Oh I agree that what Waltz was telling his listeners (Julia, Reiney and Dick) was getting garbled, and that it is not possible at this point in time to determine which one did the mixing up.
On the Peralta-Mexican-massacre tale, I would point out that Storm has this story involved with the Ludys, and not with Waltz. Conversely, from the Pioneer Interviews version of the LDM, we get NO Mexicans, no massacre, and no Peraltas. See a coincidence there? It looks to me that the Peralta/Mexican tale with the Ludys, got mixed with the Waltz story, wrongly. IF we did not have an alternate version (the Pioneer Interviews) that had no features of Mexicans, massacre etc then it would be harder to determine if this were the case. But since we have one version of the LDM with NONE of those features, and also a version that has the Dutchman being named Jacob Ludy complete with Peraltas and massacre, I think we can toss that part of the tale.
Of course it makes for a much more exciting story to have the Mexicans involved, murders and massacre etc and I have no doubt that part of the story is indeed based on facts, but with men not named Waltz and Weiser, they were named Ludy. I
n fact I think you mentioned that you had also found the military records for the Ludy men (I found them on the Fold3 dot com site, but have let my membership lapse) and I do recall that there was something like an 18 year difference in age between the two Ludy men. This could have been two brothers, or father and son, cousins, or even uncle and nephew.
I don't buy that the Mexican part of the LDM tale really should be linked to Waltz at all. Oh and by the way, while you guys are hunting up info on the Mexican workings found in Goldfield, perhaps you will also find out about the tool that had the initials in it, which could be a Peralta. A crowbar I believe it was.
View attachment 1249188
I propose that this article from 1878 is reporting the Ludy men finding the silver mine. <Weekly Arizona Miner, Prescott, 1878>