Treasure of Hazzard

Season 2, Episode 16
Original Air Date: 25 January 1980
Directed by: Hollingsworth Morse
Written by: William Raynor and Myles Wilder
Created by: Gy Waldron

Plot Summary

Laura Bardsley, a professor at the State University, comes to Hazzard looking for a buried regimental payroll dating back to the eve of the Battle of Hazzard in 1862. Dr. James Fenwick and Stacy Williams have also seen the letter about the payroll, and try to stop Laura by sawing through the supports on a bridge. Unfortunately, Bo and Luke get to the bridge first.

Laura goes to ask for help from Boss Hogg, who's furious when his new sheriff, Lester Crabb, suggests asking the Dukes. Out at the farm, Jesse digs out the old Duke family Bible to see if they can identify the old marker locations. The bible has "all the birthings and dyings in it since Caleb Duke came west in the middle 1700s." Finding one of the markers requires a trip into some swampland, and a meeting with the eccentric Jeb McCobb and his scantily-clad twin granddaughters. On the way to see Jeb, Laura falls in the water (where "the last census showed that alligators outnumbered people about 1,000-to-1"), and Bo has to wrestle an alligator to save her.

A visit to Colonial City for the last marker point sees the Dukes and Laura face to face with Fenwick and Williams. Knowing that Boss is after the treasure, the Dukes make a fake map with the Boar's Nest named as the location. As soon as they get the map, Boss and Lester immediately attack the floor with axes.

Meanwhile, Laura and the Dukes find the Yankee strongbox, but have it stolen by Fenwick and Williams. They give chase in the General, and then in a boat into the swamp, even stopping to rescue the twins, who've been knocked onto the water by the fleeing felons. Everyone meets up back on land, and Fenwick and Williams try to steal Dixie, but Bo and Luke reach for their dynamite arrows and bring their flight to a halt.

After realizing they've been duped, Boss and Lester arrive just as the fighting's over. Boss agrees to a deal where he gets the money and Laura gets everything else in the box. He ends up with a bundle of worthless Confederate money while Laura gets the real treasure in the box: the original orders to bury the Confederate payroll bearing the signature of President Abraham Lincoln.

Commentary

Trivia

This isn't the first time that Clifton James has played a sheriff: he appeared as Sheriff J.W. Pepper in two James Bond movies, Live and Let Die (1973) and The Man with the Golden Gun (1974).
Doris Dowling (Stacy Williams) returned in season 7 when she played Jeremiah Duke's wife Jenny in Go West, Young Dukes.
Jeannie Wilson (Laura Bardsley) was seen previously as blonde Mary Kaye Porter in the first season episode Mary Kaye's Baby.
The Acker twins were fourth runners-up in the first national Miss Twins USA Pageant in 1972.
Walter Barnes (Jeb McCobb) played Tank Murdock in the 1978 Clint Eastwood movie Every Which Way But Loose.