Sanchez Gold

[Gypsy Heart]

One of the noted characters in San Juan in its early days,was Senor Sanchez, a very prominent Spaniard. There were, and still are, many stories extant about Sanchez. He was drowned whilst crossing the Pajaro river, near that river's junction with the San Benito river. The Sanchez' family residence was a large two-story adobe
building located on the east side of the Pajaro river, a short distance
above where the two rivers unite.

One of the stories current, and it is related by many old-timers now, is
that the night that Sanchez lost his life he had been in San Jose and had received a large amount of money, the weight of which caused his horse and himself to mire into the quicksand. Neither the horse nor the man were ever seen again.

Facing the Sanchez' home, on the east, was a hill. It was quite a large
hill, and the rumor grew that Sanchez had buried an immense amount of gold
dust and money in that hill. In consequence of this rumor every now and
then people would repair to the hill and dig hither and thither, according
to directions that they had received from fortune tellers. Some had
divining rods to point out the buried gold, others depended upon plats and
maps that were furnished, (for a consideration), by the fortune tellers.
But, somehow or another, no money was ever found by the treasure seekers.
It is worthy of note that, so far as I know, no San Juan people ever went
to that hill to dig for the supposed buried treasure. Those who sought the
gold were from San Jose, Watsonville, San Francisco and other parts of the
state.

http://www.webroots.org/library/usahist/edamsjb6.html

 

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[Tom_in_CA]

Hi Gypsy, thanx for the posting. You're talking an area less than 30 min. from me. Unfortunately the area where the adobe was ("east on the east side of the Pajaro River") is now a modern Mobile home park. That's only 10 or 15 ys. old, and I regret not pursuing that many years ago. Not for sake of a legend/treasure, but just for sake of an adobe site (ie.: coin/relic shooting).

As for the legend or supposed buried treasures at any such homestead site, they're a dime-a-dozen. I mean, take your statement "...rumor grew that Sanchez had buried.." you have to ask yourself, "who said that?" and why isn't it subject to the "he said she said" telephone game? Automatically treasure rumors take on a "truth" status, simply because "... it was rumored..." I mean .... I can start a "rumor" about that.....about your house this very minute. And in 25 yrs, some website will "pick that up" and start to incite treasure hunts about your living room

And the line: "... somehow or another, no money was ever found by the treasure seekers" If there was truth to missing wealth, and if someone actually did find it back then, do you think they'd have waltzed into town bragging about it? Once again, this falls under the "no one ever reported it found" being reported to a literal "OH, then it's 'never been' found" assumption.

 

[Gypsy Heart]

LOL.....and this is why we call them Legends.....I just catch the rabbit...its up to everyone else to skin them.....I only skin the ones I want to eat.....

 

[Tom_in_CA]

You can google earth the site (confluence of the 2 rivers) and see the mobile home park in the area where the adobe-site was (supposedly .... I dunno .....that was built *just* before my time of Spanish/mexican reale hunting). However, just a bit more north from there, where the Pajaro River goes under Hwy 101, there had been (and still is) a river crossing point. So even back in pre-state-hood times, that was the north/south road's river crossing spot. That, unlike the MHP area a bit to the south, is still agriculture land. There might have been some structures at each side of that crossing, and/or over-night stayers, ferry establishment type stuff, etc....

However, unfortunately in the 1940s to 1960s, the entire area there, on each side of the river, was used at a garbage dump site for the nearby city of Gilroy. This was because the modern freeway (1950s?) cut slightly to the east of the old 2-lane freeway, leaving the old bridge/road to be a dead-end at the river's edge. So it became a convenient garbage dumping spot, back before the day's of ecological awareness :P

I've hunted the ag fields on the south side of that area, and hunted the cow pasture lands on the north side of there, and found that they are just a giant junk-yard. Some of the meadows on the north side of this are not in that "garbage junk" zone though. I was hunting there not d/t legends or adobes, but because somewhere in that area was the old "Sargent's Station" picnic area. There had been a store/stage stop or something, that .... as recently as the teens or '20s had also been a popular picnicking/boating site.

I never did do any good coin-shooting looking for the exact sight of that. It was either screwed up in the 1920s modern highway paving road projects, or simply was washed/silted out in the fact that rivers in this area follow a "boom/bust" lifecycle. Ie.: every 20-ish years, they over-flow and silt out the entire basin/bottom surrounding them, and then every 10 or 20-ish years, they dry up to an absolute dry wash. Unlike creeks/lakes in the mid west or something, where water bodies rarely fluctuate more than a foot or two of their historic tables/levels.

I also know of another person who did wander for miles all around the area of the MHP, looking for the Sanchez adobe site, d/t the gold legend. Their ultimate conclusion was the same as mine: that the Sanchez adobe site was right under what is now the modern MHP.

Although I've been md'ing since the mid/late 1970s (started as a Jr. High kid), I didn't graduate up to the real early stuff (seateds, reales, gold coins, etc...) till the mid 1990s. That area of the MHP was *just* then, in the early or mid 1990s, being developed as that MHP. So I kick myself for not jumping onto that sooner. Because at about that time, mid 1990s, myself and a few "graduating" buddies were researching out adobe sites in this tri-county area, and found a few virgin sites that gave up reales, buttons, etc.... Once again, not for treasure legends type of "cache" hunting type stuff, but for coin/relic hunting.