Category Archives: Hollow River Cipher

Long-suffering Cipher Mysteries readers will no doubt recall various recent posts here about the Hollow River Cipher. Though I had a lot of fun decrypting the word “TREASURE” (that’s something that’s not going to happen to many cipher people, let’s face it), it then turned out that I wasn’t actually the first person to decrypt it. Furthermore, it may well be that some (or indeed all) of the stories around the cryptogram are concocted faux histories.

However, much as with the Beale Ciphers, even if I happen to heartily distrust all the nonsense layered on top of it, I don’t (yet) see any reason to doubt the cipher itself.

Anyway, there’s a particularly interesting word in the plaintext that needs a bit of context in order that it can be understood properly: NAUFRAGE.

Île Saint-Jean – 17th Century

For the Mi’kmaq people, the island was Epekwitk, “Cradle on the waves”. The first Europeans to the island were the French (Cartier briefly visited it in 1534): though Champlain mentioned it in 1603, it didn’t appear on his 1604 map. Even in Champlain’s 1612 map it was little more than a speck, but by the time of his 1632 map it was the proper size, shape and named “l’Ile Saint-Jean”. In HHGTTG terms, “Mostly Harmless”, one might say. 😉

Through the 17th Century, the island was owned (among a number of others) by Nicolas Denys, “La Grande Barbe”, who was a famous entrepreneur and merchant-industrialist. However, his interest was more in fishing rather than establishing any kind of colony. All the same, Denys was more than a little put out when in 1663, Sieur François Doublet was given the island, in return for paying an annual rent to la Compagnie de la Nouvelle-France. However, when Doublet died not long after, his plans to colonise the island fell to pieces. A similar attempt (by Gabriel Gautier) to establish a fishing presence on the island in 1686 also came to naught, despite several expensive attempts.

Île Saint-Jean – 1700-1763

The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 left the island as a French possession, but attempts to colonize it failed, according to Thomas Caulfield in a letter of 16th May 1716. However, the first reasonably successful colonization began around 1719, when a group of settlers were shipwrecked on the North-East coast, at a place subsequently called “Naufrage” (‘shipwreck’). A 1721 letter by De la Ronde mentioned twenty families settled at port Lajoie, and ten more at Tranchemontagne (South Lake), Saint-Pierre (St Peter’s) and Tracadie.

From that starting point, the population of Île Saint-Jean grew as the century proceeded. However, both the British and French forces were fighting for control over the wider area. Following the Siege of Louisburg (1745) [Louisburg was the main town of Île Royal, Cape Breton Island] by New Englander forces, the population of Île Royal was forcibly deported to Europe, though the settlers on Île Saint-Jean (now called Saint John’s Island) was left in place.

But with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, both Île Royal and Île Saint-Jean were returned to the French, in return for Madras and France’s withdrawal from the Low Countries. Claude-Élisabeth Denys de Bonaventure returned to Île Saint-Jean in 1749 with a thousand new settlers, all hoping for a fresh start.

However, 1749 was when Father Le Loutre’s War began: this was a long process whereby the British governors of Canadian provinces would make life progressively closer to intolerable for French settlers. This led to a steady flow of disenchanted settlers moving from the mainland to the safer haven of Île Saint-Jean. This process then peaked in 1755, with mass expulsions of Acadian settlers, many of whom ended up on Île Saint-Jean as well.

The end-game arrived in 1758, when Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew Rollo (the 5th Lord Rollo, aristocracy trivia fans) was sent with 500 troops to secure the island, and to then deport everyone on it to Europe. About 1200 of these deportees died aboard those transport ships: it was a miserable end to what had become a horrible era.

In 1763, the island – now firmly under British control – had its name changed to Prince Edward Island, which is what it has stayed ever since. (Though personally, I have a bit of a soft spot for Epekwitk.)

Naufrage, Revisited

If we go back to the Hollow River Cipher, the date at the top places it firmly at the time of the main French colonization, when the island was Île Saint-Jean:

F R E N C H   S L O O P   L ['] A I [G] L E    [= Most likely plaintext]
G U L F   S T   L A W R E N [C] E   M A Y 10, 1738

The cipher author also tells us the specific place he’s interested in:

L E A G U E  W E S T  N A U F R A G E

From what we now know, ‘naufrage’ isn’t (as I first thought) a shipwreck, but is actually the place Naufrage (i.e. named after the 1719 shipwreck).

Naufrage is mentioned in a 1752 census, which was turned into a map for a 2008 exhibition at the Acadian Museum (online here):

The same name persisted (Anglicized as “Ship Wreck Point”) in a 1775 map:

Perhaps most interestingly, Étang du Naufrage is mentioned in a 1760 book by Thomas Pichon with a horrendously long title, which describes a picturesque 1752 journey around Île Saint-Jean that the author had taken:

Nous continuâmes notre route en côtoyant la mer pendant six lieues jusqu’à l’étang du naufrage. Cette côte, quoi qu’assés unie, ne presente à la vûe que desert où le feu a passé, et plus avant les terres sont couvertes de bois franc. Un seul habitant que nous trouvâmes, nous assura que les terres des environs de l’êtang sont très bonnes, aisées à cultiver, et que tout y vient en abondance. Il nous en donna une preuve qui nous fit plaisir, c’étoit le peu de froment qu’il avoit eu la faculté de semer cette année là; effectivement rien n’étoit fi beau que ses épics qui étoient plus gros, plus longs et mieux garnis que ceux d’Europe.

Ce fut à l’occasion d’un naufrage qu’un batiment François fit sur cette côte, qu’on a donné à l’étang le nom d’Etang du naufrage. Quelques passagers, après que le vaisseau se fut perdu à quatre lieues en mer, se sauverent sur des débris et furent les premiers qui s’établirent au havre Saint Pierre. Au reste l’étang s’enfonce un quart de lieue dans les terres au sud-ouest. Sa largeur à son extremité est d’une portée de canon de quatre livres de balle. Il s’y décharge un grand ruisseau qui ne tarit jamais, parce qu’il est entretenu par deux sources qu’on trouve à deux lieues et demie dans les terres d’ouest sud-ouest. Ce ruisseau peut fournir assés d’eau, presqu’en tous tems et malgré les gelées à plusieurs moulins qu’on y a construit.

La côte depuis le havre de la fortune jusqu’à celui de Saint Pierre où nous arrivâmes le 14 Aoust après avoir encore côtoyé pendant six lieues depuis l’étang, […]

Translated roughly (by me, so expect fluency rather than accuracy):

We continued on our journey, coasting six more leagues around the island to the étang du naufrage. This place […] looked like the empty space you get after fire has cleared it, and beyond that the lands are covered with hardwood. One inhabitant whom we found assured us that the lands around the étang are very good, easy to cultivate, and that everything is in abundance. As proof, he showed us a little wheat he had been able to sow that year; indeed, nothing was as beautiful as its ears, which were larger, longer, and better than those of Europe.

It was on the occasion of a French shipwreck on this coast that the étang was given the name of étang du naufrage. Some passengers who had clung to the debris after their ship had been lost four leagues out to sea, ended up becoming the first settlers at St. Peter’s Harbour. The étang itself extends a quarter of a league into the lands to the southwest. At its widest, its width is the range of a four pound cannonball. A large brook discharges into there: this never runs dry because it is maintained by two springs, which are found two and a half leagues west-southwest. This brook provides a water supply to several mills that were built there, almost at all times and despite the frosts.

The coast from le havre de la fortune to that of St. Peter where we arrived on 14 August after having travelled for six leagues from the étang, […]

“League West Naufrage”…

So: now that we know exactly where Naufrage is, we also know that the cipher author is directing us to go one league west from there. But… how far is a league?

This is, of course, one of those niggly questions that gets historians sighing heavily, because different people at different times and different places had different answers.

For an Englishman of the 18th Century, a league on land was three miles, while a league at sea was three nautical miles (~3.4 miles). But I have to also point out that our cipher author was on a French ship, and a French league (lieue de Paris) was standardized in 1674 as 2000 toises (~2.4 miles), and then in 1737 (the year before the cipher’s date) as 2200 toises (~2.66 miles).

Yet even the yardstick (leaguestick?) we have in Pichon’s account – that it is six (presumably French?) leagues from Naufrage to Saint Peter’s Bay, which is about 24 miles / 36 kilometers by sea (because you have to double back on yourself) – isn’t much help, because it would give a figure of 4 miles per league. So unless the geography around Saint Peter’s Bay has changed much in the last couple of centuries, Pichon’s ability to estimate distances in leagues seems to have not been as good as he imagined.

Adding all these classes of inaccuracy together, it seems likely to me that the least and most ‘one league’ could be in practice are about 2 miles and 4.5 miles respectively. So: how does this stack up with the (now widely presumed) identification of the same location with the Hollow River?

The location given for Hollow River by the local government is 46°28’00.0″N 62°30’00.0″W . According to Google Maps, this runs alongside the modern Swallow Point Road, and its mouth is about 6.8km (4.2 miles) from the mouth of the Naufrage étang. So Hollow River would seem at first to be a reasonable guess.

If we look at MapCarta’s Hollow River page, we can see two modern candidate rivers – Hollow River and Fox River, which I’ve highlighted here in red and blue respectively:

Now, remembering that the cipher says…

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN YDS UP SMALL STREAM

…which is this small stream to be, Hollow River (6.8 km along from Naufrage) or Fox River (5.6km along)? I have to say that Fox River, if it was around in 1738, would seem to be a better candidate than Hollow River. And there’s even Cow River, which is a mere 2.2km along from Naufrage. So let’s look more closely at the 1775 map:

Here, we can see a decent-sized stream heading South from just below the ‘n’ of “Short Point”, marked as being ~3.5 miles (5.6km) from the mouth of the Naufrage étang, which I think lines up exactly with the modern Fox River. The next reasonable size stream along would seem to be the slightly smaller-looking stream to the right of “Beaver Point”, but this would seem to be about 5.5 miles (8.8km).

So it would seem from this historical detective work (a) that Hollow River didn’t even properly exist in 1775, (b) that calling it the Hollow River Cipher may well have been based on a misidentification from a century ago, and (c) that the stream we should be actually interested in is the modern Fox River, which appears to be the first reasonable size stream about a league west of Naufrage on the 1775 map.

“ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN YARDS”?

At this point I should add that 111 yards is pretty close to 50 toises (French fathoms, i.e. 2.131 yards x 50 = 106.5 yards), so I’m guessing that the cipher author heard the French sailors talking about going “cinquante toises” down the “petit ruisseau”.

Where would 111 yards down the Fox River take us? If we have a look in Google Maps, the satellite image shows us where (I’m pretty sure) the Fox River is (the first white dot down marks 100m or so from the end, which is pretty close to 50 toises):

The rest you can figure out, I’m sure. 🙂

Finally: why take treasure up a small river, you may ask? The answer would seem to be painfully obvious: that those wanting to conceal it would want to carry it as far inland on a small boat as they easily could.

In that respect, these people would seem to be brothers-in-(yard)arms to Bernardin Nageon de l’Estang (operating at the same time, though in a different ocean entirely), who wrote that he had hauled his treasure up a small creek, also presumably in a small boat. Wouldn’t it be nice if something were still there, in both cases? Not hugely likely, for sure, but a nice thing to dream about all the same.

PS: for more on the history of Île Saint-Jean in French, I found the following two articles (this one and this other one) very helpful indeed.

Update: 1752 Census entry

While looking (unsuccessfully) for decent French maps of the island, I found a nice webpage containing a detailed 1752 census of Île Saint-Jean, The census taker (Sieur de la Roque) travelled round the island on land. (The French original can be found here.) It may well be that he travelled with Thomas Pichon, because they both seem to have had the same conversation with the (unnamed) settler at Naufrage.

At Pointe de l’Est:

Next, after making another two leagues, we doubled Pointe de l’Est. This point had been reduced to a wilderness by a fire which has passed through this section, and the settlers have established themselves at a distance of two leagues from the point on the north side. The land upon which the people have settled is of the best for cultivation. Nevertheless they have sown no seed here, and the truth is that they lack the seed to sow, and if the King does not make them a gift or a loan of seed so that they can sow it next spring they will find it impossible to maintain themselves, being today at the last stage of poverty through the great mortality among their live stock.

He then moved on to Naufrage:

We left on the 13th and took the route for l’Etang du Noffrage, following the sea shore continually for the six leagues at which the distance from the Post at Pointe de l’Est to l’Etang du Noffrage is estimated. In this distance we met with nothing worthy of notice. The land is a desert owing to the occurance of the fire, but a short distance inland the country is covered with hardwood and the soil was good for the production of all kinds of grain and roots; everything coming up in abundance. Owing to the lack of seed grain the settler here was unable to seed his land this year, but the small quantity of wheat which he was able to sow is amongst the finest in the Island. The ears are long, large, and well filled. The Etang du Noffrage runs a quarter of a league inland to the south-west. The breadth averages 80 toises. At the extremity of the étang, a long brook, which never dries up, discharges its water. This brook is supplied from two large springs lying at a distance of two leagues and a half inland to the west-south-west. The brook contains sufficient water to run flour and saw mills, but as regards the latter they are considered useless as there is no timber suitable for sawing, all the hardwood, growing in the surrounding district being good, at best for the building of boats. We left on the 14th for St. Pierre du Nord. We counted the distance between the two points as six leagues by the road. We saw nothing on the way that calls for a description.

Update #2: Île Saint-Jean Forestry

Anyone who wants a list of sources of pre-1760 writing on Île Saint-Jean would be well advised to look at “Early Descriptions of the Forests of Prince Edward Island: A Source Book” by Douglas Sobey. “Part I: The French Period – 1534-1758” is online here.

I’ve had an intriguing email from Cipher Mysteries commenter Paul Relkin concerning the Hollow River Cipher.

He had thought to contact Linda Outcalt, whose (inverted) photograph of Sterling Ramsay was on the cover of his book “folklore prince edward island”. (Though the book credits only mention Hilda Woolnough.) Ms Outcalt suggested he should instead contact Harry Holman, “a prominent archivist for the Prince Edward Island government”. Paul continues:

This was a great suggestion! Mr. Holman was not only familiar with the Hollow River Cipher but he was able to produce documentation from a local newspaper establishing that the cipher was actually solved many years ago. He also provided some excellent commentary about the story behind the cipher. He has given me permission to share this with Cipher Mysteries on his behalf.

Here’s what Harry Holman wrote:

Harry Holman on Hollow River…

I have read your postings on Cipher Mysteries with interest but am afraid I must challenge your claim of being the first to decipher the coded message appearing in the Prince Edward Island Magazine. I have found evidence from 1935, and republished in 1946, that the message was deciphered by Blythe Hurst, a school teacher, naturalist and author who wrote under the pen name “Agricola.” The solution was published in the Charlottetown Guardian newspaper on 20 April 1935 p. 12 and again on 20 April 1946 p. 9.

My initial thought was that Hurst might have been connected with the appearance of the original Prince Edward Island Magazine article but it appears he immigrated to Prince Edward Island only in 1910. While he does not publish the entire text of the message it is clear that he has identified the key for interpreting the message and the main elements have been revealed.

As to the original PEI Magazine articles, it is important to place the publication in context. The Magazine, which ran from 1899 until 1905 provided a forum for a great many authors, many of who were identified only by initials or by pseudonyms. While it contained a number of high-quality and well-researched historical articles it was also a platform for a flourishing creative writing community. Many of the fiction pieces picked up on themes popular at the time. Ghost stories based on historical incidents seemed to strike a particularly responsive chord with readers. Only last week I wrote of the background of one of these, The Ghost of Holland Cove.

In that case the author was identified, but I have little doubt that the submissions by “Senachie” and “D.A.W.” are of the same character. A hint may be that the Gaelic basis of Senachie is “professional storyteller”

While a scattering of facts is essential to establish the credibility of historical fiction, a super-abundance of them is evidence of a fabrication. Such is the case here – especially in the supposed “back story” supplied by DAW. While Hollow River is a real place it is an unlikely setting for such an elaborate tale. I have been there and it is hard to imagine an area less likely to be chosen as a cache for guns and treasure. In the late 1730s it was entirely uninhabited although there was some French settlement at Naufrage to the east of the site. The river itself is a mere trickle emptying across a thin strip of sand which is backed by rocks and cliffs. It was one of the last areas of the colony to be settled and a road did not run through the thinly settled area until the 1830s. By the beginning of the 20th century the shore road had been abandoned and a new line of road dating from the 1860s or 1870s was in use.

The use of the multiply layered narrative was a common literary device during the period at the end of the 19th century. Here we have an account of an alleged diary entry recounting a mysterious note in a bottle telling of an incident. All the accounts lack credibility and have errors of fact or interpretation. The language used in the diary entry is quite unreflective of the actual writing of the mid 18th century. I have read a number of diaries from the period and they read nothing like this and the form and content is quite an anachronistic and imaginative interpretation of how a diary of the period might read.

I note that a number of contributors to the Cipher Mysteries website have raised practical objections to the facts of the story including the difficulty and pointlessness of transferring cannon to a barren shore. I think that such objections could be raised to almost every assertion made in the account but I do not think it necessary to parse it further.

For these and many other reasons I conclude that the Hollow River mystery is almost certainly a complete fabrication. The cypher message appears to be merely a “brain teaser” created by the author of the story and is unlikely to have any factual basis.

Without a single documentary support the pyramid of “facts” crumbles, but that has not prevented the story from being included in anthologies of ghost stories and folklore, particularly of the uncritical sort.

Thank you for reminding me of this tale.

Nick’s Further Thoughts…

The reason that I find cipher mysteries – long-unsolved historical ciphers where even the history surrounding them is suspect – so head-shakingly fascinating is that it can be ridiculously hard to tell the true, the false, and the merely hopeful apart. The (almost entirely false) Beale Papers wrapped around the (probably entirely genuine) Beale Ciphers form a case in point.

For the Hollow River Cipher, I share with Harry Holman many of the same doubts about the (supposed) diary entry: moreover, I think it no less likely that many other (supposedly meshing) parts of the story as presented in the PEI Magazine could have been camp-fire confabulations, back-filled around the same core cipher.

In fact, if someone were to propose to me that – more or less exactly mirroring the Beale Ciphers and Beale Papers – the Hollow River Cipher itself was genuine but that everything else wrapped around it was fake (perhaps in the spirit of multiple contributions to the same lightly-literary pirate-ghost jest), I’d be hard-pressed to demur.

And so I now find myself in the same awkward position with both the Beale Cipher and the Hollow River Cipher: that while I’m not enough of a Cipher True Believer for armchair treasure hunters (who seem to want every scrap of evidence to be true), I also seem to have more faith in the ciphers themselves than people who are comfortable writing all the evidence off in one go as no more than a long-running in-joke.

Though Holman handily highlights the presence of a super-abundance of facts (I certainly didn’t know that the settlement just East of the site was called Naufrage), this would surely seem to be more of a witness for the defence than for his prosection. In many ways, perhaps it should be best taken as an epistemological red flag to us all, signalling that we instead need to look and think more clearly at the different accounts making up the picture, to see which (if any) are true, false, or merely amusing or hopeful.

My bibliographic search for more information about the Hollow River Cipher led to Sterling Ramsay’s (1973) “Folklore: Prince Edward Island”.

It’s a nice little book, that tries to enjoy local folkloric tales of ghosts, spirits and buried treasure from Prince Edward Island without the intrusion of too much critical thinking, a tradition that has (apparently) continued to the present day with the PEI Ghosthunter’s Society.

As to the author, there’s a picture (presumably) of Sterling Ramsay circa 1973 on the back cover, though inverted and coloured orange. A few minutes with GIMP produced the following reconstruction:

Does Ramsay have anything more to say about the Hollow River story that the Prince Edward Island Magazine didn’t back in 1900?

The answer is… not a lot, but that’s perhaps to be expected. What we do learn is that (p.61):

Many years went by until the original parchment note fell into the hands of a Mr. Donald MacDougall who came originally from the Brackley area of the island. To say that he became intrigued with the note would be quite an understatement, for, according to various accounts, he became almost obsessed with the desire to decipher the note’s hidden message. He spent every free moment arranging in various forms the jumbled letters with the hope of finding some clue to their meaning, but all in vain. This in itself was not enough to discourage him however. He showed it to every person whom he considered as likely of obtaining an idea of its contents. But all without success, none could understand any part of it but that which he could plainly see for himself, that is, what appeared to be a date, the 10th day of a month, A.D., 1738. At length he began to suspect that he was merely being made the butt of some seaman’s cruel joke, so his interest soon waned and for the moment, at least, all thoughts of the mysterious message fled from his mind. This was not to be very long lived, however, as he was soon to discover.

Who Was Donald MacDougall?

A quick Internet search revealed several mid-19th century Donald MacDougalls on Prince Edward Island, all descendants of a (presumably too early?) Donald MacDougall:

1. born on 24th December 1847 in Grand River, Prince, Prince Edward Island, son of James MacDougall (b. 1789) and Margaret Plaisted. Donald MacDougall married a Mary Gillis on 27 Nov 1866.
2. born on 24th January 1842 to Roderick MacDougall (b. 1812) and Mary MacKinnon.
3. born on 5th November 1844 to Jonathan MacDougall (b. 1813) and Anne MacNeil.
4. born on 20th August 1850 in Grand River, Prince, Prince Edward Island to Michael MacDougall (b. 1818 in Grand River, Prince, Prince Edward Island) and Anne Gillis (died 22nd May 1902). He died on 4th May 1929 in Grand River, Prince, Prince Edward Island.

The “various accounts” mentioned by Sterling Ramsay are probably different family retellings of the same basic story, handed down a couple of generations. (There’s nothing like a bit of elusive pirate treasure talk around a family hearth, right?)

Sterling Ramsay

Is Sterling Ramsay still alive? There’s a picture of a Sterling Ramsay of Charlottetown shovelling snow in 2015 in a local PEI newspaper:

And, in a timely coincidence, it seems likely to me that this is probably the same Sterling Ramsay who elaborately decorates his house on Euston Street every Halloween to scare local children: though sadly the local Guardian’s online archive seems to have lost the pictures of him with the Grim Reaper and shaking hands with the Devil. But I’m sure you get the basic idea. 🙂

From collecting folkloric ghost stories to improvised Halloween house-theatre, it seems like there could easily be a consistent thread of interest weaving through his life, wouldn’t you say, hmmm? 😉

Lots of fragments of research into the Hollow River Cipher to pass your way.

The Monthly Chronologer

Even though I haven’t (yet) had a chance to go into the British Library to trawl through 1738 newspapers, I did recently find scans via Google Books of a monthly magazine from 1738 called “The Monthly Chronologer”, which (seems to me to have) summarized information from official sources such as the London Gazette. It was also bound inbetween copies of a different monthly magazine called The London Magazine, which collected together news, articles, poems, overseas (though mainly political) news from a wide variety of different publications around the UK.

So, what do we find in the May 1738 edition of the Monthly Chronologer?

The short version is that there was indeed (it appears) a Royal Proclamation dating from the start of May 1738 relating to piracy in the Atlantic. Rather than the summary that I quoted before, the address to the King from the House of Lords was as follows (in the official Parliamentary History of England), all dated 2nd May 1738 and apparently published in London 4th May 1738:

Most gracious Sovereign ;

We your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, having taken into our serious consideration the many unjust violences and depredations committed by the Spaniards, upon the persons, ships and effects of divers of your Majesty’s subjects in America, have come to the following Resolutions, which we beg leave in the humblest manner to lay before your Majesty, for your royal consideration, viz.

1. Resolved, That the subjects of the Crown of Great Britain have a clear and undoubted right to navigate in the American seas, to and from any part of his Majesty’s dominions ; and for carrying on such trade and commerce, as they are justly entitled unto in America ; and also to carry all sorts of goods and merchandizes, or effects, from one part of his Majesty’s dominions to any part thereof ; and that no goods, being so carried, are by any treaty subsisting between the Crowns of Great Britains and Spain, to be deemed as contraband or prohibited goods, and that the searching of such ships on the open seas, under pretence of their carrying contraband or prohibited goods, is a violation and infraction of the treaties subsisting between the two Crowns.

2. Resolved, That it appears to this House, that as well before, as since the execution of the treaty of Seville, on the part of Great Britain, divers ships and vessels, with their cargoes belonging to British subjects, have been violently seized and confiscated by the Spaniards, upon pretences altogether unjust and groundless ; and that many of the sailors on board these ships have been injuriously and barbarously imprisoned and ill-treated ; and that thereby the liberty of navigation and commerce belonging to his Majesty’s subjects by the law of nations, and by virtue of the treaties subsisting between the crowns of Great Britain and Spain, hath been unwarrantably infringed and interrupted, to the great loss and damage of our merchants, and in direct violation of the said treaties.

3. Resolved, That it appears to this House, that frequent application have been made, on the part of his Majesty, to the court of Spain, in a manner the most agreeable to treaties, and to the peace and friendship subsisting betwixt the two crowns, for redressing the notorious abuses and grievances before-mentioned, and preventing the like for the future, and for obtaining adequate satisfaction to his injured subjects; which, in the event, have proved entirely fruitless, and of no effect.

We think it our duty, on this important occasion, humbly to represent to your Majesty, that we are most sensibly affected with the many and grievous injuries and losses sustained by your Majesty’s trading subjects, by means of these unwarrantable depredations and seizures ; and to give your Majesty the strongest and most sincere assurances, that in case your friendly and powerful instances for procuring restitution and reparation to your injured subjects, and for the future security of their trade and navigation, shall fail of having their due effect and influence on the Court of Spain, and shall not be able to obtain that real satisfaction and security, which your Majesty may in justice expect; we will zealously and cheerfully concur in all such measures, as shall become necessary for the support of your Majesty’s honour, the preservation of our navigation and commerce, and the common good of these kingdoms.

The King replied as follows:

My Lords ;

I am sensibly touched with the many hardships and injuries sustained by my trading subjects in America, from the cruelties and unjust depredations of the Spaniards. You may be assured of my care to procure satisfaction and reparation for the losses they have already suffered, and security for the freedom of navigation for the future ; and to maintain to my people the full enjoyment of all the rights to which they are entitled by treaty, and the law of nations.—I doubt not but I shall have your concurrence for the support of such measures, as may be necessary for that purpose.

What Does This Mean For Us?

There might at first seem no reason why a London newspaper report of a Royal Proclamation relating to Spanish depredations (made at the beginning of the exact same month that the Hollow River Cipher was made) should have sent the crew of a French pirate ship into such a tailspin that they would want to hide their cannon and treasure on a small Canadian island.

However, I suspect that what had been going on was that these particular French pirates had been using a Spanish flag as a pretence for stopping British ships: this was exactly what had been going on for some years, and what had so incensed the British Houses of Parliament. And now the game was up.

Prize Papers for Eagle / Aigle / Aguila

Separately, Paul Relkin wrote to me about his search for L’Aigle in the French marine archives (more on that another day). But it struck me that if that same ship’s luck ran out, it might well have been captured and its papers held by the British Admiralty. So I decided to have a look there (it’s all in the National Archives).

However, the picture that emerged was that the name Eagle / l’Aigle seems to have been extremely popular with British and French small boat owners: and so there is actually a long stream of these mentioned in the archives, from 1742 onwards:

1742: HCA 32/95/4 Captured ship: L’Aguila or Eagle of San Sebastian (master Louis Grenier) – a Spanish privateer (140 tons, 12 guns, 110 men); taken on 4 July 1742 by HMS Lyme (John Pritchard commanding) and brought into Plymouth.

1743: HCA 32/137/19 and HCA 32/138/27 Captured ship: Nuestra Senora del Rosario (El Aguila): master Francisco Ximenes – Spanish register ship for West Indies (95 tons, 43 men and passenger: formerly English?). Taken 24 Nov 1743 off Cape Cantin on the Barbary Coast

1744: HCA 32/95/23 Captured ship: L’Aigle Volant (master Dutertre Le Marie) – a French privateer (140 tons, 14 carriage guns, 9 swivel guns, 110 men); taken on 15/26 June 1744 about 40 leagues from the Island de Groy on the coast of France 26 June 1744. There is also a printed advertisement for the sale of L’Aigle Volant in HCA 30/232.

1745: HCA 32/124/11 Captured ship: Le St Jean Baptiste: master Jean Fignoux – French merchant ship, formerly British merchant ship the Eagle, recaptured coming from Guadeloupe.

1755: HCA 32/163/9 Captured ship: L’Aigle (master Jacques Samelin) – a French merchant ship seized in 1755.

1756: HCA 32/195/7 Captured ship: La Gabrielle (Lagabriell) of Nantes (master Pierre Alexis Ricard) – a French merchant ship for West Indies, with letter of marque, carrying troops, arms, stores, etc; formerly the Eagle (L’Aigle).

1757: HCA 32/161/13 Captured ship: L’Aigle (master Mathieu Desclaux or Mathieu Declaux) – a French merchant ship for West Indies.

1758: HCA 32/163/10 Captured ship: L’Aigle (master [unknown] Vessum) – a French merchant ship, apparently one of the French ships taken in the attack on Senegal, May 1758, since the docketing is L’Aigle, Vessum master’.

1758/9: HCA 32/258 Ship: L’Aigle, Master: La Porte, Remarks: French

1758: HCA 32/249/16 mention of a French privateer L’Aigle de Bayonne (master Georges Mathieu Forestiere) operating in the North Atlantic.

1761: HCA 32/168/23 Captured ship: St Antoine (L’Aigle) (master Germain Boyer) – a French merchant ship in the Levant trade with letter of marque.

1762: HCA 32/162/5 Captured ship: L’Aigle (master Augustin Fichet) – a French privateer.

A few days ago, Cipher Mysteries commenter Paul Relkin very kindly sent me through a copy of a document listing James Crowshay’s marriage to Margaret Seaton in 1745:

This inspired me to hunt for more information, mainly via the LDS’s (frankly astonishing) familysearch.org website. And I was genuinely astonished at what I was able to uncover…

James Crowshay

As you can tell from the above, James Crowshay married Margaret Seaton on 18th August 1745 in Pontefract, Yorkshire. The LDS reference is:

“England Marriages, 1538–1973 ,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N2NT-VY9 : 10 February 2018), James Crowshay and Margaret Seaton, 18 Aug 1745; citing Pontefract,York,England, reference , index based upon data collected by the Genealogical Society of Utah, Salt Lake City; FHL microfilm 990,759.

Note: Margaret’s surname is mistranscribed as “Seuton” in the second record (a mistake that seems to have reached everywhere on the Internet), while the date of the wedding is moved to 17th August 1745:

“England Marriages, 1538–1973 ,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NXCX-CWB : 10 February 2018), James Crowshay and Margaret Seuton, 17 Aug 1745; citing York, England, reference , index based upon data collected by the Genealogical Society of Utah, Salt Lake City; FHL microfilm 1,469,711.

However, I have to say that the dates given on the LDS page for James and Margaret’s births (1715 and 1718 respectively) seemed far more like computer-generated guesses to me than anything else. So when I found a James Crowshay who was born in Howden in 1722, it seemed far from unreasonable to predict that this was exactly our man. (Though because I don’t have a subscription to www.thegenealogist.co.uk , I can’t tell this for sure).

I then wondered: did James and Margaret Crowshay have any children? Anyone who has looked at old parish BMD registers for any period of time will know that the pattern back then was for the gap between the wedding and the birth of the first child to be small (sometimes even the same day). It may well therefore be no coincidence at all that in the registers of the parish of Howden (22 miles east of Pontefract), I found this string of birth entries:

* James, son of James Crowshow, of Howden Dyke. Sept. 23. [1746] [p.75]
* Ann, dau : of James Crowshow, of Howden Dyke. Nov. 27. [1747] [p.77]
* Mary, dau : of James Crowshow, of Howden. May 29. [1750] [p.79]
* Grace, dau : of James Crawshow, of Howden. Mar. 22. [1752] [p.81]
* John, son to James Crowshow, of Howden. Sept. 13. [1757] [p.87]
* Richard, son to James Crawshow, of Howden. May 20. [1759] [p.88]

And, of course, in those days of higher infant mortality, there were the inevitable burials listed too:

* Mary, d. to James Crawshow, of Howden. May 2. [1751]

There was also a Robert Crowshay of Howden, who married a Mary Westoby on 13th Feb 1739: they too had a daughter called Grace (born, errrm, 13th February 1739), along with a daughter called Jane (born 22nd September 1741). Moreover, given that a Grace Croashaw (widow) of Howden died in November 1744 [p.72], I think it would seem to be a pretty good bet that she was mother to both James Crowshay and Robert Crowshay, and hence grandmother Grace to the two little Graces (though only overlapping one of them).

As for Margaret Seaton, the LDS site lists three women with that name and of broadly the right age, though we can rule out the third because she married John Staveley in 1745:

* 10th December 1713, Mepal, Cambridge (daughter of John Seaton and Hannah)
* 31st March 1721, Luddington, Lincoln (daughter of John Seaton)
* 6th June 1723, Rothley, Leicester (married John Staveley, 1st October 1745, York)

If James Crowshay was born in 1722, it would surely seem likely that it was the Margaret Seaton born on 31st March 1721 in Luddington whom he married: but all the same it’s hard to be sure.

John Croshay

But wait! There’s also a John Croshay who married Jane Bland on 22nd May 1750, also in Pontefract (presumably All Saints):

“England Marriages, 1538–1973 ,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N2NR-TQT : 10 February 2018), John Croshay and Jane Bland, 22 May 1750; citing Pontefract,York,England, reference , index based upon data collected by the Genealogical Society of Utah, Salt Lake City; FHL microfilm 990,759.

And then in 1751, a John Crowshay had (I think it’s safe to infer) a daughter Jennet (probably Jeanette?) Crowshay. Here are part of the banns for Jennet’s marriage to John Higgin in August 1767:

According to www.thegenealogist.co.uk website again, John Crawshey was born in Ilkley, Yorkshire, in 1718: so if we are talking about just a single John Crawshey, he would have been four or so years older than James Crowshay.

According to the LDS site, there was a John Crowshaw (son of John Crowshaw) who was christened in Mirfield (near Dewsbury & Batley) on 29 Oct 1727: and the timing for him would be consistent with the 1750 marriage date of this John Crowshay. However this is, for now, just a guess.

At the same time, if it was a 1722-vintage James Crowshay who was taken prisoner on board the Eagle in May 1738 having vigorously resisted the pirates’ attack, he could only have been 16 years old, which is perhaps only just feasible. While if it was John Crawshay instead, he would have been closer to 20 years old, which arguably fits the description slightly better (though not by much).

Unfortunately, I can’t currently tell how old John Crowshay was, so I therefore can’t tell whether our unidentified seaman JCROWSHAY was James Crowshay or John Crowshay (perhaps they were cousins?). But perhaps a Cipher Mysteries reader with greater genealogical skillz than me will be able to find out much more about these two men and their families – I don’t have any subscriptions (and I’m not a member of the LDS), so there’s only so deeply I can dive into this particular pool.

Other James Crowshaws…

Note that there was also a James Crowshaw in Sowerby Bridge, Christ Church, whose children listed on FindMyPast were:

* Ellen Crawshaw [1743]
* John Crowshaw [1745]
* Johanna Crowshaw [1746]
* Jane Crowshaw [1752]

However, given that the first James Crowshay is listed multiple times as “Crowshay” (rather than Crowshaw), the odds are still forever in his favour, one might say. (Though perhaps not by much.)

What do you think? 🙂

As a quick reminder, we’re looking for historical evidence (a) of a brig sailing out of England (probably London) to Massachusetts (probably Boston) in late April 1738, and (b) of a proclamation that appeared in a London newspaper listing a reward for the capture of a 4-gun French privateer sloop called “The Eagle” or “L’Aigle”. There may also have been mention of the capture of the brig by the sloop in the Boston newspapers in mid-late May 1738.

I listed the Boston newspapers active in 1738 in a previous post: but what of London newspapers?

Lloyd’s List

Without any real doubt, Lloyds’s List would have listed almost all the ships leaving London for Massachusetts in April/May 1738: and would also very likely have mentioned any proclamation made by the King against a French pirate ship. Unfortunately for us, the earliest (according to the website of the MARINER-L mailing list) extant copy of the post-1735 Lloyd’s List series dates only to 1740/1741:

About mid-March 1735, the list was revised again, with publication changed to twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, and new numbering. Of this series, the earliest surviving copy is dated 2 January 1740/41, and is numbered 560 [reproduced in McCusker, op. cit., pp. 324-325, Fig. 6A and 6B]

All the same, if you’d like to see these for yourself, Google has made available many digitized early copies.

The Penny London post

“The Penny London post, or, The morning advertiser” is listed at the LOC.

Here are the copies I’ve managed to find of it:

* Worldcat lists copies in the Burney collection from 1733-1734 and 1744-1751
* The University of Queensland has copies from 1744 to 1751, which are also available on microfilm from Research Publications, Inc.
* Copies from 1747-1749 are available behind the newspapers.com paywall here –
* The Harry Ransom Center at U of Texas at Austin has a couple from 1750-1751

So… unless there are separate copies of the Penny London post in other archives, it looks very much as though we’re out of luck for 1738, sorry. 🙁

The London Daily Post

The London Daily Post was another London newspaper active in 1738, and is listed at the LOC.

The British Library’s holdings are as follows:

The London Daily Post, and General Advertiser. no. 1-109, 111, 113, 115-119, 136, 203, 205, 207-210, 213, 219, 220, 223, 225, 227, 230, 231, 236, 238, 247-254, 259-677, 854, 1006, 1009-2244, 2558-2908.; 4 Nov. 1734-10 March 1735, 12, 14, 17-21 March-10 April. 27, 30 June, 2-5, 9, 16, 17, 21, 23, 25, 29, 30 July, 5, 7, 16-26 Aug., 1 Sept. 1735-31 Dec. 1736; 27 July 1737; 19, 23 Jan. 1738-31 Dec. 1741; 1 Jan.-10 March 1744.

This is my red-hot top tip for where to look!

Read’s Weekly Journal, or British Gazetteer

The British Library holds the following issues: 283-789, 1331, etc. 22 Aug. 1730-22 Dec. 1739; 3 March 1750-2 May 1761. So this too is a newspaper of the day that needs checking.

Other London newspapers of the time

The British Library also lists:

* The Universal London Morning Advertiser. London, 1743-1744
* Parker’s Penny Post. no. [1-]414. 28 April 1725?-29 Dec. 1727.

I also saw a brief mention of an unnamed Irish newspaper dating back to 1738, which might possibly be a additional source for North Atlantic shipping- and piracy-related news of the day.

Incidentally, webpages posted up by assidous historical newspaper raiders can often list numerous publications that rarely appear in formal lists of newspapers. For a good (if slightly startling) example, I can recommend The Rabbit Woman as collected by Rictor Norton from various obscure sources: and also an online bibliography of the Slave Trade, both of which I am now following through carefully.

Many Eagles

Just so you know, by 1744 there was an English privateer called Eagle sailing out of Dover (Captain Bazely): and in 1745, a new incarnation of HMS Eagle had also been launched. So please try not to get too excited about finding mentions of the Eagle in post-1738 newspapers. :-/

I’ve been carefully reading the diary entry scanned in from the Prince Edward Island Magazine by Matt Malone, and wondering if it might be possible to reconstruct the secret history yet further. We now have what seems likely to be a name for the person who constructed the cryptogram: while the account gives a number of pointers to specific pieces of historical evidence that could feasibly be tracked down. Hence I thought I’d post a list of possible research leads to follow.

J Crowshay?

What little I can see beyond ancestry.com’s paywall is that a James Crowshay (born 1715?, hence aged 23 in 1738) married a certain Margaret Seuton. This seems to have been in York (according to this Spanish Geneanet page).

Might this J Crowshay have been the same young man who was (according the diary account) a seaman on a brig (presumably sailing out of London) bound for the (then British colony of) Massachusetts in late April or early May 1738 that was accosted by the French sloop L’Aigle (The Eagle); and who was rewarded for his zeal in defending the brig against French pirates by being taken prisoner by them? “The ship escaped without serious injury”, but was most likely relieved of all its cargo (and the single fighty seaman taken prisoner).

The Attacked Brig?

If the account of the French seaman (who had returned to Prince Edward Island to dig up the treasure, but had found his memory wanting) is correct, the ship from which the young seaman was taken prisoner was a brig (only lightly armed merchant ship) on its way to Massachusetts, so probably sailing into Boston.

Might there have been a mention of this action in the Massachusetts press of late May 1738 not long after the brig presumably arrived there?

As far as I can see, there were six newspapers published in Massachusetts during 1738, all from Boston (none of which are in the LOC, while Harbottle Dorr Jr’s newspapers all start from 1765, while BGSU doesn’t list any from 1738 as being freely available on the Internet). GenealogyBank has copies from 1735 for name searches, but behind a paywall.

The newspapers I’d like to have a look at for May 1738 are as follows, two of which are listed on the Massachusetts Historical Society’s ABIGAIL database:
* Boston Evening-Post
* Boston Gazette
* Boston Weekly News-letter
* The Boston Weekly Post-boy (Massachusetts Historical Society: OFFSITE STORAGE SH 18R2 )
* The New England Weekly Journal (Massachusetts Historical Society: OFFSITE STORAGE SH 18XP Q (1733-1738) )

If anyone has shelfmarks in different archives for the other newspapers, please let me know, thanks!

Other newspapers may be listed in (1907) Check-list of Boston Newspapers, 1704-1780, which I haven’t yet consulted.

The Eagle or L’Aigle?

The diary account includes no names or details of the French pirate ship The Eagle (L’Aigle). However, the French seaman telling the story to the diarist relates that the young seaman taken prisoner had in his possession a newspaper account (published “in the city of London”) that detailed how the King (presumably of England) had made a proclamation offering several hundred pounds for the capture of The Eagle.

If this is correct, it should be possible to find a copy of this proclamation – it (and/or any copies of it in the London press) may well have additional information. However, all I have found so far for 1738 relates specifically to Spanish attacks on British shipping than with the French:

Alderman Perry, on the 3d of March [1738] brought into the house of commons a petition from the merchants, planters, and others, interested in the American trade, specifying these articles of complaint, which they recommended to the consideration of the house. This petition with others of a like nature, which produced warm debates, were referred to a committee of the whole house, and an order was made to admit the petitioners to be heard by themselves or by counsel. Sir John Barnard moved for an address to the king, that all the memorials and papers relating to the Spanish depredations, should be laid before the house, which with some alteration proposed by Sir Robert Walpole, was actually presented, and a favourable answer was returned.

This parliamentary debate appears in the History and Proceedings of the House of Commons Vol. 10. The King of England in 1738 was George II, for whose coronation Handel wrote “Zadok The Priest”: his response to the petition made no mention of the French:

Gentlemen,

I Am fully sensible of the many and unwarrantable Depredations committed by the Spaniards; and you may be assured, I will make use of the most proper and effectual Means, that are in my Power, to procure Justice and Satisfaction to my injured Subjects, and for the future Security of their Trade and Navigation. I can make no Doubt, but you will support me, with Chearfulness, in all such Measures, as, in Pursuance of your Advice, I may be necessitated to take, for the Honour of my Crown and Kingdoms, and the Rights of my People.”

Any good suggestions as to where to look next?

Thanks to help from Cipher Mysteries commenters Paul Relkin and Thomas, it became clear that though my initial attempt at cracking the Hollow River Cipher was close, it wasn’t as close as it could have been. Essentially, even though I worked out the upper case / lower case trick and what I thought was a single cipher, it turned out that there were actually two separate ciphers in play (i.e. for lower case letters in the cryptogram) that the encipherer could choose from, either a +1 Caesar Shift or a -2 Caesar Shift.

It then became acutely clear that the otherwise mysterious line “2 = 1. 1 = 3. A = A.” in the cryptogram was therefore the key to the cipher, where the two Hollow River Cipher alphabets are as follows:

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A  (+1 Caesar Shift)
X Z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X  (-2 Caesar Shift)

This means that we can decrypt almost all of the cryptogram, leaving only a handful of letters ambiguous. Here are the workings out:

e q E m e g u k O O o k A I k E    [= cryptogram]
F R E N F H V L O O P L A I L E    [= +1 Caesar Shift if lower case]
C O E K C E S I O O M I A I I E    [= -2 Caesar Shift if lower case]
F R E N C H S L O O P L A I L E    [= Most likely plaintext]

i U k e u s k A y q E m E o A Y 10, 1738
J U L F V T L A Z R E N E P A Y 
G U I C S Q I A W O E K E M A Y
G U L F S T L A W R E N E M A Y 10, 1738

o q I u O m E q f U A q c E c e q e y O
P R I V O N E R G U A R D E D F R F Z O 
M O I S O K E O D U A O A E A C O C W O 
P R I S O N E R G U A R D E D C R E W O

m u g O q E
N V H P R E 
K S E M O E 
N S H O R E

k E A i M E y E u s m A U e q A i E
L E A J N E Z E V T N A U F R A J E 
I E A G K E W E S Q K A U C O A G E
L E A G U E W E S T N A U F R A G E

I . u s i o
I . V T J P
I . S Q G M
I . ? ? ? M

g m o k A m w m m O y m I m s E m c y q
H N P L A N X N N O Z N I N T E N D Z R
E K M I A K U K K O W K I K Q E K A W O
E N P L A N U N N O W N I N T E N D W R

E e m u g I o s O O m A k k i U m u A m c s q E A u U q E j I c c E m k I m
E F N V H I P T O O N A L L J U N V A N D T R E A V U R E K I D D E N L I N
E C K S E I M Q O O K A I I G U K S A K A Q O E A S U O E H I A A E K I I K
E C K S H I P T O O K A L L G U N S A N D T R E A S U R E H I D D E N ? I N 

e i u E E I i g s u O m E g U m c q g c A m c E k E n E m Y e w w o u o A k k
F J V E E I J H T V O N E H U N D R H D A N D E L E O E N Y F X X P V P A L L 
C G S E E I G E Q S O K E E U K A O E A A K A E I E L E K Y C U U M S M A I I
F I V E E I G H T S O N E H U N D R E D A N D E L E V E N ? ? ? U P S M A L L

u s q g A o - k I m E g A k e k E m i s g m . y E u s e q O o u O u s g E m e - o
V T R H A P - L I N E H A L F L E N J T H N . Z E V T F R O P V O V T H E N F - P
S Q O E A M - I I K E E A I C I E K G Q E K . W E S Q C O O M S O S Q E E K C - M
S T R E A M - L I N E H A L F L E N G T H N . W E S T F R O M S O U T H E N D - P

I s u o I c c k k E u E e O m c . i e q O y u g A Y .
I T V P I D D L L E V E F O N D . J F R O Z V H A Y .
I Q S M I A A I I E S E C O K A . G C O O W S E A Y .
I T S M I D D L L E S E C O N D . J C R O W S H A Y .

This gives the following net decryption:

FRENCH SLOOP L’AI[G]LE
GULF ST LAWREN[C]E MAY 10, 1738
PRISONER GUARDED CREW ONSHORE
LEAGUE WEST NAUFRAGE
I. ???
MEN PLAN UNNOWN INTEND WRECK SHIP TOOK ALL GUNS AND TREASURE HIDDEN ? IN
FIVE EIGHTS ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN ??? UP SMALL
STREAM – LINE HALF LENGTH N. WEST FROM SOUTH END –
PITS MIDDLLE SECOND. J CROWSHAY.

If the “L’Aigle” was the French Sloop ‘Eagle’ mentioned in the diary entry, then I’m almost certain that the “FIVE EIGHTS” were five 8-pounder cannon boxes. Moreover, my best guess for the final ??? is that this is YDS (i.e. “ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN Y[AR]DS UP SMALL STREAM”).

Hence it seems that what we have managed to decrypt is indeed exactly the kind of treasure map every schoolboy since Treasure Island has fantasized about:

1) TOOK ALL GUNS AND TREASURE HIDDEN ? IN FIVE EIGHTS
2) ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN Y[AR]DS UP SMALL STREAM (i.e. the Hollow River)
3) LINE HALF LENGTH N[ORTH] WEST FROM SOUTH END
4) PITS MIDDLE SECOND
5) [Signed] J CROWSHAY

So, if you walk 111 yards up Hollow River, then follow a line roughly half that length (say, 55 yards) in a north-westerly direction from the south end, you might well find pits containing five eight-pounder cannon stuffed out with treasure. (The “Legend” specifically mentions five pits!)

Of course, I’d say that there’s a 90+% chance that this Hollow River Treasure has been cleared out or robbed out over the centuries (particularly given what was related in the “Legend” article), but you can never be 100% sure of what’s still there, eh? So… do we have any Cipher Mysteries readers on Prince Edward Island? (Asking is free, right? 🙂 )

Here, courtesy of Cipher Mysteries reader Matt Malone, is a new historical cipher that he calls the “Hollow River Cipher”, which he found in a magazine from the early 1900s called “The Prince Edward Island Magazine” while on vacation. (There are 67 issues scanned online here from 1899 to 1905, so other interesting stories may well be lurking there for the persistent.)

The first part of the story, related by Mr Senachie, was on pages 163-164 of the July 1900 edition:

This mentioned a pair of strange rectangular pits that appeared near the Hollow River around 1840 one March, that some thought might be to do with treasure pits.

A follow-on article by “D. A. W.” appeared on pages 241-248 of the October 1900 edition:

This related a story copied from “a remnant of a comprehensive diary”, dated 1749, that described a cryptogram dated 1738 that the diary writer had found written on folded parchment in a floating bottle, as well as a story of how some treasure was buried (allegedly in 1738) in similar size holes to the ones (presumably uncovered by the winter’s frost) found in 1840.

All the pages can be conveniently found on a single imgur webpage, courtesy of Matt Malone. Or, if you want to download all the pages in one go, Matt has very kindly placed a single zipfile here.

The Hollow River Cipher

Of course, we cipher people have long learnt not to put too much trust in the stories that end up backfilled around unsolved ciphers (e.g. the Beale Ciphers etc). Rather, we must instead start with the cryptogram itself as reproduced in the PEI Magazine:

Here’s my transcription of the cryptogram in the magazine:

e q E m e g u k O O o k A I k E              |    m u g O q E
i U k e u s k A y q E m E o A Y 10, 1738     |  k E A i M E y E u s m A U e q A i E
2 = 1.          1 = 3.        A = A.         |    I. u s i o
o q I u O m E q f U A q c E c e q e y O      |  g m o k A m w m m O y m I m s E mc y q
E e m u g I o s O O m A k k i U m u A m c s q E A u U q E J I c c e m k I m
e i u E E I i g s u O m E g u m c q g c A mc E k E n E m Y e w w o u o A k k
u s q g A o-k I m E g A k c k E m i s g m. y E u s eq O o u O u s g E m e-o
I s u o I c c k k E u E e O m c. i eq O y u g A Y.

My initial decryption notes:
1) the letters appears to have been spaced apart for clarity (which is nice)
2) the two panels of lines 1-4 appear to be intended to be read left-half then right-half
3) the top left of lines 1-2 is probably the place/date where/when the note was composed
4) the left half of line 3 appears to have a somewhat mysterious structure
5) some pairs of letters have no space between: mc (lines #4 and #6), eq (lines #6 and #7)
6) there are a few hyphens and a few full stops, almost all in the final two lines.
7) having been found off Canada, the plaintext language is probably French or English

Now, I could leave this for my readers to figure out (which is what Klaus Schmeh does with his messages found in bottles)… but many apologies, becauseI’ve basically cracked most of it already. So here’s what it (mostly) says:

Nick’s Decryption

Using the above transcription carefully, CryptoCrack was able to help move me far enough in the right direction to work out the basic idea behind this cryptogram. The big trick is that only lower case letters are enciphered, i.e. upper case letters are completely unenciphered (and these are usually vowels).

Once you’ve got that idea worked out, you then have to try to read past the inevitable enciphering errors and copying errors that cryptograms almost always include. (Here we have parchment -> diary -> copy of diary -> article passed to editors -> article typeset in magazine.)

Where a letter seems to have been omitted in the plaintext, I’ve inserted an underscore. A few letters have been manually corrected to the most probable, but it’s pretty much all as it should be:

eqEmegukOOok_AI_kE
FRENCHSLOOPL'AIGLE

iUkeuskAyqEm_EoAY10,1738
GULFSTLAWRENCEMAY10,1738

2 = 1.   1 = 3.   A = A.
(No idea what these mean)

oqIuOmEqfUAqcEceqeyO
PRISONERQUARTERCREWO

mugOqE
NSHORE

kEAiMEyEusmAUeqAiE
LEAGUEWESTNAUFRAGE ---- ("naufrage" = "shipwreck" in French)

I.usio
I.STGM   (no idea about this bit)

gmokAm_wm_mOymImsEmcyq
ENGLANDUNKNOWNINTENDWR    ("England" is a bit of a guess here, though very close)

EemugIosOOmAkkiUmuAmcsqEAuUqEJIccemkIm
EFNSHIMTOONALLGUNSANDTREASUREHIDDENLIN

eiuEEIigsuOmEgumcqgcAmcEkEnEmYewwouoAkk
FGSEEINGITSONEISDTHDANDELE?ENYFUUMSMALL

usqgAo-kImEgAkckEmisgm.yEuseqOuOusgEme-o
STREAM-LINEHALDLENGTHN.WESTFROSOSTHENF-M

IsuoIcckkEuEeOmc.ieqOyugAY
ITSMIDDLLESEFOND.GFROWSHAY

My best guess is that “GFROWSHAY” is the name of the English sailor writing this note, though there may well be errors in his name. 🙁 And might the “SMALL STREAM” be the Hollow River (which was indeed little more than a creek)?

Overall, here’s my attempt at reconstructing the enciphering table, though many of the cryptogram’s slips and miscopies have made it hard to be 100% certain:

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
C - D - F Q H - G - L - N - M - R - T - S - U - W -

My best guess is that “2 = 1. 1 = 3. A = A.” is somehow an aide-memoire for the cipher table. But I don’t know exactly how.

But It’s Not All Over Yet…

Tantalizingly, the lines containing the phrase “ALL GUNS AND TREASURE HIDDEN” onward are extremely hard to make out. So now that I’ve got this started, this is where my talented readers come in, to try to resolve all the genuinely difficult stuff that I’m unable to.

What can you clever people make of the rest of this? Does it describe where to find treasure? 🙂