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By Lemuel L. Hamilton Related to Emory L. Hamilton on November 22, 1940. Part of the WPA Project Papers, The Alderman Library, The University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA. One time Uncle Nelt, my grandpa and great-grandpa, Green Jones was coming across the hill from Grandpa Jones over to Uncle Nelt s. It was after dark. They had been talking about hunting Swift s mine before the started and had a map with them. When they got about where Elbert Bolling s fish pond now is they saw a sheep standing just below the path. Uncle Nelt said, 'Watch me have some fun, and he jumped at the sheep to scare it. Well, there was no sheep there and he hit on his belly and hands in the middle of a brush pile. He got up and they went on talking about what it could be. They all three saw the sheep standing there. They went on home after they got there they started talking about Swift s mine again and old man Jones said maybe the hant had something to do with it. He got his map out and started reading it. It said in the history that Swift hid a load of silver on the banks of Guest River on a little stream running due east and facing a pine ridge. They got to studying and the branch where they saw the sheep did run to the banks of Guest River, due east and shore enough faced a pine ridge. Old man Jones said, 'Boys we ll have to investigate that. They went the next day and examined the spot and next night went back and moved the brush pile, taking a mattock and shovel they dug down under the brush pile where they saw the sheep about two feet and struck the top of a cedar post, hewed four square that had been sunk in the ground. They dug down about ten feet and hadn t yet come to the bottom. Some of the neighbors got to laughing at them and told them it was where an Indian had been buried. Uncle Nelt cut the post off and took it home with him and they quit digging. Funny part was though there ain t no cedar in that whole section there and it must have been carried for miles. The closest cedars that large that I know of are on the Powell Mountain. I ve heard mother tell about a boy at Norton finding one of these cedar posts, hewed four square, years ago. His parents wouldn t let him dig it up and she said he left home over it. I ve heard say that there was a "Swift Map" that spoke of these cedar posts, hewed four square, with an arrow in the top pointing in the direction of the mine. It is said that Swift buried some treasure under each one of these posts. |
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