In this video, we're going to take a look at the developments that took place in
Season 7, Episode 7 of 'The Curse of Oak Island'. But first, I'd like to ask that if,
you haven't done so already, you please consider subscribing to this channel,
which you can do by clicking the "Subscribe" button below. In the previous
episode of 'The Curse of Oak Island', the boys discovered Shaft 9, an old
searcher shaft which was connected with the original Money Pit by a hundred foot
long tunnel. Rather than attempt to locate this tunnel via exploration
drilling, the crew decides in this episode to take a different course of
action prescribed by Doug Crowell. In an aerial photograph of the Money Pit area
taken in 1931 by a former treasure hunting syndicate called Chappells Ltd.,
Crowell noticed two depressions in the earth. One of these appears to be in the
same location as the recently discovered Shaft 9. Crowell theorizes that the other
depression might be the backfilled remains of Shaft 2- a searcher shaft
constructed by the Onslow Company in 1804 14 feet southeast of the Money Pit.
Crowell observes that if the crew manages to ascertain the location of
shaft, then they will be able to determine the exact location of the
original Money Pit; the Money Pit would lie at the northwestern intersection of
circles drawn around Shaft 9 and Shaft 2 with radii of 100 and 14
feet, respectively. Using Chappell Ltd.'s aerial photograph of the Money Pit site
in conjunction with the GPS coordinates of the newly discovered Shaft 9, the team
estimates the location of Shaft 2 and tasks Choice Drilling with retrieving
core samples from the area. A core sample taken from a depth of 12 to 15 feet
contains nothing but disturbed earth. A second sample taken from an undisclosed
depth contains a few pieces of wood. A third sample taken from a depth of about
30 feet contains significant quantities of wood- perhaps cribbing from Shaft 2.
The crew members agree that they ought to search for the other walls of the
suspected shaft in order to determine the structure's orientation, which will, in
turn, enable them to ascertain the precise location of the original Money
Pit. Later, Gary Drayton and Jack Begley do some metal detecting on Oak Island's
Lot 6, on the northwestern side of the island, where Drayton discovered an iron
chain and an old coin back in Season 4, Episode 6. On the beach, the treasure
hunters come across two old square-headed iron pins lying side
by side, which Drayton suggests might be the remains of an 18th Century
shipwreck. The treasure hunters then find another larger pin closer to the water,
which Drayton calls a "crib spike". In a later interview, Drayton outlines his
belief at the iron objects he discovered on the shores of Lot 6 are evidence
that the beach "was a place where boats came into, and there was activity
in the area. Whether this was a place where ships were repaired or a place
where treasure was unloaded, we've got the finds to back those theories up now."
In the middle of this episode, Rick Lagina, Peter Fornetti.
Doug Crowell, and Billy Gerhardt drive to the Dartmouth Heritage Museum in
Dartmouth Nova Scotia there they meet with Terry Eyland, the museum's curator,
and a man named Kevin Rideout, whom Rick had met previously at the funeral of Dan
Blankenship. During their first meeting, Rideout told Rick that, 40 years prior
while visiting the Dartmouth Heritage Museum, a tour guide pointed out a rock
embedded in the grass in the museum's backyard and told him that it was the
Money Pit's a legendary 90-foot stone. In order to contextualize this claim, let's
take a look at the known history of the 90-foot stone. Back in the spring of 1804,
the Onslow Company arrived on Oak Island and began to excavate the Money Pit, which
Daniel McGinnis, John Smith, and Anthony Vaughan had previously explored to a
depth of 30 feet. The Company men further excavated the pit to a depth of 90 feet,
finding oak log platform solidly embedded into the clay walls of the
shaft at regular 10-foot intervals. At the 90-foot level, the diggers came to
yet another platform of oak logs in the middle of which was set a flat,
rectangular, 175-pound, olive colored stone measuring 30 inches in length, 15
inches in width, and 10 inches in depth. When the stone was pried loose, the
labourers discovered that its underside was inscribed with strange markings
which none of them were able to decipher. The labourers subsequently retired for
the night, only to find the Money Pit filled with seawater the following
morning. Following this discovery, the 90-foot stone was built into the
fireplace of John Smith's Oak Island home, where it remained for more than a
half a century. In 1865, eight years after Smith's death, the stone was removed from
the fireplace and brought to the town of Truro, Nova Scotia, by Oak
Island treasure hunter Jotham B. McCully. McCully kept the stone in his Truro house
and showcased it to potential investors in his own Oak Island treasure hunting
scheme. Sometime after the stone ,came into the possession of businessman A.O.
Creighton, a hopeful Oak Island treasure hunter and
partner in a Halifax bookbinding firm called Creighton & Marshall Stationers.
Creighton showcased the stone in the front window of his bookbindery, hoping
that it might attract investor interest in his Oak Island treasure hunting
venture, the Oak Island Contract Company. Around this time, a linguistic professor
from Halifax's Dalhousie University named James Liechti claimed that the
characters carved in the stone formed a cipher which, when decoded, read "Forty
Feet Below Two Million Pounds Are Buried". Although no rubbings were made of the
stone's inscription, some believe that the cryptic markings may have been copied
down at some point. The only supposed copy of the inscriptions on the 90-foot
stone surfaced in April 1949, in a letter written by Nova Scotian Reverend A.T.
Kempton to Oak Island treasure hunter Frederick Blair. Kempton, in his letter,
maintained that he received a copy of the stone's inscription from an old Irish
schoolmaster who resided somewhere in Mahone Bay.
Kempton's symbols formed a simple substitution cipher which, when decoded,
read the same message allegedly decrypted by Dalhousie professor James
Liechti in 1865: "Forty Feet Below Two Million Pounds Are Buried". When A.O.
Creighton's Oak Island Contract Company failed to get off the ground,
Creighton used the 90-foot stone as a base on which to beat leather and paper.
When the stone was employed for this purpose, the strange inscription on its
face is said to have gradually faded into obscurity. In 1909, an Oak Island
treasure hunter named Harry L. Bowdoin examined the stone in the bookbindery
and found no evidence of any inscription. He included his disappointing
description of the stone in a bitter article for the August 19th, 1911 issue
of "Colliers" magazine, writing that it "quote a few scratches etc. made by
Creighton's employees, as they acknowledged, but there is not, and never
was, a system of characters carved on the stone". Creighton & Marshall
Stationers went out of business in 1919, selling their building to the Halifax
Seed Company. The 90-foot stone has been missing ever since.
Throughout Season 6 of 'The Curse of Oak Island', the Fellowship of the Dig
made two searches for the 90-foot stone in the basement of the old Halifax bookbindery,
which now houses the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. During the
second search, conducted in Season 6, Episode 7, the treasure hunters
discovered an object in a dusty, cobweb-choked corner of a basement room which
corresponded quite well with old descriptions of the 90-foot stone. The
stone bore no traces of the strange symbols said to have been carved onto it
aside from the letters 'L' and 'N', which had been carved into its corner- letters
evoking the "few scratches made by Creighton's employees" which
Bowdoin referenced in his article. In an interview showcased in this episode
of 'The Curse of Oak Island', Rick Lagina states his belief that the supposed
90-foot stone found beneath the old Halifax bookbindery was an unfinished
replica of the original stone, and expresses his hope at the real 90-foot
stone is the artifact which Kevin Rideout claimed to have been made aware
of during his visit to the Dartmouth Heritage Museum more than 40 years ago.
Interestingly, the narrator informs us in this episode that the building which now
houses the Dartmouth Heritage Museum, called the "Evergreen House", was once the
residence of Dr. Mary Helen Creighton, a celebrated Nova Scotian folklorist and a
distant relative of A.O. Creighton, owner of the old Halifax bookbindery. Helen
Creighton purchased the Evergreen House in 1919- the same year in which the
Halifax bookbindery went out of business. Rick Lagina, in this episode,
infers that the Creighton family may have transported the 90-foot stone from the
Halifax bookbindery to the Dartmouth estate in 1919. It is
interesting to note that, in her 1957 book "Bluenose Ghosts", a collection of
Nova Scotian ghost stories, Creighton includes a number of tales set on Oak
Island, yet fails to mention the 90-foot stone. In this episode, Terry Eyland takes
Kevin Rideout and the visiting treasure hunters to the museum's
backyard. Using his memory as a guide, Rideout estimates that the stone he
was showed forty years prior was embedded in the grass in an area overtop
of which a beautiful rhododendron bush now stands. After an unsuccessful
preliminary search for the stone beneath the bush, the treasure hunters suggest
that they ought to apply for a permit to excavate the area in an archeological
manner, and Terry Eyland gives them his blessing to do so. Throughout this
episode, Mike Jardine and the men of Irving Equipment Ltd. construct
the bump-out, or extension, to the Smith's Cove cofferdam, first discussed in the
Season 7 premiere. During the process, they discover a new wooden structure at
Smith's Cove which lies outside the original cofferdam. This structure
consists of horizontal and vertically aligned logs, and Mike Jardine suggests
that it bears some resemblance to the top of a vertical shaft. While examining
the structure, Marty Lagina makes a brief reference to its most prominent section,
namely a vertical timber sticking out of the ground.
Although it is not mentioned in this episode, the vertical timber strongly
evokes an object which Rick Lagina spied at Smith's Cove during low tide back in
Season 1, Episode 1, which he likened to "an ancient tusk coming out of the
water". In that episode, both Dan Henskee and Charles Barkhouse
declared that they had never noticed the tusk like object before. Near the end of
this episode, Laird Niven gives the crew the green
light to excavate the sides of the structure, which Gerhardt proceeds to do
with his backhoe. Gerhardt removes a load of material immediately adjacent to the
structure, exposing a wall of horizontal logs covered by sheets of what appeared
to be 19th or 20th Century tar paper. Immediately beside the wall is a pile
of rocks, which some of the treasure hunters suspect might be the remains of
the legendary finger drains believed to feed the Smith's Cove flood tunnel. The
treasure hunters agree that they ought to uncover more of the structure so that
they might better understand its nature. Thanks for watching! If you enjoyed this
video and would like to see more like it in the future, please subscribe to this
channel, which you can do by clicking the "Subscribe" button below.