Nancy Beth Guzman's Diary

 I have wanted to tell this story for several years now but it was not my story to tell.  Ed passed a few months back and left me the story so here goes.

In 1996 Ed bought a diary written by 13 year old Nancy Beth Guzman from the years 1874- 1876. Nancy starts off telling about her and her family moving from New Orleans to Brownsville Texas.  They left New Orleans in early Sept 1874 sailing on a 36 or 56 ft boat that her father had bought to take his family and belonging to Brownsville. A few days into the trip a storm blow up and the ship ran aground on St Josephs Island close to the new town of Rockport. The father and 2 brothers buried 3 chests of personal items along with a box of books 2 boxes of medicine and a strong box with all the families? money and jewelry in the dunes. A couple of days later the family was rescued by some fisherman from Rockport. The next few weeks cover their journey back to New Orleans then there are no entries till June 1875 when she tells of her father, uncle and 2 brothers returning to the island to recover their belongings.  They had a hard time finding the right spot as the boat had broke free are was salvaged by unknown people. After several weeks they recovered the strong box but never found the other stuff. End of diary.

Ed was obsessed with finding the boxes of books and medicine so after hours of research off we went. Over the next 10 years we made dozens of trips to the area till Ed got to old and sick for rough boat rides and sleeping on the beach. ( I know how that feels I am about there.)  We did recover lots of bottles dated to the 1870 but that's about all.

There's no money here a total waste of time right. I agree. But since Ed?s daughter call and told me about Ed's passing this has been stuck in my head so three weeks ago I went back alone to do a little recon  It was weird being there without Ed so weird I only spent one night. I spend weeks alone on Padre every year I have spent weeks alone in the big Bend never felt weird never felt lonely guess I felt like I was trespassing on Ed's lead.

The pictures are 3 of the bottles I recovered plus a hand forged brass hinge which I sent a picture of to U of H for help in dating.

Once the weather warms up I am headed back not for me for Ed and his mystery.  


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Ed's daughter may be up for a trip as she is in her late 30s and this was her dad's last major project. But she is a writer also and is planing on turning lots of Eds research into a book. Ed left me several boxs of research that we work on together plus the diary and a first edition of the Treasure hunters Manual signed by Dean Miller which was KvM real name. Will talk to her about it when I go to get it in a few months.

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