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Treasure chest may date from lost '49ers'

Some park officials, historians doubting archaeologist's claim.

Salt Lake Tribune SALT LAKE CITY -- Among seekers of lost riches, there is a saying: If you have found treasure, you have found trouble. Jerry Freeman thinks he found a treasure lodged in the rocks in Death Valley National Park. But trouble has quickly followed. The substitute teacher and archaeology buff from California claims he discovered a small wooden trunk stuffed with coins, guns, jewelry and keepsakes left behind by a group of emigrants in 1849. The so- called "Lost Forty-Niners" were attempting a shortcut from Utah to the California gold fields that ended in tragedy at the lowest point in the Western hemisphere. If Freeman's find is legitimate, it would be a mother lode of valuable artifacts from the ill-fated expedition that lent Death Valley its name. It also would be fulfillment of a dream for the amateur archaeologist who in 1996 led the first modern hike over the 376-mile path of the Lost Forty-Niners from Enterprise, Utah, to Death Valley National Park in California. But National Park Service officials are withholding judgment whether the trunk and its contents are original items. They are also unsure whether Freeman faces federal charges for removing archaeological resources from the national park. "Without being too specific, there are enough pieces in this trunk that have raised issues about whether they are pre-1850," says Tim Stone, public affairs officer for Death Valley National Park. "We had a conservator here Thursday who will do an analysis that we hope will give us a better idea about whether some things fit the time period." The expert from the Western Archaeology and Conservation Center in Tucson, Ariz., is expected to release a report within two weeks determining whether the trunk and its contents are real. Freeman was at the park last week to show officials where he found the trunk in late November. "A group of our people went up with him to the location, and their conclusion was that it was plausible, but we just don't know yet," said Stone. Freeman, however, believes the park service will conclude the trunk is the real thing. "If this was a hoax or a set-up, somebody had to come up with a few thousand dollars just to buy the stuff to fill it and then why would you put it inside a national park?" says the 56-year-old avid Death Valley hiker and history buff. "You'd want to bury it outside the park so you could find it and sell it without having to turn it over to the park service. We need to wait for the park to render a decision, but I'm confident the validity will be proven." Freeman said authenticity questions have been raised about the use of the word "grubstake" in a handwritten letter, since some historians maintain that word wasn't coined until 1856. One of the items in the circa 1849 trunk also apparently is stamped "Made in Germany," even though Germany wasn't a country until 1871. The amount of weathering among items also varies, and there are questions about oiling on some leather goods. Freeman admits he made critical mistakes in excavating the trunk from a rock shelter alone, then later having friends help him transport the trunk and its contents from the park to the basement of his home in Pearblossom, Calif. By digging up the trunk without any documentation of the soil layers or surrounding material, professional archaeologists have a harder time determining the context of the site. "I lost my objectivity because it just blew me away to find it," Freeman says. "I jerked it out of there, and I know better, and maybe in a perfect world there should have been some scientific techniques used, but I did it and I can't turn the clock back." A park service inventory of the trunk -- which is now in storage at the park -- includes lace textiles, ceramic and brass containers, a handmade basket, a sighting glass, a pair of children's shoes, a doll, jewelry, books, correspondence, tintype pictures, a canteen, a flintlock pistol with a holster, powder horns, a property manifest and coins from the late 1700s through 1849.

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