Mexican Tells of Mine in Sieras - 1870

[Old Bookaroo]

MEXICAN TELLS
OF MINE IN
SIERAS
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Fear of Remnant of Apache
Kid Gang Prevents Him
From Attempting to Work
It and He Holds Secret.
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Away back, about the- end of the 70's, there were some United States soldiers on the Gila river near the mouth of the San Pedro, north of Benson. Some Apache scouts accompanied them, and a few Mexicans in the quartermaster's service. An old Mexican who was one of these recently told the writer that he learned then of a very rich placer in the Sierra Madres, but had never been able to outfit and go to hunt it, fearing also the remnant of the Apache Kid gang which, as a matter of fact, still numbers five or six in the heart of the Sierra Madre near the headwaters of the Bavispe, the Bonito and the Hueverachi. He said one of the scouts had his squaw with him at that Gila camp, and that she wore on one wrist a bracelet of gold nuggets, bored and strung on deer sinew.

Mitchell's new general atlas… [1870]​

Talking with the old Indian one day after having with some difficulty succeeded in getting on pretty friendly and intimate relations with him, he asked the source of the nuggets and was answered about as follows:

"Starting from San Carlos I once went to the Sierra Madre and got this gold and a buckskin bag of gold nuggets beside, which I traded to an American on the Chihuahua side for a gun and ammunition. I went through the Chiricahua mountains, across the upper San Simon valley, through Skeleton canyon and over by the big cienega [a wet meadow found in a valley bottom created by a seep or spring]. Here I turned toward the Big Hatchet and went into Mexico through the Espuelas and past Carretas near and eastward from Bavispe, thence up along the foothills in front of the pueblo of great fighters." Here the Mexican Interrupted him and asked him whether be meant Bacerac, and he said: “Yes, Bacerac, that's the name.

"Having passed settlements safely we entered the box canyon by the Bavispe above Huacinera and with some difficulty from much water, bad boxes, boulders and canebrakes, reached where the valley opens somewhat. Here we took a right-hand canyon and followed it up to a waterfall in a gorge where even man on foot cannot pass. Here Is a big, deep tank of clear cold water at the foot of the fall many feet in depth and full of catfish. We retraced our path until we saw that there were indications of an old trail out to the right. This we took and it led us to the very top of a high peak, but cut downward again from that point into the same canyon of the falls and we went up it a short distance to where I got this gold in a little side canyon with not very much water."

This story, which is told substantially as the old Mexican gave it to the writer, has a corroboration in this point, that as a matter of fact an American at Janos, north of Casas Grandes. did about this time trade guns and ammunition to Apaches for nice nuggets and afterwards had to skip when the authorities there learned of it. Furthermore, the story is substantially corroborated by an old Mexican woman who was many years captive with the Apaches and who traveled in the Sierra Madre, some times with the Indians, and who bore them several children in her captivity.

Now some prospectors, who would like a nice hunting trip, and who do not longer care to hunt the Adam's Diggings, Pegleg and Tayopa, might give this a round. Should they not completely load their burros with dust cross over westward and work out toward the new strike northeast from Nacari Chlco and they will get into a fine prospecting country anyhow.

~ Bisbee Daily Review [Bisbee, Arizona] 17 December 1909 (VOL. XII. NUMBER 294)

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo

 

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[SeabeeRon]

Humphrey Bogart was in a movie about this! Best line.."Badges? badges?? We don't need no stink'n badges!"

 

[Mackaydon]

Don in SoCal

 

[Old Bookaroo]

Humphrey Bogart was in a movie about this! Best line.."Badges? badges?? We don't need no stink'n badges!"

SeabeeRon - A classic movie and an even better book by B. Traven. Ed Bartholomew termed it ""Best fictional THing book ever" (although I'll stick with Treasure Island with the N.C. Wyeth illustrations). I believe the book is set in Mexico and not Arizona, but I would certainly agree the stories are similar.

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo

 

[Old Bookaroo]

Did the Apache Kid retire to the fastnesses of the Sierra Madre and enjoy a ripe old age? It's a shame we no longer have Don Jose de la Mancha to ask. I'm sure the Tropical Tramp would have had some useful insights on the question. We can no longer ask him - we'll just have to do the best we can.

APACHE REMNANT
NOW WILD WOMEN
-LEGEND RELATES
-------
Claimed to Be a Menace to
Foothill Ranchers in the
Sierra Madres.
-------
(By HORACE LOOMIS)​

The remnant of the Apache Kid's bunch of Indians who refused to come in with Geronimo at his surrender at the mouth of Skeleton canyon, 20 miles south of Rodeo, N. M., about 1889, is still in the Sierra Madre, numbering possibly 10 or 12, said to be mostly female. These have been a constant menace to the foothill ranchers and to the adventurous prospectors though they have molested no American in late years.

When the two squaws murdered the wife of Feo. Fimbres of Nacori Chico last October, carrying away his four-year-old boy, the trail was taken up by posse but soon lost. Absolutely wild, these people have all the camp instincts of animals with the intelligence of man. This makes the problem of dealing with them a bad one. The old Texas out-law who had an asylum of refuge in the wildest of the Sierra Madras for many years, used them as guard and supplied them with some things, ammunition, etc. A Mormon, who was sort of wild-man-of-the-woods, used to pack in stuff on his burros, disappear for several weeks and then come out with gold.

A miner had camp in the western headwaters of Rio Bonito and became acquainted to the extent of leaving a white strain in at least one of the progeny. The appearance of the young “fair god” was not to the entire liking of the head buck who threatened at first to kill mother and child. This comes from the girl captive who was taken by the Nacori people who followed a stock raid recovering some stolen animals some years ago and who now live at La Colonia with an aged couple who took her. A recent view of her showed the development into a substantial Spanish-speaking woman, expert in palm hat weaving, quite unlike the wild frightened animal which, clad in buckskin, was first seen by the writer when the Nacoris brought her in.

The husband of the woman, killed with knives last fall, goes out into the wild range and stealthily creeps, hoping to recapture his little son, but thus far to no result, but despair. He begs the writer to make a campaign with him this fall, knowing him to be acquainted with their haunts and to have found and gotten out two of Nacori’s best saddle horses, stolen the year before, when he made a quiet sneak afoot and alone for two weeks in July, 1925, in a futile quest for the famous Tayopa.

When the awful summer electrical storms rage in the highest of the bald divide the Apache girl is sometimes seen to shed tears as though thinking of her people, and doubtless weaves into the soft palm fond memories of days with the fawns, the geraniums, begonias and marguerites of the wild Sierra Madre.

~ Douglas Daily Dispatch [Douglas, Arizona] 16 September 1928 (VOL. XXVI. Number 68)

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Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo

 

[Old Bookaroo]

RICH MINES.
-------
PROPERTY OF VALUE LO-
CATED BY DR. HONE.
-------
Renegades, Thought to be the Kid’s
Band, Are Taking Out Much
Silver in the Mountains.
-------​

Special to the HERALD.

EL PASO (Tex.), Sept. 27.— Dr. B. J. Hone of Bavispa, State of Sonora, Mexico, is in this city on his way to Chihuahua to obtain assistance from Governor Ahumamada for the removal of a band of renegade Indians now occupying a position in the Sierra Madre mountains, commanding the approach to rich gold property located by Dr. Hone and his assistants. Several weeks ago when Dr. Hone and party were going to the mines they were fired upon by the Indians, who corraled them, and in order to escape they left horses, mules and everything else except the clothing they were wearing.

Dr. Hone says there are about twenty-six men in the gang of renegade Indians, and among them three white men, one of whom is a very large man with red hair, which falls down over his shoulders. He also wears a long beard. The members of Dr. Hone's party believe the renegades are the Kid and bis gang, who have not been heard from in a long time. The Hone property over which the strange gang are standing guard was uncovered about eight weeks ago by Dr., Hone’s party, and is known in the Spanish records as the Tayopa gold mines, the long-lost Spanish mines of fabulous wealth.

The party found float that which runs $12,000 to the ton, but so far the Indians have prevented them from reaching the mines. The dumps of which, thirty-live in number, they can see from the summit they reached when assaulted and driven back by the Indians. The mines are surrounded by the ruins of old stone houses. The lowest spot in Box canyon, where the mines are located, is a spring, where the Indians have their stock.

The mines were discovered through old charts, obtained through the agency of officials in Mexico. Dr. Hone believes the Indians are the Kid’s band because they all had United States Army rifles. He says that the man with the long hair comes out to the railroad occasionally with hides loaded with gold which he ships to Denver.

~ San Jose Herald [San Jose, California] 27 September 1895 (Volume LIX, Number 75)
~ Santa Cruz Sentinel [Santa Cruz, California], 28 September 1895 (Volume 23, Number 139)

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More on The Apache Kid next Sunday...

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo

 

[Old Bookaroo]

The Mystery of the Apache Kid​

It’s one of the great mysteries of the American West. What happened to the Apace Kid? He went from US Army scout to renegade and outlaw. On his way to prison he vanished…

November 1, 1889 - Sheriff Glenn Reynolds, his deputy W. A. "Hunkeydory" Holmes, and Gene Middleton, driver and stagecoach owner, were taking five prisoners on a two-day trip from Globe, Arizona Territory, to prison. The Apache Kid was chained by his wrist to Hos-cal-te, another violent criminal. Both were also secured by ankle shackles.

On the second day, after a night at Riverside, the coach had to make the Kelvin Grade steep climb. Three of the prisoners were taken out of the stage to make their way on foot. Inside the coach, the Kid and Hos-cal-te, each with one free hand, attacked Reynolds and Holmes. It appears Holmes suffered a stroke or heart attack – he died first, and then Reynolds was shot and killed with Holmes' rifle. Middleton was badly wounded, but he lived.

Jesus Avott, a convicted horse thief, cut the traces and released one of the stage horses. He then took off for Florance to announce the deaths of the lawmen and the Kid’s escape.

The Apache Kid and his companion removed the keys from the dead Sheriff and his Deputy, unlocked their chains, and stepped into a snowstorm that arrived just as they were departing. The fresh snow covered the tracks the Apache Kid made that day. And no one has cut his trail since that last sighting on the Kelvin Grade.

Did the Kid pull his freight for Old Mexico, using the well-established smugglers’ route through Skeleton Canyon? Rumors, tales and yarns that he was safe in the Sierra Madre Apache fastnesses went from bar to bar, and bar to newspaper, and newspaper to bar, for the next thirty and even forty years.

According to the “Apache Kid” By James W. Hurst (on the desertUSA website) “High in the San Mateo Mountains of the Cibola National Forest in New Mexico is Apache Kid Peak, and one mile northwest as the crow flies, at Cyclone Saddle, is the Apache Kid gravesite.”

It would be most interesting to learn what is known about were the Apache Kid died. And how. James Hurst summed it up quite nicely when he wrote “Who knows? As our Mexican neighbors say, ‘Solo Dios sabe, Señor, solo Dios!’"

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FOUND THE LAIR
OF APACHE KID
Hidden Cave Discovered
in the Superstition
Mountains.

Arizonans Locate the Hiding-
Place of the Notorious
Redskin.

Almost Inaccessible Cavern In the
Side of a Precipitous
Incline. ​

PHOENIX, Ariz.. July 21.— Two men of reputed veracity, J. M. Burnett and W. H. Bonsall, who have recently returned from a trip in the Superstition Mountains, give a very graphic description of a wonderful mountain rendezvous that they discovered in their journeyings. It is known as "Apache Kid's" cave, and white men are less acquainted with its interior than they have been with Cochise's famous stronghold in the Dragoon Mountains. For six or seven years the "Kid" is known to have rendezvoused in this retreat, and it afforded him a safe shelter after his murder of Johnnie Dobie, the 17-year-old boy, at Frazier's ranch, which is the last killing the "Kid" is known to have committed.

The lad's body was found by his uncle, Simeon Nabors, who was foreman of the ranch. The killing of his nephew interested him to such an extent in the Apaches that he has ever since been industriously engage in the manufacture of a riata made from Indian hair. He exhibited the riata to Burnett and Bonsall, and declared that only a few feet more were needed to complete the rope. By what persuasion he induces the Apaches to contribute their hair is unknown, but Burnett and Bonsall are of the opinion that physical violence of sometimes a mortal nature is often resorted to by the old man.

The "Kid's" cave is three miles from Bark's ranch, and so situated that the mouth of it overlooks the surrounding country for miles. The opening is approached by a steep incline of not less than fifty degrees, and is about 400 feet in length. The mouth is about seventy feet wide. At the top of the arch a tuft of green vine or grass has grown through the rock above, hanging down like an orchid. It is about sixty feet from the opening to the rear wall of the cave, while the length of the cave, parallel with the face of the outer wall, is about 170 feet. The height is thirty-rive feet. The rear wall is covered with a crystalline salt deposit.

About the cave were many traces of deer and mountain lions. The deer came to lick the salt and the lions to lick the deer. Many evidences of Indian occupation still remain, and there is a large quantity of brushwood for fuel. Surrounding the mouth of the cave is a large, level platform, most difficult of access and offering a splendid vantage point for a marksman like the "Kid," or any of his band. With ammunition and food in such a stronghold the "Kid" could and did hold out against all the soldiers in that part of the Territory.

~ San Francisco Call [San Francisco, California) , 25 July 1897 (Volume 82, Number 55)

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Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo