Is the Pit Mine really the Lost Dutchman mine?

[markmar]

A part of the horse head clue , behind the hill .

 

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[cactusjumper]

To be fair, I believe someone had posted photos of the so-called Kochera ore here on T-net some time ago, but unfortunately I don't have a copy of that photo. Of course it is possible that the Kochera ore did not come from the Pit mine either.

Also to be fair, had the fellows who worked the Pit mine claimed it was the lost Peralta mine, I would not have any objections for there are no known specimens of this lost mine's ore. However I don't believe the Peralta mine had anything to do with Jacob Waltz and his mine on several grounds.

Please do continue, very nice ore specimen Joe! Thanks for sharing the photo!

Roy,

I have posted the pictures of the Kochera ore a number of times. Both the original pictures and the original 8x10s that the photographer brought to me to copy. He said "I know they did" when I asked him if he thought the Kochera ore came from the Pit Mine.

Here are the copies of the 8x10s he brought to me:



Because of the way these pictures and the story came to me, I believe them to be true. I don't really care who believes what.......except, of course for my friends.

Take care,

Joe

 

[cactusjumper]

Roy,

I don't recall who posted the picture of the quartz with gold running through it. I agree, it's a nice speciman, but it's not my picture.

Take care,

Joe

 

[Oroblanco]

Roy, all good points as usual, impressed with your conviction, that’s for sure. Just want to add, it’s not that I don’t think silver mines are worth covering over and protecting, I was coming at it from the angle that when the gov’t stopped the price-fixing on silver, everyone went broke (silver miners). So a lot of those guys just walked away.

Heck, if there was a pit mine of silver I could clean out legally, I’d at least try it! I’m no miner, though....so this is likely the only pit mine I’ll ever get to clean out:


View attachment 1525968

Best, Jim

Hahaha! Hey don't sell those types of 'pit mines' short either, the bottle digger guys find some of the best and rarest bottles buried in them, and a friend here in town dug up a beautiful old Derringer pistol out of this type of 'mine' and another fellow found a Chinese gold coin under a vase in the "night soil". It pays to wait a while however for the aromatic effects to ease up some though!

Joe thanks I was not sure whom had posted the photos of the Kochera ore, it WAS you. I thought that some of the readers here would like to see what we are talking about, you know there are a lot of people who read the discussions but don't like to post. Thank you for sharing them.

Please do continue,

 

[PotBelly Jim]

Also , I can't understand why John Reed lied to Clay , saying to Clay how he lied to Erwin and Ely about the three rocks at the size of a barrel , which exist and mark the mine site .
I believe Reed never forgot where the mine site was , but he just didn't want to reveal the site . As Clay said , John Reed was a strange man .

Marius, not sure if you were talking to me or not, but didn't want to be rude and not respond if you were...I'm sorry but I don't know much about the Reed story at all...Best, Jim

 

[markmar]

Marius, not sure if you were talking to me or not, but didn't want to be rude and not respond if you were...I'm sorry but I don't know much about the Reed story at all...Best, Jim

Jim

My comment was for the John Reed story in the link that posted Somehiker in post #1077 , page 72 .
My post was for all , including you .

 

[PotBelly Jim]

Jim,

One thing is, pretty much for sure, in the three years that the Pit Mine was worked, silver was not worth enough to make that relatively shallow mine worth the risk that working inside the Wilderness Area would create. I would say, they were not working an old Silver Mine for that metal. Even as an old cache for high grade silver ore, I doubt the fines and prison time could be overlooked.

It has been speculated many times before, that Waltz may not have had a specific mine in the Superstitions. This because his ore has been described in various configurations in many of the stories. Being a rock dummy, that makes perfect sense to me. It may have just been Waltz's personal bank for the best ore he had collected over many years. On the other hand, it could have been someone else's bank and Waltz just happened to be the Willie Sutton who found it:


OLD GREYBEARD?

Take care.

Joe

How did you get that cool pic of Willie Sutton? Reminds me of someone...

I couldn't agree more with what you said, Joe...Sutton's law applies. Best. Jim

 

[PotBelly Jim]

Marius,

There is more than enough documented evidence that Jacob's last name was Waltz and not Waltzer, to satisfy most researchers into the LDM. Beyond that, Herman came down after Waltz's death to help search for the mine. Who knows the truth of what he heard.....As to which came first, the hard rock mine or the placer, the stories are all over the place.



Good luck,

Joe

Marius, sorry if I'm being a jack-@$%, but have you looked at the area Joe posted...as far as the possible Waltz placers and the "Pit Mine" and the distance? If so, sorry, but if not, please do. People really do try to help. BTW, are you really in Greece, looking for the LDM? I lost an eardrum diving off Rhodes...Best, Jim

 

[markmar]

Marius, sorry if I'm being a jack-@$%, but have you looked at the area Joe posted...as far as the possible Waltz placers and the "Pit Mine" and the distance? If so, sorry, but if not, please do. People really do try to help. BTW, are you really in Greece, looking for the LDM? I lost an eardrum diving off Rhodes...Best, Jim

Jim

I looked at the map Joe posted , but didn't make the " click " to me . There are many reasons I'm not interested in that area . One of these reasons is how the area in Joe's map don't fits with the route and clues that gave Waltz to Julia , Holmes and others . Another reason is how the horse head clue which is close to the LDM , is in another place . Even the Kochera/Haywood map is for another region .

John Reed said how when he and his father uncovered again the LDM in 1888 , they saw in the shaft bottom some drift tools and other minning stuff . This description fits with what Apache did when covered the shaft in 1882 . When Waltz came to the shaft after 1882 , he realized the shaft/incline was covered , and continued to work the " placer " which was a short distance below the shaft . When Waltz decided to cover the mine , this mine was not the shaft but the placer which became a little hole/tunnel in the ground .

Read what Apache Jack said about the shaft and the placer ( blue colour ) :

" ... the Apaches decided to hide their mine in 1882. They decided that the only way to protect their secret was to conceal it in such a manner that only the Apaches would ever be able to find it. Apache Jack was a boy of twelve when the tribe set about concealing the entrance. He reported many years later, when he was an old man, that in true Indian fashion, a band of thirty squaws and two youths labored for one full moon, throwing ore and hastily abandoned tools back into the shaft. They then covered everything with stout logs, which were in turn covered with the natural caliche cement that hardens into rock. Over all, they placed another covering of dirt and surface stones to match the surrounding area. Finally, rocks were shifted around to disguise everything...>

Apache Jack further said that the Apache left a marker. In a steep-climbing arroyo high upon a mountainside where no white prospector would normally think of looking for gold, was a bright yellow ribbon of it in a narrow vein of rose quartz. It lay under towering cliffs, which overhung the whole arroyo, within plain sight of nearby Weaver’s Needle, and thinking no white man would ever venture there, the Apaches did not conceal this place. Below was the secret marker, an eight-foot high boulder hoisted upon the skyline of a ridge which, because it formed an abrupt bend in the north-south trending Needle Canyon, formed also for a few hundreds yards the only south slope. This boulder had been chiseled to look like a rampant horse’s head with mouth open, one ear laid back and with the other ear standing straight up. However, it was only so recognized against the sky when viewed from down canyon a short ways to the north. "

Text from Dutchman's Lost Mine

Also , a LDM clue says about a tunnel and above on the mountainside a shaft/incline , both rich in gold ore .

 

[cactusjumper]

As long as we are quoting old stories, we should not leave out the story of S. McDuc, as I recall it:

The family travels to the mountains where the lost mine is said to be located. There they meet a shady character who presents himself as a tourist guide and map vendor. He tells the family the story of the lost mine: The mine was originally discovered by an expedition created by Don Miguel Peralta, who had been given a map to the treasure as a reward for funding the repairs of the Jesuit church of Arizpe, but because of an Apache ambush, only one man, Gonzales Peralta, survived the expedition. He left markings on the ground leading to the treasure, which Jacob Waltz then marked in his map, which now belongs to the McDuc's.

That mine turns out to be the source of the McDuc family fortune.

Discount the above story at your own peril!

Good luck,

Joe Ribaudo

 

[Oroblanco]

As long as we are quoting old stories, we should not leave out the story of S. McDuc, as I recall it:

The family travels to the mountains where the lost mine is said to be located. There they meet a shady character who presents himself as a tourist guide and map vendor. He tells the family the story of the lost mine: The mine was originally discovered by an expedition created by Don Miguel Peralta, who had been given a map to the treasure as a reward for funding the repairs of the Jesuit church of Arizpe, but because of an Apache ambush, only one man, Gonzales Peralta, survived the expedition. He left markings on the ground leading to the treasure, which Jacob Waltz then marked in his map, which now belongs to the McDuc's.

That mine turns out to be the source of the McDuc family fortune.

Discount the above story at your own peril!

Good luck,

Joe Ribaudo

Hahaha good one Joe!

Please do continue,

 

[Azquester]

Bill - I took almost the same photo a few years ago from the ridge above the Pit Mine. I'm pretty sure that direction is West not South though right?

I believe it was looking southwest as Weavers Needle was a bit left of me. I suppose you didn't get the shot of the Peak with the hole in the rock and the stone face looking right at it? That was not to far from that location.

I have some new photo's of a different mountain range that's so beautiful I just have to share them on here. I haven't got them transferred yet though. Vast and deep.

The shot I took of the hole in the peak or near the peak was a fluke thing just happened to be at the right spot during the right time of year and day for the hole to be visible. I knew about it for some time just never gave it any never mind. I'm glad this thread has come back to life. If someone took the Waltz Gold more power to them! If it was the pit which that ore sample looks like it came from I can relate. The gold nuggets I've found down here near old Spanish workings all have that dirty black & gray quartz in the matrix attached to the nuggets. nasty stuff

Does that hole through a rock with a face looking up at it near a peak have anything at all to do with Waltz's mine?

Just curious as I'll probably never get there myself. At least until I retire in a few years...if I'm still able and willing!

 

[Cubfan64]

I believe it was looking southwest as Weavers Needle was a bit left of me. I suppose you didn't get the shot of the Peak with the hole in the rock and the stone face looking right at it? That was not to far from that location.

I have some new photo's of a different mountain range that's so beautiful I just have to share them on here. I haven't got them transferred yet though. Vast and deep.

The shot I took of the hole in the peak or near the peak was a fluke thing just happened to be at the right spot during the right time of year and day for the hole to be visible. I knew about it for some time just never gave it any never mind. I'm glad this thread has come back to life. If someone took the Waltz Gold more power to them! If it was the pit which that ore sample looks like it came from I can relate. The gold nuggets I've found down here near old Spanish workings all have that dirty black & gray quartz in the matrix attached to the nuggets. nasty stuff

Does that hole through a rock with a face looking up at it near a peak have anything at all to do with Waltz's mine?

Just curious as I'll probably never get there myself. At least until I retire in a few years...if I'm still able and willing!

Bill - I'll see if I can find the photos I took from up above the "pit mine" area (specifically the one that looks like yours). I know I don't recall seeing a peak with a hold in the rock, but I know I was tired by the time I got up on that Ridge (I climbed up through the brush from the S side) and it was getting late so I didn't do too much looking around before I headed back down.

 

[somehiker]

One thing GE is good for anyway....
Looks like WN is 10.5 miles and pretty close to due west of the highest point on the ridge above the pit mine.

 

[Cubfan64]

Bill - well I'm frustrated!! I was on the Ridge overlooking the Pit Mine area all the way back in 2008 (sheesh I can't believe it's been 9 fricking years since I was out there!!!) and found the photos I took of that area, but for the life of me can't find the one looking west at WN. I KNOW I used my binoculars and looked at it because I had been told it appeared in a "gunsight" like view, and I can't imagine I didn't take a photo, but it's nowhere to be found.

Just to prove I was out there though (hehe), here are a couple photos I did take from that ridge. I had taken the Woodbury Trailhead to the windmill and then just decided to bushwhack of up the ridge from the S/SW to a point on that ridge above which I had been told the pit was. I think climbed back down and eventually came across a neat old pit mine and dump area all boarded off with a tailings pile containing a whole bunch of really nice rocks containing Azurite - got a couple for my collection .

Here are two of the photos from the ridge. The first one is looking down to the N/NE from above with what I expect should be the pit mine location down below. The second photo is from the ridgeline towards the N/NW with Four Peaks in the distance.

 

[vastterrain]

"Here are two of the photos from the ridge. The first one is looking down to the N/NE from above with what I expect should be the pit mine location down below. The second photo is from the ridgeline towards the N/NW with Four Peaks in the distance."

WOW...that was a hike for ya!
You know there is a trail along the top of the ridge from the east that takes you right to the pit mine? have been that way and is a rather easy hike with very little altitude change. And your right about the Needle being to the west.

 

[Cubfan64]

"Here are two of the photos from the ridge. The first one is looking down to the N/NE from above with what I expect should be the pit mine location down below. The second photo is from the ridgeline towards the N/NW with Four Peaks in the distance."

WOW...that was a hike for ya!
You know there is a trail along the top of the ridge from the east that takes you right to the pit mine? have been that way and is a rather easy hike with very little altitude change. And your right about the Needle being to the west.

Hehe - well it wasn't the worst hike I've had out there but I was a little bloody and dang tired when I got done. I always enjoy taking the road less traveled whenever possible in fact I usually figure the best chance to see things and find things nobody else has seen or found yet is by taking a route nobody would normally take. On the other hand that was 2008 and about 30 pounds ago. Next time I'll take the ridge from the east .

How you doing these days? Didn't get a chance to talk much at the Rendezvous - hope you're still finding lots of neat off the beaten path stuff out there yourself! Still doing some work down by the border helping try to keep us safe?

 

[vastterrain]

Hehe - well it wasn't the worst hike I've had out there but I was a little bloody and dang tired when I got done. I always enjoy taking the road less traveled whenever possible in fact I usually figure the best chance to see things and find things nobody else has seen or found yet is by taking a route nobody would normally take. On the other hand that was 2008 and about 30 pounds ago. Next time I'll take the ridge from the east .

How you doing these days? Didn't get a chance to talk much at the Rendezvous - hope you're still finding lots of neat off the beaten path stuff out there yourself! Still doing some work down by the border helping try to keep us safe?

I Hear ya...i like going off trail myself. That's how we found the Mine with the ore cart out in front the first time we went towards the Pit Mine. Doing good...Yes still working the border, plenty of old mining/ghost towns/ down there to find as well.

 

[cactusjumper]

Bill - well I'm frustrated!! I was on the Ridge overlooking the Pit Mine area all the way back in 2008 (sheesh I can't believe it's been 9 fricking years since I was out there!!!) and found the photos I took of that area, but for the life of me can't find the one looking west at WN. I KNOW I used my binoculars and looked at it because I had been told it appeared in a "gunsight" like view, and I can't imagine I didn't take a photo, but it's nowhere to be found.

Just to prove I was out there though (hehe), here are a couple photos I did take from that ridge. I had taken the Woodbury Trailhead to the windmill and then just decided to bushwhack of up the ridge from the S/SW to a point on that ridge above which I had been told the pit was. I think climbed back down and eventually came across a neat old pit mine and dump area all boarded off with a tailings pile containing a whole bunch of really nice rocks containing Azurite - got a couple for my collection .

Here are two of the photos from the ridge. The first one is looking down to the N/NE from above with what I expect should be the pit mine location down below. The second photo is from the ridgeline towards the N/NW with Four Peaks in the distance.

View attachment 1526612
View attachment 1526613

Paul,

You have the picture of WN, keep looking. I will see if I can find it here.

Take care,

Joe

 

[markmar]

Another reason I 'm not interested in the Pit mine , is because there don't exist a roofless two room stone house ( see attached GE image ) in a cave's mouth and about 200 ft across the gulch from the mine .
I believe , the LDM clues have mixed clues for the shaft mine and the tunnel mine . The above clue is for the tunnel .



PS
Maybe if I would been Spaniard or Mexican , I would called it Casa Caverna .