Myths and Legends
get the better of Mike Wild. For all this the old tree bore, for many years, an evil reputation.
A Spanish galleon, the Saints Joseph and Helena, making from Havana to Cadiz in 1753 was carried from her course by adverse winds and tossed against a reef, near New London, Connecticut, receiving injuries that compelled her to run into that port for repairs. To reach her broken ribs more easily her freight was put on shore in charge of the collector of the port, but when it was desired to ship the cargo again, behold! the quarter part of it had disappeared, none could say how. New London got a bad name from this robbery, and the governor, though besought by the assembly to make good the shortage, failed to do so, and lost his place at the next election. It was reputed that some of the treasure was buried on the shore by the robbers. In 1827 a woman who was understood to have the power of seership published a vision to a couple of young blades, who had paid for it, to the effect that hidden under one of the grass-grown wharves was a box of dollars. By the aid of a crystal pebble she received this really valuable information, but the pebble was not clear enough to reveal the exact place of the box. She could see, however, that the dollars were packed edgewise. When New London was sound asleep the young men stole out and by lantern-light began their work. They had dug to water-level when they reached an iron chest, and they stooped to lift it—but, to their amazement, the iron was too hot to
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