I'm still waiting for you. Hi everyone, thanks for listening to Shoes,
booz and Tattoos. As always, I'm Jess, I'm your host today.
It's going to be a doozy of an episode. There is a lot that
goes into this. I will try to make clear what is fact and what
is legend. The people we're going to talk about are real people, but
a lot of the one of those stories, a lot of these circumstances around
these people are legends. Here there's a warning as well. Some of those
stories we're going to be talking about today, I have wide variations. I
obviously cannot cannot cover all of those, or we would be sitting here until
next week. We're going to be talking a lot about murder, mysterious deaths.
There's a lot of death in this episode Native American legends. Some maybe
more accurate than others, and I tried to do my best to find out
the most accurate information I possibly could. But there is a lot out there
on these So without further ado, let's get right into it. This week
we're going to be talking about the Superstition Mountains in Arizona. We'll start this
off at the very beginning. These mountain ranges were formed twenty to thirty million
years ago by volcanic activity. Now these mountains, in particular, they were
once part of a large caldera. This is a volcanic feature formed by the
collapse of a volcano into itself, and then it resurges later on as a
massive mountain. It's thought that the mountain now the Superstition Mountains now are about
a third of the size that they once were. The highest peak here the
highest point in the Superstition Mountains is about five thousand and fifty seven feet or
one thousand, five hundred and forty one meters. Even the name Superstition Mountain
with a name like that, there's an interesting beginning. Before the eighteen hundreds,
it was known by quite a few different names. Different indigenous people called
the mountain different things, and different settlers would refer to the mountains in different
ways. Some common ones were thunder Mountain because it was believed to be the
abode of the thunder God, Crooked Top Mountain, and Mountain of Foam,
just to name a couple of those. But the name Superstition Mountain came from
farmers who settled near the mountain around the eighteen sixties. The Pima people had
a decent relationship with these farmers and told them stories. These stories led the
farmers to believe that the indigenous people were a bit superstitious about the mountain and
just started referring to it as Superstition Mountain. Kind of caught on and stuck.
One of the stories that the Pima people told about the mountain was that
of a great flood. Now, as always, if I forget to mention
my sources, I will be listing them all in the show notes. There's
a lot everything from YouTube to Amazon Prime documentaries to all these different websites that
I went through trying to find these different stories and all this different information.
This is from first People dot us and this is the story of the flood
on Superstitition Mountain. This is a Pima legend, just something I kind of
noticed. We know that if flood happened at one point on this earth,
there's evidence of it. Pretty much every group of people, Indigenous, European,
Spanish, they have stories of a great flood. It's something that's interesting.
It's something that I stumble across a few times while doing this research.
The Pima Native American tribe declares that the father of all men and animals was
Great Butterfly cherwit make, meaning Earthmaker. One day long ago, Great Butterfly
fluttered down from the clouds to the blue cliffs, where the two rivers met,
later called the Verde and Salt Rivers. There he made man from his
own sweat. From that day on, the people multiplied, but in time
they grew selfish and Quarrelsome Earthmaker became annoyed with their behavior and decided it might
be best to drown all of them. But first he thought to warn them
through the voices of the winds. People of the Pima tribe called Wind Sky
Spirit warned you to be honest with one another and to live in peace from
now on. Sua shaman of the Pimas, interpreted to the people what North
Wind had warned them about. What a fool you are to listen to the
voices of the winds, taunted his tribesmen. On the next night, the
same warning from Earthmaker was reported by East Wind, who added chief Sky Spirit
warns that all of you will be destroyed by floods if you do not live
nobler lives again. The Pimas mocked the winds and ignored their warnings. The
next night, west wind spoke, reform people of the pimas, or your
evil ways will destroy you. Then the south wind breathed into Suah's ear.
SUA, you and your good wife are the only people worth saving. Go
and make a large hollow ball of spruce gum in which you and your wife
can live as long as the coming flood will last. Because Suah and his
wife believe the warnings and were obedient, they set to work immediately on a
high hill, gathering spruce gum and shaping it into a large hollow ball.
They stocked it with plenty of nuts, acorns, water, and bear and
deer meats. Near the appointed time, Suah and his good wife look down
sadly upon the lovely green valley. They heard the songs of the harvesters,
and they sighed to think of the beauty about them that would be destroyed when
the flood came through because of their selfishness. Suddenly, a bright lightning flash
and loud thunder rocked the blue cliffs. It was a signal for the flood
to begin. Suah and his wife went into the gumball arc and closed the
door tightly. Swirling dark clouds surrounded them. Torrents of rain poured down everywhere.
For many days, the arc rolled and tossed about on the deepening sea.
After many many moons, the downpour of rain stopped. The Arc settled
upon the land again. High on a mountaintop, Suah opened the door and
stepped forth to see a tuna cactus growing near his feet. He and his
wife ate some of the red fruit of a cactus plant. Below them,
they saw water everywhere. That night, they retired again to the Ark.
They must have slept a very long time, because when they awoke, the
water had disappeared, the valleys were green, and the bird's songs rang forth
again. They went down into the fertile valley and lived there for a thousand
years. The forthcoming people prospered, becoming known as the Pima tribe. These
Pimas later believed a story that an evil one named Huac lived behind Superstition Mountain.
He was also called the devil of Superstition Mountain because he tried to steal
daughters from the Pimas. One day, Huacs secretly descended into the Pima valley,
where the women were busy weaving. He stole one of Suah's daughters.
Suah followed him to his home behind Superstition Mountain, where he observed his daughter
treated as a servant girl by him. Suah have poisoned the cactus wine that
his daughter served him. When he drank it, Huac died instantly. After
that, the world seemed less wicked, but always the Pimas feared that his
evil spirit still lurked behind Superstition Mountain. Suah, shaman and inspired leader of
the Pima tribe, taught his people to build adobe houses, to dig gardens
with bones and stones, to irrigate their lamps from the rivers, and to
raise sheep, horses and cattle, and above all, to live in peace
with one another. On his dying day, Suah gathered his people and foretold,
if you ever grow arrogant with wealth, if you ever become covetous of
others lands, if you ever make war for gain, if you ever disgrace
yourselves before Chief of the Sky spirits, another flood will come upon you.
If that happens again, bad persons will never be saved. Only good persons
will eventually live with the Sun God. Since that time, Pimas have believed
Suah's prophecies and they never never go into Superstition Mountain, but there are people
love to tell the story of why and how the Gumbal arc landed on Superstition
Mountain, saving Sua and his good wife, who became the beloved ancestors of
their large and important Pima tribe. Along with the stories of evil spirits being
in the mountains, which is a very prevalent theme with a lot of the
legends that you read about when it comes to the Native American legends surrounding this
mountain range. There are also stories of little people in the mountains luring people
away from the trails never to be seen again, portals to other dimensions or
worlds, a hole leading down into the lower world, or hell, phantom
lights and sounds, and there's even stories of a group of Apache warriors still
guarding treasure in the mountains. Now we're going to touch on the Apache Warriors
later more towards the end of the episode, but first I want to talk
about the first non native people to exploit here. I tried to go through
and kind of put everything in order as much I could. Some of the
stuff's a little jail and bold and I'm sorry about that. Let's start with
the Spanish conquistador Francisco Coronado. He came into Arizona to the Superstition Mountains in
fifteen forty. He was searching for the legendary seven Cities of Gold. His
search brought him across many native tribes. Some were peaceful and others he left
disease and destruction in his wake. When he arrived at the Superstition Mountains.
The conquistadors would write about their experience with the Apaches. They considered them to
be barbaric. They were living in these little camps that were for like single
families or for groups of warriors. They didn't have established settlements where they farmed
and raised animals quite as much as some of the other native tribes. While
at Superstition Mountain the Conquistadors were camping out for a bit, Francisco Cornado had
led a group of about two thousand men to this area in search for one
of these Cities of gold. While some of his men started to disappear,
pretty decent number of them disappeared a few dozen, and then later their headless
bodies started showing up. More and more of these Spanish explorers disappeared would be
later found decapitated. Their heads were far from their bodies, Whether it was
a couple hundred feet or a few miles, it varied. They didn't want
to risk losing more men, so they ended up leaving Arizona with just tales
of death. After this, sometime in the sixteen hundreds, Jesuit priests settled
in the area. They established churches. They were there for missionary work to
help convert people, but they were also said to have a little side gig.
I guess you could say they were said to be mining gold in the
Superstition Mountains. There is some evidence to back up this claim. Numerous Jesuit
crosses and artifacts have been found in the Superstition Mountains in areas that you would
not expect them. A lot of them buried in caves, stuck to walls
of rock inside pretty deep caves, mines, or in some instances, around
holes with booby traps. Not as far as I can tell what the research
I did, the Jesuits did have a good standing relationship with natives and Mexican
immigrants or what then would have been part of Mexico. I'm not really sure
how all that went down. Honestly, that was something I wasn't so concerned
with it. But I believe Arizona at this time was somewhere in the middle
of being Mexican territory and just Native territory, in this kind of in between
stage. The Jesuits settled here, they had pretty decent relationships going on.
There wasn't constant war, nothing like that. But they were said to be
taking gold out of Superstition Mountain somehow. This has not proven, but why
else would there be mine throughout the mountains containing these accurately dated crosses from the
Jesuit priests. So I do tend to think that they were mining. Whether
they found gold or not, I'm not sure. But at some point they
did have to leave Arizona. They were told to be missionaries elsewhere, so
they did end up leaving. Now the story, the reason I talked about
the Jesuits a bit was because it's thought that an old Jesuit mine or someplace
maybe where they stashed gold that they couldn't get out, is the reason for
one of the most well known legends in the Superstition Mountains, and that's the
legend of the Last Dutchman's Gold they think it could possibly be an abandoned Jesuit
gold mine or stash, but a more popular belief is that it was an
abandoned mind from the Peralta family. Whether the Peralta family had found a Jesuit
gold mine or this is all legend. So we're going to talk a little
bit about the Peralta family. Now, this is one of those stories that
is a bit more legend than fact. I went through so many news articles,
documentaries, videos, websites just to try to find some kind of information
on who these people were, and it tends to just be legend. Grunge
dot Com did put it in a very good way to kind of break down
the actual information that's there, along with a little bit of the legend mixed
up, as is true of nearly any sufficient old and popular legend. There
are many variations on the tail of the Last Dutchman's Mind, but most complete
versions start with the Paralta family. According to Arizona Central, the Peraltas or
a wealthy Mexican family led by patriarch Don Miguel Peralta who operated several mines in
the area of the Superstition Mountains. In contrast, writer Gen Wolfe says,
the Paralta says the Peraltas or cattle ranchers. At any rate, tales agree
that the Peraltas somehow came across a large deposit of gold in the Superstition Mountains.
That's a good news. The bad news is that they all died,
well almost all of them. Again. There are plenty of versions of this
story, but the key details is that the group of apaches killed all of
the Peraltas but one. Maybe it was because they didn't like the way the
miners were treating land that was sacred to them. Maybe they wanted the gold
for themselves, Maybe they felt possessive about the mine and its treasures, or
maybe it was just one of those run of the mill, no reason massacres
that white people think happened all the time. Apparently, at any rate,
the Peralta massacre is a major element of the story and commemorated by place names
such as Massacre Falls, and one version of the story, it was a
different family who was killed, while the Peralta is made off with a fortune
while hiding all trace of their mind like jerks. Now, part of this
legend is that the Peraltas and the Gonzales families were either working side by side
and mines both head mines, or were working together in one mine, one
community. There are so many variations to this story alone. There is a
spot right down in front of Superstition Mountain that is known as massacre grounds.
This is where it said that all of the Peralta and Gonzalez family were just
the Peralta family were just the Gonzala's family were murdered, the number of which
is anywhere between one and four hundred. One hundred and four hundred, I
should say anywhere between one and five were left alive. Now that this is
where it starts to get a little interesting. The Peraltas were said to have
had maps that were carved on stone that showed where their gold was how to
get back there. Now, this is interesting because there's a lot of controversy
surrounding the Peralta stones. These weren't found until much later. The Peraltas there
were there in the mid eighteen hundreds. These stones were found I believe in
the nineteen forties, I want to say nineteen forties. It all kind of
traces back to the Baron of Arizona. Now, this website Apache Junction Public
Library was a huge help in a lot of my research, especially for this
dude, The Baron of Arizona. Now, this was written by Tom Colinborne
Colinborne, Yes in nineteen ninety nine, and this dude is fascinating and he
also ties in with some other legends that are in the Superstition Mountains. So
one of Arizona's a most infamous characters was a man named James Addison Revas,
a man of dubious character and background and one of the great land fraud schemers
of the nineteenth century. His claim on eighteen thousand, five hundred square miles
of Arizona in New Mexico Territory as part of an ancient Spanish land grant led
to him being dubbed the Baron of Arizona. James Addison Revs was born on
May tenth, eighteen forty three, in Henry County, not far from Clinton,
Missouri. He served as a soldier in the Confederate Army, enlisting in
Hunter's eighth Division of the Missouri State Guard. While in the Army, he
perfected his genius as a forger. Revas became disillusioned with the Confederate Army and
soon recognized the fact that they were losing the war. Near the end of
the Civil War, he enlisted in the US Army Regiment. He tried using
his forgery skills and was caught. Rivas fled to Brazil in South America in
late eighteen sixty five. Rivas's mother, Maria, was part Spanish and probably
taught him the language. It was his knowledge of Spanish reading and writing which
allowed him the opportunity to forge Spanish documents in both Spain and Mexico that would
later lead to the Bogus parole to land Grant. Vas arrived in Arizona Territory
in eighteen eighty, making claims he owned a large part of Arizona in New
Mexico Territory that included Phoenix, Tucson, and Massilia. He collected rent in
tribute from railroads, branches, farms, and mines for about eleven years.
Many of the Arizona pioneers preferred to pay his extortion rather than fight him in
court, and he amassed a fortune from these rentals. Finally, the United
States District Court challenged Revas' claims. The case had been in the dockets since
February first of eighteen ninety three in the US Land Claims Court, but still
had not gone to court even by February of eighteen ninety five. He had
collected money from the Southern Pacific for right Away and from various minds in the
Arizona Territory. Rivas lost the case in the US District Land Claims Court and
was soon indicted in a criminal court. His criminal trial began in June of
eighteen ninety six, and he was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison
for trying to defraud the United States government. He served his time in the
Santa Fe Penitentiary and was released early for exemplary conduct in April of eighteen ninety
eight. Revas died from bronchitis at the age of seventy one in Denver,
Colorado, in November of nineteen fourteen. James Addison Revas was related to two
other well known Arizona pioneers. One was Federal District Judge is Sean Revus,
and the other was Elijah Marcus Revs, better known as the Hermit of Superstition
Mountain. We're actually going to talk a bit about him next. What we
call the Superstition Wilderness Area today was part of the Paralta Land Grant eighteen eighty
to eighteen eighty five and James Addison Revs Claimed all mineral wealth within his land
grant territory, which included the Superstition Mountain. James Addison Revs for creating stone
markers to verify his claim on lands within the boundary of the Paralta land Grant.
There are some who believe that the infamous Paralta stone maps were one of
Revas' initial set of marker stones that were never placed properly by his henchmen.
The reason behind this belief is that Revas needed to provide proof that his land
was surveyed by the Spanish court. Could the stone maps placed near a black
point have belonged to Revus, the infamous Baron of Arizona. If so,
why didn't Revus use them to prove the authenticity of his claim. The Paralta
Stone Maps are the work of a true artist in stone. The inscriptions are
clear and crisp. For the most part, everything about the stone maps points
to careful planning and preparation. Like the Baron of Arizona, the Paralta stone
Maps are another enigma of Arizona. Pioneer culture. So the Paralta maps,
if you look them up on Google, there is like five of them.
I think that somehow go together, and it is inscribed with the date eighteen
forty seven. However, these became lost again. They were found in the
nineteen forties, kind of just buried under a very thin kind of layer of
dust and dirt from the desert. Really, nobody has any idea where these
came from, who made them. They think they point to a treasure,
they think they point to a mine, or it just could be something that
the Baron of Arizona created so that he could lay claim to this land,
and it might not have anything to do with treasure at all. I only
mentioned that really because a lot of people think that the Peralta stone maps actually
lead to the Dutchman's treasure, or that the Dutchman somehow followed this map or
something like it to a cash of gold or an abandoned mine, the barlt
of mine. Maybe before when we start on with the Dutchman, we're going
to talk about that relative of the Baron of Arizona, and that's the old
hermit Elijah M. Revs. Now this is written by the same guy that
wrote the last one, mister Colinborne. This is from his personal blog,
I Guess Superstition Mountain Tom Collinborne dot blogspot dot com, and he does write
quite well about the Old Hermit. Elijah M. Rivas. No story about
the Superstition Mountains would be complete without a mention of the Old Hermit. Elijah
Marcus Revas was one of the most enigmatic individuals to wander the West. Rivas
was born in Beardstown, Illinois, in eighteen twenty seven. He taught school
briefly in Illinois after graduating from an Illinois teachers college, but soon moved to
California, where he taught school at Elmonty. Revas soon lost interest in teaching
school and then decided to dedicate his time to the gold fields along the Sam
Gabriel River. He spent most of the eighteen fifties prospecting for gold, and
then Rivas joined a group of adventurers and prospectors headed for the Bradshaw Mountains in
Arizona Territory in early eighteen sixty three. He had very little success in Bradshaw
and returned to California in eighteen sixty six. Upon returning to California, he
married mary Y Saxton on December thirtieth of eighteen sixty seven in sam Gabriel.
There were two children born into this marriage. One was a daughter named a
Louisa Marie who was born in November of eighteen sixty eight, and there was
also a son, but he didn't grow to maturity. Rivas returned to Arizona
Territory shortly after his daughter's birth. It was the fall of eighteen sixty nine.
Elijah's uncle, Isham Rivas had just been appointed Assistant Chief Justice of the
Territorial Supreme Court. Rivas traveled to Lapaz with Esham, but separated from him
and traveled on to Vulture City near Wickenburg. He spent enough time in Vulture
City to appear on the US Census report for August of eighteen seventy. His
name then appears in the eighteen seventy two US Census report in the Fort McDowell
area. It's believed that he settled on a horse ranch north of Fort McDowell
in the Verde River, where he broke and trained horses. It is believed
he may have rode with the army as a civilian packer between eighteen seventy and
eighteen seventy two. This would explain how he knew the Superstition Mountain region so
well and was familiar with the Rivas Valley. He may have served as a
temporary Deputy United States Marshal in the McDowell Precinct, appointed by his uncle.
Now he does move around a little bit more. We don't really have to
get into that too much. But on one of his visits to Fort McDowell,
it was said that he was selling vegetables from his Superstition Mountain home,
from his little farm he had there. Noah was said that Elijah Rivas was
a skilled packer and an expert marksman with a rifle. He carried a Winchester
eighteen eighty six thirty eight forty repeater. There were many stories about his marksmanship
and fearless way of life. One of the best stories told about Rivas was
the time he defended his abode from ten fears Apache warriors who were heavily armed.
Early in the afternoon of May eighth, eighteen seventy eight, warriors tried
to get Rivas out of his defensive dugout. Three warriors had lost their lives
to the deadly accuracy of Rivas's rifle. Finally, they decided to go across
the creek and camp for the night. Their new plan was to wait until
Revas ran out of food and water. They weren't in a hurry. Rivas,
while waiting his fate, recalled an old story he had heard about the
Apaches from other men who had survived similar situations. If he could convince the
Apache that he was insane or crazy, they might leave him alone. So
he quickly stripped off all of his clothing from his body, grabbed two butcher
knives, and ran across his garden then the creek, screaming and showing absolutely
no fear. The Apaches heard then saw the fire red hair and blue eyes
of a screeching, quote white devil racing toward them in the light of their
campfire. The Apaches were convinced that he was definitely crazy and no same man
would run naked, armed with two knives into the camp of seven heavily armed
men. The Apaches fled in panic and never returned to Rivas's mountain sanctuary again.
The Apaches even raided into the areas as late as eighteen eighty one,
but avoided Rivas's valley completely. This event in the life of Elijah Marcus Revas
certainly represents the overall cunning, daring, and self reliance needed by him to
survive these rugged and isolated mountains during this period. During the latter years of
his life, he grew vegetables and sold them around the mining camps that dotted
the central mountain region of Arizona. He was a loner, but did enjoy
having an occasional visitor At his mountain dugout. He certainly had the first library
of fine books kept within the boundaries of a superstition wilderness area. He became
a legend during his life because of his personal appearance, his education, his
self reliance, and his isolated way of life. He never shaved or took
a bath. His unkempt appearance undoubtedly added to his legacy. When Revas arrived
in various communities in Arizona Territory, he was always writing his favorite burrow and
leaving a string of eight to fifteen burroughs. These small, sure footed animals
of burden served Revas well. The old hermit's house created a lot of concern
among his friends. In the fall of eighteen ninety five, he was almost
seventy years old and still making trips from his mountain home to the small towns
in central Arizona Territory selling his vegetables. Rivas called Faded and irrigated about fifteen
acres of land completely by himself. He had chickens, turkeys, hogs,
burrows, two horses, and several dogs that he cared for. His team
pulled a sheer plow, disc and leveler, and his friend Dave and his
friend James Dellenbaugh often checked on Rivas at his place in the mountains. He
stopped at the ranch on April ninth of eighteen ninety six for a visit.
Rivas was preparing for a trip to Masa to buy some potatoes. His friend
James bid him farewell and then checked on some mining property he had in the
area and finally ended up at the jf ranch and found out his old friend
had not stopped at the ranch. James backtracked and found the remains of the
old hermit just off of Rogers Canyon in what is now known as Grave Canyon
today. He died alone along the trail about four miles south of his mountain
home round April tenth, eighteen ninety six, a grave was dug and Raves's
remains were laid to rest on May seventh, eighteen ninety six. Today the
grave can be seen in a small Native American ruin, but a pile of
stones on it. Back in the nineties, somebody had put a stone marker
up there for him, but by today it's gone. So that was the
Hermit of those Superstition Mountains. Quite quite a sight to see if you google
him. You can just google the Old Hermit or the Hermit of Superstition Mountain
and his picture will pop up. At the black and white photo. He
looks like a hermit definitely, and it is said that he was a redhead
or had auburn hair, so you can kind of imagine it. And you
could see from the picture he has very very light colored eyes too. But
he's got the long, kind of scraggly, unkempt beard and hair. His
hat is a bit torn, and even the jack of these wearing has a
little bit of tears in it too. He looks like he would be living
in mountains. But from what they see, and not just this article,
but tons of others that I was reading about him, he was a very
intelligent man and he just didn't like dealing with people. He wanted to be
away from everything, be self reliant, have his own shit, but interact
with people here and there when he wanted to. So I have one more
story here. This was just kind of an off story that I stumbled across
these. I'm trying to go in an order for timeline. It gets a
little skewed here and there, and a lot of these things happen during the
latter part of the eighteen hundreds, so I'm sorry if they're a little mishmashed
just because of the dates. It's difficult. But this one is known as
the Lost Soldier's Mine, and I was able to find a really good breakdown
of it from Apache Junction and Gold Canyon News. This is something that is
still talked about. It's not as famous as the Lost Dutchman Mine, but
it is still a story being told, if anything, a cautionary tale.
The tale of the Soldier's Lost Mine continues to circulate around campfires and the Superstition
Wilderness area of central Arizona. The story is often associated with the Lost Dutchman
Mine and the Silver King Mine. Simms Eli mentioned the story in depth in
his book The Lost Dutchman Mine, published in nineteen fifty three. Eli's version
of the story varies from some other stories Simms. Eli states that others left
out in important information about the men involved in the story. His version goes
something like this. Two young soldiers were mustered out at Fort McDowell in eighteen
seventy nine. These young men decided to hike across the Salt River and through
the mountains to the south of the Silver King Mine. This is where they
planned on seeking employment. Their reason for hiking across the mountains was to save
money. Somewhere south of Tall Pointed Peak, they found an old Mexican mine
in dump. They believed the mine to be Mexican in origin because of the
small horizontal tunnels that were only large enough for a man to crawl on his
hands and knees. The young soldiers, fearing apaches in the area, spent
only enough time to fill their pockets with what they thought were rich specimens of
gold ore and hurried on to their original destination. Arriving in no they began
to inquire about a job at the Silver King Mine. It was here that
they met up with Aaron Mason, who advised them and they could probably find
jobs at the Silver King mine eight miles up the road to the north.
The young soldiers mentioned they had some interesting specimens they found between Fort McDowell and
Pennal in the mountains south of the Salt River. They showed these specimens to
him. Mason couldn't believe how rich the gold specimens were that belonged to the
young soldiers. He immediately asked the boys where they had found the specimens.
The boys said that they had found an old Mexican mine somewhere between Pinnall and
the Salt River. The soldiers said that the mine was located in a deep
canyon, but high up on a ledge, where a pointed peak dominated the
area to the south. The soldier boys, according to Eli, said the
diggings was a mine, not a cash. Mason convinced the young men to
return to the mine and recover as much of the gold ore as they could.
Aaron Mason grubstake the two young soldiers and sent them on their way.
The soldiers had a pack mule and enough supplies for a week, but they
were never heard from again again. According to Simm's, Eli and others,
the young soldiers were murdered and never came back to the mine. Eli believed
Jacob Waltz of Lost Dutchman Mine Fame found the soldiers working in the mine and
killed them. Other sources say apaches killed the two young soldiers, and another
source claims that the soldiers were killed for their grubstake, pack mule and their
supplies. Simm's Eli's book claims James E. Bark showed him one of the
soldier's graves near two boulders on the trail between Bark Ranch and Reid's Water.
William T. Bark showed me a spot on the trail during the winter of
nineteen fifty nine and said there was a man buried there. Since that time,
several individuals have tried to convince me this was one of the soldier's graves.
Another story about one of the graves found between the Bark Ranch in Red's
Water is that it was excavated several years ago. The grave yielded the remains
of an unknown person. Among the artifacts, a military type brass button was
found. The skeletal remains were definitely human, However, there was no compelling
evidence that the person buried in the grave was a soldier. Many people wore
shirts with military buttons on them. During this period of time. Many questions
remain unanswered about this story. One where did the soldiers get their rich,
high grade gold ore. Was the ore as rich as Aaron Mason thought it
was? Did the ore come from the Dutchman's mind or an old Mexican mine?
Were the soldiers murdered for the gold that they were packing back to Silver
King? Were they murdered for what they knew? I am quite convinced we
will never know the answers to these questions. We can't be positive there was
ever a soldier's lost mine in the Superstition Wilderness area. The story continues to
be told around campfires. This story will forever tantilize the minds of those who
search for the lost gold and the Superstition Mountains. Now, all of these
little stories and legends kind of play into each other, or they at least
play into the one main big legend here, that's the legend of the lost
Dutchman's goal. We will get to that in just a minute, because I
do want to talk specifically about them man, that is the Dutchman and the
variations of the stories that are told. That is the one that people know
most. But before we do that, I want to talk a little bit
about this one video that I stumbled across on YouTube. It was extremely informative
and was done by Paranormal Files. It's an interview with a guide named Corey
Daniel. He's a professional guide there in Phoenix, Arizona. He gives so
much information on the background some of the rumors and legends surrounding the Superstition Mountains.
So I wanted to talk a little bit about the things he says in
this before we dive into this main big legend. I know we've already been
doing for a bit, but it is fascinating and if you do want to
look up the video, the way he tells these stories, you want to
believe everything he's saying. You believe him to be true because he is that
passionate about it. He starts off by saying that geologists were universally pretty agreeing
that the Superstition Mountains have the toughest terrain in the lower forty eight States.
There are deaths every year, missing person reports, and there's murders dating all
the way back to the Jesuits, possibly even further. Now. I did
notice through my research that a lot of deaths, which we will go over
some of the deaths here as soon as we're done talking about this and the
Last Touchman and and everything. But some of these deaths they're ruled accidental when
there's very very clear proof that it was foul play. So that was something
that I found was really good interesting. I don't know the right word for
that, but we'll go over those in a little while. Now. As
far as these geologists are concerned, they say that there's no gold in these
mountains. There are legends dating back hundreds of years saying that gold has been
found here, but these geologists say that there is no significant amount of heavy
metals in the earth of the Superstition Mountains to signify that there would be gold
here. I do personally find this interesting because gold is literally found all around
this area. I mean, this is right in between or right next to
a shit ton of gold mines, gold City, it's right there by it.
It's a fascinating I don't know anything about gold, I don't know anything
about mining, I don't know anything about minerals. Not knowing anything, you
would think that if you find large amounts of gold all around an area that
there will be more in that area, right, That's what my mind tells
me. But geologists, the professionals say nope. But that doesn't stop.
That doesn't stop stories and legends from forming and being told over and over and
over. Now, one of the things that he does touch on is the
weather extremes that occur here in the Superstition Mountains. I guess one of the
reasons why it was referred to as a Mountain of foam or thunder mountain was
because during the rainy season, so January, February and then July and August,
it would flood. There would be a lot of water coming through there,
and a lot of the areas through there would flood. And they even
flooded Gold City once there was that much rain and it just poured out of
the mountain like that. Now, this is one place that he says he
will not go alone. And this is I'm talking about the guide Corey.
He's the one talking about all this, and he did such an amazing job.
I did want to go through and take notes on everything. He was
saying. He won't go here alone, even though he's a professional hunter,
a botanist, a hiker, a guide. He says people hike alone in
the superstitions for years and then one day they just end up dead. He
said that is the primary reason. The terrain, the surprise, yes that
occur there, not just with weather, but with other parts of the natural
landscape. It's just too dangerous to do alone. He does talk about the
Peralta family. He says in the mid eighteen hundreds they supposedly found gold.
He says there was about four hundred men that were massacred by the Apaches here.
Two were kind of left to go and they ran back to Mexico.
Now, the reason he says that the Apache attacked the Peraltas was because they
told the Peraltas that they were on sacred ground and they needed to leave.
The Paraltas, or at least the leader of the Paraltas, Don Miguel,
told them no. Not only were they not leaving, but these Apache people
were no longer Apache, they were now Mexican. Now there's no actual proof
of this, of course, but in the area that's believed that this massacre
took place, there is a lot of paranormal experiences, which I think is
very interesting. It does give a little credence to it. Now, I
don't know if I mentioned this earlier, because I can't remember. I've been
back and forth with all this stuff. But they can't. This is my
research, by the way, this is not something he said. They can't
actually find evidence, any news articles anything like that detailing anything about the parl
To massacre. They can't find anything on it. They can find news articles
of an Apache attack that took place ten or twenty years before this, before
this supposed massacre, but nothing, no historical documentation that the pearl Toa massacre
actually occurred. I just thought that was very interesting. But anyway, the
two survivors fled back to Mexico, told stories, tried to get the Mexican
government to go back, but the Mexican American War was going on during this
time and then soon after Arizona became part of the US territories. During this
fight, during this attack, now we'll say fight. We'll say fight because
it's not necessarily I mean, you know what I mean. During this fight
with the Apaches, the Peraltas had somewhere between eighty and a hundred mules,
at least that's what the legend says. That wore saddles that were filled with
gold. The reason they had the gold in these saddles was because they were
supposed to be taking another trip back to Mexico to bring that gold back.
Now, the story says that these mules, along with these saddles with gold,
also had maps carved on stone pieces to find their way back to the
mines. These would be the peralta stones. This is just the story that
goes along with it. As far as what they were used for. The
peraltas, we don't actually know if they're real or not, you know.
So when the massacre occurred, these mules took off. It is said that
the apaches found the mules and either started using them for their own stuff,
maybe killed them, maybe sold them. We don't really know, but either
way, two bags were actually found later these are verified to have been found
nine or so. Allegedly, this area became known as Masker Grounds, killing
fields, whatever you want to call them. Now, he does talk about
some theories he has that he makes a very good point on. Now,
this doesn't really have a ton well, I guess in a way it kind
of does. It plays into a lot of the death's disappearances and the Dutchman.
He theoriizes a lot about psychopaths. In the Old West, there was
a well known legend that gold existed in these mountains. There were rumors that
there were possibly bags of gold just stashed all over the place, just waiting
to be found. People came out, and there is evidence that some people
came out there, not necessarily for treasure hunting for gold, but would lie
in wait and bushwhack people. Over the past hundred or so years since the
Dutchman's death in eighteen ninety one, there is is a very unexpected, unprecedented
large amount of headless head miles away bodies that have met an obvious foul play.
Now, granted, while I was looking into a lot of these deaths,
finding a head far away from a body in an environment like this is
not that abnormal. It has a lot to do with the types of animals
and predators that are around along with scavengers. This person could have been subject
to the elements, or fell or had a heart attack, bit by a
snake, stung by a scorpion, bit by a spider, all these things
that could have happened, and they could have died. It's not necessarily all
the time foul play, though quite often than it was, but it's not
that somebody there's a serial killer lying in wait here in the mountains decapitating people.
It is very likely that the head, specifically after decomposition for a while,
the head could have just come off of the body pretty easy and then
been dragged away by scavengers. Some cases are a little easier to believe that
than others. The ones that are found relatively close, that are just like
a couple hundred feet away, maybe up to a mile away, can be
believable. But when they get to be ten miles away, or not found
for years after or never found, that's when it starts to get a little
bit more difficult. However, that doesn't automatically mean that this person was met
with foul play, though it is something to consider because there were a lot
of people murdering other people for water or food, for gold, or just
because they were on the mountain. Knowing this one. Since we are talking
about the legend of the Dutchman, after we talked about this little interview thing,
I'll tell you what he says about the Dutchman, because he's very brief
about it. Now. He says, the Dutchman, Jacob Waltz, it's
a pretty universally known fact that he was not actually Dutch. However, this
guy Corey Corey Daniel, the guide here, says that he was Prussian,
not Dutch. It's a pretty universal thing that it said that Jacob Waltz came
from Germany. It's very well documented now. He says that Jacob Waltz had
a girlfriend. This girlfriend was named Kenty and she was Apache. He says
that she showed him where the gold was. Was it a mine, maybe
Jesuit gold bags from the Parolta, whatever it was. He took this knowledge
to his death, but it is confirmed that he was somehow getting gold out
of the mountains. That's not known where this was. Legend says that it's
somewhere where the shadow of Weaver's needle hits at four pm. People have been
out there over the past hundred years looking at everywhere the shadow touches during every
day of the year, and no one has ever found it. Now,
during the time that Jacob Woltz was here pulling gold out of the mountains,
there were people turning up dead. Well, we will talk about that just
a little bit later. But after he died, way way war started showing
up dead and without heads. Why that is we can kind of leave up
to speculation. Now, there are stories of caves holding different kinds of treasures.
There is a story published in the eighteen hundreds Phoenix Herald about a man
that was chasing horses. While doing this, he found a cave with copper
axes and bones of giants. There were seven skeletons in this cave and they
were all somewhere between eight and ten feet tall. All Native cultures have stories
about giants. There are stories of giants in every culture pretty much. Giants
and little people, and stories of giants, especially in mountain regions and here
in the Southwest, are extremely popular. You will actually hear more stories about
giants than you will little people here in the Southwest. Now, there's another
story of a man who was hiking or exploring or something with a friend and
he found another cave. There was a hand carved or hand hewn spiral staircase
going down to another chamber. Now this is interesting because he states that in
this cave pretty far back back where he couldn't really reach, it was kind
of blocked off, or there had been some kind of cave cave in or
something. There was a glass or crystal skull that they could see, but
they were never able to make it far enough back into the mind safely to
retrieve it. Now, he does go on to talk about something that I
really want to look into more, but it's not relevant to this. It's
just an interesting point he makes, and it is they're in Arizona. He
talks about Mount Graham. It has the largest observatory in Arizona and it's owned
by the Vatican. You all know by now if you've been listening for a
while that I'm super suspicious of the Vatican always. But it's it's interesting because
there's a lens in this observatory. The acronym for it. I don't know
what the act, what the actual wording or the title of it is,
but the acronym for it is the Lucifer lens. This is something I want
to into in the future sometime because it is fascinating to me. This land
was also considered sacred to the Apaches, but the Vatican fought them for years
so that they would be able to control this Mountain Graham, and they won't.
I mean, if you're fighting the Vatican, you're probably gonna lose.
But he does say that there are said to be portals all through the mountains.
Natives would interact with their gods, and gods could pass through to this
world through those portals, and that they were all over the mountain. He
tells some personal stories here too. He says he met a man who would
prospect in the mountains, go looking for gold in the mountains. This man
told him that he saw a portal open and would throw rocks into it to
see what what happened. At one point he went back. He was starting
to get the courage to where he was like, all right, I'm gonna
put a chicken on a rope in here. If the chicken comes out fine,
then I'll go in. If it's all fucked up, I'm not going
in there. I'm not really sure if these are just myths or stories or
legends. By the way, I have no idea, but it's a fun
story. We already talked about how the mountain features in a lot of the
creation stories. It does feature a little bit in the Creation story with the
Apaches as well, but I'm not familiar with their particular story or if it's
really different than the Pima legend that we talked about at the beginning now in
the eighties. This is another story he tells. In the eighties there was
a woman rockhounding. She went into a cave and on her way out she
saw a humanoid by eetle reptilian step into view. She has an abduction story
after this. I'm this episode's already really long, so I'm not going to
touch on that. But you can actually search for alien abduction Superstitition Mountain and
find her story very easily. She's done a lot of a lot of talks
on it. She's very open with it. Now. They do ask him
about why he thinks there's so much paranormal activity in these kind of mountain ranges
and national forests and things like that, and I have to kind of agree,
ish, I don't know enough about it, obviously, but I like
his theory on why these things happen here more often than anywhere else. He
theories that industrialization has pushed electromagnetic waves back and in the wilderness or in untouched
or restricted areas like national parks, those things are in their natural state.
It allows for paranormal events in a way that industrialized areas don't. I do
have to agree that actually makes sense, whether it does actually push back these
electromagnetic waves or not. I don't know, but it makes sense now.
He does give some personal stories like things that he experienced here, and they
are interesting. So he says, he's at Borough Creek, it's about two
am. He's with his dog. It's about a three quarter moon night,
just so you know that, it's not like pitch black. Is a three
quarter moon night, almost a full moon. There's decent visibility, and he's
getting a weird feeling. He says, this feeling escalated very quickly. He
just felt a little weird at first. Then it was like hair on the
back of his neck was standing up, and then an actual fear that he
was in danger. He tries to look over find his dog. Dog is
hiding under the truck. That in itself is concerning. When your dog is
hiding from something that you can't see, you get worried. He says that
he looks behind him to his left, kind of upwards towards the sky,
and he sees something coming at him. He freaks out, rolls out of
the way. But whatever this thing was, he said, it was wearing
clothes. It was wearing some type of cloth. The thing lightly brushed him.
Not lightly. It brushed him because he just moved out of the way,
but it was wearing some kind of cloth. He heard it and he
felt it. Whatever it was, he looked up and he could see it.
It flew out away from him about thirty or forty yards and hovered.
Didn't flap its wings like a bird. It just hovered. He compared what
it looked like to the Ring race from Lord of the Rings, the black
things that were riding on the dragons. He said that it definitely, absolutely
was not a bird. There is no way this was a bird. He
could see it very very clearly, and he washed it after it stared at
him for a minute, just hovering there fly off. Interesting possibly cryptid story.
He has another one that's a little interesting too. He said he was
in a canyon and he was taking a little bit of a break from a
hike. He found a pile of reddish colored dirt. It was just like
a little mound, nothing, you know, no a big deal. He
laid against it to just kind of rest for a minute. As he's laying
there, he feels like his energy was being just sucked out of him,
just completely draining him. The dog stayed away, the dog would not go
on to this mound or near it. He says that he had this feeling
that if he didn't move, he was never going to get up again.
So he rolled off of it because he couldn't get the energy to just sit
up and stand. He had to just kind of flop and roll. But
after he felt fine, he didn't even feel tired. I thought that was
a really interesting kind of story. Not to end this, he does talk
about a lot more throughout this throughout this little interview, but I really liked
this kind of closing statement. They asked him if he thought bodies of people
that had died there and never been found were still just there. His reply
was, quote, I think if all the bodies that are buried out here
stood up at one time, it would look like downtown Manhattan. And that's
the end of lect. That to me was fascinating. I mean, he
told the stories very very well. He didn't focus completely on the Dutchman's Gold
or the peraltas or you know, the most famous kind of stories from this
area. He went in to detail with more of the paranormal parts of it,
which I absolutely love. I mean, shit, this story that we're
talking about these mountains have paranormal buried treasure murder. I mean, this is
like a dream come true. All this story is covering this story. I
do not want to actually go here. I can't deal with heatwell. But
anyway, now we're going to talk finally about the lost Dutchman Jacob Waltz.
This is a very well known story here. So we've been mentioning this whole
time that there is this famous legend of the Lost Dutchman's Gold. This the
stories about this very incredibly. Basically, the name of this came from an
immigrant, Jacob Waltz, who purportedly discovered it in the nineteenth century and then
kept its location a secret. We know that he found gold there, but
where it came from, if it was a cash of gold that was stored
somewhere, if it was from an actual mine, nobody has any clue.
People have been looking for this mine since at least eighteen ninety two. According
to one estimate, more than nine thousand people annually made some effort to locate
the Dutchman's mind. So, this Dutchman, Jacob Waltz, was a German
immigrant. We know that because we have the documentation that states. He was
in Germany for quite a while. In one of the documentaries I was watched,
it was said that he came from a decently well off family and that
his father gave him I think it was like two hundred and fifty dollars to
move to emigrate from Germany to the United States. He did take a different
way of travel than most people did during that time when he arrived in the
US. The earliest documentation we have of him here in the United States is
in eighteen forty eight affidavit which says that Waltz declared himself to be about thirty
eight years old. A man named Jacob Walls, not Waltz, was born
in September eighteen ten in Wurtenburg. It's generally thought that this is the same
person. It is hard to line the two up, just because they are
from different countries and in such an early time, records weren't dependable. I
guess you could say Waltz wa Ltz was definitely the more Americanized kind of version
of the last named Walls. There is a tombstone set up for Jacob Waltz
that actually shows him as being born in eighteen oh eight. Both are fairly
close, but either way. He relocated to Arizona in eighteen sixties and stayed
in the territory for most of the rest of his life. He pursued mining
and prospecting, but it's hard to verify what he did and didn't find.
A big part of the issue is that this lost Dutchman's mind. The gold
here is said to be worth anywhere between two and two hundred million dollars.
There's no exact amount that any he has been able to come up with.
However, it is reported that Jacob Walzer sold two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
in gold to the US Mint during the eighteen eighties and had fifteen hundred dollars
when he died in eighteen eighty one. Now it is believed that he actually
did go by Jacob Walzer when doing official kind of documents to kind of okay,
official documents isn't the right thing. When he was treading in this gold
for cash, he would use the name Jacob Walzer so that he could kind
of protect himself, if that makes sense, because he didn't want other people
finding out that he was going to this area finding this gold. Because people
wanted it for themselves too. Now, he did have one hundred and sixty
acres as a homestead near Phoenix, and this is where he operated his own
little farm. Now, this is what eventually led to his death. He
was not attacked or harmed for his gold. There was a really bad flood
in Phoenix in eighteen ninety one. The farm that he had, a Waltz
farm, was one of many that was completely devastated. Afterwards, he became
ill. That said that he contracted pneumonia during the flooding. He ended up
dying October twenty fifth of eighteen ninety one. He was taken care of by
an acquaintance or a neighbor, or it's somebody he knew named Julia Thomas.
She was usually described as being primarily white, but was either a quarter Native
American or a quarter African American, whatever that is. It's not even completely
corroborated that that was even the case, but that is noted in quite a
few sources. But it was believed that he gave her a bunch of clues
while on his deathbed as to where the location of his mind was. The
issue is all of these clues just seemed to be like you could find the
same things all over. They're not descriptive enough and they're not particular enough to
really narrow down anywhere. But we do know that he got gold out of
there somehow, and it said that he did have gold under his bed when
he died. And later on, this woman, Julia Thomas, she actually
had a matchbox made from some of the gold. It said to be about
thirty percent gold. And the gold that this is made from has been tested
at least, this is what I'm understanding. This is not something I'm a
one hundred percent sure is one fact, but this is something that I did
hear in a documentary that was being done on the Lost Options Gold and on
the Superstition Mountains. But it said that this gold, when it's tested,
gold has like a fingerprint. You can tell by the mineralization what compounds make
up the gold where it's from. This one was then identified. So sorry
about that. Nope, I'm actually not going to go back and edit that
out. If you are in the Facebook group, you probably saw me post
the video talking about the really bad thunderstorms in the twenty warning that just came
through. But like I said in that video, I'm so sorry if you
hear like some pretty bad thunder, maybe some banging and rattling. I'm going
to try to keep it to a minimum, but I need to finish talking
about this or it's never going to get out. So we just talked about
the gold and how gold has like a fingerprint with mineralization. This one was
unidentified, so they know it came from somewhere obviously, But wherever Jacob Waltz
got this gold, there's nothing else like it. There is a little tidbit
of information that I stumbled across here and there, but it's it's something that
not a lot of people agree on, and that's the fact that Jacob Waltz
worked with somebody else. He had a partner, Jacob Wiser. There's a
very strong likelihood that Jacob Wiser never existed and that Jacob Waltz maybe used that
name here and there. And then there's also the rumors that Jacob Woltz had
this partner, Jacob Weiser, and ended up killing him when they found the
gold. There are, of course rumors that say Jacob Waltz killed multiple people
in his search for the gold, but then also killed quite a few others
to keep that gold a secret. None of that, of course, is
verified. We have no idea. But it's interesting how these little stories kind
of mashed together to where maybe Jacob Woltz and Jacob Weiser were the same person,
but because he used this other name, now there's this bighole thing where,
well where did this person go? Most likely, in my opinion and
in many other people's opinions, this was the same person, just using a
different name. And I know that was pretty brief, but it's definitely a
shorter story. But there's so many different versions. We'd be sitting here all
day going over all these different versions, all the people that have gone in
search for the gold. There were some people that have claimed to have found
the gold. We'll talk about that a little bit later. I'll address some
of it, but just know that nothing has been verified as being from the
Dutchman's Gold. I think now is a very good time to go into some
of these deaths that occurred that might be a little suspicious. Now, this
is a very short list. This is some of the better known ones that
have gone looking for the Dutchman's treasure and then ended up dead. There have
been hundreds, possibly even thousands, over the past century of people looking for
this gold. It's been a hundred and thirty years since Jacob Waltz died.
Since he died, people have been looking for it. People have been willing
to kill for it. I got this kind of synopsis of some of the
people that have died or had a series of misfortunes while looking for this gold.
There was Jesse Cappin. This was a very recent one, well,
at least in comparison, it was very recent. Jesse Cappin was obsessed with
the Dutchman gold mine. He was pretty positive that he could actually locate where
it was in the Superstitition Mountains. He was thirty five years old, and
unfortunately he disappeared in two thousand and nine. Punds of books and maps were
found in his apartment after his disappearance, showing how much he had researched the
Dutchman's gold and where it could have been. According to all the stuff found
on his computer, he'd already attempted to locate the treasure at least twice,
and he didn't tell anybody about it. This third trip was, unfortunately his
unlucky one. It would be close to three years before his remains were finally
found volunteers with the Superstition Search and Rescue Organization found his remains wedged in an
impossibly tight crevice about thirty feet off of the ground. He might have fallen
from a ledge above the crevice, maybe somehow got stuck or wedged in,
but his official cause of death remains unknown or at least unreported. There was
no trauma to a skull, and his bones were wedged in such an inaccessible
spot that flooding and animals couldn't get to him. Then there's the slaying of
doctor Adolph Roof. This was back in nineteen thirty one. He set out
for two weeks. He was going to go into the Superstition Mountains in search
of the lost treasure. He never came home. The initial search party found
absolutely no trace of him, but then six months later, in December of
nineteen thirty one, they found a human skull with two holes from a forty
four caliber. They determined it was him, doctor Adolph Ruth, and that
he'd been hit at almost point blank range and somehow his head detached from his
body. The rest of his remains, some personal items, and a fully
loaded peace were discovered in January of nineteen thirty two, and this was about
three quarters of a mile away from where his skull was discovered. Investigators at
the time figured that he had taken his own life, but many people believed
that he was murdered. One authority made a really good point, how was
the gun that was reportedly used to shoot him missing no bullets? When they
looked in his check book, there was a handwritten note claiming that he discovered
the mine, and then it ended with the phrase venni vd VGI. Then
there's the case of James A. Cravy. This is another one where the
head is not found with the body. In the nineteen forties, sixty two
year old treasure hunter James A. Cravy made an attempt to locate the gold
mine, but was later found dead in the wilderness of the Superstition Mountains.
His body was discovered first, and it wasn't until six months later that his
skull was found. His journey to find the mine was a huge spectacle at
the time. He traveled to the mountain in a helicopter. Before leaving,
he purportedly told his friends he knew exactly where the gold was hiding. He
was supposed to be there for ten days, that he figured would give him
enough time to find the treasure, and then he asked the pilot to come
back to that spot and pick him up. But when the pilot arrived,
Cravy was nowhere to be seen. His camp was intact, and only two
days worth of food had been eaten. No one knows why Cravy had his
head removed or who killed him. And I said in the beginning of the
episode, these people that are found without heads or their heads are far from
the bodies. That's kind of iffy for me because it can be carried off
by scavengers. I don't know if I can say everyone without a head is
victim to it being forcibly removed. You know, that's a hard one for
me. Now. In nineteen fifty three, three people went missing, the
first of which was in early nineteen fifty two. This was Joseph Kelly.
He was from Dayton, Ohio. He decided to go look for this lost
treasure. He was never seen alive again. He was eventually found near Weaver's
Needle two years after he disappeared. He was shot in the head and there
were no leads on the identity of the shooter. That same year, two
California boys named Ross Blair and Charles H. Barker. I think that's how
you say it. Sorry. Both of them vanished out in the Superstition Mountains,
and their bodies still to this day I've never been found. And this
next one is James Kidd, and this starts off in a great way because
this says that the only thing shrouded in more mystery than his death was his
life. He didn't have any family, but he had quite a lot of
money. Most of it was from investments, but where he got the cash
to invest in the first place is unknown. He spent a considerable amount of
time kind of just poking through the east edges of the Superstitions. It's possible
he found a lost treasure and was making pickups from his stash as needed.
He was secretive in standoffish, which is why no one knows much about him.
His disappearance was reported December twenty ninth of nineteen forty nine, but probably
would have been reported sooner had someone been close to him. Several years after
his disappearance, it was discovered that he left half a million dollar fortune behind.
He was a big, big believer in ghosts, so he specified in
his will that his entire estate was to be awarded to anyone who could prove
that ghosts existed. Some believe that he was killed for his gold. Another
story tells of a man who dropped him off in a Superstitions and continued to
check on him each month until he just didn't show up. His body has
also never been found, so in the Superstitions, it's apparently a normal occurrence
to stumble across human skulls or human remains. From nineteen fifty five to nineteen
seventy eight, multiple remains were reportedly found, a lot of them with holes
in their heads. Two more sets of remains were found without heads, and
investigators were never able to find their skulls. Many people believed that the slayings
could be connected to a curse, while others hypothesize it could be bandits taking
advantage of gold bearing explorers. Another interesting person we have here is J.
Clap. In the fall of nineteen sixty one, this marked the beginning of
the search for prospector J. Clapp. He'd spent over a decade and a
half working through the Superstition Mountains before simply vanishing in July of nineteen sixty one.
The police search that fall was thorough, but there was no trace of
him that could be found, so they ended up calling off the hunt.
Three years later they found his headless skeleton. His skull still hasn't turned up.
Now, this one, this is an interesting tape because this is I've
seen this in some sources, but it's contested quite a bit. And that's
the death of Elijah. Rivas says. He was quite the character. Like
we talked about. He convinced the local and Native American tribe that he was
off his rocker by running around without clothes throughout the canyons with knives. True,
they decided to steer clear of him, and so did just about everybody
else. He settled in the wilderness of the Superstition Mountains back in eighteen seventy
two and became known as the Madman of the Superstitions. In eighteen nineties six,
his decomposed remains were found. Allegedly two Easterners were out looking for the
lost mind the same year Revas's cadaver was found, and they were never seen
again. So who knows. Maybe he was met with foul play, maybe
they were met with foul play. I have no idea now there's this one
that I found very interesting, but there's not a lot of information on it
at all. I tried doing like little side research. When I talk about
rabbit holes, this is what I mean. Little cases like this will grab
my attention and I want to know more or little things that pop up with
us. So someone went missing in nineteen fifty eight, but we don't know
who it is. The identity of the person or multiple people that disappeared an
eight role in nineteen fifty eight remains a mystery. That year, a deserted
campsite was discovered. It was over the northern outskirts of the mountain and the
scene was pretty grim. Things like cooking tools, cleaning supplies, a Geiger
counter, personal letters. They were all left behind. The personal letters,
the addresses in the names were torn off so that you couldn't tell who they
were too, or who they were from. The most disturbing thing that was
found here were blood soaked blankets. They were inside the tent and there was
a pretty substantial amount of blood. There's never been any clue as to who
this was or who these were, who these people were, why they disappeared,
what happened. It's one of those mysteries. And here, if it
wasn't bad enough thinking that maybe somebody is going to attack you and kill you
for possibly having gold, the rocks also try to kill you. In the
years nineteen twenty seven and twenty eight, people had reportedly been hiking up to
the trails when suddenly large boulders rolled down on them from above. In nineteen
seventy, a long term prospector named al Morrow suffered the same fate. A
boulder fell while he was excavating a tunnel and killed him. In nineteen sixty
four, the remains of Robert and Richard Kremis were discovered at the bottom of
a high cliff. Whether the ground had just crumbled beneath their feet or a
boulder knocked them off is uncertain. The integrity of the ground where they were
standing on that they were standing on was most likely the cause, or maybe
they were pushed, But it does seem a bit far fetched that both men
just happened to accidentally fall off of a cliff. Now, this last little
mystery, again I couldn't find much information on. In nineteen ten, the
skeletal remains of a woman were found in a cave high up on the Superstition
Mountain. Allegedly, she had a small sack of gold nuggets with her,
but there were no signs of what possibly could have ended her life, and
there were no remnants of any type of clothing. It appears as if the
woman found some gold, took her clothes off, went into a cave,
and just died. There are so many stories like this. People mysteriously disappear,
or they've been doing this for decades and then just one day never come
back, or they're found without their heads, or they're found with holes in
their heads. It's fascinating, but it does not make me want to go
here anymore. Not that I want to do initially anyway, but you know
what I mean. There is one more crime that I stumbled across. Well,
there's a couple more crimes, but this one was enough to get my
attention, mostly because of the picture. This dude. These well two dudes.
They the one looks like a normal, everyday average Joe. The other
one almost looks like he's dead. I don't know how to describe it,
but this happened back I think in the eighties, yes, early eighties,
so it was January twenty eighth, nineteen eighty one, Suzanne Rosetti went to
a convenience store in Phoenix near fifty second in Van Buren Streets. She went
to go back out to her car and realized that she locked herself out.
She turned and saw two young guys Jesse James Giles, Jillies something like that,
and Michael Logan and asked them to help her get her door open.
They did. They got the car door open, and she wanted to show
them that she was so thankful that they were able to do that, so
she bought them a six pack of beer and offered to drive them to Weldon's
riding stables. This is where they said they worked these You'd like to think
this is the start of a good story, like she just takes them,
drops them off, they become good friends, you know, see each other
at the store, YadA, YadA whatever. That is not how this went
along the way. The men sexually assaulted her. They did this at Papago
Park and then again at her apartment. While they were at her house,
they stole a bunch of shit from her apartment, including her credit cards.
Another one, dude, I don't know if it's Jillies or Giles. We're
here gonna call him Gillies because that's funny and he's a fuckhead. So Gillies
and Logan drove her to fish Creek Hill in the Superstition Mountains. Then they
threw her off a forty foot cliff. They went down the cliff and found
her still alive and begging to just be left to die in peace. Instead,
they hid her in the head with rocks until she was unconscious, and
then buried her. The medical examiner would later say that she was alive for
at least fifteen minutes while buried. Police reported that when they found her body,
one of the rocks that was on top of her was so heavy that
it took two men to move it. Now, the next day, she
was reported missing by her parents. They expected her to pick them up and
drive them to the airport. She was a reliable girl. This was not
like her to just ditch them. Now. Over the next few days,
Gilly's here in Logan used her ATM card twenty eight times because the bank limited
the withdrawals to only two hundred and fifty dollars a day. Jilli's here spoke
about the murderer to several of his friends, which led to his and Michael
Logan's arrests. Logan cooperated with authorities, showing them where the body was buried,
and testified against Jillies in exchange for a life sentence. He remains in
prison today. Jillies was convicted on August twenty seventh of nineteen eighty one and
sentenced to death one month later. Jess James Gillies was execute it on January
thirteenth, nineteen ninety nine. His last meal, I love it when they
had these. His last meal consisted of New York steak rare, sliced mushrooms,
two eggs, ten strips of bacon, toast with butter and strawberry preserves,
milk, apple juice, and a thirty two ounce chocolate milkshake. Not
his last words. This is the biggest dick move. He offered no last
words. He just motioned with his hand as the death warrant was read,
as if to say, let's just get on with it. Well, fuck
that guy. But that was a true crime story that kind of caught my
attention. But we have another one. This one isn't a very interesting story.
This is all about gold jealousy. Just an amazing story. This is
from Arizona Capital Times Celeste Marie Jones. She arrived in the Superstitions in the
nineteen fifties to search for gold. She had some financing, some say from
a church in Los Angeles, and she got more financing in the form of
food and supplies from Bob Corbin and his partner Joe Roebels. They themselves had
prospected for gold and the Superstitions. The two men packed in food every Friday
night one whole winter, in exchange for a ten percent share of anything Jones
found. Her background is a little obscure. She was supposed to have been
an opera singer from Los Angeles, a nightclub singer, and a church choir
singer, but none of that has ever been verified. She was obsessed with
finding what she believed was the gold of the Jesuits, gold that was said
to have been hidden by the Jesuits when they were expelled from New Spain.
About the time Jones set up camp, another treasure seeker, a man named
Ed Piper, arrived in the area and began prospecting. Before long, a
dispute broke out over claim boundaries and water rights. The Jones and Piper groups
began sniping at each other in a serious few developed. According to Corbyn,
Jones began talking about wanting Piper killed, so he ended his support and quit
grubstaking her. Justice of the Peace Norman L. Teason ordered both sides to
stop fighting and had all long range arms confiscated so that they couldn't act as
snipers and kill each other, but he did let them keep their side arms.
Jones she usually carried a sawt off point thirty zero six rifle and a
revolver. The feuding reached a climax on November eleventh of nineteen fifty nine.
On that day, Piper shot and killed Robert Saint Marie, one of Jones's
men. Piper claimed self defense and since there were no witnesses, he got
off. Two weeks later, Laverne Rolie was shot by Ralph Thomas and died
of his wounds. Both men were sympathetic to Piper's cause, although not actual
members. The feuding continued from nineteen fifty nine to nineteen sixty two. Former
Penal County Sheriff Coy Day Arman remembered being called by Jones, who said there
was going to be a fight in the Sheriff Shakipas deputies out or they might
get hurt. He responded that if one of his deputies was hurt, he
would send in fifty more after her. Later, she tried to hire him
to guard her camp. On March twenty nine, nineteen sixty one, the
body of Prospector Walter Maori was found. His death was ruled a suicide,
but many claimed he'd died at the hands of one of the feuding gangs.
The feuding finally ended when Ed Piper died on July twenty fourth, nineteen sixty
two. Exploratory surgery had revealed he had advanced cancer. Celeste Murray Jones continued
her search for about another year, but finally quit. She was actually in
poor health too. What happened after she left the superstitions isn't really known for
certain. Bob Corbyn was elected Maricopa County Attorney and served from nineteen sixty five
to sixty nine. He was Arizona Attorney General from seventy nine to ninety one.
So these two the story of their feuding, like there are books written
on their little feud, and this is the Piper Jones feud. It is
fascinating. Like she was, she was a little badass for her day,
a woman in the fifties, and I believe she was also mixed. I'm
not one hundred percent, but I'm almost positive she was either African American mix
of that and native or mix of that in white. I'm not really sure,
but that doesn't really matter. Just for a woman of color of any
kind to be out there and be like boss bitch, that's amazing. I
don't know if she was in the right here, but most likely, given
the time the fifties, especially if she was a woman of color, dude
moving in wouldn't have thought twice about taking her shit over. She's a woman,
what's she gonna do with it? Right, Most of the time women
weren't taken seriously then, let alone women of color. It has gotten much
better, but we still have a long way to go. Now, has
the gold been found? That is a very good question. Now, if
you google Lost Dutchman's gold Found, there's gonna be a shit ton of results.
Tons of people have said that they found the gold. Just on YouTube
aloone. When I even just searched Lost Dutchman's gold Mine, there were probably
eight videos that popped up saying it was found. But it was rough training
to watch most of the videos. As far as I can tell, none
of this gold has been verified as being the Lost Dutchman's gold. This is
based on an analysis comparing it to the gold matchbox that was made from the
gold that was found under the Dutchman's bed when he died. Either these claims
were not compared to that sample, or they didn't match. To be quite
honest, I don't know if the Dutchman's gold is still up there. I
don't know if it's been found. Shit, I'm not even one hundred percent
sure that it even existed. We know that people have gone into those mountains
and then had gold. Whether it came from inside those mountains or was stashed
somewhere, I don't know. Now there was in nineteen twelve, we know
eighteen thousand dollars worth of gold or was discovered near massacre grounds. I don't
know who found it, but it has been documented as being found in that
area by somebody. The legend of the Lost Dutchman's Gold is said to be
worth much more than eighteen thousand, Like I said earlier, anywhere from two
to two hundred million dollars in gold. The last thing I wanted to touch
on as another legend in this area. This is something that took me down
a rabbit hole, and I really couldn't find anything proving or disproving this.
Basically, there is said to be a rogue group of Apache and possibly Pima
Native Americans known as the Black Legion. If you watch the History Channel documentary
on this, they do talk about this legend a little bit, and that
these natives are protecting the treasure and when you're getting too close, they'll let
you know by leaving behind a black handprint. If this warning is ignored,
you should be prepared to probably meet your end. Trying to find stories or
any documented case or any real information on the Black Legion was extremely difficult.
I couldn't find any information from reputable sources, none. But I did find
quite a few places where there's just like a forum where anybody can talk about
these things, and some make some pretty freaking bold claims, but they're still
not giving stories. They're saying they exist, and they're hidden in these little
innuendos and like talking in circles but not saying anything. I'm not really sure
if they exist or not. Many experts say that they do not exist that
the practice of leaving a black handprint behind isn't something that the Apaches or the
Pimas in the area would do. If they left behind some kind of handprint,
it would most likely have been read because of the red clay that's found
in the earth. I don't know if that legend is fact or fiction,
or if somebody plays into it, but if you go into these mountains,
maybe just to be on the safe side, avoid any places that do have
that black handprint, you know, just to be safe, or if it
is true, just to show a little respect and be like, all right,
you know, I got you. They're interesting stories, and the Apache
black legion has been blamed for a lot of the depths and a lot of
the disappearances that happen in these mountains, as well as the portals and the
little people, and there are so many myths and legends and there's a lot
to it. What do you think Do you think that the Superstition Mountains are
hunted? Do you think that the Peraltas and Jacob Altz actually found gold in
these mountains? If so, do you think it's been found or do you
think it'll ever be found? What do you think of the Apache Black Legion.
Let me know what you thought of this, Let me know what some
of your thoughts and your theories are. That's the end of the episode today.
Now don't forget that. Next episode, I'll be sitting down with author
Leslie Fear and we're gonna be talking about witchcraft. It's gonna be a fun
episode. And from the little bit of chatting we have done, she's asking
me some really good questions, things that just sometimes I might gloss over because
it seems like I just assume people would know. But this kind of interactive
conversation her and I are gonna have, it's gonna be a lot of fun.
Send in any questions that you would like answered, and I'm fine if
I don't know the answer. I have no problem stating an in I don't
know. But let me know what you thought of this. Let me know
if you have any questions for the next one. You can always reach me
on social media Facebook, Instagram, Shoes booz and Tattoos sbt POT on Twitter,
or if you prefer, you can send me an email Shoes, Booze
and Tattoos at gmail dot com. Thank you all so much for listening.
I'll see you all later Bye, I'll drink you around, you follow down
around. It's not out of space. And then is nine, don't I
said? And the dough is no