by Valerie Sims
The stories of Norman Island, of Valerie’s great-grandfather Henry Osmond Creque and pirate treasure he may have found on Norman Island, continue to fascinate Valerie. Here, she starts to get closer to the secret.
When I was a young girl, my grandmother entertained my sister and I with fascinating tales of buried treasure that delighted and intrigued us. I remember The Legend of El Cid. She told us that her mother’s family were descendants of El Cid, a Castilian knight and national hero in medieval Spain, and when they emigrated from Spain many centuries ago to the island of St. Thomas, they left an enormous wealth behind. [Editor’s note: Charlton Heston played El Cid in a 1961 movie.]
When I pleaded with her to tell me more, she recounted the following story once in the early 1970s, and never spoke of it again.
One day, she said, her grandfather noticed a schooner in front of the cave that the locals called The Bat Hole. Becoming suspicious, he went to inquire, but by the time he arrived, the vessel was far in the distance. When he entered the cavern, he found the remnants of what had obviously been hidden.
There, on the cave floor, strewn between the rocks, were pieces of eight and gold doubloons! He couldn’t believe his eyes! When they adjusted to the darkness, he noticed a huge black hole near the ceiling.
When she paused, I asked her, How did they find the location?
She told me, “They discovered a map tucked between the pages of a book in a library in London.”
A million more questions came to me, but that was all she willingly shared.
Many years later, while browsing through a newspaper from 1889, I was surprised to find a treasure tale that was surprisingly similar to the one my grandmother told me! Could there be some truth to this legacy? Searching further through the locally archived newspapers led me to a cryptic clue in The Sanct Thomae Tidende, September 11, 1880:
Gossip has it that treasure has been found on Norman Island, one of the Virgin group.
Two weeks later, the St. Croix Avis referred to this as just a rumour, not a fact. That was all. Nothing was ever published after that brief notice until nine years later when I found this article in the Nashville American Newspaper, published in 1889. It described how a fisherman had chipped away at a concealed hole in one of the caves and made a tremendous discovery.
Wealth Supposed to Have Been Hidden in a Cave
One morning about thirty years ago (1859), a fisherman arrived in Road Town, Tortola, with an interesting story.
He said a large schooner was anchored off the coast of Norman Island, one of the British Virgin Islands, and that her boats were moving along the shore. The island being uninhabited, there could be no question of smuggling. The circumstance was so extraordinary that an expedition was at once organized to investigate. On arrival off the point, the schooner was, sure enough, in sight, but was already far off in the distance, making all sail to the westward.
A dim suspicion of the real facts induced the party to extend their investigations into the black hole, a deep-sea tunneled cavern extending far into the bowels of the island. It bore the reputation of having been the treasure vault of pirates in the olden days.
They entered the cavern despite the protest of thousands of bats that rushed around their torches. After a search of up half an hour or so, they came to a spot where the solid wall of the cavern had recently been attacked with a pick. On closer inspection, the debris was found to consist of mason work, and to have formed the walling of a vaulted chamber sunk into the rock, about four feet square.
Scattered about the fragments of masonry were found a few pieces of old Spanish gold and silver coin, and a jeweled sword hilt, together with a piece of paper. Written on the paper were explicit instructions for the finding of the vault on which it was said that Captain Kidd had stored away a vast quantity of treasure. Attached was said to be a chart of the island, but this was not found.
Did Henry Osmond Creque find treasure in a cave at Norman Island?
Not only did the 1889 account in the Nashville American newspaper mirror the story my grandmother told me, but it provided further details. Could Henry have penned the article, alluding to date much earlier to keep his identity hidden?
If Henry became rich overnight and found his money in the shape of Spanish doubloons, then what did he do with the money? As luck would have it, I might have found the answer when I was looking through old property records at the Department of Land Registry in Tortola. My first clue!
There before me was an 1872 deed to Wynn’s Carrot Bay Estate, a 33-acre tract of land whereby Henry was the highest bidder, paying 33 pounds sterling. Because he was a minor, his father placed the bid for him. Henry was 14 and a half years old!
No one in the family today was aware of this early transaction.
The following year, when Henry was 15, he purchased Richmond and Ross’ Cane Garden Bay, an estate of 242 acres, at the Marshall’s office in Tortola. He paid five pounds, ten shillings and five pence sterling money. Again, Henry was too young to bid himself.
Over a span of 25 years, from 1874 to 1902, Henry acquired additional wealth by dividing and selling portions of Cane Garden Bay Estate, ranging from two to ten acres.
Curiously, there were no other deeds in the names of his siblings of which he had seven, five brothers and two sisters. Why would his father, a soft-spoken Christian man with a large family, purchase lands for Henry and not his sisters and brothers for two consecutive years? It had to be that those funds belonged to Henry. And how does a 14-year-old boy from Anegada have the hard currency needed on an island where most bartered with goods?
Digging deeper through the records at the Department of Land Registry in Tortola and the Recorder of Deeds office in St. Thomas, it soon became apparent that Henry continued his spending spree, opening businesses and purchasing additional lands.
Condensed from VintageNorman Island, by Valerie Sims (NormanIslandbook.com).
