
was useless and would have been fool
ish. The farmer eyed the rifed hole
"a minute, then trust his arm down in
|stoit, scratched about furiously, clutch
led something deeper down and brought
up the bag Of gold. The silver had
saved the gold. The despoilers, find
ing it, had not thought to dig deeper.
| Dut Cne' owner was HUI Satlsueu W
trust his wife's hiding further. He
was godly man, but, Sunday though
it was, he swung the bag over his
shoulder and tramped off into the
woods. He did not come back until
the night was well on and said moth
ing of what he had done with the
money. He never said anything, in
fact. Six months later he was found
dead in bed Of heart disease, and
though his heirs hunted high and low,
have asked the help of the divining
rod and consulted clairvoyants, to say
nothing of having cleared up the wood
land and dug over almost the whole
thousand-acre farm, to this day they
have never found trace Of the lost
money.
Whether it waits for a luckier hand
or has shared the fate of another bag
of treasure no man of them can say.
This second bag was buried by its
owner and his son deep in the woods
at the side Of fallen tree. The place
was far off from any road, but a foot
path wound not twenty yards away.
Every night the head man of neigh
| hor;np plantation force nassad alonp