"Thank you for sending us on this adventure,” was what they told me when they called to say they’d found the treasure. I hid it along the James River late last February when the book was released. I posted a new clue every 10 days or so: a total of 32 clues. The treasure was hidden behind a bush at Hollywood Cemetery’s mausoleum that overlooks the river. (The last phrase on the book’s page 125 identifies the location.)

Gabe and Lucas both grew up in the Richmond region. Gabe graduated from Wisconsin’s Northland College with a degree in Outdoor Education and is now an Environmental Educator for the James River Association. Lucas, a former JRA staff member, graduated from VCU with a degree in Religion and Environment. His LinkedIn page says, “Zen Monk, Writer, Poet, and Teacher.”

The history of the gold coin:

The Civil War’s “battle” of Elizabethtown, Kentucky took place on December 27, 1862. Confederate Gen. John Hunt Morgan traveled there with 3,900 men to destroy the L&N Railroad, the main artery for Union Troops moving south. He encountered Union Lt. Col. H. S. Smith with his 652 troops. Morgan’s troops surrounded the town and placed artillery on the cemetery hill. They destroyed the Elizabethtown garrison and the Federals surrendered. At some point during the War – perhaps during that engagement - an Elizabethtown resident hid a group of coins in a household chimney. The coins remained hidden until they were found by Mr. G. L. Hodges in 1920 when the house was demolished. Hodges gave at least one of the coins to his sister, Josie Fraser who passed it on to her son, Henry Earl Fraser and his wife, Edna Gower Fraser who eventually passed it on to her grandson: me! I’d saved it for a lot of years hoping to find an interesting use for it.