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Boler's Inn Civil War Gold

atomicbrh

Elite Member
Joined
Jul 25, 2016
Messages
761
Location
Central MS
The Dent's Run topic reminded me of Boler's Inn.
This is the local Civil War gold myth/hoax in the town where I grew up.
I walked by this Inn multiple times per day on the way to school, my grandparent's house and to local activities like youth baseball. Drove by it more than I walked. Lived within sight of it during Middle School. My Aunt married into the builder's family in 1957. The article does not specify that the treasure is Gold but the locals think it is Gold. Here is the gist of it:

Holding an important place in the history of Union, MS is the former stagecoach inn first owned by Neshoba/Newton County pioneer Wesley Boler. Mr. Boler hired his son-in-law, Norfleet Staton, to build a new two story house in 1856. The construction can be dated by a letter Norfleet Staton wrote to his father Ennis in North Carolina on August 10, 1856. A transcript of that letter was sent to me by the late Polly Staton Barrick, who was also in possession of the tools her g-grandfather used to build the house. Staton wrote, "I am bilding a house for my old father law 46 by 38, 2 story high. I think I will make 150 or 200 dollars by crismas father."

The Civil War came to Boler's Inn in the form of General Sherman, who quartered his men around the building. According to local legend, Sherman didn't burn the town of Union because of it's name. Little did Sherman know that Wesley Boler's sons and son-in-law were away fighting for the Confederacy. Boler's third son James was killed in the Siege of Vicksburg. Another long told local story indicates a wounded pay master spent the night in the inn. Before morning he died, having buried his payroll during the night. Treasure hunters have searched in vain for that long hidden payroll during the many years that have now passed.

Here are the myths:
1. At that time in the war Sherman and Grant never burned anything out of spite. They burned for two reasons. If it had significance to the Confederate War effort and they did not have enough troops to leave an army of occupation there to prevent it from being used for Confederate purposes. Thus, the city "Union" was not burned because of its name. Sherman could care less for a small insignificant town.
2. A Union paymaster died in the house and before he died, he hid gold in the house or buried it in the yard. Well, if he was on his deathbed and near death, how was he fit enough to physically hide or bury the gold and then immediately die. Also, Sherman had over 25,000 troops and many paymasters and assistant paymasters. There was not one paymaster for all the troops.
3. The Official Records of the Army of the Grand Republic are well documented and published. There are no records, letters or diaries from soldiers mentioning a paymaster died in the Inn. There are no documents detailing missing payroll which is a crime and would have been investigated even back then.
4. Both Confederate and Federal troops were paid in paper money. There is no documentation that any civil war soldier was ever paid in gold or silver. A Federal Army paymaster would never have gold or silver.
5. Sherman could care less if Boler's sons were in the Confederate army. Every house in the South that he came to had sons that were in the Confederate Army.
http://www.carolshouse.com/bolersinn/
https://mshistorynow.mdah.ms.gov/is...erriding,5,000 attached cavalry and artillery.

What is your local gold myth?
 
Fun legend. Thanx for sharing.

....

What is your local gold myth?

There is a cave , south of Monterey and south of Big Sur, along the coast here, where Native American Indians buried their dead in. A chasm in a cliff, where you would need to descend into it with ropes from above. So the Indians would just put their dead through this cave opening, to drop into.

The coastal highway came through there in the early 1930s. A worker died in an industrial accident, so .... after paying their last respects, his fellow workers lowered him into that same cave (I guess times were different at the height of the depression).

Fast forward to the late 1950s, some people were exploring this cave, and came across all these Indian bones. Lo & behold, one of the skeletons had hints (fragments) of European wear clothing/fabric on it.

This got reported as a local story at that time in the newspaper. Fast forward to the early 1970s : There was a local story-book writer who like to make Monterey lore-&-legend books that would sell in tourist shops here. In one of the book's chapters, he took the Indian cave story and ran with it : But to "spice it up", it was a suit of armor (not levi pants fragments). Along with scores of speculation that this was a pirate cove hangout on the beach below this location. And how the Spaniards came and went from here in the 1700s, blah blah

It was all strictly entertainment. But a curious thing happened : People simply believed it was true ! (d/t he could point to a faded newspaper clipping). It just simply wasn't questioned, and so .... I would occasionally run into people saying that I ought to detect there, and regaling me with the suit of armor story. I had to explain to few folks that it was just a ghost-story gone awry. And surprisingly , some people were still adamant, thinking it was *me* who must be mistaken. haha
 
Fun legend. Thanx for sharing.



There is a cave , south of Monterey and south of Big Sur, along the coast here, where Native American Indians buried their dead in. A chasm in a cliff, where you would need to descend into it with ropes from above. So the Indians would just put their dead through this cave opening, to drop into.

The coastal highway came through there in the early 1930s. A worker died in an industrial accident, so .... after paying their last respects, his fellow workers lowered him into that same cave (I guess times were different at the height of the depression).

Fast forward to the late 1950s, some people were exploring this cave, and came across all these Indian bones. Lo & behold, one of the skeletons had hints (fragments) of European wear clothing/fabric on it.

This got reported as a local story at that time in the newspaper. Fast forward to the early 1970s : There was a local story-book writer who like to make Monterey lore-&-legend books that would sell in tourist shops here. In one of the book's chapters, he took the Indian cave story and ran with it : But to "spice it up", it was a suit of armor (not levi pants fragments). Along with scores of speculation that this was a pirate cove hangout on the beach below this location. And how the Spaniards came and went from here in the 1700s, blah blah

It was all strictly entertainment. But a curious thing happened : People simply believed it was true ! (d/t he could point to a faded newspaper clipping). It just simply wasn't questioned, and so .... I would occasionally run into people saying that I ought to detect there, and regaling me with the suit of armor story. I had to explain to few folks that it was just a ghost-story gone awry. And surprisingly , some people were still adamant, thinking it was *me* who must be mistaken. haha

For many years, the local newspaper was housed in Boler's Inn. Hmm, I wonder if that had anything to do with the vivid imagination of the newspaper owner and author.
 
rumor and legend has it that a group of captured German mercenary soldiers fighting in the revolutionary war were returning to Boston from New York for return to Europe while stopped in Dalton Mass. buried their accumulated war spoils in a cannon barrel somewhere in the woods near or around Dalton.
from my research this has been searched for a number of times, and to my knowledge has not been found, but legend also says that the returning soldiers were prisoners and in pretty rough shape and if being prisoners wouldn't they likely be stripped of most if not all of their possessions.
well it's a fun legend and Dalton is very close to me so maybe a bit more research and one day I will get to hit the woods in and around Dalton. who knows ?
 
rumor and legend has it that a group of captured German mercenary soldiers fighting in the revolutionary war were returning to Boston from New York for return to Europe while stopped in Dalton Mass. buried their accumulated war spoils in a cannon barrel somewhere in the woods near or around Dalton.
from my research this has been searched for a number of times, and to my knowledge has not been found, but legend also says that the returning soldiers were prisoners and in pretty rough shape and if being prisoners wouldn't they likely be stripped of most if not all of their possessions.
well it's a fun legend and Dalton is very close to me so maybe a bit more research and one day I will get to hit the woods in and around Dalton. who knows ?
Seems like a cannon barrel would easily be found with a metal detector.
 
One of my favorite things is reading folk lore stories. There are so many, and I like to read them both for the story content and the skeptical side of me tries to pick it apart to see what is real and what isn't. Very cool story atomicbrh. :waytogo:
 
another interesting story, treasure in the grave , local legend and documented, has it that a relatively wealthy farmer businessman was buried in the wood/forest in west chesterfield mass. along with a metal strongbox with all of his gold and silver wealth, to this day the stone markers with his name have been found a couple of times but no treasure has ever been found,
google Treasure in the Grave very interesting
 
.... local legend and documented, ....

Huh ? ^ ^ What am I missing here ? There is a definitional distinction between "legend" vs "documented", isn't there ?

While it's true that a "legend" could be a true historical event, yet : The moment it's been documented to be true, then : Doesn't that remove it from the category of "legend" ? :shrug:

So : Which is it ?

And, if the "documenting" is merely to point back to the legend (as proof /document of itself), then that's merely circular reasoning.

What am I missing here ?
 
Huh ? ^ ^ What am I missing here ? There is a definitional distinction between "legend" vs "documented", isn't there ?

While it's true that a "legend" could be a true historical event, yet : The moment it's been documented to be true, then : Doesn't that remove it from the category of "legend" ? :shrug:

So : Which is it ?

And, if the "documenting" is merely to point back to the legend (as proof /document of itself), then that's merely circular reasoning.

What am I missing here ?
Great point Tom!
 
OK sorry, I will say legend has it, but has been written about both in book ( buried treasures of New England ) also I think if you google it you will come up with the story, certainly judge for yourself, YMMV
 
.... has been written about ....

Well sure. Legends have "been written about". But that doesn't make them "documented".

And remember : I'm not saying that various legends can't end up being true later on. And granted : There's an admittedly fine line between "legend" and "documented". Because someone can say that the mere 200 yr. old testimony of someone who supposedly saw something IS : The "documentation". But it's just that the way the word "documented" is used today, is in the context of : "Beyond doubt and proven". If THAT is the way the word is being used, then .... that's not the same as "legend".
 
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