TREASURE HUNTERS

Evening Star, Issue 22460, 3 October 1936, Page 11

TREASURE HUNTERS

ALL HOPE GIVEN UP Another group of marine treasure hunters has given up the search for the British sloop of war de Braak, which, with its reputed £160,000 in Spanish gold now lying at the bottom of Delaware Bay, near Cape Henlopeu, has eluded salvagers for 138 years (says the ‘ New York Times ’). . . The Braak Corporation, which in 1933 was responsible for the most elaborate and well-equipped search ever made for'the sunken sloop, has decided to “ die a natural death.” ■ Randolph M'Cracken, aged 61, a butcher, living in Lewes, and a grandson of Gilbert M'Cracken, who piloted the sloop to her last anchorage on May; 31, 1798, and drowned with Captain Drew, his lieutenant, and 38 officers, seamen, and marines, was disconsolate when the news reached hint. His belief that ho would some day inherit the undersea legacy has never faltered. The spirits of those concerned in the salvage operations were high in November, 1932, when divers identified an old wreck as being of the same construction add era as that of the treasure vessel. The old Fire Island Lightship was bought, and .outfitted with the most modern salvaging devices, to resume operations here in the spring of 1933. But the bank holiday was declared, and people became afraid to' risk any sizeable capital, and so the lightship never steamed into the Delaware Breakwater. The Braak expedition divers brought many interesting relics to the surface, however, among them timbers from a ship’s frame, an iron chain plate,’ and both large and small hand-wrought copper spikes. The search lasted from July to _ No* vember 30 except for two interruptions, one caused by the' explosion and loss by fire of the 55ft wrecking launch Katie Dnrm in the ocean near Rehoboth Beach., Tens of thousands of dollars were spent on the expedition. Last summer a group of sportsmen, from Providence, headed by Richard T. Wilson, working under the direction of Charles N. Colstad, of Attleboro, Massachusetts, made a preliminary search. Satisfied that they had found the location of the sloop, which was only 125 ft long and had a ,30ft beam, they chartered the former Boston pilot schooner Liberty, and returned to Lewes in the late summer. Stormy weather and an unseasonably early fall called a halt. Both Colstad and Wilson stated that they would return late in spring to raise the vessel if possible. The summer is partly gone, but there is still no sign of a salvage vessel,