Peralta letters

[DanB]

 

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[DanB]

 

[DanB]

My friends family were from here....made a personal agreement with the peraltas....gave them a house and land...married paraltas daughter....in return the peraltas gave the mine to my friends family member....mexicans were not allowed to own gold mines in az territory. ..
...this is just the top of the iceberg...I have so much info.....some info could re-wright history as we know it.....db

 

[EarnieP]

Great stuff, Dan. 1865/1877, interesting.
Thanks for posting.

 

[wadeshepp]

My friends family were from here....made a personal agreement with the peraltas....gave them a house and land...married paraltas daughter....in return the peraltas gave the mine to my friends family member....mexicans were not allowed to own gold mines in az territory. ..
...this is just the top of the iceberg...I have so much info.....some info could re-wright history as we know it.....db

but the r or the p dont match

 

[wadeshepp]

but the r or the p dont match

was this supposed to be written by the pralta family

 

[wadeshepp]

but the r or the p dont match

 

[LDWhitneyAuthor]

I'm curious as to how many writers these letters represent. If only one, it makes sense they'd all be in English, I suppose. But I feel like it's supposed to be more than one writer. I just have a hard time believing, in the 1800s, that a native Spanish-speaking Mexican could write so well in English cursive. Not to mention the fact that this all appears to be the same handwriting or even that old. Ultimately, we need more details to even decipher what we're looking at.

 

[Matthew Roberts]

I'm curious as to how many writers these letters represent. If only one, it makes sense they'd all be in English, I suppose. But I feel like it's supposed to be more than one writer. I just have a hard time believing, in the 1800s, that a native Spanish-speaking Mexican could write so well in English cursive. Not to mention the fact that this all appears to be the same handwriting or even that old. Ultimately, we need more details to even decipher what we're looking at.

You're looking at recorded mining claims and claim transfers that can be found in the Yavapai County Arizona book of deeds from the 1865 time period and shortly thereafter.
Also claim deed records from the Yuma, Arizona district and files from the Los Angeles California County records.
The Peralta claims are well known in the history of Arizona.
Miguel Peralta and his father appear on these 1865 mine claims filed in Prescott under the Valenciana claim. Peralta later was a businessman in Phoenix. Pablo Peralta is listed as one of the owners of the claim along with Miguel and his father.

 

[LDWhitneyAuthor]

View attachment 1271751View attachment 1271752View attachment 1271753

You're looking at recorded mining claims and claim transfers that can be found in the Yavapai County Arizona book of deeds from the 1865 time period and shortly thereafter.
Also claim deed records from the Yuma, Arizona district and files from the Los Angeles California County records.
The Peralta claims are well known in the history of Arizona.
Miguel Peralta and his father appear on these 1865 mine claims filed in Prescott under the Valenciana claim. Peralta later was a businessman in Phoenix. Pablo Peralta is listed as one of the owners of the claim along with Miguel and his father.

Ah. So these aren't

You're looking at recorded mining claims and claim transfers that can be found in the Yavapai County Arizona book of deeds from the 1865 time period and shortly thereafter.
Also claim deed records from the Yuma, Arizona district and files from the Los Angeles California County records.
The Peralta claims are well known in the history of Arizona.
Miguel Peralta and his father appear on these 1865 mine claims filed in Prescott under the Valenciana claim. Peralta later was a businessman in Phoenix. Pablo Peralta is listed as one of the owners of the claim along with Miguel and his father.

Oooh. Okay. So these aren't letters from the OP's friend's family to the Peraltas as they were described? That clears a lot up. Thanks!

 

[Clay Diggins]

Yes these appear to be county records from Prescott, AZ. Before typewriters were common County Recorders were people with excellent handwriting that were hired to copy, by hand, any documents submitted for recording. All the records from a specific time period will have the same handwriting.

Rather suspiciously they have been cropped from the original scans. These may be partial copies of the original records but one at least has been modified in modern times to reflect something that isn't true. The purported location notice for the Valencianna mining claim has had additional (pencil?) script added as well as a stamp claiming that the BLM claim Valencianna claim AMC367049 is the same Valencianna claim that named in the location notice. It is not.

I can see no other reason to make a stamp with false statements to be applied to one old record than to deceive. Think about it, have you ever had a rubber stamp made for one time use? What other purpose could this stamp have?

The Valencianna AMC367049 mining claim wasn't located until September 5, 2005 and was closed on September 1, 2006. It existed for less than a year. There is no connection between the Peraltas, the original Valencianna mining claim and the Valencianna mining claim located in 2005.

Essentially the notice presented has been forged which makes all these copies suspect. It seems the intent of the alteration was to mislead the viewer with the added statement that this is the same mining claim and owner from September 15, 1864. It is not.

It's not that hard to get original certified copies from the Prescott County Recorder. It might be a good idea to order copies of those original records and compare them to the copies you have. Professional researchers will not accept modified or altered copies of original documents.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Matthew Roberts]

Yes these appear to be county records from Prescott, AZ. Before typewriters were common County Recorders were people with excellent handwriting that were hired to copy, by hand, any documents submitted for recording. All the records from a specific time period will have the same handwriting.

Rather suspiciously they have been cropped from the original scans. These may be partial copies of the original records but one at least has been modified in modern times to reflect something that isn't true. The purported location notice for the Valencianna mining claim has had additional (pencil?) script added as well as a stamp claiming that the BLM claim Valencianna claim AMC367049 is the same Valencianna claim that named in the location notice. It is not.

I can see no other reason to make a stamp with false statements to be applied to one old record than to deceive. Think about it, have you ever had a rubber stamp made for one time use? What other purpose could this stamp have?

The Valencianna AMC367049 mining claim wasn't located until September 5, 2005 and was closed on September 1, 2006. It existed for less than a year. There is no connection between the Peraltas, the original Valencianna mining claim and the Valencianna mining claim located in 2005.

Essentially the notice presented has been forged which makes all these copies suspect. It seems the intent of the alteration was to mislead the viewer with the added statement that this is the same mining claim and owner from September 15, 1864. It is not.

It's not that hard to get original certified copies from the Prescott County Recorder. It might be a good idea to order copies of those original records and compare them to the copies you have. Professional researchers will not accept modified or altered copies of original documents.

Thanks for sharing.

I'm curious as to how many writers these letters represent. If only one, it makes sense they'd all be in English, I suppose. But I feel like it's supposed to be more than one writer. I just have a hard time believing, in the 1800s, that a native Spanish-speaking Mexican could write so well in English cursive. Not to mention the fact that this all appears to be the same handwriting or even that old. Ultimately, we need more details to even decipher what we're looking at.

I don't know where exactly the Valenciana mine with the AMC367049 owned by Robert A. Daem is located.
But if it is located on the Bumble Bee exit road, 1.3 miles west of the I-17 freeway, it is the same mine as the Miguel Peralta 1865 Valenciana, Valencia mine.
Does anyone know the exact location of the AMC 367049 mine ?

 

[Clay Diggins]

AMC 367049 was not a mine it was a mining claim that was closed within a year. I suspect it was closed (abandoned) because it was located over the top of the Gloriana mining claims and mine that have been active and continuously owned since 1931.

The legal land description is 9N 2E 4.

 

[Matthew Roberts]

AMC 367049 was not a mine it was a mining claim that was closed within a year. I suspect it was closed (abandoned) because it was located over the top of the Gloriana mining claims and mine that have been active and continuously owned since 1931.

The legal land description is 9N 2E 4.

I just looked up the Bumble Bee Arizona Topo Map.

That could be one and the same mine as the Valenciana.

AMC367049 is in T9N R2E Sec4 of the Bumble Bee Topo Map.
The same Township, Range and Section as the Valenciana.

 

[Clay Diggins]

I just looked up the Bumble Bee Arizona Topo Map.

That could be one and the same mine as the Valenciana.

AMC367049 is in T9N R2E Sec4 of the Bumble Bee Topo Map.
The same Township, Range and Section as the Valenciana.

It could be located over the mine but AMC367049 was never a mine - just a mining claim. And invalid at that. There is another mine with a brown name just south of the Gloriana and closer to the road that has in the past been known as the Valencianna.

If either are the Valencianna mentioned in the OPs photos they were originally known as the Peralta mine. There isn't enough information on those photos to determine where the original Peralta/Valencianna is located today. One of these could be it.

To make things more confusing there is another Gloriana mine closer to Wolf Creek that dates before this 1931 Gloriana. Grloriana is a common mine name in the West but I've never encountered the word Valencianna anywhere. I think it's a bad spelling of a woman's name or possible a corruption of Valencia?

It's important to keep in mind that Peralta is a fairly common surname. More than 36,000 of them at the last census. It sounds like the OP may know some of the lineage of these mine owning Peraltas but it's might be more difficult to associate this particular mine with the earlier Arizona Peralta family that some maps are attributed to.

 

[Matthew Roberts]

The Valenciana and Valencia mines that were filed in Prescott in 1864 - 1865 are well known in Arizona history. Miguel L. Peralta was one of the original locators and later ran the first mercantile and post office in Phoenix. He died of suicide after gambling all his money away.

In the 1970's Robert Blair researched and wrote the book , Tales of the Superstitions.
Blair researched the Peralta Valenciana mine claim from 1864 in Prescott. Visited the site and took dozens of photos of the mine site which appear in his book.
Many people visit the site today as it is easily accessed on a good road near Bumble Bee Arizona.

I was with Greg Davis, archives director of the Superstition Mountain Museum at Apache Junction when he filmed the Valencia mine and took photos of the sites that appeared in the photos of Blairs book.

At that time the original Peralta mine shaft was still open and being worked on and off. The stamp mill remains were still present. You could walk the 3/4 mile to the west where Peraltas arrastra remains were at Black Canyon (Turkey) creek.

On a later visit the owners had offset 100 feet and shafted down and tunneled over to the ore vein.

The last I knew Greg told me he was there and the original shaft was collapsed and the stamp mill was gone.

I don't know anything about the AMC367049 claim of Robert A. Daem but it is possible he filed it over the original Peralta claim of 1864.

Wether it was a valid claim or if it was ever worked is unknown. I would like to learn more about it.