The Lost Doc Thorne Mine - was it the same mine of Jacob Waltz?

Joe, you stated...
Even old man Petrasch claimed he knew Waltz personally. That claim came many years after Waltz's death, but I believe it was fairly typical
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I don't want to sidetrack Oro's thread too much, so I'll just toss it out there that while I agree it's in some people's nature to play the game where they claim to know someone without any proof, I'm not so sure Gottfried and/or Hermann Petrasch are the best examples to use in support of that argument. I personally don't think it's too much of a stretch to believe that either one or both of them COULD have known Waltz, at least in passing.

I don't know the specifics of George Petrasch's death and burial, but I believe it occurred in 1885 and his marker is next to Waltz's in the Pioneer cemetery - he died as a young child from what I recall, and one of the stories is that Waltz was buried in the Petrasch "family plot" by Rhiney and Julia after his death in 1891. There are gaps in documented records for where parties of the Petrasch family lived after they arrived from Germany. I think it's certainly possible and maybe even likely that the family resided in the Phoenix area for at least a short time in the 1880-1885 range. Enough to buy a cemetery plot and bury a young child.
 

Joe

You wrote " I don't know if there are any "facts" that the Spanish were ever in the Superstitions. Believe we only have stories. "

You mean Mexicans or Spanish ? If you mean Mexicans , what you believe about the maps which are signed by Peraltas and show Superstitions area ? Are all fake ?
And at last , anybody who were in Superstitions before become a state of U.S.A. , had been Mexicans .
 

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markmar said:
anybody who were in Superstitions before become a state of U.S.A. , were Mexicans .
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total incorrect statement... several bans of native americans..or first nation people were in the area...long before Spanish, Mexican, or Americans.
rio salado, Hohokam, Yavapai, apache...probably some pueblo peoples.
 

pippinwhitepaws said:
total incorrect statement... several bans of native americans..or first nation people were in the area...long before Spanish, Mexican, or Americans.
rio salado, Hohokam, Yavapai, apache...probably some pueblo peoples.
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I meant when the Superstition were in the old Mexico and the years when supposed how Mexicans worked mines .
 

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pippinwhitepaws said:
old mexico existed for exactly 21 years before American annexation of the southwest.
Social Order in the Spanish New World | Essays | When Worlds Collide | PBS

What did the Spaniards call Mexico after conquering it
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About these 21 years we are talking about . This is the period which Peraltas have worked mines in Superstitions . But this is another story . Here , we are tolking if Doc Thorne's gold in rose quartz vein is the same with LDM . And the answer is : yes is the same vein but not the mine . The LDM is not one of the Peralta mine ( which is little above of LDM and is about 70 feet deep ) . The clues are confused because Waltz worked first the Peralta mine and after the LDM .
 

markmar said:
About these 21 years we are talking about . This is the period which Peraltas have worked mines in Superstitions . But this is another story . Here , we are tolking if Doc Thorne's gold in rose quartz vein is the same with LDM . And the answer is : yes is the same vein but not the mine . The LDM is not one of the Peralta mine ( which is little above of LDM and is about 70 feet deep ) . The clues are confused because Waltz worked first the Peralta mine and after the LDM .
Click to expand...

Marius - earlier you seemed to agree with the "John Spring" diary account of Doc Thorne's story. Actually, you chose one part of the story to support your Lost Adams Diggings theory and another to support your LDM theory. One thing you either didn't notice or didn't mention is that if the Spring account is correct, Doc Thorne went on 2 searches for the source of gold he claimed to have seen - BOTH of those searches took place in the Sierra Ancha's - those mountains aren't anywhere in the vicinity of the Superstitions. So either that account is incorrect, or Thorne had some reason to believe the gold he was looking for was far NE of the Superstition Mountains.

Maybe I'm out in left field here, but it seems as though you're just randomly picking and choosing which parts of the stories you want to believe in order to support your already formed theories. If you choose to do that, that's certainly your option, but generally the approach one takes is to try to weed out the good sources from the bad (as hard as that may be), and then let the facts point in a direction and eventually form a theory around those.
 

markmar said:
Joe

You wrote " I don't know if there are any "facts" that the Spanish were ever in the Superstitions. Believe we only have stories. "

You mean Mexicans or Spanish ? If you mean Mexicans , what you believe about the maps which are signed by Peraltas and show Superstitions area ? Are all fake ?
And at last , anybody who were in Superstitions before become a state of U.S.A. , had been Mexicans .
Click to expand...

I don't believe the Peralta's considered themselves Mexican. I have never seen a map "signed by Peraltas". :dontknow: Care to elaborate?

Joe Ribaudo
 

cactusjumper said:
Donald,

I don't know if there are any "facts" that the Spanish were ever in the Superstitions. Believe we only have stories.

I could, of course, be wrong.

Take care,

Joe
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I agree with you. There may have been some mineral-based poking around in today's AZ by the Spanish, but they pretty much kept to the Santa Cruz Valley, Santa Rita Mountains, etc. They were more interested in trying to establish secure access routes to CA. [There was the Kino presence, sure, but the 'Jesuit mining' allegations remain speculative, IMO - especially in the Superstitions.]

Most of the military-supported Spanish mineral exploring was in New Mexico before 1821, in the Santa Rita del Cobre and Santa Fe regions. Some of this spilled into AZ: forays led by Menchero, Mogollon, etc., who were focused on the Todos Santos area of the Upper Gila, spread out as far west as the Clifton, AZ vicinity. Further north, Spanish prospectors working through Santa Fe were somewhat active in CO. Apaches, Utes and other natives were a big problem for the Spanish mineral explorers, who didn't have the resources to protect remote activity.

Nearly all the pre-Anglo mining in the Southwest was Mexican, not Spanish. There was a lot of 'looking around', but a mining venture was very costly and logistically difficult beyond the Northern Frontier. Any activity in the Superstitions, such as the alleged Peralta mining (if it existed) was undoubtedly from the Mexican period, officially 1821-1848, but with overlap before and after (~1810-1860). If Thorne's story is true, he very likely found a cache of Mexican ore.
 

Cubfan64 said:
Marius - earlier you seemed to agree with the "John Spring" diary account of Doc Thorne's story. Actually, you chose one part of the story to support your Lost Adams Diggings theory and another to support your LDM theory. One thing you either didn't notice or didn't mention is that if the Spring account is correct, Doc Thorne went on 2 searches for the source of gold he claimed to have seen - BOTH of those searches took place in the Sierra Ancha's - those mountains aren't anywhere in the vicinity of the Superstitions. So either that account is incorrect, or Thorne had some reason to believe the gold he was looking for was far NE of the Superstition Mountains.

Maybe I'm out in left field here, but it seems as though you're just randomly picking and choosing which parts of the stories you want to believe in order to support your already formed theories. If you choose to do that, that's certainly your option, but generally the approach one takes is to try to weed out the good sources from the bad (as hard as that may be), and then let the facts point in a direction and eventually form a theory around those.
Click to expand...

Paul

I choose randomly clues from some accounts to completed the puzzle . My theories are not supported by intuition , but with maps in combination with clues .
I believe Doc Thorne was the only man who played in the both scenarios/theories but without to know the titles of the movies .
 

Springfield said:
I agree with you. There may have been some mineral-based poking around in today's AZ by the Spanish, but they pretty much kept to the Santa Cruz Valley, Santa Rita Mountains, etc. They were more interested in trying to establish secure access routes to CA. [There was the Kino presence, sure, but the 'Jesuit mining' allegations remain speculative, IMO - especially in the Superstitions.]

Most of the military-supported Spanish mineral exploring was in New Mexico before 1821, in the Santa Rita del Cobre and Santa Fe regions. Some of this spilled into AZ: forays led by Menchero, Mogollon, etc., who were focused on the Todos Santos area of the Upper Gila, spread out as far west as the Clifton, AZ vicinity. Further north, Spanish prospectors working through Santa Fe were somewhat active in CO. Apaches, Utes and other natives were a big problem for the Spanish mineral explorers, who didn't have the resources to protect remote activity.

Nearly all the pre-Anglo mining in the Southwest was Mexican, not Spanish. There was a lot of 'looking around', but a mining venture was very costly and logistically difficult beyond the Northern Frontier. Any activity in the Superstitions, such as the alleged Peralta mining (if it existed) was undoubtedly from the Mexican period, officially 1821-1848, but with overlap before and after (~1810-1860). If Thorne's story is true, he very likely found a cache of Mexican ore.
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This is what I meant .
 

cactusjumper said:
I believe we are talking 15-16 miles between the Sierra Ancha's and the Supes.

Joe Ribaudo
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I'll have to check tonight, but I thought it was more on the order of 25-35 miles at least in a completely different direction than Thorne would have been expected to go if the group of native Americans he camped with were indeed at the confluence of the Salt and Verde rivers - if he thought the source of gold was in the Superstitions.

It's a confusing story for me to get a grasp as to where he actually was. At one point it says he was a the Salt/Verde intersection and in the next breath says he didn't know where he was, and then you find out that he went looking for the gold later in the Sierra Ancha range N/E of the Superstitions and yet others say he was within sight of Weaver's Needle on the south side of the Salt River.

:dontknow:
 

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cactusjumper said:
I don't believe the Peralta's considered themselves Mexican. I have never seen a map "signed by Peraltas". :dontknow: Care to elaborate?

Joe Ribaudo
Click to expand...

Joe

What is the origin of this map ?

Manuel Peralta.gif
 

Cubfan64 said:
I'll have to check tonight, but I thought it was more on the order of 25-35 miles at least in a completely different direction than Thorne would have been expected to go if the group of native Americans he camped with were indeed at the confluence of the Salt and Verde rivers - if he thought the source of gold was in the Superstitions.

It's a confusing story for me to get a grasp as to where he actually was. At one point it says he was a the Salt/Verde intersection and in the next breath says he didn't know where he was, and then you find out that he went looking for the gold later in the Sierra Ancha range N/W of the Superstitions and yet others say he was within sight of Weaver's Needle on the south side of the Salt River.

:dontknow:
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Paul

DeGrazia sketch map is the key . Shows Doc Thorne below the Apache mine and the shaped horse head Apache clue . The shaped horse head is in the same location who indicated Waltz his mine in his maps . I believe DeGrazia knew a true Apache version of Doc Thorne story .
 

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