Ike Buzzard’s Buried Cache on South Mountain

Somewhere on the wooded slopes south of Womelsdorf, at the base of South Mountain, beyond Lancaster County’s apex, beneath a stone large enough to remember, 3,500 copper pennies are waiting to be found.

They were hidden there in 1883 by one of Lancaster County’s most restless and determined outlaws, Isaac “Ike” Buzzard. Unlike so many tales of buried treasure, this one does not come from rumor or hearsay. It comes from Buzzard himself, written plainly in his autobiography, The Criminal Life of Isaac M. Buzzard: A True and Complete History of His Life, from Boyhood to the Present Day, published on February 14, 1897.

It is not a polished memoir. It is not apologetic. It is a blunt, often startling first-person account of a Lancaster County outlaw who spent much of the 1870s and early 1880s robbing stores, cracking safes, stealing teams, escaping jail, and repeatedly retreating into the Welsh Mountains.

He begins with a blizzard.

In December 1869, at fifteen years old, confined to a room at the Mt. Joy Soldier’s Orphan School for the crime of kissing a girl through a fence, he tore his bedclothes into strips, fashioned a rope, and slipped from a second-story window into a winter storm. He walked twenty-seven miles without food before finding work on a farm in the Welsh Mountains, where he remained for three years.

Then, by his own admission, he chose the crooked life because farm work was too quiet.

The pattern that follows is relentless. Wheat stolen from Samuel Buckwalter. A fifteen-month sentence in the Lancaster County jail. Release in April 1874. Within weeks he is boring through a store door near Cambridge and passing out ready-made clothing. Soon he is hauling safes from railroad stations, studying lock mechanisms, and blowing iron doors with confidence that borders on arrogance. He travels through Bird-in-Hand, Colebrook, Oxford, Cochranville, Derry, Clay, Ephrata, and beyond. When necessary, he steals horses and wagons for transportation, turning them loose afterward and insisting he never stole a horse to sell. That distinction mattered to him.

The Welsh Mountains are the constant. After nearly every job, he describes abandoning the team and climbing back into the ridges near Blue Rock. He writes of posses gathering at the foot of the mountain while he watches from above with a field glass. At one point, at least five hundred horsemen assembled below his hiding place. In another episode, after being captured by a large posse, he claims a rope was thrown around his neck, and he was nearly hanged before cooler heads prevailed and sent him to jail instead. Whether every detail unfolded exactly as described, the tension in the county was real. These were not petty thefts. These were armed burglaries, home invasions, safe blowings, and gunfire in churchyards and streets.

His time in jail did not cure him. It challenged him.

He tunneled beneath cells. He studied iron plates. He smuggled nitric acid and a drill bit inside a can of peaches, using dissolved alum to write instructions in invisible ink. He passed acid from window to window with a broom handle so that multiple prisoners could eat the heads off bolts and conceal the damage with soap and whitewash. When that attempt failed, he tried again.

The most audacious scheme involved a canary.

By the early 1880s, he had gained the confidence of prison staff, furnished his cell with carpets and pictures, and raised canaries, selling young birds to visitors. When his brother Abe was placed in a nearby cell, Ike used a mother bird’s instinct to return to her chicks as a message system. He tied notes around the bird’s neck, sending instructions back and forth across the corridor. On October 10, 1883, the plan became action. He tricked a watchman into opening Abe’s cell, locked him inside, locked another watchman in a barber’s cell, unlocked long-term prisoners, cut telephone wires, seized firearms, subdued a bloodhound in the yard, and led twelve men over the wall.

It is tied for the largest jailbreak in Lancaster County history. The other occurred on June 29, 1971, when an equal number of inmates escaped by sawing through a window bar in an unlocked shower room, making their way into the exercise yard and using planks from construction work to climb the wall facing Franklin Street.

In the days that followed, he and his companions drifted through the region, stealing clothing and cracking a safe in Womelsdorf. Inside were four large salt bags that appeared to be filled with money. They carried them into the hills expecting a windfall.

Instead, they found the bags contained pennies.

Three thousand five hundred of them.

He writes that they were disappointed. Then he adds the line that has echoed ever since: they hid the pennies “under a large stone,” covered it with leaves, “where they are yet, if they have not been found.” See for yourself on page 27 of Buzzard’s memoir.

Face value in the early 1880s was thirty-five dollars.

Today, if those coins were Indian Head cents from around 1883, even in modest condition, they could bring between five and fifteen dollars each. At five dollars apiece, 3,500 coins would total $17,500. At ten dollars apiece, $35,000. At fifteen dollars apiece, $52,500. That does not account for the historical value attached to coins that could be directly tied to one of Lancaster County’s most notorious outlaws. Add provenance, and the number climbs again.

The hiding place itself offers clues. He specifies that it was after the Womelsdorf robbery and before heading toward Annville and Cornwall. The most plausible historical location would be the wooded slopes of South Mountain, south or southeast of Womelsdorf. Today, that terrain overlaps with State Game Land 225, Lancaster Conservancy’s Texter Nature Preserve, and the ridgeline stretching between Womelsdorf and Cornwall.

He describes it as “under a large stone,” suggesting not a loose rock but a glacial boulder or natural outcropping distinctive enough to relocate. Buzzard and his crew favored elevated ground, forest cover, quick escape routes, and proximity to roads without being visible from them. A hide trail near a temporary camp, just off a ridge but within striking distance of a pike, would fit his pattern.

Landscapes change. Trails vanish. Stones shift. But mountains remember more than we think.

Ike’s life after the jailbreak did not mellow. He roamed through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, and Illinois, robbing jewelry stores, clothing merchants, private homes, and gamblers. He was shot in the face in Indiana. He escaped custody in Davenport by sawing through cell bars with a knife hidden in a meal basket. He was eventually recognized in Chicago, betrayed by a former associate, and returned to Pennsylvania in chains.

He was sent to the Eastern Penitentiary to serve out the remainder of his sentence plus additional time for jailbreaking. There, he finally conceded that escape was impossible. He worked at shoemaking, cigar making, chair caning, wood turning, and eventually as a hospital steward. He was released in May 1892.

His autobiography ends not with triumph but with blindness. After his release, he writes that a life of dissipation affected the nerves of his eyes until he became blind. “I am blind to this day and never expect to regain my eyesight.” He signs his name and dates it February 14, 1897.

The document is remarkable not because it excuses him, but because it preserves him in his own voice. The bravado. The calculations. The justifications. The quiet final paragraph.

The Criminal Life of Isaac M. Buzzard

For those who want to read the full account in his own words, The Criminal Life of Isaac M. Buzzard: A True and Complete History of His Life, from Boyhood to the Present Day is now available on Amazon in a fully annotated and indexed edition for only $9.99. This volume is a faithful reproduction of the important 1897 work, carefully reconstructed using modern digital restoration technology to improve readability while preserving its historical integrity. Minor typographical and spelling errors have been corrected, and editorial footnotes and a newly prepared index have been added to assist contemporary readers.

You can purchase the restored edition on Amazon.

Uncharted Lancaster Podcast

Take an even deeper dive into the life of Ike Buzzard in this episode of the Uncharted Lancaster podcast.

---

Adventure Awaits!

Never miss a new article by signing up for email updates below. Be sure to follow Uncharted Lancaster on Facebook or Instagram for exclusive content.

---

Uncharted Lancaster’s Ghosts, Monsters, and Tales of Adventure takes readers on a spine-tingling journey through Lancaster County’s haunted history, eerie legends, and hidden treasures. From ghostly apparitions to outlaw loot, these 64 true local stories blend real history with gripping folklore.