Does buried treasure lie somewhere beneath the streets of Evergreen?

No doubt some in the reading audience will have heard of the “Beale Ciphers,” especially those of you who watch the History Channel.

These papers contain three sets of coded messages that supposedly give the location of a treasure worth over $43 million in today’s dollars. This three-ton treasure of gold, silver and jewels was supposedly buried by Thomas J. Beale in Virginia in the 1820s. After burying the treasure, Beale gave innkeeper Robert Morris a box that included these secret messages.

Beale then disappeared and to this day his fate remains unknown. Twenty-three years later, Morris opened the box, and the hunt began for the location of the treasure. To do so, they had to solve the coded messages, but they only solved one, which listed the contents of the treasure, but not its location.

In the 1880s, after the original treasure hunters gave up trying to find the hidden treasure, the coded messages were published in a pamphlet. Copies of this pamphlet were sold to the public in hopes that someone would someday solve the “Beale Ciphers.” To this day, the treasure has never been found.

My interest in the “Beale Ciphers” was sparked by a 2015 episode of “Expedition Unknown” in which host Josh Gates visited Virginia to search for the treasure. Like many treasure hunters before him, he was unsuccessful.

A week or so ago, a friend sent me a copy of the original “Beale Papers,” a 23-page document said to contain “Authentic Statements regarding the Treasure Buried in 1819 and 1821 near Bufords, in Bedford County, Virginia and Which Has Never Been Recovered.” The original price for the pamphlet was 50 cents, but if you search for it online, you can find transcribed copies of it to read for free.

Over the years that I have worked in Evergreen, I’ve had a number of older residents tell me that they’d heard rumors of buried treasure in Evergreen. One such man told me that when he was a child, it was common for people to dig in their back yards, in the woods and near local landmarks for suspected treasure. Whether they found anything or not, I do not know.

All of this also reminded me of a curious incident that I read about in the Feb. 17, 1915 edition of The Courant. Readers of that week’s paper learned that “some party or parties unknown dug a large hole in the front yard of J.L. Spence residence, near the depot. It is surmised that the party was hunting for buried treasure, but there is no clue as to who committed the depredation.”

Right under this news item about buried treasure, The Courant also reported that “some miscreant hurled a piece of slag at Sheriff Williams as he drove along West Front Street below the depot in his automobile.” The rock struck the post just under Williams’ steering wheel with “great force,” but no damage was done. “Whoever threw the piece was so well concealed that he was not observed.”

One is left to wonder if these two incidents are connected. Was the rock-throwing incident some type of diversion to keep the Sheriff from encountering the diggers? Did the diggers find anything? Where exactly was the J.L. Spence residence and is it still standing?

In the end, let me hear from you if you know anything more about buried treasure incidents or rumors in Evergreen and elsewhere in Conecuh County. Also let me know if you know anything about the J.L. Spence residence and where it was located. Who knows, buried treasure may still await someone who knows just where to look in Evergreen?