The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1898-12-02
FORTY YEARS Of DIGGING.
Delivers Hidden Wealth in
Maine Was Stolen and
Taken to Montreal.
IT WAS $4,000 IN GOLD.
The Tremendous Amount of Work
and Money Expended Trying
to Find 1t.


Estimated That More Than $4,000 Days
of Hard Labor and 10000 Tons of
Earth and Stone Were Dug Up Look
ing for the Traasure-A Remarkable
Search.
More than forty years ago old Jim
Dolliver, rich owner of timber land
and mills, buried $1,000 in gold some
where near the town of The Forks, Me.
He had come from Montreal along the
old French voyageur's trail, and reach
ing The Forks, had told the landlord
of the hotel that he had been followed
by a party of French and Indian out
laws all the way from the st. Lawrence
River.
81 have nearly fvescore hundred yell
low sovereigns in my batteau," said he,
''and if I do not bury my money now
the crazy devils will rob me before 1
get to Waterville,'
He left the hotel at 10 o'clock that
night, and was sway three days. On
his return he remarked to the landlord:
well, I've put that money where the
archangel Gabriel can't find it."
Then he took Il hearty supper, went
to bed, slept two days and two nights,
and awoke raving maniac. For a
week he fought Indians and buried I'M
told treasures in his delirium, and died
in the act of shooting a Mohawk chief,
who had invaded his sick fancy for the
purpose of robbing him. Papers found
among his effects showed that he had
drawn G8,500 in English gold from a
Montreal bank a. month before he ar
rived at The Forks, and as this sum
did not appear in the inventory of his
estate, it was believed generally that
the money was buried within a days
journey of this Post Office.
For dozen years after Delivers
death his heirs advertised for the miss
ing wealth ana increased the reward
until the finder was entitled to rs per
cent of all he should discover. Having
spent nearly $4,000 in advertising, the
heirs gave it up as bad job, after
which the people who knew the story
continued the work at their own ex-
pense. For twenty years the digging
went on at all seasons. Whenever a
man or boy ran short of money and
had nothing else to do he shouldered a
pick and shovel and, taking weeks
supply of food on his back, went into
the woods between Murphy's and The
Forks and went to digging. Some To-
Gated the treasure in dreams, others
made deep excavations in mellow hill
sides where the labors were light, and
very many hired expert OWNERS with
apple limbs and witch hazel rods to
help them along on the road to wealth.
In October, 1880, Saunders Atwood
came here from Winterport and
brought an electric battery with him,
which, he said, could detect an English
farthing under four "fathoms" of solid
earth. When he went away two weeks
later he showed a handful of English
sovereigns ell stamped with dates thir-
ty or more years ago, and said that he
had unearthed the whole of the miss
ing wealth. But while the people ac-
cepted his theory that the proper time
to dig was on the dark of an October
moon, they repudiated the story that
he had found any of the missing coin.
This fall, when the muscles of the
farmers had grown hard from digging
potatoes, about forty men packed UP a
few tools and made ready to start on
another search for Delivers money as
Ill CHI nh
They were loafing about the hotel and
stores one night when word came from
Montreal that Eugene Beaupre, an aged
and rich Frenchman of that city, had
lately died, confessing on his deathbed
that he had seen Dolliver conceal his
gold in hollow pine stub and had
gone and taken it away after the right
full owner had returned to The Forks
This information was verified later by
an announcement that one Eugene
Beaupre, late of Montreal, had died and
left an estate amounting to 100000 to
different charities in Canada and
Maine, saying in his will that the gift
was made as partial atonement for a
grievous sin committed in the State of
Maine in October, 1856"
Conservative estimates indicate that
more than $4,000 days of hard labor
have been expended in digging for Dol
liVer's wealth, and that fully 80 900
tons of earth and stone have been dug
up and turned over by men who were
looking in Maine for money that was
safely invested in Montreal real es-
tate.