A brick of silver from the wreck of The Atocha
I've always loved history. I was raised on a healthy variety of old time movies. A whole treasure chest of post WWII movies, starring; John Wayne, William Holden, Ben Johnson, Ward Bond. And directed by John Ford. Many later really great movies, such as The Longest Day, The Red Badge of Courage, The Best Years of Our Lives, The Sand Pepples, Tora Tora,Tora, The Thin Red Line, Glory and Saving Private Ryan. And this list isn't even close to the whole list. In my early 30's I read a book written by Bruce Catton. The book was a compilation of his works. Catton was writer of civil war history, and wrote the books "Mr. Lincolns Army and tge Army of The Potomac Trilogy. Cattons classic, romantic style prose reeled me in. I was officially hooked as a civil war buff. Then it was in 1990s, that I got into civil war reenacting. This was also around the same time that Ken Burns "Civil War" series aired on PBS, a story that riveted the nation. And showed us our own civil war through the medium of still photos, narration, and music. The series brought a lot of people into the hobby too. The reenacting experience was a totally immersive method of learning history on a three dimensional level. I spent hundreds of hours in deep research, through reading, writing and creating my civil war impression. It also required plenty of traveling. It also lead me to genealogy, and into doing living history. The living history aspect gave me the opportunity to reenact many different time periods, including WWII, Revolutionary war, the war of 1812 and the Black Hawk War of 1831-32 , and wild west, it introduced me to my mothers side of the family. I traced her bloodline back to the 1600s. They arrived in the new America in 1795. This then lead me to an immersive writing experience. I started writing a news letter for our civil war reenacting group, the 12th Tennesse dismounted cavalry unit. I then wrote my first article for the Old Fox River Magazine, which was an article about Civil War Units from the Fox River Valley in Illinois that served in the American Civil War. I then wrote my first book, Last Stand at Old Man's Creek, which was later re-edited to Red Flag of Defiance.
Me and the family at the Boone county Christmas in the Cabins event in Belvedere Illinois
I originally saw my first civil war reenactment at Donley's Wild West in Union Illinois. It was there that I met a reenactor by the name Ward Brown, I could probably write a whole article on Ward. He passed away recently and I truly believe he was a great man. He introduced me to the hobby. (1) But over the next ten plus years, I would travel all over the country participating in in historic reenactments and living history events. The first national size event I went to was the 130th anniversary of the Battle of Wilsons Creek Missouri, it was quite huge reenactment with thousands of reenactors. And I attended many more, including Perryville Kentucky, Murfreesboro TN (Stones River), The wilderness in Virginian, The Battle of Belmont, The five Greatest Battle of the Civil war in Memphis Tennessee. And many more. Too many to list.
Some later reenacting photos when we (my sons and I)
returned to CW reenacting in 2018
Being a history bug also meant visiting numerous historic locations such as, Thomas Jeffersons Home Monticello in Virgina, Lexington Missouri, Chickamauga Battlefield, Lookout Mountain, Kennesaw Mountain, Fort Donelson. And again, this is only a partial list. After leaving civil war reenacting, I went onto help co-found, the Black Hawk War Society in Illinois. I attended living history events at Fort. Winnebago in Portage Wisconsin, Fort Koshkonong in Ft. Atkinson Illinois, Stillmans Run Battlefield. In 2016, I made my first trip to Arizona. I had read many things about Tombstone Arizona and the story of Wyatt Earp and the OK corral. I was compelled to visit there. My 2016 trip was the first of five trips to Tombstone and I was married there in 2017 at the OK corral.
Various visits areas around Tombstone AZ
My sons on the streets of Tombstone AZ
Old Tucson
Tombstone at dusk
The civil war display at Fort Huachuca AZ
But something very interesting happened to me there in 2017 when I went to the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show.( I dabble a bit with rock and fossil hunting and own a small collection of such items) . I was walking around the show when I came upon a table that had a display related to the treasure from the wreck of the Spanish ship Atocha, and sitting on the table was a 25 lbs bar of silver. The bar had the markings of the Spanish government on it. I asked if I could hold it. And the owner allowed me to pick it up. The treasure I was holding was found on the sea floor of the coast of Florida, The vessel that that carried it, sunk somewhere in that area because of storm that occurred in the 1600's. An expedition lead by adventurer Mel Fisher Fisher Expedition. recovered the treasure. Mel Fisher followed his dreams and located the wreck of the Atocha;
Fisher was an Indiana-born former chicken farmer who eventually moved to California. He opened the first diving shop in the state, called "See Da Sea". He attended Purdue University. In 1953, he married Dolores (Deo) Horton who became his business partner. She was one of the first women to learn how to dive and set a women's record by staying underwater for 50 hours. Mel and Deo had five children. On July 20, 1975, Fisher's oldest son Dirk, his wife Angel, and diver Rick Gage died after their boat sank due to bilge pump failure. Fisher spent decades treasure hunting in the Florida Keys.
-Wikipedia
And even though the expedition suffered great set backs. They found the treasure which was worth billions by modern term. He fought the courts and death to secure his fortune. And there I was holding a bar of silver from the Atocha. It had come many miles through death, tragedy and political intrigue to end up in my hands. This lesson told me that no one should ever bend a knee to the criticism of facebook detractors, threats of retribution, unreasonable treatment, or the threat of being black-balled by those who have intent to do harm. The pursuit of history through examination, and investigation is our pursuit. which is also the pursuit of truth, and a highly personal objective.
(1) The CP Huntington I operated and Donelys Wild West the summer of 2018
(1) And I actually worked a Donley's later on in 2018 as a Train Engineer operating a Chance CP Huntington 4-2-4 engine that was powered by a flathead four cylinder gasoline engine.
It was the best summer of my life.
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