Legend of the Lost Silver

Now Ruben Beck was not a big believer in the banking industry.  Like many people who had seen and suffered through the Great Depression, he had little faith in banks and would not keep his money in the Grant County Bank.  (It was rumored, however, that Ruben actually had faired well when the banks closed at the onset of the Depression.  He was $17 overdrawn.)  So Ruben carried his daily profits home with him each day from the concern he called Beck's Grocery & Station.  His business was not hugely profitable as he was in the habit of allowing many of his customers to "charge" their purchases.  Of course, no interest was sought on the charges.  Also, a number of his charging customers were not able to pay off their bill, but Ruben continued to carry them as long as they made sporadic payments. 

Well let us get back to our story.  Ruben would take out monies from his profits to provide for his family.  There was little left over but enough for him to begin a modest savings.  He did this by the simple method of dropping a few silver dollars in a two-gallon pickle jar every few days.  In those days silver dollars were still in wide circulation and  used by many just as smaller coin is used today.  The pickle jar he kept hidden in the storm cellar behind some jars of preserves.   Only he and his wife were aware of its existence.

After several years the jar became filled.  The amount of silver dollars it contained was never ascertained by Ruben but he estimated to his wife that there must have been about 2500 in the gallon jar.  Not willing to take the cache to the bank, he determined to take the jar out to his farm and bury it until needed for a future emergency.   This he did very early one morning, being sure that his actions were unobserved.  He dug a hole about three feet deep and buried his jar 15 paces from a certain pine tree in the direction of the pond that lay on his property.  The tree was not far from the small barn near his garden.  But you may recall that there were many pine trees on his farm.  To keep himself from getting confused about the matter, Ruben marked the tree from which he had paced to the hole. 

It was about six years later that Ruben decided to use some of the money for a home repair project.  So he went to the farm and began looking for the tree he had marked.  The trees had grown very much in six years as pine trees do.  He walked to the tree he believed to be the marker, but was unable to find his mark on it.  He looked at the other pines in close proximity but could not find his mark.  So he decided to just pace off from the one he thought was the marker tree.  He dug down three feet but to no avail.  He paced 15 steps from another tree and agin dug a hole.  Nothing.  He repeated this over a dozen times but still was not able to retrieve his savings from the ground.  Over the next week he spent many hours in careful deliberation about the matter.  He tried to recreate his exact actions at the time he buried his money but this brought no success.  And although he was greatly disappointed that he was having such difficulty in locating his silver, he refused to panic and continued to search and dig over the next several years. 

His efforts ceased only when his health faltered and he could no longer engage in physical activity.  His illness lasted several months and finally ended his life one cold November morn.  His wife was now the only person who knew of the buried silver.  She related this story to me several years later, requesting that I attempt to locate the treasure.  The property had been given to the children and it would soon be sold.  So she wanted  me to make attempts to recover the funds that she and Ruben had so painstakenly saved.  I made several visits to the property and I believe I actually located the vicinity of the treasure.  There was an area where the ground was unnaturally uneven and I believed it to be caused by Ruben’s excavations.  I even used a metal detector over a wide area.  But my attempts were feeble and futile.  The land was sold and will no doubt soon be turned into a housing subdivision.  And so it appears, absent some remarkable and highly improbable circumstance, that nature will reclaim one of her elements so highly esteemed by man. 

“Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth...”