Treasure Mountain, CO - Lost Frenchmens Gold

[Crow]

Here is The Antonito Ledger, July 21, 1927 much talked about in a earlier part of the thread.

Note The Virgil family was related to Antonio Leblanc's wife

The paper claims Antonio's father no longer had the map.

Crow

 

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[Crow]

Another thing to understand what was going on at the time.

Newspapers once called the Penitente community “a ‘secret’ and ‘strange mountain cult’ enacted by ‘swart hot-eyed Mexicans and half-breeds’ that needed to be exposed” (The Sacred World of the Penitentes by Alberto Lopez Pulido, page 26). Outsiders saw Penitentes as a secretive cult employing deviant practices. The Penitentes were a Catholic order of men (frowned on by the Vatican) that formed and flourished in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries as Spanish missions in the Southwest declined. And the Penitentes did engage in some startling and arguably brutal rituals (at least by today’s American standards).

During Holy Week, they publicly whipped themselves with Disciplinas, whips made from Yucca stalks. They bound bundles of cacti to their bare backs or were bound to heavy wooden crosses as they walked through the Stations of the Cross. As for rituals that went on behind closed doors, a novice received three Ave Maria cuts on his back to show that he was a genuine Penitente. A man who had wronged his family, community or fellow Penitentes might receive a flogging or be made to crawl back and forth with bare hands and knees on pebbles and stones.

The Penitentes were also extremely secretive. A member would be punished for revealing information. While these painful practices alienated a few members, for the majority of Penitentes, they served as a kind of social glue, much as violence has been included in other cultural coming-of-age rituals and rituals of inclusion from time immemorial.

The Penitentes also were a source of clout and political power for Hispanics. Hispanics in the Southwest faced pressure and discrimination from outsiders. Protestant ministers in the San Luis Valley saw Penitentes as rivals for church membership. Newcomers wanted the land that Hispanics lived on. If a member faced trouble in the community, he could ask his Penitente brothers for help. He might receive legal support, food, or other aid. The Penitentes gave the Church money for funeral expenses. The Penitentes also partnered with the Sociedad Protección Mutua de Trabajadores Unidos, a union of Hispanic workers, to bring protection and aid to members. The Penitentes still exist today.

I confess I had never heard of them? until I read the 1913 newspaper story of the cult? Below

We have question was Antonio Leblanc part of this religious sect?

If so was connected to the 1913 treasure hunt?

Crow

 

[Crow]

One thing for sure there was many people making claims from around this time. The Rocky Mountain News (Daily), Volume 53, Number 280, October 6, 1912 below

SPANISH TREASURE LOCATED NEAR SALIDA, SAYS OLD MINER

Special to The News. SALIDA. Colo., Oct. s.—ls there a Spanish treasure buried in the mountains somewhere near Salida? Certain prospectors in this vicinity are of the opinion that there Is. Indeed, Thomas Summers of Nathrop, who has prospected the hills In Chaffee county for more than thirty years, states that he can lay his hands upon this treasure within three months’ time.

And he offers to go into partnership with any man who will furnish him with sufficient ‘grubstake" to last during the expedition. The treasure is said to be composed of vast numbers of precious stones and many bags of gold. The persistence and seriousness of Summers in appealing his case has of late caused people to the matter serious thought.

Summers has been trying to locate the treasure for two years, and has found certain charts and sketches which locate the exact spot. When the time came for him to go forth on his expedition. deeds to property prevented his worklng the land. "The deeds must first be bought, and I have no money,’’ he states.

“I will form a company with any one, and will go halves with the treasure. All I need Is money enough to buy these deeds.” The one point made by Summers, which has caused several of his friends to make notice, is the claim that charts have been found. It is known that he has shown charts to a few of his most intimate friends.

In these maps there is mention of a mountain bearing a human face. When translated from the Spanish, the description reads: “Measurement Is taken from the face of the Spanish princess, which is a face in this mountain. resembling the countenance of the beautiful royal highess.” To the few people whom he has taken into his confidence.

Summers is known to have secretly shown a picture, recently photographed of a human face carved in the rocks. The face he himself claims to have photographed while prospecting near the base of Mount Princeton, fourteen miles northwest of Salida.

A tradition, once current among prospectors throughout this section, but still told occasionally by miners who located here years ago,relates of the burying of a large treasure by a band of Spaniards who came to this state over two hundred years ago.

Note interest that local tradition at least in 1912 burying of a large treasure by a band of Spaniards who came to this state over two hundred years ago.
( Regardless of summers claim which now jewels appear in the story. Was his words or add by the reporter to sex up the story?)

Crow