HAS A PRIVATE BANK!

SEIFERT

Posted By: David (email)
Date: 2/7/2005 at 16:14:59

The Chariton Leader, Chariton, Iowa
Thursday, November 7, 1907

One business man of Chariton informs the Leader that he is not in the least
affected by the action of the banks on withholding currency from circulation
as he has a banking system of his own, which has been in vogue since the
panicky days of 1893. he says his reserve is safe and he has plenty of
money to spend while others are at the mercy of conditions.

On a Friday night, in the dark of the moon, eleven years ago, he purchased a
monkey stove and with a shovel under the other arm, went alone two miles up
the creek. There in a clump of sumac he dug a hole in Mother Earth, in
which he buried the monkey stove. In the monkey stove he deposited his
surplus coin. He has been regularly visiting this "bank," depositing and
withdrawing currency as his business demanded. He has now something like
$20,000 in the vault, which amount would seem a fortune but he says when a
fellow gets $20,000 in a hidden monkey stove he has a desire to accumulate
that much more. He deposits nothing but gold and silver coin and has a gas
pipe running into the monkey stove for that purpose, but when he desires to
make a "run" on the deposits he is compelled to use the shovel.

He only visits the spot at certain intervals and therefore the vault is
protected with a kind of time lock. The pale moon has to reflect a dog
eared shadow from the arched limb of a certain buckeye tree before he can be
guided to the spot -- and this at a certain time after midnight. He don't
mind telling all these things from the simple fact that he defies anyone on
earth to find the place but himself. He says he has been often shadowed by
bank robbers and highwaymen but it is one of his chief pleasures to see them
baffled. When he starts out in the gloaming with his shovel he walks boldly
with the left hand button on the back of his coat tail pointing directly
toward the north star and his first ten steps are on a parallel with the
tropic of Capricorn. Next he whistles for his two headed dog and then all
vanish in a different direction from that expected. There is no rabbit foot
about this -- just cold deliberate calculation.
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Copied by Nancee(McMurtrey)Seifert
Janaury 12, 2005
iggy29@rnetinc.net