The Buried Treasure of Baltimore

"Baltimore Sun," September 1, 1934, via Newspapers.com

Two impoverished boys accidentally finding buried treasure sounds like something from “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” or a Robert Louis Stevenson saga, but, surprisingly enough, it was a real-life saga that played out in Depression-era Baltimore, Maryland.

On August 31, 1934, 14-year-old Theodore Jones and his friend, 15-year-old Henry Grob, went to the basement of a three-story house on 132 South Eden Street.  The two young entrepreneurs planned to turn the basement into the headquarters of a boys’ club which they planned to call the "Rinky-Dinky-Doos," with an admission price of 5 cents.

In a corner of the basement, the boys began excavating a hole in which to conceal any dues they might collect.  By the time the hole was about a foot deep, they spotted something shiny.  When the boys pulled it out, they were stunned to find they had uncovered a $20 gold piece. (The equivalent of nearly $500 in 2025 currency.)

Sensibly enough, the boys kept digging, and were soon rewarded with the discovery of an old copper pot containing thousands of gold coins of various denominations.  They split the loot as equitably as they could, and headed back to their homes to figure out what to do with their sudden wealth.

The boys assumed they could simply bring the coins to the bank and cash them in, but Henry’s brother-in-law advised them to forget the idea.  He pointed out that unfortunately for them, they had found their buried treasure over a year too late:  The U.S. had come off the gold standard, which required that all gold currency be turned over to the government by May 1, 1933.  Anyone possessing more than $100 in gold coins after that date could face a whopping fine and a lengthy stay in the local prison.  However, there was a legal exception for any gold coins which had “a recognized special value to collectors.”  As their coins were obviously quite old, they could clearly fit that category.  The brother-in-law advised the boys to bring their hoard to the police, and let the law decide what they should do.

The boys obediently walked to the nearest police station and gave the sergeant at the front desk the interesting information that they wanted to give him over $7,000 in gold coins.  The lads came back a short time later with $3542 more.  The nonplussed officer, not knowing what else to do, scooped up the loot and placed it in a safe.

Naturally, the press soon got wind of this seeming rags-to-riches story and swooped down on the boys--both of them from poor working-class families--to get details.  The boys both said they would turn over their wealth to their parents--after Theodore had bought himself a new suit and a washing machine for his mother.

Unfortunately, it soon appeared that taking possession of this fortune would not be as easy as they had thought.  Unpleasant legal questions soon emerged about who, exactly, was the rightful owner of the gold.  After all, somebody had originally buried the coins.  The problem was, nobody knew who that somebody was.  The house where the gold was concealed was quite old, with many different residents over its long history.  Or could the coins have been hidden by someone who never even lived in the house?  Naturally, the publicity about the amazing find brought out a shipload of people eagerly asserting that they were the ones who had hidden the coins.  (Presumably, they had secretly buried many thousands of dollars worth in gold and just forgot about it.  Little things like that tend to slip the mind.)

Inevitably, it was decreed that the whole mess needed to go to a court of law to decide ownership.  Inevitably, that meant the boys needed to hire a good lawyer.  Inevitably, that was going to cost them.  They enlisted the services of an attorney named Henry Levin, who would receive one-third of any money the court might award them.

After a brief period spent in winnowing out the obvious frauds, the judge allowed three other parties to present their claims.  The first group consisted of two aged sisters, Elizabeth French and Mary Findlay, who owned the land the house had been built on--although not the house itself.  The home was owned by one Benjamin Kalis, who paid the sisters a monthly lease for the land.  (Kalis was not eligible to join the lawsuit, as he had only recently purchased the house after its previous owner died.)

Then there was the family of a man named Isaac Chenvin, who had lived in an apartment in the house.  (Chenvin himself died just days before the gold had been discovered.)  Chenvin had been a successful jeweler before he lost both his fortune and his mind in 1915, after which he spent the rest of his life in a sanitarium.  Despite his bankruptcy, there were persistent rumors that he had managed to hide part of his money somewhere--in the form of gold coins, perhaps?

Rounding out our merry band of claimants were relatives of a long-dead man named Andrew Saulsbury.  Saulsbury was an extremely rich man who had owned the South Eden home from 1865 until his death in 1873.  He had the very pleasant habit of handing out gold coins as little gifts, leading his hopeful descendants to assert that he must have been the one who buried the stash.

The judge in the case quickly dropped the Chenvins from the competition.  The gold coins were very old--the newest of them dated from before the Civil War--and Issac Chenvin did not emigrate to the U.S. from Russia until 1908.  Besides, there was nothing to indicate he ever had a large quantity of gold coins.

Next to go were the Saulsbury descendants.  While the late Andrew had both the means and the opportunity to bury gold coins in his basement, his family could not provide the slightest smidgen of proof that he had actually done so.  That left the two elderly sisters and the two young boys.  After studying previous court rulings and scratching his head over the matter, the judge finally relied on the august legal principle known as “finders keepers.”  Theodore Jones and Henry Grob, the court ruled, were the rightful possessors of $11,427 in gold coins.  And the old copper pot which had held them.  The sisters and the Saulsbury descendants immediately appealed the verdict, but in the meantime, it was agreed that the gold could be sold at auction.

On May 2, 1935, the gold coins were sold for $20,000.  (The equivalent of very nearly $500,000 today.)  Exactly two months later, the Maryland Court of Appeals issued a split decision in the case, meaning that the judge’s original ruling still stood.  However, the boys and their families would have to wait for their wealth, as the judge had decreed that Henry and Theodore wouldn’t get a nickel until they turned twenty-one.

Despite this depressing setback, neighbors of the boys couldn’t help noticing that both families started showing signs of mysterious prosperity.  New cars.  Nice furniture.  Stylish clothes.  Chats with real estate agents about moving to more upscale neighborhoods.  It was a puzzle.

The mystery was solved on the evening of September 2, 1935, when Theodore’s family returned home to find that they had been burglarized.  When Theodore’s stepfather, Philip Rummel, reported the robbery to police, he said that the thieves had taken $3100 in cash and $500 in gold coins.  As Rummel had spent his life in poverty, the police showed a natural interest in how he had acquired the money.  After a bit of questioning, it finally came out that the boys had never turned over all the coins they had found.  Evidently not trusting the authorities to come through for them, they had kept back a secret stash of about $10,000 worth of gold.

This little surprise sent the whole matter back to the courtroom.  The two sisters wanted a new trial, on the grounds that the boys had lied in their original testimony.  Henry and Theodore’s lawyer, Henry Levin, was also displeased, as this meant he had been cheated out of his rightful one-third share of the gold.  Who was the rightful owner of this second treasure?  

On October 2, 1935, the judge ruled that he found no reason to overturn his previous decision.  The sisters again appealed, with the Appellate Court siding with the judge.

Undaunted, the two ladies filed a fresh lawsuit claiming ownership of this second stash of gold.  In December 1937, the judge in that case sided with the boys.  After over three years of battling, the Baltimore buried treasure was finally legally theirs.

Tragically, Henry Grob never lived to see this ruling.  Earlier that year, he died of pneumonia.  His share of the fortune went to his mother, Ruth.  After court fees, Henry Levin’s cut, and inheritance taxes, she received a total of $3601.

Theodore Jones received $5000 in May 1939.  In a final surprise twist to our story, he was only nineteen when he received his fortune. For years, he had added two years to his real age, which fooled the court into thinking he was twenty-one.  After his youthful adventure, Theodore spent a quiet life as a shipyard machinist until his death in 1977.

As for the vexed question of who originally owned the gold--and why they buried it in a basement--that will never be known for sure until the Last Trumpet, when all will be revealed.  However, some historians have an intriguing theory that the gold belonged to the Knights of the Golden Circle.

The KGC was a shadowy, quasi-military organization of former Confederates, who amassed an enormous amount of money with the hope of establishing a “golden circle” of slave-owning countries in the American South, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean.  Legend has it that the KGC hid much of their loot in various places throughout America and Canada.  The Baltimore house where Henry and Theodore found the gold was once owned by Captain John J. Mattison, a slave-trader and probable KGC member.  Andrew Saulsbury--who bought the house from his friend Mattison--was also linked to the KGC.  It is entirely possible that strictly speaking, the gold did not belong to either of these men, but to the Knights.

Henry Grob and Theodore Jones may have uncovered not just enormous wealth, but a sinister bit of American history.