Mines, Mines, and More Mines.

[Rebel - KGC]

This is not about Beale, but about the mines.
View attachment 1311895

Colorado, 1818-1822...? Yes or No, will do...

 

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[franklin]

Colorado, 1818-1822...? Yes or No, will do...

Actually 1806

 

[Old Silver]

Actually 1806

Yes, the point is, these things were happening before the supposed Beale expedition. Some would have us think there was nothing like this until much later.

 

[ECS]

... The people still living in 1885 that would have been living in 1820 should tell you that Beale was a real character, whether or not that was his real name. These people would have known if that were just a tale.

Do depositions of these Lynchburg people exist that would counter the objection of the Withcher, Coles, Clay families of their ancestors names being used in a dime novel, or is that just a supposition?

 

[bigscoop]

By 1885 the entire country had been exposed to an onslaught of treasure/mining tales from the great American west, no doubt even our unknown author of the pamphlet and the letters had been exposed to a great deal of this same published excitement. In other words, all of this same information was being made abundantly available to any writer who desired to utilize the information to spin his own story. Today we call it research, back then it was a common factor of everyday day life and quite often readily delivered in the daily newspaper.

So, "Mexicans & Spanish sank shafts." But what were they mining? Copper? Silver? Lead? Gold? And the really big questions; How deep were these shafts and how long did it take them to sink them? And, how large was their workforce? Etc., etc., etc. SILVER is at issue as far as the alleged Beale party story goes, an entirely different beast to deal with in the region in question when one starts to entertain "thousands of pounds" in such short order by a party of thirty of simple adventurers who supposedly discovered their fantastical strike in a ledge and then had to go about scrounging up everything they required in order to get it that first year, and yet they were still able to recover an unprecedented sum that same short year as they dug into and through the mountain's granite while following the deep veins of their newfound SILVER mother-load, this they then carried all the way back to the east in unprecedented time and precision so they could bury it again, and again, for safe keeping, but alas they were all the unfortunate victims of some terrible affair before they could reap the rewards of their accumulated hidden wealth, only one soul remaining to tell the TRUE story of their still unrecovered fortune. OK, I've certainly never heard anything like this before. Doubt you will encounter a similar story anywhere all through the 1800's.

 

[bigscoop]

Incidentally, or perhaps not, the name "Beale" is synonymous in the American west, this name showing up on numerous land grants and property holdings in the 1800's all the way into Texas and California. On an 1834 map, I believe, you will even find this name on a large tract of land along the Arkansas River region, etc. You will also find this same name associated with expeditions into the very region in question in the 1820's, and so on and so on. So in 1885 if one were going to pick a name for a grand American adventure story in the great American west then "Beale" would certainly be a very believable choice. Just saying.....

 

[bigscoop]

The argument has been made that Indian massacres did happen during the period in question, this argument even presenting a couple of published cases.


The argument has also been made that if Thomas J. Beale wasn't real then certainly people of the era who had lived in the region would have exposed this fraud.


Now here's why both of these arguments are counterproductive to the attempted case they are trying to establish.


Thirty men head off into the wild tundra for an extended period, not once, but at least twice. Back home they have friends, family, associates. In Santa Fe and St. Louis they have connections, and yet when all of them are killed by Indians not a soul bothers to even miss them or to report of the event? Nobody in Lynchburg apparently missed them, except Morriss, of course, and his concern was only made public after the alleged interview many years later. Hmmmm.....


Seems to me that if the party had really existed, that at least those friends, family, associates back near Richmond, where several of the said party were said to have lived, that these folks would have taken notice that these men were still absent. Yet, nothing, as in ZERO! Odd that we can hear of Indian massacres all the way from Texas but not a single word about the massacre of these thirty men. No word about it in Santa Fe, no word about it in St. Louis, no word of it back home either. Rumors of such, of course, but no credible word at all. Man those thirty men of means must have been entirely unknown and/or deeply hated, especially Thomas J. Beale. Perhaps a great deal of the American public is just too easily fooled?

 

[sdcfia]

The argument has been made that Indian massacres did happen during the period in question, this argument even presenting a couple of published cases.


The argument has also been made that if Thomas J. Beale wasn't real then certainly people of the era who had lived in the region would have exposed this fraud.


Now here's why both of these arguments are counterproductive to the attempted case they are trying to establish.


Thirty men head off into the wild tundra for an extended period, not once, but at least twice. Back home they have friends, family, associates. In Santa Fe and St. Louis they have connections, and yet when all of them are killed by Indians not a soul bothers to even miss them or to report of the event? Nobody in Lynchburg apparently missed them, except Morriss, of course, and his concern was only made public after the alleged interview many years later. Hmmmm.....


Seems to me that if the party had really existed, that at least those friends, family, associates back near Richmond, where several of the said party were said to have lived, that these folks would have taken notice that these men were still absent. Yet, nothing, as in ZERO! Odd that we can hear of Indian massacres all the way from Texas but not a single word about the massacre of these thirty men. No word about it in Santa Fe, no word about it in St. Louis, no word of it back home either. Rumors of such, of course, but no credible word at all. Man those thirty men of means must have been entirely unknown and/or deeply hated, especially Thomas J. Beale. Perhaps a great deal of the American public is just too easily fooled?

Of course the American public is easily fooled - it's a simple exploitation of one of human nature's hard-wired vulnerabilities: gullibility. I think you'll find that these unsolvable treasure legends are unsolvable for many reasons, the two most obvious being 1) they are total fabrications; 2) the stories record historic events of some sort, but are completely changed to disguise these events beneath a plausible but fictitious cover story. The names, dates, places and details may be bogus, but an underlying message may be important.

In the case of the "Beale expedition", the whole shebang may be a hoax. On the other hand, maybe the story's message is, simply: there is a large quantity of gold hidden in the San Luis Valley region of Colorado. This particular message has certainly been repeated often enough: Treasure Mountain, the LUE, et al. The protagonists in the Treasure Mountain version happen to be French, but some of the legend's details seem familiar: http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/t...easure-mountain-co-lost-frenchmen-s-gold.html

 

[Rebel - KGC]

Incidentally, or perhaps not, the name "Beale" is synonymous in the American west, this name showing up on numerous land grants and property holdings in the 1800's all the way into Texas and California. On an 1834 map, I believe, you will even find this name on a large tract of land along the Arkansas River region, etc. You will also find this same name associated with expeditions into the very region in question in the 1820's, and so on and so on. So in 1885 if one were going to pick a name for a grand American adventure story in the great American west then "Beale" would certainly be a very believable choice. Just saying.....

Eh...? Give us some names; I only know about E.F. Beale... Beale Wagon Road... Tejon Ranch...

 

[bigscoop]

Of course the American public is easily fooled - it's a simple exploitation of one of human nature's hard-wired vulnerabilities: gullibility. I think you'll find that these unsolvable treasure legends are unsolvable for many reasons, the two most obvious being 1) they are total fabrications; 2) the stories record historic events of some sort, but are completely changed to disguise these events beneath a plausible but fictitious cover story. The names, dates, places and details may be bogus, but an underlying message may be important.

In the case of the "Beale expedition", the whole shebang may be a hoax. On the other hand, maybe the story's message is, simply: there is a large quantity of gold hidden in the San Luis Valley region of Colorado. This particular message has certainly been repeated often enough: Treasure Mountain, the LUE, et al. The protagonists in the Treasure Mountain version happen to be French, but some of the legend's details seem familiar: http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/t...easure-mountain-co-lost-frenchmen-s-gold.html

Just about every treasure legend in the old west has been associated with the Beale tale at some point, the whole Treasure Mountain yarn a reoccurring claim sure.

 

[franklin]

Eh...? Give us some names; I only know about E.F. Beale... Beale Wagon Road... Tejon Ranch...

Samuel Beale and Gideon Beale----They were land speculators out west at the same time TJB was rumored to have went west. There was a lot of money in land speculation. These two men could have been surveyors that laid out the towns and sold the property. TJB from Botetourt County was also a surveyor.

 

[sdcfia]

Just about every treasure legend in the old west has been associated with the Beale tale at some point ...

That bodes very poorly for the legend's authenticity. Without a solid foundation, the relevance of the codes, cyphers, etc suffer.

 

[ECS]

Samuel Beale and Gideon Beale----They were land speculators out west at the same time TJB was rumored to have went west. There was a lot of money in land speculation. These two men could have been surveyors that laid out the towns and sold the property. TJB from Botetourt County was also a surveyor.

Then there is Thomas J Beale, born in Botetourt county, Virginia, moved to Missouri, his children later moved to Oregon.

 

[ECS]

By 1885 the entire country had been exposed to an onslaught of treasure/mining tales from the great American west, no doubt even our unknown author of the pamphlet and the letters had been exposed to a great deal of this same published excitement. In other words, all of this same information was being made abundantly available to any writer who desired to utilize the information to spin his own story. Today we call it research, back then it was a common factor of everyday day life and quite often readily delivered in the daily newspaper.

So, "Mexicans & Spanish sank shafts." But what were they mining? Copper? Silver? Lead? Gold? And the really big questions; How deep were these shafts and how long did it take them to sink them? And, how large was their workforce? Etc., etc., etc...

That article says "suddenly suspected gold and MADE ATTEMPTS to mine in the Rocky Mountains", then it mentions "sank shafts". It does not state that they actually mined the area , only that they MADE ATTEMPTS.

 

[Old Silver]

Do depositions of these Lynchburg people exist that would counter the objection of the Withcher, Coles, Clay families of their ancestors names being used in a dime novel, or is that just a supposition?

All you have have shown is people who didn't believe in the TREASURE story. And you're not even sure about that. Nothing was said about a man by the name of Beale.

 

[Old Silver]

By 1885 the entire country had been exposed to an onslaught of treasure/mining tales from the great American west, no doubt even our unknown author of the pamphlet and the letters had been exposed to a great deal of this same published excitement. In other words, all of this same information was being made abundantly available to any writer who desired to utilize the information to spin his own story. Today we call it research, back then it was a common factor of everyday day life and quite often readily delivered in the daily newspaper.

Speculating?

So, "Mexicans & Spanish sank shafts." But what were they mining? Copper? Silver? Lead? Gold? And the really big questions; How deep were these shafts and how long did it take them to sink them? And, how large was their workforce? Etc., etc., etc. SILVER is at issue as far as the alleged Beale party story goes, an entirely different beast to deal with in the region in question when one starts to entertain "thousands of pounds" in such short order by a party of thirty of simple adventurers who supposedly discovered their fantastical strike in a ledge and then had to go about scrounging up everything they required in order to get it that first year, and yet they were still able to recover an unprecedented sum that same short year as they dug into and through the mountain's granite while following the deep veins of their newfound SILVER mother-load, this they then carried all the way back to the east in unprecedented time and precision so they could bury it again, and again, for safe keeping, but alas they were all the unfortunate victims of some terrible affair before they could reap the rewards of their accumulated hidden wealth, only one soul remaining to tell the TRUE story of their still unrecovered fortune. OK, I've certainly never heard anything like this before. Doubt you will encounter a similar story anywhere all through the 1800's.

Well, what was shown to Pike, copper? Silver? Lead? Gold?

And the really big questions; How deep were these shafts and how long did it take them to sink them? And, how large was their workforce? Etc., etc., etc.

No, those are questions you manufactured because you have no real answers for been shown to be wrong.

 

[Old Silver]

Incidentally, or perhaps not, the name "Beale" is synonymous in the American west, this name showing up on numerous land grants and property holdings in the 1800's all the way into Texas and California. On an 1834 map, I believe, you will even find this name on a large tract of land along the Arkansas River region, etc. You will also find this same name associated with expeditions into the very region in question in the 1820's, and so on and so on. So in 1885 if one were going to pick a name for a grand American adventure story in the great American west then "Beale" would certainly be a very believable choice. Just saying.....

Do you see what you're doing here? You're automatically eliminating any evidence that might be produced, just because it could have been made up to match real characters and events. Well of course that a possibility, but just as possible is that it actually happened as said. If you carry your idea to it's fullest extent, you wouldn't believe ANY story from ANY source, because that same logic could be applied.

 

[Old Silver]

The argument has been made that Indian massacres did happen during the period in question, this argument even presenting a couple of published cases.


The argument has also been made that if Thomas J. Beale wasn't real then certainly people of the era who had lived in the region would have exposed this fraud.


Now here's why both of these arguments are counterproductive to the attempted case they are trying to establish.


Thirty men head off into the wild tundra for an extended period, not once, but at least twice. Back home they have friends, family, associates. In Santa Fe and St. Louis they have connections, and yet when all of them are killed by Indians not a soul bothers to even miss them or to report of the event? Nobody in Lynchburg apparently missed them, except Morriss, of course, and his concern was only made public after the alleged interview many years later. Hmmmm.....


Seems to me that if the party had really existed, that at least those friends, family, associates back near Richmond, where several of the said party were said to have lived, that these folks would have taken notice that these men were still absent. Yet, nothing, as in ZERO! Odd that we can hear of Indian massacres all the way from Texas but not a single word about the massacre of these thirty men. No word about it in Santa Fe, no word about it in St. Louis, no word of it back home either. Rumors of such, of course, but no credible word at all. Man those thirty men of means must have been entirely unknown and/or deeply hated, especially Thomas J. Beale. Perhaps a great deal of the American public is just too easily fooled?

Well then, there goes your latest theory. How many does that make now? Are you one of those American public that you mention, or are you just referring to me? It seems posters are allowed to do that on here.

 

[Old Silver]

That article says "suddenly suspected gold and MADE ATTEMPTS to mine in the Rocky Mountains", then it mentions "sank shafts". It does not state that they actually mined the area , only that they MADE ATTEMPTS.

What did Pursley show Pike? It wasn't marbles.

 

[bigscoop]

Well then, there goes your latest theory. How many does that make now? Are you one of those American public that you mention, or are you just referring to me? It seems posters are allowed to do that on here.

Oh, a good 4 or 5, at least, exactly as it should be. This is how it works, at least in my mind, present a possible alternate solution to the mystery and then spend weeks, months, sometimes years weighing in all the contrary input and evidence and then investigating that input further. That's the great thing about these forums, and others, a lot of various knowledge here that one might not otherwise get exposed to, a lot of this knowledge helping to weed out what may have been possible from what may not have possible, and why, etc. Once an alternate solution has run aground it can then be discarded and scratched off the list, that list not being very darn long these days. The absolute worst thing someone can do is to cling to hope due to simple pride. Me, I have no problem swallowing those pills and even invite them, and then if need be, charting a new course, keeps me investigating and exploring new ground and new thoughts. One never knows, I might just pop another completely new theory on folks any day now, though I must admit, that new ground is getting mighty-mighty thin these days.