February 7, 2011 © Thomas J. Kollenborn. All Rights Reserved.
With
Apache Junction’s Lost Dutchman Days celebration only a few weeks away,
it’s most appropriate to re-tell the story of the man behind the
legend.
Jacob Waltz unknowingly
created one of the most popular legends of the American Southwest.
Storytellers say he spun yarns and gave clues to his gold mine in the
Superstition Mountains for two decades. These clues and stories
attributed to Waltz continue to attract men and women from around the
world to search for gold in these mountains.
The search for gold in the
Superstitions is pure fantasy to most people. However, some believe this
legendary gold mine is as real as the precious metal itself. Who was
this man that left this lingering legacy of lost gold? The story of the
Lost Dutchman’s mine remains the legacy of this old man.
Jacob Waltz was born near
Oberschwandorf, Wurttenburg, Germany some time between 1808 and 1810.
The precise date of his birth has not been documented with baptismal
records. His childhood is quite obscure and few records remain about his
early life in Germany. There is no information or documentation that
indicates Jacob Waltz had any formal education. There is certainly no
record that proves he was a graduated mining engineer as claimed by some
writers. Helen Corbin published the manifest of the S.S. Obler in her
book, The Bible on the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine and Jacob Waltz, Wolf
Publishing Company, Prescott, Arizona, 2002. According to the document,
on October 1,1839, Jacob Waltz sailed on the ship Obler from the Port of
Bremen to America arriving at the Port of New Orleans on November 17,
1839. Waltz’s name appears 97th on the list and his age is given as 28.
His hometown was Horb, Wurttenburg, Germany according to the ship’s
manifest. The source of Helen Corbin’s information is said to be Kraig
Roberts, the grand-son of Guidon Roberts. Guidon Roberts was at the
bedside of Jacob Waltz just prior to his death in 1891.
Some researchers claim Waltz
worked in the gold fields of Meadow Creek, North Carolina and Dohney,
Georgia for awhile, but there are no records to support this claim.
Jacob Waltz filed a letter of intent to become a citizen of the United
States at the Adams County Courthouse in Natchez, Mississippi on
November 12, 1848. This is one of the first actual documents Waltz’s
name appears on in America.
It is believed Waltz traveled
overland to California around 1850. He spent eleven years working in
the gold fields of California. Waltz’s name appeared in some early
California census records and he did file papers to become a citizen of
the United States in the Los Angeles County Court House. He became a
naturalized citizen of the United States on July 19, 1861, thirty years
prior to his death in Phoenix. The events surrounding Waltz’s life
during his twenty-seven years in Arizona Territory is what created his
legacy.
Waltz traveled to Arizona
Territory with the Peeples- Weaver Party in the May‘ of 1863. The
Peeples Party discovered gold in the Bradshaw Mountains along Lynx
Creek. While these early prospectors were busy staking out claims Waltz
and three other men staked out a claim called the Gross Claim in the
Walnut Mining District on September 21, 1863. Waltz would stake out two
more claims in the Bradshaws before eventually moving down to Phoenix in
1868. Waltz gained much of his knowledge about prospecting and mining
while working in California.
Waltz came to the Bradshaws
as an experienced prospector and miner. While in the Bradshaws, he
signed a petition to Territorial Governor Goodwin to raise a militia to
stop the predatory raids of the local Native Americans. It is highly
unlikely Waltz spent anytime around Wickenburg. He did settle on a
homestead on the north bank of the Salt River, filing papers on a
homestead in March 1868. Waltz farmed a little and raised a few
chickens. He also prospected the surrounding mountains until about 1886.
Some believe, if Waltz had a rich mine, he found it between 1868-1886.
There are so many stories
about Waltz and his mine in the Superstition Mountains it is impossible
to separate the truth from fiction. The old prospector had few friends,
but Julia Thomas and Rhinehart Petrasch appear to be a couple of Waltz’s
friends according to information that is available today. Julia Thomas
traveled into the Superstition Mountains looking for Waltz’s mine in
August of 1892, about ten months after Waltz’s death. She found nothing.
It is believed by many Arizona historians that Thomas drew and sold
maps to Waltz’s mine to help recoup her losses after selling her
business and going on a wild goose chase in the Superstition Mountains
looking for his mine.
Thomas may have sold her
story about Waltz and his mine to P.C. Bicknell, a free lance writer for
the San Francisco Chronicle. Bicknell published a story about Waltz and
his lost mine in that paper on January 13, 1895. Many Arizona
historians believe this is the origin of the Lost Dutchman Mine story.
If Waltz indeed had a mine,
there are those who are totally convinced it was the old Bull Dog some
two miles west of Superstition Mountain. The Bull Dog had an eighteen
inch vein, a significant clue in the story of the Lost Dutchman Mine.
Waltz could have easily
worked the Black Queen, Mammoth or Bull Dog mines in the Goldfields.
However it is also difficult to believe Waltz worked a mine in the
Goldfields because there were numerous prospectors in the area between
1879- 1892. It would have been difficult to work a gold deposit in the
area without being observed by somebody.
Did
Waltz have a rich gold mine east of Phoenix? The gold Waltz had at the
time of his death came from somewhere. It could have come from
California, the Bradshaw Mountains, the Goldfield area or possibly the
Superstition Mountains. The rich gold ore he has in a candle box under
his bed helped create the legacy of the Lost Dutchman Mine.
