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By Taylor Nash Related to James M. Hylton on April 8, 1941, living near Wise, Wise Co., VA. The WPA Project, The Alderman Library, The University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA. In getting my story right I will go back to where my great-grandfather met with Swift long ago when he was hunting. He was hunting a good deal in and around what we call the Flatwoods near Coeburn, VA, and it was on this sort of trip that he first met up with him. At least that was his Tales and I am sure he would not make it up. My Mother told me about Uncle Jessie Ramey as he was called telling her about meeting him with his little band of men once while they were dodging a squad of bad Indians who were trying to get hold of them and their food and guns. He showed him a draw in the hill where they could hide without being seen by them and the Indians went on by them. That was between Flatwoods and Big Stoney Creek and on the next trip they met at almost the same place. He told Mother that Swift went into the woods away from the rest of the little party and said he was searching for a spring from which to furnish the camp with water to cook and to drink. But that he hid a rifle barrel in some rocks as a marker for this trail, but that later he tried to show some men where the rifle barrel was so he could find his Silver but they searched everywhere that he directed but found no barrel. It was some time before he came back in search of his trail that he had tried to leave through the hills but he was blind at the time and could only guess and try to show those with him the right trail. On another trip in which Grandfather ran into him and his little band he said that he placed a sand stone in the fork of a growing tree and fastened it there with vines of some kind but that when the searching party came along years later to hunt for the lost silver he was told to have hidden the fork of the tree had grown up and mashed the sandstone to bits and no trail was left there that they could find. Of course the fork of the tree had grown and left no trace of the small fork or the sandstone either. Hop Corder of Coeburn (Wise Co.) VA found an old gun barrel in between some rocks there not long ago and I think it must have been Swift s that he hid and never could show his party of searchers where to find it. It is an old make and one that is loaded form the front end with a rod of some sort. Everyone who knows about it put more faith in the Swift Silver legend when it was found. My grandfather told my mother that Swift himself had told the searchers at the time of their search for the barrel that it was not meant for anyone to find it that blood had been spilt over his silver and that he didn t guess it was going to be found on that account. He was alleged to have killed his little party of men one at a time in order to have all the silver they had found and smelted in their crude way. That goes to show that Swift s Silver was hidden in this country instead of farther on in Kentucky or at least I think so. I am going to search right on after it and before the leaves fall I have a search to make that I am sure will net me some good information about this fellow Swift. Lots of people now think pretty strong that he had some way of smelting it in the hills or at least there is considerable proof to make you think so. I can also tell you about the other things that have taken place in and around the Flatwoods section that will go to show that there was bount (sic) to be somebody melting or silver of some kind. There seems to be too many traces for me not to feel confident about the whole thing. |
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