Searching For Swift’s Lost Silver Mines

“It’s near a peculiar rock. Boys, don’t ever quit looking
for it. It is the richest thing I ever saw.”

With those deathbed
words, uttered about 1800, John Swift set off the longest running treasure hunt
in Appalachia. A hunt that continues today.

According to
the legend, John Swift, of Alexandria, Virginia, discovered several silver mines
in the hills of eastern Kentucky. His first finds were in 1760, and there were
several others. In addition to the mines themselves, there are, so it is said,
caches of silver coins and ingots waiting to be found.

It started when
Swift befriended a man named George Munday, a Frenchman captured at the Battle
of Fort Duquesne during the French and Indian War. Munday had discovered a vein
of silver somewhere on the headwaters of Big Sandy Creek. But the Shawnee attacked,
killing his father and brothers and making him a prisoner.

Munday remained
a captive of the Shawnee for three years, during which time he was forced to help
mine silver in several places. Because Swift had helped him, he agreed to guide
him to these Indian silver mines.

On the first
expedition, Swift says in his journal, “After crossing Big Sandy Creek, near its
headwaters, and continuing west for a considerable distance, we located three
of the mines.” They then traveled southwesterly, following a great ridge, where
they found other mines near a large river.

On subsequent
explorations, Swift and his crews uncovered several other mines, and established
smelters where they refined it and cast it into coins of the era. Ironically,
such coins—some of which have been recovered—contain more silver than the issued
specie of the day. Whether John Swift and his crew actually cast these coins remains
to be seen. Such counterfeiting was fairly common in the late 18th and early 19th
centuries.

Swift went to
London, England, to raise capital for developing the mines. While there he was
outspoken in his support of American independence, and was imprisoned for his
views. He spent 10 years in jail, losing his eyesight during that period.

Aged, infirm,
and blind, he returned to western Appalachia to rediscover his mines. Using a
journal he had kept of his adventures, and hiring local people to guide him based
on his remembered landmarks, he spent the rest of his life trying to find his
lost silver mines.

He never did.
But to help support himself, he sold various copies of his journal, broadsides,
and maps—all of which held clues to the lost mines. At least 36 versions of the
journal were produced until his death, along with 29 known treasure maps. Using
those heirlooms and other reference works, thousands of treasure seekers have
spent the past 200 years searching for the lost mines in what is one of the most
enduring, and one of the most endearing, legends of the southern hills.

They come merely
with an old map and hope. And they come with metal detectors and the results of
deep research. And they sometimes come with great financial backing. In the late
1990s a major search went on headquartered in Elkhorn City. The organizer was
said to be backing this serious treasure hunt to the tune of $150,000.

What keeps them
searching? Through the years, there have been silver finds resulting from the
clues found in Swift’s journals, and by using the signs and symbols he left carved
on rocks and trees. There have been too many of these finds—which include ingots,
coin molds, and caches of silver coins, silver ingots, and shaped artifacts—to
dismiss the legend out of hand. This despite the fact that geologists all seem
to agree there is no silver of any consequence in the Kentucky hills.

Former newspaperman
Michael Steely, a great collector of Swift lore, details some of these finds in
his book, Swift’s Silver Mines and Related
Appalachian Treasure:

• A
  Kentucky man has a mostly silver ax head, or wedge, he found near an old
  smelter.

• An
  Ohio man has several “fingers” of silver he found while searching for the
  mines.

• Several Spanish coins from the Swift era were found in North Carolina, setting
  off a small silver rush.

Steely himself remained skeptical until he found a
large, silver spearhead at a site he believed to be indicated by some of the Swift
rock carvings. He showed me that artifact, which has been appraised as 85% silver
(the rest is ash and impurities). It is obviously crudely forged, from a single
lump of silver.

Most
recently, using the symbols at the so-called Lakely stone carvings, near the town
of Frakes, a man found a cache of seven small silver ingots. The Lakely carvings,
which are supposedly coded directions to a Cherokee hoard of gold and jewelry,
rather than to the Swift mines, have been used by treasure hunters for years.

Reading
copies of John Swift’s journals, you are struck with the detail and precision
of his descriptions. Trouble is, the geology described fits many places in eastern
Kentucky and surrounding areas.

For
instance, Roy Price, one of the foremost Swift treasure seekers and collectors
of Swift lore in the country, took me to a spot near Jellico, Tennessee. There’s
a naturally carved Indian head in the cliff, and a lighthouse nearby, that seem
to be perfectly described by Swift. “A treasure map, widely circulated in the
last century, brought many treasure hunters here,” Price told me, “and is still
being used by hunters today.”

The
site is easy to find. Just take U.S. 25W south about five miles from Jellico,
and the cliff is across the river on your left.

Nobody
has found anything at the Jellico site. But by the same token, nobody has discovered
silver near a similar site, which also matches the description, found near the
entrance to Natural Bridge State Park, here in Kentucky. If you visit the park,
stop as you turn in to the Hemlock Lodge entrance and look to the cliff line on
your right. You’ll see the Indian Head Rock, and the lighthouse (named Owl’s Window),
just under it.

While
many of the sites, especially those that have rock or tree carvings, are closely
held secrets, just as many are easily accessible to the general public. You don’t
even need a treasure map to find them. General-interest publications often guide
you to the possible location of the mines.

So,
“go to it, boys. If you find this silver mine, let me know—and we will celebrate.”

Searching For Swift’s Silver
Mines

Although
many of the supposed sites of Swift’s silver mines and lost cache are closely
guarded secrets, there are several public sites that are easily accessible. Here
are some of them:

Breaks
Interstate Park.
The Towers, a prominent landmark formed in a horseshoe bend of the Russell Fork,
is said to be described in several versions of Swift’s journal.

Jenny
Wiley State Park.
In the captivity story of Kentucky heroine Jenny Wiley, she talks about smelting
silver with her captors. The well-described site is probably not in the park,
but you might discover it along the 180-mile Jenny Wiley trail.

Carter
Caves State Park.
There are several sites at Carter Caves associated with the lost silver mine,
X Cave and the Saltpeter Cave among them. Saltpeter Cave is also known as a counterfeiter’s
cave, and is supposedly the site of a French silver mine that Swift identifies
in his journal.

Red
River Gorge.
Red River Gorge is the center of the John Swift legend, and was the last area
he searched before his death. Among the many possible locales are Rock Bridge,
on Swift Camp Creek; Swift Silvermine Arch; and Becky Timmons Arch.

Cumberland
Gap.
Mentioned by Swift as “the Great Gap,” it’s also where the Spurlock family—who
settled in Kentucky specifically because of the lost mine—began their searches.

Pine
Mountain State Park.
Most searchers believe the mines are somewhere on Pine Mountain—called Laurel
Mountain by Swift. Although they could be anywhere in the 125-mile-long mountain,
the state park is as good a place as any to begin your search.

Cumberland
Falls State Park.
The Renfro family settled here, also in search for lost silver mines.

Big
South Fork National Recreational Area.
The 105,000 wilderness acres of the Big South Fork are associated with both the
Swift and lost Cherokee silver mine legends.

Is Swift’s Silver in Colorado?

By Anita
Travis McMannis

Over
the past 200 years, the facts about Swift and his lost silver mine or cache
have been changed to protect the silver, so to speak.

According
to an article by Don Viles, titled John Swift’s Silver Bar Cache, posted on
the Internet at www.losttreasure.com,
Swift’s lost silver is actually located in Colorado, not in the hills
of Kentucky, Tennessee, or North Carolina.

It is interesting to note similarities between the
Kentucky and Colorado legends as they relate to descriptions of the land and
rock formations and named rivers.

Viles’ research of “original papers” has Munday associated
with Spanish miners from Mexico, digging ore in the rugged cliff country of
the Red River Valley.

Viles notes a record in 1768 saying the group left
Virginia and that the returning counterfeiters were ambushed. According to Viles,
the record states “An unusual rock at the junction of three creeks. Rock has
turkey tracks engraved on it that point to the mine,” and that there are silver
bars and coins stashed at the “forks of the Big Sandy River,” which Viles says
is near the headwaters of Peyton, Colorado.

The silver mule trains continued to Colorado Springs,
says Viles, and then through Ute Pass and the mountains to today’s Colorado
National Monument. He says Ute Pass is probably the site of one of Swift’s silver
caches, of which Swift stated, “Two horse loads of silver and a valuable prize
was left on the south side of the Big Gap where we marked some trees.”

So do Swift’s lost silver mines and cache reside
in Kentucky or Colorado? Were the references indeed to Kentucky’s Red River
Gorge, Big Sandy River, and Cumberland Gap?

One thing’s for sure, it’s an intriguing legend that
is backed by some substance of fact. Maybe you’ll be the one to discover the
real truth!