P. C. Bicknell -- "A Rock Cabin in a Cave"

[azdave35]

I don't believe the numbers listed either - that all sounds like "True West" magazine legend, exaggeration and storytelling, but I found it interesting to note Bicknell's description of having visited the site of "a massacre" and finding pieces of weapons still present and mentioning that not long before that there were plentiful bones - very similar to what Bark described the Massacre Grounds to have looked like at one time is all.

i don't put much stock in alot of the things that has been written about the ldm...the truth is that these people were writers..in other words they wrote for a living...the facts are that the truth is boring and doesn't sell very well...and in order for these "writers" to eat they had to sell articles to newspapers or magazines..so they did alot of embellishing to spice the articles up so they would be something a newspaper would pay for..sometimes (or maybe alot of times) they would just plain lie...there were no laws governing the amount of b.s. you could put in an article...all they had to do is call it fiction and they were allowed to write anything they wanted.. .just like the reality shows of today...they have to ad a ton of drama to attract viewers...i had a good friend years ago and his brother in law was one of the major writers of western and treasure articles for magazines such as true west and true treasure...my friend told me that his bro in law was plumb full of crap and there was nothing "true" about any of his articles..he just made them up as he went...that's how he made a living...this is primarily the reason there is so many inconsistencies in the saga of the ldm and jacob waltz...too many writers and not enough truth

 

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[Cubfan64]

Paul, I'm thinking Gov't Well may have been called Willow Springs when Bick wrote his letter.

Here's a reprint of Bick's "Where's the Silver":

View attachment 1921492

Jim - I do remember there being a "Willow Spring" up somewhere around the First Water area but I can't remember the exact spot - thanks for the reminder - probably nothing at all to do with Adolph Ruth and "his" Willow Spring.

Thanks for the reprint - if he is indeed talking about the Rogers Canyon cliff dwellings cave it's curious that he would say there is no known silver in that region since the Roger's Ridge area has a number of silver bearing workings and they weren't that old. Maybe he wasn't talking about the same cave and/or it's just another case of the writer taking liberties in the story like Dave said.

 

[Old Bookaroo]

PotBellyJim:

You can always be counted on to come through with the essential information!

Thank you very much!

I certainly look forward to reading this account.

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo

 

[PotBelly Jim]

....... if he is indeed talking about the Rogers Canyon cliff dwellings cave it's curious that he would say there is no known silver in that region since the Roger's Ridge area has a number of silver bearing workings and they weren't that old......

Exactly. I find it kinda hard to believe a guy like Bick wasn't aware of the silver mines on Rogers Ridge. Not sure what to make of it.

Re: Bick's 1886 letter, I think he may have been camped at "Willow Springs" when he wrote the letter, but he doesn't specify where he saw the bones and war clubs. Could've been anywhere in the Supes. But I've always thought he was talking about the "massacre grounds".

 

[azdave35]

Jim - I do remember there being a "Willow Spring" up somewhere around the First Water area but I can't remember the exact spot - thanks for the reminder - probably nothing at all to do with Adolph Ruth and "his" Willow Spring.

Thanks for the reprint - if he is indeed talking about the Rogers Canyon cliff dwellings cave it's curious that he would say there is no known silver in that region since the Roger's Ridge area has a number of silver bearing workings and they weren't that old. Maybe he wasn't talking about the same cave and/or it's just another case of the writer taking liberties in the story like Dave said.

the ruins in rogers canyon are pretty much 10 miles east of weavers needle....maybe thats when he carved his name at the site of the ruins

 

[Old Bookaroo]

oroblanco posted this back in 2015 - is it another Bicknell article?

The very FIRST articles ever published about the Lost Dutchmans mine (treasurenet.com)

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo

 

[PotBelly Jim]

oroblanco posted this back in 2015 - is it another Bicknell article?

The very FIRST articles ever published about the Lost Dutchmans mine (treasurenet.com)

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo

Hi Bookaroo,

Yes, Oro provided both of Bick's major LDM articles in the PDF he posted. The 1886 letter and Phoenix Gazette article posted above aren't technically considered "LDM" articles...unless it's believed that the Doc Thorne and LDM is one and the same. To each his own.

Then there are some other articles that make reference to Bick's trips into the Supes, or Goldfield..."The Apocrypha" articles

There are also a few good articles on Bick's mining efforts in other nearby areas. It's been awhile since I've looked at it, but there's some good history on Bick's mining and other explorations out there. Even one on the Grand Canyon if I remember right.

 

[Old Bookaroo]

I found an old TN post with some additional information on P.C. Bicknell's articles:

"A Mythical Mine" Arizona Sunday Review Nov. 17, 1894. and "Dutch Jacob's Mine" Arizona Gazette August 22, 1895, may be found in the excellent Early Newspaper Articles of The Superstition Mountains and The Lost Dutchman Gold Mine, compiled by Gregory Davis and published by The Superstition Mountain Historical Society (1992). Capt. Davis and Joyce Johnson located key early articles, transcribed them, and reprinted them to make them readily available.

Again, I'm not a dedicated Dutch Hunter, so I have much to learn about the research. "The Apocrypha" articles sound interesting!

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo

 

[PotBelly Jim]

Like any book of the Apocrypha that didn't quite make it into Scripture, take with a wee bit of Salt. The author wasn't aware of all the facts, but he was fairly close and did a good job all things considered

View attachment Bick Skeleton Cave Story.pdf

 

[Cubfan64]

Like any book of the Apocrypha that didn't quite make it into Scripture, take with a wee bit of Salt. The author wasn't aware of all the facts, but he was fairly close and did a good job all things considered

View attachment 1921717

Jim - thank you. I had never read that story by Bicknell before. It's a pretty decent description of Skull/Skeleton Cave and what happened there although there's no mention of the Military being involved which they were.

 

[PotBelly Jim]

Yes, the Army called it the "Battle of the Caves", 28 Dec 1872. Here's what the cave looked like some time before the remains were given a proper burial up at Ft. McDowell...if you look close, you can see an iron cook-pot and other things, and someone has arranged what looks like spent cartridge cases on a femur. The poor soul they had sitting up looks a lot like what happened to Adolph Ruth, IMO.

 

[Cubfan64]

Yes, the Army called it the "Battle of the Caves", 28 Dec 1872. Here's what the cave looked like some time before the remains were given a proper burial up at Ft. McDowell...if you look close, you can see an iron cook-pot and other things, and someone has arranged what looks like spent cartridge cases on a femur. The poor soul they had sitting up looks a lot like what happened to Adolph Ruth, IMO.

View attachment 1921731

The other thing he (and Sieber) got wrong - that most early writers of that incident got wrong - is that the Native Americans who were killed were Apache - they were not, they were Yavapai. Back then it was pretty common in the southwest for most Native American's who had not yet agreed to live on a reservation to be considered "Apache" whether they were or weren't - people didn't generally give a damn - they just wanted them gone one way or another .

John Bourke gives a detailed account of this massacre in his journals.

 

[PotBelly Jim]

Very true, Paul. I haven't done anywhere near the level of study on the Apache as you have, but one thing that's kind of frustrating is during that Superstitions/Mazatzal campaign, at least with Major Brown, the Army was using Tonto scouts. So it was actually Tonto's that were tracking the Yavapai for Brown and Bourke, etc., that led them to the cave.

So Apaches took part in the Yavapai massacre. Mike Burns said one of the scouts fired his weapon before they got there, to alert/give the Yavapai's time to clear out, so it's possible there were a mix of Yavapai and Tonto (family units) in the cave. Mike Burns wasn't present at the start of the battle, but he said he talked to some family members later, perhaps that's where he got his information.

Bourke says Major Brown tried to get the Yavapai to come out peaceably at least three times, and to at least let the women and kids out of the cave so they wouldn’t get hurt. The Yavapai’s appeared to have considered it, but chose instead to fight. I think there were about 30 or so survivors (mostly women and kids) after the fight. They call this a massacre, but IMO the Yavapai’s were the ones that refused to come out (after they had killed some settlers and stolen livestock in Florence), so while it’s sad what happened to them, I tend to see it as a fight that the Yavapai decided to have.

A close reading of Bourke reveals that Sieber wasn't even there. It sounded like he was still at Camp Grant (with Schuyler?) when Brown and his troops took the field. Bourke names his scouts, who seem to be the only civilians there besides the blacksmith, and none of them were Sieber. The Pima scouts weren't there initially either, they had been on the rancheria campaign in the Mazatzals with Capt Burns, and they were with Burns looking for the stolen horses when the battle started. Burns heard all the shooting and headed towards the top of the cliff area and started rolling rocks down on the Yavapai and shooting down from above. The Pimas did get in the fight with Burns at that time, and killed most of the wounded after it ended.

Sieber did take the field from Camp Grant not long after the battle, on the same campaign. But it sure looks like Sieber wasn't even there, and the Pimas weren't the scouts that led Brown to the cave.

I suspect the whole "Sieber" part of Bick's story didn’t come from Sieber himself. Sounds like it was one of those campfire stories passed around that got far off track from the actual events.

 

[RGR375]

Jim - I do remember there being a "Willow Spring" up somewhere around the First Water area but I can't remember the exact spot - thanks for the reminder - probably nothing at all to do with Adolph Ruth and "his" Willow Spring.

Thanks for the reprint - if he is indeed talking about the Rogers Canyon cliff dwellings cave it's curious that he would say there is no known silver in that region since the Roger's Ridge area has a number of silver bearing workings and they weren't that old. Maybe he wasn't talking about the same cave and/or it's just another case of the writer taking liberties in the story like Dave said.

First time post and long time reader here. Willow Spring on the West side is located by Government Well and is accessible by the locked FS gate off of SR 88 just before you hit the switchbacks to drop down to the lake. Its just North of 1st Water TH and is on the west side of the Apache Trail. I believe most people refer to it as the East entrance to Bulldog Canyon in the Goldfields. I have spent an awful lot of time back in there for the last 25 years and there are several caves that look like they were used as shelters thru the years. There are natural arches scattered about and old walls of structures made of piled stone in 2 different locations.

 

[Cubfan64]

First time post and long time reader here. Willow Spring on the West side is located by Government Well and is accessible by the locked FS gate off of SR 88 just before you hit the switchbacks to drop down to the lake. Its just North of 1st Water TH and is on the west side of the Apache Trail. I believe most people refer to it as the East entrance to Bulldog Canyon in the Goldfields. I have spent an awful lot of time back in there for the last 25 years and there are several caves that look like they were used as shelters thru the years. There are natural arches scattered about and old walls of structures made of piled stone in 2 different locations.

I think that's back in the area where Jim Hatt used to live.

 

[RGR375]

I'm not familiar with Jim Hatt. Is he the fella that found what was pitched as a silver bar from the embankment by Gov well that ended up being a stamped lead bar? What is his story? It's an interesting area back in there, I always thought that if JW was coming in from the North after checking in at Ft. McDowell that it could have been another way for him to access the Supers. Aside from that I always focused in this area as the Goldfields do hold PM's. I always thought that for an older guy (JW) following the path of least resistance while sticking close to water and cover this area fits those needs. An interesting note, this is the same area that Canadian Club buried their case of whiskey that was found by Larry Hedrick in the 70's beneath Golden Eagle nugget peak or Gonzalez Butte depending on what year your maps are.

 

[Cubfan64]

I'm not familiar with Jim Hatt. Is he the fella that found what was pitched as a silver bar from the embankment by Gov well that ended up being a stamped lead bar? What is his story? It's an interesting area back in there, I always thought that if JW was coming in from the North after checking in at Ft. McDowell that it could have been another way for him to access the Supers. Aside from that I always focused in this area as the Goldfields do hold PM's. I always thought that for an older guy (JW) following the path of least resistance while sticking close to water and cover this area fits those needs. An interesting note, this is the same area that Canadian Club buried their case of whiskey that was found by Larry Hedrick in the 70's beneath Golden Eagle nugget peak or Gonzalez Butte depending on what year your maps are.

No but he lived in a trailer in that area - same area as Sina and Frank Lewis lived - Frank is the one who found the "silver bar" - it's still claimed that it was a silver bar, but from the photo and markings it was more likely a lead bar

 

[Idahodutch]

Good evening everybody,
I have a question what you all think of the clue from Bicknell’s 1895 article .... it lies in an imaginary 5 mile diameter circle, with Weaver’s Needle at the center.
Did Bicknell embellish that one, or did Julia remember it correctly from Waltz?

Idahodutch

 

[Matthew Roberts]

Good evening everybody,
I have a question what you all think of the clue from Bicknell?s 1895 article .... it lies in an imaginary 5 mile diameter circle, with Weaver?s Needle at the center.
Did Bicknell embellish that one, or did Julia remember it correctly from Waltz?

Idahodutch

Idaho,

This is what I mean by the later second, third and fourth hand accounts cannot be trusted 100%.
There is absolutely no proof that Bicknell ever interviewed Julia Thomas. In fact his articles lead you to believe he was robbing from two or three other lost mine stories.

 

[Idahodutch]

Idaho,

This is what I mean by the later second, third and fourth hand accounts cannot be trusted 100%.
There is absolutely no proof that Bicknell ever interviewed Julia Thomas. In fact his articles lead you to believe he was robbing from two or three other lost mine stories.

Matthew,
I’m glad you responded. I have found the 1895 article to be quite different apparently, than you.
It is the information that I find extremely interesting, and that the final destination gets to a spot.
A spot that the directions from Holmes manuscript also lead to.

Obviously the final destinations can and do vary.
But I am saying that there is a place that fits both.

So how am I to disregard Bicknell’s 1895 article?
And what of the view of four peaks, a coincidence?

I am curious what you would think in those shoes?
Idahodutch