On a summer morning in 1947, fisherman William Cottrell was strolling along a deserted beach in the Highlands, near New York. Suddenly a gold coin flashed in the sand. It was a Spanish doubloon minted in 1713. On the same day, Cottrell's friend found another doubloon, but for a different year of minting. In a week, the residents of the Highlands wandered along the beach and found five gold doubloons.
Where did they come from on the beach? No matter how much the local old-timers puzzled, they could not find an acceptable explanation. No one has ever heard of any galleons that sank near the coast. But the fact that the coins turned out to be of different origin, most likely, could indicate a pirate treasure, apparently washed out during a storm.
Newsmen got wind of the find. This was enough for the quiet town on the shores of Sandy Hook Bay to lose its charm - pristine silence and solitude. Treasure hunters from New York rushed to the Highlands.
At first they came in hundreds, then in thousands. The beach has been dug up many times. And then someone else started a rumor that several bars of gold had already been found. Newspapers immediately spread across America that people were digging gold right on the beach.
More and more hungry treasure hunters arrived at Sandy Hook Beach. Those who managed to “stake out” areas of the beach did not allow newcomers to approach their “legal” territory. Fierce fights broke out everywhere.
The New Jersey state police were forced to send reinforced patrols to the coast of the bay to restore at least some order. Curiously, many treasure hunters came with dogs. The animals, which must have been sincerely surprised by the behavior of their owners, nevertheless obediently obeyed their commands and dug sand with them.
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For a week and a half, the "gold microfever" shook the New Yorkers. In total, they found 23 gold doubloons, but paid the owners of the hardware shops several hundred thousand dollars. The lively traders of trenching tools delivered carriages of shovels, picks and rakes to the beach. These garden tools in the "workplace" cost ten times as much. The demand for them was enormous.
How did the Spanish doubloons end up in the Highlands? The staff of the National History Museum of New York supported the "pirate version." Since Sandy Hook Bay was once visited by filibusters, twenty-three coins could well be part of their hoard.
However, another explanation is also possible. It is possible that the same pick and shovel merchants, overshadowed by a brilliant idea, scattered Spanish doubloons on the beach one fine morning. The newsmen and greed did the rest.
Used materials from the book by Sergei Demkin "Treasures washed in blood"