The True Story of Victorio Peak

Unk Matt, drink your coff, as for sounding or appearing to be a wet blanket, that is what this forum is about..If we had full documentation, provable, we would have nothing to discuss. So pick away if you want a refill on your coffee.
 

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Hrllo Ed: you asked if there was any chance "VP meant other than Victorio Peak ?" Of course, but considering the map.the ultimate location is not in doubt. although the actual name may have been quite different.in those days. As a matter of fact it WAS dfferent, but not knowing the true history of the map at this date, we can use it as a trial reference point.

This side of ED I like, coffee?
 

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couple points to clear up

Kid left midwest for Hot springs NM for his TB ,,,
he hitch hiked there

near Hatch , he was dropped off by a trucker , the trucker pointed out an old adobe cabin where the kid could get out of the rain.

The Kid tore up a window seal for firewood and found some maps and compass

he made it to the Sanitorium in Hot Springs

later he met Willie
Willie knew the mountains enough to get the two of them into the canyon
where the uncovered a mine with treasure

next trip in < Willie shot the poor kid dead .

Willie got too stupid and bragged about his find

he was grabbed and tortured for the loaction

he spilled it's location and the problem for him at that point was The Corpse of the Kid was in the mine

no more Willie Visit for him .

Did Doc get Willies Maps ?

Not at all

Willie Burned those for they could be evidence that he murdered the Kid , for the Lady who ran the Sanitarium the Kid
stayed at as well as a few other witnesses , had been shown the maps by that Kid .

The Kid and Willie had found the Body of the person who hid the maps in the window seal , he was laying under rubble from a dead fall booby trap in the mine .

After some time with some Sheriffs who attempted to use Willies crime of murder to force the location out of him ,,

he hit it up to Pinas Altos to his Aunts house , she gave him her dead Son's Birth Certificate which he used as his own
after that ,

the name was Lawrence Forman , Willies Cousin .

Willie Bought a Dodge Bro's Car and split for Juliene Calif. in San Diego county .

Timeline 1908

Apache Girl is diagnosed terminal and will die if operation is not performed

Uncle of said Girl creeps into a cavern and brings out a Gold Bar to pay for the op.

he takes it into town ands tries to sell it

the buyer tried to rip him off by offering scrap copper price

Apache leaves

he is later grabbed by the cops per the buyers snitching him off

The Judge and prosecuter charge the apache with murder as they state : Indians don't own Gold , so you had to murder someone
to get this Bar

here these two and the banker attempt to extort the location of the treasure out of the apache by sentencing him to life
in prison .

a decade or two pass

Doc threatens a waitree when she refuses to serve him any alcohol while he is drunk

he gets a 1 year sentence and meets an elderly Apache who is almost dead in prison

Doc takes care of the Apache , the Apache gives Doc location by drawing it on a Buckskin Jacket The Apache's family had brought him .

Doc makes an exit at parole and heads straight for Hatch NM .

with that Jacket Map .


~~~~ End story of Maps and Willie ~!~~~~

begin Pedro ( El Chato )

real simple

He is talking about TWO mountain ranges in the letter ,

First is the Organ Range and the Gap is the EAST end of Soledad Canyon where it rises up from the flats at a steep grade .

The spring is just inside the mouth of Soledad Canyon where Soledad peak and the Opposite ridge create a narrow gap .

the other Gap is the west end of soledad where it meets Bar Canyon ,,, and yes treasure was recovered from that end as well .

Pedro speaks of signs on the right

yes the yellow boulder , the Standing stones they set up and the painted seineas < spell

Just as the canyon floor levels off , there is another very tight gap to pass through on the right side of the canyon

here you look at the top pf the bluff on the right and see a standing stone marker

put your back up to that bluff and look staright out in front of you

see that great big blasted out hollow in that little hill ( Lomita in the way bill )

That is where carettas of silver were stored in a sealed up cave

Inteligence agents blasted it open and the treasure went to hong kong ( Per Classified Documents I reviewed )

from that point keep headed west up Soledad , stop just before the mouth of NORTH Canyon

turn again and look to your left as stated in the letter ,,, see that Tortuga ( Turtle stone monument )

it is on the top of the bank of the wash .

behind it is Beasley Canyon and just before you enter that Canyon is another small hill which the spring comes from .

go into the canyon and look for a Boulder that fell off into the aash as it was widened by a flash flood

The boulder has a carving of a mule shoe on it .

set your back to it and look straight out ahead of you

see that multi colored spire of rock ?

that is your land mark ,,, see the carving in it ?

just below the base of it is another boulder with a big stone set up on top

thats your starting point to pace off the increment .

~~~~~~~ End El Chato Story ~~~~~~~~~~

If El Chato did not exist in 1649 , someone did a nice job of writing a fact based way bill .

However , he did exist in 1649 , he was a Noble Birth and also rebelious of the Spanish

he was not Spanish , he was Portuguese from Navaro Portugal

That is why some of the terms he used wre not spanish but geuse instead .


He tells you to go to the West Pass and walk up to the peak ( That is Thumb Peak at the west end of Soledad )

You are to enter Ice Canyon at that point and go to the greater mountain and check for a plot of ground near a spring

that site is actually a covered up blow hole cave and is covered now by a land slide .

impossible to recover because every square inch is now off limits to the people of the U.S.

BTW
Just for prosperity and to get it through the doubting minds

There is in extant a U.S. Treasury Department set of documents from 1916 or so ,
it is an investigation into the heinous treatment of the Apache by that Judge and D.A.

The family contacted the Federal Government and asked for assistance in investigating their family members
cruel internment for a life sentence .

FOIA

The Gov. is getting looser with releasing Documents through FOIA nowadays .

Problem is : Does no good to bother any longer
 

Well Rog,

You are entitled to believe any version of the story you want. I will take (mostly) the story that came from Willie's/Larry's mouth. Of course there are a few things he left out. The biggest is that between he and Buster Ward, they may have killed as many as about five people that had discovered the location of their cave to keep it a secret.

I'll have to go through my notes for the skinny blonde kid's name, but the story was that they caught him two times sneaking out of their cave. The second time (as told by Willy/Larry) is that they were going to kill him, but Willie didn't have it in him, so he shot very close to the side of the kid's head. The kid kept running and never showed up there again. What I really think happened was that they murdered the kid, and dumped his body in their cave (the real reason he never came around again). Most people put the entrance to Willie's Cave somewhere on Granite Peak in the Caballos. Quien Sabe?

I've heard that Indian Story as well. I have also heard that the Indian was Geronimo (I think), but that would have happened in 1908, and that would have meant that Doc went to jail at the age of three. HAHAHA

Mike
 

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This seems highly unlikely, considering the fact that the Apaches had essentially waged war against all Mexicans in today's Arizona and New Mexico since the early to mid 1700's, and against Anglos since the Mangas incident about 1850 on the Mimbres River in southern NM and the Bascom affair in southern AZ about 1860. How were the Jesuits going to run this gauntlet to the Caballos?

Maybe not such a gauntlet because the Jesuits were with the French, who were also at war with the Mexicans and working against the Union during the CW.
By 1884, there were 400 French Marines stationed in Matamoros.... La Supporte perhaps ?
Victorio himself may have been somewhat involved.....?
After all, the drawing has both "Tin ne ah" and "Apache" written on it in two different areas. Looks like upper Gila and Membrillo Basin. I would think some arrangement with each controlling group would have aided any covert operation to recover the caches.
As for any other snoops ? There's always Mordida
 

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G'd morning S Hiker, you have a valid point however, The French were tippy toeing with the US at the time, culminating with the Monroe document. They had already ceded a huge amount of territory in the Louisiana Purchase in 1804. For armed French troops to patrol inside of the US was unthinkable in those days.

Traffic on the rio grande was highly controlled from the Civil war on until ithe river was finally reduced to a trickle .- I spent many an hour patrolling it while in the BorderPatrol. Those Texas skeeters are Hungry.

I feel that that map was a sort of offhanded copy of another, it certainly wasn't up to usual Jesuit work, but the important thing to me is that it DID 'indicate' the travel route, a journey of perhaps several months by heavily loaded animal.

My theory in the past, because of data and ruins that I have found, is that a string of small missions were set up one day apart - where the rep of the Jesuits could account for the cargos feed and rest both the animals and men , then send them on their way with the approp. paper work. but -- this would involve a distance of over 1000 miles. too many missions to my way of thinking at the present.

Some of that trail was so barren that feed and water for the animals would have to be carried or provided at a certain no of missions. This theory is still on the board for revision.

What we now have is that Silver & Gold left northern Sonora and ended up at the Victorio Peak, & Caballo region. which were holding vaults for the Jesuit bi yearly (?) Ships. This, coupled with that crude map is the only explanation for the immense amount of materiel ( bars & Spanish Artifacts) that has been reported to have been recovered or seen.

Your thinkin like a softie. A thousand miles of wilderness, mountains and hostile savages wasn't no problem for trappers way back. They often did it in a single short season, with winter at both ends, and working their trade the whole time. Didn't have no army, just their wits, some trade savvy, and a flintlock to keep the dogs at bay, and a mule or packhorse to carry their goods and survival gear. When they had a river to run, they built a raft, canoe or flatboat. They did it, just like these guys could have done it.
 

REAL, Amigo, TREASMINDER2's first story was interesting ,the woman at the sanatorium in hot springs was at the time supposedly one of docs girl friends , which no one has mentioned. doc from what I know had taken her to the site several times, she supposedly give a death bed confession about the affair with doc, she also supposedly said that the site was what her and doc called the train station located either at the 33rd or 34 parallel and the entrance was through a crack then down 30 or 40 feet, at the time of her death when going through her things at the sanatorium they supposedly found a pile of magazines with money hidden between the pages,this is the story I was told. treasminder2 have you heard this story also, or what version did you here, because I have never heard anyone on tn tell this story. thank you. np:cat:
 

Some hiker, those lil mexican drivers were certainly tough. The traders were another. In the 50's I had a taste of what it was like, skinny rations, soaking wet day & night for days, and crossing swollen rivers chest deep. using a pole against the current. Geting a Mule across was another thing But it was what I was there for, exploration Then there were days of an almost etherreal spring in which everything went perfect. Yep Hiker compared to them I was a softie, I even had coffee.
 

AS long as you have good hot :coffee2:, nothing is impossible , np:cat:
 

Touche' but I;ll let you n on a lil secret, I hid the coffee and only had tea to offer the arrieros on the trail They like their coffee strong enough to hold the spoon vertical, but not tea.

Course they shared their tortillas with me, and I, my venison wth them. Toasted Corn tortillas were made to go with roasted venison
 

Touche' but I;ll let you n on a lil secret, I hid the coffee and only had tea to offer the arrieros on the trail They like their coffee strong enough to hold the spoon vertical, but not tea.

Course they shared their tortillas with me, and I, my venison wth them. Toasted Corn tortillas were made to go with roasted venison

real, I like my venison thin sliced with cooked onions and cooked red and yellow peppers and chile's on a toasted tortillas and some really good hot sauce, and iced coffee. np:cat:
 

REAL, If my two legged dear does not cook then its just sardines and canned tomatoes for dinner,maybe. np:cat:
 

REAL, If my two legged dear does not cook then its just sardines and canned tomatoes for dinner,maybe. np:cat:

Next thing you'll be carrying a pistol and getting arrested for brandishing it at a waitress!

Mike
 

REAL, Amigo, TREASMINDER2's first story was interesting ,the woman at the sanatorium in hot springs was at the time supposedly one of docs girl friends , which no one has mentioned. doc from what I know had taken her to the site several times, she supposedly give a death bed confession about the affair with doc, she also supposedly said that the site was what her and doc called the train station located either at the 33rd or 34 parallel and the entrance was through a crack then down 30 or 40 feet, at the time of her death when going through her things at the sanatorium they supposedly found a pile of magazines with money hidden between the pages,this is the story I was told. treasminder2 have you heard this story also, or what version did you here, because I have never heard anyone on tn tell this story. thank you. np:cat:

I would really like to know if some one has knowledge of this story. thank you. np:cat:
 

Almost all of my critical knowledge on Victorio Peak has come from you np:coffee2::coffee2:.I have been reading all references possible on the net, but the ones that have any substance can be put in a paragraph This particular referene has only come form you so far, to my knowledge..

My interest in the bars is limited to proving The Spanish source, by letters, maps.or artifacts. I have to prove this connection for my postulation to have any basis, why your map was so important.

Gully has been helpful on Willie.

I am beginning to have a suspicion that they were contributed by other mines than The Tayopa complex, So maybe the Jesuits were slipping through by the sheer volume. The vast majority went to Mexico city. I have records of Silver mule trains of up to 1,000 animals being sent south at a time from Alamos.

The sheer amount of Gold and Silver movement is extremely hard to believe. The Reforma mine, because ot the thefts, resorted to simply scraping a hole in the ground and pouring the liquid silver into it to form 500 # masses and using carts, The bandits concentrating on the reform silver gave up after one attempt.

Since mule trains, such as this, were constantly crisscorssing Spanish territory they could easily have gotten by unnoticed to The Victorio Peak area.
 

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Since mule trains, such as this, were constantly crisscorssing Spanish territory they could easily have gotten by unnoticed to The Victorio Peak area.

You still have not demonstrated how these mules trains would have maneuvered past the Apache shooting gallery known as New Mexico's lower Rio Grande Valley. This would have required a substantial military escort, say from the Janos presidio. That would also imply a partnership of sorts with Spain, quite a can of worms to also explain.

I don't see the Jesuits being involved in any contemporary activities moving precious metals to the Caballos during their watch. They may have been aware of existing caches there prior to their arrival in the New World, however. Another possibility is that the Caballo caching was accomplished after American acquisition of the territory by persons currently unidentified.

Removal of alleged Jesuit precious metals from Sonora and Chihuahua must have gone SE or SW, not NE.
 

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