In 1755, the British marched toward Fort Duquesne – an area that would one day become Pittsburgh – to take it from the French who had established it. French soldiers feared the British would sack Fort Duquesne, which is now Pittsburgh and steal the coins. They loaded the treasury onto 16 pack horses and sent it with 10 men over the Great Trail for Fort Detroit, but they never made it. The British intercepted the small detail, killing eight of the 10 Frenchmen. But not before the French soldiers buried the treasure to keep it out of the hands of their enemy.

The gold was the French military’s payroll in 1755 during the French and Indian War prior to the American Revolution. The story was almost lost to history, but a nephew of one of the surviving French soldiers found his uncle’s journal about the special assignment, along with specific details of how to find the treasure near present-day Minerva in Stark County, Ohio. The nephew’s attempt to locate the booty failed, as has every other local attempt these past 200 years.

The historic Great Trail was the equivalent of a modern superhighway and passed through what is now Minerva. Only two French soldiers survived, but left markers and wrote down detailed clues with the intention of returning to retrieve the gold.

Decades later a stranger came to town and claimed to be the nephew of one of the French soldiers.

He had a letter from the soldier that spoke of specific clues surrounding the gold. The soldier wrote that they buried the gold in the middle of four springs that’s formed sort of a square. A half mile to the west, they jammed an “odd rock” into the fork of a tree. A mile to the east, they carved a deer into a tree and 600 steps to the north they buried the shovels.

Here is a recreation of the actual article published in 1875 detailing the stranger’s claims and hunt for the buried treasure.

Great websites to check out!

• Hidden treasure: The hunt for gold in Minerva | Fox 8 Cleveland WJW
• Post Page (ohiomysteries.com)
• https://www.facebook.com/lostfrenchgold

Authors Note: The exact location to this listing isn’t known. Whoever knows it would probably have a billion dollars in ancient French gold in their possession. Our best recommendation is visiting Minera, OH town center and talk to some locals about the gold. From there we’d recommend heading over to the Great Trail entrance as that would be the path the French soldiers were on.