This book contains more than thirty stories from New England and the Northeast about hidden riches, forgotten war loot, and sunken ship treasures. Marie Antoinette's $1 million necklace lies in the cold waters of the Pennichuck Brook just a few miles from downtown Nashua, New Hampshire. A steamboat, possibly the country's first one, still remains deep in Lake Morey near Fairlee, Vermont. A young woman discovers her great-grandfather's lost money in the chimney of his mysterious Massachusetts mansion. But was there more hidden in the bricks? From Revolutionary War and Civil War tales to a legend about a missing silver church bell, this lore, grown out of true accounts and actual histories, has propelled New England into one of the most fascinating regions for lost treasure.
After reading these 30 revived tales of wealth and splendor, you will be tempted to throw some supplies into a backpack like the '49-ers of old and head west. Although stories of lost gold and silver veins are abundant (Mysterious Blue Ledge of Gold, The Curse of the Mormon Silver Ledge), they in no way represent all of the wealth hidden in California's geography and folklore. Does Death Valley hold more than just sand and arid desert; is it also the Canyon of Lost Gold and site of the Golden Gravels of Goler Wash? Is the long California coastline covering secrets (Gold in the Sand) and hidden riches (Lost North Beach Million, Five Hundred Pound Silver Ingot)? Are the sprawling metropolises now covering the priceless artifacts of an emperor (The Hollywood Bowl Treasure)? Outlaws, prospectors, Indians, loners and Mexicans throw themselves into all the adventure and intrigue. California's mountains, deserts, beaches, and citiesas well as sunken treasureare all encompassed in this collection.
Part of the colorful history of Texas includes legends of outlaw loot, pirate hoards, buried mines, and Santa Anna's lost pack-train carrying gold. This book contains 31 legends ranging from lost fortunes of Native Americans, French pirates, Spanish explorers, and Mexican soldiers to the early exploits of German and Scotch-Irish settlers. These unique tales from the people of the Lone Star State highlight their adventures and struggles in search of lost mines and forgotten treasures.
Maybe it's because his mother was a teacher. Or maybe it's because he has spent most of his life in classrooms - as a wide-eyed first grader, a naive college student, a seminarian, and now as a visiting writer in residencies across the country. There's something about school that infuses the work of Donald Davis and he has collected his all-time favorite school stories in the book. Whether we're traveling around the world with Miss Daisy, the fourth grade teacher who was integrating arithmetic, geography and English before the term whole language ever surfaced; or watching in awe as a classmate conjugates malaprops in Miss Vergilius Darwin's Latin class; or driving a school bus and learning about segregation - we experience flashes of recognition in moments that transcend Donald Davis's childhood stories.
Tales of outlaws and desperadoes are one of the few types of folklore that are peculiarly American. The myths and legends surrounding such people as Belle Starr, Frank and Jesse James, and Wild Bill Hickock grip the national imagination just as tightly today as they did a century ago.
The author presents eight short stories about his mother and other family members as they grew up in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina.
Jim May writes the stories of his youth, growing up in the rural Midwest between the Truman and the JFK eras, where trading stories was as common as trading horses, and frequently required the same skills. Neighboring, as his mother called it, was part of the social fabric. These 18 poignant and humorous stories of life's joys and trials told with the freshness of youth, yet tempered with the wisdom of age evoke a simpler time in our nation's history without romanticizing the inherent hardships.
A primer of the familiar fairy-tale setting of enchanted castles, from what makes them spellbound to who inhabits them, plus famous stories and movies in which they have appeared.
5,000 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia during a terrible drought, Jomar and Zefa's father must send his children away to the city of Ur because he can no longer feed them. At fourteen, Jomar is old enough to apprentice with Sidah, a master goldsmith for the temple of the moongod, but there is no place for Zefa in Sidah's household. Zefa, a talented but untrained musician, is forced to play her music and sing for alms on the streets of Ur.
