Editor’s Note: Jim Watson is the author of “Mysterious Island: Catalina,” available at Amazon, Kindle and in stores in Avalon. The following is “the second in a two-part series."
Having lost his treasure map overboard on his fateful trip across the channel, Samuel Prentiss found himself shipwrecked on Catalina’s West End. All he could remember about the map that had purportedly been given him by the dying Tongva Chief Turie was that it was buried “under a tree.”
Editor’s Note: Jim Watson is the author of “Mysterious Island: Catalina,” available at Amazon, Kindle and in stores in Avalon. The following is “the second in a two-part series."
Having lost his treasure map overboard on his fateful trip across the channel, Samuel Prentiss found himself shipwrecked on Catalina’s West End. All he could remember about the map that had purportedly been given him by the dying Tongva Chief Turie was that it was buried “under a tree.”
Unable (or unwilling) to return to civilization, Prentiss set about searching for this legendary treasure while supporting himself chiefly through hunting and fishing, at least during the early years when he had little company and consequently few people with whom to trade.
While searching for the buried treasure, Prentiss came across small yields of silver ore and even a few gold flakes now and then. In between searching for the legendary treasure, reportedly buried by pirates centuries before, he calculated he could at least earn some money on the side.
Not much is known about these years in Prentiss’ existence, but one can imagine seeing him swinging his pickaxe and scooping his shovel beneath the boughs of countless oaks and toyons.
What is known, however, is that Mr. Prentiss never did find his treasure. He passed away in 1854, and is buried in a simple grave beneath a simple headstone just outside of Two Harbors.
According to the legend, however, Prentiss’ secret did not die with him. He purportedly passed his secret on to a new character who entered the scene by the name of Santos Louis Bouchette.
Anyone familiar with the Two Harbors and West End area of the Island will recognize the name Bouchette as the name of the one of the mines in the area as well as name of the road that winds along the lee shore of that part of the Island. Now, Santos Bouchette was a little
more of a businessman than our friend Prentiss, who was content to be something of a drifter and loner; an “unlettered bachelor” as he was referred to years later.
Bouchette began a small-scale mining operation known under the Bouchette Small Hills mining claim while secretly searching for Turie’s lost treasure at his convenience.
Businessman Bouchette, in fact, went so far as to enlist the help of mainland financiers to aid him in his endeavors. With his ore assaying in at between $200 and $800 per ton, it was not difficult to get backers.
(One part of the legend says that a crafty Bouchette often “salted” his mines with gold dust and nuggets before treating potential investors to a tour. He would then conveniently “find” the gold while regaling the VIP with tales of the fortunes to be made.)
In just this manner, Bouchette went on for many years until his story takes a turn decidedly for the juicier with the introduction of a “lovely French dancer” he met on one of his junkets to the then-burgeoning Los Angeles metropolitan area.
Bouchette was smitten and, after marrying the young woman, brought her to the Island. Unfortunately for Bouchette, however, his new femme disliked Island life and longed to return to the bright gas lamps of Los Angeles.
Bouchette built a house at the Isthmus and endeavored to furnish it as lavishly as possible (with furniture and a plate-glass mirror imported from France) to keep his wife happy.
The strategy evidently worked and he settled down to married life at Johnson’s Landing.
In the background, mind you, Mr. Bouchette was continuously searching for the buried treasure, all the while presumably keeping it a secret from his workers, if not his wife.
Until the day came when, as the legend says, Santos Louis Bouchette and his wife, suddenly and without prior notification to anyone, packed up their belongings, loaded up a longboat and sailed away toward the mainland—never to be seen again.
Had Bouchette found Turie’s treasure? If so, had he only recently discovered it or had he found it long before, stowing bits and pieces of it away quietly so as not to alert his workers to his scam?Or perhaps Bouchette came up as empty as Prentiss had.
Perhaps he had simply tired of the life of a miner and—tired as well of being harangued by his wife—finally threw in the towel.
The world will likely never know, for the answer lies in a simple grave, beneath a simple headstone overlooking the sea on the West End of Catalina.
