John Erskine lost silver

Hello All

Treasure gets buried for many different reasons.

The following treasure legend is of the burial and loss of a family fortune of a wealthy landowner in a time of civil conflict, and being of course on the losing side.
As Bonny Prince Charlie fled the battlefield after the battle of Culloden leaving the Scottish wounded to be butchered by the British general Cumberland three days later in a barbarous act of in humanity. The flag of the Jacobite cause had collapsed with that decisive defeat, thus ending the hopes for generations of an independent Scotland, destroying the power base of Scottish clans forever.

Strange enough it was the broken Scots who in the coming years re-invented themselves into successful merchants that fled to the four corners of the world that preached the words of hope and dreams of self-determination free from church and crown that inspired and helped planted the seeds in the minds of early American leaders of their own later battle in the war of independence against the British empire years later.

There were many winners and losers in the Jacobite rebellion in Scotland. John Erskine was one such loser; the Earl of Mar sided on the losing side and was captured by the British in 1712. His wealth was from small but very productive silver mine in the hills around Alva. In fact it was the richest silver mine in Britain at one time. His wife Lady Erskine of hearing of his capture had arranged a large cache of raw silver hidden somewhere near the mine.

 John Erskine managed to escape the British and fled to Europe never return. His wife lady Erskine a talented a very capable lady for time struggle to keep the estates together under the retribution of the British eventually went insane. John Erskine himself died never seeing his beloved homeland again in exile with bonny Prince Charlie. As far as it was known as legend has it the raw high quality silver is still hidden somewhere around the hills of Alva today.

Once again our 1930’s fearless treasure hunters tried to find this missing silver with no reported results of their quest. Today you can visit the site of the silver mine in the steep hill around Alva. And walk in the footsteps of history and perhaps stumble on a lost hoard of silver.
Another version states that the treasure was buried near the original manor. Perhaps a more detailed look into story investigating old maps and records will give more details of this elusive but fascinating alleged treasure legend?


Hardluck


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Hello Wuzneme

Thanks for extra information. It seems a nice place to explore around there, even for the casual walk in the footsteps of history so the speak. Was the barrels of silver ever found in the grounds? Sir John Erskines wife died before he returned from exile and as far as I am aware took the location to her grave.I did not know he later retuned and resumed mining.

Here is picture inside one of the shafts

I can imagine it would be an erie place at night tell ghost stories by candle light at Halloween.

Hardluck

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Hello Wuzneme

Alva house was not where the modern day house with the wall around it.The modern house was built in the lower walled garden next near the stream. if you look at the old map I posted you will see the actually house further away from the stream. I have the plans of house after an arm wrestle with Scotish archives. You can see the plan of the gardens and plan of house plus a side profile. If you look at the arial photograph you will see traces of the garden out inline the feild next to the modern house. The ice house is in woods above. So the demolished Alvia house is on the edge of the forest fronting onto the top end of the feild on the right of the house.

So perhaps the feild to right of the present modern day house may have a hidden stash of Silver?

Hardluck

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Hello wuzneme

I suspect there is an excellant opportunity to dig a little deeper in the story and there is chance to hunt down more historical information regarding the story. Especially if there was an account of silver being recovered.

Hardluck

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I came across this discussion by chance.  I am the author of "Bonanzas and Jacobites: the story of the Silver Glen" which describes the story of the fabulous silver bonanza discovered on Sir John's estate in 1715, and the extraordinary events that followed.  Events that include both buried and sunken treasure, though I'll have to disappoint you all by telling you that both treasures were recovered.  The book itself is a treasure, of course, and well worth a read 

Firstly, to clear up a misconception, Sir John Erskine of Alva should not be confused with his relative, namesake, and fellow Jacobite, John Erskine, Earl of Mar.

Now for the treasure.  The 40 tons of rich silver ore was buried in barrels "at the entrie of the House of Alva on the North West side of the said House" according to a journal kept by the Earl of Lauderdale, who was one of the officials sent by the government to inspect the mine as part of the conditions for Sir John's pardon.  They dug down in the loose and disturbed earth but found only a few fragments of ore.  They questioned the servants who said, "that the rest of the Ore hade been from time to time carried away, but they knew not where".

The sunken treasure was a consignment of gold and guns on a ship which got stuck on sands off St Andrews.  The rebels could not linger and had to abandon the ship, which was soon found by the Hanoverians who spent some time on it "fishing for gold".  So it too was salvaged.

The deposit of silver Sir John found was a bonanza-style native silver deposit yielding at least 6 or 7 tonnes of silver from ore grading at up to about 7 % metal and found in a swelling in a vein just metres from surface. Worth a few million in today's terms.  Specimens of the ore are very rare, and very sought after by collectors.  As such they can be worth their weight in gold.  Some examples are shown here:

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  Note, they do not look so good when found, but need careful treatment to remove the matrix with phosphoric acid to reveal the crystalline silver beneath.  The site was been thoroughly metal detected, without success.  Oddly, the native silver ore does not give a strong response, and the only silver found by detecting was a shilling of 1839.  The specimens were got by systematic excavation of the mine dump in the 1980s.

One feature of this style of mineralization is that it rarely occurs in isolation.  Where you get one such vein you get a swarm.  There are indications that there may be many others waiting to be found in the Ochils as crystalline, dendritic silver, just like that from Alva and of similar composition (rich in mercury) has been found in streams by amateur gold panners.  The nature of such deposits (very rich, but very small, and with large tracts of barren ground in between) and the thick cover of glacial drift, makes finding them like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.

One final thing.  Hardluck mentioned that Lady Erskine (Catherine Saint Clair, born 1685) died before Sir John returned from exile.  I have been unable to determine her date of death, but this would explain the absence of any mention of her in Lauderdale's journal.  Could he please tell me the source of this information?  Thanks.

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