R.V. Harris, attorney and advisor to Oak Island treasure hunters for decades during the mid-twentieth century, wrote the book that first made the story well known outside Nova Scotia.

Oak Island’s east drumlin, where the Money Pit was found and the treasure hunt has been focused for more than 220 years.

Captain William Kidd, whose pirate treasure generations of people digging in the money pit believed they would find.

Henry Morgan, legendary seventeenth century pirate whose Treasure of Panama, worth well over $100 million at current value, has never been found. Some believe it could be buried on Oak Island.

William Phipps, seventeenth century privateer turned politician who captured the treasure-laden Spanish ship Concepcion. Some believe he may have stashed part of the haul taken from the Concepcion on Oak Island.

Samuel de Champlain, who in 1608 established “New France” in what is now Canada. Some speculate that the Oak Island treasure vaults were dug during the struggle between France and England for control of Nova Scotia.

Samuel Ball, freed from slavery to serve on the royalist side during the Revolutionary War. He settled on Oak Island and grew wealthy there. Some believe the source of that wealth was his share of a treasure found on the island.

In 1909 Captain Henry Bowdoin mounted the most publicized treasure hunt thus far on Oak Island. He brought in a young Franklin D. Roosevelt as both an investor and crewmember. When he was denied access to the island, Bowdoin retaliated with a malicious article for Collier’s magazine that debunked the Money Pit “myth.”

Frederick Blair, who devoted more than a half-century to the treasure hunt. Along the way compiling maps, charts and documents that make up the bulk of the Oak Island files in the Nova Scotia Archives.

William Chappell, who was manning the drill when the fabled parchment scrap was lifted out of the Money Pit in 1897. His son Melbourne would later control the treasure hunt on Oak Island for decades.

Melbourne “M.R.” Chappell with his family. Chappell controlled the treasure hunt on Oak Island for most of the 1950s and 1960s.

The young Franklin Delano Roosevelt was an enthusiastic member of the Bowdoin expedition and followed the Oak Island treasure hunt for the remainder of his life, even while serving more than twelve years as U.S. president.

What symbols were carved on the “Inscribed Stone” has been debated for nearly a century and is not truly known. The translation “Forty Feet Below Two Million Pounds Are Buried” was first produced by “a very bright Irish teacher” in 1909, and has been repeated with variations numerous times since.

Gilbert Hedden directed the treasure hunt on Oak Island for only a couple of years in the 1930s, but made an astonishing array of discoveries and connections during that time. He remained involved with Oak Island for decades afterward.

The theory that William Shakespeare’s works were actually written by Francis Bacon emerged during the nineteenth century and has maintained currency ever since. The idea that the original Shakespeare manuscripts are cached on Oak Island was first proposed by Prof. Burrell Ruth in the 1940s.

Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum Scientiarum is widely credited with establishing the modern scientific method.

Bacon served as Lord Chancellor of England. His achievements in science, law, philosophy, and literature made him “one of the three greatest men who ever lived” in the opinion of Thomas Jefferson. Generations of devotees have made him into a religious figure as well. Many of those believe the works he intended for “future generations” were buried on Oak Island.

David Tobias (r) with his partner and rival Dan Blankenship. Tobias poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the Oak Island treasure hunt between the 1960s and his death in 2012, and never stopped believing something of great value was buried on the island.

Robert Dunfield (r) shaking hands with Mel Chappell. Dunfield’s attempt to bring heavy equipment and open pit mining methods to the treasure hunt devastated Oak Island physically and made him, for many, the greatest villain in the island’s history.

Fred Nolan conducted hundreds of surveys on Oak Island and in the process made as many discoveries as anyone who has ever hunted for treasure on the island. His acquisition of a considerable portion of Oak Island property embroiled him in a nearly ruinous legal dispute.

Of all the surveyor’s discoveries, “Nolan’s Cross” is the most famous and, for many, the most significant.

Dan Blankenship became the central character in the Oak Island treasure hunt back in the late 1960s and is still living on the island. His labors and discoveries, along with his outsized personality, have made him an epic character in the Oak Island story.

Blankenship’s discovery of the “G Stone” led to many theories about the involvement of freemasons in the original work on Oak Island.

Once a world-famous carnival daredevil, Robert Restall settled with his family on Oak Island in 1959. Convinced that the Panama Treasure of Henry Morgan was buried on Oak Island, Restall attempted to compensate for what he lacked in financial resources with intensive research and relentless physical labor during the six years he devoted to the treasure hunt.

The August 17, 1965, deaths of Robert Restall, his son Bobbie, his worker Cyril Hiltz and his investor Karl Graeser were the greatest tragedies in the long history of the Oak Island treasure hunt.

Robert Restall (center) with his wife Mildred and their sons Bobbie (l) and Ricky.

Dan Henskee’s participation in the Oak Island treasure hunt began in the mid-1960s and continues to this day. He may know the island as well as anyone alive. Henskee’s experiences have also fed the narrative of Oak Island as a cursed place.

Michigan brothers Rick and Marty Lagina have held the main control of Oak Island since 2007. As the stars of the immensely popular cable television show The Curse of Oak Island, they have drawn millions into the treasure hunt.

Randall Sullivan visits the set of the History Channel’s television series The Curse of Oak Island.