History & local legend
Nineteenth-century folklorist Charles M. Skinner recorded a buried-treasure story near Wernersville in Berks County. In his account, outlaws of the Doan gang hid a chest of stolen gold at a place called Indian Gap. Witches guarded it, driving would-be treasure hunters away with a roar and a burst of blue flame.
Local farmers paid a practitioner known as a hex layer fifty cents for help. He showed them a vision of the treasure and told them where to dig. The witches would leave their posts at midnight, giving the farmers a chance to recover it. The difficulty was that his advice never specified which midnight. The treasure remained beyond their reach.
Sources
- Charles M. Skinner, Myths and Legends of Our Own Land, Other Buried Wealth
- Digitized edition of Skinner, Indian Gap paragraph
- Uncharted Lancaster, Michael Paul Henson’s later account of the Doan treasure near Wernersville
- Heidelberg Heritage Society, Wernersville station and access to the local mountain region
- Berks History Center, the station as the arrival point for South Mountain
