MISSING TREASURE Linked to Lot 24 (Season 1) | Tales From Oak Island

NARRATOR:

On Oak Island,
deep within these woods,
sits a secluded
four-acre property
known as Lot 25.
On it lie the remnants
of a crumbling foundation.
Upon this foundation,
there once stood a home…
…a home built
from the ground up by a man
who may have possessed the key
to what is now
the world’s longest-running
treasure mystery.
His name was Samuel Ball.

-GARY: What is this area
we are in now, Charles?
-CHARLES: This would be Lot 24.
Is that a coin?
GARY: Yeah, it’s a coin.
That’s a King George.
NARRATOR: In 2016,
metal detection expert
Gary Drayton
and Oak Island historian
Charles Barkhouse
were exploring Lot 24,
a property once
owned by Samuel Ball…
GARY: Ooh-hoo!
NARRATOR:
…hoping to find clues
that might help solve
the Oak Island treasure mystery.
GARY: It’s a button.
That’s a fancy button.
NARRATOR:
As they searched the property,
numerous discoveries were made
suggesting that
the British military
created encampments
on the island
during the 18th century,
although several years
before Samuel Ball arrived.
-GARY: You know what that is?
-CHARLES: Is that lead?
This is the type of thing
that would be carried
by a British soldier.
This is a lead ingot
for making musket balls.
-CHARLES: Wow.
-Now we’ve got to start
putting things together.
We’ve got a button,
we’ve got coins and this.
Maybe this is some kind of camp.
You know, the encampment part
that you’re talking about
kind of fits into
Fred Nolan’s theory.
He believed that this
was a British military operation
in 1762,
after the sacking of Havana.
NARRATOR:
Is it possible that Samuel Ball,
through all of
his many associations
with the British military,
knew that a valuable
treasure deposit existed
somewhere on the island?
And that there might be
more than one?
Fred Nolan believed
it was part of an enormous haul
of gold and silver taken
by the British from Spain
during the Seven Years’ War,
a global conflict
fought between 1756 and 1763.
NARRATOR:
In 1761,
In 1761,
Spain’s King Charles III
agreed to support France
during the conflict.
agreed to support France
during the conflict.
This led Britain
to quickly declare war on Spain,
resulting in one of
the most infamous battles
of the Seven Years’ War…
…the British capture
of the Spanish colony of Havana
in the summer of 1762.
RANDALL:
There really was
an enormous treasure taken.
Huge amounts of gold and silver
were stored in Havana.
The calculations of what
was there, based on the records,
you know, have ranged anything
from two or three billion
to ten billion.
But all the gold and silver
that was transported
back to Britain
is about $800 million
in today’s money.
So there’s a huge discrepancy.
At least a couple
of billion dollars’ worth
of gold and silver
are unaccounted for.
REBECCA:
After the British
successfully sacked Havana,
they sailed up the coast
of North America
heading towards Halifax.
And it’s there where
they possibly off-loaded
some of their goods–
perhaps to Oak Island–
before they continued
to head back to Britain
to bring the goods back
to the British treasury.
RANDALL:
There’s no record of where
all that gold and silver went.
But they had to put it
somewhere, and…
so why not Oak Island?
so why not Oak Island?
NARRATOR:
Many treasure hunters,
including the most current team
searching the island,
led by brothers
Rick and Marty Lagina…
GARY:
Heads up!
NARRATOR:
…have looked for evidence
to corroborate
Fred Nolan’s theory
that multiple treasure caches
were hidden
all across the island.
It’s just right up here.
-All right.
-NARRATOR: And in 2015,
Terry Deveau, the vice president
of the New England
Antiquities Association,
was invited to examine
one of the properties
once owned by Samuel Ball:
Lot 6.
We were running lines
back and forth
with the metal detector
and clearing
a lot of brush away.
-I saw this point
sticking out…
-TERRY D.: Okay.
…and I came over
and dug it up.
This, uh, type of graywacke,
which is common
in this part of Nova Scotia,
does tend to naturally fracture.
This one is pretty interesting
’cause there-there seems to be
kind of, uh,
an added piece to it.
This is almost like
a cast of some kind
that’s been added on
to make a point.
It doesn’t look normal.
What about this stone over here?
-This one?
-Yeah.
TERRY D.:
It also has a flat surface.
If it was used
either as a cover over here
or as the-the back wall
and then…
-Oh.
-…somebody later took it apart
to see what was in there,
someone may have come here
and used this to bury
treasure or something valuable.
NARRATOR:
Is it possible
that buried treasure
was recovered long ago on Lot 6?
If so, could that be
an additional clue
explaining the source of
Samuel Ball’s mysterious wealth?
And could it also be related
to an 18th-century operation
by the British military to hide
valuables all across Oak Island?
TODD:
During the American Revolution,
Samuel Ball may have run
into some British soldiers
who had served
at the taking of Havana,
who told him stories
of treasure on Oak Island,
and made his way there.
DOUG:
If Fred Nolan is right
in his belief that there
were multiple depositions
of treasure,
then Samuel Ball very certainly
could have stumbled upon
one of those.
NARRATOR:
As members of the team
continued to dig underneath
the Samuel Ball homestead,
they made
a surprising discovery.
What the…
-CHARLES: What’s he got?
-LAIRD: Look, look.
-There’s an opening here, Gary.
-GARY: What is that?
-Like a little tunnel?
-(laughs): Yeah.
-CHARLES: Definitely a void…
-GARY: A void?
…below these rocks.
-(camera shutter clicks)
LAIRD:
It lines up exactly
with the anomaly,
so it is the anomaly.
RICK:
I mean, if this is a tunnel,
it’s an aha moment.
Yeah.
LAIRD:
During our excavations
at the Ball site,
we found a stone box drain
that ran from the southeast
corner of the cellar.
Uh, it was about four feet deep
and ran into a low area.
And the biggest mystery with it
is why it was there
and what it was leading to.
RICK:
I mean, the foundation
becomes even more interesting
because of the find
of the so-called drain
at the base of the foundation.
What else is being hidden?
MARTY:
Yeah, just take it real slow.
RICK:
Boy, that is really
well-built, isn’t it?
LAIRD:
Yeah.
That’s a nice flat ceiling
we’re looking at there.
-DEREK: Beautiful.
-Yeah.
NARRATOR:
After inserting a small camera,
Rick, Marty and the team
could see that the mysterious
drain, or tunnel,
seemed to be empty,
leaving them to wonder
why it was constructed
and just what
it once may have contained.
Subsequent investigations
of the homestead
would reveal that Samuel Ball
had also constructed
a number of outbuildings
all around his property.
One of the most perplexing,
uh, things about Samuel Ball
is not only the amount
of property he owns,
it’s the amount of
property he had cleared.
I think we estimated
he had seven acres,
which is far more
than he would’ve needed
to sustain
his relatively small family.
So, it speaks to perhaps
a sideline business
that he had, and that’s
where he was getting his money.
NARRATOR:
A sideline business?
But if so,
then who might Samuel Ball
have been engaging with,
and for what purpose?
ALEX:
Hey, look at this.
-It’s got…
-Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
-ALEX: A little green.
-LAIRD: Yup.
Yeah, this looks old.
It’s got kind of
irregular edges.
NARRATOR:
In 2020, five years
after the team
began unearthing artifacts
on Samuel Ball’s property,
an investigation of spoils
removed from his homestead
unearthed a clue to help
find a possible answer.
ALEX:
There’s three anchors.
There’s one on the right,
there’s a large one
in the middle, and then
there’s one on the left.
-Down the side.
-RICK: Oh, yeah.
ALEX:
And you can see
the other one on the left.
GARY:
Without doubt,
that is a British Navy
jacket button.
ALEX:
What time period
is this, though?
LAIRD:
1804 to 1825.
Solidly within the Ball period.
NARRATOR:
Using a computer
tomography scanner,
Laird was able
to determine that the button
was a gold-gilded
Master and Commander
officer’s button
from the British Royal Navy.
LAIRD:
I think the most
surprising artifact
was the Royal Navy
Master and Commander’s button.
And that position
would’ve been the person
who loads the Royal Navy ships.
It’s not something
someone would just have.
So, to me,
it tied the Royal Navy
and Samuel Ball together,
after finding the Money Pit,
which I thought
was pretty significant.
MARTY:
Okay, the obvious answer
or probability
is he was trading
with the British Navy.
He had kept his connections
with the British
and he was involved
with them somehow.
There’s an easy solution,
but how about this?
There’s an easy solution,
but how about this?
How about he was trading
with the British Navy
’cause he had something
to trade with the British Navy?