The record-union., 1898-12-06

1
mcnds. The stock went away up, and
then came down with a crash.
/ The Hackett Wrecking Company,
with offices in South street, made an ef-
fort to get at the sunken Hussar III
November of the same year, but work
Was abandoned in a few weeks.
Francis NJ. Eppley rather dashed any
further hopes on the part of the gold
hunters in 1894. Mr. Eppley was him
| self q rainbow chaser, but he was a
logical one, if the paradox may be par
| doned. He was a New York lawyer,
WHO lived out in the Oranges. He OBJ
| tained a contract from the Secretary
| OF the Treasury to make a systematic
search for the buried treasure, and by
| the terms of the agreement he was tJ
turn over to the Government all the
treasure trove.
Mr.. EDpley first decided to procure
all the documentary evidence possible
| as a means of help in locating the
| gold. He haunted the libraries, pored
| over dusty tones and placed himself
in correspondence with antiquarians in
England He convinced himself that
the Hussar's reputed wealth was large
/
ing to 100000 on board, but on the
very morning of the fateful day the
money was landed and delivered into
the custody of Commissary General
Delaney.
Thus faded away the rainbow of the
Hussar. Since Mr.. Eppley's investiga-
tions there have been no further eff
forts made to secure possession of the
pot of gold.
| With Mr. Lorillard and Dr. Pancoast
| 1T was different. They made no at
tempt to discover the tangibility of
the rainbow. They thought only of
the pot of gold at the end, and chased
| after it like a couple of enthusiastic
schoolboys Mr. Lorillard was lured
on by a De Rougemont. His name
was Follingsby, and he was a plausi-
| BILE talker.
| SAN PEDRO'S TREASURE.
There was Spanish man-of-war,
| the San Pedro de Alcantara. She
blew up in the Margarita Channel.
| The latter rests between the islands
of Cubagua and Coche, on the Central
American coast. The San Pedro was
a five-decked galleon, and in 1872 had
been dispatched from Spain with mill
| ions of treasure to pay off the in
Vulnerable garrisons and Spanish war
ships on the coast. This bullion was
| small in value when compared with
| the enormous quantities of gold, silver
| and diamond jewels which the loyal
| and truSty subjects of the King of
| Spain had put on the ship for safe
keeping The gold images and precious
stones which the Catholic churches of
| the coast had put on were beyond the
| dreams of avarice of even an Eastern
prince.
More than fifty banking institutions
| had placed there, as a safeguard
against the revolutionists, two chests
| of doubloonS. Each of these chests
contained 100000 pieces, which, fig
ured at SIG per doubloon, represented
$32,OO00O0 in Spanish coin. Taken
altogether, the value of the treasure
on the ship that day on which she lay
| at anchor in Margarita Channel was
| S67 100000. The ship caught fire in
| the spiritroom, and while the crew
were fighting the flames an explosion
| took place and the hulk went down
in ten fathoms.
| Such was the yarn spun by Follings-
| by, to which Jacob Lorillard listened.
Moreover, he believed Follingsby when
| he said he knew just where the sunk
| en- treasure ship lay He was a sea-
| faring man, and he had been all over
| the globe. Mr.. Lorillard, although the
| rainbow was beginning to blind his
| eyes, was no fool. He knew that the
| story of the seafaring man was true.
What he didn't know was that Foil
| ingsby hadn't the slightest idea of the
location of the ship.
| A Baltimore syndicate had previously
sent out an exDeditinn in search of
| the San Pedro, and it was even said
| that some of the gold had been re-
covered. But the Venezuelan Govern
ment put a stop to it, and after dis
posing of the Baltimore expedition,
which had been most elaborately fitted
out at great expense, work was re-
sumed by the Venezuelan authorities.
They lacked both brains and the nee
| essary appliances, and their efforts
came to naught.
THE PETER MITCHELL'S MISSION.
Jacob Lorillard knew all this, and
he fell an easy prey to the wiles Of
Follingsby. On December %, 1877, the
schooner Peter Mitchell cleared Sandy
Hook, bound for the end of the rain
| bow
Captain Serene T. Dayton was in
command, and Follingsby went along.
The expedition was fitted out by Mr..
Lorillard.
| Captain Dayton's log is now in the
possession of Captain Howard Patter-
son of this city, and is a. decidedly in
| teresting record of the expedition.
After reaching Margarita Channel,
Captain Dayton wrote under date Of
February 2. 1873:
Anchor off the island of Coche. I
proposed that Follingsby get boat
and locate the wreck while we were
building the scow. He procured a boat
and several men and started. He was
gone about one and one-half hours:
came back and reported that he had
been successful, but instead of finding
the wreck and placing a buoy on it. he
merely threw the buoy overheard and
allowed it to drift away to cover up
his ignorance. He is an inveterate
liar, as every one on board found out
In beating up to Coche, I told him
if he would give the ranges I would
place the buoys He gave me a kind
of COW and haystack range but the
cow had eaten the hay and shifted its
berth since the respective berths were
taken, so that the value of the ranges
may be Inferred
/ CAPTAIN DAYTON'S LOGBOOK.
/ How matters progressed and how the
rainbow finally faded away, may be
| judged from the following extracts
! from Captain Dayton's log: