An Efficient Engineer, Part 3

On April 8, 1891, the Oakland Tribune published an article entitled “A BURIED HOARD—Pirates’ Treasure Under an Old Oak Tree.” Its first paragraph told the story of how a pair of house movers named Joseph Bayles and Elisha Flora in Oakland, California, unearthed an alleged hoard of gold. The rest of the article recounts the tale of a pirate who was chased into the San Francisco Bay and buried $100,000 in gold somewhere “on the opposite shore and up a little creek” from San Francisco. The next day, other local papers reported the discovery of a gold treasure somewhere in Oakland but discarded the pirate tale. 

The details of the treasure’s discovery vary, but the gist of the story is that Bayles and Flora discovered a box containing gold coins or ingots. After splitting the treasure, the two went their separate ways, but inevitably, the story got out. Although Bayles was nowhere to be found, Flora was hounded by the press for days. At first, he and his family gave conflicting accounts about the source of his newfound wealth, but eventually it became apparent that the gold was found beneath a house at the corner of Tenth and Grove Streets in Oakland—a house that once belonged to the former melter and refiner of the San Francisco Mint John M. Eckfeldt.

The Allegation Behind the Treasure

On April 10, 1891, the Oakland Enquirer reported:

The most credible story about the “find” of Bayless [sic] and Flora, the housemovers, is that the gold was found on the corner of Tenth and Grove streets, where J.M. Eckfeldt lived. Eckfeldt was melter and refiner at the Mint in San Francisco when General O.H. LaGrange was Superintendent. On a salary of perhaps $200 a month he spent not less than $400 a month for family expenses, and did not go into insolvency, either. And when Eckfeldt died he was discovered to be the owner of bonds and other property worth upwards of $120,000. He blew his brains out and if he kept his secret within his own breast, it is possible that it was he who buried bullion in the earth to take it out again when he wanted to increase his wealth.

The Oakland Tribune soon tracked down a former acquaintance of Eckfeldt’s, who expanded upon the suggestion that Eckfeldt had been the source of the discovered gold. The paper’s anonymous informant recounted a scandal in the late 1850s, when mint officials had discovered a shortfall of around $150,000 in gold bullion at the mint. He then concluded that, “I couldn’t help thinking that Flora might have stumbled on a cache of bullion taken from the mint by Eckfeldt.” The claims made in the Tribune were devastating, but many of the story’s facts were exaggerated or just plain wrong. 

The following day, the Oakland Tribune printed a response from friends of Eckfeldt, stating, “The base coward who dares to malign the name of J.M. Eckfeldt […] knows nothing of the public or private life of the man whose name he desecrates to create a sensational story for the newspapers.” Although Eckfeldt’s defender went on to correct a number of inaccuracies found in the prior story, it seems that serious damage was already done. In the summer of 1893, the Treasury Department spent several days digging up Eckfeldt’s former property in an attempt to find any remaining gold.

Further Research

As I was writing this series of columns about Eckfeldt, researchers and fellow Numismatist columnists Richard Kelly and Nancy Oliver contacted me. While researching the San Francisco Mint, they had discovered a tremendous amount of information about Eckfeldt, the loss of gold in the 1850s, and Bayles and Flora’s subsequent discovery of gold on the old Eckfeldt property in 1891. In 2021 they published a 96-page article entitled, “A Twisted Tale of Cover Up and Deceit” that I am now in the process of reading—I highly recommend it to anyone who has found these columns interesting. Kelly and Oliver will be giving a presentation on the topic on May 27 at the Sacramento Coin Club, which I hope to attend. To contact Kelly and Oliver, email
nancyoliver4714@comcast.net.