The Needle’s Eye
A legend of buried treasure
ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF PINE MOUNTAIN, near the rural Bell County settlement of Frakes, a large hole in the center of a sandstone formation is known as the “Needle’s Eye.”
When I saw it many years ago, it was surrounded by scattered woodland and laurel thickets on private property. The natural hole through its middle was about 8 feet high and 12 feet wide. Some old-timers in the area knew it as the “barn rock.”
Its kinship with the legend of a buried treasure is as hazy as the mountains of Tennessee in the distance.
Hodge Partin of Frakes, an area served by Cumberland Valley Electric, told me the story three years before his death in 1993 at age 89. He said that in 1932 a stranger named Blakely, who was believed to be from North Carolina and of Cherokee descent, moved into the community, lived alone, offered no explanation of his presence there, and kept to himself, except to befriend a few locals who knew the landmarks on Pine Mountain. These he enlisted to help locate certain rock formations and peculiar symbols matching those drawn on a map that he carried.
Partin explained that he and his father helped Blakely (whose first name is unknown) find such markings as “turkey tracks” and “pony tracks” that were carved into some of the sandstone outcroppings and in some places still visible, as well as other landmarks, including the Needle’s Eye and a V-shaped stone below a cliff.
Just at dusk, on the day the V-shaped rock was found, Partin said Blakely told them that a small treasure might already have been dug up there, but that he was fairly certain that a larger one could be found near the Needle’s Eye. As darkness fell, he said he would return the next morning to dig for the treasure.
Blakely was so happy, Partin told me, that he actually “did a little dance” before they started home on foot.
They hadn’t gone far before Blakely suddenly collapsed in the road—and was dead!
The sheriff who searched Blakely’s cabin reportedly said he found an assortment of odd tools, some of which appeared to be dowsing instruments. Blakely’s map—drawn on the back of what appeared to be an old waybill—was filled with symbols, most of which could not be deciphered.
Ray Partin of Walhalla, South Carolina, a native of Bell County and distant relative of Hodge Partin, remembers hearing the stories about a buried treasure, but said he was skeptical.
Several copies of the purported treasure map have been circulated over the years, and renewed interest in searching for the treasure was sparked a few decades ago by an article about the Needle’s Eye in a treasure hunters’ magazine.
Someone, somewhere may know the true story of the Needle’s Eye treasure—if there ever was one. Then again, the mysterious man named Blakely may have taken it to his grave in 1932.
