Since summer has finally arrived in Connecticut, I thought Saturday would be a nice day to relax in the back yard, enjoy the weather, and catch up on some reading.
Adirondack Chair – Check
Iced tea – Check
Small fire burning – check
Book – Check
Cement cylinder rising out of the lawn – Check
All this recent rain we have been having in Connecticut has uncovered a little piece of Hamden past: Right next to my chair sat a round cement shaft.
The shaft was filled with bricks and sand but it was pretty obvious what this was…
This was the secret location of buried treasure or the long lost hidden loot from bank robbers of the 1920s!!!
There was only one thing left to do: Dig.
Pulling sand and brick out I thought “Maybe, just maybe, this was a…. ‘Well To Hell’?”
Well to Hell, you say?
The legend holds that the Russians had drilled a hole that was nine miles (14.5 km) deep before breaking through to a cavity. Intrigued by this unexpected discovery, they lowered an extremely heat tolerant microphone, along with other sensory equipment, into the well. The temperature deep within was a 2,000 °F (1,100 °C) — heat from a chamber of fire from which sounds of screaming human voices could be heard.
The above is from the wiki entry.
You can listen to the sounds of hell here.
Of course, this story was never reliable and is considered a urban legend at this time. You can read more on this at Truthorfiction.com
But back to the yard.
I continued to dig for my buried treasure for a while, but eventually I let reason seep in. I knew this was most likely a very old septic tank.And the “treasure” it once contained was probably–hopefully–long gone.
No Well to Hell either, unless you think on Dantes second circle, where the Flatterers lie up to their necks in human feces. This seems a harsh way to spend eternity for throwing a compliment here and there.