“Stories of buried gold” in Penetang

The Toronto Star’s July 22, 1921 article, Strange Old Legends Surround Penetang, chronicles the region’s vibrant and resilient Métis community—“distinct in habits and privileges, and fiercely resentful of intrusion on either”—including several of its “virile and thrilling” residents and enduring legends, like “stories of buried gold.”

As recounted in Strange Old Legends Surround Penetang, “There is a story of a mysterious Englishman, who appeared from nowhere and fell victim to the charms of [George] Gordon’s wife.”

That wife was Agnes Landry, an Upper Great Lakes Métis woman from Drummond Island, who according to historian A.C. Osborne was, “long admired as the ‘Belle of the Island’ and entitled by common consent the ‘Beauty of the Lake’”. Together, Agnes and George Gordon established the “first permanent settlement at Penetanguishene”—later known as Gordon’s Post or Gordon’s Point—building the first house that would eventually form “the nucleus of the small town.”

The legend continues that, “the English lover left for England broken-hearted after giving the woman he desired in vain a box of English sovereigns which their beautiful recipient promptly buried in the forest behind the clearing” at Gordon’s Post.

However, Gordon soon “deserted the thriving trading post he established and moved inward along the bay”, leaving his former homesite at Gordon’s Point to be reclaimed by nature.

As the story concludes, “There the point stands to-day, thick with pine and spruce and maple… And somewhere in its shaded depths lie buried gold… which no one can either find or explain.” The mystery of Agnes Gordon’s buried gold remains unsolved to this day.

See Our Sources

• “Strange Old Legends Surround Penetang”

• The Migration of Voyageurs from Drummond Island to Penetanguishene in 1828

• Old Penetanguishene : Sketches of its Pioneer, Naval and Military Days

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