There have been many stories on swift legions and all have some truth to them. It is my opinion to find this treasure, is to take a little bet from each story and add them together. There are hundreds of these stories, and to read them all would take a lifetime. So here is one that came from a magazine called Kentucky Heritage.
Swift's Silver Mine
I suppose there is no part of the mountains of Kentucky that has not had some experience in the search for this Silver Mine. Last summer (1921) I was on the train going from Pineville to Harlan, when some one on the train pointed out to me a large cliff on the opposite side of the river that had recently been partly blown away in search f or silver of this mine. It came out in the conversation, that some man had come here, probably from the west, and with maps in his possession had located the mine here. He spent much money, time and labor in the futile attempt to disclose it in the cliff.
James Renfro lived at the Cumberland Ford in the early days, 1821 to 1832, and it has been said that the Journal of Swift was left with Mrs. Renfro after the death of her husband. The Renfros came from Virginia, but it may be that another Renfro family figured in the possession of the Journal. Mr. Low doubts that Swift was ever in Bell County. However, I think it probable that Swift never left any money here as he claimed, but evidently he came here searching for silver. Collins says: "In 1754-55, while making geological investigations in the southeastern part of Kentucky, as part of the official survey ordered by the State, Prof. David Dale Owen examined the supposed location of the notorious Swift Mine, on the north side of Log Mountain, only a few miles from Cumberland Ford then in Knox County, now Josh Bell or rather Bell County. The Indians are said, in former times, to have made a reservation of 30 miles square, on a branch of Laurel Fork of Clear Creek. Benjamin Herndon, an old explorer, and a man well acquainted with the Country, guided him to the spot where the ore was supposed to be obtained by the Indians, and afterwards by Swift and his party."
"Judge John Haywood, who emigrated from North Carolina at an early day to Tennessee, and years after, in 1823, wrote it's earliest settlement up to the year 1796, says of this locality: "'Cumberland Mountain bears N 46 E; and between the Laurel Mountain and the Cumberland Mountain, Cumberland River brakes through the latter. At the point where it breaks through, and about 10 miles north of the state line, is Clear Creek, which discharges itself into the Cumberland, bearing northeast till it reaches the river. It rises between the Great Laurel Hill and Cumberland Mountain; it's length is about 15 miles. Not far from its head rises also the south fork of the Cumberland, in the State of Kentucky, and runs westwardly. On Clear Creek are two old furnaces, about half way between the head and mouth of the creek-first discovered by hunters in the time of the first settlements made in this country. These furnaces then exhibited very ancient appearances; about them were coals and cinders, as the have no marks of the rust which iron cinders are said uniformly to have in a few years. There are also a number of the like furnaces on the south fork, bearing similar marks, and seemingly of very ancient date. One Swift came to East Tennessee in 1790 and 1791; and was at Bean's Station, on his way to that part of the country near which these furnaces are. He had with him a journal of his former transactions-by which it appeared that in 1761, 1762, and 1763, and afterwards in 1767, he, two Frenchmen, and some few others, had a furnace somewhere about the Red Bird fork of Kentucky River-which runs toward Cumberland River and mountain, northeast of the mouth of Clear creek.
He and his associates made silver in large quantities, at the last mentioned furnaces; they got the ore from a cave about three miles from the place where his furnace stood. The Indians becoming troublesome, he went off; and the two Frenchmen went towards the place now called Nashville, Swift was deterred from the prosecution of his last journey by the reports he heard of Indian hostility, and returned home-leaving his journal in the possession of Mrs. Renfro. The furnaces on Clear Creek, and those on the south fork of the Cumberland, were made either before or since the time when Swift worked his. The walls of these furnaces, and horn buttons of European manufacture found in a rock house, prove that Europeans erected them. It is probable therefore that the French-when they claimed the country to the Alleghenies, in 1754 and prior to that time, and afterwards up to 1758-erected these works. A rock house is a cavity beneath a rock, jutted out from the side of the mountain, affording a cover from the weather to those who are below it. In one of these was found a furnace and human bones, and horn buttons supposed to have been a part of the dress which had been buried with the body to which the bones belonged. It is probable that the French who were with Swift, showed him the place where the ore was."
Mr. William Low, of Pineville, in his letter of October 29,1921, has this to say of Swift's Journal. "I asked Mr. Gibson (Frank Gibson, son of J. J. Gibson) about Swift's Journal. Some one told him that there was such a document, but I doubt the fact myself. I never heard of such a document (in fairness to Mr. Low I might say here that he was not reared in this section but came here as a young man) and I have heard a great deal about Swift's Silver Mine. This mine has been searched for in every county in Eastern Kentucky and personally I very much doubt whether there ever was such a mine, or that any silver was ever obtained from a mine in Kentucky. Years ago it was supposed that this mine, or at any rate a silver mine had been found on Clear Creek, and a company of native citizens, John I. Partin and other parties, and some others whose names I have forgotten, secured patents and organized what they called a mining company, but nothing was ever discovered, in the way of silver ore on this land. I have understood that about Fernadale years ago some persons thought that silver existed and some work was done towards opening a mine at that place, but no silver existed. Since I have been in Bell County, there have been a number of persons here from other places searching for Swift's Sliver Mine because every place where it was thought silver existed was at once claimed to be the place where Swift claimed he found the mine. I doubt if ever Swift was in Bell County. There is an old survey located in Lether County which calls or survey made by Swift, but so far as I know no silver was ever discovered on Swift's survey.'
Mr. Connelley says; "But the important question is not whether or not these mines had any existence in fact, but whether Eastern Kentucky was visited and explored during the ten years from 1760 to 1770 by Swift and his companions. There is good reason to believe that Swift and his associates visited Eastern Kentucky, as is affirmed in Swift's Journal. The fact does not rest solely on either the journal or tradition, nor on any combination of the two. It is based to some extent at least on statements of some o the best and most careful historical writers of the time."
"In 1769 the company left Mundy's house on the 16th day of May and went by New River and Cumberland Gap."
"Whatever may be the facts concerning Swift's mines it is certain there were mahny expeditions made to Eastern Kentucky by men in pursuit of hidden minerals long before the central portion of the State was settled."
It appears from these quotations that the Swift mine an journal just form one o those chapters in the history of the early explorations of Eastern Kentucky. As such they are important, in fact these men show by these that they explored Eastern Kentucky shortly after Doctor Walker came here and long before the other parts of the State were settled.
The silver deposits may be all a myth, but, as such, they form the one great folk-tale of the mountains since white men came here. As such the story will live for a thousand years. Every section of the mountains has a somewhat varied story ( as all fold-stories are and should be) of this mine. The one current in Bell County, at the time I grew up there as a boy, is told in the first poem "Swift's Silver Mine' in my book, "'The Pinnacle and Other Kentucky Mountain Poems." The opening stanza goes like this;
"The silver mine of Swift,--
A fine will-o'-the-wisp
Left in heroic age
For vision of the sage
With reas'n bereft?
This states, more or less, what I believe about Swift's mine. But the next stanza denies this and the following ones tell the traditional story as I had heard it from my youth.
Did Swift visit Bell County, not that he left money here, is the question. Did he help explore this section of country? If not, why does Judge Haywood say he come to Red Bird ( the head waters of which are in Bell County), in company with two Frenchmen, and worked a mine there? If these mines on Clear Creek ( all in Bell County) were of French origin, then did not these Frenchmen with Swift know about them? Isn't it reasonable to believe that they visited them since they were on Red Bird only about a day's journey from them? If not, why does his journal (as given by Mr. Connelley) mention the fact that he came from Mundy's in (Eastern Tennessee) to quotation from Mr. Low[s letter, in which it was stated that on old patent in Letcher County called for a patent by Swift, shows beyond a doubt that Swift visited Eastern Kentucky.
Whether or not Mrs. Renfro, of the Cumberland Ford Settlement, is the Mrs. Renfro mentioned as receiving the original journal I do not know. It is easy enough to get names of the same kind, in different places near each other, mixed. It maybe that this is a case of mistaken identity.
Swift was an Englishman and it may be that he had some connection with their piracies along the coast. If so, he might have been hiding some money taken in these raids. Then, too, he could have been a counterfeiter who obtained his silver elsewhere and smelted it here. Mrs. J. A. Watson, Elgin, Pulaski County, Kentucky, is authority for the statement that somewhere near Pulaski County recently a man whom she knows, while digging a mill race, found $40,000.000 in English gold which he turned in to the State treasury, subject to claims that might arise for the treasure. Is this one of the Swift mines?
The mountain people in the past have been good subjects for the creation of this folk-tale, since no mines have been found that we can trace to Swift. They lived for a century far from railroads in a wilderness mountain country. They made a living, a bare living in many instances, by the hardest of work. People in this condition dream of wealth and luxury. The story of Swift fell into the fertile soil of their dreaming minds and became fixed there as a fact. After it became fixed, and no mines could be found, then reasons were invented to account for not finding the silver. Hence, dark caves with heaped-up silver guarded by demons, great kettles of silver deep down in the ground protected by league of devils, and many other stories grew up around this tradition. What better modern folk-tale could we have?
Written By: Henry Harvey Fuson, published in Kentucky Progess Magazine VOL. III December, 1930, NO. 4.