Ever since I was very little, I heard stories about my great grandfather Charles Edward "Charlie" Stark (1870-1933) and his brother Harvey "Harve" Stark(1866-1950).  They didn't seem to want to follow in the foot steps of their father Aaron N. Stark.  Aaron owned a brick plant in Hartwell, Missouri. He and another son, Washington Stark ran the brick plant. No doubt Harve and Charlie had to spend some time in their youth there, learning the trade, but the hard work didn't seem to attract them.  In the late 1880's or early 1890's they ..... how would you say......got in with the wrong crowd..There is a possibility that Harve organized the wrong crowd.  He was several years the elder of Charlie.


   This is a picture of Harvey Allen Stark with his wife Belle Boone ( a descendant of Daniel Boone's brother. ( see family tree for info on this)  Another note:  Once Harve and Belle were living in Arkansas on a farm.  The store owners would allow farmers to mortgage their crops to buy supplies in the spring and let the farmers pay the bill in the fall.  Harve and Belle pulled up to the store, loaded up their wagon with seed and other necessities signed the I.O.U., went back out to the wagon and left straight for Kansas, Never looking back.  They found a place around Weir Kansas and planted their new crop there.


Back to the original .... Harve and Charlie... Seems that ever since I was young I heard that Harve and Charlie robbed a bank and buried the loot under a suspension bridge over in Missouri and Charlie was afraid to go back to MO until his death in 1933.


In 1973 I wrote a letter to the editor of the Clinton Daily Democrat in Clinton, MO. not too far south of Hartwell, where Harve and Charlie were from to see if any information could be gained to prove or dis-prove the tale I had heard my whole life.  Below is the information I got back:

From the July 16, 1974 issue of the CLINTON DAILY DEMOCRAT:
        "    $84,000 In Coins 'Buried' Here

    The late Ike Harvey, builder of his "very own" suspension bridge across Town Creek, back in the early 50's told George Mount, Sr., 503 North Washington, all about it.  When Mount read a story in the Daily Democrat about a bank robbery here in the mid-eighties, he vividly recalled what Ike Harvey had told him about the hold-up and where the money "might" be still found. 
    The story in the Daily Democrat last week was a letter from Charles E. Pierson, Pittsburg, Kansas, who said that he had been told by his grandmother that his great-grandfather and Gr. Gr. Uncle, Harvey Stark, once robbed a bank at Clinton and the money was buried near the city. Pierson's great grandfather was Charles Edward Stark and according to family accounts, buried the money and fled to Joplin, later returning to Kansas.  The bank robbing Stark once rode with Jesse James and the Youngers.  After the robbery here he never returned to Clinton.  Pierson also had this line in his letter:  "Charles Stark was not the only "black sheep" in our family, but he was the most colorful:"
    Now to get back to what Ike Harvey told George Mount back in 1952.
Mr. Harvey related that his grandfather had told about two or three men robbing the Clinton bank back in the 80's.  Harvey said that the loot included $84,000 in gold coins which was cached in a cave near Clinton.  The cave years ago was covered by a landfall.  However, Harvey told Mount he could take him within 100 feet of the site.  George Mount did not tell a Democrat reporter if he also knew the location of the old cave.  And the reporter did not think it was polite to ask.  The Kansan wrote that his great grandfather was a colorful character.  However, so was Ike Harvey.   Mr. Harvey owned considerable property here and this included a large pasture on North Water Street.  Meandering through the pasture was sometimes rampant Town Creek.  Harvey built a suspension bridge across the creek.  It was an exact replica or the swingers spanning the Osage and Grand Rivers.  This reporter back in the 1950's took pictures of Ike Harvey and his bridge and remembers his comment to the question of Why:
"I was raised near a swinging bridge on the Osage," Mr. Harvey said, "and I always wanted one I could call my own." 
So there you are money hunters.  If Ike Harvey had the ingenuity to build his own "swinger," it's just possible that he knew the location of that long lost Clinton Pot of Gold."


    Charles Edward Stark  About 1895


   There was another story that Harve and Charlie were captured by a one-armed sheriff and had to spend the night in a barn on the way back to town.  There was a terrible storm that night.  The next morning Harve and Charlie rode off and the sheriff was never heard from again.   Have not pursued this with any sources in Missouri to this point....Shouldn't have been too many sheriff's gone missing in west central Missouri in the mid 1880's to mid 1890's.  Don't know how well their records go back though.  Maybe a project for one of my kids.


As I can recall the family stories of my youth, I will post them here.  If any of you have any recollections that could jog my memory, let me know.