How Did a Hoard of 19th Century Gold Coins End up Buried in a Jackson, Tennessee Parking Lot?

Summary

The Jackson Tennessee Hoard was a collection of gold coins uncovered by city workers in Jackson, Tennessee, in 1985. At the time of its discovery, it was the largest hoard of buried gold ever found in the United States (it was surpassed with the discovery of the Saddle Ridge Hoard in California in 2013).

The hoard was found inside of a glass jar during the excavation of a municipal parking lot. Because several of the city workers made off with much of the hoard before it came to the attention of the city, it’s never been clear exactly what was in that hoard.

It’s been estimated that the coins had a total face value of $4500 with a possible collectors value of over $1 million. Another source estimates that there were between 500 and 800 coins.

Some of the coins known to have come from the hoard include many 1853-P quarter eagles, dozens of 1854-O and 1858-O eagles, and a very rare 1856-D quarter eagle. In 2007 the collector’s price for the 1856-D was estimated at $67,000.

All of the coins that have been identified as coming from the hoard were minted between 1834 to 1859. Mints apparently include Philadelphia, New Orleans, Charlotte, and Dahlonega.

Theories

The first theory is that the coins were buried during the Civil War in order to hide them from the advancing Union army.

The story behind this theory is that a plantation owner named John Woolfolk died shortly before the start of the Civil War and left his fortune to his widow. In June 1864, she buried the gold coins to hide them from the Union army. She showed her daughter where the coins were buried but died before retrieving them.

Years later – so the story goes – the daughter returned to retrieve the coins, but couldn’t find the correct spot.

This story does have some historical backing. There was a landowner in Jackson named John Woolfolk who had a wife named Almira. They lived with a senior John Woolfolk and his wife Mildred. By 1860 John and Almira are no longer in the historical record but their children are living with their grandparents John and Mildred.

It could be that the widow in the story is Mildred and the “daughter” is actually the granddaughter Elizabeth Woolfolk.

The second theory is that the coins come from a murder and a bank robbery that happened on the night of February 3rd, 1859, in Jackson.

George E. Miller was a clerk at the Union Bank branch in Jackson. It appears that one evening he went to the bank “with someone in whom he had the greatest confidence, for he was a cautious and prudent man.”

Miller appears to have opened the bank vault, took out the checkbook, and while he was writing a check, the unknown person broke his skull with a bank cancelling hammer.

The bank was robbed of an estimated $5,700 in gold coins and $17,300 in paper notes.

Some of the coins found in the hoard were very rare and unusual. For example, an 1859 Christian Bechtler territorial coin minted in North Carolina and an 1858 British Sovereign coin were both part of the hoard. These coins are unlikely to have been in circulation. They were usually limited to bank transactions (I think this means transferring value from one bank to another).

Who Robbed the Bank?

George Miller lived with his cousin John Miller while in Jackson. I found a brief article that suggested John was a suspect in George’s murder and the robbery. From the April 17th, 1861 edition of the Sacramento Daily Union:

A rumor purported a few days ago to the effect that John S. Miller, an old and respectable citizen of Jackson, Tennessee, had been suspected as the murderer of his nephew, the late cashier of the Union Bank at Jackson. Col. McMahon, the venerable editor of the Memphis Bulletin, in a card, emphatically denies the charge, and sets forth conclusive evidence of Miller’s innocence.

Two of the pages I link below suggest that the municipal parking lot had once been residential land, and that in the 1850s, the president of Union Bank (or just “a bank”) had his home on this property. It sounds interesting, but I can’t find any news reports of this.

Questions