05x17 - A Family Album

[bunniefuu]

Craig, you're next.

NARRATOR:
On August , ,

Drake Tester, the -year-old
son of treasure hunter

Craig Tester, joined other
members of the Oak Island team

in writing an inscription on
a -inch-wide drilling caisson

that everyone hoped
would help them locate

the original Money Pit.

Here you go, bro.

NARRATOR: In so doing,
he made a permanent reminder

of one of the island's most
enduring and powerful truths...

...that the story
of Oak Island is--

as it has been
for more than two centuries--

a story about family.

From the Laginas...

-Okay, but here's the thing.

I'm still in. Let's go.

One in, all in.
Once in, forever in.

NARRATOR:
...to the Blankenships.

DAVE: Mom would be happy
getting it over with.

She wanted it done.

I don't have a reputation
for giving up.

NARRATOR:
Oak Island has been a place

where the compelling desire
to solve a mystery

has lured generations
of treasure hunters.

From former slaves...

Just being a cabbage farmer

could never have given him
enough money

to purchase the property
that he bought.

NARRATOR:
...to future U.S. presidents.

DAVID ROOSEVELT:
FDR was adventurous, and

who wouldn't want to search for

a hidden treasure?

NARRATOR: Families who came
looking for a dream and

who rarely leave willingly,
if they ever leave at all.

JAMES:
It grabs hold like an addiction

that doesn't let go.

Whoa!

DIANA:
We are part of the island,

and the island is part of us.

NARRATOR:
According to legend,

it was on a hot summer night
in June ,

that three teenage boys--
Daniel McGinnis,

John Smith and Anthony Vaughn--

traveled to Oak Island
in a rowboat.

RILEY:
They discovered an old oak tree

with a block and tackle
hanging off one of the limbs.

And under the block and tackle
was a depression on the ground.

They started to dig,
and then they quickly realized

that they dug down
to a man-made shaft.

NARRATOR: At a depth
of ten feet, they found a layer

of tightly-packed oak logs
embedded in clay.

They found another layer
of logs at a depth of feet,

then ,
when it became obvious to them

that they were digging into
something much more complex

than a simple
pirate's treasure hole.

Over the next few years,
the young men formed what

was called
"The Onslow Company."

They continued digging,

until, at a depth of feet,
they found

a large, flat, grey-green stone
on which are carved

a number of strange,
almost hieroglyphic shapes.

After the -foot stone was,
uh, recovered,

eventually the Pit flooded.

And digging stopped
for the time being.

NARRATOR:
Although it is widely believed

that McGinnis, Vaughn and Smith
never found so much

as a glint of treasure,
there are those who believe

that a portion of it was, in
fact, recovered very early on,

and that this only fueled

the trio's determination
to keep digging.

DIANA: I believe
that my ancestors did find

some of the treasure.

There was a family story
passed down

that Anthony Vaughan

and some of the other
land owners on the island--

they discovered
a decoy treasure.

They kept it secret

because they didn't want
the other hunters to find it.

But family lore says

that Daniel sold his property
and moved away

and developed a huge
ship-building empire

in New Brunswick.

Anthony Vaughan Sr.'s
two brothers

suddenly were running
the biggest lumber mill

on that part of Nova Scotia
at the time,

and became very wealthy men,
and so the question is,

where did they get the money
to launch this enterprise?

A lot of people said
it came from the Money Pit.

NARRATOR: The idea
that a portion of the treasure

was found
was further reinforced in

when three of Daniel McGinnis'
descendants

returned to Oak Island to share
an incredible family secret

with the Lagina brothers
and their partners.

This is one of the stories
we were told as children.

Grandpa Daniel,
five generations ago--

he and his two friends found
three treasure chests.

-JOAN: Yes.
-I never heard that. -No.

CHARLES:
I never heard that, either.

Daniel took one, Smith took one
and Vaughan took one.

And what is in this box

is one of the things
that came from that chest.

-The one that McGinnis took.

-Let's have a look.
-JACK: Yeah, I got goose bumps.

MARTY:
Wow!

-You may.

Oh, my goodness.

-JOAN: It passed down
to the McGinnis men. -Mm-hmm.

And so my father had it, and
when my brother James was ,

my father passed it onto him.

And my brother,
the night before he d*ed,

he said, "Never let this
out of your sight."

NARRATOR:
Because early accounts

of the events on Oak Island
are sketchy,

it is often difficult

for the historian
to separate fact from fiction.

One area of confusion even
extends to the identities

and ages of the original
discoverers of the Money Pit.

There are those who believe
that there was a fourth person

involved in the dig:

a former American sl*ve
by the name of Samuel Ball.

Samuel Ball is our great,
great grandfather.

Our mother, May List Boyd,
would recount stories

of a relative living on
Oak Island, and she would say

to me,
"This is our people's land."

And that had just stayed with me
for the rest of my life.

NARRATOR: The extraordinary
story of Samuel Ball

begins in when, at just
years old, he escaped

the South Carolina plantation
where he had been a sl*ve

and made his way north.

During the American w*r
of Independence,

the British Governor of
Virginia, the Earl of Dunmore,

issued a proclamation granting
freedom to any male sl*ve

who would fight
on the British side,

and thousands did,
and one of these individuals

was Samuel Ball.

RANDALL:
So, Samuel Ball-- he ended up

in New Jersey
until the w*r ended,

at which time
he made his way to Canada.

ANTHONY: Lieutenant governor
of Nova Scotia,

Mr. George Prévost, decided

because of his assertiveness,
to give him some-some land.

IVAN B.: They put him on
Oak Island, and that's where

his life actually started here
in Nova Scotia.

Samuel Ball did
purchase land on Oak Island

with eight pounds
of sterling silver,

so, tilling the land
maybe to find

some coins or some silver,

and, uh,
started purchasing land there.

Samuel Ball bought his first lot
on Oak Island in .

And he quickly bought
the lot next to it.

So before the discovery
of the Money Pit,

Samuel Ball actually owned
two lots on Oak Island.

NARRATOR:
In ,

Nova Scotia historian
Mather Byles DesBrisay

published A History
of the County of Lunenburg,

one of the first
detailed accounts

of the search
for treasure on Oak Island.

According to DesBrisay,

it was Samuel Ball,
and not John Smith,

who was one of the first
discoverers of the Money Pit.

But if so, why was the account
later changed?

Was it because Samuel Ball--

who would have been
years old at the time--

lived on the island,
and didn't want anyone to know

that he was also involved
in the search for

the Oak Island treasure?

Eventually, he had nine lots
on the island.

Plus acres
on the mainland.

So, how did Samuel Ball
accumulate this wealth?

NARRATOR: According
to published accounts,

Samuel Ball worked
as a cabbage farmer

and lived on Oak Island
with his wife Mary

and their three children.

By the time of his death
in at the age of ,

he was one of the wealthiest
men in Nova Scotia.

ANTHONY:
Just being a cabbage farmer

could never have given him

enough money to purchase
the property that he bought.

CHARLES: I think he found
something on Oak Island.

I'm absolutely convinced
of that.

All the family knows, uh,
of the story of Sam.

It just gives us so much pride

and feeling of-of understanding
a little bit more of, uh,

the legacy that-that he's left
for, uh, for our family.

In , the Oak
Island Association was formed,

and within months,

experienced the island's
first fatal tragedy--

when the boiler
from a steam-powered

water pump exploded and scalded
an unknown worker to death.

Rumors of a curse began
to circulate,

which inspired
a Halifax newspaper

to run a story about
the treasure hunt in .

In The Colonist, there was
published a three-part story

that gave the full history

of the hunt up until that time
on Oak Island.

Up until that time, it was
a very secretive operation.

NARRATOR:
For the next few decades,

work on the island continued,

but without much success.

It wasn't until
with the formation

of the Oak Island Treasure
Company by Frederick Blair

that Oak Island would enjoy

its most active
and productive period

since the discovery
of the Money Pit

nearly years earlier.

They invested a lot of money

at a time when there wasn't
a lot of money around,

and one of those investors
was William Chappell.

Chappell was an investor,

but he was also
a skilled drill operator.

WOMAN: The Chappell family
actually goes back to France.

My great-grandfather,
William Chappell,

settled in Nova Scotia

and became the lumber baron
of Canada.

NARRATOR:
A skilled drill operator,

William Chappell would leave

a long and lasting legacy
on Oak Island.

He spent decades
trying to solve the mystery,

often aided in that task
by his son Mel,

also known as M.R.

It was William Chappell who,
in ,

discovered traces of gold

along with a small fragment
of parchment

after drilling
into what he believed

to be a mysterious
seven-foot-deep wooden box

lying at a depth of feet.

RANDALL:
They put that bit down,

and they brought it up,

and there was
this one very curious object

that no one could identify.

It was this little ball
of something.

DOUG: But when they had opened
this paper up,

they saw what appears to be
the letters "V" and "I."

And, you know, it was
of great wonderment to them

what paper would be doing

down under Oak Island
at that depth.

M.R. Chappell is actually there

when his father
drills through this thing.

Here's a perfect example
how somebody can become

so obsessed with Oak Island.

NEENA: That made
such an impression on him

and what was brought up.

The little piece of parchment

seems to have been very, very
significant to my grandfather.

NARRATOR:
Dubbed the Chappell Vault,

the box was thought to be
the very object

that was originally buried
at the bottom of the Money Pit

more than a century before.

But what was inside?

Rumors of a curse
were also refueled

when, during an excavation
of the Money Pit,

a hoisting rope
slipped off a pulley...

...causing one
of Frederick Blair's workers,

Maynard Keiser, to fall

feet down the shaft
to his death.

For months, Blair and Chappell

tried every possible method

to reach
the mysterious wooden box,

but without success.

William Chappell's son, M.R.,

would devote
the rest of his life

to finding someone
who could help him retrieve it.

One of those men
was Captain Henry L. Bowdoin,

a mining engineer who, in ,

convinced Frederick Blair
and the Chappells

that he coulach
the Chappell Vault.

Bowdoin's own research
had convinced him

that what lie
at the bottom of the Money Pit

wasn't pirate treasure
but the lost crown jewels

of Queen Marie Antoinette
of France,

and he was joined
in this belief

by a -year-old man

who worked with him
on the island that summer:

Franklin D. Roosevelt.

I'm a grandson
of Franklin D. Roosevelt

and Eleanor Roosevelt.

FDR was adventurous,
to say the least,

and certainly he was influenced

by his grandfather,
Warren Delano.

He was very much
an adventuresome man, himself.

He would have mentioned

the treasure on Oak Island
to FDR.

And as a young man,
who wouldn't want

to search for a hidden treasure?

NARRATOR:
FDR's grandfather,

Warren Delano, Jr.,

was one of the wealthiest men
in the world,

having made his fortune
by smuggling opium

from China
to the United States.

Warren Delano
became an investor

in the Truro Company,

and his belief
in the island and its treasure

fueled the imagination
of his grandson.

FDR, he had no money of his own.

His mother had money
from her side of the family,

so the way for him

to escape his mother's
purse strings, if you will,

would to find
his own treasure.

NARRATOR:
In , Henry L. Bowdoin

ceased operations
on Oak Island.

But for Franklin Roosevelt,

Oak Island represented a dream

that he never really abandoned,

even after he became

the president
of the United States.

DAVID ROOSEVELT:
FDR continued his interest

well into the ' s and ' s

when he was president.

I hold here in my hands
a letter.

It's on White House stationery

dated August , .

It says, "Dear Mr. Hamilton,
your note came

"while I was on my cruise
in the Pacific.

"I wish much I could've gone
up the coast this summer

"and visited Oak Island and see
the work you are doing--

"for I shall always
be interested

in that romantic spot."

NARRATOR: Unfortunately,
Roosevelt's passion

for what he called
"that romantic spot"

ended with his death

from a cerebral hemorrhage
in .

But for M.R. Chappell,
who, like Roosevelt,

was a fellow Freemason,

the search for treasure
on Oak Island

was about to enter
a whole new phase.

What makes sense to me

is the theory that links it
to the Knights Templar

because the Masons derived
from the Knights Templar.

My grandfather became
a Grand Master of the Masons,

so I could see that as being
a real interest of his.

NARRATOR:
By ,

M.R. Chappell was now too old

to undertake
the hard work himself.

To that end,
he began negotiations

with a former daredevil
turned treasure hunter,

a man determined to solve

the Oak Island mystery
at all costs--

a man named Robert Restall.

NARRATOR:
In April of ,

Popular Science magazine
featured a story

that suggested
the treasure of Captain Kidd

might be buried on Oak Island.

The article
fired the imagination

of a man who believed
that taking chances

was what made life
worth living:

Robert Restall.

RANDALL:
Robert was a daredevil.

He was already working
with carnivals as a...

doing various stunts,
often on motorcycles.

NARRATOR: At the time,
Restall and his wife, Mildred,

had become famous throughout
Europe and North America

as stunt motorcycle performers.

There was a steel globe,

and, uh, Mum would ride
horizontally in the globe,

and Dad would join her,

and then he would loop.

And so they were going
at cross

And they were the first
to-to do a double act

in a globe of death.

NARRATOR:
But by the early s,

the couple had moved
to Ontario, Canada,

where Robert found work
in a steel plant

and Mildred was busy raising
the couple's three children,

Lee, Bobby Jr., and Rick.

He was a very,
very intelligent man.

He could fabricate things,
build things.

If something broke down,
he could fix it.

He was a mechanical genius,
basically.

NARRATOR:
But Robert Restall yearned

for his prior life
of adventure.

He wanted a future.

He wanted Oak Island.

DOUG:
Around ,

Robert came home one day
and announced

that instead of going back
to work in the steel plant,

he was gonna go
treasure hunting on Oak Island.

RANDALL: He got every single
available document, book--

you name it-- maps, charts,
and studied Oak Island.

It was his passion.

RICKY:
I saw them at the door,

and they had
all their stuff packed.

And they said,
"We're going to Oak Island."

And I was completely
flabbergasted.

NARRATOR:
On October , ,

Robert Restall
arrived on Oak Island

with $ , worth of equipment

and his wife and two sons
in tow.

Robert had convinced
M.R. Chappell

that he alone
could solve the mystery

and unearth the treasure

and that he could do it
within a year.

LEE: He knew
what the others had done

and where
they had fallen short.

Sometimes fortunes were wasted

because they didn't listen
to the workingmen

who'd been on the last project.

But Dad was going to
take everything

just the one step further,

and he really believed
he could do it

in about three months.

NARRATOR:
For the first few months,

life for the Restalls
was primitive.

There was no running water,
no electricity.

Because everything
from the mainland

had to be gotten by boat,

a simple trip
to the grocery store

could take the better part
of an entire day.

RICKY: Living conditions
were extremely primitive

but also wild
and kind of, uh, novel.

I mean, I was living in a cabin

on the beach with my brother.

My parents were living
in a cabin by the Money Pit

on the top of the hill.

NARRATOR: But if life was tough
for the Restalls,

it was perhaps toughest
for Bobby Jr.

He was years old
when he arrived on the island,

an age when most of his peers
were going to school dances

and dreaming of a future.

Instead, Bobby stuck
by his father's side,

helping with the hard work,

and keeping track of nearly
every day's progress,

or lack of it,

in a meticulously kept series
of journals.

"Wednesday, September , .

"Dad cleared off beach,

"and found drilled rock
at low tide line,

"about four feet from dock.

"Tuesday, June , .

"Worked in hole,

"found it to be
about inches across,

and possibly lined with stones
about five feet down."

LEE: When I first saw
Bobby's journals,

I was astonished that he
had been so diligent.

Right to the bitter end,
he kept that journal.

I think that

this is a huge legacy

for my family to leave.

I think that, uh,
it's amazing work.

NARRATOR: But as weeks
stretched to months,

and months into years,

life for the Restalls
became unbearable.

RICKY:
It was hard for the men

because very physical,

and very demanding work,

and there was no rest, really,
until you fell asleep.

My mother worked quite hard

and I was tired of living
in rubber boots.

NARRATOR: What Robert Restall
promised his family

would be an adventure,

turned into years of struggle

and back-breakingly hard work.

The length of the adventure
was the problem,

in the end, for both her
and myself.

It just never seemed to end.

NARRATOR:
By , Robert Restall

had invested five years
of his life,

and the lives of his family,

on a dream that had turned
into an obsession.

Because he never owned land
on the property,

he was constantly under
pressure to produce results,

or to leave empty-handed.

As far as he was concerned,

the treasure needed
to be found.

And time was running out.

CHARLES: It's very easy
to become obsessed here.

Robert absolutely believed

that he was close
to solving this.

So I feel that the treasure
is here

and that we can get it,

and we're going to stay here
until we do.

NARRATOR:
In the summer of ,

Robert Restall discovered
what he believed

was one of the original
flood tunnels

running under Smith's Cove.

If the water
in the flood tunnel

could be diverted
to another shaft,

access to the Money Pit
would finally be possible.

Digging a shaft feet deep,

Restall was convinced
that he was just days away

from finally solving
the Oak Island mystery.

But, unfortunately,
Robert Restall's dream

of finding the treasure was
about to become a nightmare.

On the th of August ,

Robert had said to his wife,
Mildred,

"I'm gonna check the pit
on the shore,

and then we're gonna go
into Chester."

DOUG: Robert walked down
to Smith's Cove

to take another look at the--
their current work,

and while he was looking
in the shaft,

he tumbled in.

Bobby quickly went to his aid.

He's, like, years old
at the time.

And he immediately clambers
down through the ladder,

and-and he's holding his
father's head over water

until he collapses.

And then it's just
a domino effect.

Carl Graeser, he goes down.

Cyril Hiltz,
who was years old.

It's just one right after
the other.

The only thought is, "save the
guy that went before me."

MILDRED: At the time,
I was up in the cabin,

and I know it was after lunch,

and I was expecting my husband
to come up any time.

And I waited a few minutes
and then went down,

and, um, by-by then,
it was all over.

And, um, I--
that's when I learned

that my husband, son
and two other men were dead.

DOUG: They had succumbed
to some kind of noxious gas

that had caused this tragedy.

Four people lost their lives
that day.

Robert Restall, Sr.,
Bobby Restall,

Cyril Hiltz and Carl Graeser.

NARRATOR: At the end of Bobby
Restall's meticulous journals,

he wrote the date
August , .

All that followed
were a number of blank pages.

It would be a symbol of a life
cut tragically short

and the promise of a treasure

that he and his father
would never find.

RICK: You know what?
I mean, we can't change this.

We can't do anything about it,
but I hope, perhaps,

on the end of this book, you and
I can fill in, here...

-excuse me... that we finish.
-Mmm. Well, that would...

Yeah, finish the search.

Let's make a promise.

Okay.

NARRATOR:
Eight months prior

to the tragic events
of August ,

the Reader's Digest published
a six-page story

about the search for treasure
on Oak Island.

This modest story fueled
the imagination of a man

who continues to have
a profound effect

on the island and its history

to this day, Dan Blankenship.

DAN B.: I first read
about Oak Island

in Reader's Digest.

In January of ' ,
when I read the article,

and I handed it back to my wife

and I said "There's treasure
on Oak Island,

and I'm gonna be instrumental
in discovering it."

DAVE: When Dad said,
"Well, I'm gonna take a trip

up to Nova Scotia,"

so I said, fine,
it's a road trip.

I'm , years old, it's cool.

NARRATOR: Over the next two
years, Dan would dissolve

a successful Florida-based
contracting company

so that he and his wife Jane

could pack up everything
they owned

and move to Nova Scotia.

Although Dan had had a brief
meeting with Robert Restall

just one week prior to
the fatal accident,

it was Dan's intention to join
forces with the next person

who was now in charge
of the treasure hunt,

Robert Dunfield.

A geologist from California,

Robert Dunfield had been
one of Robert Restall's

biggest investors.

SHARON:
Dad was continually exploring.

Dad would take Mom and I
out on exploring excursions.

Anywhere where Dad thought that
there might be something

that he could find.

NARRATOR: Robert Dunfield's
decision to take charge

was a way to protect
his investment.

It was also, he felt, a way
to honor the memories

of Robert Restall and those
who perished with him.

SHARON: The lives changed
through death,

that stayed with Dad.

But he never would have
stopped,

because he felt that with
the continuing of the dig,

he was honoring their memory.

NARRATOR:
After moving to Nova Scotia

with his wife Aleen,

Robert Dunfield was a man
on a mission.

There were only six months
remaining

on the Restall
treasure license, and he knew

that if he didn't find
the treasure within that time,

he might be squeezed out
by other would-be investors.

Going for broke,

Dunfield poured nearly every
nickel he had left

to bring heavy digging
equipment to the island.

After first creating
a -foot causeway

linking the island
to the mainland

for the first time
in its history,

he then tackled the Money Pit
head-on.

For the next several weeks,
he, and a team of workers

that included James Troutman,
Jimmy Kaiser,

and Dan Blankenship,

tried to reach the bottom of
the Pit

by digging an enormous hole,
feet wide

by an estimated feet deep.

His methodology was
big equipment,

move a lot of earth, and that's
how you get to the treasure.

But, unfortunately,
by doing so,

he obliterated a lot
of the landmarks

in the Money Pit area.

Now, had he found the treasure,
he'd have been a hero.

But that's not the case.

NARRATOR: Robert Dunfield left
Oak Island exhausted,

frustrated and nearly broke,

but his departure would soon
pave the way

for yet another generation
of treasure hunters.

Men whose tenure on the island

would last for more than
half a century.

NARRATOR: Within three months
of the departure

of Robert Dunfield
in August ,

a new trio of treasure hunters

took over the operations
on Oak Island:

Fred Nolan, David Tobias
and Dan Blankenship.

I thought at the time they were
going about it wrong,

but they insisted
on just staying

in the Money Pit area,
you know.

But I could see evidence
of fact

that people had done work

all over the island.

NARRATOR: Although David Tobias
and Dan Blankenship

would later form
the Triton Alliance,

and ultimately gain control
over most of the island,

Fred Nolan soon emerged

as not simply
a neighboring landowner,

but a fierce competitor.

Originally invited to Oak
Island by M.R. Chappell

as a land surveyor in ,

Nolan found that seven
of the four-acre lots

were not owned by Chappell,

and purchased them himself.

Nolan's claim
on precious acres,

including part
of the triangle-shaped swamp,

sparked a bitter feud
that would last for years.

Nolan, historically,

has gone
on Mr. Chappell's property,

and I didn't object
too strenuously at the time,

thinking I would
at least get copies

of what he was doing
on Chappell's property.

But I found out very quickly,

you don't get anything
like that from Nolan.

So, I mean, I found

that Mr. Nolan was
very deliberately evasive

over all the many years.

FRED: Dan Blankenship,
he was a nice guy, but, uh,

this place gets...
seems to get hold of people.

People become very possessive.

It made it difficult.

NARRATOR:
For the next five decades,

Fred Nolan spent
thousands of hours

scouring the surface
of Oak Island for clues

that he believed would point

to the treasure's
ultimate hiding place.

In the swamp,
he discovered several objects

that convinced him
that a large wooden ship,

possibly a pirate ship,

had been buried
underneath layers of mud.

He also believed
that the swamp was man-made,

formed by building
two enormous cofferdams

at both the north
and south shores of the island,

draining them, and then
filling them up with landfill

after the digging
at the Money Pit was completed.

But perhaps Fred Nolan's
biggest breakthrough

came in ,

with the discovery of what
he dubbed Nolan's Cross,

a curious collection
of six enormous boulders

whose dimensions are thought
to represent everything

from a Christian cross
to the Tree of Life,

as referenced
in ancient Hebrew scriptures.

The boulders forming this cross
are very large.

And I saw it was a cross.

There was no question
about that.

But what does it mean?

You know, I guess it takes you

to where one of the treasures
is located.

NARRATOR: But for all
the discoveries claimed

on Oak Island by Fred Nolan,

they were overshadowed
by the discovery

made by Dan Blankenship
in the early s,

after digging what he believed
was a back door entrance

into the fabled Money Pit,
-X.

-X is a shaft
that was engineered long ago

by Mr. Blankenship.

That was the breakup
of the Triton Alliance Company.

Mr. Tobias wanted
to focus on the Money Pit,

and Dan constructed -X.

NARRATOR: Dan Blankenship
dug -X without the help

of big rigs
and drilling caissons.

After first excavating
a -inch-wide borehole

down to a final depth
of feet,

Dan, wearing only
a simple wet suit

with a surface supply
of oxygen,

made the first perilous journey
downward

into what appeared to be
a man-made chamber.

There were pictures taken,

somewhat subjective,
but indicating

that there was man-made objects
in that cavern.

That's a game changer.

If there's man-made objects
at feet,

they were only there
because men put them there.

NARRATOR: Dan was astonished
at what he believed he saw,

evidence of ancient tools,

wooden posts,

a large square object
resembling a treasure chest,

even what appeared to be
the remains of a dead body.

Dan and his team believe
they were only a few feet away

from entering the Money Pit and
solving the Oak Island mystery.

Only one thing stood
in their way: money.

And to reach their goal,

they were going to need
a lot of it.

: When the January issue
of Reader's Digest

was published in ,

among the many readers
who were captivated

by the article on Oak Island

was an -year-old boy from
Michigan's Upper Peninsula,

Rick Lagina.

Something grabbed ahold of me.

And I took it home,

and I read it to my brother.

I'm . He's eight.

I mean, it's mystery, treasure.

You know,
the story of the boys, really,

I think that was the key thing.

These boys find this mystery

which evolves
into this Oak Island story.

years of story.

NARRATOR:
In ,

after decades
of unsuccessful search efforts,

Dan Blankenship's
business partner,

David Tobias, wanted out.

As a result,
% of Oak Island Tours,

the company set up by Tobias
and Blankenship,

was for sale.

And there was one man
in Michigan

who couldn't be more excited--

Rick Lagina.

In , Rick,

his brother Marty, and
their Michigan-based partners

made a deal that would make
them % owners

in Oak Island Tours.

But, believe it or not,

it was not the Laginas'
first attempt

to join the treasure hunt.

They had tried,
without success,

some ten years earlier.

-We sat on the other end of
the causeway. -To push our way

past that bloody causeway.
I mean, it was...

And there it was,
Oak Island, you know?

And I said,
"Okay, well, you go."

"No, you go."
-And I said, "You go."

And so we're sitting there,
like, you know, like kids again.

I said, "Just drive."

-So we went across.
-And so we... Yeah.

And then we ran into
Dan Blankenship.

He was cutting trees
in the woods,

felling trees for David's house.

So I get out and I start helping
him push down trees.

And he didn't say a word,

didn't stop the chainsaw,
just kept-kept after it, and...

Anyway, so it didn't...
it didn't work out.

And Rick was horribly
disappointed, I remember.

NARRATOR: But now the Laginas
and their partners

were finally in business
with Dan Blankenship,

and the search for treasure
on Oak Island was back on.

*

With his brother Marty
at his side,

Rick Lagina could finally apply
his lifetime of research

to solving
this centuries-old mystery.

Working with their close friend
and business partner

Craig Tester, along with
friends and family members,

the Laginas set out
to recap everything,

from washed-out roadways
to damaged relationships.

So, it's time to quit the
fighting and cooperate, right?

-It hasn't accomplished much.
-No.

Yeah, I don't want to be
an obstacle anymore.

Welcome to the team.

The Laginas and their partners

also built
a permanent visitors center,

which houses an invaluable
collection of artifacts

and memorabilia
related to the search.

But amid all
of the mysterious artifacts

and all the countless theories

about what may be buried
on Oak Island,

one fact is certain:

Oak Island is about family.

We're gonna put a time capsule
in the ground

at the bicentennial memorial.
I kind of wrote a little letter.

It's-it's to the people
that will open this,

and it's-it's to all of us.

It says,
"Dear Oak Island searchers,

"we have met so many gracious
and wonderful people,

"it is impossible to acknowledge
and thank everyone,

"though I would try.

"I especially wish to say to...

"my brother and friend that I--

"and I do not use the term
lightly--

I treasure this time
we have spent together."

-Oh, come on!

MARTY: You end up feeling
like you're part

of this series of families.

An individual first becomes
quite enamored of the island,

and then, because
they're part of families,

the family gets drawn in.

DIANA:
Oak Island becomes an obsession

for families who are a part
of the island history.

-Hi, Rick!
-Welcome back!

-Welcome back!

LEE:
Oak Island

managed to wheedle its way
into my heart.

Oak Island has
a very strong pull.

Yeah, I remember
the path we used

to come from the Money Pit area
down to Smith's Cove.

It's surprising
how small it looks now.

: Yeah,
everything looks smaller.

My family and I have a great,
uh, sense of pride

being part of the Ball family.

This is where it began.

It's just not the treasure

but it's the families' lives

that have been involved
in this hunt.

It's just incredible, eh?

SHARON: It's almost like
the island calls to you.

And even after you leave it,

you have this longing desire
to go back.

There he is. Hey, Daniel!

DAN B.: Anyone that has spent
as much time

on the island as myself,

they would like to be the one
that made the breakthrough.

But you have to

be willing to accept
a , -year-old kid

could come in
and make a breakthrough.

That's life.

Good.

Look what it says on that pipe.

"Dan's breakthrough."

It's transcendent, if you will.

Because there's
this commonality of search...

GARY: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa!

RICK: ...of attaining
a common goal...

-That's a cross.
-That's a cross.

...that it's easy to feel
like they're a part of us

and we're a part of them.