In the winter of 1778, as the American Revolution raged and Loyalist properties were being seized across Pennsylvania, one of York County’s wealthiest men disappeared into the night, leaving behind a mystery that still stirs whispers and wonder nearly 250 years later.
James Rankin was no ordinary landowner. With more than 20 properties under his name, including a tavern, a ferry, and a thriving grist mill, he had built a real estate empire that stretched across both sides of the Susquehanna River. His crown jewel was a 377-acre estate nestled along Codorus Creek—land that today lies beneath Route 30 and the massive Harley-Davidson facility in Springettsbury Township.
But Rankin’s fortune wasn’t just in land.
As tensions between patriots and Loyalists reached a boiling point, Rankin made a fateful decision: he threw his allegiance behind the British Crown. At the time, the Second Continental Congress had fled Philadelphia and was meeting in York, only miles from Rankin’s estate. As the Congress debated independence and drafted the Articles of Confederation, Rankin was reportedly involved in a conspiracy to help British troops cross the Susquehanna and capture the rebel government.
The plan failed. Word of the Loyalist plot leaked, and Rankin was branded a traitor. He was arrested and jailed in York, also known as Yorktown, in the mid-18th to early 19th centuries.
But somehow, Rankin escaped.
Before slipping away to the safety of British lines—and eventually to England—he is said to have done one last thing: buried a hoard of gold and silver somewhere on his estate, hiding it from the coming storm of confiscation laws that allowed the Commonwealth to seize and auction the property of known Loyalists.
In October, his 377-acre estate—including the improved grist mill at what would become Loucks Mill—was sold for more than 35,000 pounds (over $821,000 today). The proceeds went to the state and national treasuries. Rankin never returned, and if his hidden fortune was real, it remains undiscovered.
Or so it seemed.
More than a century later, in the early 1900s, a laborer plowing a field west of the railroad at Loucks Mill unearthed something curious. It was a small disc glinting in the soil. He took it to a jeweler who identified it as an English guinea, worth five U.S. dollars. It was unmistakably old. And unmistakably British.
Word spread quickly. Treasure hunters descended on the fields, believing they had found evidence of Rankin’s long-rumored treasure. Yet none struck it rich. The gold seemed to vanish back into the ground—one coin and a century-old legend all they had to go on.
A 1908 article in The York Daily recounted the excitement and the mystery. It also mentioned that Rankin’s son had returned to the area after the war. Rumor had it that he retrieved the treasure and lived lavishly before returning to England, his sudden wealth unmatched by any visible means of income. And yet, coins still turned up in the years that followed. If the son truly recovered the treasure, why did pieces of it continue to surface?
York County historian Stephen H. Smith believes the fortune remains hidden—perhaps not lost, but entombed beneath the massive foundation of Harley-Davidson’s York Vehicle Operations at 1425 Eden Road. According to Smith, the site overlaps with what was once the heart of Rankin’s estate. If the treasure still exists, it may be buried beneath tons of concrete, steel, and roaring engines.
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Today, the story of James Rankin is filed under York County curiosities. It is a wartime tale of betrayal, escape, and riches possibly still waiting beneath the soil. The truth, like the treasure, remains buried.
But legends don’t die easily in the Susquehanna Valley. And gold…well, gold tends to glimmer when least expected.
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For More Information Visit
- Buried Treasure in Springettsbury Township
- Lancaster County Loyalists
- The York Colonial Complex: Exploring the Birthplace of the United States