“The Curse of Oak Island” keeps bringing us more and more surprises. In this week’s episode, we saw Rick Lagina trying to find out more about the connection between Oak Island and its mysteries and the late American President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In order to do that, Rick decided to take a trip and visit Roosevelt’s library, which could help him find some answers.
We learn that F. D. Roosevelt was primarily interested in the Money Pit, but also in other Oak Island stories. There were numerous tales in his family which were passed down through generations, so he had the opportunity to learn a lot from them, and it was due to those stories that his interest was stirred up.
The president’s grandfather Warren Delano, Jr. was a merchant and a sailor who lived in China for nine years where he worked for an American trade company dealing in tea, silks, and opium. But, in addition to this, he also financed certain activities on Oak Island.
Roosevelt’s particular interest in everything related to Oak Island was awakened in 1909 when he began closely to keep track of the progress on Oak Island and activities from that location. He even became a part of The Oak Island Association and Old Gold Salvage Group, a company which had made numerous excavations there. In 1939, the president made a decision to go and visit the island. However, bad weather conditions and tensions which eventually led to WWII stopped him from doing so.
Rick Lagina found plenty of information in Roosevelt’s library. For example, he discovered a document which implied that FDR had taken an interest in jewels of King Louis XVI and his queen Marie Antoinette. Marie Antoinette gave the jewels to a lady-in-waiting when she and Louis XVI wanted to leave Paris in 1791, during the French Revolution. Their escape plan was not successful, as they were later on convicted. But, the lady-in-waiting who had their jewels eventually came to Canada, near to Campobello.
