Carpenters Tomb....is NOT at the Cemetary

There is treasure in these parts, so the story goes. It seems a man named Carpenter made his fortune selling furs and honey to the traders way back in the days of Upper and Lower Canada. He never married, or had any children, so he hid his gold and money somewhere on his property, to protect it from the thieves and pirates while he was out working his trap lines.

We had never heard this story before, and went for a drive one day, (August 26, 2007) to see what we could find. We knew we were in the right area when we came upon Carpenter’s Cemetery. That, in itself is worth taking time to explore. There is a curious sign that says "Enter at your own Risk". I’ve never seen one like that at a graveyard before, though perhaps they were afraid some of the older, leaning tombstones might fall on visitors. Unfortunately some vandals gave many of them a helping hand and now there are lots of stones that have been tipped over or broken in half. The orange flags in the picture indicate where there was damage done. There were an awful lot of orange flags, unfortunately. Luckily someone has been found willing to do the repairs at this historic site.

Just down the road from that there is a trail through the woods. Following that we discovered a pile of rocks. Now, I’ve seen many farmers pile up rocks from their fields, but I’ve never seen a rock pile like this. It’s a large rectangle, larger than my own home, so certainly much larger than any foundation someone of those days would attempt. The edges of the pile are stacked like one would, if building a stone wall though. The thing is, this rectangle is also filled in with stone, to a height of about 5 feet. It’s flat on top and you can actually walk around up there. If Mr. Carpenter hid his fortune in that rock pile, it’s definitely safe from me. It made my muscles hurt just to think of moving all those rocks. This rock pile has become known, locally, as Carpenters Tomb.

Someone suggested to me that perhaps it was there to distract people, and that the treasure was hidden somewhere else on the property. Well, I know people have been looking for it for years, but the rest of the property is now very flat, with trees planted in straight rows. I suspect there was a lot of digging and earth moving done for that to happen. Any treasure that had been buried would have been found.

The only treasure we found that day was the geocache, hidden exactly where the coordinates indicated. I wouldn’t mind going back there and poking about again someday though.
They have requested that no pictures of the actual tomb be posted, so you will just have to imagine it.....unless you want to go look for yourself. It’s not far from Brockville, Ontario, just off the county Rd 16.

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