NEW HAMPSHIRE

The Lost Gold Mine of Annance Gulch

The sword of justice has no scabbard.

— Joseph D. Maistre

Annance Gulch

The Annance Gulch on Indian Stream was named after Archie Annance, a local Indian who twice discovered gold mines. Archie was a graduate of Dartmouth College with a degree in mineralogy — but very little money. In 1865, he made a gold strike in the area that would later become Ditton.

Archie picked up a few dollar’s worth of free gold, but his find wasn’t a placer strike, and he came up far short of the $200 he needed to take out a mining permit and file his claim. Archie tried to borrow money from a politician named Pope who lived over near Crookshire way, but Pope wouldn’t lend out the cash for anything less than half interest in the claim. Archie decided it would be better just to get a job and save up the money on his own. In the meantime, he continued to visit his claim to extract what few placers he could to supplement his income.

Pope sent men to follow Archie, but he always lost them —so Pope came up with a plan. He made a deal with the official at the Mining Bureau to accept Archie Annance’s application for a mining permit and then tell him the claim had already been filed on. Pope and his accomplice swindled Archie Annance out of his gold mine and worked it for 10 years, taking out a sizable amount of color for the region.

Archie never saw a dime’s worth of profits, but he made a second (and some say richer) strike in a gulch off Indian Stream. He never filed a claim and he never told a living soul about his strike, but he always had plenty of money. Of course, everyone knew what had happened and people spent years searching along Indian Stream for Archie’s diggings, but no one ever found them.

After Archie died, someone found a dismantled wheelbarrow and spade in a spruce thicket near what is now called Annance Gulch, but no one, as yet, has come across the mine.

Speculation is the entrance is hidden, but no one knows for sure if Annance Gulch is the right location. Weekend prospectors still managed to take a few flakes out of Indian Stream right up until our lifetime, but the amounts didn’t pay and the secret of Archie Annance’s gold is just as safe today as it was in the 19th century.

Uncle Jacob's cache

Writing in 1937, Cornelius Weygandt tells the following story from the area around Bald Peak. Uncle Jacob (whose Uncle Jacob is not really clear) worked as a farm hand and all-around laborer for 50 years. At the age of 66 he had enough money saved to buy a small place of his own and have $3,400 left over.

Uncle Jacob was very fearful that someone might rob him of his life savings, but he didn’t believe in banks. So he put the money - all in gold - in an old kettle and hid it in a high stone wall not far from the house. It probably would have been safe there if Uncle Jacob hadn’t gotten into the habit of digging it out once a month to be counted. He continued this habit even after he began renting part of his house to a Frenchman from Canada. You can guess the rest.

While away on a visit, Uncle Jacob was seized by a premonition and hurried home to find both the Frenchman and the kettle of gold coins long gone. A posse followed the Frenchman to Canada and caught him. They were able to “persuade” the thief to reveal the location where he buried the kettle, but when they dug it up it contained only $1,000. The Frenchman swore that was all there was and nothing they could do would shake his story. The $1,000 was returned to Uncle Jacob who re-hid it. But the shock of the experience and the loss of most of his savings was too much for him and, as the story goes, “he up and died” soon after. Apparently he did a better job of hiding his stash the second time, as it was never found.

Treasure Island

Scotsman Sandy Gordon was ship’s carpenter aboard the merchant man Porpoise when her captain, John Herring, made the fatal mistake of taking his 18-year-old daughter Martha along on a trip. It didn’t take the young man long to get himself caught alone with the girl in her father’s cabin, whereupon Herring sentenced Gordon to 70 lashes and 30 days in irons. A few nights after his release, Gordon led the crew to mutiny.

Captain Herring received 70 strokes on the back and a quick trip to “Davey Jones’ locker.” The mutineers turned pirate and under Gordon’s command seized several valuable prizes, but soon turned against the new captain as well. Sandy and Martha were set adrift near the Scottish coast where they managed to make landfall and find an abandoned farmhouse to live in.

Incredible as it may seem, the far-ranging Edward Teach, AKA Blackbeard, came ashore on that very coast in search of water and invited Gordon to join his crew. Soon after that the pirates sighted and seized a rich East Indiaman bound for London. Gordon so distinguished himself in the battle that Blackbeard awarded him command of the prize. Gordon re-named his prize The Flying Scot and set off with Teach for a highly successful raid on the Spanish Main. Afterwards, Gordon returned to Scotland and fetched Martha to America.

On the return trip, The Flying Scot captured a rich Spanish galleon from which they took more than a $1,000,000 worth of treasure. The pirates then proceeded to the Isle of Shoals. At Star Island, Gordon reportedly divided the treasure and sent his men ashore three at a time to cache their loot. Gordon then moved to Wight Island where he reportedly built a small cottage and buried his share.

The pirates lounged about the isles for several weeks before a lookout spotted a sail on the horizon. Gordon assembled his crew and put to sea, only to run dead into a British man-o-war out pirate hunting. During the ensuing battle, with defeat and capture eminent, Gordon fired his own powder magazine, sending himself and his crew to the bottom along with a good many British seamen.

In 1867, a fisherman dug up 100 pounds of gold bullion on Wight Island. This is just a mere fraction of the amount reported cached by Gordon and his pirates.

The old man's missing fortune

In 1866, Sam Mills, a burly Cornish miner from Easton Valley, learned that his friend and card playing partner, kindly old George Maxwell, had recently come into a large sum of money. In addition, Maxwell made the dangerous mistake of admitting that he kept the money hidden somewhere in his house. How many nights the image of that hidden wealth tormented Mills we will never know. All we know is that in early December of that year Mills stopped by Maxwell’s house for dinner and, while his friend was busy at the stove, crept up behind and slugged him with an iron bar.

Maxwell went down, but he was not out. Heroically, the unarmed, frail old man fought for his life against the bull-chested, crow-bar wielding miner. Chairs were smashed, milk cans upset, and tables overturned until milk and blood were splattered all about the room. Finally Mills seized an axe from the corner and finished off his friend as he lay helpless on the floor.

After the foul deed was accomplished, Mills ransacked the house, breaking into locked closets and drawers and strewing their contents on the floor. He found $30 and a couple of I.O.U.’s.

The murderer fled, but was tracked down in Galena, Illinois, where he was working in a lead mine. The hanging was on May 8, 1867, and special trains ran out of Littleton Station bringing spectators to the Haverton Jail.

George Maxwell’s fortune was never found. Were the I.O.U.’s that Mills found on his bloody rampage the fortune that the old man had spoken of? Or had the kindly Mills had second thoughts about keeping so much money in the house and buried it nearby? Old land ownership maps might be useful in solving this mystery. They are usually available from state sources, but they can also be obtained from the Library of Congress. Write to the Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division, Washington, D.C., 20540, to request information on obtaining these maps. The Geography and Map Division Reference Note Number 4 contains a summary list of 1,447 available land ownership maps along with instructions and an order form.

Please Note: It is the responsibility of the treasure hunter to gain permission before detecting.

Sources:

Pike, Robert E. Spiked Boots. The Cowles Press, 1959.

Platt, Cameron and Jean Wright. Treasure Islands. Fulcrum Publishing, 1985.

Poole, Ernest. The Great White Hills of New Hampshire. Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1947.

Snow, Edward Rowe. Two Tales of Pirates and Their Gold. Dodd, Mead & Co., 1953.

Weygandt, Cornelius. New Hampshire Neighbors. Henry Holdt & Co., 1937.

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