Clinton County, Pa. — It’s like something out of a movie — a lost historic submarine, a buried treasure, and old legends. And at the moment, it’s all coming true.
Researchers may have discovered a prototype Civil War submarine in a river in New Jersey and are raising money to find out more. The Navy and Marine Living History Association has been looking for the prototype for 20 years and has recently discovered an anomaly in Rancocas Creek.
In the 1850s, a Frenchman from Philadelphia named Brutus DeVilleroi designed and built submarines. His prototype was a small one, named the Alligator Junior, which sank in Rancocas Creek. Then he went on to create the Alligator, a much bigger and more involved sub that was used during the Civil War.
The Alligator was named by a reporter because it bore a passing resemblance to an actual alligator. It sank off the coast of North Carolina in 1863. Researchers have been looking for both subs and may have recently made progress in New Jersey. The team is raising funds to acquire more equipment for the research, and donations can be made here.
This whole project ties into the history of northcentral Pennsylvania. DeVilleroi lived in Clinton County in the mid-1800s and owned considerable land in the area. He may have made much of the money for his submarine designs in Clinton County, though research hasn’t shown how he managed it.
In 1849, DeVilleroi bought land from a man named Elliot Cresson in Noyes and Keating Townships. He lived there for about a year-and-a-half, and governmental researchers have suggested he made the money for the submarines during this time. There is no record of DeVilleroi having family or personal money, and the government did not fund the project; DeVilleroi presented his submarine to President Lincoln after it was created.
One of the mysteries surrounding the Alligator is where the money came from. And the answer may lie in old legends and historic information.
The land that DeVilleroi owned dovetails with old legends of silver being discovered in the area. According to some of the stories, the Native Americans would disappear into the wilderness, and come back with packs full of silver to spend.
In fact, this legend is documented in John Blair Linn’s "History of Centre and Clinton Counties", one of the most reliable books for local historic information. Linn tells the story of a man named Grove, who returned to the area to follow up on a personal sighting of discovered silver. He writes, "A party of Indians with knapsacks and other bags passed by, and in a day or so returned with their bags heavily laden….While they were at supper he (Grove) from curiosity, examined one of the bags, and found it was filled with silver of a very superior quality.”
Grove searched for the silver, but never found it. Perhaps, however, DeVilleroi did.
DeVilleroi was undoubtedly intelligent; he was able to design working submarines and he put his occupation on the census as “natural genius.” He could conceivably have figured out where to find a vein of silver and taken enough to pay for his submarines. He wouldn’t even have had to sell it as a precious metal; silver is used in plenty of industries.
As researchers in New Jersey work on solving one mystery, another connected mystery lies within the forests of Clinton County. Maybe DeVilleroi discovered a cave of lost silver.
Maybe some of it is still there.
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