ISLAND HISTORY: The lost treasure sites of Kauai

During the 1870s, a man named Keoike, a resident of Nukolii, Kauai, acquired in some way a fortune of $10,000 worth of eight-sided golden slugs and had shown his friend, Josia Keawe, one of them.

Afterwards, Keawe confided to Sheriff Samuel Wilcox that Keoike had $10,000.00 stashed away, an enormous amount of money in those days.

Years later, when Keoike was dying, Sheriff Wilcox’s brother, sugar planter Albert Wilcox, the guardian of Keoike’s daughter, Helen Keoike, asked Keoike where his slugs were hidden, so that Helen could have them when the time came.

But, Keoike kept putting Albert Wilcox off and died without divulging his secret.

In the late 1800s, a Hawaiian named Keeo ran a thriving cattle and butcher business at Hanamaulu, Kauai.

And, as Keeo prospered, he accumulated silver dollars that he exchanged for gold coins from Albert Wilcox and buried the coins at a secret hiding place.

Although he promised Wilcox that he would someday reveal to him where his treasure was buried so it would not be lost, he died without doing so.

Then in 1907, when Lihue Plantation Co. employee Cypriano Rivera uncovered $9,000 in hidden gold at Hanamaulu, he presumed it must be Keeo’s treasure.

According to Rivera’s Puerto Rican girlfriend, Narcissa, Rivera went to unearth his gold on October 21, 1907, yet failed twice to locate it, and told Narcissa that if he didn’t succeed a third time, he’d hang himself.

On October 22, 1907, Rivera’s lifeless body was found hanging from a tree and his gold was never found.

At Koloa, Kauai, during the 1800s, there lived a successful Hawaiian businessman by the name of Kahukini.

When he’d saved between $40,000 and $50,000, he left the money for safekeeping with Fr. Eustache Preteseille (1821-1886), of St. Raphael Church.

Later, Kahukini took his money back and hid it in a cave on his property.

But, when he grew old, he forgot where he’d hidden his treasure.

After he died, several people, led on by rumors about Kahukini’s hidden treasure, searched caves for it without success, and his secret cave remains undiscovered.