While researching a book, I came across several accounts of hidden money sewn into clothing, hat brims, or fake compartments in luggage. I didn’t end up using everything I’d discovered in my novel, but it did send my mind racing and ideas spinning. We are so used to electronic funds, checks, and secured shipping that we don’t often worry about traveling with the family’s heirloom jewels or your life savings, but times used to be different.
During the prime stagecoach and railroad days people often traveled with money or valuables. Robbers knew this, which is why we have so many accounts of stagecoach robberies and trains stopped by bandits and looted. Some passengers took to hiding money in their clothing, sewing it into the hem of their pants or skirt, or stitching it into lining of a jacket.
There have been other times in history when hiding money and valuables became the norm. During and after the Great Depression there was a general mistrust of the banking system. Our grandparents and great-grandparents (depending on your age) may have been some of those that weren’t quite ready to trust their hard-earned savings to an institution.
Rather than sew their money into their clothing (though, some of them might have), they could have buried it in the backyard, under floorboards, behind the mantle, in the piano, and even in the outhouse (gross).
There are fantastic stories of people buying old homes and finding “treasure” hidden in the floorboards or in the rafters of the attic. I can’t help but wonder how many homes have been torn down with their treasure never found, or items of clothing discarded that held a secret. The author in me wonders the circumstances that led to someone hiding away their money—were they saving so they could reach for a dream? Preparing for a rainy day? Hoping to give their children a better life?
When my husband and I moved to Buffalo, New York so he could attend dental school there, we bought a small, OLD home. I asked the neighbors about it and learned as much history as I could about the charming little place. It had once housed a large family. (Where they all slept, I will never know.) I tried to visualize them and often thought about those that had lived inside the walls of my beloved first house. At one point we decided to add more insulation. (Those Buffalo winters are brutal!) While working we discovered a small box tucked way back in the eaves.
I was not an author at the time, but I still had a vivid imagination and can still remember my heart beating a little faster when I reached for the box. It didn’t contain any gold, no rare coins, or fine jewels. But it did contain handmade Christmas ornaments from decades ago. As a lover of history and stories, I found my discovery fascinating. Holding those ornaments in my hand made it easier to picture the big loving family that I had only heard a few scattered details about. I confess, I still think it would be fun to prowl through an abandoned house and discover treasure, a journal, or any other fascinating piece of history. Wouldn’t it be so fun to sneak around a ghost town…sigh, someday!
Whether hidden to avoid bandits, or fear of a depression, or simply an accident, the pieces of the past we discover tell us a little about those that came before. I wonder what the next person to live in my beloved Buffalo house learned about me. We were students and had no money to hide, but there is a bird house my son made with his grandpa and nailed to the back fence, scratches in the floor from a baby walker, and probably a few missing socks behind the washing machine. (It’s been a decade, so maybe those are gone by now.)
And now after writing this and thinking about hidden treasure and stories, I am convinced that all writing retreats should take place in very old houses or near other prime locations for treasure hunting. Maybe we would all find a story worth telling!
Rachel Fordham is giving away a copy of her latest novel Where the Road Bends. To be entered in the random drawing, leave a comment for Rachel telling her if you’ve ever stumbled across a treasure or family heirloom.
no, I haven’t
Before my grandma went into a nursing home, we had to clean out the house and outbuildings to ready them for auction–that’s how a lot of the Plain People did it. If you wanted an heirloom, you had to buy it. Auctions are plentiful in Lancaster County.
I digress. Dad went into the attic and found a box. There were a few silver coins, an Asian-style black lacquer jewelry box, and a few other things. Inside the jewelry box was a pendant on a chain, and a few papers.
Plain People do not wear jewelry. (If your Amish characters are exchanging wedding rings, that’s wrong. It doesn’t happen. Read the Ten Commandments.) And, they wouldn’t have a jewelry box.
The initials on the pendant belonged to my step-grandfather’s second wife. Grandma was his third. He had been a widower twice. We don’t know the history. But I have the pendant and chain, the jewelry box, and a few papers that were inside.
That’s so fascinating!
My mother was a pack rat, and her attic was full of “hidden treasures” from the past.
My ex mother-in-laws childhood home stood for years before it was finally torn down. They did not find any treasure in it. Also a cousin owns the old cabin are paternal grandparents had own so we all still have the fond memories of childhood summers to talk about.
I love going back to places where I spent my childhood. Sometimes those memories come flooding back when I’m there.
I found some really old newspaper clippings at my grandmother’s house.
Growing up my parents found an old pocket watch
YES in cleaning out my dads house (where he was born and died) we found the original folding doors (went between living room and dining room) in the attic – that I had never seen!!
We were getting our ductwork cleaned and one of the men gave us a metal container which when open contained money. The newest coins were Kennedy 50 cent pieces. There was also an Indian head penny. The only paper money was a silver certificate 1.00 dollar bill.
That’s a great find!!
I’ve never come across anything
I know my uncle and his family when cleaning out their parents’ house found money hidden all over.
I have not come across anything either but each time I did a hole for a new plant I look for treasure.
Rachel, I loved your post! Over the last year I cleaned out my parents house of what my mom didn’t take with her when she moved and then her apartment. I definitely found treasures. In the garage I found a photo album of photos my dad had taken when he was deployed in Korea. I can’t believe they weren’t destroyed by the sweltering Austin, Texas summers! In her last apartment, I found $4000 in $100 bills in an envelope, in a baggie, among her shirts in her dresser drawer. Just recently my mother-in-law told my husband when the time comes, we need to check through her things carefully because she squirrels away her jewelry for fear of it getting stolen!
Very cool! I helped my grandma go through my grandpas belongings and we found lots of Kleenex ?. No treasure but we had some good laughs.
This post was fascinating. I always was amazed how individuals did find treasures in homes. I have never had that happen.
No I havent but that would be so cool. when I lived in CA mom had made a friend. she was an old lady and lived in death valley. she lived by herself and just loved it when mom would bring us five kids with. she showed us some of the places that have not seen humans for way too long. one was an old saloon. we had a lot of fun in these places. she knew which ones to avoid and which ones us five kids could go exploring. she always had cookies for us when we cam. we always stayed the whole day. seems like she was extremely lonely and our day spent with her was one of her highlights.
That would be so much fun!
The most profound hidden treasure were letters written to my mom during WWII from my dad. He was wounded in battle by artillery fire. We were shocked to find these letters in a box my mom kept. Love letters to my mom were so pure I thought I was invading their privacy. Such a love exposed many years later after both parents had passed way. As siblings, we wept over things we had never known about the war. Our dad would never speak of the war. But their love for each other was priceless. A rare gift.
I so enjoyed your blog today. Thank you.
That’s the absolute best kind of treasure to find.
I was given an album of my moms family on the farm where she grew up. In side was a picture of her 3x’s grandmother who was native american
I have a brooch that was my maternal grandmother’s, and I have a ring my maternal grandfather carved out of wood for me. I also have some other old pieces of theirs, and a few old quilts. They’re my treasures. I’ve heard of people hiding money in the pages of books and magazines and their family found it after they were deceased.
I enjoyed your interesting post, as I love history. I have not found any physical monetary treasures, but, in doing genealogy, I have found other “treasures” in terms of old papers that helped to tell the story of a life decades or centuries ago.
Those are excellent treasures to find!
Learning about these unknown treasures is wonderful. Many times I have read about these left in homes which have been abandoned. I always wondered about it. What an experience to encounter.
Thanks for such a great post!
My grandparents live in the piney woods of east Texas, in the house where my grandpa was born. There’s this one spot near the house which apparently used to be a burn pile. They said they had to burn all their trash, back in the day.
If you dig in that spot, you can find all kinds of cool stuff that didn’t burn–metal things, tiny glass medicine bottles, etc. The best thing I found were glass jewels! Yellow faceted glass gemstones, very old and smooth.
I’ve always wondered why those glass jewels were in the burn pile.
I think trash sites are always jackpots for treasure!
Haven’t discovered a thing
I’ve never come across any family heirlooms. Sadly, my family isn’t super big on tradition or passing things down.
Sadly, I’ve not come across a family heirloom.
I’ve never really found any family heirlooms/hidden treasure, but when my great-grandparents sold their farm house, my grandma found old newspapers between the attic floor and walls. At least one of those newspapers is from 1828, I believe, and has a notice about a runaway slave. (She still has the newspaper too!)
And my dad used to work for a roofing/siding company. One day they were tearing a roof off an old house, and he found the original deed to the house under the shingles and paper in the eaves by the chimney.
No family heirlooms here. The only thing we ever found in our house was old newspapers in the bottom of the closet floor that were from the 50’s
My husband was digging a post hole for a corral fence he was building uphill from the original farmhouse. He thought he was hitting a rock but it turned out to be a cast iron buggy and a horse, about ten inches long. Nothing was broken on it in spite of the pounding of the post hole digger. We still have it on a shelf. It was not a toy he or his brother had and his dad didn’t remember it either. Since they were the first family to live there it has always been a mystery where it came from and why it would have been so far from the house.
I do not recall ever finding a treasure. I do have my grandmother’s foot pedal sewing maching, a washboard and some irons. As a child, my Dad helped tear down the barn on my grandparents land (both had been deceased by this time). I am not sure what all was found in the barn or the little house that was moved to the back of the house to make an additional room. My Mom was one of eight children. When we decended on the house the last two weeks of August, it was tight in finding places to sleep. Thank you for sharing. God bless you.
I have never found anything, but I have watch house renovations on TV where they find things in the walls, floors, attic etc. It would be cool finding something from the past.
I have found old tin postcards and calendars hidden in the wall. Dated 1906
I’ve never found anything important but some sentimental items I value from my parents.
I haven’t found anything but I grew up in a large, old house (late 1800’s), that had newspapers in the walls for some insulation. What else was in the walls, I don’t know. Couple years after my parents sold it, it burnt.
My parents bought a house built in 1906, by a lumber tycoon, when I was 15 yrs old. One day, there was a tornado coming, and we had to go down into the basement. My brother was snooping around and found a cubby hole that had some family picture albums of the family sitting on the steps right after the house was completed, a booklet about the owner of the house and some really rare pieces of jewelry! That was really exciting! But, there were no names or initials of a company or anything to identify the provenance of the jewelry. One piece was a broach of an elephant with cases on it’s back and dangling down were jewels of different colored stones. It was my favorite, because elephants are my favorite animal.
I’ve never found any great treasures, but have found a few cool… & funny 😀 … things over the years. We lived in WV when I was a little girl & we moved a lot. One house had an old shed that we went through & found a few treasures. My mom has an old glass milk bottle that we found in there. Another house we lived in had what looked to be the foundation of a smaller house in the back yard. I’d dig through the dirt there & find little treasures like bits of broken glass & other things that were exciting for a 10-year-old to collect. The funniest thing we found was in the house we moved into when I was around 12. We noticed that the kitchen sink didn’t drain very well & it didn’t get any better even after multiple attempts to unclog it with various drain-cleaners. So my dad decided to take the drain pipe apart to see if he could find the culprit. And did we ever!! There were about 11 butter knives stuck down in that drain pipe!!!! 😀 I’d love to hear the story about how they got there! Did they just slip down there unnoticed & the mother wonder where her butter knives were going?? Did she have an ornery child who liked to pull pranks or who just wanted to get out of washing a few dishes?? Whatever the case, we had a good laugh & the drain worked great after that!
And I agree with you… I’d love to snoop around an old ghost town someday!!!
When I was in high school, neighbors who were farmers bought another farm for grazing. There was a nice old farm house. It was empty except for a few things in the attic. They let me have a book I found, on homemaking that was printed in the mid-1800’s. It is a pretty big book and very interesting. That was many (60+) years ago.
We bought an 1898 victorian farm house in 1992. It hadn’t been taken care of and needed to be gutted down to the studs. A real mess with lath and plaster and coal dust. No real treasures found but a few personal items and a picture of a young man probably from the 30’s or 40’s.
We have found interesting things in trunks we have either inherited or gotten from friends. I found a valentine sent to my aunt in her hope chest. It wasn’t signed by my uncle and no one in the family knew who he was. A mystery that will never be solved. The same aunt left me a box that had the framed marriage certificate for my grandparents and some of the baptism certificates for my aunt and uncles.
A trunk from a female veteran we helped out had likely not been opened in many years. Everything dated back to the 40’s and earlier. We found d immigration papers from the 1800’s. Sadly her only living relative was not interested in any of it.
Hi Rachel – Enjoyed your post. Yes, I found a treasure of money in my brother’s garage that he buried in the dirt floor in a metal box after he passed from COVID. He didn’t like banks. The money was a surprise. I would give anything to have him back in our lives. He died at 69 yrs. of age.