Hey, folks, my name’s Frank Gordon. My buddy, Dave Jacobs told me I should write this story up and post in on here. I’ve read some stuff he’s posted. Difference is, his is something he cooked up while sitting back with a glass of Mr. Daniel’s Gentleman Jack Tennessee whiskey. (That is some good stuff. Dave has shared several with me.) Anyway, I’m a neighbor of Dave’s here in Peachtree Corners, GA. A few months ago, we had this little storm blow through. Luckily old Irma was not a bad as Harvey. We just got a bunch of wind and rain. One thing the old gal did here was blow down some trees in those woods Dave and Buddy used to walk through. I say used to cause ole Buddy developed cancer and Dave had to have him put down. Damn shame, he was a great companion but Dave was not about to let him suffer with no cure. Anyway, another neighbor said it must have been a wind shear as it only affected an area about 200 feet in diameter. That wind blew over one of the biggest oak trees in the woods. The thing was a good six feet thick at the base and had to be 80 feet tall. Blew it over, roots and all. Heck, the roots spread a good 15 to 20 feet and left a hole in the ground damn near ten feet deep. It blocked half the road going down into the neighborhood. Several of the guys who lived down past it got out with their chain saws and cleared most of the road.

A couple of days later, the county sent out a work crew to finish cleaning it up. Seems the county was pressing all their employees into storm clean up. Matter of fact, one of the guys was a deputy sheriff. While they were working on the mess, the deputy lost his badge in there. They looked around for an hour or so cause you really don’t want to leave a real badge laying around. After the work crew left, the neighbors who had been working on it spent another hour or two looking for that badge without success. Then it was too dark to see anything. The next day, I went down there with my metal detector to see if I’d have any luck. Well, I found a bunch of stuff, all junk, but no badge. As it was, after a while I got bored with digging up old cans and decided I’d had enough.

A couple of months later, with nothing to do, I figured I’d take another pass through the woods. Still didn’t find anything of value. Then I looked over at the tree. The county sent a tree guy in who cut it into sections so it would lay on the ground and rot away faster. The base was still standing there, but there was a cross section of the trunk exposed. With nothing better to do, I thought I’d count the rings to see just how old this tree was. Best I could tell, that ole giant of an oak tree was around 100years old. The rings told a real story. Some were narrow, some were wide and there was a black ring in places about the 25th ring. That black ring seemed to indicate the tree had been exposed to fire sometime. May have been wild fire or may have been someone trying to clear an area by burning it. Those narrow rings told of hard weather for trees, perhaps to dry or cold for good growth. The wider rings indicated good growing periods. If there were a bunch of narrow rings together, it would indicate a period of slow growth, maybe some faster growing trees, like pine, had crowded the oak, starving it of the sunlight it needed.

After studying the rings a while, I went to the other side to look at the roots. Like I said, the tree was blown over, roots and all. The roots spread out something like 20 feet and originally had a thick clump of dirt attached to it. Since it blew over, time and weather had washed a couple of feet off of it. As I stood back taking the sight it, I saw something wrong. Ya know the old saying nature abhors a vacuum? Well she ain’t too crazy about straight lines either. Except maybe for some types of rock. So what caused those three straight lines that appeared to come together to form a point? They were a little too high for me to reach, so I turned my metal detector back on and raised the head up and ran it over the area. All the noise it made told me there was something kinda big and metal up there. As excited as I was, I had more brains than to try to use those roots to pull myself up high enough to reach whatever it may be. Figgured I was a little too old for that foolishness, but my son and grandson weren’t. So I called Junior and asked him to come over and bring Trey with him. (That would be my son Frank Jr. and his son Frank the third. We all kinda figured he would rather be called Trey than Turd like some kids tried.) When they got there, we took a ladder and a few garden tools with us to dig it loose. With Trey holding the ladder, Jr climbed up to take a look. After taking a close inspection, Jr said it looked like some kind of metal box with a larger brass frame around it. So, being careful not to damage anything he started trying to free the box from its root and dirt prison. After some digging with a trowel and cutting some roots with a pair of large pruning shears, Jr finally freed the box and handed it down to Trey. After handing the box to me, Trey turned back and steadied the ladder while Jr climbed down. With Jr carrying the box, Trey the ladder and me the tools we went back to my garage and Frank placed the box on my work bench.

Turning on the overhead lights, we started a careful inspection of our “box”. The brass frame was a couple of inches larger in all directions than the metal box, except where it was riveted to the box’s flange. The box was kinda heavy and the metal sorta soft and easily bent. We also noticed what looked like the remains of rotted wood in the corner of the frame. From what we could tell, this was a fancy miniature lead lined wooden casket. At this point Jr decided to take Trey home and let me do some research.

A google search resulted in pictures of antique wood document boxes that looked like what I had. The boxes with brass frames and lead linings identified as starting in England in the early 1800s. Interesting, so, I knew what I had, but the question was what to do with it. Further investigation showed these boxes were not that rare and the value was based on condition. In some cases, they could have some value based on having contained something of importance or having belonged to someone of importance. Based on condition, its value was that of junk metal. So, any other value would depend on the contents.

With this in mind I started looking to see how to open the box. The lock had disappeared along with the wood part of the box. So, I started looking at the seam. It had either been soldered shut or corroded while it was buried. Rather than just destroying the thing by cutting it into pieces, I tried something else. I fitted a blade from a craft knife into a pretty powerful soldering knife and turned it on. Yep, really hot in less than a minute. So, I slid the knife into the seam and “cut” the seam open for about two or three inches. No good. The lead melted and flowed back into a seal as soon as it cooled. I experimented with some of the stuff I had handy. As expected, solder stuck to steel, iron and copper. But not to the piece of aluminum and certainly not to the aluminum where I had smeared a bit of grease. With those results, I took a piece of thin aluminum flashing and greased both sides along the edge. Working carefully, I moved the hot blade along the seam while sliding the aluminum right behind it. Like a knife through hot butter! With those results, I quickly had all four sides separated and ready to open.

I stopped at that point and thought for a minute. Not knowing what may be in the box, I put on gloves, a face shield and hazmat grade breathing filter. Then, I carefully opened the box. In the box was a package which appeared wrapped in leather. The leather was not stitched, but tied with leather thong. Just like you’d wrap a present, but in leather. After taking another good look, I carefully picked up the package and laid it on the work bench. I cut the leather “string” holding the wrapping together and started unwrapping the leather. Although very old, it was still pliable. Under the leather was a layer of canvas or some other course fabric. So, I went through the unwrapping again. With the leather and cloth out of the way, I saw several books. Actually I saw six books that turned out to be journals of John Plesant, dating from the early to mid-1800’s. The journals were in remarkable shape, considering their age and how they were stored.

I changed to a fresh, clean pair of exam gloves and opened the oldest book. The story they told was absolutely remarkable. Some historian is gonna go hog wild over these journals. I carried the books into the den and settled into my Laz-a-Boy with a glass of port. For the next four hours or so, I read through the journals, from beginning to end. I’m not going to disclose everything here, just tell you a little about the end and what it led to. Basically, Plesant, guided by a slave with the sight, realized The War of Northern Aggression was not going to end well for the South. Armed with details the slave, Martha, disclosed, he knew it was going to be an absolute disaster and took steps to protect things the best he could. His aim was not just protect his assets but his people as well. Unlike most of his neighbors, he considered his slaves a family and treated them as such. Yes, the slaves worked on his plantation, but his kids worked right alongside them. But, I’ll let someone else write the history of the Le Sant family and how they became known as Plesant, their family home Plesant Hill (now part of Johns Creek Georgia).

The journals disclosed something more important to us everyday people ... Hidden Treasure. Pleasnt’s journal detailed how and where he hid it. It wasn’t just his family’s wealth. As he was deciding the end was near, there was a skirmish not far from Plesant Hill that convinced him. Five Blue Bellies attacked a force of 12 Jonny Rebs. The 12 Rebs were on their last legs, almost out of shot and powder. The deer three days ago was all they had eaten in the last week. Yes, the Yankees had superior arms and supplies, but the Rebs stood and fought. As they say, it ain’t the size of the dog in the fight, but the fight in the dog that matters. The Yankees were the big dog, but the Rebs had the fight in them. In the end, it was for naught. One Yankee lived, for two days that is. Gut shot, he had crawled into the bushes and drug the Reb’s treasure with him. Those 12 Rebs were what was left of a 30 man detachment moving Confederate gold away from Yankee troops. Some of Plesant’s slaves found the dead yankee and reported him to Plesant. Plesant hid the Confederate gold along with his family’s wealth. And I knew exactly where it was, about 100 yards from where I found the box.

The next day, Saturday, I walked past the woods to the neighbors Paul and Jan. I knocked on the door and when Paul came to the door I told him I had what could be some important news for him. While we sat at the kitchen table and drank a couple cups of coffee, I told him he could be sitting on a small fortune.

“What are you talking about?” Paul asked.

“You know that big slab of stone at the base of the hill out back? I think it is covering the entrance to a cave.” I said.

“What? Why?”

So I told him about finding the box and the journals and what was in the journals.

“So, you’re telling me this guy Plesant hid all of this gold and silver in a cave and covered the entrance to hide it? And this cave just happens to be on my property, maybe even right under our feet?” Paul asked.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” I told him.

“That’s great if it is there and we can get it. No, better than great, it is absolutely fantastic. But what do we do now?” he asked.

“What do you mean we, Paul?” I asked. “It is all yours. It’s on your property.”

“Frank, part of it is yours. I would not have known anything about it if you hadn’t told me.” Paul replied.

“Thanks, Paul, but I know you need it more than I do. You have told me how the 2008 melt down hurt your IRA. Mine is in good shape. Let’s wait and see how much we are talking about.” I told him.

“Why don’t we take a little walk and see what things look like down there?” I suggested.

With that we both headed out the door and down the hill to the suspected cave area. Sure enough, there was a large stone slab leaning a about a 60 degree angle against the rock face of the hill. We looked around the edges and could see some small openings between the rocks, but nothing large enough to get into. However, one hole at the bottom edge looked promising. Perhaps something like a fox had made an entrance into the cave. Did I mention my grandson was into R/C robotics? I told Paul my idea and he was all for it.

One call to Trey was all it took. Soon Trey and JR. were there and Trey was down on his hands and knees shining a flash light into the animal (?) hole.

“OK Grandpop, it’s pretty much what you thought it was. Looks like something dug a way under this slab. Let me grab a couple of things out of the car and I’ll be right back,” said Trey.

Ah the wonders of youth. In a flash, Trey ran up the hill to the car and back down with good size box. From the box, he removed a robot thing with tracks, some miscellaneous hardware and his laptop computer. With the pieces of hardware, he attached a light and a small camera. Then he tied a thin rope to the back of the robot.

“Well here we go. With the light and camera we should be able to see behind the slab. That rope is in case Robie (the Robot) gets stuck. I sure don’t want to lose him, after all I’ve got over $1500 in him,” said Trey.

With that, Trey guided Robie through the gap in the stones. There were gaps in the rocks behind the first stones that formed a tunnel just big enough for Robie. Carefully, Trey guided Robie, sometimes having to back it up and try a new path. With the tracks, Trey was able to spin Robie to the right or left in its own length. Slowly with great skill, Trey guided Robie around various obstacles. We were standing behind Trey looking over his shoulder at the screen of the laptop. Finally, after a nerve wracking 15 or 20 minutes, Robie cleared the debris and entered a large void. At this point, Trey hit several buttons at the same time and a gauge popped up on the screen.

“Robie is about 2.5 feet into the rocks,” Trey said as he read the screen. Trey piloted Robie slowly straight ahead until a wall appeared about a foot ahead. At this point Trey backed the robot up several feet and again hit a combination of keys. The display changed to a view of a wider area and Trey slowly panned the camera around the area. We saw what appeared to be five or six wooden boxes and several barrels.

I asked Trey “Can you tell anything about the size of the boxes or barrels?”

“Gramps, I would guess three of the boxes are about three feet wide and maybe two feet tall. The other three look to be three to four feet by a little less than a foot. The smaller barrels look to be a couple of feet tall and a foot wide. The two larger barrels are maybe three by two feet tall.”