Captain James Anderson (c.1748-1796) was a Maryland sea captain who took the American patriot's oath in 1776, defected to the British in 1778, was charged with high treason by Virginia Governor Thomas Jefferson, escaped to Nova Scotia, and lived on Oak Island from 1785 to 1788 as the owner of Lot 26 before selling to Samuel Ball.

Read the full article, with its sources, at https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/captain-james-anderson-the-pirate-who-lived-on-oak-island

Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, holds Oak Island on its southern shore. The Mi'kmaq called the bay Sebetre and Mush-a-Mush. The French administered it for sixty-five years as Mirligueche, surveying it for naval oak under Louis XIV in 1684 and granting it as a seigneury to Captain Pierre Denys de Bonnaventure in 1702. The name Mahone Bay first appears on a 1736 British chart by Captain Thomas Durell.

Read the full article, with its sources, at https://thecurseofoakisland.com/island/mahone-bay-history-of-the-waters-that-hold-oak-island

Oak Island is a small island off Nova Scotia, Canada, where people have dug for more than two hundred years in search of something buried beneath it. Discovered in 1795 as a strange depression with man-made oak platforms below, the Money Pit has never given up its secret. The search continues today.

Read the full article, with its sources, at https://thecurseofoakisland.com/the-record/start-here

Season 13 of The Curse of Oak Island did something the show had not quite managed before. Independent scientific methods (carbon-14 on swamp leather, archaeoastronomy on Lot 5, binder analysis on the Lot 8 cradle, and a Portuguese coin authenticated to no later than 1371) converged on the medieval window.

Read the full article, with its sources, at https://thecurseofoakisland.com/the-record/oak-island-s13-medieval-case

Daniel McGinnis discovered evidence of a previously excavated shaft on Oak Island around 1795. He recruited John Smith and Anthony Vaughan to help dig, and they found oak log platforms at regular intervals before stopping at roughly 30 feet. The earliest published sources disagree on nearly every detail of the discovery, including who McGinnis was, what he found, and who helped him.

Read the full article, with its sources, at https://thecurseofoakisland.com/hunt/the-real-daniel-mcginnis-of-oak-island

Captain William Kidd is the name most closely linked to the origin of the Oak Island legend. A dying sailor's confession, first recorded in 1863, placed treasure worth two million pounds on an island "east of Boston." Kidd is the only major pirate known to have buried treasure, confirmed by recoveries from Gardiners Island in 1699. Four maps found hidden in furniture attributed to Kidd between 1929 and 1934 depict an island some believe resembles Oak Island, while 17th century coins recovered on the island during the television series fall within his operating period. Whether Kidd acted alone or in partnership with Henry Every, the "King of Pirates," the tradition connecting him to Oak Island is the oldest and most persistent of all the theories.

Read the full article, with its sources, at https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/captain-kidd-and-the-hidden-maps

Four independent researchers have decoded what they believe are hidden directions to Oak Island within Shakespeare's published works. Petter Amundsen found a celestial map in the 1623 First Folio pointing to the island via the star Deneb. Drilling at the Money Pit has since recovered parchment, leather bookbinding, and cotton rag paper from depths exceeding 150 feet.

Read the full article, with its sources, at https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/william-shakespeare-the-lost-works

Samuel Ball was a formerly enslaved man from South Carolina who settled on Oak Island around 1787 and eventually owned nine lots totaling thirty-six acres, more than any other individual. In the 1870 first edition of DesBrisay's History of the County of Lunenburg, Ball was named as one of the three discoverers of the Money Pit. He was replaced by Anthony Vaughan in the 1896 second edition without explanation.

Read the full article, with its sources, at https://thecurseofoakisland.com/theories/samuel-ball-the-unlikely-landowner