Arizona Legends and Lore

by Dorothy Daniels Anderson

  Here, thought Rosita Maria, was a man who did not fawn. Here was a challenge, perhaps a man worthy of her. If Carlos thought that he could remain immune to her charms, he did not understand that she was her father’s daughter. She was as determined to succeed in the business of love as was her father in the business of cattle ranching. Her provocative lips hardened with resolve. It will only be a matter of time, she thought, before Carlos, too, becomes my slave, just like all the others.

  Meanwhile, Don Miguel, sharp-eyed and brilliant in his handling of his successful cattle rancho, was like a blind man to his daughter’s activities. Then late one moonlit night, the guard posted as watchman sounded the alarm. Instantly everyone in the Peralta village was aroused. In seconds the men had all grabbed weapons and rushed to the hacienda prepared to defend the rancho. Questions of concern were on the lips of everyone. Were cattle being stolen? Were horses being taken? Were the storehouses being broken into?

  What Don Miguel and his assembled men saw was the beautiful Rosita Maria running toward her father’s hacienda, screaming hysterically. In the shimmering light of the moon, they could see that she was completely nude.

  “ Madre de Dios, mi hija , my daughter,” cried Don Miguel as he flung his cape over his daughter’s trembling shoulders.

  “ Papa, Papito ,” Rosita Maria sobbed, “it was Carlos. Carlos did this to me.”

  In those few emotional moments, Don Miguel failed to see the young Carlos quietly lead a horse from the corral, mount it and dash away. The clatter of the horse’s hooves finally distracted everyone’s attention from the sobbing Rosita Maria, as the entire village and Don Miguel stood stunned listening to the escaping Carlos.

  Don Miguel’s face contorted with anger. “Move, you idiots,” he bellowed, “bring him to me. I will kill him with my bare hands.”

  Immediately the men started after Carlos, but in the darkness of the night, it soon became apparent that they would not find him without the help of Indian guides. Returning to the rancho, they explained to Don Miguel their need for Indian trackers. It did not take long for two Indian guides to be found.

  When Wolf Nose and his companion were brought before Don Miguel, they said, “We will find him. We do not need the others. Lend us two swift horses and we will do the rest.” Don Miguel gave them what they wanted.

  The mysterious Superstitious Mountains (Courtesy Arizona Office of Tourism)

  Early the next morning the sounds of hammering broke the pre-dawn stillness as the profile of a gallows was silhouetted against the rising sun. Rosita Maria, awakened by the sounds of activity, came out of the hacienda. Seemingly recovered from the night before, she examined the wooden platform as she walked around it. Two women servants rushed to her side, beseeching her to return to the protection of the house. But Rosita Maria haughtily refused. She continued to stand in front of the hacienda as more of the people of the rancho gathered around to watch. Observing the whispered conversations and the significant glances in her direction, she called arrogantly to her father, amused by the sensation she was creating, “Will you hang Carlos, Padre mio ?”

  For the first time in her life, her father turned on her—scowling. “His feet will be tied to the floor of the scaffold,” he said. “His hands will be attached to a rope thrown over the bar. A basket will be hung from the other end of the rope. Rocks, heavy rocks, will be put into the basket to lower it each hour.” He snarled, “In two days, something will break.”

  So, thought Rosita Maria with an indifferent sigh, this was how her romantic episode with Carlos would end.

  For the next week, Don Miguel stormed and raged, demanding to know why the two Indian trackers had not returned. Impatiently, he waited another week. Not a word, not a message, nothing arrived from the two Indians. Then early one afternoon, Wolf Nose staggered into the rancho alone, without his companion or his horse. He was starving, thirsty and exhausted.

  “Speak, you dog,” thundered Don Miguel, “why have you come back empty-handed?”

  Unable to speak, Wolf Nose pulled out a pouch from under the skin of his loincloth. He opened the pouch and allowed the contents to fall into his hands. Before Don Miguel’s eyes was a small pile of the richest gold nuggets he had ever seen. One of the nuggets was the size of a walnut.

  Taking the gold, Don Miguel fingered it thoughtfully. “Feed him, give him water,” he commanded, “allow him some rest. Tonight,” he said to the Indian, “tonight you will tell me everything that happened.”

  That evening Wolf Nose told of how he and his companion had carefully tracked Carlos, each day getting a little closer. Then, one morning, they saw Carlos galloping toward them. They grabbed their guns.

  “Don’t shoot,” cried the young man. “Look, I have gold, much gold, there is much gold, there is lots more where this came from.” Surprised by this unexpected turn of events, the Indians paused to consider the young Carlos. His face was suffused with an uncontrollable excitement. He continued to speak, “I could not help myself. I tried to ignore her, but she taunted me with her flashing eyes and her sweet-smelling hair. I became like a wild man. But gold, with lots of gold I will come back. I will persuade Don Miguel to let me marry my beautiful Rosita Maria. If he will allow me to have her, I will make him a fabulously rich man.” Even Wolf Nose knew that if a man had enough gold and the promise of more, he could buy immunity from almost any punishment.

  The Indians went with Carlos to the source of the gold deep within the country of the Thunder God. Filling their saddle bags from a vein found hidden in a recess in the ground, they marked their location by a nearby peak of reddish rock and then began the long journey back to the rancho.

  After journeying for two days, they came to a river which was often dry, but now was a swollen, rushing torrent of water. The Indians said that they would have to wait for at least a day for the water to subside. But Carlos was impatient, anxious not to delay.

  “We can do it,” he said. “We can swim our horses across—I know we can.” The Indians reluctantly followed Carlos into the river. They were soon engulfed by the raging, churning water. Only Wolf Nose was able to survive by clinging to a branch of a cottonwood tree. The only gold that remained was in the small pouch he had tucked into the waist of his loincloth. With the horses dead, he was forced to walk without food or water back to the Peralta rancho.

  During the next three years, Don Miguel went with his sons on mining expeditions to the land of the Thunder People. Because the surrounding area contained much high-grade gold concentrate, they made several other mining shafts besides the primary one which held the vein of gold. Don Miguel was always able to remember exactly where the mine was located by a landmark, a peculiarly-shaped peak that looked to him like the pointed top of a sombrero hat. Secretly, over the next three years, Don Miguel took millions of pesos worth of pure gold concentrate from the mining shafts of his Sombrero Mine.

  But Mexico, without realizing what treasure had been discovered on its territory, signed in 1848 the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo and accepted, seven years later, the terms of the Gadsden Purchase. The Peralta Mine was now a part of the United States.

  Don Miguel decided to make one final trip to his Sombrero Mine, leaving his sons behind in charge of the rancho. This time, he decided, he would take four hundred men and as many mules and burros. This time he would take out billions of pesos of gold.

  But the Apaches were angry about these Mexicans coming and defiling the sacred land of their Thunder God. If that was not insulting enough, the Mexican miners made merry with the Apache maidens who were fascinated with these amusing, singing, guitar-strumming men from the South.

  The Apache leaders, Mangas Coloradas and Cochise, joined forces and brought together a large contingent of warriors, with the intent of attacking Peralta.

  Don Miguel, learning of their plan, quickly stopped operating the mine. His men covered and hid the shaft openings as best they could and made preparations to depart. While this was being done, Don Miguel drew a m
ap of the location and carved out hieroglyphics on some rocks as a key to the map. With all evidence of his activity in the area concealed, Don Miguel withdrew his miners and equipment to a mesa, high in the Superstitions. There he planned to load all the burros and mules with all the gold concentrate that they could carry. During the night they would steal away from the three-thousand-foot mesa and make a run for the rancho.

  But Coloradas and Cochise learned of Don Miguel’s plan and quietly placed their warriors along the canyon and cliffs of the escape route. The Mexicans never had a chance. They were taken completely by surprise and at a disadvantage with the heavily-laden mules and burros. The pack animals stampeded, frightening the horses of Don Miguel’s guards.

  It was a massacre. No one survived. The Apaches dumped much of the gold concentrate, not recognizing the ore in its unrefined form. They added further camouflage to hide the mine shafts except for one which they felt was in such a rugged place no one would ever find it. Some of the pack animals escaped to wander the twisting canyons with their precious gold until they perished from old age or accident.

  And so the story of the massacre and the treasure of gold began to be whispered about from village to village in Sonora. The story fueled the fantasies of a poor people who dreamed of how such wealth could change their lives.

  Several years later, a squad from the United States Army came across the bloody scene and gathered up what was left of the bodies and gave them a burial in a large common grave. Don Miguel’s body was never found. The journal records do not indicate whether the army ever found any of the gold concentrate.

  Now the story was whispered about at the forts, saloons and towns of Arizona. More and more men turned a speculative eye toward those distinctive-looking mountains.

  Superstition Mountains, thirty miles east of Phoenix (Courtesy Arizona Office of Tourism, Phoenix)

  And so Monte Superstition, created with such volcanic upheaval, echoed anew with another kind of violence, the violence of greedy men.

  Two Mexican War Veterans

  Even as far back as the mid-1800s, people often said that the exploits of Don Peralta were nothing but a legend, a tale for telling around the campfire. Perhaps, but many people also believed the legends might be based on truth. After all, there was a Don Miguel Peralta and there is substantiating evidence supporting the fact that he had worked a mine of value.

  Because of the strength of the legend, the Superstition Mountains attracted a great many gold seekers. All kinds of people came, unable to resist the lure of gold, hoping against hope that they would find the illusive Peralta mine.

  Sometime after 1848, at the end of the Mexican-American War, two army veterans, down on their luck, came to the Superstitions to look for the Peralta gold. Sean O’Connor and Aloysious Hurley were prospecting near the Superstitions when they found the skeleton of a burro and part of a disintegrated packsaddle. The saddlebag contained a strange-colored rock, which they immediately recognized as gold concentrate of great worth. In subsequent weeks, they found the decayed remains of several other mules. In each instance, a dusty saddlebag lay nearby filled with gold.

  These two former sons of Ireland eventually sold the contents of the bags to the San Francisco mint. Gold was worth approximately $13 an ounce and the two men received a total of $37,000 for their find. During those days, an average yearly income was well under a thousand dollars. By the standards of the time, they had become rich men.

  Hurley and O’Connor returned to the Superstitions for several years and continued to find an occasional skeleton and a decaying saddlebag filled with its precious ore. Although the men tried to keep their finds a secret, somehow the information leaked out. Now, not only did they have to deal with the treacherous and rugged terrain of the mountains, but they soon began to meet up with robbers and riffraff determined to follow and kill the men for their gold. They began to realize that their lives were increasingly at risk. The Superstitions teemed with this amoral element as well as with angry Indians resenting the continued trespass by white men. Hurley and O’Connor moved to Idaho where they lived in comfort and regaled many with their story of the Superstition Mountains.

  For years the very existence of a Peralta mine had been questioned; now speculation focused on its whereabouts. Some argued that the mine was located in the Superstition Mountains; others believed it was in the Goldfield area adjacent to the Superstitions. Still others claimed that Peralta’s mine was in Yavapai County near Bumble Bee. Not only does the story told by Hurley and O’Connor give credence to the Peralta massacre, it goes further in suggesting a general location for the fabled mine.

  A Doctor Comes to Fort McDowell

  There was yet another individual who profited from the lost Peralta saddlebags. In 1865, a young army doctor named Abraham Thorne received his first appointment to the newly-established Fort McDowell. Thorne’s responsibility was to provide the settlers with medical aid. The military was needed in this area because of continuing harassment from hostile Indians. Fort McDowell also gave sanctuary to those peaceful Indians who detested the constant fighting. These Indians lived in a nearby area and were provided with some means for survival.

  Originally from Illinois, the young doctor was completely fascinated by everything he saw in Arizona. A sense of adventure permeated every aspect of life on the frontier. Thorne found his work at the fort to be both challenging and rewarding.

  Once he had seen to the immediate medical needs of the settlers and soldiers, he decided to use his spare time to give what medical help he could to the peaceful Indians living nearby. What he saw disturbed him. These natives were living in neglect and squalor. Accustomed to a transient life on large tracts of land, the Indians had never developed a basic understanding of the sanitation needs necessary for those who remain in a specific and confined area. Disease was rampant and everywhere he turned young Thorne saw the results of what happens to people who do not have knowledge of even the simplest basic health habits.

  Thorne tried to communicate with the Indians and to share his medical expertise. He found himself being rebuffed from fear. Their experiences with the white man had never been good. Determined to help in whatever way he could, he began to teach himself their language and to slowly win their trust.

  He taught the women how to care for their children in such a way as to avoid a devastating eye disease that prevailed in the camp. He showed the midwives techniques to help during a difficult birth. He cleverly included the medicine men in his teaching program, showing them how to set broken bones and use simple medicines. Eventually the medicine men took over the responsibility of policing the camp and teaching the new arrivals the ways to keep the camp sanitary and disease-free.

  The Indians were amazed with his healing ways and his facility in learning their language. Here was a white man like no other. In a rare gesture of acceptance, they began to call him their brother.

  Then one day, while at the Indian camp, Doctor Thorne was approached by a man he had never seen before. The tall, aristocratic Indian had a manner that reflected the ease of one who is a leader. The famous Indian chief, Cochise, had come in person to the young doctor. His youngest wife was experiencing a difficult pregnancy and birth. Would the healer of so many of his brothers come and see his wife?

  Dr. Abraham Thorne was able to successfully help the beautiful young wife of Cochise through the pregnancy. The great chief was overjoyed and promised to never forget the kind healing of this young, dedicated man.

  Eventually the doctor was given orders to go to another assignment in New Mexico. When the Indians learned that their white medicine man would be leaving them, they were very sad. They asked for a gathering of their chiefs, Geronimo and Cochise, as well as their wisemen. They wanted to somehow thank him for helping their people.

  Dr. Thorne was summoned to appear before their leaders. He was told that because he had helped their people, it was their wish to give him a gift. If he would be willing to wait for one night and one day
they would take him to a place where there was much gold.

  At the agreed time, Dr. Thorne was blindfolded and taken over a long and circuitous route. When they finally stopped, and the doctor’s blindfold was taken off, he saw that they were in a narrow canyon. The Indians waved to a large pile of rocks directly in front of him. The rock was of a curious color. Thorne dismounted and picked up a small chunk of the ore and realized with stunned disbelief that the Indians were giving him a fortune in gold.

  Thorne was blindfolded again for the trip out, so he was never certain where the Indians had taken him. The Indians said they wanted to protect him from their powerful god and from greedy ones who might come to seek such treasure. Just once on the return trip did the Indians take the blindfold off. It was to allow Thorne the opportunity for a drink of water. He immediately saw that he was in a much larger canyon. When he looked in the distance, he saw rising against the sky an immense spire of rock which he recognized as that unusually-shaped peak called Weaver’s Needle.

  Before going to his new post in New Mexico, Doctor Thorne requested permission to visit some of his family living near San Francisco. While in the city, he exchanged his gold at the mint for an undisclosed sum of money. The amount must have been considerable because he generously paid off a loan his father owed on a business venture and then gave his two brothers sufficient funds for each to build a substantial home. When questioned about the source of his new-found wealth, he spoke vaguely of a bit of luck that had come his way during his stay at Fort McDowell.

  Years later, still a considerably wealthy man, he shared his story with his family and thus added one further tale to the ever-increasing saga of the Superstition Mountains.