4/11/2023 0 Comments Bob taply brewer"It's my damn story," he says, "and if they don't believe it I'm not gonna worry about it, damn it. It's enough to support his modest lifestyle, and to thumb his nose at those who might think he's just another old coot with a metal detector. Steeped in the history of the South and the West, his quest is haunted by the legend of Jesse James and imbued with the mysterious stuff of Freemasonry, coded treasure maps and conspiracy theories dating to John Wilkes Booth.Īlong the way, Brewer says, he has unearthed about $200,000 worth of gold and silver coins. Brewer is a consultant on the film.īut although Cage's character searches for Confederate gold and his ancestral ties to the Lincoln assassination, Brewer's journey shows, once again, that real life can be stranger than fiction - or at least as intriguing. 21, when Nicolas Cage returns as code-breaking treasure hunter Ben Gates in "National Treasure: Book of Secrets," a sequel to Disney's 2004 hit. "I think Grandpa Ashcraft and Uncle Ode had a secret," Brewer says.Ī similar theme will play out on the big screen Dec. And he thinks Ashcraft and his son, Odis, had something to do with it. In 1977, after retiring from the Navy, Brewer returned to western Arkansas and took up an obsessive search - for buried treasure, and for his family's links to a secretive, subversive Confederate group, the Knights of the Golden Circle, or KGC.Īfter many years of research, he is among those who believe that the group buried millions in ill-gotten gold across a dozen states, to finance a second Civil War that never came to be. So did memories of Grandpa's frequent, unexplained horseback rides into the nearby Ouachita Mountains. The old man didn't elaborate, but his words stuck with Brewer through childhood and two tours of duty in Vietnam as a Navy helicopter crewman. " 'You see that writing? If you can figure out what that is, you'll find some gold.' " "He said, 'Boy, you see that tree? That's a treasure tree,' " Brewer recalled on a recent visit to the site. "Grandpa" Ashcraft, pointed it out on a logging trip 57 years ago. Deep in the woods near Brushy Creek stands an old beech tree, its smooth bark etched with dozens of carvings, including biblical references, a heart and a legless horse.īob Brewer was 10 when his great-uncle, W.D. CODE: Bob Brewer points out arcane symbols on a tree in western Arkansas that he believes are clues to a treasure stashed away by the Knights of the Golden Circle, a secretive Confederate group.Ī man seeking Confederate gold and his own family's hidden history uncovers a cryptic trail that may stretch back to a secret society and Jesse James.īy Kim Christensen, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
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