Does chestnut log hide ‘Lost Treasure of Gailliard Creek’ at Claiborne?

Grave of James Monroe Agee

My son James and I got the itch to put the boat in at Claiborne Landing on Sunday afternoon, and we motored around in his boat for the better part of two hours. James captained the boat and listened good-naturedly as I provided him with a running commentary on Claiborne history and the lesser-known landmarks along the river. The depth of the river was in the single digits on Sunday, allowing us to see much that would have normally been hidden from view.

We eventually stopped at the mouth of Gailliard Creek, just below the remnants of the old grain elevator. At low water, the creek was little more than a yard wide and large portions of the creek bed normally underwater were exposed to the bright sunlight. We looked hard into the sparkling gravel for arrowheads and shark’s teeth, but none were to be found.

As many local history buffs know, there are more than a few tales of lost treasure associated with Old Claiborne, and Gailliard Creek is no exception. The best source of information about this almost forgotten tale is an old newspaper article written by Emma Norwood Hinson that appeared in the Dec. 15, 1940 edition of The Montgomery Advertiser. If I have my family trees in order, Hinson was the granddaughter of James Monroe Agee and Catherine Wheeler Agee, who are buried in the McConnico Cemetery at Perdue Hill.

James Agee, who died in 1884, was a prominent merchant and storeowner at Claiborne. After the War Between the States, Agee made periodic boat trips to New York to purchase goods for his thriving store. On one such trip, Agee walked into a drug store and got into a conversation with the proprietor.

“The ensuing conversation revealed that the proprietor had seen service in the South in the very section where (Agee) lived,” Hinson wrote. At first, Agee found it hard to believe that the druggist had ever been to Monroe County, but as the man described Claiborne, he knew the former Yankee soldier was telling the truth.

During one of their talks, the druggist told Agee that he and his fellow Union soldiers had stolen a lot of silver and other valuables while in Claiborne during the war. They stole so much that they couldn’t carry it all and were forced to hide it so they could come back for it later. The druggist regretted his wartime behavior and hoped that Agee could find the “treasure” and return it to its rightful owners.

The druggist went on to say that he and his compatriots had hidden the loot inside a hollow chestnut log along Gailliard Creek. They’d placed the valuable items inside the hollow log and then blocked the ends with cuts from a smaller tree. They caulked it up and then wedge the cuts in with square-headed nails.

Returning to Claiborne from New York, Agee searched unsuccessfully for the loot for the rest of his life.

“He looked repeatedly for the hidden cache,” Hinson wrote. “Sunday afternoons, when he wanted to take a walk, he’d call his boys and make it convenient to walk on Gailliard’s Creek and look for that elusive log, but he could not find it. Perhaps the treasure is there today in the old log, waiting after all the intervening years.”