Tell us more?
Ok...Here goes.
In Sullivan's book he alleges that Samuel Ball was a member of the original group that Daniel McGinnis enlisted to help him excavate the money pit along with Anthony Vaughn and John Smith. This is documented in a book entitled "History of the County of Lunenburg" that was first published in 1870. The second edition that was published in 1895 had Samuel Ball's name removed; There isn't an explanation why Samuel Ball's name was removed. There is more information on this
website, though it does state that Ball's name was replaced with Vaughn's, but that doesn't make sense if Vaughn's name was in the original account.
Interestingly, one of the witnesses names on Samuel Ball's will is John Barkhouse. Does Charles know more than he's letting on, or are Marty and Rick in on a secret and that's why they are still digging?
Since first hearing about Samuel Ball, I have been 100% convinced that he found some of the treasure along with McGinnis, Smith and Vaughn, all three of which curiously became more affluent and influential than their humble beginnings dictate. I think that there is a season 3 episode where descendants of McGinnis come to the Island and show artefacts that McGinnis alleges were part of the treasure; One of which was a gold cross that was missing its jewels. There is some information on this
website.
Sullivan also alleges that Zena Halpern fabricated lots of information just to back up her theory about the templars and that it doesn't hold up to scrutiny, explaining why that line of enquiry was quietly dropped on the show. What that doesn't mean is that the theory about the templars is completely blown out of the water, just that a lot of Zena's "evidence" is.
That lead cross truly is an enigma!