MR. BISHOP'S
LOST CHEST OF GOLD COINS
THE LONGEST LIST OF THE LONGEST STUFF AT THE LONGEST DOMAIN NAME AT LONG LAST

Where is Mr. Bishop’s lost chest of gold coins?

A group of Mormons along with their wagons filled with their possessions was headed to Horsetown in the 1850’s. In order to get to their destination, they had to travel through the valley of Redding, California and cross over Clear Creek. Normally, Clear Creek was a quiet and serene creek, but not on this occasion. The water was running off the mountains and made this quiet little creek into a torrent of raging, muddy, floodwaters. They decided to camp nearby and wait until the water began to recede before heading onward.

They became very eager to get to their new home and just could not wait any longer. The waters had receded a bit but the water was still quite swift and was deeper than normal. The wagons began crossing slowly and all except one made it across the river. Mr. Bishop started crossing the creek a little downstream from the rest of the wagons. Once he was in the water, he realized that the water was deeper where he was. Before he had crossed the creek, one of the wagon wheels fell into a deep hole and very quickly, the wagon tipped over onto its side. All Mr. Bishop had time to save were his horses and himself. When he made it to the other side of the creek, his wagon was washed downstream.

Mr. Bishop not only lost all of his personal belongings but along with his wagon he had a small chest on board that contained $40,000 in gold coins. The rest of the group searched for days, could never find the small chest of coins and decided to go on to Horsetown. After the creek, was back to normal, several of Mr. Bishop’s friends and himself came back to the creek in search of his gold. There never found even one small gold coin.

In 1910, William Dreestelhorst while prospecting in Clear Creek found a $10 gold coin. The coin had the initials “SMV,” along with the date of 1841 and inscribed along the rim the words "California Gold". This was the same type of gold that Mr. Bishop had lost around 60 years prior.

Thus began the search for Mr. Bishop’s lost gold coins. To this day, no one has found another gold coin and it is believed that the gold is somewhere on the banks or in Clear Creek.

 

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