“Well, sir,” he said. “It ain’t going that well anymore. Most of the stuff around Bat Cave and the Chimney Rock Village seems to have been pretty well found already.” So, I said, “I guess you will just have to start working another area.” “No sir, Mr. Collins, I can’t do that.” “Why not?” I asked. “Well, it’s like this, my artifact hunting is just a sideline. I have really been looking for buried treasure—gold buried somewhere up there around Chimney Rock. Been looking for it for more than forty years. And I’m afraid one of them Asheville tourists climbing that dang rock and hiking up Round Top Mountain will stumble on it before I do.” Well, of course, Clyde’s explanation that he was looking for treasure sounded farfetched, but I went ahead and asked him how buried gold found its way to such a popular site-seeing spot.
“It’s like this, Mr. Collins. A gang of about six Englishmen owned a mine further up north. They were carrying a large load of gold to the coast when they were ambushed by Indians up around Hickory Nut Gap. They kept running and eventually they found a cave. They were outnumbered so they tried to build a stone wall at the mouth of the cave. It didn’t save them; the Indians were too strong and killed all of them except for one who hid himself and managed to escape during the night. That Englishman eventually reached the coast. Got himself on a ship and returned to England. According to the story, he was going to organize a party to return to the mountains and recover the gold hidden away inside the cave. Before he could leave England, the man lost his eyesight and had to dictate a map to the gold’s hiding place. For whatever reason, the treasure hunters that came back from England were unsuccessful in locating the cave. There was also Collett Leventhorpe who got word about the gold from his family in England. He became a Confederate General in the war, but before that, in 1843, he spent two months using fifty of his slaves to search for it. Like the others, he went away empty handed.” The old prospector got quiet, leaned back in his rocking chair and took a sip of his lemonade. Finally, I said, “Look here Clyde, as you know, I’m a writer and I’ve written and read some real whoppers, but your gold story is a little hard to believe.”
Clyde leaned forward and looked squarely at me, “You know, I’m kind of happy you’re not sold on my story. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve told another living soul about that hidden treasure. I guess you just asked in a moment of weakness, and it just all came flowing out. I would just as soon you keep this to yourself. I got this feeling that this is going to be my year. Something tells me, I’m finally going to find that cave. Well, Mr. Collins, I think it is best I head home.” We shook hands and Clyde left me. I continued to think about his story and what he said at the end about being happy that I didn’t necessarily believe it. So, I got out my iPhone and entered “Chimney Rock lost treasure” in to Google. There it was bigger than life:
“In his 1941 book, Western North Carolina Sketches, Clarence Griffin retells the tale of a lost fortune near Chimney Rock, specifically on Round Top Mountain.”