Once I Almost Found A Treasure

Ginny on our anniversary vacation

Security guards blocked Ginny and me from seeing the one thing on Ameila Island we wanted most to see.

Back in 1955-56, when I was a teenager, I helped excavate an Indian burial mound here on Amelia Island. An archaeological society I belonged to surveyed the mound, an adjacent kitchen midden, a Spanish mission site, and an ancient causeway — all compressed into a ten acre area on the south end of Amelia.

Here’s a 1955 photo of me holding a surveyor’s rod near the top of the cleared mound:

We cleared the mound of dense jungle undergrowth, drew a contour map of the area, and began a test trench through the mound. We uncovered six or eight people’s skeletons along with a few beads and potsherds. I discovered an ancient hearth filled with fish, bird and animal bones in the midden.

Those were the happiest days of my childhood, some of the happiest days in my whole life.

Unfortunately, the owner of the property sold the acreage to a developer before we’d hardly scratched the surface of the mound or mission sites and the developer’s insurance company called a halt to our excavations.

I wrote a preliminary report of our excavations — it is included in my book on the history of the Jacksonville area, Crackers & Carpetbaggers. — and we shipped the skeletons and artifacts we recovered to the archaeology department at Florida State University.

We dug no more.

We had missed the treasures of the site by inches.

If only we could have worked a little while longer, just one more season…

Thirty years after I last saw the site, George and Dottie Dorion began construction of a home on that same land. When workers uprooted a palm tree, they uncovered evidence of the Spanish mission, Santa Catalina de Gauale which was occupied around the year 1680, the Dorions stopped construction and called in professional archaeologists to work the site.

They discovered 120 bodies of Indians associated with the mission, and many artifacts including the seal of the mission which was abandoned when the British attacked and destroyed the mission on November 4, 1702.

The archaeologists also recovered many more skeletons and effigy pottery from the more ancient mound as well as many artifacts from the extensive midden. This site proved to have been occupied by Timucua and Guale Indians and their predecessors for 4,000 years.

The Dorions preserved the site and built their new home in another location. They donated the artifacts to a museum they founded in the old Fernandina Jail where some of the things recovered from the dig remain on display.

Had my friends and I been allowed to continue our work back in 1956, we would have been the ones to find all these treasures.

Story of my life.

How many times I have quit too soon.

My September 6, 2006, posting in my blog archives tells a similar tale of missed opportunity when I quit a project too soon.

Anyhow, while we were on our anniversary vacation I wanted to show Ginny the site of where I’d spent so many happy hours.

Guards stopped us.

That area, which was all jungle and swamp when I was a teenager, is now an exclusive gated community. “We don’t allow just anybody in here,” one guard said. “Especially since Nine Eleven…”

I think it was my Hawaiian shirt with the swimming sharks, my green cap, and my camera bag that tipped him off.

Can’t be too careful these days.

Riff-Raff and potential terrorists lurk around archaeological sites everywhere.

I’ll get over my disappointment at not being able to revisit the site.

Ginny said, “Don’t let it bother you; John. In Heaven you’ll be able to talk first-hand with some of the real Indians who lived there”.

Yes, but even so, I regret that I could not show her one of the happiest places I’ve ever been. I regret that my group did not complete our excavations. I regret that I have quit a lot of things in my life when If I had not given up, If I had finished, If I had not dropped the course, If I had held on just a little longer…

This week I’ve been thinking about quitting some things, throwing in the towel, cashing in my chips, cutting my losses, saying, “To Hell with it”, saying, “The game is not worth the candle”, saying, “What’s the use”.

One branch of wisdom says, “When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging”.

But what if you stop too soon?

Jesus Christ Himself once said, “He that endureth to the end shall be saved”.

What if the next shovel full of dirt, the next turn of the spade, the next flick of the camel-hair brush uncovers the treasure, the Spanish coin, the effigy pot, the copper necklace, the jade pendant, the book sale, the love of your life, the face of the Lord God Whom you long to see?

What if you’d have held on just a little longer?

Endured?

When I talked about some of this stuff with my daughter this week, she reminded me of a tale I told her about World War II British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

I don’t know if it is true or not, but the story goes that he was to deliver a commencement speech at an exclusive boys school.

He walked to the podium and snapped out one thing, then left the auditorium.

What he said, his entire speech, was:

Never Give Up! Never Give Up! Never. Never. Never. Never Give Up. Never!

Well, I’ve spent almost four hours writing this posting — most of that time trying to find the accepted spelling of Timmuquan, Timmuqua, Timmacanna, or maybe just Injunes — it’s time I quit.