CHIMNEY ROCK GOLD

I was back in one of the rocking chairs at Applewood, reading a book and sipping some lemonade, when Clyde Hadfield invited himself to join me on the porch. Clyde has a place over near Bat Cave. From what I understand, it’s pretty much a tarpaper and hewn log cabin he built himself. Fortunately, there is no lady of the house—he’s a seventy-year-old bachelor who ekes out a meager living prospecting for artifacts: pioneer tools left to rot, Civil War relics from retreating soldiers, and, of course, Indian artifacts. He had stopped by the Manor to see if they wanted to buy any of his findings for their little gift shop.

I asked him how the souvenir hunting was going. Clyde poured himself a glass of lemonade from the pitcher the kitchen had made for me and settled into another rocker.

“Well, sir,” he said. “It ain’t going that well anymore. Most of the stuff around Bat Cave and Chimney Rock Village seems to have been pretty well found already.”

So, I said, “I guess you’ll just have to start working another area.”

“No sir, Mr. Collins, I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Well, it’s like this—my artifact hunting is just a sideline. I have really been looking for buried treasure—gold buried somewhere up there around Chimney Rock. Been looking for it for more than forty years. And I’m afraid one of them Asheville tourists climbing that dang rock and hiking up Round Top Mountain will stumble on it before I do.”

Clyde’s explanation sounded farfetched, but I went ahead and asked how buried gold found its way to such a popular sightseeing spot.

“It’s like this, Mr. Collins. A gang of about six Englishmen owned a mine further up north. They were carrying a large load of gold to the coast when they were ambushed by Indians up around Hickory Nut Gap. They kept running and eventually found a cave. They were outnumbered, so they tried to build a stone wall at the mouth of the cave. It didn’t save them; the Indians were too strong and killed all of them except for one, who hid himself and managed to escape during the night.

“That Englishman eventually reached the coast, got himself on a ship, and returned to England. According to the story, he was going to organize a party to return to the mountains and recover the gold hidden away inside the cave. Before he could leave England, the man lost his eyesight and had to dictate a map to the gold’s hiding place. For whatever reason, the treasure hunters who came back from England were unsuccessful in locating the cave.

“There was also Collett Leventhorpe, who got word about the gold from his family in England. He became a Confederate General in the war, but before that, in 1843, he spent two months using fifty of his slaves to search for it. Like the others, he went away empty-handed.”

The old prospector got quiet, leaned back in his rocking chair, and took a sip of his lemonade. Finally, I said, “Look here Clyde, as you know, I’m a writer, and I’ve written and read some real whoppers, but your gold story is a little hard to believe.”

Clyde leaned forward and looked squarely at me. “You know, I’m kind of happy you’re not sold on my story. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve told another living soul about that hidden treasure. I guess you just asked in a moment of weakness, and it all came flowing out. I would just as soon you keep this to yourself. I got this feeling that this is going to be my year. Something tells me, I’m finally going to find that cave. Well, Mr. Collins, I think it’s best I head home.”

We shook hands, and Clyde left me. I continued to think about his story and what he said at the end about being happy that I didn’t necessarily believe it. So, I got out my iPhone and entered “Chimney Rock lost treasure” into Google. There it was, bigger than life:

“In his 1941 book, Western North Carolina Sketches, Clarence Griffin retells the tale of a lost fortune near Chimney Rock, specifically on Round Top Mountain.”