celtex
Sr. Member
- Oct 25, 2009
- 385
- 68
- Detector(s) used
- Whites Vision, XLT; ACE 250;Bounty Hunter,Garrett Pro Pointer
- Primary Interest:
- Metal Detecting
celtex said:
Ron and Paul's spot sure has some interesting features. Return to the Lost Adams Diggings book.
Unexpected stuff like colonial Spanish artifacts and the Timothy and Pettibone cards.
There are several old trails going E-W in that area. Alamocita creek is one, but there's one you can see plain as day (if you have the Eye) coming from the East toward the VLA on the N side of the paved road.
Look closely from the Plains of San Augustine and you can also see the unmistakable Pyramid mountain in the distance to the North.
The only problem is, Ron and Paul were kicked out before their prospecting bore fruit by the greedy Elk people who somehow ended up with the land, and the new owner (aquifer scam?) is just as bad last we checked.
Ron and Paul were promised ownership of that Section, but of course the heirs honored nothing and the property has now changed hands multiple times.
What can you say? Save one proposed location for the tale (if the LAD is factual as told), there has yet to be found any gold or indication that gold in quantity existed.
They found some gold, in dredging, panning, and by professional assay, just not the eye-popping quantities we'd all love to hear about.
Yes, the minority approach seems to be to find gold and try to declare it the Adams versus the more common other way around.
The problem with the puzzling Adams Diggings legend is Adams himself. I'm not convinced he was even there.
Well it does help lend credence to any lost mine legend (or treasure for that matter) if the original 'finder' actually went out looking for it again themselves. This hold true for a surprising number of such 'legends' including Pegleg Smith and Dr Thorn for two examples, and we do have newspaper reports of Adams going out hunting for his lost diggings on more than one occasion. At least someone calling himself Adams that is, and one incident nearly ended with the Adams character dangling from a tree. The big problems arise with the mixing of legends, the people who successfully insinuated themselves into the original legend, blurring the facts and adding information that was worse than useless. Brewer is a prime example (IMHO) for the original name of the 'other' man who escaped with the original Adams was Davison or Davidson not Brewer. Snively is also highly questionable, and associated with the Adams legend many years after the events.
Please do continue, everyone is entitled to their own opinions of course!
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... Against Snively being involved with the Adams party, we can trace Snively's movements and actions fairly well in fact our friend Steve has done so to a surprising level of detail. The original Adams predates the Civil War, which also makes the Snively connection doubtful due to the time difference.
Please do continue;
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Snively, the Pennsylvania Dutchman and Southern sympathizer with a nose for gold. Where was he before the Civil War? He was in New Mexico and Arizona. Here are excerpts from Jack Purcell's extensive "Adams Timeline":
1858 Jacob Snively / Jack Swilling, Butterfield route Arizona
1858 Snively discovers gold at Gila Bend and Vulture Gulch Local histories
18 May 1861 (1860 by most accounts) Hicks, Snively and Birch discover gold at Pinos Altos Local histories
Sep 1861 Snively, Swilling, Mastin, Hicks join Confederate Arizona Scouts Military and local histories
08 Dec 1862 Snively chairs organizational meeting Castle Dome Mining District La Paz, AZ
Feb 1863 Snively in Pinos Altos
1864 1866 Snively listed as resident of Arizona US Census Records
18 Jul 1864 Snively Territorial Election Judge La Paz, AZ
Note: Mangas Coloradas was murdered while in custody January 18, 1863. Pinos Altos had been nearly abandoned prior to this event. I find it coincidental that Snively - who rediscovered the original Bear Creek placers (mouth of Rich Gulch) himself in 1860 - returned to the diggings in February 1863, immediately after Mangas's death. He may have thought (erroneously) that without their strong war leader Mangas, the Apache threat would be diminished. As we know from the tales, the German in the LAD party soon sensed danger and left the diggings before the massacre.
Snively was reported in 1863 by Mssrs. Baxter, Houston and Thomas riding through Pinos Altos with forty pounds of gold nuggets. These men were told by Snively that the source of the gold was north of town, and they figured Snively had a sluice box and a cabin, but the area was too dangerous to enter at the time. The rich Bear Creek placers, of course, are located several miles north of the townsite, downstream from the original 1860 discovery.
You don't see any issue there? You have successfully documented his movements and whereabouts so well, that it is a wonder when exactly he was off with the Adams party, and if he had been a member of said party, he could have easily ended all searching for it afterwards. Unless you want to think that Snively simply never heard of the lost Adams? Thanks for the excellent post, however it really shows that Snively is very unlikely to have been involved with the Adams party at all. Snively's movements and even gold success stories are no secrets. I won't go so far as to say it is impossible for Snively to have been this "Dutchman" whom is not even mentioned in the earliest version, just seems highly unlikely.
Please do continue,
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