The Money Pit

1795 Daniel McGinnis finds The Money Pit and begins digging with friends, John Smith, and Anthony Vaughan. They dig to a depth of 30 feet and temporarily give up.


1803 The Onslow Company coupled with the three original finders begins excavation. They reach a depth of 90 feet but the shaft becomes flooded.

1804 The Onslow Company digs parallel pit to a depth of 110 feet but this quickly fills with water when they attempt to tunnel across into the Money Pit. Smith and his partner Simeon Lynds discovered and removed an inscribed stone from the pit.

1849 The Truro Company begins digging, drilling through two casks filled with loose metal thought to be coins. Also rumoured to be recovered was a gold chain but this quickly vanished.

1850 A subterranean waterway and artificial beach where found at Smith's Cove, which was discovered to flood the pit.

1861 The Money Pit claimed its first life when an exploding boiler scalded a worker to death. Several cross tunnels had weakened the pit, causing the bottom to fall out. Items that were suspected to lie at 100 feet fell farther down into the earth.

1893 The cave in pit is investigated when Fred Blair and The Oak Island Treasure Company begin their investigations.

1897 The enigmatic triangle rock formation was discovered. Also, a cement vault was found where parchment was found during drilling. A second life lost when Maynard Kaiser fell to his death while being pulled out of the pit.

1899 A second flood tunnel on the south shore was discovered.

1936 A second inscribed stone found and more evidence of the original cofferdam found.

1959 Four more lives were lost when Bob and Bobbie Restall, Karl Grasser, and Cyril Hiltz died from carbon monoxide poisoning in the pit.

1965 Robert Dunfield attempted to apply modern open pit mining methods to the treasure hunt by using a 70-ton digging crane.

1970 Triton begins digging on the island and commissioned a complete geological survey of the area. Their discoveries are never made public but they remain digging today.

1971 Video footage shows what is thought to be two chests and a severed hand.