Chapter IV: Part 4

Then the excitement gradually died down and people had begun to talk about ordinary subjects when a miner by the name of Fink who had taken up the search found, or claimed to have found, the mine. He confided his success to some friends, who decided to take the mine for themselves. Under the guise of friendship they went with him to El Paso to help him file his mineral claim. As yet he had told no one of the exact location of the deposit, and their plan was to get him drunk enough to talk and then to double-cross him. They gave him all the whiskey that he could drink and he had “a high old time.” He drank too much whiskey to talk at all. In fact, he drank so much whiskey that it killed him, and with him died his secret.

But Campbell had not given up. He alone of all the searchers has been consistent and persistent. Others have searched far and near, now on one side of the Rio Grande and now on the other. He has kept to his eight mile radius. He grub-staked an old Dutch prospector to search, giving him a pair of burros and telling him that he might go away from camp as far as a burro might take him out and back in a day. Solitary, often not seeing a human being for months, the old Dutchman examined ledge after ledge, rock after rock. He was looking for a kind of blue rock. Then one day he found it! He put some of the ore on his pack burro, loaded on his bed and a little “grub,” and started for Valentine. On the road he got sick. He was feeble anyhow. When he reached Valentine he was too sick to talk. Only the ore in his pack told his tale. He died before he could give directions to his find. Campbell has had other men searching since. All he knows to tell them is that they may search as far as a burro will walk out and back in a day. But who knows that the old Dutchman did not tire of his tether and wander out in the mountains, camping where night overtook him, and that he did not make his discovery far out?

Some say that there never has been a mine, that the negro merely stumbled on some ore that a certain old California prospector with a sense of humor had “salted out.” Some say that the negro found a lead under a cliff that later caved down and covered it up. Who knows? What does it all mean? Romance.

MYSTERIOUS GOLD MINE OF THE GUADALUPE MOUNTAINS

By Marvin Hunter [67]

Twenty years ago, an old Mexican, of Tularosa, who had been captured by the Mescalero Apaches when five years old, related that his captors took him along on a hunting trip to Guadalupe Mountains and that while there he saw them gathering nuggets of gold in a gulch.

A Mescalero Apache informed the late G. W. Wood, of El Paso, for whom he worked in the Jarilla mines, that if he sought gold, he should go to the mountains called “Smoky” over the line in Texas, where ... his people used to go and gather gold.

Another story is that of John Kilgore, a Texan and a man of undoubted veracity, who said that an old Mexican once told him that he was captured by the Indians when he was about fourteen years old. One day, the Indian who kept him in his wigwam in the Guadalupes called him to his side, blindfolded him, and led him into the fastness of the mountains, telling him to sit down on a flat rock and wait for his return, which he did. The Indian went away and in a short time returned with a buckskin sack filled with gold. This he handed to the Mexican boy, gave him a pony, and told him to go back to his people. The Mexican said he afterward tried to locate the place shown him but could never do so.

Green Ussery, a rich cattleman of West Texas, was walking along a gulch near the Chico Ranch in the Guadalupes when he saw Lee Church, a friend who was with him, pick up a gold nugget from the ground, worth $20.

Several years ago, Cicero Stewart, under sheriff of Eddy County, New Mexico, was up in the mountains hunting for the lost mine. He relates that “Grizzly Bill,” a cowboy, was in camp in the Russell Hills of the Guadalupe Mountains, and came across a gold deposit. He abandoned his cattle and went to Pecos, where he had a great spree, displaying his gold. While trying to ride a wild horse he was thrown off, breaking his neck.

F. H. Hardesty, residing in El Paso, was induced to relate his own experience as follows:

“About a year and a half ago, Lucius Arthur stopped at my place to get water for himself and pack animal, and remained over night. Becoming confidential, he divulged to me the secret that he was making a trip to a mountain range, three days’ journey due east, for the purpose of trailing two Mexicans who left Ysleta the night before.

“He said he had followed them at other times nearly to the mountain, but had been compelled to return before reaching it for want of ‘grub’ and water. He was known as ‘Frenchy’ in Ysleta, being a native of France. He had been professor of athletics in Austin, Texas, and while there heard a story about these two Mexicans, and had come to find the gold mine they visited.

“One Mexican, he said, would come from down in Mexico, and meet the other (his brother-in-law) in Ysleta, and start out in the dead of night horseback. The one from Mexico belonged to a wealthy old family who had known for generations about the mine and had kept the location a secret. But some member of the family would go every year and bring back gold.

“I told Arthur he ought to be better equipped for the journey, and offered to stake him with all funds needed. He accepted my offer and agreed to take me as a partner. He left with two months’ supplies and good equipment. After an absence of a month and a half, he returned, saying that he had at last found the hidden mine, and brought me as a proof plenty of rich gold quartz broken off the ledge near the brink of a chasm, which he could not descend into, because its walls were perpendicular. He stayed with me a few days, and providing himself with a strong rope, set out for the mine. This chasm was 80 feet long, east and west, by 40 feet wide, he said.

“From his place of concealment, he said, he saw one of the Mexicans descend by a rope, and bring out several filled sacks. After their departure he slipped down to the place and saw a large opening like a cave in the vein, 60 feet down. The chasm appeared to have widened to 100 feet at that point. Loose broken rock in front of the cave showed that work had been done lately. He was unquestionably at the place where the Mexicans had for generations got their yellow gold.

“Frenchy never returned to me,” concluded Mr. Hardesty.

But the most realistic and marvelous story of gold, in comparison with which the stories of the lost “Cabin Mine” and “Nigger Ben Mine” and similar legendary mines pale into insignificance, is one familiar to nearly every one in Roswell and Carlsbad, New Mexico, and told by cowboys and ranchmen in the winter nights around their camp fires in the Guadalupe Mountain country.

It is the story of a mystery—that of a lost gold mine in the highest and most precipitous, canyon-rent, and rugged mountains in the Southwest, rising 5000 feet above the plains. The lost mine in the fastness of this range is a gold mine (as the story goes) that is fairly bristling with the precious metal; its value is estimated at millions, and it is known in Texas and New Mexico as the “Lost Sublett Mine.”

Two men now living have actually seen this famous mine, but neither now remembers its exact location. One is Ross Sublett, son of the original discoverer, who is a prominent business man of Roswell, New Mexico. The other is Mike Wilson, a former crony of “old man Sublett,” who is believed to be on his death bed in a little hut in the Guadalupe Mountains, vainly trying to remember the location of probably one of the richest gold mines in the world.

“Old Ben Sublett” was a native of Missouri, and belonged to an old family of that name in St. Louis. In early life the “call of the wild” and the lure of gold led him to go to the Rocky Mountains with his young wife and three babies, whom he took on all prospecting trips. For years luck never favored him, and while others found mines and grew rich, he continued poor. He was in rags, and his wife and children were hungry. They passed through the Guadalupes and finally settled in Odessa, Texas. Here they made their home in a little hut. Mrs. Sublett did washing and sewing to support the children, while Sublett worked on a ranch just long enough to get money to buy a “rickety old buckboard and a bony horse.”

He spent most of his time in the Guadalupes. He had the “hunch” that in its labyrinthine solitudes he would find gold. Occasionally he brought in a little nugget, hardly of value enough to buy grub for his return trip. His wife vainly begged him to quit the mountains, to settle down to some vocation in which was a sure living; he was stubborn, taking no advice from anyone.

Although the mountains were then filled with the bloodthirsty Mescalero Apaches, ever ready to kill the lonely prospector or trapper, Sublett never carried arms, and by some strange fate was never molested. The old prospector laughed at those who warned him and advised him to be careful. These trips continued; and every time he returned, his return was a surprise to the people of the town. They scoffed at his crazy mode of life.

One day the old man drove up to Abe Williams’ saloon and strode boldly to the bar, inviting everybody present to “join” him. They thought that he was joking, as he was supposed to be penniless, but when Old Ben threw down a buckskin sack filled with nuggets and said that he had found a rich gold mine and could buy out the whole town and have plenty left, the crowd was wild with excitement. He went out to his buckboard and dragged in a canvas sack filled with gold so pure, it is said, that a jeweler could hammer it out. “My friends, have all the drinks you want,” he said, “for I have at last found the richest gold mine in the world. I can buy Texas and make a backyard out of it for my children to play in.”

After that Sublett would frequently slip out to the mountains and return in less than ten days with about $1500 worth of gold. He built a fine home for his family, and of course made many “prosperity” friends. All tried to get him to show them the location of his mine, but he would shake his head and say: “If anyone wants my mine, let him go and hunt for it like I did. I hunted twenty-four years and wasted the best part of my life at it. The valley of the Pecos and the peaks of the Guadalupes are my home; I want to be buried there when I die, and I am going to carry this secret to the other world, so that for years and years people will remember me and talk about the rich gold mine ‘that old man Sublett found.’ I will give them something to talk about.”

His son, Ross Sublett, who has made several attempts to find the mine, says: “I have a faint recollection of it. I was only a small boy when my father took me there. We drove out in an old buckboard. I know the mine was about six miles from a spring. The spring is in what is known as the Russell Hills of the Guadalupes. I paid no attention at the time as to where we went, and was always glad when my father was ready to return home. Father got the gold out of a hole or cave, but it seems that it was in plain sight on the ground outside of the cave. When my father was on his death bed I tried to get him to tell me how to go back, but he said it would be useless, that I could never find it.”

Sublett once described the mine to Mike Wilson, who afterward went out to the Guadalupes and found the mine. He emptied his sack of provisions, and put in as much gold as he could carry and began the journey back home. Without recuperating from the effects of the hard trip, Mike went on a spree for three weeks, and when again he tried to go to the mine he became bewildered and lost his bearings.

Old Ben Sublett just laughed at Wilson’s bewilderment, and refused to direct him again. He refused to tell anyone else where it was. “If anybody wants it, let him go and hunt for it like I did,” was all he would say. Later Sublett died and carried the secret with him. This was eighteen years ago.

LOST COPPER MINES AND SPANISH GOLD, HASKELL COUNTY

By R. E. Sherrill

[Haskell, King, and Stonewall counties all corner near the junction of the main forks of the Brazos, and this legend told by Mr. Sherrill should be read in conjunction with the one immediately following told by Mr. Bertillion. It makes no difference that one legend has to do with a copper mine and the other with a lead mine. One could probably find another that has to do with a silver mine in the same vicinity. I must think that both legends go back to the same tradition. And the tradition of a mine—some kind of a mine—up the Brazos is very old. It began with Spanish credence in an Indian story; the earliest American settlers in Texas carried it on. In 1774, years after Los Almagres mines were abandoned, De Mézières reported men gone in search of mines which Indians said were “in the direction of the Brazos de Dios.” [68] In 1823 Daniel Shipman and two other men, guided by “an old Red River hunter,” went up the Brazos River to Flint Creek (which I have been unable to identify) on the west side in search of “an inexhaustible silver mine.” [69] It proved to be red clay. In 1836 the Reverend David B. Edward was strong in his belief in a mountain of iron on the headwaters of the Brazos—as well as in an abundance of gold and silver on the branches of the Colorado. [70]—Editor.]

As far back as the first settlement of white men in this part of the state, a tradition has been floating around through the country that at some indefinitely early date Spanish prospectors worked copper mines a little above the junction of the two main branches of the Brazos River, the Salt Fork and the Double Mountain Fork, in what was formerly a part of Haskell County but is now included in Stonewall County. Furthermore, they are supposed to have had, and left here, a vast quantity of gold.

Various people have come from unknown parts hunting this supposed treasure, but no special headway was made until, in 1907 or 1908, a large old gentleman, whose name I cannot now recall, suddenly appeared in our sleepy little town from somewhere on the Mexican border and quietly began inquiring about the topography of the country and the tradition of Spanish treasure. Having learned all that he could, he took into his confidence a few select men and explained to them that he had gathered certain definite information from reliable Mexicans on the Rio Grande, and that he proposed to search for the key to the hidden wealth.

Adding his own information to what he heard from the native people, the stranger gradually let out a tale that ran somewhat as follows. At an early date, when Spanish miners were gathering great quantities of gold in Mexico, a company of them, in search of further treasure, had wandered far to the northwest, taking with them a large store of the precious metal. In their wanderings, directed by some Indian or by their own keen instinct for such things, the Spanish had located the copper mines on the Brazos and had proceeded to work them. In some way they aroused the hostility of the native Indians and were in danger of massacre. They hastily hid their treasure and escaped for their lives. Before leaving they made a plat of the country, carefully noting directions and distances from prominent points of nature. This plat they took with them, but the Indians continued so hostile that they could never return to take away their gold. Amidst the turmoil and dangers of Mexico at that time, the plat was delivered for safe-keeping to a faithful Mexican convert who was attached to the Spanish party. It remained in his hands until the old man, approaching death, delivered it to some friend or to a member of his family as a passport to immense wealth. Thus the plat passed along for two or three generations until Texas fell into the hands of the hated gringos and it became certain that no poor Mexican could ever get possession of the treasure. Finally, for some small favors and a little money, a Mexican turned the plat over to the American who had now come with it and its tale to Haskell County.

Here he organized a small company to assist him in locating and digging up the treasure. The plat was guarded most carefully and its information kept most secret. But the detailed intricacy of that information was very confusing to the possessors of it. The map covered a large territory, including the two branches of the Brazos, Kiowa Peak, and numerous minor features of the vicinity. It called for many specified rocks and many marked trees. The rocks had been covered with soil or the markings on them had been weathered away. Most of the trees had perished in fires long years past. An explanation was given to some of the signs, but the meaning of more had to be guessed at.

The search was thorough and long continued, and a deal of money was spent in digging. Most of the prospecting was right along the river, and a Mexican who was herding sheep in the neighborhood began to enter into the counsels of the treasure hunters. He said that the Mexican government knew all about this treasure, that it knew, too, of five or six very rich mines in Texas, some of them the richest in the world, but that it would never reveal these secrets to Americans. He added that certain priests in Mexico could locate this treasure that was being sought on the Brazos.

Thus the Mexican pastor convinced the treasure seekers that he knew something about the matter, and to use his information they made him a partner. As soon as he was made a partner, he announced that if a certain rock was found with a certain letter on it, the picture of which he drew, he could find the gold. Only a few days after this, the party did uncover, about eight or ten inches under the surface of the soil, a rock that they called the “Spider Rock.”

The rock had many curious markings on it, among them the letter H, in curious old Spanish chirography, as the Mexican had called for. He pretended to explain the markings on the rock. He said that the little hill on which the Spider Rock was found was underlaid with the “base rock”; that underneath the “base rock” were buried a great many bodies; and that nineteen steps to the west of the dead bodies would be found buried a large bone of some prehistoric animal. He said that in excavating the diggers would find a kind of wall, as if a trench had been dug and then filled in with a much harder substance.

Fired with hope, the treasure hunters set to digging for the “base rock.” They did find a wall of very firm substance, wider at the top and narrower at the base, as if a trench had been filled in. When they had got down some fifteen or nineteen feet, they were met by such a stench that they could hardly work. They found a great many decayed bodies and many relics of various kinds. Furthermore, at the specified distance, they found the bone of the prehistoric animal. It was of about the thickness of a man’s body and very porous.

The Mexican now directed that the diggers go to the bluff a little farther to the west. He said that there they would find under a rock a great bone like the first and other things buried by the Spaniards. The bone was found, and with it were an old-fashioned sword, some copper ornaments thought to be epaulets, some silver ornaments also, about forty-two gold buttons, and a great number of beads.

But here ended the findings. A majority of the relics found were placed in Doctor Terrell’s drug store at Haskell, and were lost in a fire about 1909. The treasure hunting expedition is said to have turned up more than an acre of ground, the depth of the excavations varying from a slight distance to nineteen or twenty feet. The diggers dispersed to their farms, the large man from the border left, and after remaining around a few weeks the Mexican disappeared. Many men think that he knew more than he would tell. Not long after he vanished, a skeleton was found several miles to the east across the river, in the opposite direction from that in which the Mexican had led the Americans. Near the skeleton were two small, heavy copper pots, one shaped oblong somewhat in the form of a canoe, the other round and of the capacity of a gallon and a half, built much stronger than any vessel now made for commerce and capable of holding itself full of the heaviest metal. The popular conclusion is that the Mexican took from these copper vessels at least a part of the vast Spanish treasure. A man in Haskell now is trying to organize an expedition to seek the remaining part of the treasure and to gather more relics.

Nearly every man of that searching party of seventeen years ago was a friend of mine. I wish to give an illustration of the sanguine nature of these treasure seeking folk. At one time the party believed that they were within a foot or two of their treasure, but they feared to uncover it before they had made arrangements to take care of it. They were afraid, so one of them confided to me, to put much of the money in local banks, lest the banks be robbed; they wished, he said, to entrust it to our private vault, where no one would suspect its presence. I agreed to take care of the money and was to be notified a little after midnight. The amount to be deposited was $60,000 in gold. I was never called to open the vault.

Regarding the copper mines that the Spanish are said to have worked in this country, I can add little. It is known that a company of wealthy men, principally from Baltimore and Washington, came out near Kiowa Peak in 1872 to locate a copper mine. H. H. McConnell, “Late Sixth U. S. Cavalry,” in a book published in 1889, Five Years a Cavalryman, page 294, gives a concise account of the expedition. It consisted, he says, of about sixty men and was almost luxuriously provided for. Its distinguishing feature was the character of its “bosses,” ranging as they did from a Virginia congressman of ante bellum days to an orientalist named Kellog, and including Professor Roessler, “sometime State Geologist of Texas.” According to McConnell, who was with the party, it did little but travel leisurely and “locate ten or twelve sections of land” near Kiowa Peak. The clue on which it set forth was a report of copper deposits on the Wichita and Brazos rivers made by some prospectors who had been driven back by Indians before the Civil War.

LOST LEAD MINE ON THE BRAZOS, KING COUNTY

By L. D. Bertillion

Thirty-five years ago, at some horse corrals on Chickamauga Creek, just west of Dalton, Georgia, I heard Thomas Longest tell of having discovered a ledge of lead on the Salt Fork of the Brazos. I do not know whether this story is popularly told or not. Longest did not, I think, leave a way-bill to the mine.

In 1886, Thomas Longest of New York City decided to travel southwestward in search of a basis for horse dealing. He settled in Dalton, Georgia, forming a partnership with Luke Callaway, and established a livery, feed, and sale stable. In 1887, horses went up in price, and the partners came to Texas to buy five carloads of horses. They bought the horses; and then Longest remained to look over the country.

On the east side of the Brazos River at a point where the Double Mountain Fork intersects with the Salt Fork, Longest saw a steer with a very fancy head of horns. He desired to have the horns removed from the animal that he might send them to a friend in New York. Upon learning what he wanted, however, the cowboy who was with him told him that these horns were little compared to what might be found a day’s ride to the northwest. Longest promptly set out to make the ride, the cowboy going with him only far enough to show him a crossing safe from the quicksands, and telling him the general direction of trails to what he designated as the Croton Creek.

After he had ridden a good many hours, a storm came up, and Longest took shelter in a break of a very rough and desolate looking country. Here, back under the bank of a canyon, he noticed a rusty piece of iron. Upon closer investigation, he found it to be an old pick. With it he prized around in the dirt and uncovered the remains of a shovel. Longest kept on investigating and presently discovered a ledge of ore. From it he broke off a piece weighing about four and one half pounds. He was sure that it was silver and returned to Georgia at once.

As soon as he had disposed of his horses in the East, he sent the ore to New York to be assayed. To his great disappointment, it was pronounced lead, but seventy per cent pure—a valuable find.

Longest at once set about interesting a mining company in the ore and by the spring of 1888 had arranged to show its representative the mine. However, during his trip the year before he had contracted a severe cold, which developed into tuberculosis. He put off the trip in the hope of getting better, but in a few months he was dead.

Thus became a second time lost what is perhaps one of the richest lead mines in America. From the descriptions and directions given by Longest, it would appear that it is located in either Stonewall or King County, more likely in the latter.

THE ACCURSED GOLD IN THE SANTA ANNA MOUNTAINS

By J. Leeper Gay

[I have little doubt that the negro who figures in this legend is a survival of the Moor, “Black Stephen,” who preceded Coronado’s gold seeking expedition of 1541, though the real “Black Stephen” never returned to Mexico to tell his tale.—Editor.]

This story was told me by a Mexican who said that he heard it from his grandfather in Sonora, Mexico. It well represents the many legends that cluster around the so-called Santa Anna Mountains and are believed in by various inhabitants of that region. It is a tradition of the country that the mountains and town are erroneously named; that they should be called Santana instead of Santa Anna, it being believed that the Indian chief often referred to as Santa Anna was really named Santana. He is supposed to lie buried among the mountains in a cave stuffed with gold from the San Saba mines. The Spanish had started with a few cart loads of it on their way to St. Louis, when they were overtaken in a certain mountain pass. This pass was frequently used by the Spanish at San Saba, according to legend, in order to communicate with another fort at what is now Colorado, Texas.

Years and years past while Mexico was still under Spanish rule, stories came sifting down far into Mexico that somewhere in Colorado was a great tribe of Indians with many sacks of gold in their tepees. Finally a troop of cavalry was fitted out and sent north to explore, and if there was gold to bring it back. Hardened raiders as they were, even they had fear of such a long and wild adventure. At last they came into the region where the tepees of gold were believed to be situated. They made a swift attack, which was fiercely resisted, but all they found was about fifty pounds of gold dust and gold nuggets.

The repulsed Indians rallied and made a counter attack. The Spanish were driven back. They retreated slowly, in good order, steadily followed by the Indians. At each attack upon their rear, the Indians became fiercer, bolder, and stronger in numbers. The exhausted Spaniards were losing hope of ever reaching the Rio Grande with their lives, much less their treasure. A month after their assault on the Indian village, they were camped for the night on a little creek not far from what are now called the Santa Anna Mountains in Coleman County. A lookout who had been dispatched in the late afternoon to make observation from the nearest mountain had not returned. At dark all fires were extinguished and the camp waited. Some time before midnight the lookout dashed in to report that a large band of Indians was advancing within a few miles. The commander of the expedition ordered his men to entrench themselves as best they could and to maintain silence. With them was a very strong negro who had acted as a kind of guide. He was well able to dig a hole for the gold, and he was detailed with some of the exhausted Spaniards to hide the treasure. They buried it on top of a hill, under a flat rock on which they carved three M’s. It is estimated that pure ore to the value of about ten thousand pesos was buried.

The detail had barely returned to camp when the Indians began their attack. They rushed the camp in overwhelming numbers. Only three prisoners were taken, two Spaniards and the negro guide. The Spaniards were burned at the stake at once. The negro was kept as a slave. He alone lived to tell the tale.

Some years after his capture, broken and crazed from continual cruelty, he escaped into Mexico. There he seemed always thinking of the death of his troop, and the Mexicans shunned him as bad company except when some raider wanted to get his tale of buried gold. He refused many times to guide parties back to it. According to him, there was a curse on the gold for whoever should find it. No one has ever found it, and if it ever was buried in the Santa Anna Mountains, it is buried there yet.

THE HOLE OF GOLD NEAR WICHITA FALLS

By J. Frank Dobie

I am indebted for this legend to Mr. Bob Nutt of Sabinal. Once in the early days a band of men who were going across the Plains to trade in New Mexico were attacked by Indians somewhere near the present town of Wichita Falls. They made a corral of their wagons and fought off the Indians as long as they could, but when night came they were so thinned in numbers and the Indians were so strong that they decided to break for their lives. They broke, and all but one man were speedily overtaken, killed, and scalped.

The man who escaped saved his life by stumbling into a hole that lay concealed near a little ravine. It was a kind of pothole with rounded pebbles at the bottom; among them the man soon noticed what looked like gold. He was in a hole of gold nuggets! He remained there for three days, and during all that time he was sorting the nuggets from the rocks, digging out the gravelly bottom with his bare hands. He said afterward that there must have been a barrel of the nuggets. Finally, when he could no longer hear Indians, he peeped out. Seeing that the way was clear, he bundled up what nuggets he could carry and set out for a distant fort. The Indians had burned all the supplies, with the wagons, and on his way to the fort he nearly starved. He had his gun but he was afraid to disclose his whereabouts by shooting at game. At length he grew so weak that he had to throw away all the gold but two or three specimen nuggets. He was hardly conscious of the loss when at last he staggered into the army walls.

It was several years before he could get back into the Wichita country. Meanwhile, day and night, he never ceased to think of the hole of gold nuggets. The country around it was pictured clear in his memory. The exact spot would be located by the irons of the burned wagons. For a long time the man was afraid to tell his secret. At last he returned, but no hill or draw of the region seemed familiar, and he could never come upon the wagon irons or the pothole of nuggets. Some years ago he died in Wichita Falls, leaving his descendants a few nuggets that bore testimony to the truth of his often told tale.

BURIED TREASURE LEGENDS OF COOKE COUNTY

By Lillian Gunter

[In 1759 Parrilla marched from San Antonio with a force of about six hundred men and attacked the Taovayas villages on Red River somewhere in the vicinity of what is now Montague County, Dr. Herbert E. Bolton says near the present Ringgold. Parrilla found the Indians “intrenched behind a strong stockade with breastworks, flying a French flag, and skillfully using French weapons and tactics.” A sanguinary battle followed, resulting in heavy loss on both sides. The Spanish withdrew, leaving “two cannon and extra baggage behind.” [71] Seventeen years later the cannon were recovered. [72] In my mind there is no doubt that the long unexplained “Old Spanish Fort” of Miss Gunter’s legend was the fortification attacked by Parrilla. [73] The source of the relics mentioned by Miss Gunter is accounted for also.

Thus is seen again how legend has preserved in a vague way what history long ignored but eventually established. Comparison should be made with “The San Gabriel Mission in Legend.” [74] Again, “Old Spanish Fort” was the name given by Westerners to the ruins of the San Saba presidio before the history of the site became generally known. [75] The deduction need not be made that legend is always correct in anticipating history!—Editor.]

I

The buried treasure legends of Cooke County, so far as I have been able to investigate, center around two localities. The first legend with its variants is current in the Cross Timbers and relates to that part of the county immediately northwest of Burns City, extending to within a few miles of Gainesville. An outcropping of the legend persists also in the Cross Timbers near Dexter. The descendants of the first settlers, some of whom still live in the country, tell of many hunts for buried treasure made by different people who were guided by maps or oral directions furnished by Mexicans.

Marks of fish, turtles, serpents, and other easily drawn animals were once found on trees and stones; but no master mind, such as reveals itself in Poe’s “Gold Bug,” came to deduce their true meaning. So the treasure has never been found, although an effort was made to locate it quite recently. Most of these marks have long since been removed or destroyed; however, it has been the writer’s fortune to see the outline of a crudely cut fish upon the side of a large boulder, probably the only mark of its kind left in the county.

It may interest Texas readers to know that in support of the claim that this part of what is now Cooke County was visited by Spanish explorers, there now repose in the Cooke County museum, which is a part of the county library, a one-pound brass cannon ball, picked up one mile northwest of Burns City, and a brass spear-head, found in a gravel drift near Dexter. Brass cannon balls went out of date long before Americans ever reached this part of Texas; and, as an old Texas ranger has pointed out, the only metal that the Indians used for their spear and arrow heads was iron—not brass.

II

By far the most widespread and generally known legend of Cooke County and vicinity deals with the Red River front; i.e., that part of it extending from Spanish Fort Bend on the west nearly to Preston Bend on the east, thus extending into both Montague and Grayson counties.

Mr. Pete Davidson, who came to Cooke County about 1856 to live with his two uncles, Captain Rowland of the Texas Rangers, and Doctor Davidson, proprietor of the first station west of Gainesville for the Overland Stage Route, his station having been located on Blocker Creek, relates that he made his first trip to Spanish Fort in 1857. “At that time,” he says, “the earthworks were still plainly discernible and would hide a cow or horse from observation from the outside. Good-sized trees were then growing from the top of the earthworks, showing that a long time had elapsed since they were thrown up. The country was still virgin prairie, and every once in a while you could see the bleached bones of a human skeleton, showing that some sort of battle had been fought there; but some of the skeletons were so small that they must have been of women or children who were among either the Indians or the soldiers of the fort.” Just before his death in 1922, Mr. Davidson told me that he had recently made a trip to Spanish Fort Bend, though not to the fort itself, with a man who was seeking to trace the locations on an old Mexican map that called for a tree on a bluff where the river touched and turned south. This tree, so the man claimed, was the location of the long sought buried treasure; and, indeed, the old Mexican map and the lone tree on a bluff skirted by the water are essentials of all the Red River legends of buried treasure.

For years an old fellow dug for treasure on the Oklahoma side, just across from Sivill’s Bend where the river turns south to make in a twenty-mile sweep the biggest bend in its whole course. West of Dexter, near Walnut Bend, tradition calls for another location of similar marks, but here the treasure is said to be buried on the Texas side.

III

It is noticeable that none of these legends refer to gold and silver but always to treasure. As I have been able to piece it together, the legend is this.

In a very early day a Spanish exploring party passed through this country, going in a northeasterly direction. As was the custom, the expedition included a large number of monks and priests with all the holy vessels and rich paraphernalia necessary to administer to the spiritual needs of the party itself and to convert the heathen Indians according to the ritual of the Catholic church. Unfortunately the aborigines proved unfriendly and disputed the way to such an extent that the ranks of the Spaniards were decimated, and the remnant saw that they were going to be hard put to it to make an escape. Rather than have their holy vessels, valuable in a material way, but more precious spiritually, desecrated by savage touch, they decided to bury them. In selecting a suitable place for this operation they bore in mind that it must be stable, above the reach of the mighty river or the changes made by the hand of man under ordinary conditions; so they selected a bold promontory on the river, as stated above.

When the treasure was buried, not one, but several rude maps of the location were undoubtedly made, probably each by a different person. These maps were in the nature of things ambiguous, and the legends touching them furnish much food for speculation.

THE TREASURE CANNON ON THE NECHES

By Roscoe Martin

[The treasure rammed cannon is more or less common to Texas legends. The early Spanish in Texas sometimes buried cannon on account of military expediency, [76] and it may be that the modern tradition connects back with such disposition of artillery, although the tradition is doubtless widespread. [77] A Spanish cannon stuffed with treasure is supposed to lie deep buried in a lake near Carrizo Springs, Dimmit County. [78] On the banks of the Big Sandy (or “Sandies”) of Lavaca County, legend has buried a third cannon. Mr. Whitley of McMullen County told me the story connected with it. He heard it half a century ago from a veteran of the “Mexican War” (War of Texas Independence) in the Refugio country. The veteran was named White, as I remember.

When the Mexicans were retreating from San Jacinto towards Goliad, White was in the pursuing party of Texans. The Texans camped for the night on the eastern bank of the Big Sandies, and the next morning when White walked out to gather some firewood, he discovered that the Mexicans had been at the same site twenty-four hours before. Besides the usual camp signs, there was the trail of something that had been dragged to a motte of trees and buried. The marks of the digging were as plain as daylight. White supposed that one of the wounded Mexicans had died and been buried.

Years later he fell in with an old Mexican who turned out to have been in the retreat from San Jacinto. Naturally the two veterans reviewed their march.

“There is one thing I have often thought about, though it seemed simple to me at the time,” said White one day to the Mexican. “That is the drag-trail I saw at you-all’s camp east of the Big Sandies. What made it, anyhow?”

Then the Mexican told how he had helped to drag a small cannon plugged full of rings, jewels, and money, and had seen it buried. The Mexicans intended to come back for it very soon, he said; they were bent at the time on getting away with their bare lives. But when it was known that Texas had won her independence and that the country was settling up with men bitter towards Mexico, the scattered men who buried the cannon were afraid to come back.

The upshot of the Mexican’s explanation was that he and White went to the Big Sandies in search of the precious cannon. They found the country cut up by fences and fields and grown up in timber so that they could not locate a single landmark.

It will not harm Mr. Martin’s vivid narrative to remark that after the battle of San Jacinto, Burleson with a detachment of troops followed the Mexicans westward across the Brazos and San Bernard, instead of going northward. At the time of the battle, General Ganoa, with a small number of Mexican troops, was at Fort Bend on the Brazos with orders to proceed to Nacogdoches; but immediately after the battle he received orders to retreat to Mexico and he joined in the general retirement. [79]—Editor.]

In the fall of 1920 I was one of a hunting party that camped for about two weeks in Tyler County on the Neches River. Our guide for the trip was “Uncle Jimmy” Clanton, a typical old hunter and pioneer, whose head was full of stories of Indians and buried treasure. Some of these stories were obviously concoctions of his own mind, but others were based on historical facts, with, of course, touches of glamour and romance which had grown into the story gradually through constant telling and retelling. His best-loved story, one which I took great delight in listening to more than once during those two weeks and which was common chatter among the backwoodsmen of the locality, is related below. It was, I think, on the second night of our camp that he lighted his pipe, settled down with his back to a tree, and told us the following tale.

“My father was in the Texas Revolution of 1836. He was in all the earlier fights and skirmishes of the war, and was one of the men who helped capture Santa Anna at San Jacinto. After the treaty of peace was signed, or maybe it was just before the war ended, he was sent to Nacogdoches in a company under Burleson to drive out the Mexicans that held the fort there. This is really where my story begins. You-all have likely read some of this in history, but I’ll tell you some things that never got in history at all.

“Burleson’s bunch got to Nacogdoches late one evening and decided to wait till morning to storm the fort. They camped for the night a mile or so away, and bright and early next morning they marched on the fort. They were some surprised at not getting fired at, and still more surprised when they got up close enough to see that there wasn’t a soul stirring in or about the fort. Burleson ordered a grand charge, and his army of about fifty men charged, only to find nobody there to receive them. The men nosed around a little, found the Mexicans’ trail leading due south, and determined to follow them. The trail was fresh and the Mexes were traveling with wagons; so they figgered they could come up on them before dark. You see, the men had been hearing stories about the bunches of gold the Mexicans had; so they were pretty keen to catch up with them wagons.

“Well, they pulled out down the trail, traveling full speed ahead and making good time. They rode all that day without seeing the enemy, but they knew they were getting close because the trail was getting fresher. They camped that night about fifty miles from Nacogdoches, and hit the trail agin early next morning. About ten o’clock they come upon a couple of wagons, and figgered that the dagoes were getting scared and leaving all unnecessary junk behind. They pushed on without stopping for dinner, and about three o’clock sighted the Mexicans trying to cross the river at Boone’s Ferry. That ferry is about two mile up the river. I can show it to you in the morning.

“As soon as the Texans saw the Mexicans, they made a dash, hoping to get a fight before they had time to cross the river. Just as they got up within shooting distance, the ferry-boat landed on the opposite side of the river with a wagon and three Mexicans. The wagon drove off, but the Texans were too busy at the time to notice any details. The Mexes took to the timber and there was a right lively little scrap. Paw was lying behind a log firing away, when he looked up in time to see three men on the other side rolling a cannon along toward the river. They rolled it up to a high bluff and dumped it right off into the deepest hole in ten miles. He said he wondered at the time what the idea was, but was more interested in number one than in cannons; so he didn’t take time to investigate.

“To make a long story short, about fifteen of the Mexicans were killed and the rest captured. That is, they were all captured except the three men that got across the river. A detachment was sent after them, but they got away. The wagon, empty as a last year’s bird’s nest, and one dead Mexican, were found about a mile and a half away from the river, but the other two had disappeared completely. Burleson rounded up his bunch and his prisoners, and found that he had lost only one man, who had drowned when he got chased off the bluff into the river. He reported to Houston with his prisoners, and that was the end of the expedition.

“As soon as Paw got out of the army, he come back up into this country and settled. His old homestead is about eight mile from here. He used to take me up the river often and show me where the battle took place, where the ferry-boat used to land, and where the cannon was pushed into the river. He used to talk a whole lot about that cannon, and to wonder what the idea was in dumping it into the river. He also wondered a good bit about what was in that wagon that the Mexicans had been so anxious to get across the river with. We never could quite decide why they were so bent on crossing the river with an empty wagon.

“Well, the things that happened in the next few years won’t interest you any. Paw died when I was ten years old, but I remembered all he had ever told me about the fight. When the Civil War broke out, I joined the Confederate Army, fought through the war, then come back to my folks here. About 1875 things begin to happen that made me remember everything I had ever heard about the fight at Boone’s Ferry.

“In or about that year, a slick-haired young Mexican come into the neighborhood and begin nosing around. He didn’t appear to have any particular business here, but seemed to be just looking around for somebody or something. After he’d been here for a month or two he come to me one day and says that, as I was the oldest man in these parts, he’d like to make me a proposition. I didn’t get the connection between my age and his proposition, but agreed to listen; so we got down to what he wanted. He had a map that he claimed he got in an old monastery in Mexico, and that map proved to be right interesting. It outlined a piece of country beginning at Nacogdoches and coming due south. The end of the trail marked off was just about a mile and a half across the river, and the crossing was marked ‘Boone’s Ferry.’ I become all eyes and ears at once, specially when he started his story. He asked me if I knew where Boone’s Ferry was, and I says, ‘Sure.’ Then he opened up:

“‘My grandfather was with the Mexican band that was defeated by Burleson at this ferry. He was one of the two men that got away. Are you by any chance acquainted with the details of the battle?’

“And I says, ‘Some. My paw was in the fight, and has told me about it many a time.’

“‘Did he ever tell you about seeing a cannon shoved off in the river?’

“‘Many a time,’ says I.

“‘Mr. Clanton, did it ever occur to you to wonder just why that cannon was thrown into the river?’

“‘Well,’ I says, ‘I’ve wondered about it lots of times.’

“‘I’ll tell you why,’ he says, getting kinder excited, but lowering his voice. ‘It was filled from end to end with gold!’

“‘Gold!’ I whistled. ‘So that’s it.’