Dungeon Rock Cave & Pirate Veal's Treasure

In Lynn Massachusetts once lived a man named Hiram Marble, and in 1852 Hiram had a vision. In this vision the spirit of Thomas Veal, a pirate who centuries earlier had fled into the Lynn woods after 3 of his cohorts were captured and hanged, told Hiram to dig inside a small cave in the Lynn woods and he'd become a rich man. Convinced this vision was real and the spirit was directing him to his hidden bounty, that year began Hiram's lifelong quest for the search of Pirate Veal's treasure.

Hiram moved into the woods where this cave existed, and for a while he actually lived inside it. Later he built a house at the bottom of the hill into which he moved his wife and son. In Hiram's search for the treasure he spent each day digging deeper and deeper into the cave, carrying out the rubble by hand. Even after many years passed without finding anything he was just stubborn enough, or crazy enough, to keep at it. He died in 1868 having spent the final 16 years of his life digging in vain.

That might have been the end of the search, but crazy didn't skip a generation in the Marble household. Hiram's son Edwin, who had already been helping out with the search, continued digging right where his father left off. In 1880 he too died unsuccessfully, and so ended a quest that had begun 28 years earlier and ended with a giant hole in the hill.

This hole still exists today and is now known as Dungeon Rock Cave. A steel door was installed at its entrance, however the door is opened for the public from 9am to 2:30pm every Tuesday thru Saturday. Access is free and only requires an easy hike of around half a mile to reach it. We made this hike on a steamy afternoon this summer, and after reaching the hill ascended via this neat little staircase cut into the rocks.

With a little bit of poking around it was easy to locate the cave, and we were pleased to find that sure enough, a park worker does actually make the trip out there each day to unlock the door. After triumphantly posing for pictures at the entrance Tina and I made our way in.

What I expected to walk into was a hollowed out cavern maybe the size of a small room, but what greeted us was an actual mine shaft, and quite a long one at that. We started our journey by descending this set of stairs someone so helpfully installed.

The cave wound back and forth throughout its entire length, never actually going in a straight line, which legend says was due to the spirit constantly "correcting" Hiram's direction. I estimated it's length to be between 100-150 feet, mighty impressive for 2 men to dig without using any machinery.

Nearing the end we felt the tunnel's ceiling getting steadily lower, and I could almost sense Hiram's, or at that point probably Edwin's, desperation to hurry up and dig farther and quicker as time ran short. The tunnel ended in an equally desperate manner, for the first time splitting into two directions and each continuing only a handful of feet at a crawlspaces height - a last ditch change of direction the son didn't quite have time to make.

We left that day thinking pretty much the same thing we did as when we started, poor old crazy Hiram Marble. We pitied him for wasting his life like he did. But later on we learned something about the man that got me wondering. While he was digging he would charge locals for tours of his tunnel, and additionally he sold bonds for a stake in the treasure once he found it. This subsidized his quest to continue doing what he loved, digging for riches, a desire he passed onto his son so strongly that his final wish was to be buried in the ground right outside the cave.

I'm typing these words on a beautiful summer day while stuck inside an office, finishing my lunch break so I can get back to earning my living shuffling papers around a desk. Hiram, on the other hand, earned his living by going on a life-long hunt for pirate's treasure.

Now I'm wondering if I've had it backwards all along. Perhaps it's Hiram who would have felt pity for me.