Serendipity and Curiosity Drive Author’s Discoveries

by Gary L. Pinkerton

Many people may think the life of one who writes about history involves highceilinged libraries and musty archives, but that is not the whole story. My life as an author is the story of what happens when you mix serendipity and curiosity with some tenacious, ground-level research.

In working on two published works and with two others coming next year, I have driven thousands of miles on back roads and walked the woods with landowners who may hold land crossed by an ancient trail. My research on a man who claimed to be the world’s greatest underwater treasure hunter led me to drive across the Mojave Desert to talk to a former hard hat diver in Arizona. Television programs on Texas Country Reporter and The History Channel highlight sto- ries I have told in my two books, Trammel’s Trace: The First Road to Texas from the North (2016) and True Believers: The Treasure Legend of Hendricks Lake (2017).

While researching the old road from the early 1800s, Trammel’s Trace, I learned about tales of Lafitte treasure at the bottom of a small lake along the trail near the Sabine River. My curiosity about that bit of folklore pulled me toward a group of men who believed the legend enough to search for the treasure in the 1950s and 1960s. Their story evolved into my second book, True Believers: The Treasure Legend of Hendricks Lake.

As with many similar legends, the reported treasure has never been found in 200 years of searches, attesting to the fact that “legend remains victorious in spite of history.” The treasure of Hendricks Lake became the focus of the first episode of “Beyond Oak Island” on The History Channel in 2020. With drama and backstory made for TV, the program focused on Lafitte himself and included a modern-day underwater search by a skilled diving team. With sonar and underwater metal detectors guiding the search, the divers found their determination renewed but did not turn up any treasure. A documentary about the treasure legend will also be released in early fall.

By actively engaging others who are interested in learning more about these histories through social media and speaking engagements, the support and interest in these stories has grown. In 2018, the Daughters of the Republic of Texas dedicated a beautiful Trammel’s Trace marker in Nacogdoches. In response to interest in the trail’s route across eight East Texas counties, I released a downloadable article, Finding Trammel’s Trace, A Guide to Roads, Ruts, Trails, and Swales, which connects the historic route to the current landscape and presents the trail via Google Maps.

Research on these projects has directly led to two other books set for publication in 2024. Bridles & Biscuits: The Contraband Culture of Spanish East Texas (Texas A&M University Press) explores the network of smuggling trails and contraband trade in the late 1700s near the end of the Span- ish era in Texas. While contraband of that period included guns, horses, and tobacco, the trade in petticoats, kitchen utensils, and deerskins was just as brisk.

Another work that was a direct outgrowth of the Hendricks Lake research is tentatively titled The Paper Diver: How the World’s Greatest Underwater Treasure Hunter Never Got Wet (McFarland Publishing). It is the story of Harry Rieseberg, an author and treasure faker whose many false claims included killing giant octopi and being chased by cannibals.

Doing research and writing stories that others might want to read are two very different tasks. The importance of story in being able to connect people to both the facts and the emotion of history is what drives me to become a better communicator and storyteller. Many people have their own stories to tell so my next efforts will focus on offering my services as a researcher, writer, and website designer to individuals and organizations who want to produce a finished work.

I’ve learned that history is like a tapestry. As life happens in real-time, that tapestry is finely woven into a multi-colored design of brilliant hues and varied textures. Over time, the tapestry begins to fray and fade. People forget how beautiful it once was. My interest in history results from pulling threads in that historic tapestry. Not every thread is still connected to something inherently meaningful or interesting but knowing that it could be is what fuels my ongoing research and a deepening appreciation of what might yet be discovered and shared with others.