In late October 1908 authorities uncovered “one of the most colossal hoaxes” ever perpetrated in south Louisiana, in the words of several newspapers of the day. Five people were arrested for “a swindle which … extended over eighteen months or more, with prominent, well-to-do farmers ... as the victims.”
Joseph “Price” Choate, “an uneducated farmer and hunter living on a small farm on the edge of the sea marsh,” was the “arch-conspirator” in the scheme, according to the authorities. The other four people who were arrested were his “dupes,” they said.
Choate claimed to have found a pirates’ cave hiding more than $90 million in gold and jewels. He said the loot was in 180 chests in a “tomb-like apartment” inside a cave dug into a mound in the marsh. He told his well-to-do friends that there was so much gold that he would have to dig a canal to ferry it all to high land. If they would give him the money to do that, he said, there “was treasure enough to give [us] all riches beyond the dreams of avarice.” But, he warned, they had to keep it a secret so that nobody else would horn in.
He and his “dupes” were good salesmen. They were able to “use one device or another” to keep up the interest of his victims, even as months passed and there was no sign of treasure, or even of a canal leading to it.
Finally, according to the news accounts, “several of the backers repaired to Choate’s home and demanded that he take them to the treasure.” Unfazed, Choate pointed to a big canebrake in the distance and said they would need to cut a road or dig a canal through it to get to the gold.
Either the Pirate Gold King, as he came to be called, was a great con man or his “investors” were really, really gullible.
“Several of the backers … actively worked for six days in the hot sun and mud knee deep until they had cleared an opening four miles long through the cane,” according to the newspapers. But when they took Choate to the end of their clearing, he “appeared confused” and unsure of which way to go next. He said he usually made the trip by pirogue and was having trouble getting his bearings in the cleared space.
But then, “spying a cypress tree several miles off, he recovered himself and declared [the fortune] was at the foot of that tree.” His trusting (greedy?) victims took up their shovels again and “dug and cut through more miles of canebrake” to the tree that Choate had pointed out. There was no mound, no tomb-like apartment, not one chest of gold.
Choate said they were very close to the treasure, but he would need a few days to precisely locate it.
The victims “returned to their homes,” but “after consulting others” finally caught on that they had been swindled. They figured Choate had taken them for between $12,000 and $15,000, but because “he had no chance or inclination to dispose of the money, steps could be taken for recovery of some of it.”
While the investors launched a second, equally unsuccessful, hunt for the real treasure they’d given him, Choate sat in jail and proclaimed his innocence. There really were chests of gold, he said. Some folks believed him. They said he had always been an honest and hardworking man, that he was certainly not a swindler.
The judge thought otherwise. Choate went to trial in October 1909 and was sentenced to six years in prison. Afterward, he thanked the judge and promised to be a model prisoner so that he could get out of jail early and take up the treasure hunt again. Choate promised the judge he would send him a few souvenir doubloons once he found it.
The judge never got his sample of gold and nobody’s ever turned up the 180 chests of loot. If you are inclined to go looking, the cave is supposed to be in a mound hidden in thick, high marsh grass in the vicinity of Little Lake in lower Vermilion Parish. I don’t know if the canebrake and cypress tree are still there to help mark the way.
Be sure to take a sturdy shovel when you go looking, and all the mosquito spray you can carry.
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, Cajuns and Other Characters, is now available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.
