In 1852, a prosperous Mississippi cotton planter named John Boggs decided that slave labor was immoral. He sold his holdings and moved to the Ozark Mountains, settling on a tract of land about ten miles north of Searcy, Arkansas. Being an industrious farmer, Boggs soon increased his fortune to $40,000. He always refused to sell any farm produce unless he was paid in gold, and it was this obsession that also caused him to keep all of his money on the farm.
In 1862, when the Civil War caused bands of straggling soldiers, of both armies, to run over and pillage his farm, Boggs decided to bury his money. According to his family, Boggs put his savings into fruit jars. One he filled with silver, and one he filled with gold coins. He decided to bury these in a freshly-plowed garden. Due to his fear of the soldiers and guerrillas, and its being after dark when he buried his coins, Boggs could never locate the money after the War.
For several years the old man could be seen digging where the garden had been and in surrounding areas, but so far as his neighbors ever knew, he never found any of the coins. The jars probably sank deeper than Boggs had anticipated. This would be a good spot, with permission, to use a deep-seeking metal detector.