The Money Pit Claims Additional Victims
Nothing more
was accomplished until 1959 when Bob Restall moved to the island. He had fallen
under the spell during a chance visit several years earlier. Although his
financing was always small, he was convinced that he would be the one to
succeed. With his family, wife Mildred, and his sons, he moved to the island,
living in a couple of shacks that had no indoor plumbing, running water, and
for the first few years, no electricity.
Without the
large financial backing that had been available to some of the corporations and
syndicates that had been formed over the years, Restall couldn't rent large
equipment or huge capacity pumps. The search was reduced to what it had been
about a hundred fifty years earlier, picks and shovels and back-breaking manual
labor by the men who were there.
Restall first tried
to block the flood tunnel from Smith's Cove, pouring cement into the drains,
but that failed. He tried to locate the main tunnel to block it and failed. He
was unable to stop the flood of water, and even if he had blocked those to
Smith’s Cove, it wouldn’t have stopped the flow of water.
Restall had
other problems as well. His lease on the treasure hunting operation was from
year to year. Chappell was always bringing around potential investors and
introducing them to Restall. They would discuss the treasure and theories about
it. Restall was convinced there was thirty million dollars buried in the Money
Pit. He based that on the original stone that had been translated to say that
two million pounds was hidden. Restall converted the two million pounds to
dollars, basing the calculation on the rate of exchange in the late eighteenth
century and that the price of gold had increased from those earlier days.
On August 17,
1965 Restall's treasure hunt ended. Restall was working in what was called the
Hedden shaft. Restall was either looking into it, or had begun to climb down
into it, when he fell into the water. His son, seeing his father in the water,
started to climb down to help him. He slipped from the ladder and fell in. Karl
Graeser, who was visiting the island with an eye to beginning his own treasure hunt,
arrived at the scene, saw both Restalls in the hole, and started down to rescue
them. Behind him was Virgil Hiltz, a teenager hired by Restall to help with the
work. Both of them fell victim as well. Andy DeMont, another teenager also working
for Restall, tried to rescue them all.
Others who were
vacationing or visiting the island ran to help. One of them was a firefighter,
Edward White. He realized that some kind of gas had seeped into the pit and
that the others had been overcome by the fumes. He tied a rope around his waist
and was lowered into the water. Searching the water, he found DeMont and tied a
rope around him. He tried to find the others, but couldn't. As he was losing
consciousness, he was hauled out. White and DeMont survived. The bodies of the
other four were eventually recovered. No one knows exactly what happened and
there are debates about the gas that had seeped into the pit. Whatever it was,
it was deadly and the death toll had climbed by four.
But almost
before the bodies were buried, Chappell was back with another investor, Bob
Dunfield. He brought in bulldozers, scraped the area around the Money Pit
clear, and shoved tons of dirt into Smith's Cove. That muddied the water there,
but the water flooding the Pit was clear. Dunfield believed that he had finally
succeeded in blocking the drains from Smith's Cove. That left one other channel
that was flooding the pit.
Dunfield built
a causeway from the island to the mainland so that he could bring over
additional heavy equipment. He used that equipment to dig up much of the area
around the Money Pit. He drilled additional holes confirming the results of
other such tests. He made a discovery that was interesting when he found a void
under the island that he believed to be a natural formation. This could be
another source for the water that had defeated everyone else. Sort of a bonus
that those who built the Money Pit had never known.
Equipment break
downs, the hostility of the locals, and lousy weather forced him to return
home. He wanted to buy the island, but Chappell wanted $100,000. Dunfield
couldn't raise the money, or felt the price was out of line though it does
underscore the idea that the real source of riches on the island was the land
rather than the treasure. Whatever the reason, he lost interest in the project
although he did believe there is treasure in the Money Pit.
For the next
several years, a variety of people became interested in the Money Pit. Many of
these people would later combine to form the Oak Island Exploration Company.
They would have a ten million dollar plan to recover the treasure. With the
equipment available, and with the expanding and growing technology, with the
ability of modern pumps to move huge volumes of water, it was believed they
could overwhelm booby traps and the genius of the designer of the Money Pit.
The Beginnings of the Next to the Last
Assault
In 1968 Dan
Blankenship and a Montreal businessman, David Tobias, formed a partnership to
recover the treasure. Tobias had been interested, as had Blankenship, for a
number of years. They formed the Triton Alliance Ltd. In 1971, one of the small bore holes was enlarged, encased in steel
and named Borehole 10X. The idea was to put a video camera down into the void
under the island. Blankenship, watching the screen, saw something strange in
the murky water. He called over others and asked what they saw. To a man, they
said that a severed human hand floated, suspended, in the water.
Another probe
picked up what looked to be three chests and one clearly defined handle. They
also saw various tools, spikes, and logs. Finally they saw a human body, with
the skin and hair mostly in tack, slumped against a wall. Pathologists have
suggested that a body submerged in salt water, in an airless environment, might
be preserved. It would be the same as pickling it in brine. But all this was
with a video camera technology that was nowhere near as good as that today. The
videos are difficult to see and the evidence those others claimed to see is, at
best, a good guess.
With Borehole
10X enlarged to the point where a man could climb down exploration at the
bottom was conducted. Because the end of the shaft was underwater, divers were
lowered. The first diver reported a strong current as he exited the borehole
and into the chamber that had been found. It was suspected this was caused by
the flood tunnels. More earth was pushed into Smith's Cove, and on a second
dive, the current was gone.
Borehole 10X
was 230 feet deep. The metal casing was forced down to 180 feet. The remainder
of the hole was through the natural rock and soil of Oak Island. At 230 feet
the borehole ended in a void where the television camera had recorded the hand,
body and other items. The water was filled with debris, and as the diver rubbed
against the walls of the chamber, the rock crumbled, filling the water with a
chalky substance. Given the depth, the closed quarters, and the debris in the
water, the divers couldn't see much. Blankenship, who made several dives
himself, reported that it would suicide to move away from the bottom of the
borehole to explore the rest of the underground and underwater chamber.
On a dive in
November 1976, Blankenship heard a deep rumbling somewhere above him. He
demanded to be hauled out as fast as possible. As he looked down, the casing of
Borehole 10X collapsed. Later, Blankenship, checking the damage to the
borehole, found solid ground at the 73 foot level. Drilling found the twisted
remains of the borehole casing at 90 feet.
There were
attempts to recreate Borehole 10X, but mechanical problems and funding hindered
the completion of the project. However, they continued to work, pushing the
hole deeper into the island. However, when they reached 167 feet, the project,
which had yielded nothing of significance, was abandoned.
Legal
maneuverings, disputes over the ownership of part of the island, and fights
about the use of the causeway, slowed the hunt for a number of years. All the
time, some work was being accomplished, but all of this caused troubles with
financing for the various projects. Those with the money didn't want to
jeopardize their capital until the legal matters were completely settled and
those without it could do nothing.
The Big Dig
Tobias,
Blankenship, and the Triton Alliance planned a big dig on Oak Island. Using ten
million dollars, they would defeat the booby traps and recover whatever was
hidden in the depths. Plans called for a huge shaft over the Money Pit with
pumps that could keep the sea water out. The new shaft would be large enough to
encompass all the earlier workings so the exact location of the original pit,
somewhat in dispute by now, and remember, at one time it was known precisely,
was no longer a problem.
Tobias had
found twenty underwriters and believed that the financing was in place. By now
they were talking of a treasure worth between a hundred million and several billion
dollars again all based on that original estimate of two million but now
corrected for the changing price of gold and inflation and a premium on the
treasure. He refused to guess what might be hidden, but was sure that it was
extremely valuable otherwise no one would have gone to all the trouble to hide
it.
The Stock Market crashed in 1987 and many of the speculators scared of
such a risky investment withdrew their support. But Tobias came up with a new
plan. He would sell the television rights to the big dig, broadcasting a
special similar to The Mystery of Al
Capone's Vault, which we all know worked out very well for Geraldo Rivera
and the television network
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