Click here for Part Eight of The Lost Dutchman Mine
By all accounts, Jacob Waltz found his mine rather than discovering it through prospecting. One of his most famous clues claims that no prospector would ever find it, since no prospector would think to look there. Then there are tales like the Two Soldiers and Doc Thorne, independent of Waltz that describe a rich and hidden mine somewhere in the Superstitions. But where did it come from?
When it comes to the question of origin, most Dutch Hunters point to the Peralta story. Of all the versions, it remains the most widely accepted explanation for how the mine was first discovered and worked.
Massacre Grounds Trail
The popular story, repeated by nearly every Dutch Hunter, is that the Peraltas were a wealthy mining family from Sonora, Mexico. Sometime during the early to mid-1840s, they came north to the Salt River region, in what is now the Superstition Wilderness, and began an extensive mining operation. Legend holds that they had as many as eighteen separate mining claims in the area, rich in both gold and silver.
At first, the Apache tolerated the Peralta’s presence in the mountains, but the uneasy peace did not last. As tensions rose, the Peraltas gathered what gold and ore they could carry, hiding the rest in their mines and the surrounding terrain. While fleeing the range, they were ambushed, triggering a three-day running battle. Nearly the entire party was wiped out. The Apache, having no use for the yellow metal, cut the ore loose from the mules, scattered it across the desert, and stripped the dead of their weapons, supplies, and animals.
While Dutch Hunters generally agree on the basic outline of the Peralta story, historians have long expressed skepticism. Most contend that there was no Mexican or Spanish mining activity north of the Gila River during the period in question.
Confusion over the Peralta claims was deepened by the infamous land fraud of James Addison Reavis in the late 1800s. His scheme was based on a genuine land grant issued in 1748 to a different Peralta family, long before any mining activity in the Superstitions. Reavis exaggerated the claim to cover the entire Salt River Valley and fabricated much of the family’s history to support it. Given the timing, it is unlikely Reavis had ever heard of the Peralta legend. Even so, his elaborate forgeries caused lasting confusion. Sims Ely, one of the more careful Dutchman researchers, mistakenly linked Reavis’s fictional narrative to the Peraltas said to have mined in the mountains. The question remains: did the Peraltas of legend truly exist?
The short answer is yes, or at least a group matching the same description. Over the years, tantalizing bits of evidence have surfaced, only to fade into legend. One such story comes from William Edwards, a cavalry trooper in the early 1860s who stumbled upon a field of sun-bleached skeletons near what is now called the Massacre Grounds. He assumed they were Pimas killed by the Apache until he found one with a gold tooth.
In 1908, a man named Silverlock and his partner Malm discovered a rotting saddlebag filled with around $18,000 worth of gold ore. They spent the next several years digging holes all over the Goldfield Mountains until they were broke. Silverlock was eventually declared insane and institutionalized.
Old Ore Chute
Sims Ely claimed to have located the high mesa where the Apache took and ate the Peralta mules. He also reported finding stone corrals, piles of Mexican-style sandals, remnants of campsites, and tree stumps where wood had been harvested to shore up mine shafts.
Then there are the Peralta Stones, a series of enigmatic stone maps reportedly found in the early 1950s. These artifacts are said to point toward the Peraltas’ hidden mines. Intriguing as they are, the stones remain anecdotal evidence, lacking the benefit of scientific examination.
For years, historians dismissed the idea that Spanish or Mexican mining occurred in the Superstitions, arguing there was no evidence of such activity north of the Gila River during the relevant period. That view has since shifted. Modern research has established, with reasonable certainty, that pre-Anglo mining did take place throughout the region. While this does not definitively prove the Peralta legend, it lends the story new credibility.
Researcher Thomas Glover has argued that the Mammoth and Bulldog mines at Goldfield were originally Spanish workings, deliberately hidden long before their official rediscovery. Others, including Barry Storm, claimed to have located abandoned Spanish mines throughout the Superstitions, though their documentation remains limited and often contested.
The clearest proof came in 2004, when longtime Dutch Hunter Ron Feldman was granted a rare Treasure Trove Permit by the federal government. Because the Superstition Wilderness is protected from excavation, Feldman’s dig was conducted under strict conditions. His team was allowed to use only hand tools, and the excavation was supervised by a government-approved archaeologist. Feldman’s theory, based on his own research and supported in part by the notes of fellow Dutch Hunter Ted Cox, led him to a site on the eastern side of the mountains, far from traditional search areas. The archaeologist confirmed that the mine predated Anglo settlement and had been constructed in the Spanish style. Although no gold was recovered, the find stands as the strongest evidence yet that Spanish or Mexican mining occurred in the Superstitions.
Additional signs such as stone corrals, an arista, ore chutes, and other mining artifacts have been documented throughout the region, and the historical record is beginning to reflect these findings.
As for proving that the Peraltas came to Arizona and met a violent end, Thomas Glover’s book The Lost Dutchman Mine of Jacob Waltz, Part 1: The Golden Dream presents compelling evidence, including claims supported by living Peralta descendants. Taken at face value, the legend is difficult to dismiss.
This still leaves a crucial question: how does Jacob Waltz fit into the story? In the Holmes Manuscript, Waltz kills two Peralta workers he mistakes for Apaches, then takes possession of the mine. He later murders the two soldiers who rediscover it, and even his own nephew when the younger man tries to file a claim. In Ely’s account, compiled from the Petrasch family and Julia Thomas, Waltz is portrayed as a generous man who helped the Peralta patriarch in Mexico and was given permission to work the mine. Both versions link Waltz to the Peraltas, but did he ever know them at all?
All we have are contradictory secondhand accounts from sources that have been repeatedly shown to be unreliable or misleading.
In 1895, journalist Pierpont C. Bicknell published the first known account of the Lost Dutchman Mine to include the Peraltas, a piece credited with opening the floodgates for generations of Dutch Hunters. His source was almost certainly Julia Thomas, who claimed Jacob Waltz as hers. Did Julia invent the Peralta connection, or did she borrow from the ongoing James Addison Reavis scandal, using his claims about a powerful Peralta family to attract funding for another expedition? So far, I have found no written account of the Peralta massacre or the family itself that predates Bicknell. Did Jacob Waltz truly know the Peraltas? And if he did, which version of him is closer to the truth, the kind, generous Waltz or the ruthless murderer described by Holmes?
Then there is Adolph Ruth. He and his son Erwin claimed to have met descendants of the Peralta family and received maps from them. Taken at face value, their story appears to confirm the Peraltas’ existence and their mining activities. But by the time the Ruths entered the story, the legend was already well established. It is just as likely they were adding their voices to the growing echo chamber of Dutchman lore.
We may never know the entire truth behind the legend of the Peralta Family. However, one thing is certain, pre-anglo mining did occur in the Superstition Mountains. The evidence is there, the gold is real, and as we will see in later articles, it had to have come from somewhere…
