by Wesley Harris
Dirt farmers in the early 1900s led tough lives. While city dwellers usually had access to water systems and electric power, most farmers in rural Lincoln Parish didn’t live much different than their ancestors in the mid-1800s.
The Skinner family of the Hilly community west of Vienna had farmed the rocky hills for decades. Sixty-year-old John Wesley Skinner and his wife of over three decades were raising the last of their nine children in 1916. Their water came from a deep well and the closest electricity was miles away in Ruston. They raised their own food and grew cotton to sell for cash.
On a hot July day, Skinner took to his fields to plow, possibly to plant a late season crop to sustain his family.
It was a day that changed his life.
The thin sandy topsoil and the stubborn red clay beneath was tough on a plow, especially with the “iron rocks” that littered the earth. No matter how many were dug up and removed, every season the plow found more of them. Skinner may have seen the occasional arrowhead in the plow-turned soil; farmers were still finding them in the 1940s when cotton and forage crops prevailed over the landscape around Hilly, Vienna, and much of Lincoln Parish.
Skinner occasionally came upon a large rock that could not be moved. Angling the plow mule around it, he would continue on. Each year he came upon what appeared to be a large solid piece of iron stuck solidly in the ground. On Wednesday, July 26, 1916, Skinner maneuvered too late to avoid the iron.
The steel plow blade sank deep into the object.
Skinner looked closely and discovered what he had thought was a large piece of iron was actually an iron box. The plow had ripped it open exposing thousands of silver coins. Someone’s long lost treasure had been discovered.
The Ruston Leader described the treasure. “Most of the coin is of Mexican mintage, but much of it is English, German, Spanish and American money. One piece was coined in 1777—139 years ago—of Spanish mintage. Very little of it is United States money.”
The story was big enough that the Shreveport Journal had a correspondent write a page one article for its July 28 edition. “A numismatist would probably find the coins priceless, as all of it is of ancient mintage,” the paper reported. “There is no clue to the original ownership of the coins.”
With the coins being of such vintage, who could have buried them? The Spanish, French, and Americans explored north Louisiana and south Arkansas in the 1700s. There is no record of any Spanish settlements in the area and explorers like DeSoto came through the region in the 1540s long before the coins were minted.
Perhaps the coins were booty acquired by robbers who did not wish to be caught with the loot and intended to return later. The various countries of origin might indicate the hoard came from far away—a sea port or maybe Mexico. Speculation is all we can do at this point.
The Ruston Leader article went out to newspapers across America who reprinted the story of Skinner’s discovery—usually on page one. Discoveries of treasure were always big news. Skinner took his newfound wealth to the Lincoln Parish Bank on Trenton Street in Ruston, hoping to learn its value.
The $1,000 quoted in the news articles was likely based on the value of the silver alone. $1,000 in 1916 is equivalent to about $28,880 today. However, coins from the 1700s might be worth significantly more. If the treasure still existed today, it could very well be worth millions.
We do not know what happened to the coins, but the Skinner family history provides some hints. Shortly after the discovery, Skinner and his wife left the farm and moved to Ruston where they ran a small store. It’s likely they cashed in the coins to make the move, living out their final years in more comfortable surroundings with lights and running water.
If you would like to speculate on the origin of Skinner’s treasure, comment here or on our Facebook page.
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