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Captain Marsh's Lost Treasure

Jesse James Cache at Gallatin Canyon. The Jesse James Gang of Missouri used the Gallatin River canyon as a hideout and cache for valuables secured on their various raids into the Midwest following the Civil War according to letters sent to Arian Doornbos of Bozeman, a friend of Jesse James who used to live in Texas and had written a mutual friend, Lee Haw, to inquire about his health.  Haw sent a letter back from Gilchrist, Texas in August of 1951 where Jesse James was reported to still be living at the age of 107, and stated "Old Jesse James has been asking about you.  He and I are batching it together these days.  The old rebel chief has finally confessed and revealed where he hid the gold, silver, and money from his raids.  Jesse hid a fair-sized treasure not far from where you live in Montana.  I will fall heir to it when he crosses his last mountain.  There is enough money buried on the Gallatin River by Jesse James and Cole Younger to buy a good-sized cattle ranch or two," Haw wrote, "So keep your eye opened for me.  I'll be along out there in December."  The Texas man went on to state that Cole Younger had died the previous year at the age of 109 years, and that Jesse had a brother Joseph who was still alive at 104 and a sister who is 100.  Haw said, "Jesse's health is failing, however, and he is not expected to live much longer than three months.  He is a very rich man, but lived like a miser for a purpose."  He further wrote Doornbos that Jesse James was moving to an old hideout near Granbury, Texas for his last days.  The Gallatin River runs north and south west of Bozeman, and Bozeman is located north of Yellowstone National Park.  (Topographical Map of Bozeman and the Gallatin River Area)

Treasure Map to Black Hills Gold. One of the first recorded discoveries of gold in the Black Hills was made by a half-breed frontiersman named Toussaint Kensler who was accused, possibly falsely, of murder and hung.  He worked in the placers of Alder Gulch, and had spent several months living with the Sioux and Arapahoes in the Black Hills attempting to secure a treaty, but his petition to President Grant was ignored. At his death, he left behind a map which shows a full acquaintance with the country surrounding, and which pointed to a claim of gold he found on what had come to be called French Creek or Amphibious Creek in Custer County by the 1870s, a tributary of the South Fork of the Cheyenne, about ten miles above its mouth.

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