Strange Tale of Pirate Gold Found at Quidi Vidi

FolkloreHalloween

Sep. 25

They don’t call St. John’s, NL ‘The City of Legends’ without reason. The provincial capital has more than its fair share of tall tales and strange truths, and the legend of the pirate gold found in Quidi Vidi in the early 20th century definitely belongs in one of those camps— it’s either an all-out fiction or one a very bizarre truth.

Though it was told in a local newspaper, my vote lies squarely with the former but, as always, draw your own conclusions.

Quidi Vidi’s Pirate Treasure Found

It was September 1909 when, according to The Evening Telegram, the clean-shaven man stepped from the SS Florizel to the dock in St. John’s.

Nobody knew who he was and, it seemed he was keen to keep it that way. He had been mostly successful until he was spotted on the banks of Quidi Vidi Lake near Bennett Grove. He was working furiously in a long dried-up riverbed. He was taking turns, first hacking at the clay with a pick-axe, then using a shovel to cast the spoil to the side.

People knew he was there, they could hear him working late into the night, but any time they gave the slightest indication they might approach him, he moved into the cover of the trees.

He clearly did not want to talk.

Not that the people needed to talk to know what he was up to. It was obvious. He was looking for the treasure.

Everyone had heard the stories of the £25 000 in gold and silver supposedly secreted away somewhere in the vicinity of Signal Hill and Quidi Vidi.

In fact, over the years many had even gone looking for it. The best lead they ever had was a map owned by O’Regan.

The First Attempt

The Evening Telegram told the story of the discovery of Quidi Vidi’s pirate gold over three articles in autumn of 1909. The first time they mention O’Regan getting a map (Sept. 25) they say it happened in 1820. The second recounting (Oct 6) suggests it happened ‘30 years ago,’ making it more like 1880.
Further to that, if the Rev. Fr. Forristal mentioned is Rev. William Forristal, he was an infant in Ireland in 1820.

In the late 19th century,* O’Regan, a shoemaker in the city, was playing host to an altogether different stranger — a pirate. The pirate had come back to town to claim the treasure buried there years before. Before he had a chance to dig up the loot he got sick, so sick they called the priest. Rev. Fr. Forristal came to see him. On his deathbed he confessed to his life of piracy and told O’Regan of a treasure buried near Quidi Vidi Lake. In the pirate’s possession was a chart marking the location of the treasure — some 30-paces from a stream on the south side of the lake.

O’Regan marshalled a team of Quidi Vidi fisherman to begin a hunt. After 3 days and nights of digging they uncovered a human skull and an old piece of oak. At the edge of the trench, in some loose stone, were two gold coins. As one of the men stooped to pick them up he noticed a large opening in the clay. Through it he spotted nine kegs but before he could do anything there was a loud, shrieking explosion and bright flash of light. He scrambled to get out of the pit as clay and rock began to tumble in, hiding the kegs.

The men were terrified. Never again, they said, for all the money in the world, would they search for that treasure.

Eventually, O’Regan left St. John’s for America.

supernatural Protection

O’Regan’s crew believed their experiences were some sort of supernatural protection meant to keep treasure hunters away from that part of the lakeshore.

Over time the story did what stories do — it grew and changed.

Eventually people came to believe the treasure was guarded by a dog-headed ghost that barked and howled so fiercely it could kill.

Back to 1909

The clean-shaven man from the Florizel was not put off by any ghostly rumours. He continued to work in the dry riverbed well into the night.

Soon people began speculating that he had come from America where, somehow, he had encountered O’Regan and taken possession of the map.

He continued digging for 3 days and nights until, early one morning, the stranger was seen rowing from the foot of the lake toward his dig site.

He hoisted a large box into the boat. He then rowed toward a waiting buggy — leaving behind a crater in the ground, large heaps of soil and a mystery.

A sensation!

“Pirate’s Treasure Said To Have Been Recovered,” shouted a headline in the The Evening Telegram (Sept 25, 1909). Days later they reported ‘hundreds’ visited the lake-side dig site. In early October they printed a supposed first-hand account of an earlier treasure-hunter who speculated that the stranger could not possibly have taken all the loot, and that gold remained hidden on the bank of the lake.

Before you run for your shovel, I will point out that his credibility is not beyond question. He’s the same man who provided details about the treasure’s supernatural protections.

Years later Some Superstitions and Traditions of Newfoundland by P.J. Kinsella, describes how, when a local paper wrote about treasure on the south side of Quidi Vidi Lake, it caused a ‘sensation.’

A sensation sparked by a tale in the local paper concerning pirate gold, mysterious strangers and dog-headed ghosts?

I can’t imagine why!

Did Any of this happen?

I truth, I’m not totally sure where the strange truth ends and the tall tale begins. I mean, people have done stranger things than look for buried treasure but did it happen the banks of Quidi Vidi in 1909?

I don’t know. The newspaper reports the dig as fact. That said, their background information on the treasure, with its pirate curses and ghosts, has to be fiction.

But it’s fun fiction, I guess, and something to think about the next time you’re strolling around Quidi Vidi Lake and hear a dog bark —

is it a German Shepard just ahead, or are you dangerously close to pirate gold?

Anything’s possible in a City of Legends.