Defiance, Ohio hosted some famous residents, like General ‘Mad Anthony’ Wayne and race car star, Sam Hornish. No doubt the most infamous celebrity from my home town is Tommy Thompson, who discovered the Ship of Gold. Our high school reunion is next weekend, but Harvey Thompson will not be joining us. He is on the run with the proceeds of his treasure having neglected to repay millions of dollars to his investors.
In 1857 the wooden Central America sank off the coast of South Carolina taking 421 souls and tons of $20 gold coins 8,000 feet to the bottom of the Atlantic. In 1989 Thompson and his survey team discovered the wreckage. Harvey designed Nemo, a very early underwater robot that enabled the team to harvest their find and sail into glory with an estimated $400 million treasure. Insurance companies sued and a thirteen year court battle ensued. Eventually, the treasure was auctioned off at a discount, a mere $100 million. Rather than pay-off the $55 million to investors and banks that financed the venture, Harvey split town to whereabouts unknown. Attached is a 2006 Forbes cover story about the sordid affair, “Ship of Fools.”
My memories of Harvey go back well before the gold rush. In high school Thompson owned an aqua car. He took innocents on a ride along the river and shocked them by steering into the currents. They were still screaming as the car putted along the shore. Later, he acquired a 1948 Buick Roadmaster Convertible to cruise between the Dairy Queen and Holiday Bowling Lanes. One evening nine of us jumped in: three in front; three in the back seat; and three sitting on the trunk, including me, with our feet dangling on the back seat. Harvey hit the brakes and my face broke the Roadmaster windshield. Luckily for being a dummy, the harm was only 17 stitches in my lip.
Years later Kathy and I lived in Columbus, Ohio and Harvey worked for the Battelle Memorial Institute. Unannounced, he frequently showed up to our apartment for dinner. After too many glasses of Liebfraumilch, he slept on our couch. Between bites and sips, Harvey enamored us with dreams of gold treasure. He was a charmer and I immediately understood how investors emptied their wallets into his dreams.
I will miss chatting with Harvey at the reunion. The discussions no doubt would have drifted to the BP gulf oil disaster. He picked individual gold coins off the ocean three thousand feed deeper than BP’s fragile cap. Too bad Harvey wasn’t around to help out. Somewhere in the Caribbean or on the coast of Thailand, he is likely thinking about that or dreaming about another treasure just over the horizon. Good sailing, my friend.
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And his partner and my former next door neighbor, Barry Schatz, has gone missing and even his family doesn’t know where he is. Sigh.
There should be some good stories to tell at the reunion tho. Like how a bunch of us after the 10th reunion sat around the Frisch’s late at night and we invented the ‘sperm a firm’ with Tommy in the lead. That was a jock strap with a thermoprotective device to insure that the family jewels didn’t get overheated when a Catholic guy went into a hot tub. We figured we could get the endorsement of the Vatican since, ‘every sperm is sacred.’ It was really a great conversation. Had to be there. Yup…..
And all of us in the class of 1970 thought they had it made when they harvested the treasure. Living proof that money can cause more problems than it may be worth.
I have been part of this history and sucess of them specially with my mentor and rommate at UF, Gainesville, Florida.
I have been trying to contact my old friend Barry Schatz without suscess; which xould reconnect with them and have an old time reunion and catch up.
Please if anyone knows about his where about please give him my email or my phone to been contacted at (305) 342-5184
Thanks,