From the Vineyard Gazette edition of June 24, 1930:

Summer has arrived, the crowd of summer visitors and vacationists in each Island town increases daily, and already the program of seasonable amusements has opened. The first group of gay, young people has ridden, walked and run over a devious course on a “treasure hunt”, which game is played, as most people know, by starting the hunters out with certain cryptic directions for finding a certain spot where another set of equally puzzling directions will guide them to another and so on, until at last, if they persevere, they will reach the final station where the prize, in the shape of something to eat, perhaps, awaits the lucky seekers.

All this makes an interesting and enjoyable game, calling for patience and keenness of perception. But a much more serious treasure hunting game has often been carried on by Vineyarders, with a pot or chest of coins as the prize. By day and by night men have dug feverishly in the Island soil in search of treasure which they felt sure existed and which doubtless did exist.

A summing up of all the legends regarding this interesting subject seems to indicate that there has been a wholesale hiding of money and valuables on the Vineyard and that all sorts of people have had a hand in their concealment. Some of these stories are pretty well known and generally accepted as true, while others were known to but a few old people who lived their lives hoping to discover a hidden hoard and seldom spoke of it to others.

Among the accepted stories is that of the Quitsa mail carrier, who in the olden days when there was no mail landed except at Edgartown, rode his horse down the trail that followed closely along the South Side, and twice weekly would make the trip to Oldtown and back, bringing the mail for up-Island people.

On a certain night, while on his way home, his horse broke through the roadbed, or marsh, and plunged in so deeply that the mail carrier was forced to dismount and assist his stead to rise. Sight or sound caused him to investigate the hole into which his horse’s foot had broken and there it was, the treasure, which he bore home in triumph. Sixteen thousand dollars in French coins is what old people have always claimed to have been the value of the find.

There is the tale of the three vicious-looking strangers who arrived one day in West Tisbury and journeyed to a South Side farm house where they asked for lodgings and the loan of a shovel. They disappeared after nightfall and returned later with a heavy box or chest that showed unmistakable signs of having been buried in the earth. The next morning they departed, but before they left, they settled their account, paying the farmer in coins that were tarnished and stained with age and disuse. It has been said that these men were afterwords traced and connected with a mutiny and piratical seizure of treasure aboard ship, and that they paid the penalty for their crime.

Not all of these tales are confined to the South Side by any means. The story has been told of a farmer who was walking along the Sound beach near a high sand cliff, after a heavy storm, and who found a small wooden keg that had been washed out of the side of the cliff. There were several objects of value contained in the keg, besides money, and the hoard was generally accepted as being that of a pirate.

These are some of the tales of treasure found, but there are quite as many more of treasure that has never been located. Within three years’ time there have been discovered in secret compartments in antique furniture, two maps or charts, drawn by hand and giving the bearings of something buried. Treasure or not, whatever the contents of the caches, it was deemed of sufficient value to warrant preserving and concealing the maps. No one who has seen these maps can definitely locate the places designated on them, and thus a very pretty puzzle is presented which may be solved by someone who may be amply rewarded for his pains.

There is the legend of Beck’s Pond, which lies a stone’s throw from Vineyard Sound. There is a mound of earth on the south side of the pond, marking the site of a chimney and fireplace long since fallen and crumbled to ruin, but proving that a dwelling once stood there. Who the family may have been who lived in that spot no one has ever heard. Doubtless it was one who gave the pond its name, but whether the name was actually Beck, or whether Beck is a shortening of Rebecca, has never been explained. But according to the legend, a woman was living there alone at the time of Gray’s raid in the Revolution, and becoming alarmed at the sight of the approaching fleet of enemy ships, she gathered her valuables together and buried them somewhere near the house, concealing the place so thoroughly that she was never able to find it herself. Many people have searched for this treasure, and the ground has been ploughed over near the pond, but the hiding place has never been discovered.

Compiled by Hilary Wall
library@mvgazette.com