John J. (Jack) Fraser - The Jack of all Trades

hello welcome to mysteries of superstition  mountain I'm Larry Hedrick where we bring the   past into the present for our future viewers today  we have another great story by Hank Sheffer thanks   a lot Larry at one time or another we've all  heard the old story that Jacob Waltz said I know   of a treasure that'll make 20 men millionaires  well i don't know exactly what he meant by that   i know I've never become one of those try as i  might but what we do know is that as soon as you   say the name superstition mountain it conjures up  the visions of adventures of searching for gold   searching for Jacob Waltz's lost dutchman mine or  the or the Jesuit church treasures Jesuit gold or   the the ever-present Peralta catches of gold  from mines from ancient times from old Mexico   whatever you might choose there's  something there for everybody to hunt for   of course then there are always the  people that come from all over the world   to go and just see the tranquility  and the beauty of the mountain itself   all of the hiking trails and whatnot that  will allow anybody to go back in there and see   remnants that were left over by the pioneers and  you can pretty much see what the pioneers saw even   way back then well however much gold Jacob Waltz  may have found here in Arizona remains to be seen   but one thing that we know absolutely for sure  is that there was silver and there was a lot of   it and this silver discovered in 1875 at what has  become that became I should say the silver king   mine opened up the ball for people coming from  all over the world to get a piece of that action   there were cooks there were anvil pounders  blacksmiths there were people in mercantiles   there was everybody you could possibly  imagine and in great measure it opened   the area wide open for the cattle business now  the fella that we're going to talk about is J.J   fraser or Jack fraser and he was one of the  best-known cattlemen that came over here   but we really can't say he was the first one to be  here that distinction goes to a fellow by the name   of Matt Cavanus and he and his wife Alice got here  sometime before fraser did and they established   what was known as the board house ranch confused  by many because it was called the cow barn   it's pretty much where the quarter circle u  ranch is today but ironically with cavernous that   particular board house clue that went along with  the dutchman gold was probably one of the most accurate clues of all of the clues that we see  and it's it's probably one of the clues that we   hear the least about but that's another  whole story we're not going to go there   that was a long way around sally's barn  to get to our topic for today and that's   JJ or Jack Fraser and he was a guy  that was born in 1855 over Nova Scotia and by the time he was six  years old he and his family   I presume he and his family went because  couldn't find anything about the family only him   but by the time he was six they were in Canada  proper on the mainland and by the time he was 10   years old he had now moved over to Nevada to  the comstock load where he was working there   and yes he was 10 years old and yes children from  8 to 10 years old worked in some of the old mines   until they learned enough and got big  enough then they could actually walk down   into the mines and work as miners that was a  true story so he was there for about 10 years   and then finally he managed to go to where the  silver was and that was at the silver king mine   he arrived there about 1877 and he was working  the mines there it was interesting this this guy   had a propensity for finding ways to make money  i was going to call this the entrepreneur cowboy   but that seemed like way too much word because  i couldn't even say it so it became Jack fraser   jack of all trades and what he found  there was apparently he liked to gamble   and by 1887 the way the story  goes was he won a herd of cattle in a poker game and so he took that herd of cattle  and would you believe he decided to open a cattle   ranch so he established the JF ranch the Fraser  ranch in 1891 and so now Jack Fraser has a real   cattle ranch he's been a miner he's made money at  that now he's a cattle rancher he has that things   are working pretty well for him until 1892. the  first year that he's at his ranch he hires this   young fella to come in and watch the ranch uh they  built the they built up the buildings they built a   barn they built the main house or a windmill  for the water they've done all these things   but jack has other irons in the fire sorry for the  pun but he did and so he hired this young fellow   to watch the rants and his name was charlie Noddie  n-o-d-d-i-e could have been Noddie could have been   Noddie I'm not sure but it was charlie Noddie  and charlie noted was there watching the ranch   and all of the sudden somebody comes to the  ranch and they murder young charlie they mess   up the house they ransack everything in the house  they steal one of Jack Fraser's favorite horses   and they just leave charlie for dead they  don't even know that these guys stole anything   but they tore the place up well now some thought  it was the Apache kid well that wasn't true   because when we do our research we find out that  the Apache kid wasn't even around at that time   it just turned out to be uh two nasty people that  went down and they shot this kid they were never   found um they took the body of charlie up to  uh the silver king and he is interred up there   his gravesite is still there at the cemetery on  the silver king they never found out who did it   and they never figured out why anybody would  want to kill a 13 year old kid well the   the Charlie Noddie thing was not so good it was in  the papers and it time went by a couple two years   later the next thing that happened that  was intriguing was that Elijah Reavis died   now we talked about Elijah Reavis earlier in one  of our in one of our video series episodes and he   had the prime land he had beautiful land up there  with deep grass he had perennial water and he died   well Jack Frazier got right in on that one turned  out he was the one that handled the probate   when Reavis died and within six months  he laid claim to that property and he   added all of Reavis's ranch to the JF ranch and so  now things are getting bigger and bigger but now   still he needs somebody to look after that ranch  too so he hired a fellow who was from England by the name of Bill Wright Billy Wright  and Billy Wright wound up being his foreman   on that part of the ranch which they  now called the upper Fraser ranch for   around 20 years he was up  there watching that ranch   well in the meantime we have jack Fraser  who's forever looking for ways to make money   the ranch was doing okay it held its own but it  never really turned him into that wealthy guy   that he wanted to be he he wanted to be must have  been a millionaire maybe one of those ones that   Jacob Waltz was talking about i don't know but at  any rate a couple years after that we get to 1898.   so Jack Fraser meets up with an old friend of  his that he'd known back in the silver king days   by the name of William Truman now he knew Truman  because Truman had been one of the lead carpenters   at the Silver King and what they're  finding out is that they they meet up   with this fella who needs a grub steak to go  to the Klondike because we now have the 1898   gold rush going on up to the Klondike and this  fella needs a grub stick so Truman and Fraser   apparently they must have had a lot of faith  in this guy because his name was bill smith and they grub staked this guy and off he goes  to the Klondike well they don't hear anything   that we know of uh from smith until finally  1901 and they get to the they get the word   that Mr William Smith has hid it big and in that  day just Jack Fraser's part of the pot was 1.2   million dollars that was then uh you all  can do the math if you want i already did   it it comes out to about 36 million today and  that's what Jack Fraser now has in his pocket   well now it's 1902 and guess what else is going on  and you've seen that in one of our episodes about   the Roosevelt dam and we're building a Roosevelt  dam that's going to be the greatest thing since   shirts with pockets and so he gets in on this  because people are making the travel up and down   the mesa Roosevelt road and they need a place to  stop even the teamsters needed a place to stop   so they put in a place called fish creek station  great it was a place they could change horses all   that wonderful stuff well that wasn't enough for  the visitors so what's jack do he builds a lodge   he built a lodge right there that he operated  from 1905 until 1909 and it was called   the fish creek hotel it was a big place uh  and it was very successful well come 1909 he's done okay with this but he he's wanting  to move on so what's he do he sells everything   he sells all of those holdings he sells part of  the ranch off and he decides to take and invest   all his money into the fertile lands that were  down around Florence not junction as we know   but Florence uh the other half of the road down  to Florence proper and so now he owns all that   proper property down in there and he's making a  pretty good go with this okay so now we know that   he's down in Florence and he's running around  down there it's 1910 and he is he's moving back   and forth into mesa into Tempe uh he's running  back and forth he's taking care of his business   he still has money being made cattle ranch  because it's still the the jf ranch at this point   and he's starting to dabble in politics well he  dabbled all right because he bumps into a guy   who's going to be a president he bumps into  Herbert Hoover who happens to be a mining   engineer and of all things the two of them wind up  together up in the superstition mountains beating   and banging on rocks looking for mineral outcrops  of all things and they did this for a couple   years together in fact they probably became pretty  hard fast friends because now we have Jack Fraser   is with the republican party representing Arizona  for the election of Herbert Hoover and that was in   uh 1928 1930 I should say so now we have  Jack Fraser he's done that he's messed with   the president he messed around with the other  president teddy Roosevelt at the Roosevelt dam   he's made money there he's had people with  the Klondike and so now he's running around   with these people that he knows and ironically  even Truman was a member of the masonic lodge   the same as Fraser was and so the big  boys were all parts of the masonic lodge   and a plan apparently found a home there  because he was in the masonic lodge for 68 years   not bad because he only lived to be 88 so he  was there at the masonic lodge for a long time   now he dabbled in some other things too and one of  those things and i know he had to know Dr Palmer   had to know him because Palmer was one of the  ones as we talked about earlier in that episode   who started some drug stores pharmacies  well turns out Jack Fraser is the one   who was one of the founders of everybody's  favorite pharmacies in mesa that was true   he was also the president of the first national  bank for Pete's sake so he was he was dealing   with that we won't even talk about bankers  and money we won't do that and of course the   masonic lodge well he dealt with this for quite  some time until we finally get around to 1943.   and unfortunately jack Fraser's run out  of time he's 88 years old and he died   in 1943. okay well as it stands now we have Jack  Fraser has finally passed on and he truly was an   entrepreneur he was that that he was a pioneer out  in the superstition mountain but with his death   you'd have thought maybe that was the end of it  but oh no no no that's not the way it worked out   because we get around years later bear in mind now  there's still cattle going on the cattle business   is still going on in the superstition mountains  it's changed hands we're not going to go through   all that right now but it's changed hands but it's  still there and 1978 rolls around and what happens   is that another fella is out he's been hired to  watch the JF property his name is Manuel Valdez   and out of the clear sky two guys come out there  and they lay and wait for him they're in a they're   not quite to the wash they're behind this little  mound of dirt that's off from the front porch and   Manuel walked out on the front porch and these  guys with their long guns shot him dead where he   stood he never really knew what the reason was  but it was almost like Charlie Noddie ghost was   back and the murderers that he endured were back  again 86 years later they did the same thing they   ransacked the house they stole the horses and they  they just made a mess of things well they took   they took Manuel's body and they hauled him down  into the wash which wasn't all that far away and   they covered him up with some sand and they  thought they'd gotten away with it off they went   well unfortunately the body was found and it  was found by Manuel's little dog Priata who   was sniffing around and an old friend  of ours that we've met over the years   billy crater you knew him Larry.... Billy  Crater was out there with the sheriff's posse   and little Priata went right to the body and they  found it they moved what little sand was on top of   him um and if it hadn't been for Priata um well  Manuel probably still be out there what was left   let me still be there but anyway at that point uh  billy crater called the sheriff's department uh or   they contacted them they didn't have cell phones  they got in touch with the sheriff's departments   usually Pinal and Maricopa both because of  where the properties were in the counties and   they found those two guys they were taken  to court they were found guilty and they   were put in jail and that was the way that  went so at this point things quieted down   Jack Fraser's gone the murderers they were  caught that was taken care of and by 2012   the property was now in the hands  of George Martin he and his son were there at the they took care of the ranch  and that's been ongoing for quite some time   until uh all of that ranch property was  bought out by uh the quarter circle you ranch with old Gus Barkley so what we know is  that while Jack may not have been the first   he was really uh what we like  to refer to as the bell cow   he was the first he had the big ranch that has  come down into what ranches are left out there now   and unfortunately with the with the Woodbury  fires and whatnot that came through a lot of the   desert was burned up but from what i understand  all of the jf buildings are still there as they   were if they haven't been graffitied to death  or or vandalized to death i really don't know   i haven't been there in years but we know that  Jack Fraser was the guy that got this all started   why he decided to come into the superstition  mountains we know he came for the silver but other than that what would have drawn  him here to be an entrepreneur per say   I don't think we're ever really going to know  what the the underlying reasons were for that   it's just going to have to stay one of  those mysteries of the superstition mountain   thank you for watching this episode of  mysteries of the superstition mountains

Channel: Mysteries of the Superstition Mountains

Views: 19,325

Keywords: Charlie LeSueur, Superstition Mountains, The Lost Dutchman Mine, Superstition Mountain Museum, Opal Images, Arizona, History, Gold, Treasure, Jack Fraser, JF Ranch, Murder, Hank Sheffer, Larry Hedrick, President Roosevelt, President Hoover, 1st National Bank, mining, cattle, ranch, Reavis

Id: CfJ5e0h54Wg

Length: 21min 8sec (1268 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 01 2020