
DATE: Wednesday, June 11, 1997              TAG: 9706110444

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS and ROY A. BAHLS, STAFF WRITERS 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:  106 lines

IT'S NOT JUST MACARTHUR CENTER'S DEVELOPERS WHO SEEK GOLD AT SITE

Each afternoon when the big yellow backhoes and pile drivers grind to a halt, the dream-seekers take over at the MacArthur Center mall construction site.

Drawn by rumors of buried treasure, a handful of searchers with pointed shovels patiently skim long-handled metal detectors across the turned-up earth, listening for the telltale metallic hum.

Some stay into the night. A few even sneak into the padlocked site.

They're ``finding lots of coins, mostly large cent pieces,'' said Mike George of Chesapeake, digging for bottles one recent evening. He's been coming to the site for a year.

``I even heard from a construction superintendent that a worker found a box full of gold coins. It was right over there,'' he said, pointing toward a spot near the southeast corner of the site. ``He said the city confiscated it. I don't know if it's true or not.''

John ``Rooster'' Barrett, project supervisor for Sordoni Skanska Construction Co., said Tuesday that no gold coins had been found by workers.

There are other intriguing tales circulating, and more denials from officials.

Amy Yarsinske, president of the Norfolk Historical Society, said she'd recently gotten an anonymous phone call giving details of a Masonic clay pipe, George II gold coins and Dutch wine bottles that had been found by construction workers.

And Margaret Elinsky, director of the Hunter House Victorian Museum, said she'd heard through the historical grapevine that boxes of 19th-century ladies' shoes had been unearthed within the perimeters of the site in or near the foundation of an old millinery shop.

But Dennis Richardson, manager of design and construction services for the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority, said no artifacts have been found since work began.

As evening shadows lengthened one recent evening, Andy Morris, a lawyer from Norfolk, showed off two pre-Civil War buttons and another marked ``The Ferries Co.'' with the picture of a ferry, dated 1909-1919. He also had a large U.S. cent and a foreign coin, all found at the site.

George jumped down into a trench, scraped at the horizontal layers of earth and held up a few white pottery shards with blue designs.

``We find pottery, coins, buttons, bones and oyster shells. And over here a foundation,'' said George, pointing to a brick wall peeking out of a pile of dull brown earth.

All around the site, big chunks of red-orange brick walls are uplifted. They look like pieces of layer cake held together by white icing.

``They are going to pull out ceramics, spoons and knives, cutlery and bottles. Those artifacts are in the ground,'' said Kay Simpson, a senior archaeologist for Louis Berger and Associates, with offices in Richmond. She directed one of the test digs at the MacArthur Center site.

``There are a lot of objects that are there. Obviously.''

Simpson said a cistern containing a large number of early bottles was found during that exploratory dig, ``probably the most interesting and intact feature.''

Construction workers have said over the last two weeks that they have not found much. Only one knew of a discovery, and that was second hand.

Mud from recent rains was all but gone from the site as Fletcher Mitch laid pipe along the eastern edge Tuesday morning.

``I been looking, but ain't found anything,'' he said. ``For real, I wish I could have.''

Harold Rose, of Norfolk, was taking a break near the southern edge of the site. He said he'd heard of one fellow who'd unearthed a gold coin. And the buried treasure chest? ``That rumor keeps going around,'' he said, and laughed.

John Barnak, an inspector for NRHA, said no discovered artifacts had been brought to his attention. And Paul Lyman, inspector for the city, said, ``I thought we should be finding stuff . . . it would be kind of late now.''

Roy Hill, a concrete worker for Armada Hoffler Construction Co., said he didn't know of any discoveries made by workers and hadn't been told what to do if anything was found.

Yarsinske said the clay pipe was said to have been discovered in the foundation of a tavern burned during the Revolutionary War. The Masonic order came to Norfolk in 1729, and the temple that once stood on Freemason Street was the second oldest in the country, she said.

She is trying ``under the table'' to obtain the coins, Dutch wine bottles and the pipe.

Yarsinske said other items that might be found include fragments of buildings, toys and animal bones.

Peggy Haile, local historian and head of the Sargeant Memorial Room at Kirn Memorial Library, synopsized the history of the site:

``It was 1680 when King Charles II of England commanded that 50 acres of land be purchased in each Virginia county and laid out for a town and storehouses. But it wasn't until 1682 that the purchase of land became official and the deed was recorded. Norfolk was incorporated into a city in 1845.''

The eight-block area on the outskirts of the city's original plot has seen many changes in 300 years. As it developed, the area flourished with its many streets, brick buildings, small stores, factories, apartments, homes and warehouses. The post-war urban renewal project that began in 1958 turned the site where the MacArthur Center will go into a parking lot. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

ROY BAHLS/The Virginian-Pilot

Among artifacts reportedly found at the site are a bottle, left;

coins; a button marked with a ferry, center; and pottery shards.

ROY BAHLS/The Virginian-Pilot

An old foundation juts out from a mound of dirt near the edge of the

MacArthur Center mall building site in downtown Norfolk. In the

evening, after workers leave, the property becomes a hunting ground

for people intent on finding artifacts and treasures, maybe gold.