Kelly's Gold Article 8 04 - Tom Kelly Early Citizen of Dubuque - Treasure Found
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The Fourth Street Elevator (Fenelon Place Elevator) is the steepest and shortest railway in the United
States. The 296-foot long (286 feet of track) elevator carries passengers 189 feet from the Fenelon Place
to Fourth Street. It originally was Installed for Dubuque Mayor Julius (J.K.) Graves in 1882. It has been
destroyed by fire twice and restored in 1893. (Courtesy of the Center for Dubuque History, Loras College)
YE$I~AYS
Was Kelly's Gold finally f 0 un d ?
A recent story about the
legend makes you wonder
By JOHII118GES
Special to the Telegraph Herald
Almost every Dubuquer has
probably heard of "boodles" of gold
buried somewhere on the bluffs
along Bluff Street, between Fifth
Street and U.S. 20.
People for more than 130 Yli'ars have
searched for the cache, reported to be as much
as $100,000 in gold .,-lß6()'s value. Research
indicates that Tom Kelly, an eccentric, reclusive
miner, might have oorie ~t that before dying
on May 16,JtI67.
Arri1ling with other miners, adventurers and
tradesmen in 1829, Kelly became one of
Dubuque's first citizens. By 1843, he had
purchased 30 acres of lead-rich bluff land.
With the aid of one employee, Dan Ryan, Kelly
sunk shafts and brought lead to the surface.
When he was able to afford it, he sent for his
widowed mother, brothers and sister, all of
whom had remained in ireland, and
established them in a honie. However, Kelly
chose to remain on his bluff, segregated from
his family and the community.
Since no local outlet existed for the ore being
mined in Dubuque, the lead was transported
to the nearest smelter in St. Louis. The rafts,
barges or keel boats, which had carried the
lead, were sold along with the ore. After
enjoying "big city" life in St. Louis for a while,
the miners would return upriver on a packet
boat, repeating the process the following year.
in about 1853, Kelly began finding St. Louis'
diversions a little too tame and longed for
some real adventure. So he went to New York
City.
Dressed in his coarse mining clothes, Kelly
attracted curious stares from the mOre
sophisticated New Yorkers. One man in
particular seemed drawn to him, following the
miner wherever he went. Fearful of being
~robbed and without provocation, the
Dubuquer shot the stranger dead. Arrested,
tried and convicted, Kelly found the
confinement of jail too much for his free
nature and succeeded in escaping. Stripped of
his gold, he spent several weeks walking back
to Dubuque.
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Unknown to
most, the story
changed in the
late 1940s.
Apparently, the loss of his money in New York
caused him to act hostilely to everyone -
except Ryan. His only show of generosity was
the purchase of an elaborate gravestone for his
mother who died in 1856.
Shortly after his return to Dubuque, Kelly
traveled to Rockdale, where he had the local
blacksmith make a chest of iron. The box's
measurements were two feet, 10 inches long. 22
inches wide and eight inches deep.
In early 1867, Kelly scratched his hand on a
rusty nañbut did not seek medical attention
immediaWly. When he did, he learned that
blood poisonIng had spread through his arm
and shoulder. Nothing could be done to check
the infection. He summoned his brothers and
sister to his one-roomed home and challenged
them: "IfYli'wantit, lookye for it!" Kelly died
shortly thereafter.
His total estate was $66.93 in
cash, tools, 60 tons of ore and 30
acres. No bank accounts. No
hidden money in the cabin. No
maps. And no iron chest.
People began swarming over
the bluffs lookingfor the gold
almost before Kelly was cold in
Unwood Cemetery. Several
years passed before a boy, with
the appropriate name of Peter
Fortune, found $1,200 in gold. Another trove of
treasure was found by a George Ellis, who
accidentally uncovered another $1,800.
Then, in 1871, two boys, Otto Geiger and
John Becke, dug a fire pit while tending cattle.
They found a chest, 8 Inches-by-5-inches-by-4
inches, which contained $10,000 in gold. It
launched another short -lived search for the
bigger metal chest.
Nothing more was found until 1914, when a
city reservoir was built on the western edge of
what had been Kelly's property. This time, it
was a tin can, containing $400 in silver coins.
Since the small chest, with 160 cubic inches
capacity, held $10,000, the larger chest with
5,984 cubic inches, could have held 37.4 times
more, or $$74.000.
Considering the price of lead ore in the mid-
1800s, Kelly could easily have handled $200,000
during his mining days. Since he spent little on
himself, and considering the worth of his
estate, what happened to the money he made?
Allowing one half for living and business
expenses there would be about $100,000
missing.
And so the story continued to the 21st
century, until your humble correspondent
received a phone call from a friend in the
spring of '04. Unknown to most, the story
changed in the late 1940s.
From this paragraph on, the facts are
deliberately vague to protect the people and
the locations involved. The revised and
updated history begins sometime around 1948.
A tornado touched down in southwestern
Wisconsin and, among its toll, a home was
wiped out and the owners, an older couple,
were killed.
In time, the couple's two sons moved to
Dubuque and purchased a home on West Fifth
Street using the money from insurance
settlements. The two men
went to work at the John
Deere plant as inspectors.
Eventually, they decided to
install a new furnace in their
home. Digging out the floor
to make room for the larger
heating unit, they uncovered
an iron chest, which fit the
description of Kelly's. When
they opened it, they found
gold ... pieces of eight. Lots
of them.
The person who told me this saw and held
some of the gold pieces at John Deere, where
he was employed at the,time. Pieces of eight
were indented to break off two pieces or bits,
four bits and six bits (one quarter, two quarters
and three quarters) of a gold piece's value. In
essence, the owner of a piece of eight could
make his own change.
The brothers made the informant swear
never to tell anyone, but as he said, "I've
wanted to tell about this for some tiroe." When
asked what happened to the gold, he said, "I
believe they sold all of it to a collector (or
dealer) in Chicago."
A short time after, once rumors were flying,
many people were seen digging on West Third
and West Fifth streets vicinity. However,
nothing else was ever found.
Was Kelly's gold found accidentally? Or did
another person reflect Kelly's distrusting
nature and bury gold in the same area in a
chest ofsirnilar size to that of the fabled cache?
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