The Original Lost Dutchman Story by PC Bicknell

This is Larry Hedrick for Mysteries of  Superstition Mountains where we bring the   past into the present for our future viewers today  we have another great story by Jack San Felice   hello folks we got a great story for you  today it's a very difficult story to write   but nevertheless it's a great story it's  based on three major newspaper articles   written by a guy by the name of no less Pierpont  Constable Bicknell who was from New York   now what brings Pierpont Constable Bicknell to  Arizona to become one one of the most famous   writers of the lots dutchman legend in the  1870s here before it was a legend he was one   of the most interesting characters to ever come to  Arizona he was called Pierpont Constable Bicknell,   PC Bicknell but for the most part he liked to  be referred to as simply Bick b-i-c-k and that   is the way he authored most of his articles Bick  and everybody knew who Bicknell was he brings you   through the legend the three main articles that  he wrote two of them were found by most writers   the first one was found he wrote the last  the next one that he wrote was actually   the first he wrote and the third article that  as part of this legend was not found until 2016.   so that makes it really complicated to put this  in a vernacular we all understand it so what I'm   gonna do is actually read these excerpts  from them and hope that we get a better   understanding of what Bicknell was saying and what  he found well Bicknell was educated in the east   in New York and he went to some of the most  famous writing schools there to be a journalist   he developed a disease that we sometimes know as  consumption but it was also called tuberculosis   so it was a form of tuberculosis that he  developed so he thought it would be better   for him to come west and west he did in the  1870s now if you realize that the dutchman story   in the 1870s was merely a rumor merely rumors it  was not really become a written story until in   fact he started writing articles about Jacob Waltz  and on we go well so big nail comes out here and   he starts searching not only is he interested in  being a journalist and writing and he wrote for   several the major newspapers of this of that  era and that included the Phoenix daily press   it included the Phoenix Gazette and the and the  phoenix a republican as well as the mesa free   press also to those two major articles two  of them got in the San Francisco Chronicle   and one of them the one of the i believe the  most important one he wrote which was the second   came out in 1894 in November yeah November and  I believe and then the last article it was also   published in a Kansas newspaper which was then  re-distributed throughout the united states   and most people only saw the 1895 article January  13th but that was reprinted in the San Francisco   chronicle again so that makes for the confusion  and if you're doing serious research on the lost   dutchman it's really confusing so this is this  is why this makes this talk so important to the   history and the legend of the lost dutchman  mine you have to pay close attention now Bick   is is now in Phoenix and he's living in phoenix  and he said how about everybody knows each other   back then in Phoenix in the 1870s it's a small  town mud huts for the most part it wasn't the   phoenix that you would know today or even the  night early 1900s which is totally different   so as as we go along in this story you'll  see that he wrote in addition to these three   three more very very important newspaper articles  that affect the legend of the lost dutchman mine   and one of these is about was written in 1881 it  is about Bicknell and it says Bicknell has gone in   with another man into the superstition  mountains for a month Bicknell was no armchair   historian no armchair miner he was gone for a  month into the mountains it it meant that he   was following the stories now in 1881 of the lost  dutchman legend because the dutchman died in 1891   October 25th prior to that he he wrote a story  called foul murder and this was 1884. foul murder of a suspected friend the story is that in  1884 at Jacob Waltz's house two of Jacob   Walt's mexican friends were there and one of them  picks up a shotgun and shoots and kills the other   forever to disappear from the annals of journalism  he just we don't know what the shooting was about   it was investigated and they believed the story  by Jacob Waltz of two mexicans and one shooting   the other the gun's still there Jacob Waltz is  there one man's there and the other one's gone   so he is charged with the murder but never found  so in 1881 in 1883 Bicknell is out there because   the rumors out that Jacob Waltz is handing out  money and money in the form of gold and he's   handing out money to his friend Julia Thomas  and he's paying for things with gold he's been   to the silver key mine where he stopped to make  purchases he'd been to Florence where he is known   to make purchases and pay for it in gold dust or  gold nuggets so the three most important stories   are number one it it's a curious find a  two-room house in the cave the second one is   a called a mythical mine and um it takes place in  1894. three years after Jacob Waltz had died and   then the third one is called Arizona's lost  uh El dorado which came out in January 13th   of 1895. so all three of these very important  articles one which was lost to me until 2016. in my book my book that I wrote on lost El  dorado was not was written in 2016 before I even   saw that article so that's not in here this is new  information the origins of the Dutchman clues come   from these three newspaper articles he was the  most important i believe journalist of his time   regarding Jacob Waltz forever known as the  lost Dutchman and these three stories and   I'm going to put them I'm going to give them  to you and I'm going to read from some of them   like I said I want you to get the flavor of it  not only that be able to go back Mrs E.W Thomas   formerly of the Thomas ice cream parlors  is now in the superstition mountains   engaged in a work usually deemed strange to a  woman's sphere she is prospecting for a lost mind   the location of which she she holds the key but  somehow she has failed after two months work   to locate the bonanza through aided by two  men that would be Rennie and Herman Patrasch   and a third the father who  only went out for a while   the story of the mind is founded on the  actual deathbed revelation of an ancient minor   usually in such cases there is also a lost cabin  connected within its location is supposed to be   a short distance back from the western end  of the main superstitions supposed to be   Bicknell as I said before was one of the most  important writers and he wrote most of the   stories on the lost Dutchman mike but he was never  quoted in the early books why because no computers   they didn't have access to microfilm they had to  go through the voluminous stacks of the old papers   which weren't kept and they weren't codified  then so that's part of the problem but   regardless of the problem he i  believe was the most important writer   this was the first story he wrote on November  9th and and what he had done was he'd hiked out   to some cliff dwellings he was also he also was  a great believer in archaeology, archaeological   expeditions and looking and studying archaeology  as well as writing about the mining and current   events and the mining activities all around  the phoenix area so he writes this and he   and he says pioneers of Arizona curious homes  of the first family a cliff dwelling found in   an inaccessible canyon superb masonry they  got the Cliff dwelling in angel springs   and why is this important you'll see yet  in this neighborhood Bicknell declares   that the thorn mine was found three decades  ago that's the story of Doc throne the cliff   dwellings well answering the descriptions of the  stone cabin in which the doctor had his adobe   the cliff dwelling in rogers canyon is about  15 miles north of weaver's needle and that is   that again is a very important clue to 15 miles  Jesse Feldman in his book Jacob's trail published   a photo of himself and his brother josh in rogers  canyon cliff dwelling beside the center post   with Bicknell's name carved in it during 2007.  oh wait a minute this article wasn't available   to Jesse and Josh then they had no idea they find  Bicknell's name Bicknell 1897 on the center post   of the cliff dwelling okay Steve Bowser uh during  2011 another a long hiker into the superstition   uh mountains along with his niece April Scott  also located and took photos of the big nails name   carved in the center post at my request because  I had Jesse's stories I want to confirm it   then i said well I'm going back to the old master  Jack Carlson because he's hiked out he's been to   the cliff drawings many times I said jack could  you go through their files a photograph see if   you could find a photo that you took on a center  post with back Bicknell's name in it and sure   enough he was there in 1999 on one occasion and  he took photos of the center post in his files   and it's got Bicknell 1894. so this  confirms that they was there in   i believe in 1894. it's the same writing all  three times the cliff dwelling at angel springs   which was in fact only two miles from  mines where gold was found in the 1870s   in the superstition mountains near rogers  canyon and rogers ridge so the finding of this   two-room house in a cave which was essential  to the Dutchman's story one of the key clues   you had to find the two-room house in the cave in  order to go further and look for the other clues   the next story deals with a newspaper article  called a mythical mine December's 30th of 1894   December 30th and it directs people searching for  the Dutchman mine to the northeast the northeast   section of the superstition mountains  where the two-room house in the cave was   mythical mine December 30th 1894 by beck in a  gulch in the superstition mountains the location   of which is described by certain landmarks  there is a two-room house in the mouth of a cave   on the side of a slope near the gulch  some distance above the tunnel on the   side of the mountain is a shaft or incline  that is not so steep but one can climb down this too is covered carefully with brush   the shaft goes right down on the midst of a  rich gold ledge where it can be picked off   in big flakes of pure gold after Dutch Jacob had  been buried the woman took off with a minor with   her to actually know there was more in one minor  and spent the entire summer looking for the mind   but she was unable to find the mind because she  had been searching near weaver's needle that's my   statement the two-room house is one of the key  clues in the search for the Dutchman for years   no one could locate this critical clue or claim  to have located it Bicknell himself was at the   two-room house in a cave com commonly referred on  treasure maps of the lost Dutchman mine as caverna   con casa and the so-called quote Ruth map had it  on it which was published by Barry Storm and a   whole host of everybody including myself  and it says converna concasa which means   house in a cave and that was the key  clue but it was only about two miles away   from these mines where gold was found and one  particular mine a lot of gold high grey gold   okay so we have those two stories now  let's get to what really confused everybody   what really confused everybody was this 1895  article called one of Arizona's lost El dorados   which by the way was the title for my book lost  El dorado of Jacob Waltz and that's where I took   the story from and this was the first newspaper  article that i had on the major article on the   Dutchman mine was this one but it was written  January 13th 1895. articles remain hidden from   me I believe one on purpose so people could search  for the mind near Weaver's Needle and let me get   to this let me read this the first part of it  tells you one thing and then the second part   of this story tells you another and it takes you  back to weaver's needle but it's very confusing   and this is the article that I live by for a  long time one of errors Arizona's Lost El dorados   a mine in the Superstition Mountains  that there exists that there exists   an undiscovered gold mine a fabulous wealth near a  point in the superstition mountains not more than   50 miles from phoenix has long been an article of  faith among a number of mining men uh in a promise   in a position rather to sift the mass of  evidence accumulated during the past 20 years   this he's writing in January 13th of 1895 less  than a month that he wrote the first article okay the facts and unrelated statements although  emanating from widely diverse sources   and furnished by persons who could have  had no possible connection with each other   in other they all prospectors and minors and  searchers for the lost Dutchman mine could have   had no possible connection with each other all  agree in a remarkable manner to the description   of the mind and what is still more convincing  are unanimous in indicating a particular quarter   of the mountains in question as the place  of its location now here here is another   clue to the mind it talks about Bick uncovers  this clue and it's called the first gorge   and that contributes to the confusion in his  interview with Julia Thomas he'd interviewed   her many times okay the first gorge on the  south side from the west end of the range   they found as he had told them was a  monumental trail which had them northward   over a lofty ridge downward pass sombrero  butte into a long canyon running north   and finally to a tributary canyon very deep and  rocky and densely wooded with a continuous thicket   of scrub oak and that is a very important clue  for you to read the district designated is not   extensive it lies within an imaginary circle  whose diameter is not more than five miles   and whose center is marked by weaver's needle  now wait a minute five miles is not going to   get you to rogers ridge and the stone house  but here lies I believe a resolution to that the Dutchman spoke when he was speaking to to  Riney and um Julia he was speaking in German   because they both spoke German fluently  they're all three were from Germany so   he says old Jake did not call weaver's  needle by name he always referred to it as   the pointed rock as the needle not weaver's  needle note Waltz spoke in German to Julia Riney   and the German word for five is spelled f-u-n-z  and the word for 15 starts with f-u-n-z here lies   i believe the answer to this 5 verses 15 miles  could they have mistaken the waltzes word 5 for 15   of course they could have they weren't paying  attention in fact most the books on it you'll read   this is how confused so many  people and the rest of the article   if you understand it cite the clues as where it  could be but now also right here the woman is at   fault that's Julia she has forgotten whether the  canyon enters from the west or east these two bits   of information have misled many searchers over the  years Bick writes here about weaver's needle area   but based on the following information  these clues simply do not fit the   weaver's needle area the weaver's needle location  places the the actual gold mine I believe 12 miles   from Weaver's Needle at rogers ridge and  specifically narrows the search they did   of most of those hunters and most  of the people died in the shootouts   and all the stuff even up into the and died  mysteriously not so mysteriously even in the 18   the 1990s and even and beyond and search for gold  at weaver's needle with that simply does not exist it's very difficult for me to find these articles  and put them in in in order as like I say   now Bicknell writes in his clues in the  second article and he puts everybody up in the   rogers ridge area and rogers the rogers  trough designated trail going to the cliff   dwelling and the cliff dwelling's two miles  from the mines on rogers ridge they're not   within the five mile circle but remember the  word f u n z 5 the start of the 15 is f u n z   they didn't get it right they weren't  paying attention the Dutchman was right   and he gave Riney hell all the time you  must pay attention to me he said in German   that mine is hard to find and it  was for me as well as everybody this is one of the real mysteries of the  mountains did dick take gold from the pit mine   and wanted people to stay away from it because  hunters of the lost Dutchman line like myself and   several others and Jesse Feldman is one of them  and Jesse's father Ron we all believe that it's   up in the northeast section of the superstition  mountain and if you read these articles correctly   so did Bicknell the the story on the did the  editor change it when he put this story out   did the editor change it write 15 instead of  five we'll never know we'll never know Bicknell   has already moved when that hit already moved when  the story was actually printed as it turns out I'm   now done with those three articles but they're  the substance of the lost Dutchman mine legend   the origin origins of the lost Dutchman mine  and not only that but in the third article   in January 13th Julia is telling Bicknell, the  story of the Peraltas and how they came into the   mountains how Jacob Waltz met them in the south in  Mexico etc...etc... and that brings all that part   of that hocus pocus legend into into uh that's  the mythical and legendary story right there   the the continuing the stories will be my search  and going up there a numerous time and going up   and finding the cliff dwelling the cliff  dwelling and the clues that led to it   finding a two-room house was very important to  me because because of that I was able to find   the horse head rock and the trick  in the trail which leads you upwards   from rogers canyon to the pit mine by following  a zigzag canyon because you pass to the   old rock cabin and the corral and then you  go up to the mine the cliff dwelling turned   out to be one of the most important clues  for me because it gave me a starting point   to I know from the top of the mountain I see okay  I know the mines are up there I was there in um   my last story I believe in i called lost El  dorado I said I found it because I'm waiting   for my friend he's looking for some minds  around this stone heart or the Peralta legend   which I was if very iffy on that so i found the  horse trail went up in 2006 i very seriously   started searching from that area so in april of  2006 Jack Carlson and Dick... Bob Stombach and I   we're gonna we're hiking from Rogers Trough and it  got warm that day and as it can sometimes get warm   or sometimes can get very cold at night as I  stated i believe in the last talk we started out   at 70 degrees and wound up at 28 degrees before  we got out of there so this is during the day and   not starting at nice but it don't get cold it  gets warmer so we take a break by the water on   we're hiking on in we're taking our time because  I'm photographing everything and Bob Stambach and   that bomb stomach was a professional photographer  and we're fun we're looking for a horsehead rock   because Jesse in his book talks about  his notes and his book he's talking   about a horsehead rock okay one of the  clues that that's been given out by   ted cox and given up by Julia Thomas been given  out by Bicknell and the map Julia Thomas has a   horse head on it so the dutchman talks about  a horsehead rock Julia talks about it ted cox   talking about so we're looking forward to  but they don't tell you where exactly it is   it's somewhere up in the mountains so we start  from a logical place the cliff dwellings so we   got to find the clip though and start from there  on our way in we're taking photographs we see   all kinds of all kinds of rock formations that  could be could be the horse head as later goes   Bob Stombuck unbeknownst to me he he takes  slide film as I was taking slide film   and I was having a consent and i show it to  my classes their story of that hike up there   and we're coming around the cassette  and it shows all the and all of a sudden   up jumps a picture of a rock and then in front of  it Bob Stombuck and superimposed a real horsehead   so the whole class is laughing they have they got  a joke on the author or the author and got the   joke on the lecture right it was all good time so  that was a good laugh but it wasn't the horsehead   because we'd walk there and we didn't find it  but on the way back this big horse said that   big rock formation I said well got to be a very  notable rock that's notable but it didn't look   like one but coming back we stopped by this  big boulder and I'm taking photographs of that   rock formation and dog on it it  take one photo I get a little closer   it looks like that could be the horse's head  and from that foot from that point where those   boulder that big boulder was the trail divides to  a y if you go left you go rogers go right you go   through a bouldery very bouldered at the beginning  very brush brushy side canyon which leads you to   uphill of going and the zigzag  canyon which takes you right up to   the pit mine which i always called it  and to this day I called the pit mine   and that's where it led me to and before that you  go you see as you're going up you see tall trees and the tall trees cottonwood and sycamore etc  but that's where spring was right next to where   the stone cabin was and the stone corral so now  it's all making sense you have the two-room cabin   you come down you see the horse head at that time  you see the horse head the trail splits and it was   called by John Choney who wrote on it that John  Choney said he found the mind he found the gold   John Choney worked for Jim Bark and he'd actually  found gold and set up a rasters in the old salt   river bed and took gold from some of the mines  they found there but it wasn't the mind that   tuning was looking for because Choney was at the  Silver King mine when the two Soldiers came in   and so he thought the two soldiers mine  and the Dutchman mine were one on the same   or real close to each other i got several  photos of the cliff dwelling and inside I'm   in some of the photos I want to get some better  pictures of the horse head the cliff dwelling etc   and fact that I'm there we get these photos and  and we have these groups and we're searching   we're fine as we're searching we're finding  other things okay the pet mind is here   and then they said right across from the pit mine  is in description is the cave where Waltz's and   Wiser, it's not right across it's across  the gulch and over where it's all brushed   covered and we find over there this cave and  it's two more like 200 yards than 200 feet so   it's over there and it's 15 feet wide  so they could easily have hid in there   be no problem and the brush was covering it up  and if they they saw somebody or heard somebody   they could easily go over there and hide and we  found tools for the people that have been there   I said in the 90s people were working it. well we  found a scattered in the brush all over the place   that shows that there were old picks  many of them picks shovels a wheelbarrow   parts of a generator with Jack Carlson always  referred to that mine as the generator mine and I   always referred to as the pit mine and so we never  crossed and connected the two that they were the   same one until we hiked out there together and  I said this is the pit mine in my mind I didn't   tell him about being there earlier and we called  he called it the generator mine so while we were   searching that area above and below and all around  expanded the search we were able to find the cave   across from the mine the mine dumped down below  and where the tunnel went off what it shot off   from the mine that the tunnel was covered up  blasted over probably and then the dump down below   is much bigger but three or four times bigger than  the dump from the pit mine which was 70 feet and   it was two to three hundred feet was the tunnel  and so that's why the differences in the size   so and going and doing the search up around  the horse trail we found a place up there   where uh perhaps a ton of rock have been taken out  of the pit mine and set aside up there or taken   out of the mine that there was a prospect called  above the pit mine which in the description that   Jacob Waltz gave that's the way it was there was  a digging above the mine then there was the mine   and so all of this ore had been cobbed and what  was left was silver a little bits of silver in the   quartz and the the the bear right that was there  also and so that was more clues and then in   addition to that we found two pillars two pillars  are two columns which are written in the clues   that's one of the clues and getting to  the mine coming from the south to north   and one of the clues is you pass the board house  go over the mountains and you climb up etc.   so the board house was a clue you could have gone  one or two ways into Peralta you could have gone   through Whitlow and out the low past the Whitlow  corral Millsite Canyon and up through the gorge   also known as Hewit Canyon your canyon is a gorge  Fish Creek is a gorge and Peralta Canyon is a   gorge so there are three main gorges and of course  Peralta leads to weaver's needle which has no gold   and as we'll find out later in my talk in  the last episode how many mines actually up   there had gold and in that area we're going  to be we'll talk more and at length about   the um prospectors that came there in 1906 the  Woodburries Bowser myself and Joe had been up   there 20 times looking for the cases the caches  caches i call them stash it's easier to say   and we found where it was a small on a  right off the horse trail there was a small   place we moved the boulders and you  could see where quartz had been in there   but at last no gold and it was big enough place  like about this to stash some bags of gold dust   or whatever but they were gone but the boulders  were put back and you can see that very easily   that this was a place created that this didn't  happen naturally and then of course finding a two   column and Tom Kollinburn wrote about and he even  put a photo of the two columns and looked almost   identical to what we found up there so I was up  there after finding all this stuff 20 sometimes to search for stashes that's what we said we  had heard also of that pet mine that there were   five openings and we found four we found what  could be four on that claim but not the fifth   and is that another place where there's another  ledge of gold we don't know that leads to   perhaps uh more mystery that kind of leads us  also we thought we can't see everything and   we can't find this fifth interest maybe if we  fly around over it we'll find something flying   around over it i didn't find the other entrance  but I found another clue called the Trojan horse   and so from the air in one of the stories it says  near this mine there will be a rock formation that   looks like a Trojan horse and this stone formation  if you have any imagination at all from the air   looks like a Trojan horror could look like so that  was one of the main clues the question is did he   find the gold at the pit mine i think he did but  it wasn't him that went in and he wrote about it   that that could very well be the lost Dutchman  mine in the next episode I'm going to be talking   about Herman Petrasch and Herman and Riney and  Julia search and what happened to the first   searchers their stories of the lost Dutchman mine  stay tuned for episode three because we're not   well jack won't be reading stuff he'll just  be telling you the story so come back we'll   see you then thank you thank you for watching  this episode of mysteries of the superstition mountains

Channel: Mysteries of the Superstition Mountains

Views: 17,172

Rating: 4.9273829 out of 5

Keywords: Charlie LeSueur, Superstition Mountains, The Lost Dutchman Mine, Superstition Mountain Museum, Opal Images, Arizona, History, Gold, Treasure, Jack San Felice, Larry Hedrick, Hank Sheffer, Pc Bicknell, Jesse Feldman, Ron Feldman, Newspaper, legend, Apache Junction

Id: -vjAE6QjzKc

Length: 39min 5sec (2345 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 09 2021