Legend of the Lost Dutchman
By Clair Artimus Millett
For twenty or thirty years only the Apaches knew the location of the gold. Then a German prospector named Jacob Walzer came to the town of Phoenix on the Salt River. He talked “Dutchie” and so was known as the Dutchman, Any man in Arizona in 1871 was a pretty touch character and the Old Dutchman could hold his own with any of them. He drank some, prospected some, and took up with a young Indian squaw for company. They would leave town on a prospecting trip for three or four weeks, then come back in and camp on the riverbank. On one of these returns Walzer had nuggets of almost solid gold and told stories of millions of dollars worth still in the mountains.
The old miner was living a prospector's dream until the day when the Apache's raided Phoenix. Normally they didn't bother the people in the desert valley but this time they were raiding for a purpose. They were after the Indian girl who told the secret and the Old Dutchman who had stolen the “Thunder-God's” gold. The wily Dutchman out maneuvered them . . . but the girl was killed by having her tongue torn out!
From then until his death in 1891, Walzer was haunted by men who tried to follow him to the gold ledge. By his own deathbed account he killed thirteen of them. One was his nephew who came to help him mine but got too loose with his talk. In spite of all he encountered, Wells Fargo records show the Dutchman cashed in $250,000 worth of gold in their office alone.
The Dutchman died at age 83 in the home of a women friend in Phoenix. He tried to give her and one other friend directions to the mine as he was dying. The told them he hadn't begun to take out all the gold . . . the riches were still there. They made a rough drawn map and wrote down his words . . . “no miner will ever find my mine . . . it can't be seen from the military trail but I can watch the trail from the mine. If you pass three red hills you have gone too far. I can see the Needle (the old sombrero crown) by climbing a steep ravine. The setting sun shines on the gold in my cave . . . in a canyon running north and south. Across from my mine is my cave. The shaft goes down on a vein 18 inches thick. I watered my burrows at the old water hole. I covered my mine from all miners.”
Sketchy clues from a sick old man and a box worth another $18,000 worth of nuggets were all he left of the mine worth millions! Although both the woman and the other friend (named Holmes) searched the better part of their lives for the mine, it wasn't found.
This, then, was the beginning of the gold search that has gone on for a century. The mystery mountain still has its secret and men who have shared it haven't lived to tell. It began in the 1800's when Jacob Wisner was roasted to death over his own campfire. Adolph Ruth came from the east in 1932 with a copy of the old Peralta map, but before he could mine, his head was cut off and the map stolen. Murder by unknown persons is also on the coroner's logs for Dr. Burns, and Joseph Kelly of Ohio, two California boys, one man from Tucson, Walter Mowry of Denver and more. Then there were murders by known persons as partners shot each other over fool's gold. As late as 1959 a Hawaiian boy died in this way. His skeleton was found in his sleeping bag with a bullet through his body. Another was shot the same year by old-timer . . . supposedly for claim jumping.
By now the gold story has spread and many maps are circulating among the men who dream of wealth. Every year they come from all over the world, each man believing he will be the one to find the Lost Dutchman's mine. Many have lost their lives, all have lost their dreams but none have found the gold. Gold fever in the Superstitions makes crazy men out of ordinary people.
Apaches of Arizona have always known the Superstition Mountains were “bad Medicine!” That deadly maze of mountains is the home of the “Apache Thunder-God” and he has never welcomed intruders. The mountain, the water and the gold belong to the “Thunder-God” and only the Apache respects his ownership. White men called it Indian superstition and for over a century tried to steal the gold, nobody knows the count of men who died looking for the secret of the Superstitions. A few bodies have been found more were probably not. Skeletons turned up with bullet holes through the skull and a few had their heads cut off. Some men were murdered for what they knew, some for what they might learn. Most of them we can only guess who killed them! The only sure thing about the mountain is that the gold is still there!
Around the middle of the 1899's when Arizona was still Mexico, an old Spanish land holder had a family problem which caused vibrations that Arizonan's are still feeling! A lot of good stories start with a beautiful daughter and this Spaniard's was no exception. His daughter had a lover of the peon class. When Don Peralta found out he offered a reward that sent a hundred men after the poor man's hide! Most of the searchers gave up after a time but two tracked him into the mountains east of what is now Apache Junction, Arizona. When they found him . . . he had bags of gold and told of a mountain made of it! The three filled their saddlebags with nuggets and started back to Don Peralta. The Mexican men knew that rocks and canyons of the mountains can all look alike on a second trip. As a landmark to guide them, they noted a high jutting rock that looked like the crowns of their sombreros! Only one man made it home. The other two lost their lives crossing a flood filled river. The two (including the lover) fought harder to save the gold than to save their lives . . . and lost them both.
When the lone man showed up at Don Peralta's ranch with the nuggets, the Don sent an expedition back to the mountains to check his story. The expedition followed the Mexican's markings and found the sombrero rock as he had told them. The mountain ledge was filled with high-grade gold!! For several years Peralta's men mined the La Sombrero Mine, until the Don found out the land around his mine had been sold to the United States as part of the Gadsen Purchase of 1848. He rounded up all the men and horses he could spare from the ranch and sent them on one last expedition to get out as much gold as possible.
Up to this time the Apaches and the “Thunder-God” had been tolerant of the small mining colony but when they saw 400 men and 500 horses and pack mule's start into the sacred land . . . it was no longer tolerable. The war cry was sounded and Apaches from all around gathered until they were a thousand strong. There was no battle to speak of, just a simple massacre of all 400 men. The Apaches filled the mineshaft with bodies, with rock and dirt, leveled of the land and swept away all traces of gold and the mine. Again, the “Thunder-God” declared it his gold and the Apaches vowed death to any man who didn't honor their God's territory.
Who killed all these men? Apaches seeking revenge for their “Thunder-God?” Are they the only ones who know the secret? Or does someone have the old Peralta map and is guarding the mine? Did too many men get too close?
There is still only one thing sure about the Superstitions . . . the mountain; the water and the gold belong to the Apaches “Thunder-God” yet!!!
Copyright 2003, Clair Artimus Millett
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Apache Thundergod Mountain |
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