RANSOM LADD/SAGAMORE INDIAN?? In 1960, when Ray and I visited Dexter, Mo, in an effort to find out about our Ransom, we stopped by the home of Vida Oliver, daughter of Robert Lee Ladd, youngest son of Ransom and Jane Neal Gaines Ladd. She told us the following: About 1947 a large black Cadillac drove up in front of Robert's home. A number of Indians from Oklahoma emerged and went to the door. They wanted to talk to Robert about a inscribed stone that their ancesters had left in the campground located there when they were moved to Oklahoma as part of the annexation of Native Americans. Robert took the men to the area that had been the Ladd farm (also the Sagamore campground). They looked for the stone that was supposed to have had an inscription pointing to a hidden treasure. They did not find it in any of the fields. As they were talking in the barnyard, one of them noticed it in the foundation of the barn. That ended the search. Since then, an avid Ladd researcher, Nelson Price of Imperial Beach, CA, went there with Harry Norman (also a distant cousin and now deceased) to see if they could find the stone. When they arrived at the farm, the barn had been raised and was nothing but a pile of rubble, but they found what they thought might be the stone. They sent it to an artifact's expert, but he determined that nothing was there. What happened to the stone? What happened to the hidden treasure? To my knowlege, no one knows. The area that was the campground in the early 1820s, and the Ladd farm in later times, is still being actively farmed. It is in a beautiful setting outside of Dexter. Submitted by: Laverne Papworth Sept 3, 1999 Any further discussion here would be most welcomed!!! -Misty-
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