The Oak Island Mystery (11 page)

Robert and Mildred married in 1931 when she was a seventeen-year-old ballerina and he was on tour as a young stunt rider. They developed their thrilling “Globe of Death” act together and toured it through Europe and North America for over twenty years. In 1955 they visited Oak Island, where Robert met the luckless George Greene, who gave him an account of the Money Pit mystery. That chance meeting changed the Restalls' lives and led to a grim multiple tragedy ten years later.

After Greene and the Harman brothers had abandoned their attempts and left the island, Robert Restall prevailed upon a group of friends to provide the necessary minimal financial support to add to his own life savings. In 1959, having signed a contract with Chappell, Robert and his eighteen-year-old son, Bobbie, moved on to the island and began.

Despite their meagre financial resources, they put in a tremendous amount of work together over the next five years, without making any major discoveries. Mildred and nine-year-old Rickey joined them on the island, where the family home consisted of two small temporary living rooms without any amenities. With characteristic courage, determination and optimism the Restalls battled on — absolutely determined to solve the Oak Island mystery and recover the treasure.

Robert had been concentrating his efforts on cutting off the flood tunnels as an essential first step, and had dug a shaft nearly thirty feet deep between the Money Pit and Smith's Cove. On August 17, 1965, he had a small gasoline-engined pump rigged above this shaft, and running continuously. As a result there were only a few feet of water in the bottom. The weather that day was exceptionally hot and oppressive, which may have contributed to the impending disaster.

It is not certain what caused Robert to fall. Perhaps he had been leaning over the side looking down; perhaps he had been descending the ladder between the pump and the shallow water below. In either event, young Bobbie saw that something was seriously wrong and raced across to the shaft to help his father. Seeing him lying motionless in the water, Bobbie shouted for help and began to climb down. Within seconds he, too, had fallen and lay unconscious in the water. Robert's friend and partner, Carl Graeser, arrived next in response to Bobbie's earlier shouting.

He was closely followed by sixteen-year-old Cyril Hiltz, another loyal member of the Restall team. Carl and Cyril went straight down to help the Restalls with no thought for their own safety. Both would-be rescuers also collapsed unconscious into the water. Andy DeMont, also a faithful Restall supporter, scrambled down to try to help. He, too, fell from the ladder.

At that point in the tragedy, Captain Ed White, a professional New York firefighter who was visiting Oak Island as a tourist, came on the scene. He realized instantly that some sort of toxic gas — either methane seeping from the shaft, or carbon monoxide from the pump's engine — had overcome the men in the pit. With the help of several courageous volunteers — James Kelzer, Richard Barder, Peter Beamish, and others — Captain White went down on a rope and secured the unconscious Andy DeMont. He tried desperately to help the earlier victims but was on the verge of losing consciousness himself as the other volunteers hauled him out with DeMont. Both men revived with the help of artificial respiration. Firemen from Chester later recovered the bodies of Carl, Cyril, Robert, and his son.

Triton Alliance, led by David Tobias and Dan Blankenship, who are currently conducting the Oak Island search, erected on the site a memorial notice board which pays tribute to the Restalls and their companions, and gives details of the tragedy and the courage of the rescuers.

Dan Henskee with the Restalls' Memorial Notice.

Dunfield's Causeway completed on October 17, 1965. Oak Island was no longer an island.

The long, hard struggle which the dauntless Restalls had put up had been seriously handicapped by lack of funding and a consequent shortage of heavy earth-moving and drilling machinery. If they had used too little equipment, there are many Oak Island experts who would shake their heads disapprovingly and say that the next contender, Californian geologist Bob Dunfield, had used far too much!

Dunfield came from Canoga Park and had graduated from the University of California in L.A. He attacked Oak Island in the same way that Hannibal's elephants had attacked the Roman army at Zama: it was a powerfully direct, if somewhat unsubtle, approach. In an earlier age, Bob Dunfield might have made a highly successful cavalry commander, but Oak Island defeated him as decisively as Scipio defeated Hannibal! Dunfield began by constructing the causeway which now links Oak Island to Crandall's Point on the mainland in order to get his seventy-ton crane-digger to the island: barges had been able to carry his bulldozers, but the crane was beyond the capacity of any barges or rafts available in the vicinity. As from October 17, 1965, Oak Island was no longer an island — Dunfield's Causeway was completed.

He moved the crane with its ninety-foot arm and huge digging bucket over to the Money Pit end of Oak Island, and began work. The first four yards of topsoil had already been bulldozed away from the surface of the Money Pit zone to expose the tops of numerous old shafts — including the Money Pit itself.

Dunfield hacked a massive twenty-foot-deep trench along 200 feet of the south shore in a search for the second flood tunnel. He didn't find it, but he did encounter an old shaft over forty feet deep that appeared to have been part of the original pre-1795 operations on the island. This curious and apparently purposeless shaft was within thirty feet of the inexplicable stone triangle. Dunfield then launched a direct attack on the Money Pit itself, turning it into what looked like the site of a Second World War tank battle fought out during a severe monsoon season. He created a hole over 100 feet across and nearly half as deep again.

Just as the Chappell expedition of 1931 had been dogged by a very unusual run of bad weather and other problems, so was Bob Dunfield's work. His equipment suffered so many mechanical breakdowns that the question of sabotage was raised. Certainly his new causeway was not popular with local boatman who now had to detour around the far end of Oak Island, and the Blitzkrieg methods in the Money Pit area were not welcomed by Nova Scotian historians and archaeologists.

In Dunfield's defence, it must be acknowledged that he arranged for all the excavated earth to be carefully rinsed and examined, and a great many fragments of early seventeenth-century pottery and china were found.
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Dunfield then replaced most of the soil and resorted to drilling. His work confirmed Greene's discovery of the huge cavern below its limestone roof. He next turned his attentions to the Cave-in Pit and scooped it out to a depth of over 100 feet with a diameter to match: nothing came up except a few old timbers, which he attributed to the industrious tunnelling of the Halifax/Eldorado Company in the previous century.

In the spring of 1966, Dunfield gave up and went back to California — approximately $150,000 worse off for his experience with the Money Pit. Oak Island, too, was much the poorer: the old stone triangle, which might have provided a vital clue to the mystery if only it had been studied properly, slid away into Dunfield's trench during heavy rain and was lost forever. Dunfield himself died in Encino in 1980.

Lionel Fanthorpe and Emile Fradin beside the Glozel Museum containing the mysterious artefacts which M. Fradin discovered in 1924.

Patricia Fanthorpe at the site of the Glozel discoveries.

Triton Alliance Takes Over

P
rior
to his untimely death, Dunfield had made his contribution to the continuity tradition linking all the Oak Island expeditions: he had become one of the earliest shareholders in Triton Alliance, the company currently working to solve the Money Pit mystery.

It was Dan Blankenship, David Tobias and the earliest of the Triton Alliance pioneers who now took over the main line of the search, but in order to understand the current situation fully, Frederick G. Nolan's parallel work has to be taken into account. In 1958, he had read
The Oak Island Mystery
by Reginald V. Harris, the Halifax lawyer who had once acted for both Blair and Hedden. Nolan also knew Harris and had discussed the mystery with him. In 1958, however, the way was not clear for Fred to do any work on the island: the Harman brothers were still busily making their unsuccessful attempt, and Robert Restall was next in line.

Although Chappell was unwilling to sell the island to Nolan, and steadfastly refused to grant him a treasure-hunting lease because he was hoping to attract some really wealthy speculator who could recover the treasure and share it with him, he did give Nolan permission to conduct a thorough professional survey. It was carried out with painstaking accuracy and proper professional skill in 1961 and 1962, and it cost Nolan a great deal of time and money to complete.

Because Chappell had steadfastly and consistently refused all of his approaches, Nolan — a man of considerable determination — tried another line of attack. As a skilled and experienced professional surveyor, he found it easy enough to check the land registry: and there he hit the jackpot! Chappell did not own the whole of Oak Island after all — he only thought he did: plot five and plots nine through fourteen inclusive were not his. They had never been transferred since 1935. Technically, at least, they still belonged to the heirs of Sophia Sellers. Nolan acted swiftly and decisively: he bought them.

Nolan's approach was predominantly concerned with looking for and recording interesting old artifacts, survey stones, and boulders with holes chiselled into them. He has drawn numerous lines and patterns connecting the markers he has discovered, and some unusual and significant shapes have emerged. It is not unreasonable to assume that there may be something substantial in Nolan's theories, and his latest ideas and discoveries are described in detail in William S. Crooker's very readable and well-researched
Oak Island Gold
(Halifax: Nimbus, 1993).

The great and continuing problem of this parallel work is that relationships between Triton Alliance and Nolan have never been cordial, and have frequently been down-right hostile.

There was trouble initially between Nolan and Bob Dunfield over the use of the new causeway in 1965. Nolan then bought land at Crandall's Point (the mainland end of the causeway) and put up a barrier across it to prevent the causeway from being used at all. Dan Blankenship took over from Dunfield in 1968 and arranged a temporary truce, first by paying Nolan for the right to cross his land at Crandall's Point, and later by offering him shares in the Money Pit treasure in return for carrying out survey work for him and his new partner, David Tobias, on their part of the island.

This brief truce ended in 1969 when Triton Alliance was formed. The ensuing years saw a long and unfortunate series of claims and counter-claims, court actions, mutual irritations, and retaliatory hindrances between Triton Alliance and Nolan. It is ironic to think that the money both sides spent on litigation and court costs could have gone a long way towards financing further important exploration, drilling, and surveying on the island. Reconciliation does not seem likely at this late stage, but all things are possible — and without doubt it would be of enormous benefit to both parties if it could only be achieved.

Oak Island explorers either get involved by hearing fascinating accounts from previous treasure hunters, as Simeon Lynds did in 1803, or by reading about the mystery somewhere. Dan Blankenship read an excellent article on the Money Pit in
Reader's Digest
in January 1965, which was a condensation from
The Rotarian
magazine. That article changed his life dramatically. In 1965, Dan visited the island, where he met the Restalls and Dunfield, from whom he took over the operation the following year. He knew Hedden, Professor Hamilton, and Chappell, and he made the most of the vital information and long years of experience which those veterans had to offer.

The authors of this book first met Dan and his family in 1988 while doing some early site research on Oak Island for their “Unsolved Mystery” lectures in the U.K., and spent a very informative and enjoyable time discussing the Money Pit with the Blankenships then and with Dan again in October of 1993. He is very powerful and impressive: a man of massive mental and physical strength and stamina; a man with genuine depth of character. He inspires complete and fully justifiable confidence. If anyone this century is going to recover the amazing treasure that lies somewhere in the labyrinth below Oak Island, there is no doubt that he will be the man to do it.

After teaming up with David Tobias, who had already supported the Restall investigations, Dan became the field operations director for Triton Alliance, a reliable and substantial organization with prestigious shareholders including Bostonian property developer Charles Brown; Gordon Coles, former attorney general of Nova Scotia; George Jennison, one-time president of the Toronto Stock Exchange; and Pentagon weapons expert Bill Parkins.

Fascinating discoveries have already been made during the systematic drilling, exploring, and excavating programs which Triton have carried out under Dan's direction on the island. In 1966, below the level which Dunfield had reached in his south shore shaft, an old hand-wrought nail and a metal washer were unearthed. Lower still, a layer of large, round stones was found. They had evidently been placed there deliberately — were they part of the old south shore tunnel? In 1967 Dan found a 300-year-old pair of scissors under one of the drainage lines below the artificial beach at Smith's Cove. There was also a metal set-square which dated back at least to the eighteenth century, and a very odd-looking heart-shaped stone which gave every appearance of having been deliberately carved at some date in the remote past. In 1970, the erection of Triton's coffer dam in Smith's Cove led to the discovery of the rest of the massive timbers, the first of which Gilbert Hedden had found thirty years before.

These huge lengths of wood, which lay in a U-shaped formation, were two feet thick and as much as sixty feet long. Each bore a different Roman numeral, and each was notched at four-foot intervals. Holes bored in the notches were fitted with wooden dowels — a technique that pre-dated nineteenth-century work, when iron and steel were readily available, cheap, and convenient. The whole structure must have been a massive undertaking of the size and quality which Oak Island researchers associate with the original work designed by the unknown genius of long ago. Expert opinion tends to the view that this huge wooden structure may have been a combination of coffer dam and slipway, or jetty and landing stage.

In 1967, dozens of exploratory drillings were made deep into the labyrinth below the island, and wood was frequently found below the bedrock at depths well in excess of 200 feet. When these drilled samples were subjected to radio-carbon dating, the results showed them to range from approximately 350 to 500 years. There is, however, a problem with radio-carbon dating of oak: everything depends upon what part of the tree is sampled.

Imagine that a 100-year-old tree is felled and used to make part of a Norman cathedral roof in 1100 AD. If the sample taken to the laboratory is drawn from the heart-wood of the tree, it will give a date nearly 100 years different from that which would be obtained from a sample close to the bark. The nearer the chosen fragment is to the bark, the more accurate the dating will be.

Historians could not really be certain from their radiocarbon dating alone whether that particular section of the cathedral's roof had gone on in 1000 A.D., 1200 A.D., or some date between the two. (Any year pre-dating the Norman Conquest would, of course, have to be discounted — but that decision would be based on historical knowledge other than that provided by the radio-carbon test.)
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Among leading experts who examined the prodigious old timbers was Dr. H.B.S. Cooke, who taught geology at Dalhousie University in Halifax. Dr. Cooke's opinion was positive and unequivocal: the structure was evidently man-made and was, in all probability a coffer dam.

In 1970, Golder and Associates of Toronto, widely recognized as leading specialists in geological engineering, conducted a definitive survey of the island for Triton Alliance. Golder's engineers gave their opinion that a complicated labyrinth — a perplexing mixture of man-made workings and natural formations — exists deep below Oak Island. The more explorations were made, the more extensive these strange underground workings were seen to be.

In this aspect, too, Oak Island sounds uncanny echoes of Rennes-le-Château. What began there as a simple enquiry into how an impoverished nineteenth-century parish priest suddenly became rich, has expanded over the years into one of the most challenging mysteries of all time. There are weird patterns on the ground covering distances of several miles among ancient landmarks, tombs, and cromlechs. Murders remain unsolved. The complex geometry of Nicholas Poussin's paintings and a church full of pictures and statues conceal esoteric clues to an ancient and terrible secret. What did the eccentric and secretive priest, Bérenger Saunière, find there over a hundred years ago? And where did he conceal it again shortly before his death in 1917?

Another of Triton's significant discoveries took place in 1970 in what is now known as Borehole 10-X. The Bowmaster Drilling Company took it down to 230 feet under Dan Blankenship's instructions, and then blew compressed air down the hole to bring up anything of interest in the material loosened by the drill. Thin metal scrapings which rapidly oxidized on exposure to the air, lengths of old wire, and fragments of chain came up from between the 160- and 170-foot levels.

So many interesting and inexplicable finds were being made in 10-X that Triton wisely decided to enlarge it sufficiently to admit an underwater television camera. Watching the tape which that camera recorded is an eerie and perplexing experience. Like so many other important Oak Island clues, it tantalizes and intrigues the researcher, but falls short of providing final and absolute proof of exactly what is down there or how it got there. The tape shows passages with well-defined corners and rectangular apertures which seem more likely to have been the work of man than the work of nature. They look as though they might well be cribbed with straight timber frames. The natural anhydrite bedrock does not characteristically form tunnels of this type. The swirling water which the camera had to penetrate was flecked with small moving specks — like a light fall of snow — and this detritus material had settled over many of the objects which lie in the mysterious depths. There was a slim, curved shape that could have been an old mariner's cutlass. There were also several large cuboids, their rectangular edges softened by layers of settled material from the floating “snowstorm.” Were they boulders, ancient storage boxes, treasure chests, or coffins?

In August 1971, Triton worker Dan Henskee, and Parker Kennedy, a drilling expert from Halifax, were with Dan Blankenship when the camera revealed what appeared to be a severed human hand floating in the murky waters deep inside Borehole 10-X. Later photographs revealed what looked like a waterlogged but remarkably well-preserved human corpse. A sealed compartment filled with salt water and excluding the air would be capable of preserving human remains for centuries.

Phil Irwin of Atlantic Divers Ltd., with headquarters in Brooklyn, Nova Scotia, went down well below the 180-foot mark, where the quarter-inch steel lining of 10-X ended. The force of the subterranean current at that depth almost tore the helmet from his head, and the masses of suspended particles brought visibility down to zero. Muddy water in Smith's Cove showed where the fierce current was originating. It looks as if 10-X had penetrated at least one of the unknown genius's ancient flood tunnels, and diverted the flow downwards into the labyrinth far below.

Blankenship's team bulldozed tons of clay over the entrance in Smith's Cove, and another dive was made. The terrifying pressure of the racing water had stopped, but visibility was still close to zero. The divers dared not stray far from the foot of 10-X; their lights revealed almost nothing, and feeling around on the floor of the mysterious cavern revealed only small stones.

After that, Dan himself made several dives, but again the problems of hopeless visibility and the danger of moving more than a few feet from the base of the shaft were too great — it was impossible to locate the salt-preserved body, the chests, or any of the other strange objects the camera had revealed.