Back in 1806 when this area was still in its primeval grandeur
and densely covered with deciduous forests, a 49 year old
Revolutionary War Soldier names Berzillai Yates and his wife Mercy,
along with his 93 year old mother Elizabeth, located here on Lot
23, and began to hack out an existence in the wilderness. They had
left their home in Medon Massachusetts and traveled here by oxcart
to establish Yates Settlement. This became a stagecoach stop. Other
buildings that had previously stood in this area were a general
store, a sawmill, and a Hotel which doubled as the stagecoach stop.
There are no remains of these buildings to been seen today and all
there is to remind us of this settlement is a small cemetery
perched above the Oatka Creek on its East bank.
There is an interesting bit of folklore connected to this area
that I was able to find out about after reading an account that was
published in a May 1950 edition of the Historical Wyoming Quarterly
magazine. It seems that during the heyday of Yates Settlement a
stage coach had stopped at the Hotel and had picked up the mail
shipment along with a large quantity of money that was believed to
have been kept in a sealed kettle, to be shipped to a neighboring
community. There were still many Indians lurking about the area in
those days and somehow they had received word of this money
shipment. Soon after the Stagecoach left the Hotel and traveled in
a southerly direction, several Indians sprang forth from the trees
and robbed the stagecoach. Word was sent back immediately to the
settlement and several men on horseback pursued the thieves and
overtook them a short distance from the site of the robbery. Before
the men arrived the Indians had managed to have secreted the money
in an unknown location along the way. The Indians never returned
for the “Pot of Gold” and to this day it is believed
that it is still out there waiting to be discovered just a short
distance south of this settlement.
This is located along a very busy highway, so please be very
careful when parking along the road and leaving and entering your
vehicle.
Park at: N42.40.616 W078.07.107 Please do not do any night
caching!
I would like to thank Harold Bush, Town Supervisor of the Town
of Gainesville, for allowing this cache to be placed and for
helping to bring the history of this area back to life.
Congratulations to Szuchie for being the first to find this
cache