True Mystery
A Mysterious Discovery
Old Times Never Forgotten
Gerald Soslau tells his story:
The sky looked like it had been painted a lovely baby blue free of any clouds. There was a light breeze from the East this pleasant spring day and a light chop on the bay and on the Gulf of Mexico. My wife Esther and I agreed this was a perfect day to rent a motorboat and head out to one of the barrier islands near Naples, Florida. She had been chomping on the bit since we arrived at our winter home from up north to go out collecting seashells. We gathered up a collection of our big Marshall’s shopping bags and packed one with our blanket to sit on the warm beach sand, one was filled with towels, another carried our lunch and bottles of water, and two were empty and ready to be filled with seashells. I packed my camera and my metal detector to wander the island while Esther waded in the water and searched the beach for beautiful shells.
We pulled out of the Naples dock around 10 AM and crawled at a snail’s pace through the no wake zone until we passed the city docks, at which point I could advance the throttle to a more rapid yet leisurely pace. We loved the bow cutting through the water sending a sparkling spray of wet crystals into the air. There was a total sense of freedom, free of roadway white and yellow lines, the only confinement on the Gordon River is navigating through channel markers that get left behind as we enter the wide expanse of the Gulf.
We headed south on the Gulf side of the barrier island to stay away from the more heavily visited coastal side and pulled our boat up to the shore at approximately midpoint of the ten-mile-long island. We were the only boat moored within visible sight on this unpopulated island. While we were only minutes away from a heavily populated area in southwest Florida, one could sense what it would feel like to be stranded on an island isolated from humanity. For us, isolation was a gift to experience and soak in the beauty of nature and share it with the most important person in our life. We set up our blanket, umbrella, laid out our other bags, and spent the next 15 minutes on the blanket in a total relaxed state staring out to sea catching sight of a pod of dolphins frolicking momentarily in front of us and then disappearing as fast as they had appeared.
Once settled in, Esther got up and sauntered south in search of seashells to add to her growing collection. I chose to walk north among the low brush growing throughout the central portion of the island with intermittent palm trees. I had my Nikon on one shoulder and carried my metal detector in the other hand never expecting to hear anything. I have combed Florida beaches for years with my trusty metal detector having garnered some 52 cents and a collection of bottle caps. I walked about a quarter-of-a-mile when I happened upon the ragged remains of a massive Live Oak tree stump. The tree had been about ten feet in diameter and the almost totally decayed upper remains of the massive tree had been split in half. One half of the tree laying north and the second having fallen south. It was as if a giant came along with a huge ax and split the tree down its center from top to bottom. From its state of decay and position of sections of the tree, one could surmise that it had been hit by a massive lightning bolt during a raging storm, perhaps a hurricane some 100 to 150 years ago.
If I were sailing the Gulf some 200 years ago passing by this barrier island, the imposing Live Oak tree would have commanded my attention. I thought that perhaps a pirate would have thought that this dominant tree would serve as a perfect marker to hide his bounty from his crew and to keep it safe from the U.S. Navy that patrolled the Gulf waters. If it was me, I would walk due north from the base of the tree and bury my treasure away from the water on either side of the island. I began to count paces from the base of the tree while slowly waving my metal detector in a wide arc. At ten paces, I heard the loudest pinging I had ever experienced with my equipment. I was not sure if it was the detector I heard or if it was the pounding of my heart. Could I really have found a pirate’s buried treasure? With shaking hands, I quickly dug down with my little shovel when I hit something solid. The sweat was pouring down my face even though there was a breeze, and it was cool. The sweat was blearing my vision, but I was so intent on clearing the entire top of the chest that I was unaware of my visual state. The wood of the chest barely held its molecular structure, so the lid of the trunk had to be gently lifted off with no resistance around the metal hinges and lock. Most of the lid crumbled to dust. However, the weathered metal plate on the center of the lid remained in good condition, with the initials J. G. and date 1820 clearly engraved.
I looked in disbelief at the mountain of gold coins and jewelry that seemed to smile at me upon being exposed to daylight after centuries of neglect. J.G., Jose Gaspar, the legendary pirate that many say never existed, left this treasure to be retrieved and yet, here it was some 200 years later. I ran so fast to get Esther and our trusty shopping bags that I almost passed out after first starting in the wrong direction. She looked at my purplish-red face with horror thinking I was having a heart attack, while I could only talk in gibberish at first. She gave me a bottle of water, told me to shut up, and take some long deep breaths. Upon calming down, I finally got out the whole story and she said OK, very softly, told me to help her pack everything up and let us put the treasure into our bags. It was only when she saw the huge cache of wealth that she let out a stifled scream of joy, aware that she did not want anyone to hear her. We filled four bags, each with about 25 pounds of treasure, got everything into the boat and went home.
We did not say a word to each other until we parked the car in the garage and carried our bounty into the house. I think we held our breath the entire way home, but now we grabbed each other and started to jump around laughing, hugging, and kissing each other in a wild primitive-like dance. It is not clear how much time expired since we got home. However, when we finally returned to Earth the lovely sun that had accompanied us throughout our momentous day had set. Our stomachs reminded us it was time to eat, which we did, and then in a fit of exhausted euphoria we collapsed in bed and fell asleep.
Some would say it was a dream, I would say otherwise, but in any case, Jose Gaspar woke me up in the middle of the night. He told me that there was a curse on anyone who removed his treasure that he had buried for his son. Unfortunately, Gaspar said that he had jumped overboard to his death when his ship was being boarded by sailors from a US Navy ship. The pirate vowed never to be taken prisoner and as a result never had the chance to give his son a map of where his treasure was buried. He told me how he had blindfolded two of his sailors and led them by moonlight to the spot where they dug a hole and placed his trunk full of riches and then returned to their ship with him being the only person in the world who knew its resting place. Gaspar did not anticipate dying so soon after burying his treasure. He said that his great-great-great-great-grandson’s son, Jason Gaspar, was living nearby in a double-wide trailer and that if we shared his bounty 50–50 with his descendant, he would lift the curse. It was evident I had found his chest by luck and that Jason Gaspar would never have even known to look for it so we both deserved to share the wealth. With his final words spoken, he left as quickly as he had appeared. The brevity of the interlude and the sense that no other information was required made the encounter all the more real.
The next morning Esther woke up with extreme stomach pains, difficulty breathing and a high fever. I was overcome with a sense of panic, was this a part of Gaspar’s curse on his treasure? I was afraid to tell Esther about my contact with him until I could get her to a doctor. It was only 6:30 and I knew we would never be able to see our primary care doctor for hours. Therefore, we dressed and went to our local urgent care center. Thankfully, the doctor saw Esther almost immediately. She ran a battery of tests and after an hour of diagnostic queries turned to us and said she could not find a medical reason for Esther’s condition. Under the circumstances, she decided to treat the symptoms and prescribed medications to reduce the stomach pain, to reduce her temperature, and a muscle relaxant to help her breathe more easily. She told us to follow up with our regular GP and wished us well.
I sat my lovely Esther down on the couch after she had taken all her meds and was feeling some relief and told her about my contact with Gaspar. Her first response was disbelief and she questioned if his descendant really existed. We went online and did an ancestry search for Gaspar’s family. It took a surprisingly short time to establish that he did, in fact, have one son who fathered a long lineage of sons with the sole surviving descendant being a Jason Gaspar who lived in Naples, FL. I contacted Jason and told him I was a reporter for the Naples Daily News and that we were doing a story of famous pirates who roamed the Florida Southwest coast. I told him my research indicated that he was possibly a descendant of Jose Gaspar, and I was calling to find out if this was true. He told me it was definitely true and that he had letters from Gaspar to his wife that told her of many of his escapades that he was certain my readers would be excited to read about. These letters had been handed down through the centuries and read over and over again by each new generation looking for clues to where Jose hid his treasure.
I asked Jason if my wife and I could visit him as we had something to give him. He was a little hesitant at first but acceded in the end for a visit. Jason, his wife, and two boys lived just three miles from us in a very nice double-wide in a comfortable trailer park with a small club house, community pool, and a playground. Their trailer was immaculately maintained with a comfortable screened in front porch and a shelter for their old Honda civic. Jason was a high school history teacher who stood just under six feet tall with black as coal scruffy hair, a full beard, a scar across his left cheek, and deep-set dark brown eyes. One’s immediate reflex was to protect yourself from this man but as soon as he greeted you with a beautiful baritone voice and a wide smile you could feel every muscle in your body relax and you sensed a warm welcome. His pretty wife reinforced the welcoming atmosphere and asked us to come in and join them for a cup of coffee while her face seemed to question why we were each carrying a heavy Marshall’s shopping bag.
We told the Gaspars how we found Jose’s treasure, his appearance last night in our bedroom and the true reason for our visit. The two shopping bags were filled with what amounted to half of the treasure and in keeping with Jose’s wishes we were giving it to them, his rightful descendants. We also brought them the metal placard that was originally part of the trunk whose wooden structure had essentially disintegrated. Jason and his wife stared at us in disbelief and only began to let the truth settle in their brains when they saw all the gold coins and jewelry in the bags. When the reality of it all sank in, they broke down in tears that their family treasure had finally been found and was being shared with them. They hugged us so tightly we could hardly breathe as we said our goodbyes and we turned to walk to our car. My wife turned to me and said all of a sudden, she felt perfectly well and as she was sliding into her seat, she found a man’s well-worn leather necklace with a large shark’s tooth hanging from it.
