OBITUARY FREEMAN, TRACED LOST '49ERS' ROUTE.Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer PEARBLOSSOM - Adventurer Jerry Freeman, whose discovery of a mysterious trunk on a barren ridge above Death Valley brought him first fame and then infamy Notoriety; condition of being known as possessing a shameful or disgraceful reputation; loss of character or good reputation. At Common Law, infamy was an individual's legal status that resulted from having been convicted of a particularly reprehensible crime, rendering him , has died after a long battle with cancer. Freeman, 58, died Tuesday at his Pearblossom home, where he had nearly completed a book about the trunk and the back-country treks that led to it - including two furtive fur·tive adj. 1. Characterized by stealth; surreptitious. 2. Expressive of hidden motives or purposes; shifty. See Synonyms at secret. excursions across Nevada's nuclear test range - tracing the route of the lost forty-niners who were the first whites to stumble into Death Valley. ``It is about 90 percent complete, probably almost 95 percent complete,'' Donna Freeman, his wife, said Wednesday about the book. ``His daughters will finish it for him. He had all the research finished.'' The trunk - which Freeman believed was left by a forty-niner who died trying to reach California's gold fields - will be the subject of a History Channel ``History's Mysteries'' episode scheduled to air at 8 p.m. April 25. The trunk is one of three segments in the episode, titled ``Buried Treasure.'' Freeman was a substitute high school teacher and back-country hiking enthusiast. He became fascinated with the lost forty-niners after a 1989 backpacking expedition from Badwater in Death Valley to the top of Mount Whitney. Freeman began retracing the lost forty-niners' route, accompanied by his daughters and friends. In November 1998, scouting the route out of Death Valley, Freeman found a weathered trunk in a shallow cave high on a ridge. Inside were old bowls, books, a flintlock flintlock Ignition system for firearms developed in the early 16th century. It superseded the matchlock and the wheel lock and remained in use until the mid-19th century. The most successful version, the true flintlock, was invented in France in the 17th century. pistol, dozens of gold and silver coins, plus a letter signed with the name of forty-niner William Robinson, who died after getting lost in Death Valley. After Freeman turned the trunk over to the National Park Service, a media frenzy began to build, goaded goad n. 1. A long stick with a pointed end used for prodding animals. 2. An agent or means of prodding or urging; a stimulus. tr.v. by Freeman's estimate that the trunk's contents could be worth $500,000. From that came news reports calling the trunk a treasure chest, ``filled'' with gold and silver. But three weeks after Freeman turned over the trunk, the Park Service declared it had found 20th century glues on objects, that a bowl was manufactured no earlier than 1914, and that two photos were tintypes Tintypes is a musical revue conceived by Mary Kyte with Mel Marvin and Gary Pearle. With its time frame set between the turn of the 20th century and the onset of World War I, this chamber piece with a cast of five provides a musical history lesson focusing on an , from a process patented in 1856. Suspicion fell on Freeman and his expedition companions as the hoaxers. ``We got pounded,'' Freeman acknowledged in an interview last September. But Freeman believed the Park Service was wrong about the trunk. ``I'll go to my grave believing that was William Robinson's,'' Freeman said in September, when he was already made an invalid by prostate cancer prostate cancer, cancer originating in the prostate gland. Prostate cancer is the leading malignancy in men in the United States and is second only to lung cancer as a cause of cancer death in men. that had metastasized against his spine. Death Valley park officials say they've never determined who hauled the trunk up a mountain and left it. One expert suspects it had been there more than 20 years before Freeman found it, perhaps placed by someone trying to fool another historian or to put a hoax over for posterity. In the September interview, Freeman said: ``All I ever wanted to do is follow the path of the forty-niners. Following the path of the forty- niners has turned into an absolutely fantastic story. I don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. if I have the time to finish it.'' The trunk was the subject of a Death Valley National Park  Death Valley National Park is a mostly arid United States National Park located east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in southern Inyo County and northern San Bernardino County in exhibit titled ``All That Glitters All That Glitters (shortened from "All that glitters is not gold", a famous misquotation from The Merchant of Venice, the original line being ) is the name of a number of different works:
Memorial services for Freeman will begin at 5 p.m. Friday at Desert Winds Community Church, 2121 E. Palmdale Blvd. Antelope Valley Cremation cremation, disposal of a corpse by fire. It is an ancient and widespread practice, second only to burial. It has been found among the chiefdoms of the Pacific Northwest, among Northern Athapascan bands in Alaska, and among Canadian cultural groups. Service is in charge of arrangements. Survivors include Freeman's wife, Donna; daughters, Holly and Jennifer Freeman; brother, Doyle Freeman; and two grandchildren, all of Pearblossom. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: FREEMAN |
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