by Joe Nickell
Geologist E. Rudolph Faribault found “numerous” sinkholes on the mainland opposite Oak Island, and in a geological report of 1911 concluded there was “strong evidence” to indicate that the purported artificial structures on the island were “really but natural sink holes and cavities.” Further evidence of caverns in the area came in 1975 when a sewage disposal system was being established on the mainland. Approximately 3,000 feet north of the island, workmen excavating with heavy machinery broke through a rock layer and discovered a 52-foot-deep cavern below (Crooker 1993,144). Fred Nolan insists that earlier, in 1969, while drilling on Oak Island, Triton broke into a cavern near the fabled treasure shaft at a depth of 165 feet. “Blankenship and Tobias figured that the cavern was man-made,” said Nolan, “but it isn’t, as far as I’m concerned” (Crooker 1993,165). And Mark Finnan (1997, 111), writing of “the unique geological nature of Oak Island,” states as a fact that “naturally formed underground caverns are present in the island’s bedrock.” These would account for the flood “booby-traps” that were supposedly placed to guard the “treasure” (Preston 1988,63).
Today, of course, after two centuries of excavation, the island’s east end is “honey-combed with shafts, tunnels and drill holes running in every imaginable direction” (Crooker 1978,190), complicating the subterranean picture and making it difficult to determine the nature of the original pit. In suggesting that it was a sinkhole, caused by the slumping of debris in a fault, one writer noted that “this filling would be softer than the surrounding ground, and give the impression that it had been dug up before” (Atlantic 1965). Fallen trees could have sunk into the pit with its collapse, or “blowdowns” could periodically have washed into the depression (Preston 1988, 63), later giving the appearance of “platforms” of rotten logs. In fact, just such a pit was discovered in 1949 on the shore of Mahone Bay, about five miles to the south of Oak Island, when workmen were digging a well. The particular site was chosen because the earth was rather soft there. Reports O’Connor (1988,172-73): “At about two feet down a layer of fieldstone was struck. Then logs of spruce and oak were unearthed at irregular intervals, and some of the wood was charred. The immediate suspicion was that another Money Pit had been found.”
The treasure seekers and mystery mongers, however, are quick to dismiss any thoughts that the “shaft” and “tunnels” could be nothing more than a sinkhole and natural channels. Why, the early accounts would then have to be “either gross exaggerations or outright lies,” says one writer (O’Connor 1988,173). For example, what about the reported “pick marks found in the walls of the pit”? (O’Connor 1988, 173) We have already seen—with the oak-limb-and-pulley detail—just how undependable are such story elements. Then what about the artifacts (such as the fragment of parchment) or the coconut fiber (often carried on ships as dunnage, used to protect cargo) found at various depths? Again, the sinkhole theory would explain how such items “worked their way into deep caverns under the island” (Preston 1988,63).12
Secrets Revealed
Assuming the “shaft” is a natural phenomenon, there still remains the other major piece of the Oak Island puzzle: how do we explain the presence of such cryptic elements as the cipher stone allegedly discovered in the pit in 1803, a large equilateral triangle (made of beach stones and measuring ten feet on each side) found in 1897, or a megalithic cross that Fred Nolan discovered in 1981? (Again see map, Figure 37.1; Finnan 1997, 36, 68-69, 79-82.)
By the early 1980s, I had become aware of parallels between Oak Island’s Money Pit and the arcana of the Freemasons (Nickell 1982). Theirs is not, they insist, a “secret society” but a “society with secrets.” Carried to North America in the eighteenth century, Masonry has been defined as “a peculiar system of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols” (Masonic Bible 1964, 26). One of the essential elements of any true Masonic group is “a legend or allegory relating to the building of King Solomon’s Temple” (“Freemasonry” 1978). And an allegory of the “Secret Vault,” based on Solomon’s fabled depository of certain great secrets, is elaborated in the seventh or “Royal Arch” degree. Among the ruins of the temple, three sojourners discover the subterranean chamber wherein are found three trying-squares and a chest, identified as the Ark of the Covenant, including the key to a cipher (Masonic 1964,12, 37,63; Lester 1977,150; Duncan 1972).
No doubt many readers have encountered Secret Vault symbolism—which pertains to lost secrets, buried treasure, and the grave (Macoy 1908, 445; Revised 1975,64 n.22)—without recognizing it as such. For example, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a Freemason, not only employed Masonic allusions in several of his Sherlock Holmes stories (Bunson 1994, 84) but penned three tales that evoke Masonry’s hidden vault itself. For instance, Holmes uncovers dark secrets in “The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place.” Beneath an old chapel on the Shoscombe property, accessed by stumbling through “loose masonry” (an obvious pun) and proceeding down a steep stairway, Holmes finds himself in a crypt with an “arched … roof” (evoking the Royal Arch degree of Masonry). Accompanied by his client—a “Mr. Mason”!—Holmes finds the key to a series of strange mysteries. Similarly allusive Holmes stories are “The Red-Headed League” (featuring a client who sports a Masonic breastpin), and the suggestively titled “The Musgrave Ritual.”
In addition to the Sherlockian Secret Vault allegories, there are several examples of the genre that many people have taken at face value, believing them true accounts. One, for example, is the tale of Swift’s Lost Silver Mine of eastern Kentucky. In his alleged Journal, one “Jonathan Swift” explored the region prior to Daniel Boone, marking a tree with “the symbols of a compasses, trowel and square”—Masonic emblems—and discovering and mining silver (which geologists doubt exists in the region). Leaving to seek backers, Swift says he stored the treasure in a cave and “walled it up with masonry form ” Later he became blind and unable to find his fabled treasure (although still capable of writing in his journal). This evokes Masonic ritual wherein a candidate must enter the lodge in complete blindness [i.e. blindfolded] to begin his quest for enlightenment (Nickell 1980).
Another such lost-treasure story is found in the purported Beale Papers, which tell a tale of adventure and include unsolved ciphers. Supposedly “Thomas Jefferson Beale” went west in 1817 with a company of men, accidentally discovered a fabulous lode of gold and silver “in a cleft of the rocks” (an expression from the Master Mason Degree), converted some of the treasure to “jewels” (Freemasonry’s term for officers’ emblems), and “deposited” the trove in a stone-lined “vault” (using language from the Select Masters’ degree). The Beale papers were published by a Virginia Freemason named James Ward “with the hope that all that is dark in them may receive light” (evoking the Masonic concept of lux e tenebris or “light out of darkness”). (Nickell 1982b)
Then there is the “restless coffins” enigma of the Chase Vault of Barbados. According to proliferating but historically dubious accounts, each time the vault was opened between 1812 and 1820, the coffins were discovered in a state of confusion. The accounts say that after they were reordered, the vault was closed and the stone door “cemented” by “masons” (cement in Masonic parlance being that which unites the brethren [Macoy 1908, 454]). Yet the coffins would again be found in disarray upon the next opening. At least two of the men involved in the alleged activities were high-ranking Freemasons. In 1943, another restless-coffins case occurred on the island, this time specifically involving a party of Freemasons and the vault being that of the founder of Freemasonry in Barbados! (Nickell 1982a)
It now appears that another such tale is the legend of Oak Island, where again we find unmistakable evidence of Masonic involvement. There are, of course, the parallels between the Money Pit story and the Masonic Secret Vault allegory. The “strange markings” reportedly carved on the oak adjacent to the Pit suggest Masons’ Marks, inscribed signs by which Masons are distinguished (Waite 1970, xx; Hunter 1996, 58). The three alleged discoverers of the P
it would seem to represent the Three Worthy Sojourners (with Daniel Mclnnis representing the Principal Sojourner) who discover the Secret Vault in the Royal Arch degree (Duncan 1972, 261). In that ritual, the candidate is lowered on a rope through a succession of trap doors, not unlike the workmen who were on occasion hauled up and down the (allegedly platform-intersected) Oak Island shaft. The tools used by the latter—notably spades, pickaxes, and crowbars (O’Connor 1988,2; Harris 1958,15)—represent the three Working Tools of the Royal Arch Mason (Duncan 1972,241). Indeed, when in 1803 the Onslow Company workers probed the bottom of the Pit with a crowbar and struck what they thought was a treasure chest (before water inundated the shaft), their actions recall the Royal Arch degree in which the Secret Vault is located by a sounding blow from a crowbar (Duncan 1972, 263). The parallels go on and on. For example, the soft stone (or “cement”), charcoal, and clay found in the Pit (Crooker 1978, 24, 49) are consistent with the Chalk, Charcoal and Clay cited in the Masonic degree of Entered Apprentice as symbolizing the virtues of “freedom, fervency and zeal” (Lester 1977,60; Hunter 1996, 37).
Then there are the artifacts. Of course, many of these—like the old branding iron found in the swamp or a pair of wrought-iron scissors recovered near the Money Pit (Crooker 1993, 175, 176)—are probably nothing more than relics of the early settlers. Some are actually suspicious, like the links of gold chain found in the Pit in 1849. One account holds that they were planted by workers to inspire continued operations and thus their employment—something that reportedly happened on other occasions, sometimes simply for mischief (O’Connor 1988,177 -78). Other artifacts are more suggestive, like the cipher stone (again see figure 37.1)that disappeared about 1919. Its text has allegedly been pre-served, albeit in various forms and decipherments (Rosenbaum 1973, 83). For instance, zoologist-turned-epigrapher Barry Fell thought the inscription was ancient Coptic, its message urging people to remember God lest they perish (Finnan 1997,148-49). In fact, the text as we have it has been correctly deciphered (and redeciphered and verified by several investigators, me included). Written in what is known as a simple-substitution cipher, it reads, “FORTY FEET BELOW TWO MILLION POUNDS ARE BURIED” (Crooker 1993,23). Most Oak Island researchers consider the text a hoax—reportedly an 1860s fabrication to lure investors (O’Connor 1988, 14)—but as Crooker (1993, 24) observes, an inscribed stone did exist, “having been mentioned in all the early accounts of the Onslow company’s expedition.” Significantly, a cipher message (with key), found in the Secret Vault, is a central aspect of Freemasonry’s Royal Arch degree (Duncan 1972,248-49).
Other artifacts (Finnan 1997,67,80,83) that appear to have ritualistic significance are the stone triangle and great “Christian Cross” as well as “a handworked heart-shaped stone”—Masonic symbols all. Crooker (1993,179) notes that “a large amount of time and labor” were spent in laying out the cross, but to what end? Could it have been part of a Masonic ritual? An “old metal set-square” found at Smith’s Cove may simply be an innocent artifact, but we recall that three small squares were among the items found in the Secret Vault (Duncan 1972,243). Indeed, the square is one of the major symbols of Freemasonry that, united with a pair of compasses, comprises the universal Masonic emblem.
Explicitly Masonic, I believe, are certain inscribed stones on the island. These include one discovered at Joudrey’s Cove by Gilbert Hedden in 1936. It features a cross flanked by the letter “H,” said to be a modification of the Hebraic letter for Jehovah, and a prime Masonic symbol known as a Point Within a Circle, representing mankind within the compass of God’s creation (Morris n.d., 47; Finnan 1997, 66, 151). (This symbol, along with several others, can also be found as one of the cryptographic characters in the text of the cipher stone—again seefigure 37.1). Another clearly Masonic stone is a granite boulder found near the Cave-in Pit in 1967. Overturned by a bulldozer it bore on its underside the letter “G” in a rectangle (what Masons term an oblong square). G denotes the Grand Geometer of the Universe—God, the central focus of Masonic teachings—and is “the most public and familiar of all symbols in Freemasonry,” observes Mark Finnan (1997,152). He continues: “The presence of this symbol on Oak Island and its location in the east, seen as the source of light in Masonic teachings, is further indication that individuals with a fundamental knowledge of Freemasonry were likely involved.”
Indeed, the search for the Oak Island treasure “vault” has been carried out largely by prominent Nova Scotia Freemasons. I had an intimation of this years ago, but it fell to others—especially Finnan, who gained access to Masonic records—to provide the evidence. Freemasonry had come to Nova Scotia in 1738 and, concludes Finnan (1997, 145), “it is almost a certainty that organizers of the first coordinated dig … were Masonicly associated.” Moreover, he states: “Successive treasure hunts throughout the past two hundred years often involved men who were prominent members of Masonic lodges. Some had passed through the higher levels of initiation, and a few even held the highest office possible within the Fraternity.”
They include A.O. Creighton, the Oak Island Association treasurer who helped remove the cipher-inscribed stone from the island about 1865, and Frederick Blair, whose family was involved in the quest as far back as 1863. Blair, who formed the Oak Island Treasure Company in 1893, was a “prominent member” of the lodge in Amherst, Nova Scotia. Treasure hunter William Chappell was another active Mason, and his son Mel served as Provincial Grand Master for Nova Scotia from 1944 to 1946 (Finnan 1997,145-46). Furthermore, discovered Finnan (1997,146): “The independently wealthy Gilbert Hedden of Chatham, New Jersey, who carried out the treasure search from 1934 to 1938, and Professor Edwin Hamilton, who succeeded him and operated on the island for the next six years, were also Freemasons. Hamilton had at one time held the office of Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. Hedden even made it his business to inform Mason King George VI of England about developments on Oak Island in 1939, and Hamilton corresponded with President Roosevelt, another famous Freemason directly associated with the mystery.” (Roosevelt actually participated in the work on Oak Island during the summer and fall of 1909.) Other Masonic notables involved in Oak Island were polar explorer Richard E. Byrd and actor John Wayne (Sora 1999,12; Hamill and Gilbert 1998).
Significantly, Reginald Harris, who wrote the first comprehensive book on Oak Island at the behest of Frederick Blair, was an attorney for Blair and Hedden. Himself a thirty-third-degree Mason, Harris was provincial Grand Master from 1932 to 1935. Among his extensive papers were notes on Oak Island, scribbled on the backs of Masonic documents and sheets of Masonic letterhead. The papers show that at least one Oak Island business meeting was held in the Masonic Hall in Halifax, where Harris had an office as secretary of the Grand Lodge (O’Connor 1988, 93; Harris 1958, vii; Finnan 1997,143; Rosenbaum 1973; 154).
One investigator, Ron Rosenbaum (1973,154), discovered that among Harris’s papers were “fragments of a Masonic pageant” that were apparently “designed to accompany the rite of initiation into the thirty-second degree of the Masonic Craft.” The allegory is set in 1535 at the Abbey of Glastonsbury, where the prime minister is attempting to confiscate the order’s fabulous treasures. But one item, the chalice used at the Last Supper—the Holy Grail itself—is missing, and secret Masons are suspected of having hidden it for safekeeping. The allegory breaks off with them being led to the tower for torture.
Given this draft allegory by Harris, it may not be a coincidence that some recent writers attempt to link the Holy Grail to Oak Island. They speculate that the fabled chalice is among the lost treasures of the Knights Templar, precursors of the Freemasons (Sora 1999,180,247-51). In any event, the evidence indicates a strong Masonic connection to the Oak Island enigma. Others have noted this link but unfortunately also believed in an actual treasure of some sort concealed in a man-made shaft or tunnel (Crooker 1993; Finnan 1997; Sora 1999; Rosenbaum 1973). Only by understanding both pieces of the puzzle and fitting them together correctly can the Oak Is
land mystery finally be solved.
In summary, therefore, I suggest first that the “Money Pit” and “pirate tunnels” are nothing of the sort but are instead natural formations. Secondly, I suggest that much of the Oak Island saga—certain reported actions and alleged discoveries—can best be understood in light of Freemasonry s Secret Vault allegory. Although it is difficult to know at this juncture whether the Masonic elements were opportunistically added to an existing treasure quest or whether the entire affair was a Masonic creation from the outset, I believe the mystery has been solved. The solution is perhaps an unusual one—but no more so than the saga of Oak Island itself.
References
Atlantic Advocate. 1965. Article in Oct. issue, cited in Crooker 1978,85-86.
Blankenship, Daniel. 1999. Author interview, July 1.
Bowdoin, H.L. 1911. Solving the mystery of Oak Island. Colliers Magazine, Aug. 18. Cited and discussed in Harris 1958,110-20; O’Connor 1988,63-66.
Bunson, Matthew E. 1994. Encyclopedia Sherlockiana. New York: Barnes & Noble.
Creighton, Helen. 1957. Bluenose Ghosts. Reprinted Halifax, N.S.: Nimbus, 1994,42-59,118-20.
Crooker, William S. 1978. The Oak Island Quest. Hantsport, N.S.: Lancelot.
———.1993. Oak Island Gold. Halifax, N.S.: Nimbus.
Duncan, Malcolm C. 1972. Duncan’s Masonic Ritual and Monitor. Chicago: Ezra A. Cook, 217-65.
Faribault, E. Rudolph. 1911. Summary Report of Geological Survey Branch of the Department of Mines. Quoted in Furneaux 1972,110.
