3 The Money Pit

In the year 1795,a teenager named Dan McGinnis paddled his canoe to Oak Island.At that time no one lived on the small island off the coast of Nova Scotia. So it was a fine spot for a young boy to hunt. But McGinnis did not do much hunting that day. Instead, he found something that has puzzled the people of Canada ever since.

This photograph of the Money Pit was taken in 1955 during one of the many unsuccessful attempts to reach the bottom.

While resting under a tree, McGinnis saw a round depression in the ground.He also spotted a notch in one of the tree's branches.It looked as if the branch had been used as part of a pulley.McGinnis's mind began to race.He had heard tales of pirates in the region.Had pirates buried treasure under this tree?

The next day McGinnis returned to the island with two friends. They began to dig. The boys dug only a few feet when they hit something hard. It was a layer of flagstones. There was something buried here!

The boys dug faster and faster. At 10 feet they ran into a layer of wooden planks. They hoped that there was treasure buried under the planks, but there wasn't. There was just more dirt. Still, they figured someone had put the planks there for a reason. There had to be treasure somewhere in the pit. They just had to dig deeper.

Day after day the boys returned to the deserted island. At 20 feet, they hit another layer of planks. Excitedly, they lifted them up. But again, all they found was more dirt. They resumed digging.

At 30 feet they hit a third layer of wooden planks. Again, there was nothing underneath but more dirt. By this time winter was coming. The boys couldn't dig any more. But they vowed to return to the island in the future and uncover the treasure. They were sure something important was buried there. Why else would anyone have built such an elaborate pit?

The boys dug on and off for the next few years without reaching the bottom of the pit.They grew to be adults.Still,they dreamed of finding treasure in what became known as the Money Pit. In 1804 they joined a company formed solely to find the treasure.With better tools, they could now dig deeper.

But even with the new tools, it was the same story all over again. Every 10 feet, the workers hit a layer of oak planks. Under every layer of planks there was more dirt.They did get a few thrills,however.At 40 feet they found a layer of charcoal on top of the planks.At 50 feet there was a layer of putty like the kind used to seal ships. Ten more feet, and they dug up coconut fibers. At last, at 90 feet, they found a stone marked with strange writing.

They began to get excited when they found the stone. This had to be it! The next day the workers returned, brimming with hope. But one look down into the Money Pit deflated all their dreams. The pit had flooded overnight. It was filled with water all the way up to the 33-foot level. No amount of bailing with buckets or pumping could empty the pit.

As it turned out, this was a booby trap. Whoever built the Money Pit wanted to keep outsiders away. So a tunnel had been created that led from the pit to the ocean. The digging had opened that tunnel. That meant that water flowed freely from the ocean into the pit.

McGinnis and his friends were frustrated. But they weren't ready to give up yet. If they couldn't dig any further into the Money Pit, they reasoned, then they would dig a second pit right next to it. When they were deep enough, they would cut over to the Money Pit and grab the treasure.

The workers dug a 110-foot shaft. But when they started to cut over, water rushed into the new shaft as well. They had to scramble to escape with their lives. Soon the second shaft had just as much water in it as the Money Pit. All McGinnis and the others had to show for their work was two holes filled with water.

For years after that, the Money Pit lay untouched. But in 1849 a new group came to the island. Calling themselves the Truro Company, they vowed to solve the mystery. They brought in the most up-to-date mining equipment they could find. Then they drilled down and collected samples of whatever lay at the bottom of the pit. They came up with pieces of oak,spruce, and metal. These clues suggested the drill had hit chests filled with coins. They also found three small gold links from a chain. But there was no way to get at the treasure. No matter what they did, water always filled the pit.

Over the years other people have tried their luck. Some have built more shafts. (In fact, people have built so many shafts that no one now knows which one is the original Money Pit.)They have built dams to try to stop the flooding. They have tried better pumps. But nothing has worked. No one has ever found any coins or gold.

Millions of dollars have been spent trying to find the treasure. There have been human costs as well. Treasure hunters have been killed in the Money Pit. One man died when a water boiler blew up. Another fell to his death while being pulled up from the bottom of the pit. In 1965, a father, his son, and two friends drowned in the pit.

The Money Pit has remained a mystery for over 200 years. To this day, no one knows if there is treasure buried there, or why such an elaborate pit was built in the first place. But there is another mystery, as well: Who built the pit? Dan McGinnis thought the builders were pirates. But that is not likely. Whoever built the pit had to be an engineer with a team of skilled miners.No known pirate had the skill or support to construct such a pit.

Rupert Furneaux, author of The Money Pit Mystery, may have a better answer. He thinks gold was buried on Oak Island during the American Revolution. The British governor of New York had the gold to pay all of the British forces in America. In 1778 it looked like the Americans might capture New York City. So perhaps the governor sent the money to Nova Scotia to be buried. The British army would have had the right skills to build the pit.

There is a problem with this theory, however. There is no record that the British lost a huge sum of money during that time. Furneaux thinks he can explain that too. He believes the British dug up the money themselves soon after hiding it. He thinks the pit is just that—a pit.

Maybe Furneaux is right. Maybe there is nothing in the Money Pit but water and broken dreams. On the other hand, no one has explained how the British could have gotten the treasure out of the pit. And no one has explained why bits of gold, metal, and wood would still be in the bottom of the pit. So maybe there are chests of gold down there. Maybe they are just waiting for someone to pull them out. Could that someone be you?