Adams in the Papers

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nmth

If Adams was a straight-out liar, then he would not have to stick to the same old story. He could just make up a new one closer to whatever bar he happened to be in. He'd be a fool to tell it 100% correctly, I think.

---

Straight-out liars can't seem to keep their details right because they're constantly making things up, not remembering them. If Adams had known where the diggings were, he'd have eventually returned, I think.

Quote:

---

There's a story over your way involving a large fluorine quartz blow shaped like a horse's head. Of the many other details I have on it, it seems that some must certainly be fakes or misleading. Geography and geology is all there, just not quite like its laid out in the telling, despite the VERY specific locale and first-hand notes.

---

Never heard of that story. Sounds like fun.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nmth

Yikes. Murder. Very sad. Probably had more to it than just the delusion that they were on to the treasure - probably a girl involved or some unforgivable insult.

---

No girl involved ... just personalities, politics and money.

At the risk of depressing everyone with the growing inconsistencies and also the general tone of this particualr article, here is another one:

Attachment 1527692

Interesting that there is a Georgetown man in the mix.

Adams is listed as the sole survivor - no German.

Since I may be away for a while, and the last one was so depressing, I'll post another one that I think is a lot closer to a possible area, though the article itself does not have a lot of details. If you read about all this enough, then this region becomes more interesting.

Attachment 1527696

Governor Otero probably just needed a week or so away from the usual. That part of the Black Range is beautiful. Lots of mines in the area. The San Mateos are on the way, too.

Aww, heck, here's another. I forget how many there are in total in my one folder. I'll probably end up posting some more than one out of confusion.

Here's a Patterson-inspired version. Now the placer is worth 6 horses, not just one horse and a rifle. At least there is a German in this one, complete with stereotype accent. Adams must have been in good shape. 10 graves! (Or 9, if the German got away).

Attachment 1527698

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nmth

At the risk of depressing everyone with the growing inconsistencies and also the general tone of this particualr article, here is another one:

Attachment 1527692

Interesting that there is a Georgetown man in the mix.

Adams is listed as the sole survivor - no German.

---

Again, thanks for the post. The article seems pessimistic as it questions the veracity of Adams and his story - and rightfully so, IMO.

That said, the article seems to focus in the Mogollon Mountains region, specifically mentioning Socorro County. Today, that would be Catron County, as Socorro County was later split. There are a plethora of unreconciled "lost mine" stories - all likely the same site, IMO - that originated in the Mogollons, south of the Catron/Grant County line in a general location somewhere below the Diablo Range. All the way back to the days of Fort West and Noah Owens, all the way up to the forest fire smokejumper in the 1950s. "... something is happening here but you don't know what it is. Do you, Mr. Jones? ..."

These rumors are fascinating and not too well publicized these days. My contention is that the "Adams Diggings" (aka the "Snively Diggings") have long been worked out in Bear Creek, but the Mogollon possibilities still exist. Adams? A wanna be who never saw nuthin'.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nmth

Since I may be away for a while, and the last one was so depressing, I'll post another one that I think is a lot closer to a possible area, though the article itself does not have a lot of details. If you read about all this enough, then this region becomes more interesting.

Attachment 1527696

Governor Otero probably just needed a week or so away from the usual. That part of the Black Range is beautiful. Lots of mines in the area. The San Mateos are on the way, too.

---

Otero was always an interesting and adventurous guy, and a pretty good governor too. However, he apparently returned to Santa Fe without the big smile on his face that the reporter was waiting for. Anyway, there was never any indication that he found the Adams Diggings - like you say, it was just a week out of the office on a lark down the river. Oh well, most of us here probably know that drill.

An interesting fact about Otero is that he knew Billy the Kid fairly well in the early days and later in his life wrote a book about the outlaw. Anyway, nothing to see in article 4, IMO - let's move on. Good find though.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nmth

Aww, heck, here's another. I forget how many there are in total in my one folder. I'll probably end up posting some more than one out of confusion.

Here's a Patterson-inspired version. Now the placer is worth 6 horses, not just one horse and a rifle. At least there is a German in this one, complete with stereotype accent. Adams must have been in good shape. 10 graves! (Or 9, if the German got away).

Attachment 1527698

---

This is a reprint of Patterson's story from 1897 from the same newspaper. A number of the well-known LAD details are in this article, although the telling varies with other similar versions. We have a trip northeasterly from the Pima villages with no mountains until near the end. He mentions two peaks seen to the northeast from a high spot, then a descent into the gold canyon. There is evidence of Native agriculture. A Dutchman was worried about Indians and left the expedition early with forty pounds of placer. I doubt he dug ten holes for his dead comrades - probably one common hole or maybe just covered the bodies with rocks (if he did anything at all).

The poor guy spent $7,000 in twenty years or so looking for the diggings to no avail. That's more than a half million dollars in today's funny money. Patterson spent a lot of time with Adams and believed his story, but after looking into every conceivable possibility, he came up empty. I guess Adams couldn't tell him what he needed to know.

Thanks for posting, and please do post the rest of your findings - these are very interesting.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nmth

Since I may be away for a while, and the last one was so depressing, I'll post another one that I think is a lot closer to a possible area, though the article itself does not have a lot of details. If you read about all this enough, then this region becomes more interesting.

Attachment 1527696

Governor Otero probably just needed a week or so away from the usual. That part of the Black Range is beautiful. Lots of mines in the area. The San Mateos are on the way, too.

---

Thanks for posting the articles NMTH, don't get discouraged by a little disappointing comments from us. I like to read the articles, even if they are immediately recognizable as worthless. I believe that we ought not throw out any source materials for finding errors or even falsehoods. To justify this, I will point out that until someone has found the Adams diggings and has a strong case to back it, we can never be 100% certain that any particular statement, clue, landmarks etc are true or false. Oh we can certainly file things in the probable, improbable and impossible, but I would hesitate to put anything in the impossible file.

Anyway you have posted two articles already that I don't have, so I hope you will continue to share with us.

Please do continue,
:coffee2: :coffee: :coffee2:

Whoops I left out the Definite file, and I would be hesitant about putting anything in this file too!

:coffee2: :coffee:

Thanks to our two well-read stalwarts for some interesting comments and additions.

How about some of you lurkers? Any ideas?

Here is another article.

This time, we need to find a cottonwood tree, and the date was 1850.

Also, the placer was supposedly located by the party traveling from the East to California. No Gotch Ear or Mexican or a Pima.

Attachment 1529215

Merry Christmas!

Here is one from 1886:

Attachment 1529456

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nmth

Thanks to our two well-read stalwarts for some interesting comments and additions.

How about some of you lurkers? Any ideas?

Here is another article.

This time, we need to find a cottonwood tree, and the date was 1850.

Also, the placer was supposedly located by the party traveling from the East to California. No Gotch Ear or Mexican or a Pima.

Attachment 1529215

---

This is another seeming combination of stories, but actually an interesting one, IMO.

The Year: 1850. Very early account of 49ers heading across NM to CA, one of whom is allegedly Adams. This odd version leads me to believe that either 1) it's just a total mishmash of two lost placer mine stories combined into one and therefore not a reliable source of the original LAD kernal; or 2) the lost placer mine story from 1850 and the LAD found in the 1860s are both describing the same place separated in time with the protagonists confused.

The Route: Across southern NM to CA. In 1850, this would likely be describing the route coming through Santa Fe, south down the Rio Grande, then westerly following the early Mormon Trail, later used by the California Column, over land acquired by the Gadsden Purchase and today roughly following the railroad and I-10 west into AZ. In 1850, there were many local variances. There was also a major alternative route pioneered by the Taos trappers in the 1820s that ran more or less southwest from Santa Fe through Zuni country to the Frisco River and into the Gila River. Negrito Creek, where the cottonwood tree was allegedly found, is a tributary of the Frisco.

The Diggings: hard to pin it down from the narrative (ha ha). Too bad it wasn't mentioned where on Negrito Creek the cottonwood tree was found, because this creek has two major forks and many smaller drainages. It heads up either in the Tularosa Mountains region to the north or in the Mogollon Range to the south. The creek itself does not empty into the Gila as described in the narrative, but into the Frisco, and then a hundred miles more to the Gila. This is troublesome and supports the idea that this narrative is cross-pollinating two different tales. For all we know, Adams himself may have been responsible for the cross-pollination - he may have heard two stories, the Lost Snively Diggings and the Lost 49ers Diggings, mixed them up in a whiskey talk session and created the version we're discussing here.

Notwithstanding the Snively Diggings theory (which I support), let's assume the 49ers 1850 version is also based on facts. These guys may have taken the Zuni shortcut, putting them in or near the Tularosa Mountains - east of some point on Negrito Creek - where they found placer gold and had Indian problems. That would match part of the information in Article 6. This may support, more or less, the idea put forth in Article 1 about CA-bound prospectors finding gold in NM in 1853. Maybe this means there is another separate lost placer mine that originated in the 1850s that occurred further north of the 1860s Snively Diggings.

God Jul, Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad, Feliz Natal, Fröhliche Weihnachten, καλά Χριστούγεννα,Joyeux Noel to you all!

:occasion14:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nmth

Thanks to our two well-read stalwarts for some interesting comments and additions.

How about some of you lurkers? Any ideas?

Here is another article.

This time, we need to find a cottonwood tree, and the date was 1850.

Also, the placer was supposedly located by the party traveling from the East to California. No Gotch Ear or Mexican or a Pima.

Attachment 1529215

---

Merry Christmas!

Very interesting. Don't think there's a high possibility of finding the tree now. Fremont cottonwoods live about 150 years. I'm sure Adams picked the biggest tree around so was maybe 100 years old then. Even pushing the lifespan to 200 years, the tree would have been dead for at least 50 years now. And the blaze probably disappeared when the dead bark fell away. The only significance I can see with the tree is it probably marked the spot where Adams 1st hit water after his escape.


I found this one the other day:

Attachment 1530451

Attachment 1530452
Attachment 1530453
Attachment 1530454
Attachment 1530455

And there's my contribution to the 'obscure Adams clue' files. A triangle formed by 3 peaks.

P.S. I left the Folger's ad in because I thought that was interesting too. Cans of coffee in 1907. I would've thought that was a newer invention :coffee2: