Lost Treasure Anthology - New England Treasure Stories Volume-I (digital downloadable book) This digital book contains 25 different stories -- over 100+ pages -- all dedicated to New England Treasures! Anthology: This Anthology is a collection of published stories, by multiple authors, in a book format. It was compiled from the Archives of one or more of our six publications: Lost Treasure – Treasure Cache – Treasure Facts – Treasure World – True Treasure – Rockhound.

Treasure Tales and Treasure Stories About Connecticut from the Archives of Lost Treasure Magazine

Thirteen Wagons of Gold

This treasure story has been written several times by different authors, but I believe that my additions to the accepted version will help pinpoint the site.

The reputed location of this cache is approximately one mile north of East Granby, near Lemuel Bates' Revolutionary War days tavern, or between there and Old Newgate Prison, about two miles west. According to the story, Lemuel Bates owned a tavern north of East Granby. In 1778 Bates became a captain in the Continental Army and his tavern was used as a hangout for Revolutionaries.

Sometime during 1779, 13 wagons traveling from Boston to Philadelphia stopped at the tavern late one night. Several of the wagons were carrying gold coins, borrowed from France to be used by the Colonists in their fight for freedom. It is believed that a group of Tories (British sympathizers) overpowered the guards, and escaped with the gold. The teams and wagons were found the next day in a pasture near Bates' tavern. This fact, plus an intensive search by the patriots, led to the speculation that the coins were hidden nearby. There is no record of what happened to the wagon guards.

About a century later, Richard H. Phelps of East Granby wrote a book, generally accepted as factual, in which he stated that a man named Henry Wooster, a Tory, made his escape from Old Newgate Prison and fled to England. He wrote his mother that he had left a large treasure buried near East Granby Center and that his companions in the crime had been killed by Indians. The crime he referred to was supposed to have been the robbery of the wagon train.

Gen. George Washington is supposed to have made a statement, after the Revolutionary War, that the lost gold was contained in plank boxes and amounted to more than $1 million in French gold coins.

Renewed interest in this treasure began in 1951, when a lady in Hartford wrote several newspapers stating that, after exhaustive research into the story, she was convinced the cache existed and was buried beside a stream or near a small body of water in the area of Old Newgate Prison. There is no record of anyone locating this treasure.