When I was a young boy at about age seven (1957) I used to watch the Disney’s Mickey Mouse club on television. This was at about 4:30 pm in the afternoon just before my Dad arrived home from work and just before the family sat down to eat dinner. The show had a special feature called the Hardy Boys “The Mystery of the Applegate Treasure” and a theme song that opened the show that went something like “Gold doubloons and pieces of eight pieces of eight Handed down to Applegate” with a dark tower showing on the television screen. I shall always remember how that song” pieces of eight pieces of eight “and how that show affected me to a point I had my mother dress me up like a pirate when Halloween came along. I couldn’t wait till the next week to see the show again. I still can see that tower and hear that song in my minds eye some fifty years later.
Unknown to me at that time two men were finding pieces of eight and other Spanish treasures like gold coins and emeralds in the ocean and on the beaches at two different places along the Fl
orida coast line a few years before. Their names are synonymous with Spanish treasure and pieces of eight. Their names are Kip Wagner and Art McKee. Art was diving and locating the Spanish treasure and pieces of eight along the Florida Keys. While Kip Wagner was unraveling the story behind the discovery of the pieces of eight along the beaches near Sebastian Florida, Kip worked for several years trying to unravel the story of the mysterious pieces of eight lying about and along the Florida coast line. He and a few of his friends started the real eight company in an effort to salvage the pieces of eight and other treasures. As Kip and company researched the source of the pieces of eight he found there had been a Sevier hurricane on July 30th and 31st in the year 1715. Twelve ships or galleons of the king’s plate or silver fleet had been involved and that eleven sunk or were destroyed off the coast of Florida between Sebastian inlet and Fort Pierce inlet. Many people had died that night and many people were stranded on the beach. Kip discovered one site were many people had camped after the hurricane and which later became the site of the Spanish salvers camp and is now the site of Mclarty museum just south of Sebastian inlet which is a must see for those interested in the 1715 treasure lost at sea and on the beaches that night. They keep a log of the treasures still being found on the beaches in the area.
Mel fisher joined the real eight company in and effort to find the treasure and pieces of eight and with in a few years found what he was searching for and later became very famous for finding the lost treasure ship Atocha west of Key West Florida. Mel fisher’s family owns salvage rights to all of the 1715 shipwreck sites to day and they own the Mel fisher museum located in Sebastian Florida. Many pieces of eight and other treasures such as emeralds as well as artifacts from the Spanish treasure galleons are on display at the museum. For those interested in the 1715 treasure sites you should visit the museum before you visit the beach area they will give lots of information concerning the sites of the shipwrecks
I have visited the site and looked for treasure my self but that day the only finds were small bits and pieces of the ship wrecks. I stayed at Disney’s Vero Beach resort which I thought was quite ironic. It was Disney’s show the hardy boys which got me interested in treasure hunting
AFTER HITTING THE REEF THE BREAK UP OF THE CAPITANA "SANTO CRISTO de SAN ROMAN
Y NUESTRA SENORA de ROSARIO del SAN JOSE" ALSO KNOWN AS "CORRIGANS WRECK SITE"
THIS GALLEON CARRIED ADMIRAL DON FRANCISCO SALMON THE HIGHEST RANKING
SURVIVOR OF THE 1715 PLATE FLEET DISASTER.
