“Nicholas Boswein, while plowing his field near Lombardville Monday turned up an old-fashioned iron dinner pot, with the lid on, and which contained old Spanish coin to the amount of $3,000. It had the appearance of having been buried a long time.”

“Persons who are wise in such matters think it is treasure buried by Henry Thomas[/efn_note]On March 6, 1846, he was hanged on a gallows before the front door of the Old State Capitol building for the murder of Fred Edwards.[/efn_note] and his gang, over fifty years ago. Thomas was a noted robber and murderer, and was hung at Chillicothe for killing a man2 at Bourneville, Ross county, the deed having been done while in the act of robbing the man’s store. Thomas was well known here, and on his final trial witnesses from Portsmouth were summoned and went to Chillicothe and testified. For years it was believed that he had hidden treasure somewhere near Portsmouth, and the writer remembers when a small boy of hearing larger boys, and even men, talking about it, and seeing them digging for it. The money couldn’t have been the plunderings of the celebrated Murrell gang, nor that of Joseph T Hare, for the former operated in the West and South, and the latter in the East. It couldn’t have been the booty of Captain Kidd, ‘as he sailed,’ for that cheerful navigator never sailed this far inland.”
“The Times makes no charge for identifying the swag, but we think Mr. Boswein might make a fair divide.”3
- (1844) Murder! $500 reward. A reward of $500 will be given for the apprehension, and safe delivery in the jail of Chillicothe of the murderer of Frederick Edwards, committed at Bourneville, Ross county, O. on the night of the 19th of Nove
. [Pdf] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/rbpe.137001da/. - Frederick Edwards
- Hidden Loot. (1890, October 11). Portsmouth Times, p. 1.