US State Urban Legends

Virginia Urban Legends

An urban legend starts like a campfire game of "telephone". One person whispers something to another, which person passes it on and so the story grows until finally, it's become larger than life with only shreds of truth. But for some reason, we are drawn to these legends and too often, we don't even care if they're true, because let's be honest, fiction is usually more fun than fact.

In Virginia, there are many urban legends that have circulated throughout the years. Vampires in Richmond, gorillas on the loose outside of Lynchburg and buried treasure in Bedford. And whether these stories are backed by solid evidence or they have simply grown from a seed of truth over the years, they are still fascinating to tell.

Here are just a few of the more interesting stories we found circulating around Virginia....

The Beale Treasure – millions in gold buried on a farm in Bedford

Ok, all of your treasure hunters out there. Tell me what you know. Word on the street is that Thomas Jefferson Beale and a team of 30 men unexpectedly discovered a mother lode of gold and silver in Colorado. Sometime around 1819 – 1821, Beale buried the treasure, estimated to be worth millions, in Bedford County at what is now the site of Johnson's Orchard. After burying the treasure, Beale and his party set out on another expedition. Knowing their trip would be dangerous, Beale left three coded messages in a locked box with Robert Morriss of Lynchburg. Beale made Morriss promise that he would use the key that Beale would mail to him at a later date to decipher the codes if 10 years passed with no word from Beale or his men. The first code contained the treasure's exact location, a second code described the contents and the third named the members of Beale's 30-man party along with their next of kin. 10 years came and went and the key never arrived. To date, only the second cipher has been broken and the treasure's whereabouts remain a mystery.