Old Story Tells Legend of Gold In Shipp Pond

According to an article in a 1950 edition of The Brewton Standard, gold is hidden somewhere in Shipp Pond. Shipp Pond, a natural lake, is located between Castleberry, Alabama and Brooklyn, Alabama.

The 1950 story, written by the late Edley Franklin:

It was the year 1862. The Civil War was being fought, and throughout the South, gold and other valuables were hidden for safekeeping.

Many later reclaimed their treasures. Others are supposed to have died, or some unfortunate occurence such as changed landmarks or bad memories kept them from it.

It was supposed to have happened one night during the Civil War. Sheets of gray clouds sliding slowly beneath a quarter moon made slowly-moving ghostly shadows across the still waters of a large pond, surrounded by a sloping ridge of virgin pine.

Out of nowhere, a man driving a buggy appeared in an opening among the trees. Twisting and turning, he made his way between the pines down to the edge of the pond. Getting out of the buggy, he tied the horse. He then took a wooden box or small chest from under the laprobe in the front of the buggy. He placed it on a “billy” which was composed of four short logs dogged together and tied there at the water’s edge.

Untying the billy, the man picked up a long pole lying on top of it and began shoving the raft out in the pond, keeping it headed straight toward a tall dead pine that was skylighted on the other side.

Halfway across the pond, the man stopped. He stood there for several minutes, looking in all directions, first toward the dead pine, then the direction from which he came, then to the opposite sides of the pond. Then picking up the wooden box, he lowered it into the water beside the raft and dropped it.

“Won’t no damn Yankees ever find that gold money!” the man said to himself. He got in the buggy and drove back the way he came.