Old Timer's Tales

[Toadie]

While going through some of my aunts notes I came across a notation about some "gold found in Hopkins County Tex. between Pine Forest, Greenwood and Ben Franklin by the Guy boys." This tale was circulating around the nursing home where my mother worked and she told my aunt and she went and interviewed the Guy boys. The Guy boys were really old when I was in fifth grade. That was in 1980. We always carried them Christmas Dinner over to their Dog Run house.

Anyway, she wrote "Cecil Guy was plowing his field planting peanuts and turned up a block of gold weighing about 12 pounds. He turned it over to the post office in Pickton and it sat there for a while then it just "disappeared". The Guy boys lived right off the road running back towards Greenwood and about 3 miles up and to the left from ??? (Hwy 11??)" The pasture that was being plowed is across from the house, right on the opposite corner. (She notes she asked which corner and Cecil pointed towards the well). Both of the Guy boys have long since passed and this story is all but forgotten unless yoycheck all the local elderly folks.

I asked my stepfather (a native to this area) if he recalled the story and he said, "Yeah.. Everyone should. Was suppose to have been gold bars and silver and gold coinage and came from up from somewhere around Va or Ga during the end of the Civil War and dissappeared somewhere on the way because of pursuing Federal troops. Cecil found a broke bar of gold and he turned it over to the only federal employee he knew.. The post office. They lost it!!"

That some was later recovered and taken to Mexia, TX (pronounce Muh-aye-A) and some went to Jefferson, TX. The rest was supposed to have been lost.

Anyone heard of lost gold being transported from around Va or Ga and lost on the way during the later part of the Civil War???

I think the story has some merit because I rechecked with some of the more modern old timers and some remembered Cecil finding the gold but said the government took it away from him.. Something about it being illegal to own gold bullion because of the Stock Market crash or something.

James