Haunted Treasure

As a young girl, I was often told a strange tale by my mother, one told to her by her parents when she was growing up. A tale about buried treasure found on her great grandfather’s plantation. A curious thing happened, before the discovery of the treasure, something that always made me question was it supernatural.

Before I can get into this tale, I need to lay some groundwork, so to speak; just a short simple history lesson, and then you can understand more about this buried treasure.

From 1861 to 1865 the American Civil War was fought. Despite the myth that slavery was the reason for this conflict,

the truth is that this war was fought over money. When the South proceeded to move forward with secession, after Lincoln was elected, Lincoln ordered an invasion by the North; the South fought in an attempt to prevent Northern aggression and invasion.

The huge bulk of soldiers in the Confederate Army were men of low income. Most of which were hard working farmers. My great great grandfather Jessie Nash, was one of those hard-working men that made up this army.

Now, Lincoln’s army was a brutal, aggressive group. These northern oppressors would ruthlessly attack and kill innocent, unarmed men, women and children. They would raid the southern plantations, kill the owners, treat the ladies worse than prostitutes, burn the houses, and butcher the livestock while stealing the food and valuables.

The majority of slaves stayed and kept watch for their masters, while they were at war. They would hide the valuables, and food. As a result, across the south there was, and quite possibly still is, “buried treasures”.

There was great wealth in the South, prior to the war, but

it was primarily tied up in the slave economy, and agriculture. As the war began to progress, the economy became unstable, then grew distinctly worse at the end. At this point, The Emancipation Proclamation was formed, with its promise of freedom for the slaves. This endangered the main labor source, labor was no longer free.

This is when the sharecropping system emerged. The black families rented individual plots of land, and lived in houses that were former slave quarters, to utilize the labor of all members of the family.

Now this is where the tale begins. After the war was over in 1865, my great great grandfather Jessie Nash migrated from South Carolina to Monroe county Mississippi, to settle down. He bought a big plantation on the outskirts of Aberdeen, in a community called Athens.

The previous owner’s son had suffered from what we label today as PTSD, because of the war and its repercussions. Sadly, He had committed suicide by hanging himself from the banister of this home. As a result, Granddaddy Nash managed to get this property at a dirt-cheap price.

After purchasing this cotton plantation, he made enough money to open the only cotton gin within miles. With this he became a moderately successful man in his day.

It was here that Granddaddy Nash carried his bride, Nancy Pickle, across the threshold. It was here where they raised their family. This is where my Great Grandmother, Odie Nash grew into a woman, and married my Great Grandfather Kimiel Tubb.

Now, it was rumored down through the generations of my

family that one could hear noises all through the night in this big house. Thus, it was widely believed to be haunted. Perhaps it was the son of the previous owner, walking the halls, trying to find peace. Or maybe it was one of its former inhabitants, even the ghost of a former slave, trying to continue to serve his master. No one really knew for certain.

Anyway, on this plantation, just as other plantations, there were sharecropper houses. It was in one of these house that my grandfather and grandmother Clifton and Dovie Tubb, son of Odie and Kimeil Tubb, began their married life together, in

1925. This house was nothing more than a one room shack in the middle of a cow pasture.

Shortly after moving in, grandma and granddaddy started having issues with their front door coming open during the night, while they slept. Night after night, for several nights, they would go behind one another checking the door, to make sure it was locked, only to awake the next morning to find it wide open.

After many nights of this, thinking something must be wrong with the lock, they decided to push their trunk against the door.

Now back in those days everyone had a trunk, they were called wardrobe trunks. In these trunks their cloths would be folded and packed, so these trunks were generally very heavy.

Upon awakening the following morning, they found the trunk

pushed away from the door, and once again, the door was standing wide open. Feeling alarmed, the following night they decided to lock the door, push the trunk against it, and then push their bed against the trunk. Putting the oil lamp and matches on the nightstand, they silently talked amongst themselves to keep each other awake. At some point during the night the bed started sliding across the floor. Scared half out of their minds, granddad yelled, "Dovie, light that lamp and see what the hell that is!"

Standing in the doorway was a burley African American man in a nightshirt. My grandparents looked at each other in fear, when they turn back to the man, he was gone. They were startled.

They began to pack immediately, and the next day, they moved out of that shack!

Believing hoodlums were breaking into the place, a few short weeks later, the family decided to have the shack torn down. After tearing the porch and doorsteps down, the men came across a hole, it looked as if someone had been digging. Upon closer inspection, they found something buried in this hole. It was a box of gold coins, silverware and other valuables.

Now remains the questions: Was the man at the door flesh and blood, or was he a ghost? Was he a descendant of a former

slave, who perchance had heard of his ancestor burying these valuables for his master during the war? Or was he the spirit of the slave overlooking these treasures? Maybe he was just a goon, looking for a place to sleep. We will never know, but the fact remains, there were indeed, buried treasures.