Amazing Oak Island Discovery In Lot 24 Could END The Curse of Oak Island Forever!

I think it’s the mystery of mysteries. The king of mysteries. Fabulous treasure, seemingly within reach if anyone can figure out how to get. Oak Island’s legend may have just taken a historic turn with a remarkable discovery on lot 24.

For centuries, the island has been cloaked in secrecy, with each twist in the hunt for treasure adding more questions than answers. But this latest find could finally push the mystery toward a shocking conclusion. What was uncovered on this unassuming piece of land? Could it reveal the truth behind Oak Island’s legendary curse?

Tucked away off Nova Scotia’s southern coast, Oak Island has long been a magnet for explorers and dreamers alike. Every corner of this small island seems to hold a clue. And now lot 24 steps into the spotlight. A quiet patch of ground that may hide one of the most important secrets ever linked to the island’s centuries-old enigma.

Let’s rewind. Samuel Ball was born in 1761 on a rice plantation near Charleston, South Carolina. This wasn’t just any plantation. It was notorious for its brutal conditions. Cultivating rice was grueling, demanding swampy fields, backbreaking labor, and constant exposure to disease—malaria, dysentery, cholera, you name it.

Add to that the daily threat of violence, and life was a relentless cycle of survival. For the first 18 years of his life, Samuel faced the kind of challenges most of us can’t begin to imagine. But then in 1776, history took a sharp turn. The American Revolution was in full swing, and the British army, desperate to undermine the rebels, made an unexpected move.

In 1779, General Sir Henry Clinton issued a proclamation promising freedom to enslaved individuals who escaped rebel owners and joined the British. It wasn’t full emancipation, but it was a lifeline. Samuel Ball was one of 50 enslaved people who seized this chance, leaving the Ball plantation behind to cross into British lines.

After serving in South Carolina with the British Army, Samuel Ball found himself heading north to New York, where things got, let’s say, interesting. He joined the Loyalist Refugee Volunteers, a unit with a reputation for daring raids and bold moves. This wasn’t your typical military group. They raided rebel homes, acquired goods, and did what wartime demanded.

Sure, in peacetime this would have been flat-out illegal, but during war it was survival tactics. Through all this, Samuel was learning, whether from the missions or the men he worked alongside. He picked up skills that would later help him navigate the tricky world of money and business. Some of these lessons might not have come with a “how to stay legal” manual, but they were effective.

Despite early British victories, the war took a sharp turn in 1781. The American forces pulled off a game-changing win, and that defeat pushed Samuel Ball along with countless others loyal to Britain to make a life-changing decision. He fled to British-occupied Canada, where the crown had promised freedom, goods, and land to enslaved black individuals in exchange for their loyalty.

The result was a wave of migration. Nearly 5,000 black loyalists arrived in Nova Scotia, forming 52 historic black communities. While many settled in Shelburn or nearby Birchtown, Samuel had other plans. By 1787, he’d purchased a 4-acre lot on Oak Island, lot 25, for £8. That’s thousands of dollars in today’s terms.

It wasn’t a fortune, but for the time it was a decent sum, especially for someone starting fresh. But why Oak Island? It’s not exactly prime real estate—remote, isolated, and surrounded by trees. Some think his decision might have had something to do with his neighbor, Captain James Anderson, who owned the adjoining lot 26.

Speaking of Captain James, his life had twists just like Samuel’s. Born in Maryland, Anderson grew up to become a pirate and privateer during the American Revolution. He initially pledged loyalty to the United States, but then pulled the ultimate plot twist. After receiving command of an American ship, he defected to the British.

This didn’t sit well with then–Virginia governor and future President Thomas Jefferson, who slapped Anderson with charges of high treason and piracy. With the heat on him, Anderson fled to Canada and eventually landed on Oak Island, buying lot 26. He lived there until 1788, just a stone’s throw from Samuel Ball’s lot 25.

Now, did Anderson and Samuel know about something hidden on Oak Island before they even arrived? What we do know is that after Anderson left, Samuel Ball bought his lot. By then, Samuel was well on his way to building an impressive property portfolio. Starting as a cabbage farmer, he turned his 4 acres into something far bigger.

By 1790, he even purchased nearby Hook Island for £6, a hefty sum for the time. But let’s be real—could cabbage farming alone bankroll this kind of real estate spree? Some historians suggest otherwise. The British government’s policy of awarding contracts to freed black settlers to supply goods to the military may have played a role.

Honestly, it makes sense. For the British Navy, cabbage was a lifesaver. They used cabbage to produce sauerkraut, a vital source of vitamin C that helped sailors fight off scurvy on long voyages. At the height of demand, Samuel likely cashed in on lucrative contracts with the Navy, supplying the sauerkraut that kept ships sailing.

But like all booms, this one had its bust. The Navy eventually shifted to using limes for vitamin C—easier to store and transport—which left the cabbage market high and dry. Even so, Samuel’s wealth didn’t just hold steady. It kept growing.

Then came 1795. This year marked a turning point, not just for Samuel Ball, but for Oak Island itself. That’s when three young men stumbled upon what would become the island’s most enduring mystery: the so-called money pit on lot 18.

It started innocently enough. The men noticed a strange depression in the ground and above it an old ship’s tackle block hanging from a tree. Curiosity got the better of them, and they began digging. What they uncovered was mind-blowing.

Thirty feet down, they hit a wooden platform made of oak beams. And it didn’t stop there. Every 10 feet below that, the pattern repeated. This wasn’t random—it was deliberate. A man-made construction with purpose.

Over the following two centuries, treasure hunters kept digging, going deeper and deeper, sometimes more than 150 feet, in search of whatever was hidden below. But back in 1795, the very first dig only made it to about 30 feet. After the money pit was discovered, Samuel Ball didn’t just sit around farming cabbages. He started buying land—lots of it.

By the end of it, Samuel wasn’t only the owner of lot 25, but also lots 8, 24, 31, 32, 36, and 7 on Oak Island. And that’s not all. He also scooped up another 100 acres on the mainland. That’s a serious amount of real estate for one farmer.

But if the cabbage business wasn’t that profitable, where was the money coming from? What link did Samuel really have to the money pit’s discovery? This was unusual behavior for a simple farmer. Did he stumble across something valuable in those first digs? A piece of the treasure itself?

The hidden story of lot 24. Fast forward to 2016 when metal detection specialist Gary Drayton and Oak Island historian Charles Barkhouse decided to explore lot 24 for answers that might shed light on the island’s biggest mystery. What they uncovered was surprising. They found coins.

As they scanned the property, more relics started to appear, each one whispering clues of a larger story. The evidence hinted that British military camps had once been set up on the island during the 1700s, long before Samuel Ball came along. This discovery connected to a long-standing theory put forward by treasure hunter Fred Nolan, who believed Oak Island was never just about the money pit.

It was tied to a full-scale British military operation. Fred Nolan’s ideas gained momentum after he bought seven lots on Oak Island back in 1963. A skilled land surveyor, Nolan became obsessed with the odd stone markers scattered across the island. To him, these markers weren’t random.

They hinted not only at the construction of the money pit, but also at the burial of smaller treasure stashes across Oak Island. But where would all that treasure have come from? Nolan had a theory, and it tied back to one of the greatest treasure captures in history. Let’s rewind to the Seven Years’ War, a worldwide conflict that raged from 1756 to 1763.

This wasn’t some minor European feud. It stretched across the globe, from Africa to India and the Caribbean. By 1761, Spain’s King Charles III had sided with France, which led Britain to declare war on Spain. Soon after, in 1762, the British stormed Havana in one of the war’s most legendary battles.

Havana wasn’t just a key port. It was a gold mine packed with riches. When the British took the city, they seized a massive treasure. Historical accounts put its worth at 2 to 3 billion in today’s value. Yet a puzzle remains.

While about $800 million worth was officially recorded in Britain, billions more vanished. So the question is, where did it go? After looting Havana, British ships sailed toward Halifax, hugging the North American coastline. Could they have secretly unloaded part of their plunder on Oak Island before carrying the rest to Britain?

Nolan’s theory says yes, and that Samuel Ball’s land might have been one of the hiding places. This idea—that treasures were hidden in multiple caches around the island—has kept countless treasure hunters searching for generations, including today’s team led by brothers Rick and Marty Lagina.

Some of the most intriguing discoveries have come from land once owned by Samuel Ball, like lot 6. In 2015, Terry Dvau, vice president of the New England Antiquities Association, joined the team to investigate lot 6. While clearing brush and using metal detectors, treasure hunter Jack Begley noticed something strange.

“I saw this point sticking out,” Jack recalled. This type of greywacke stone is common in Nova Scotia and usually breaks apart naturally, but this one’s different. It has an added piece almost like it was shaped to form a point. It doesn’t look natural.

What made it even more curious was the rock’s flat surface. It looked like it might have once been used as a cover stone or the back wall of something hidden. Could lot 6 have once been a treasure site? Even more intriguing is the thought that Samuel Ball might have known about British efforts to stash valuables on Oak Island.

Rumors or stories he may have picked up during his own service with the British military. Samuel Ball’s coded legacy. In 2019, when Rick and Marty Lagina decided to dig even deeper using ground-penetrating radar, they scanned lot 25, the site of Samuel Ball’s original homestead.

What they found was extraordinary: an anomalous void or possible tunnel near the foundation of Samuel’s home. The discovery prompted archaeologist Laird Niven to secure a permit for further investigation. He believed Samuel’s choice of lot 25 could have been intentional, tied to knowledge he gained during his time in the British military.

As excavation began, the team took extra care. The deeper they dug, the more questions arose. Was Samuel Ball’s wealth simply the result of shrewd business, or was he guarding a much larger secret? The very fact that Samuel Ball had a constructed house during the 18th century is remarkable.

Homes like his were rare, especially for someone of his background. No wonder analysts think there are so many missing pieces to how Samuel managed to achieve all this. As they dug beneath the foundation, things took a wild turn. Soon enough, they hit the anomaly spotted in the ground-penetrating radar scan—a hidden tunnel beneath Samuel’s home.

For the team, this was an insane moment. But what was this tunnel’s purpose? During the excavation, the team uncovered a stone box drain running from the southeast corner of the cellar about 4 feet deep, leading to a low area. And the big question: why was it there?

As they carefully explored the tunnel, they were struck by how solidly it had been built. But when they inserted a small camera into the void, it appeared to be empty. Empty, but suspiciously deliberate. Meanwhile, further investigations revealed that Samuel Ball’s property wasn’t just a home.

It was an operation. James Day found evidence of multiple outbuildings scattered across the land. Even more curious, the amount of cleared land Samuel’s property spanned 7 acres, far more than he would have needed to sustain his small family. It points to a sideline business, one researcher suggested.

Then came another curious find in 2020, five years into the investigation. While sifting through spoils removed from the homestead, the team uncovered a fabric artifact. The artifact had irregular edges, and upon closer inspection, it turned out to be part of a British Navy jacket.

The estimated time period was 1804 to 1825. So, what does this all mean? Samuel Ball’s homestead wasn’t just a place to live. The hidden tunnels, the outbuildings, and the extensive cleared land suggest something much bigger was going on.

Every discovery brings us closer to understanding Samuel Ball’s mysterious life, but also raises new questions about what secrets might still be buried on his land. Among the many discoveries tied to Samuel Ball’s enigmatic life, one artifact stands out: a gold-gilded Master and Commander officer’s button from the British Royal Navy.

Using a computed tomography scanner, archaeologist Laird Niven identified this remarkable find. What makes this button so significant? It’s not something just anyone would have. A Master and Commander officer was responsible for loading Royal Navy ships, an important position to some.

This button ties Samuel Ball directly to the British Navy. After the discovery of the money pit, one team member summed it up: the obvious explanation is he was trading with the British Navy. He kept his connections and was involved with them somehow. But then came the bigger question: what was he trading?

Adding fuel to this speculation was the mysterious tunnel or box drain found beneath Samuel’s homestead on lot 25. It stretched toward the southeast shoreline. The team’s investigation took an even stranger turn when a nearby structure revealed another clue.

Years ago, Rick Lagina recalled an experience he had while wandering lot 26 with legendary treasure hunter Dan Blankenship. He remembered how they came across a well. It was the dead of winter, way below freezing, but there was no ice on it.

This well, located on lot 26, was once owned by Samuel Ball, and it became a focal point for further investigation when the team observed that it never froze, no matter the temperature. The phenomenon prompted geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner and archaeologist Laird Niven to collect water samples and organic materials from the well.

The results were astounding. Dr. Spooner revealed, “We got samples from the well, and it was one of our only silver hits outside the money pit.” This raised a tantalizing possibility. Could the tunnel under Samuel Ball’s homestead be connected to this mysterious well?

And then just offshore from Samuel’s home on lot 25, another discovery deepened the mystery. In 2020, while investigating the waters surrounding Oak Island, the team uncovered something remarkable: remains of a massive stone wharf stretching 16 feet wide and over 100 feet long.

This structure was far larger than what a humble cabbage farmer would need for offloading crops. Samuel Ball’s resourcefulness is undeniable. He was capable and clearly had connections. Some speculate he could have built the wharf as part of a lucrative contract with the British Navy, supplying cabbage to prevent scurvy on their ships.

Others wonder if it served a more secretive purpose, perhaps linked to smuggling or even safeguarding treasure. The possibility that Samuel Ball was more than just a farmer grows stronger with each discovery. Some believe he might have been entrusted by the British military to guard the treasure on Oak Island, ensuring it remained safe until the crown could reclaim it.

Naval buttons found on his property suggest he maintained ties with the military. And the scale of his operations, both on land and along the shoreline, point to activities beyond farming. Could Samuel Ball have been the keeper of a secret so valuable that the crown rewarded him for his discretion?

In 1842, after more than 60 years on Oak Island, Samuel Ball passed away at the age of 81, leaving behind a legacy of wealth, property, and unanswered questions. In 2017, the story of Samuel Ball took a deeply personal twist when Rick and Marty Lagina sat down in the war room with Tony and Ivan Boyd, two direct descendants of Samuel himself.

The Boyds brought with them powerful family stories passed down for generations. “Our mother always said, ‘This is our people’s land,’” Ivan shared—a phrase that has stayed with him his entire life. To them, Samuel Ball’s journey was nothing short of extraordinary.

To build the kind of wealth and own the land that he did, especially after coming out of slavery, is phenomenal. They described Samuel as street-smart, sharp, and determined. But the age-old question still lingers. Did Samuel Ball really uncover treasure on Oak Island?

Ivan Boyd is convinced he discovered something, but not the full prize. “The big treasure cache is still out there,” he insisted. “I hope the Lagina brothers are the ones to find it. But for me, it’s really about the truth. I just want to know what’s hidden there.”

And so the search carries on. Rick and Marty Lagina, along with their dedicated team, continue to explore Samuel Ball’s former lands where they’ve uncovered jewelry, silver, and other intriguing artifacts that point toward wealth. While none of these findings prove beyond doubt that Samuel uncovered Oak Island treasure, they do suggest he may have stumbled onto something remarkable.

What is certain, however, is this. Samuel Ball’s legacy is as much about courage, resilience, and victory over hardship as it is about Oak Island’s endless mysteries. From an enslaved teenager to becoming one of Nova Scotia’s most successful landowners, Samuel’s story is nothing short of inspiring.

But perhaps the real treasure of Oak Island isn’t the gold buried in its earth. It’s Samuel himself. His life, his remarkable achievements, and the mysteries that surround him continue to inspire and captivate to this very day. Could Samuel Ball’s story hold the missing piece to solving Oak Island’s greatest riddle?