Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Leslie on April 30, 2006, 03:07:39 AM
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I heard one time this loot was discovered by some landscapers working in a yard here in the city, practically downtown area. It was gold coins in a whiskey jar totaling about $40,000 in today's value. I know it's legend, but what do you think?
The matter went to court, because the owner of the property wanted full claim...and the judgement went to the landscapers!!! They got it all. This may have been the gold mentioned in this story. But far fetched as it seems, why would the judge do this, if it is true? Seems like the property owner would have a good claim on that gold. Why did the landscapers get it all? Of course, like I said I suppose it could be a legend about this gold being found, but I only heard this once in passing and it wasn't big news. Coulda been a crock, but do you think the property owner had any legal claim to it, because the way I heard it, the landscapers won all of it in court.
Ok, here's the question. Why would the landscapers win the case completely, and the property owner get nothing? Is it salvage rights on something like that? And no, if I found something like that I wouldn't be talking about it. Just think it's interesting, and don't understand why the property owner would be zilched on the discovery. Anyone know? I heard the landscapers wanted to split it with the property owner after telling him what they found...and he wanted it all.
The following account is grusome but is background information for this hypothetical legal question, and to possibly add credence to what I heard years ago:
Found this story about Copeland's gang, which often holed up in Wragg Swamp...present day metropolitan Mobile.
GUN FIGHT ON RED CREEK
by Sandy Ladner - Pearl River Historical Group
In the year of 1847 there was very little law and order in this country. The Mississippi Territory was very scarcely populated, so the opportunity to rob and plunder was irresistible. There were a few law officers but people lived so far apart that it made their job almost impossible to do, so people were in the habit of solving their own problems. Charles McGrath and Gale H. Wages were two members of the James Copeland Gang, they were robbers, murderers and just plain no good people. The gang robbed and plundered The Southern States which we know today as Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana and Alabama. McGrath and Wages were both shot and killed in a gun fight on the East side of Red Creek, about eight miles East of Lumberton, Mississippi, by a man called James A. Harvey. This account of the gun battle was told by Gillum Bounds to Crawford Smith. "Wages and McGrath wanted money from James A. Harvey and said that they would kill him if hi did not give it to then. Harvey knocked the bottom board off his house so he could see to shoot out at the outlaws. At dark he lay down and waited for them to come back to his house. When they walked up to his house, Harvey shot and killed both McGrath and Wages from his place on the floor." Harvey buried the two bodies nearby, still today, some old timers might be able to show you just where they were buried.
James Copeland wanted revenge, and so did Wage's mother and father. Wage's parents offered James Copeland $1000 in cash to kill James A. Harvey. James Copeland traveled to Mobile, Alabama to meet with other members of his gang they decided to let James and John Copeland, Jackson Pool and Sam Staughton ambush and murder James A. Harvey.
It was Sunday, July 8, 1848 when and traveled to Harvey's place on Red Creek, near Lumberton, where the gun battle had taken place. It took a week to arrive at the house, it was empty but the fields had been plowed so they knew Harvey was still using the farm. They began to set up the ambush in Harvey's home and waited for him to arrive. Copeland himself tells of how they were well armed. "We prepared ourselves with the best of double-barrel guns and pistols and bowie knives, with plenty of ammunition and percussion caps of the best quality."
As the day wore on, the men grew hungry, so Staughton went into the field and got some corn, they built a fire in the fireplace and roasted the corn. Big mistake, this is how Harvey knew someone was there, he thought there might be some kind of trouble, so he went and asked his friends to help him investigate.
The next morning about 9:00 a.m. on July 15, 1848, John Copeland saw a group of men coming up to the house with Harvey leading them. The Copeland Gang took cover in the house, but at the first chance they got James, John Copeland and Sam Staughton slipped out the back door and ran for cover while bullets flew by their heads. James Copeland tells of what happened to Jackson Pool. "Pool was standing in the door with his gun at poise.
Harvey ran around the corner of the house on Pool's right and jumped into the gallery; Pool immediately fired his gun, the bullet struck Harvey in the left side. Harvey immediately squared himself and shot the contents of his whole load into Pool's side, and then fell to the floor. Pool stepped into the yard and another man shot him in the breast and he fell dead instantly." Ten days later Harvey died from the gunshot that he had received.
Later that very same day James and John Copeland and Sam Staughton finally got together and spent the night in the nearby woods. They all left the area the next day. James Copeland wanted to recover $30,000 in gold that Wages had buried in Catahoula Swamp in Hancock County near Gainesville, Mississippi but could not do this because the map showing where the gold was buried was lost in the gun battle on Red Creek. The map or the money was never found. James Copeland and his gang continued their many wrong deeds for some years, but James and most of his men were caught and James Copeland was hanged on October 30,1857 at Augusta, Mississippi for the murder of James A. Harvey.
Les
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some state laws differ.
depends on whether it was private or public property.
if private, the land owner went about it the wrong way, more or less gave up the right and had it legally stolen from him/her.
landowner should have demanded it return to him/her. if landscapers refused, landowners should have arrested the landscapers for theft. land owners get it back, the landscapers go to jail. < might be tricky if landscapers were to haul off dirt.
if landscaper were to haul off dirt etc, it would be like finding something in the garbage. once it goes to curb for pickup it becomes public domain and can be claimed by anyone.
if landscapers were to just move dirt from one part of property to another part of same property,like digging a hole, it belongs to the landowner.
if public property, it is usually finders keepers after the legal turn it in to sheriff/police dept. and 30 days wait for someone to claim it.
in a community property state, I don't have a clue as to the laws about this kind of thing. maybe it would have went to the state and no one gets it except the crooked politicians to use it to get re-elected. who knows.
gotta go, enough typing for me for awhile