Message posted by Peter Merlin on June 10, 2009 at 9:23:24 PST:
Jerry Freeman is also the guy who perpetrated the infamous "Death Valley Forty-Niner Treasure Chest Hoax." In the late 1990s, he claimed Freeman turned the chest over to the National Park Service insising that the trunk was left there by William Robinson, one of the gold seekers who took an ill-advised detour across Death Valley in 1849. Glue on three items contained 20th century polymers. Two photos in the chest were tintypes, a photographic process that was not patented until 1856. A manufacturer's stamp on the bottom of one of the bowls dated from as late as 1914. Pieces of leather had been recently treated and could not have been drying in Death Valley heat for a century and a half. Bits of adhesive from a price sticker were found on the bottom of one bowl. "If it's a fake, I can't dispute it at this point," said Freeman. "They say they found glue, and some things that couldn't have been from that time period. I can't argue with them. But I will go to my grave believing William Robinson left his things in the desert so long ago," Freeman said in a statement he prepared after being informed of the findings. Freeman, who had an undergraduate degree in cultural anthropology, had been visiting Death Valley since childhood. He had long been fascinated with the '49ers' experience in the California deserts. He said he found the chest November 22, 1998, while preparing for a Christmas hike retracing the '49ers' route out of Death Valley. He was scouting a route through the Panamint Mountains near Pinto Peak at about 6,500 feet elevation when, he claimed, he found an old oxen shoe and part of an old knife. Not far away, he spotted two small caves. With dark approaching, Freeman says he removed the letter and a coin, taking them home for further examination. He returned with his brother the following weekend, took photographs and replaced the letter in the hymnal. On Christmas Eve, Freeman, with the help of 4 others, removed the 40-pound chest to Pearblossom, Calif., in the Antelope Valley. The National Park Service became aware of the trunk after an Antelope Valley newspaper published an account of the discovery January 1, 1999. Death Valley National Park officials contacted Freeman, who relinquished the chest and its contents to them few days later. Freeman said he kept nothing and only retained photos and a videotape of the items, as well as a computer-scanned copy of the letter. Before returning the trunk to Death Valley officials Freeman held a press conference announcing his discovery. Freeman later escorted park officials to the location where he said the discovery was made, but the chest's removal from the cave had destroyed what archeologists call provenance, and complicated efforts to determine its authenticity.
to have discovered a wooden chest in a cave while following a Forty-Niners trail in the Panamint Mountains. Items contained in the chest included gold and silver coins, photographs, a pistol, holster, powder horn, ceramic bowls, a hymnal and a hand-written letter.
But after several days of examination, testing and consultation by experts from the Western Archeological and Conservation Center and the Smithsonian Institute, the National Park Service, announced that the letter was a fake and that other items in the trunk came from time periods later than 1849.
Inside the deepest of the two caves, he discovered a chest propped on boulders against a board. The chest was 31 inches long, 19 inches wide and a foot high. Prying open the lid, he found a knitted shawl covering the items inside the chest, which included a letter folded within a hymnal ,from William Robinson, a Gold Rush pioneer who became lost in Death Valley.
In Reply to: Re: Favorite stories from the past! Who believes this story? posted by 9th life on June 09, 2009 at 19:58:50 PST:
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