by Lee Lamb
Dad’s trips to Ontario also began to pay off at that time, with a steady trickle of investment money from Fred’s business associates and some of Dad’s friends and relatives. Most of those investments were small, but every dollar helped, and by mid-March, when the weather broke, Bobby and Dad were able to start drilling again.
Spring brought with it another CBC crew making an Oak Island television documentary. This time is was for the program 20/20.
In April, Dad and Bobby started up the big pump at the Money Pit. The Truro Company’s 75-foot shaft (Shaft #4) and 35-foot shaft (Shaft #5) could still be seen on the island (see Figure 1, page 15). As Dad and Bobby pumped the Money Pit, they saw the water level drop in the two old Truro shafts. This verified there was a connection between them and the Money Pit.
Once the Money Pit and the two Truro shafts had been emptied, Dad and Bob were able to rig ladders and climb inside. At the bottom of Shaft #4 they found a tunnel that ran between the two shafts. The underground ladders and cribbing were still in good condition, even after all those years.
In their own drill holes on the beach they had expected that pumping the Money Pit would produce the sound of water rushing, or they would see a rise and fall of the water level, but nothing of the sort happened. That was a disappointment.
On a job such as this, equipment repairs are a constant requirement. That summer they split their time three ways: digging on the beach, repairing equipment, and preparing for work down in the Money Pit.
They bought an old Austin auto for $45.00 and rigged it to provide power for the hoist in the Money Pit, to run a grinder, and to act as a battery charger that could charge three batteries at once.
High tides and storms washed away their work at the beach time and time again.
Behind Bobby is the badly damaged wharf. This destruction happened whenever a fierce storm hit the beach.
In a letter to Fred Sparham, Dad mentioned the need to replace the deck of the boat: “The mahogany veneer has all peeled and the remaining shreds get in our eyes every time we use it. Also our groceries get wet as the water goes through the deck now just as if it wasn’t there.”
During their time on the island, high tides, storms, and even hurricanes played havoc with their work and equipment. Several times, Hedden’s Wharf was reduced to its stone bed, not a stick of wood remaining.
Mildred was happy to get an outdoor washing machine run by a gasoline engine.
That summer, American investor Karl Graeser came to the island with his wife. Karl had visited the island alone the previous summer. Now, as he and his wife enjoyed a lengthy tour of the ongoing work, Karl clearly was impressed with the progress. That evening, the Graesers took my parents out to dinner at the Sword and Anchor in Chester, where Karl bombarded Dad with questions about the current work and earlier searchers’ discoveries. Then, for hours, he and Dad enthusiastically explored a variety of theories regarding what it could all mean. In the end, Karl confided that he might be ready to invest in the Restall dig. A few weeks later, he did just that. His substantial investment went a long way toward satisfying the pump’s voracious appetite for gasoline.
While the men worked, Rick occupied himself in his usual ways, now accompanied by a fully grown and enthusiastic Carney. And my mother gained a modern convenience — a washing machine that was hooked up to a gasoline engine. Even in the dead of winter, it saw full use.
My family and I decided to return to Oak Island that summer for an indefinite stay. We truly believed in Dad’s search for the treasure, and he needed the help, so Doug and I locked up his business back in Hamilton and headed for Oak Island with the kids.
But that summer was not like the one before. It rained almost every day and was bitterly cold. We almost froze in the tent-trailer.
And the weather didn’t break; it stayed wretched. A severe winter was being forecast, as well, so at the end of September, Dad announced that a new cabin must be built. He and my mother would move into it. The boys would continue to sleep in their beach shack and join Mom and Dad for meals and in the evening hours. Doug and I and our three kids would move into the first shack, the converted tool shed. That tiny building proved to be a cozy, perfect home for us.
That fall, as the men were bringing the boat and trailer ashore with the power winch, an eye on the bow of the boat broke free and imbedded itself in Doug’s shin. The impact knocked him off his feet and the cut was deep. At daybreak, Dad and Bobby took Doug to the closest hospital, were he was x-rayed, treated, and sent home. Fortunately, there were no fractures. The wound become infected, however, and for a while Doug could only stand for short periods of time. So he propped himself up and took responsibility for constructing the miles (it seemed) of underground air ducts from plywood. After a couple of weeks, he was back in full form.
The Money Pit and connecting tunnels had to be cleared before underground work could commence.
Picture the work area. You descend in Hedden’s Shaft. At a depth of 115 feet you can leave the shaft and walk through Professor Hamilton’s curving tunnel. Some distance away this tunnel intersects an old Halifax Company tunnel that takes you farther away from the Hedden Shaft.
To get ready for new work, Dad, Doug, and Bobby had to remove abandoned cribbing, mud, and other debris from the shaft and tunnels. Weakened spots in the cribbing had to be shored up and ladders fastened to the walls of the shaft. Tracks had to be attached, as well, so that a power vice could be installed for underground drilling. Safety equipment (horn, lights, etc.) also had to be set up, each running on its own battery. Then, along the entire length of each of the tunnels, the newly constructed air ducts needed to be put into place.
Progress was slow. It was so cold that December that ice formed on the ladders, and each day the men had to spend time chipping it off. As well, the engine for the pump cut out frequently, requiring much time be spent rigging ways to bypass the problems.
A power vice is installed underground in Hedden’s Shaft to begin drilling out from the tunnels at various angles.
Looking down Hedden’s Shaft (Money Pit). Hoist track can be seen on the side. The water in the shaft is at sea level.
On December 14, Karl Graeser came to the island to tour the tunnels with Dad. They went down Hedden’s Shaft, along the Hamilton tunnel, and down the Halifax tunnel for about 50 feet toward the cherry tree, which grew above them on the surface. Here they found fresh water seeping in. This would later prove to be a danger spot.
For days, my father, brother, and husband were totally occupied with preparing to work down in the Money Pit. They rigged gas tanks for the pump’s engine, brought drums of gasoline up to the pit, and started the pump.
On December 21, they had to shut off the pump because it was too cold for the oil to run. Without oil as lubrication, the pump would burn up. Fortunately, the next day was warmer, and they were able restart it.
Karl Graeser and Bob Restall tour the underground work at the Money Pit.
Brook and Barry watch as 450 gallons per minute of sea water is pumped from the Money Pit.
Christmas Day saw everyone take a break from the work. The next day the pump was started up again, but things did not go smoothly at all. On December 27, Bobby wrote in his journal, “Got things ready to put air ducts to tunnel mouth. Chopped lots of ice off walls and platforms between 20 [and] 35 foot levels. Water going down very slowly. Put one duct in tunnel. Tried, without much luck to fix leak of 12th joint (in pump) in evening. Ice chunks falling down quite often.”
Finally, their preparatory work was complete. In the margin of Bobby’s journal on December 28, he wrote: “Start Treasure Hunting.”
A window was cut in the side of the tunnel and the men prepared to drill out sideways in search of the old Truro Shaft #6, where it was thought the treasure had fallen through the spruce platforms. The journal entries for the days that followed list the holes drilled and what they found (blue clay, yellow clay, planks, etc.).
On January 1, they were s
till drilling, but the pump couldn’t keep ahead of the water. They tried a temporary repair, but then the pump quit totally. They managed to fix it and were able to continue work, but for two days both the pump and the drill would cut out from time to time.
On January 3, they received a letter from Mr. Chappell stating that since there had been no treasure recovery, there would be no new contract.
Dad, Bobby, and Doug continued to work through January 4, but on the 5th the pump could not work fast enough to keep the water out of the pit. They went ashore for flashbulbs and to phone Tobias to advise him of Chappell’s decision. By the time they returned, sufficient water had been pumped out of the pit, so they put their drill up in a new location and went for dinner. But when they returned, the water level was too high again. They splashed their way through the tunnels and took photographs every few feet — some 15 photos in all. Then they shut down the pump.
The next day Doug and I started loading up our Ambassador station wagon for the long ride home. We had been on the island for just over five months. We were sad to leave, but it looked to us as if the search for treasure on Oak Island could go on and on indefinitely. It was time for us to go home and pick up our old lives again, and for the treasure-hunting Restalls to face a new year on Oak Island — if they could convince Chappell to extend their contract yet again.
Chapter Fourteen
Time Stands Still
In January of 1963, my father had no contract to work on the island, his money was almost gone, and there were no new investors on the horizon. Again.
Looking back at 1962, the publicity they received had brought a small amount of new money and a stream of people who wanted to take over as the Oak Island treasure hunters.
Chappell had brought a Mrs. Frazer to the island. She used an unorthodox divining method, much like water-witching, to detect metals under the surface. She found indications that copper, gold, and silver lay everywhere underground. Dad’s goodwill evaporated when she insisted that she needed to work at the Money Pit.
It is clear, from a description of Mrs. Frazer in Dad’s letter to Fred Sparham, dated May 20, that Dad did not at believe in the woman’s methods:
Water Witching
“Water witching” and other divining methods have long been used to locate underground resources. It is used with great success to find underground collections of water, thereby indicating a good place to drill a well. A “water witch,” also known as a “dowser,” uses a tree branch where it forks into two smaller branches creating a Y shape. Holding those smaller branches and pointing the thicker branch ahead, the witch walks across the land until the branch suddenly, of its own volition, points to the ground. Water will be found deep underground at that spot. There is no known scientific basis for it, but in skilled hands, the method works. Thin, metal, L-shaped rods are used in place of Ys by some modern water witches.
Chappell brought a woman over who had a secret sort of metal finder. She has been back twice since. Mildred calls her Witch Hazel, and it’s more fun that a barrel of Monkeys. She runs around dangling a piece of plastic hose (clear) with a piece of metal in it that looks like a steel and brass plum bob. She has the whole lot hanging from a chain. She also has a gadget she takes out of a bag that looks like a pair of horns. Then she puts these horns against her forehead and goes around like a Moose. You just can’t believe it at all.”
With Dad’s agreement, Chappell had let another treasure hunter, Johnson, dig on a different part of the island while Dad was at the Money Pit. Dad hoped this would take the edge off Chappell’s desire to try something more. But it didn’t.
That summer, a man from Oklahoma had really aroused Chappell’s interest. This man flew to Nova Scotia in his own plane and visited the island with his pilot/bodyguard, his son, and Mr. Chappell. Through gritted teeth, Dad played gracious host.
Now, in January 1963, Chappell seemed inclined to let this man have a try. But the man’s plan was to dragline the island and put all the dug material through a giant screen to separate earth and treasure. That kind of operation would destroy precious artifacts and ruin the island. There would be no more shafts or tunnels to testify to the long treasure-hunting history of Oak Island; no chance of ever seeing any more “original” work; no chance of ever seeing the treasure as the pirates had left it.
Both Dad and Chappell wanted to save the island, but Chappell was running out of patience. By that time the two were barely speaking, and David Tobias stepped in to try to smooth the troubled waters. In a meeting in mid-January, Dad pleaded his case — the pump’s inability to remove sufficient amounts of water from the Money Pit had kept him from reaching the treasure. Chappell agreed to renew Dad’s contract on the condition that he bring in something better to drive the pump. The new contract would end on June 30.
So a diesel generator that had once been in a Canadian Navy destroyer was purchased. It was much more powerful than the gasoline engine they had used up until then. It took not only the generator, but also a large electrical panel and other equipment to complete the new setup. Fred Sparham had located the generator, and his son Eddie told me that it was so heavy that when they loaded it onto the back of their truck, the front wheels came off the ground.
The generator was brought from Hamilton to the east coast by transport truck. Dad and Bobby transferred it to the barge by laying out rows of narrow steel pipes and then pushing the generator with a bulldozer until it rolled over the pipes and onto the boat. To move the generator from Smith’s Cove up to the Money Pit, they purchased a huge old truck.
Every step of this new setup took days of exhausting effort. Once in place, the generator worked, but not as well as they had hoped, and specialized mechanics had to be called to the island countless times to repair it. It was June 5 before the generator was ready to do its job. Dad’s contract with Chappell was due to expire in just 25 days.
David Tobias urged my father to keep Mr. Chappell informed about progress and suggested that a tour might be a good idea. But the new equipment had drained the finances and Dad didn’t even have enough money to buy the fuel to put on a show of the new generator’s capacity. Tobias advanced him enough money to purchase 14 drums and Dad and Bobby worked day and night to prepare for the visit.
Sand in the Inlet Tunnel
Through many years of treasure-hunting, the original inlet water tunnel had been so damaged that it no longer screened out all the sand as seawater passed through the reservoir. Some sand was getting through and gradually accumulating in the tunnel.
After weeks of rain, the clearing was slippery with mud, so, in the evening, three days before the visit, while wrestling drums of diesel fuel up off the truck flatbed, Dad slipped and fell. A drum full of fuel fell from the truck and landed on his leg. But he was lucky — his leg was painful, stiff, and bruised, but not broken.
Two days later, on June 19, Tobias and Chappell arrived on the island. Chappell had never been on the island when the pump was running and he was delighted. So delighted, in fact, that he agreed to extend Dad’s contract until the end of the year. Tobias agreed to cover the fuel costs during that time. Everyone was happy.
The next day, Dad and Bobby resumed drilling in the Money Pit and, almost immediately, instead of encountering hard clay, they hit beach sand. That caused great excitement, as it indicated that their drill had found the spot where the original inlet water tunnel joined the Money Pit.
But the next day, the pump shaft snapped and water immediately began to rise in the Money Pit. Bobby and Dad had to evacuate immediately. Later, in a letter to Frank Sparham, Dad described the event:
Today we took the diamond (drill) and everything needed down. We got all set up and in the same hole and only a few inches of progress when the shaft snapped. Mildred heard the change of racket at once and nearly had a fit. We got everything out of the way and loaded in the (hoist) car in time. Could have done it faster but you know how these sudden emergencies are, both of us tried to do what the other fell
ow had been doing. We soon saw that was no good so we just went back to loading the (hoist) car as if we were through for the day and let the hoist bring up the electric cable.
Something new was revealed through this shutdown, however. Back in January, when the pump was stopped, air bubbles had melted a hole in the ice that covered Chappell’s Pond. That meant that not only were the 35-foot and 75-foot shafts connected to the Money Pit, but it seemed that Chappell’s Pond was also part of that underground loop. Now, in June, as soon as the pump was shut down, air bubbles could be seen in the Cave-In Pit. It must be connected to the Money Pit, too.
By that time, more than 21 shafts had been put down by treasure hunters. An underground connection would be interesting if it involved only the “original” work — the Money Pit and the Cave-In Pit. But a connection between the “original” work and the treasure hunters’ work (Chappell’s Pond plus the two shafts) was not good news. It confirmed suspicions that the entire end of Oak Island was riddled with an underground network of interconnected passages. This would make the ground unstable and intensify the hazards of working underground.
Bob and Dad carried on, repairing the pump, but the diesel generator still ran hot and the Halifax mechanics had to keep coming back. Underground work lurched slowly ahead.
Do you remember the auger that went through what was thought to be a cement vault and brought up a piece of parchment? At that time, the treasure hunters (Truro Company) had been using a drill without a casing. When they tried to retrace the path to drill into the vault again, they couldn’t do it. They realized that because they had used no casing, their drill must have been deflected by a rock or some other hard object, and had veered off in who-knows-what direction. The cement vault, which was imagined to be full of gold, jewels, and important documents, was not found again.
