You’ll find documented cases of Loyalist treasure across the colonies, most significantly the $2.5 million in French gold stolen from Bates Tavern in 1779 and James Rankin’s Pennsylvania estate fortune. The 1779 Forfeiture Act and Pennsylvania’s Divestment Act seized over 24 million acres from Loyalists, forcing them to bury valuables before fleeing. Stone markers with cryptic symbols mark suspected sites, though only one guinea has been recovered since 1908. The evidence below reveals why most caches remain undiscovered despite centuries of searching.
Key Takeaways
- Loyalists buried valuables to prevent confiscation under 1777-1779 seizure laws that targeted estates, gold, and property across multiple states.
- The 1779 French gold theft near Salmon Brook involved $2.5 million in coins, allegedly stolen by Tory sympathizers and buried.
- James Rankin’s Pennsylvania treasure remains undiscovered despite extensive searches; his estate sold for over $821,000 but hidden gold was never found.
- Stone markers with symbols and numeric codes found in Loyalist territories likely concealed treasure locations from Patriot authorities.
- Revolutionary-era coins recovered from Connecticut barns confirm oral histories of hidden Loyalist wealth and clandestine transport routes.
The Continental Army’s Lost Washington Dollars in East Granby
How did $2.5 million in French gold coins vanish from under the Continental Army’s guard in a small Connecticut town? In 1779, thirteen wagons carrying Washington Dollars—gold coins minted in France bearing George Washington’s likeness—arrived at Bates Tavern in East Granby.
Despite armed guards stationed in security formation, Tory sympathizers stole the entire shipment overnight. Unlike ancient shipwrecks that conceal treasures beneath ocean depths or hidden cave systems protecting valuables in remote terrain, these thieves chose a deceptively simple hiding spot: the east bank of Salmon Brook’s East Fork.
They buried the chests near the stream, then abandoned the empty wagon in a farmer’s field. The smooth operation and lack of forced entry suggested insider involvement, pointing to a well-planned conspiracy rather than an opportunistic crime.
The Tories returned later but were attacked before they could recover the gold, and Henry Wooster, who escaped the ambush, wrote about the event but never revealed the treasure’s location. You’ll find this theft particularly bold considering the Continental Army’s chronic shortage of hard currency during the Revolutionary War.
James Rankin’s Ferry Owner Fortune in Pennsylvania
While Tory sympathizers operated through stealth and midnight raids in Connecticut, James Rankin’s loyalist activities in Pennsylvania reflected a different scale of ambition—one backed by substantial wealth and strategic river access.
James Rankin’s Pennsylvania operations combined substantial wealth with strategic positioning, elevating loyalist ambitions beyond typical guerrilla tactics.
You’ll find Rankin controlled over 20 properties including ferries and mills across the Susquehanna, with his 377-acre Codorus Creek estate serving as his crown jewel.
When his plot to ferry British troops across the river to capture Congress in York leaked in early 1778, he faced arrest and property confiscation under Pennsylvania’s Loyalist laws.
Before fleeing to England, he allegedly buried his fortune—loyalist gold worth protecting from patriot seizure.
Pennsylvania sold his estate for £35,000 (over $821,000 today), yet these estate secrets died with Rankin in 1802, leaving his cache undiscovered.
An English guinea surfaced in Rankin’s former field during the 1900s, valued at five U.S. dollars and sparking renewed treasure hunting excitement in the area.
York County historians believe the treasure may lie beneath the foundation of the Harley-Davidson plant, which now occupies Rankin’s former estate along Codorus Creek.
Property Confiscation Laws That Drove Loyalists to Hide Wealth
When Continental Congress issued its 1777 resolution recommending confiscation of Loyalist property, it activated a legal mechanism that forced thousands of Tories to choose between surrender and concealment.
New York’s Committees of Sequestration auctioned estates beginning in March 1777, while the 1779 Forfeiture Act seized both real and movable assets—including Loyalist art—from those supporting Britain.
South Carolina’s post-1780 Jacksonborough Assembly enacted even harsher measures, allowing banishment and total property confiscation for active Loyalists.
North Carolina’s confiscation protocols generated approximately £600,000 through estate sales between 1786-1787.
These state-level actions, which all thirteen colonies implemented despite the Treaty of Paris recommending restitution, created powerful incentives for Loyalists to bury valuables rather than lose everything to Patriot redistribution schemes that criminalized political dissent through economic punishment. South Carolina’s Amercement Acts categorized loyalists into six culpability levels, imposing penalties from fines to complete property seizure based on their degree of British support. Legal challenges to these confiscations emerged in New York courts, where attorneys like Alexander Hamilton argued that property acquired after forfeiture judgments should remain protected from seizure.
Mysterious Stone Markers With Undeciphered Directional Codes
Throughout former Loyalist territories, researchers have documented carved stone markers bearing angular symbols, numeric sequences, and compass-like engravings that don’t match standard colonial surveying notation. These stone markings suggest a deliberate system for recording cache locations, yet no exhaustive decryption key has surfaced in historical archives.
You’ll find symbolic carvings featuring unusual directional indicators—arrows intersecting at non-cardinal angles, numerical codes without apparent mathematical logic, and geometric patterns that resist interpretation through conventional cryptographic analysis. The Continental Congress’s Committee of Secret Correspondence developed codes and ciphers for military communications, demonstrating that sophisticated encryption methods were well-established during this period.
Property confiscation pressures motivated Loyalists to develop covert location systems, but their effectiveness depended entirely on recipients possessing the decryption method. Some markers may have employed dictionary code methods, where carved numbers referenced specific pages and word positions in commonly available spelling books, allowing correspondents to conceal location instructions without arousing suspicion.
Modern historians analyzing these markers face a fundamental challenge: without contextual documentation or survivor testimony, distinguishing intentional treasure indicators from ordinary boundary stones remains speculative. The codes died with their creators.
The Thompson Barn Discovery of Revolutionary War Coins
Unlike the cryptic stone markers that took their secrets to the grave, one Connecticut cache revealed itself through simple home maintenance. When John Heck cleaned his East Thompson barn near Old Turnpike Road, he uncovered gold coins beneath the floorboards—barn secrets that validated decades of whispered gold legends.
These weren’t ordinary coins. They were French-minted Washington Dollars, part of a $2.5 million loan to the Continental Congress. The discovery connects to multiple theft narratives: Loyalists allegedly intercepted soldier pay convoys, buried the gold, then died before recovery. The Old Turnpike Road itself traced routes that connected early towns, facilitating both legitimate trade and clandestine movements during the Revolutionary era.
Why this matters to you:
- British coastal blockades forced inland transport on vulnerable roads
- Tories planned funding enemy forces with stolen American resources
- Two shipments remain unrecovered
- Recent Salmon Brook findings confirm the legend’s authenticity
- Your freedom was nearly purchased back by traitors
The Thompson case mirrors these historical mysteries, as hundreds of gold coins from his 1988 shipwreck discovery remain missing despite years of legal proceedings.
William Penn Family’s Massive Land Seizure During the Revolution
You’ll find that Pennsylvania’s revolutionary government seized approximately 20 million acres from the Penn family through the 1776 Divestment Act, representing one of the largest property confiscations in American history.
The Commonwealth compensated the family at roughly one-tenth the land’s actual value—₤130,000 for holdings worth over ₤1 million—under confiscation laws that targeted loyalist proprietors.
This seizure eliminated the Penn family’s feudal-style land ownership while establishing the legal precedent that revolutionary authorities could appropriate Tory assets with minimal reimbursement.
Pennsylvania’s 20 Million Acre Seizure
In 1778, Pennsylvania’s revolutionary government executed one of the war’s most massive property seizures by assuming control over more than 20 million acres of Penn family proprietary lands. This confiscation fundamentally transformed land ownership across the state, stripping the founding family of their colonial-era holdings.
While authorities offered £130,000 in compensation, this represented a fraction of the property’s actual value. The seizure coincided with broader loyalist estate confiscations, as Pennsylvania’s Assembly wielded acts of attainder to criminalize dissent and redistribute wealth.
The Revolutionary government’s actions reveal:
- Asset concealment became desperate necessity for families facing total ruin
- Twenty million acres transferred through legislative decree, not judicial process
- Penn family lost generational wealth in single legislative session
- Compensation covered mere fraction of seized property values
- State prioritized war funding over property rights protections
Compensation at One-Tenth Value
When Pennsylvania confiscated the Penn family’s proprietary rights in 1778, the £130,000 compensation represented roughly one-tenth of the estate’s actual value—a devastating financial blow masked as reasonable settlement.
John and Richard Penn negotiated this economic reparations package after swearing allegiance to the American cause, yet the Commonwealth’s payment severely undervalued 45,000 square miles of sovereign territory originally granted by King Charles II.
The family retained only privately-held parcels while losing proprietorship worth over £1 million.
England later provided £4,000 annually, acknowledging the confiscation’s severity.
Legal disputes over fair valuation proved futile against revolutionary authority.
You’ll recognize this pattern: governments seizing private property while offering token compensation, establishing precedent for state power trumping individual ownership rights.
The Penn case demonstrates how political upheaval enables systematic wealth transfer.
Revolutionary Property Confiscation Laws
Revolutionary fervor transformed the Penn family’s proprietary empire into twenty-four million acres of state-controlled territory through Pennsylvania’s 1779 Divestment Act—the largest single property confiscation in American history. You’ll find this seizure wasn’t about estate taxes or ordinary land grants—it stripped John Penn of governorship and proprietorship simultaneously.
The Supreme Executive Council claimed authority over territories William Penn received from King Charles II in 1681, leaving the family just five million acres.
Revolutionary authorities justified confiscation through several mechanisms:
- Loyalist targeting enabled seizure without due process protections
- Walking Purchase disputes from 1737 provided procedural fairness pretexts
- Exile during 1776-1783 prevented Penn family legal challenges
- Two-decade settlement negotiations revealed government’s arbitrary power
- Speculator chaos made property rights meaningless across Pennsylvania
John Penn’s 1788 departure symbolized property rights’ collapse under revolutionary authority.
North Carolina Militia Seizures and Forced Tory Displacement
Following the Patriot victory at Moores Creek Bridge in February 1776, North Carolina’s legislature moved to systematically dismantle Loyalist power through property seizure.
By 1777, new laws authorized confiscating Tory farms across eight counties, targeting anyone refusing loyalty oaths.
North Carolina’s 1777 confiscation laws seized Loyalist properties across eight counties, punishing those who rejected revolutionary loyalty oaths.
You’ll find Patriot militia conducted organized raids throughout the war, seizing livestock, tools, and valuables while forcing Loyalist exile from their homelands.
The property rebellions intensified after David Fanning’s September 1781 Hillsborough raid, when he captured Governor Thomas Burke and nearly 200 Whigs.
Retaliatory confiscations accelerated as Patriots systematically stripped remaining Tory holdings.
Scottish Highlanders scattered after military defeats, with approximately 500 dispersed from Cross Hill alone.
Post-war court records reveal many Loyalists had permanently abandoned their properties, creating legal disputes that extended years beyond the conflict’s conclusion.
The Single English Guinea That Sparked a Treasure Rush
In the early 1900s, a single English guinea discovered in Rankin’s Field triggered widespread excavation efforts by treasure hunters convinced that Loyalist Tories had buried substantial wealth before their forced displacement.
The coin’s authenticity as genuine currency from the Revolutionary War era—likely worth 21 shillings at the time of burial—validated local oral histories about hidden Tory valuables and transformed the site into a focal point for recovery attempts.
Despite numerous excavations spanning several years, you’ll find no documented evidence of successful recoveries beyond that initial guinea, suggesting either the treasure never existed in the quantities imagined or remains concealed beneath Rankin’s Field.
Discovery in Rankin’s Field
During the early 1900s, a laborer’s plow blade struck something metallic in a field west of the railroad tracks at Loucks Mill, revealing a small glinting disc that would reignite a Revolutionary War mystery.
The coin landed in a jeweler’s hands, who identified it as an authentic English guinea—worth five dollars but priceless in historical significance. This wasn’t ancient pottery from some hidden cave; this was tangible evidence of James Rankin’s alleged treasure hoard.
Evidence that freedom’s price wasn’t just paid in blood:
- A British gold coin buried by a man who chose king over country
- 377 acres confiscated and sold to fund your Revolution
- One traitor’s fortune becoming the people’s treasury
- A single guinea suggesting caches still waiting beneath modern foundations
- Physical proof that loyalist wealth funded American independence
Early 1900s Treasure Rush
The single guinea transformed idle curiosity into obsession across Springettsbury Township. You’d witness neighbors abandoning their plows to dig systematically through Rankin’s former holdings, convinced the Loyalist Tory had buried a Revolutionary War fortune. This wasn’t speculation—the jeweler’s five-dollar valuation proved genuine wealth lay underground.
The 1908 York Daily documented how one laborer’s discovery triggered systematic searches rivaling coastal shipwrecks’ salvage operations. You’d recognize patterns connecting this inland hunt to 1850s Guinea Gap, where fifty gold guineas emerged near a skeleton with pigtail.
These weren’t random medieval trade remnants but deliberate 17th-century hoards. Rankin’s documented Loyalist status gave treasure hunters concrete historical justification, transforming agricultural fields into archaeological sites where financial independence seemed one spade-thrust away.
No Successful Recoveries Reported
Despite feverish excavations across Springettsbury Township’s farmland, treasure hunters never replicated the laborer’s lucky strike.
By 1908, searchers had combed Rankin’s former estate searching for treasure chests and hidden compartments, yet documented evidence reveals zero successful recoveries.
The single guinea remained the sole tangible proof—everything else dissolved into speculation and disappointment.
The harsh reality facing fortune seekers:
- Your dreams of discovering Rankin’s hoard face the same odds that defeated every treasure hunter since 1900
- That glinting guinea you’ll never find represented one month’s Revolutionary War soldier pay
- Modern historian Stephen H. Smith confirms the fortune remains undiscovered despite relentless efforts
- Pennsylvania’s confiscation laws drove Rankin’s burial, but the ground refuses to surrender its secrets
- Each failed excavation adds another layer to York County’s most persistent unsolved mystery
Missing Documentation and Historical Verification Problems
How can historians verify buried treasure claims when the very documents needed to prove them vanished alongside the valuables themselves?
The evidence historians need to confirm treasure stories disappeared with the treasure itself, leaving only unverifiable claims.
You’ll find that Sir John Johnson’s notes stand alone without corroborating evidence, while Samuel Richards’s diary—essential to Edward Jones’s capture—remains missing entirely.
The Connecticut Tory theft relies on a single letter and a century-later book, transforming documented history into historical folklore.
The 1908 Rankin guinea discovery sparked treasure hunts but produced nothing verifiable.
Modern excavation faces insurmountable obstacles: undocumented burial sites, private property restrictions, and absent period maps.
Even the 2013 Livingston manuscript discovery proves that Revolutionary War papers still hide in attics, suggesting vital verification documents may never surface.
Without probate records, surveys, or contemporary accounts, you’re left chasing shadows through three centuries of silence.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Tools and Methods Do Modern Treasure Hunters Use to Locate Buried Valuables?
You’ll practically see through earth itself using metal detectors with multi-frequency technology and ground penetrating radar reaching 82 feet deep. Add pinpointers, satellite imaging, and underwater ROVs—you’re wielding unprecedented detection power that’d make historical treasure hunters weep with envy.
How Did Loyalists Typically Mark or Remember Their Treasure Burial Locations?
Loyalists didn’t leave physical memorials or hidden markings—they relied on personal memory and verbal transmission to trusted family members. You’ll find no documented treasure maps survived, as they feared revolutionary authorities discovering their concealed wealth during exile.
What Legal Rights Do Property Owners Have if Revolutionary War Treasure Is Found?
You’ll likely claim ownership of Revolutionary War treasure found on your land—most states recognize loyalist property rights favoring landowners over finders. However, treasure ownership laws vary considerably by state, and historical artifacts may require government reporting before possession.
Were Any Loyalists Able to Return and Successfully Recover Their Buried Wealth?
Yes, James Rankin’s son reportedly returned post-war to recover hidden caches from their estate, subsequently living lavishly before returning to England. However, later coin discoveries suggest he didn’t retrieve all looted artifacts, leaving treasure potentially unrecovered.
How Much Would These Buried Revolutionary War Treasures Be Worth Today?
Revolutionary War Loyalist hoards would exceed millions today—Rankin’s estimated £5,000 equals $1.2M+ adjusted. However, you’d need treasure encryption knowledge and hidden compartment techniques to locate valuables concealed using 18th-century methods, making recovery extraordinarily challenging.
References
- https://savagewatch.com/2021/07/29/buried-treasure-or-mythical-folklore/
- https://digupdeadrelatives.com/2024/01/27/schemes-to-quell-the-revolution-buried-treasure-horses-in-canoes-and-more/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OO8PX2_3po
- https://unchartedlancaster.com/2021/01/09/does-a-traitors-treasure-lie-hidden-in-springettsbury-township/
- https://blog.fold3.com/loyalists-during-the-revolutionary-war/
- https://www.palmettobluff.com/discover/stories/loyalties-divided/
- https://www.nps.gov/long/learn/kidsyouth/tory-history-hunt.htm
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ageVNKk7zo0
- https://www.treasurenet.com/threads/gold-washington-dollar-cache-clue-inquiry.31246/
- https://www.govmint.com/learn/post/lost-buried-treasure-hoards
